Tag: Co-operative Movement

Advice & reference, Topic guides

Sources for Co-operative History in the UK

The Society for the Study of Labour History has created a guide to sources for co-operative history in the UK. Compiled by the Society’s Archives and Resources Committee, the guide includes information on the major archives and their holdings on this topic. First published December 2025. The guide aims to help researchers find material relating to the co-operative movement across UK archives and museums. It … Continue reading Sources for Co-operative History in the UK

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Commentary

Wembley Stadium: a place in labour history

In the second part of our series on places in labour history, Jane Donaldson recalls the great co-operative movement pageant held at Wembley Stadium in London in 1938. Wembley Stadium is known for hosting football tournaments and other sports events, but in 1938, it was host to a large Co-operative Pageant called ‘Towards Tomorrow.’ Held during International Co-operative Day, on 7 July 1938, it was … Continue reading Wembley Stadium: a place in labour history

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Commentary

Co-operative Party campaigning in the constituencies at the 1945 election

The 1945 general election saw the Co-operative Party return a record twenty-three MPs in alliance with the Labour Party. Here, Ellie Townsend introduces research that shows how candidates tailored their electoral message about co-operation to suit local circumstances. The Co-operative Party, set up in 1917, was an attempt to protect the interests of the consumer co-operative movement in parliament.1 From its outset, the Co-operative Party … Continue reading Co-operative Party campaigning in the constituencies at the 1945 election

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Labour history news

Lottery grant promises to open up Co-operative College Archive for all

The National Lottery Heritage Fund has awarded a six-figure sum to the Co-operative Heritage Trust for its ‘Seeds of Change’ project, which aims to fully catalogue and open up the Co-operative College Archival Collection The £131,653 grant will enable the Trust to recruit a project archivist to work with community volunteers over the next two years, to conserve and protect the collection and make it … Continue reading Lottery grant promises to open up Co-operative College Archive for all

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Commentary

Class Encounters: A.V. Alexander, co-operator

In the eleventh of our series on meetings with figures from labour history, Jane Donaldson encounters co-operator, government minister and peer A.V. Alexander. My place of work at the Co-op Archives in Holyoake House in Manchester is among many buildings in an area still known sometimes as the Co-operative Quarter and I am surrounded by collections which tell the history of the co-operative movement. Holyoake … Continue reading Class Encounters: A.V. Alexander, co-operator

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Books etc

Mobbings, struggles and strikes: reclaiming the working class history of Dumfries

Mobbings, Struggles and Strikes: Episodes in the History of the Organised Working Class of Dumfries, 1771-1914, by Ian Gasse: the author, in association with the Scottish Labour History Society, 2022, pp. xvi + 400, h/b, £20 + £4p&p, ISBN 978 9163050 4 5 Class conflict in Dumfries so often centred on that most basic of staples, bread. From food riots in the 1770s during which … Continue reading Mobbings, struggles and strikes: reclaiming the working class history of Dumfries

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Commentary

Partners in crime: labour historians in the Golden Age of detective fiction

Typically set in a sprawling country house and populated by a cast drawn from the landed gentry and the well-to-do, ‘Golden Age’ detective fiction is not the most obvious genre in which to find two of the country’s leading socialist intellectuals.  This was a world in which money, privilege and titles were taken for granted, servants were ever-present but hardly central to the plot, and … Continue reading Partners in crime: labour historians in the Golden Age of detective fiction

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Labour History Review

Book reviews in Labour History Review Volume 87 (2022), Issue 2

The books listed below are reviewed in Labour History Review (2022), 87, (2), 213-225. Find out more. Peter Gurney reviews Ian Gasse, Something to Build On: The Co-operative Movement in Dumfries, 1847-1914, Dumfries: the author, in association with the Scottish Labour History Society, 2021, pp. xvi + 240, h/b, £18, ISBN 978 19163 05021 Quentin Outram reviews Laura Humphreys, Globalising Housework: Domestic Labour in Middle-Class London Homes, 1850-1914, … Continue reading Book reviews in Labour History Review Volume 87 (2022), Issue 2

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