‘Sunderland Has Lost a Figure That Will Go Down in History’: Marion Phillips in the North East of England, 1923–1932

Author: Sarah HellawellThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2023), 88, (3), 221-243. Read more. Selected as the Labour Party’s chief woman officer in 1918, Dr Marion Phillips played a prominent role in the British labour women’s movement before, during and after the Great War. However, her brief stint as Labour MP for Sunderland between 1929 and 1931 has not attracted the same … Continue reading ‘Sunderland Has Lost a Figure That Will Go Down in History’: Marion Phillips in the North East of England, 1923–1932

Book reviews in Labour History Review Volume 88 (2023), Issue 3

The books listed below are reviewed in Labour History Review (2023), 88, (3), 279-293. Read more. Hester Barron reviews Agnes Arnold-Forster and Alison Moulds (eds), Feelings and Work in Modern History: Emotional Labour and Emotions about Labour, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022, pp. xii + 265, h/b, £85, ISBN 978 13501 97183 Micaela Panes reviews Daryl Leeworthy, Causes in Common: Welsh Women and the Struggle for Social Democracy, Cardiff: University of Wales … Continue reading Book reviews in Labour History Review Volume 88 (2023), Issue 3

In tune: Bandiera Rossa

This stirring anthem of the Italian Left was also once popular with Labour Party activists, as Mark Crail recalls. Bandiera Rossa(Music, traditional; lyrics, Carlo Tuzzi, 1908) Bandiera Rossa may share its title with The Red Flag, but there the similarities end. There is no room here for dungeons dark or gallows grim, let alone any martyred dead. The Italian labour movement’s anthem is, rather, an … Continue reading In tune: Bandiera Rossa

In tune: The Manchester Rambler

Our series on labour history and song continues with a Ewan MacColl classic on access to the land that still resonates today, as Hazel Perry remarks The Manchester RamblerEwan MacColl (Ewan McColl, 1932) I can’t remember the first time I heard The Manchester Rambler however, I did hear it many times when attending the ninetieth anniversary celebrations of the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass in Hayfield … Continue reading In tune: The Manchester Rambler

Commemorating Robert Rumble and the tenants’ strike of 1938

Liz Millman reports on an event to mark a significant event in the history of Jamaica. On 23 April 1938, the Poor Man’s Improvement and Land Settlement Association set up by activist Robert Rumble sent a petition to the Governor of Jamaica demanding a minimum wage for agricultural workers and peasants, and an end to exploitation by landlords. The petition stated that a century after … Continue reading Commemorating Robert Rumble and the tenants’ strike of 1938

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)

‘Your Britain’: Labour’s programme for a general election that never was?

Labour’s policy document offers a radical programme for government, and presents it in persuasive language and an attractive package. But Mark Crail wonders whether anyone can put a firm date on it. ‘A Labour Council has built this pleasant estate of happy homes for the people,’ declares the caption on the front of this vintage Labour Party magazine. Printed in bright colours, and with its … Continue reading ‘Your Britain’: Labour’s programme for a general election that never was?

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

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