Tag: 1920s

Bursary reports, Research bursaries

Left-wing, woman, aristocrat: in search of Elinor Bethell (1869-1943)

Dr Quentin Gasteuil explains how he tracked down Elinor Bethell, a little known British woman who played a leading role in the Labour Party in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, with help from an SSLH bursary. I came across the widely unknown character of Elinor Frances Bethell during my PhD research. When I first made archival contact with her, she was a British woman … Continue reading Left-wing, woman, aristocrat: in search of Elinor Bethell (1869-1943)

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Labour History Review

Book reviews in Labour History Review Volume 88 (2023), Issue 2

The books listed below are reviewed in Labour History Review (2023), 88, (2), 185-198. Read more. Joe Stanley reviews Peter Hounsell, Bricks of Victorian London: A Social and Economic History, Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2022, pp. xiv + 283 + 15 plates, p/b, £18.99, ISBN 978 19122 60577 Quentin Outram reviews M.M. Borodin (trans. and ed. Pete Dickenson), The Great Betrayal: Black Friday and the 1921 Miners’ Lockout, London: … Continue reading Book reviews in Labour History Review Volume 88 (2023), Issue 2

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Books etc

Rotten Prod: the story of a Belfast boilermaker

Rotten Prod: The Unlikely Career of Dongaree Baird, Emmet O’Connor, University College Dublin Press, 2022. The Irish labour historian Austen Morgan dedicated his study of Belfast labour ‘to the “rotten Prods” of Belfast, victims of unionist violence and nationalist myopia.’ A derogatory label used by loyalists/Unionists against Protestant labour activists, it was laced with venom that brought threats, violence and loss of work. For Unionist … Continue reading Rotten Prod: the story of a Belfast boilermaker

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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

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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Commentary

Tracing the Labour Research Department’s struggle against fascism in the archives of the TUC Library

The Labour Research Department has been at the forefront of an information war against the far right for the past hundred years. Jeff Howarth tells the story of this century-long struggle through the LRD publications to be found in the TUC Library. Throughout the twentieth century and now into the twenty-first, the trade union movement has monitored the activities of far-right groups in an attempt … Continue reading Tracing the Labour Research Department’s struggle against fascism in the archives of the TUC Library

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Documents & objects, Labour history news

Digitised and online: the papers of George Lansbury

As the first of George Lansbury’s papers go online, Daniel Payne sets out how LSE Library is digitising its vast archive of material relating to the former Labour Party leader, and introduces some of the treasures it contains. Starting with the first two volumes, which are available online now, LSE Library recently announced plans to digitise its entire George Lansbury archive. An early supporter of … Continue reading Digitised and online: the papers of George Lansbury

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Commentary, Labour history news

Stalinism and ultra-leftism: a warning from history – the leadership of the CPGB, 1928-1934

Alan Campbell and John McIlroy share headline findings from their research into the leadership of the Communist Party of Great Britain during the Comintern’s Third Period, 1928–1934. In a recent article for Labor History, we continue our extended prosopographical study of leading British Communists between the wars. It reports on a survey of the 66 members who served on the Central Committee (CC) of the … Continue reading Stalinism and ultra-leftism: a warning from history – the leadership of the CPGB, 1928-1934

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Documents & objects

Introducing Labour’s women MPs, 1929

When the Labour Party returned to power in 1929 to form its second minority government, the number of Labour women MPs doubled from four to nine. In this short newsreel, which would have been shown in cinemas all over the country, Margaret Bondfield introduces her colleagues – four of whom had been re-elected in the general election held on 30 May that year, and five … Continue reading Introducing Labour’s women MPs, 1929

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