Tag: WCML

Labour history news

WCML gets £100k Big Flame grant

The Working Class Movement Library has been awarded £99,847 to fund a project opening up access to its records of the Big Flame revolutionary group. Started in Liverpool in 1970, Big Flame was a revolutionary socialist group with a feminist, anti-racist, internationalist vision that emphasized mass class engagement and prioritized non-sectarian, non-authoritarian community organizing and political methods. It spread to Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Nottingham and … Continue reading WCML gets £100k Big Flame grant

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Bursary reports, Research bursaries

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

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Events, Labour history news

WCML free talks programme kicks off for Spring 2022

The Working Class Movement Library’s new series of Invisible Histories free talks starts up again on Wednesday 9 February at the later than usual time of 3pm, when Kirstie Blair and Iona Craig from the Piston, Pen & Press project will give a free online only talk on the topic ‘Industrial workers and reading spaces in Manchester, Salford and the North’. This first talk in … Continue reading WCML free talks programme kicks off for Spring 2022

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Advice & reference, Annual guides

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

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Documents & objects

Manchester wiredrawers’ strike, 1934

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

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Documents & objects

Conscientous objectors: A Gaol Bird’s Lay

This is a pamphlet from the Peace Collection held at the Working Class Movement Library in Salford. From August 1914 until January 1916, the British government relied on volunteers to produce an army to fight on the Western Front and other areas of the war. Towards the end of 1915, a reduction in the numbers volunteering and the sheer scale of casualties meant that conscription … Continue reading Conscientous objectors: A Gaol Bird’s Lay

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Bursary reports, MA & BA bursaries

Dan Horne (Northumbria) on the British Left’s response to fascism at home and in Europe

My dissertation examines the way in which the British Left contributed to the anti-fascist cause in 1930s Europe. I will observe how the British Left reacted to the rise of fascism within Germany, Austria and Italy, whilst also exploring their reaction towards Oswald Mosley and the BUF at home. This dissertation will attempt to draw attention to how key campaigners sought to gain wider support … Continue reading Dan Horne (Northumbria) on the British Left’s response to fascism at home and in Europe

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Bursary reports, MA & BA bursaries

Kerrie McGiveron (Liverpool) on Big Flame, women and the Tower Hill Base Group

With generous financial backing from SSLH, in the summer of 2017 I was able to travel to various sites to undertake research for my MA dissertation entitled ‘Notes on a Community Struggle:’ Big Flame, Women, and The Kirkby Resistance. Big Flame were a radical New Left organisation, whose unique commitment to both socialism and feminism renders them vital to the narrative of 1970s activism in … Continue reading Kerrie McGiveron (Liverpool) on Big Flame, women and the Tower Hill Base Group

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