Vale Rawlings: recovering the lost story of a Burton upon Trent trade unionist

In the weeks before Europe descended into war, the case of a Staffordshire trade unionist named Vale Rawlings became a political cause célèbre. Elaine Pritchard explains current efforts to tell his story. In June 1914, Vale Rawlings, a trade union activist from Burton upon Trent, made newspaper headlines across the country after he was allegedly framed for assaulting a police inspector on a picket line … Continue reading Vale Rawlings: recovering the lost story of a Burton upon Trent trade unionist

Additions to labour history archive collections 2022

This has been a bumper year for new additions to labour history archives around the country. Almost certainly the largest collection to find a place in the archives during 2022 were administrative, financial, legal and other records of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and its predecessors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that now occupy some 300 linear metres of shelf space, promising to … Continue reading Additions to labour history archive collections 2022