Category: Labour history news

News and information of interest to labour historians.

Labour history news

Planes, trains and automobiles: rethinking Victorian union imagery in the 1930s

Untold thousands of trade union emblems were produced in the Victorian era, but by the twentieth century they looked out of date and their use was in decline. Mark Crail looks at a 1930s revival that briefly breathed new life into the genre. The trade union membership certificate shown here (Fig. 1) was based on an emblem adopted in the 1930s by the National Union … Continue reading Planes, trains and automobiles: rethinking Victorian union imagery in the 1930s

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Labour history news

The 4:50 from Liverpool Street, a Red Countess and Labour’s country retreat

With the Labour Party on the verge of forming its first government, one of the country’s most glamorous aristocrats decided to offer her childhood home to the party as a ‘Labour Chequers’. Mark Crail looks at what happened next. Liverpool Street Station would have been a hubbub of activity on the afternoon of Friday, 23 March 1923. But as commuters hurried for their rush-hour trains … Continue reading The 4:50 from Liverpool Street, a Red Countess and Labour’s country retreat

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Labour history news

Eight labour history anniversaries in 2023

There is nothing special about anniversaries. No intrinsic reason to look back at events fifty years ago rather than at the years either side. But just as we mark birthdays and other significant events in our lives, so societies do much the same on a bigger scale, not least as a politically charged means of creating shared histories. But what we choose to commemorate and … Continue reading Eight labour history anniversaries in 2023

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Labour history news

Birmingham People’s History Archive finds a home

What started as a personal collection of labour movement papers has grown into a substantial archive for local, national and international working-class history. Now it has found a home and work is under way to catalogue its contents, writes Peter Higgins. The Birmingham People’s History Archive (BPHA) has been a project long in the planning stage. When Paul Cooper, the archive’s creator, was a student … Continue reading Birmingham People’s History Archive finds a home

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Books etc, Labour history news

Going underground: Henry Moore and the Yorkshire miners

Henry Moore is best known for his monumental bronze sculptures. His wartime sketches of Londoners sleeping in the London Underground while sheltering from the Blitz are also widely known and admired. Now a book and accompanying exhibition are drawing attention to a lesser known series of drawings of coal miners at work. Moore was a miner’s son from Castleford in Yorkshire, and commissioned by the … Continue reading Going underground: Henry Moore and the Yorkshire miners

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Labour history news

Labour history journals round-up, 2022

Labour history societies in Scotland, the North-East and North-West of England have published the 2022 issues of their journals, with articles spanning a wide range of topics, from the Lancashire cotton famine to the cultural impact of deindustrialisation. The latest issue of the journal Historical Studies in Industrial Relations is also now available online, with new research on the Master and Servant Statute of 1823 … Continue reading Labour history journals round-up, 2022

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Labour history news

Australian labour history society marks Labour History’s sixtieth year in print

The Australian Society for the Study of Labour History is celebrating sixty years of its journal, Labour History, this month with the publication of a 200-plus page issue which takes the opportunity of this significant anniversary ‘to pause, reflect, take stock, look back and see forward’, as editor Diane Kirkby puts it in an opening editorial. She continues: ‘With a combination of reflections, new research … Continue reading Australian labour history society marks Labour History’s sixtieth year in print

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Books etc, Labour history news

Communist Party bookshops: a history

Alternative and Left book shops were once a common sight in larger cities – and could even be found in smaller towns when there was a sufficiently vibrant radical culture to support them. Some failed after no more than a few months, while others traded more or less successfully for decades. And while many later arrivals from the 1960s onwards were eclectic in their radical … Continue reading Communist Party bookshops: a history

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Labour history news

Society for the Study of Labour History 2023 calendar

The Society for the Study of Labour History calendar for 2023 uses as an illustration the Labour Party poster, ‘To-morrow – When Labour Rules’, created by the artist and lithographer Gerald Spencer Pryse. The original poster was issued for the general election of December 1923, from which Labour emerged in second place, ahead of the Liberals, with 191 seats. The party went on to form … Continue reading Society for the Study of Labour History 2023 calendar

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Labour history news

How the TUC Library card index went online in its centenary year

The chance discovery of a cache of microfilms enabled the TUC Library to digitise its card index and make a century’s worth of cards covering the publications in its collection available online to all, as Jeff Howarth explains. The TUC Library was founded one hundred years ago, in 1922, with the amalgamation of the TUC Parliamentary Committee, the Labour Party Information Bureau, and the Women’s … Continue reading How the TUC Library card index went online in its centenary year

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