Seminar to mark 40th anniversary of the Wapping dispute

The Marx Memorial Library & Workers’ School is holding a day-long seminar marking forty years since the Wapping dispute. The seminar will take place on Saturday 24 January and it will be possible to attend either online or onsite. This event will commemorate the year-long struggle of workers for their jobs and trade union rights and reflect on its legacy. The Wapping dispute began when Rupert Murdoch’s News … Continue reading Seminar to mark 40th anniversary of the Wapping dispute

Solidarity, the law and how history preserves the memory of the 1984-85 miners’ strike

Two panel discussions hosted by the Marx Memorial Library and Workers’ School on the legacy of the 1984-85 miners’ strike are now available as podcasts on the Library’s Spotify channel The Miners’ Strike 40 Years On: State Repression, Solidarity and Civil Defence explores the role of the law, the state and communities in the 1984-85 miners’ strike with Lord John Hendy KC on the role … Continue reading Solidarity, the law and how history preserves the memory of the 1984-85 miners’ strike

UNITE the Union: a history in six volumes

Liverpool University Press and the Marx Memorial Library & Workers’ School have been trying to make trade union history accessible again with a history of UNITE published in six cheap paperback volumes (each retails at £6.99) from 2022 onwards. We reviewed the first two volumes which covered the history of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, the core of UNITE, from 1880 to 1931 in … Continue reading UNITE the Union: a history in six volumes

Online classes in labour history at MML

The Marx Memorial Library is offering a course of six consecutive online classes in labour movement history spanning two centuries and with a focus on race and empire. Run by Professor Mary Davis, professor of labour history and secretary of the Marx Memorial Library, the first lecture is on 19 March, at a cost of £30 (£15 concessions) for all six classes. The series covers: … Continue reading Online classes in labour history at MML

Print matters: conserving and promoting the printworkers’ story

The Printworkers’ Collection is a huge documentary archive of labour history. Mark Crail visited the Marx Memorial Library to ask director Meirian Jump about a project to conserve and open it up to researchers and the public. Since 2009, the Marx Memorial Library and Workers School has been home to a unique collection of material on the history of those who worked in the print, … Continue reading Print matters: conserving and promoting the printworkers’ story

Gregory Billam (Edge Hill University) on the CPGB, the Historians’ Group and the CPA between 1946-1956

My thesis focuses on the Communist Party of Great Britain’s British Road to Socialism (1951) within a wider international context of ‘national roads to socialism’, in which communist parties were told to adapt to ‘national’ circumstances. My research examines the British party’s ‘road to socialism’ at the British Empire’s centre, and that of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) at its periphery in the early … Continue reading Gregory Billam (Edge Hill University) on the CPGB, the Historians’ Group and the CPA between 1946-1956

Commemorating British labour history: a triple anniversary

This is a year of labour history anniversaries. Both the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick and the South Wales Miners Library at Swansea University hit their fiftieth birthdays in 2023, while the august Marx Memorial Library reaches its ninetieth. The three organisations are organising a joint online symposium titled Commemorating British Labour History: Foundations and Future Plans with talks that celebrate the … Continue reading Commemorating British labour history: a triple anniversary

Communist lives in twentieth century Ireland

Above: Mike Mecham presents Meirian Jump of the Marx Memorial Library with a copy of Left Lives in Twentieth-Century Ireland, Vol. 3: Communist Lives, edited by Francis Devine and Patrick Smylie (Umiskin Press, Dublin, April 2020). An inscription in the book reads, ‘Presented by Umiskin Press, Dublin, to the Marx Memorial Library in recognition of its major contribution to the preservation and enhancement of Socialist … Continue reading Communist lives in twentieth century Ireland

Help preserve the Marx Memorial Library socialist newspaper archive

Ninety years of socialist newspaper history is at risk from the ravages of time. Meirian Jump, Archivist & Library Manager at the Marx Memorial Library, explains how you can help. The Marx Memorial Library is the proud custodian of a complete archive of the Daily Worker/Morning Star newspaper dating back to the first issue in January 1930. For decades copies of the paper have been … Continue reading Help preserve the Marx Memorial Library socialist newspaper archive

Additions to labour history archive collections 2020

The PDF document below includes an overview of new collections which were reported by archives to the Society for the Study of Labour History’s Archive and Resources sub-committee (SSLH-ARC) and which may be of interest to labour historians. Among the numerous collections noted by the SSLH-ARC are: Where possible the document includes links to the catalogue URL at the relevant archive. Continue reading Additions to labour history archive collections 2020