Category: Labour History Review

Articles featuring the SSLH journal Labour History Review, including abstracts of articles, and the LHR essay prize.

Labour History Review

Labour History Review Volume 90 (2025), issue 2

Labour History Review Volume 90 (2025), Issue 2 has now been published. The journal appears both in hard copy and online formats. In this issue… Keith Laybourn and Neil Pye investigate the early political involvement of Eric Heffer in the Communist Party of Great Britain and Socialist Workers’ Federation, and reveal how his experiences and reading shaped his later politics as a leading figure on … Continue reading Labour History Review Volume 90 (2025), issue 2

Unknown's avatarEditorMC
Labour History Review

A Rebel with a Cause: Eric Heffer, the Marxist Years, 1938-1958

Author: Keith Laybourn and Neil PyeThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2025), 90, (2). Read this article. Eric Heffer, who rose to the top of the Labour Party’s left-wing hierarchy in the 1970s and 1980s, spent much of his early political career in the Communist Party of Great Britain and, after being expelled in 1948, in the Socialist Workers’ Federation, an anti-Communist … Continue reading A Rebel with a Cause: Eric Heffer, the Marxist Years, 1938-1958

Unknown's avatarEditorMC
Labour History Review

‘The Workers’ Stately Home’: Wortley Hall in Post-War Britain

Author: Michael BaileyThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2025), 90, (2). Read this article. Although there are relatively large bodies of interrelated literature concerning trade unions, industrial politics, workers’ education and leisure in post-war Britain, little has been written about the importance of Wortley Hall (also known as ‘The Workers’ Stately Home’ or ‘Labour’s Home’) as a popular educational and holiday centre … Continue reading ‘The Workers’ Stately Home’: Wortley Hall in Post-War Britain

Unknown's avatarEditorMC
Labour History Review

Domestic Service and the Labour Movement in Franco-Era Spain: The Young Christian Workers and the Struggles of Domestic Workers (1960–1976)

Author: Diego LatorreThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2025), 90, (2). Read this article. The 1960s and 1970s in Spain were a period of intense social mobilization against Franco’s dictatorship. The clandestine and democratic labour movement was the main political agent behind efforts to improve working conditions and to achieve a political transition towards democracy in Spain. However, within this context, domestic … Continue reading Domestic Service and the Labour Movement in Franco-Era Spain: The Young Christian Workers and the Struggles of Domestic Workers (1960–1976)

Unknown's avatarEditorMC
Labour History Review

Book reviews in Labour History Review volume 90 (2025), Issue 2

The books listed below are reviewed in Labour History Review (2025), 90, (2). Read the reviews. In this issue of Labour History Review… Steve Poole reviews Matthew Roberts (ed.), Memory and Modern British Politics: Commemoration, Tradition, Legacy, London: Bloomsbury, 2024, pp. 296, h/b, £76.50, ISBN 948 13501 90467 Edward Royle reviews Rebecca Gill and Janette Martin (eds), An Ordinary Life: Florence Lockwood’s Memoir of Life, Suffrage and War in the … Continue reading Book reviews in Labour History Review volume 90 (2025), Issue 2

Unknown's avatarEditorMC
Labour History Review, SSLH news

Labour History Review celebrates 90th edition

We are pleased to announce that Labour History Review is celebrating the publication of its 90th edition. Published in association with Liverpool University Press, alongside the book series Studies in Labour History, LHR and its predecessor, the Society for the Study of Labour History Bulletin, has since 1960 explored the working lives and politics of ‘ordinary’ people and has played a key role in redefining social and political history. … Continue reading Labour History Review celebrates 90th edition

Unknown's avatarEditorMC
Labour History Review

Labour History Review Volume 90 (2025), issue 1

Labour History Review Volume 90 (2025), Issue 1 has now been published. The journal appears both in hard copy and online formats.  In this issue… We begin with a round-table discussion of Keir Starmer’s Labour Government in historical perspective. The editors note that if, six months on, the signs might not be as positive as we would like, the election of Starmer’s Labour nevertheless represents … Continue reading Labour History Review Volume 90 (2025), issue 1

Unknown's avatarEditorMC
Labour History Review

Round Table: The Starmer Labour Government in Historical Perspective

Contributors: Peter Gurney, Laura Beers, Lawrence Black, Malcolm Petrie, and Martin WrightThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2025), 90, (1). Read more. The full text of this roundtable article is open access. The election of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party on 5 July 2024 after fourteen years of Conservative (mis)rule may represent an important turning point in British political history. At any … Continue reading Round Table: The Starmer Labour Government in Historical Perspective

Unknown's avatarEditorMC
Labour History Review

The Limits to Solidarity: Trade Union Responses to European Workers in Britain, 1945–1948

Author: Avram TaylorThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2025), 90, (1). Read more. During the first years of the post-war Labour government (1945–8), three groups of foreign workers were incorporated into the labour force: prisoners of war (POWs), Polish soldiers who had fought with the British, and European volunteer workers (EVWs). This article examines the responses of the trade union movement to … Continue reading The Limits to Solidarity: Trade Union Responses to European Workers in Britain, 1945–1948

Unknown's avatarEditorMC
Labour History Review

Workforce Disability and the 1949 ‘Ineffectives’ Strike in London Docks

Author: Jim PhillipsThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2025), 90, (1). Read more. In April 1949 the employment of thirty-two registered dock workers in London was terminated because they were regarded as ‘ineffective’, incapable physically of performing the job. Their redundancies were briefly resisted through strike action. This ended when the Labour government threatened to prosecute strike leaders. The episode highlighted the … Continue reading Workforce Disability and the 1949 ‘Ineffectives’ Strike in London Docks

Unknown's avatarEditorMC