This article chronicles the industrial crisis that took place in Derry in the summer of 1924, when the city was engulfed by mass strikes and a lockout in its staple industry, shirt making Continue reading ‘Tools of the Employers’ Federation’: The Derry Lockout of 1924
Mick Ekers visits Norfolk Record Office to research the life in politics of Tom Higdon, one of the two teachers at the heart of the famous Burston School Strike which lasted from 1914 to 1939. The story of the Burston School Strike is quite well known. In 1914 Annie and Tom Higdon, two teachers in a village school in Norfolk, were sacked as a result … Continue reading Mick Ekers (Essex) on Burston strike school master Tom Higdon and labour activism between the wars
Data on 38 million households from the 1921 census will be published early in the new year. Continue reading Why publication of the 1921 census will matter to labour historians
Irish and Jewish migrants in East London, their children and grandchildren provided fertile ground for the emergence of the mass unionisation of unskilled labour, says Dr Daniel Renshaw, author of Socialism and the Diasporic ‘Other’ Continue reading Solidarity and suspicion: Irish Catholic and Jewish radical politics in East London
Dr Quentin Outram examines the emotions at play in one of the largest industrial disputes ever to take place in Victorian England In the summer of 1893, mine owners sought to reduce wages across the coalfields organised by the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain – including Yorkshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, and Warwickshire. The lockout developed into what was then the largest industrial dispute ever … Continue reading Video: Anger and Reason in the English Coal Lockout of 1893
Industrial action at the Celta Mill in 1928 resulted in the longest phase of strike action in Peterborough’s industrial history. However, the strike was important for other reasons too, writes Hazel Perry. Continue reading ‘A little judgement and ordinary human kindness’: the Peterborough Celta Mill strike, 1928
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: Archive material relating to the Pilkington strike and to pottery workers – now in the Working Class Movement … Continue reading Additions to labour history archive collections 2020
This photo dates from 1934, during the nine-month strike by 650 workers at the firm of Richard Johnson & Nephew Ltd, Wiredrawers, of Forge Lane, Bradford, Manchester. Strike leaders Alf Bywater and Bill Dunn are shown addressing the workers. The cause of the strike was the introduction of a system designed to maximise productivity: the Bedaux System. This represented a method of time and motion … Continue reading Manchester wiredrawers’ strike, 1934
Photograph of the NUM banner in Trafalgar Square, 1985. Continue reading Strikes: a guide to sources
The bursary generously provided by the Society for the Study of Labour History allowed me to travel to the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick for holdings relating to the 1926 General Strike. The title of my MA thesis is ‘Towards a Semantic History of the 1926 UK General Strike’. My research used materials from the archive of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), … Continue reading Oliver Cooper (Sheffield) on researching the language of discourse in the 1926 General Strike
Society for the Study of Labour History 