Society for the Study of Labour History

Chartism Day 2025 Chartism Day 2025 will be held at the University of Huddersfield, Heritage Quay on Saturday 6 Sept 2025

Chartism Day 2026 takes place at Heritage Quay, Huddersfield, on Saturday 6 September. Have you got your ticket yet?
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/chartism-d...

Great collection of material on the 1926 General Strike in a new virtual issue of Historical Studies in Industrial Relations. Includes an open access bibliography
@livunipress.bsky.social @gftuet.org.uk
sslh.org.uk/2025/08/01/h...

Front cover of Labour History Review.

The new issue of Labour History Review is out now. Have you got your copy yet?
sslh.org.uk/2025/07/16/l...

Leaflet on pinkish paper, bound into a large volume: LONDON TRADES' COUNCIL. REFORM BILL in DANGER TO THE WORKMEN OF LONDON. Your attendance is urgently requested in support of the GREAT REFORM DEMONSTRATION On MONDAY, JULY 21st, 1884. The Trades will form a distinctive portion of the Procession, and from the outlying Districts will assemble in order on the Thames Embankment at TWO o'clock. All Workmen are cordially invited to fall in with the Trade to which they belong, as it is greatly to their interest that the Procession of the Trades should be as large, representative, and characteristic as possible. THE TRADES' ORGANISING COMMITTEE: Abrey, J., Carpenters Harford, E., Railway Servants Powell, T., Machine Rulers Adams, E., Bakers Jones, W, Cabinet Makers Smyth, T., Plasterers Coulson, E., Bricklayers King, H., Bookbinders Smith, J. R., Cabinet Makers Cottrell, E., Polishers Mitchell, J., Portmanteau Makers Steadman, W. C., Barge Builders Drummond, C. J., Compositors Morrison, E. Bookbinders Woods, E., Ironfounders Fernie, J., Farriers Noon, E., Shoe Makers Willson, I. J., Shipwrights Humphreyson, C., Cabinet Makers Poole, J., Shoe Makers GEORGE SHIPTON, Secretary. 2, Whitefriars Street, E.C. N.B.- For Further Particulars see other Bills.

Great Reform Demonstration

#OTD 1884 'Workmen of London' met to support the Third Reform Act which gave the vote to 60% of adult men

Women remained excluded from parliamentary elections, finally achieving electoral equality 44 years later #suffrage

More at wdc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/coll...

Chartism and Co-operation: Splinter Groups and Something More After a two-week hiatus from archiving, I was glad to spend this Monday among the dusty papers and splendid company of the Co-operative Heritage Archive. Seriously, you could write a Detectorists-e…

A couple of weeks away and it feels very good to be back in the National Co-operative Archive cataloguing Chartist correspondence. A short blog post on this week's progress, William J. Linton, the People's Charter Union and 'something more':

dnhamiltonblog.wordpress.com/2025/07/21/c...

Home Secretary sets up statutory inquiry into 1984 ‘Battle of Orgreave’ The government has announced an independent statutory inquiry into the 1984 ‘Battle of Orgreave’, a key event in the year-long miners’ strike during which thousands of police and miners clashed, le…

Home Secretary sets up statutory inquiry into 1984 'Battle of Orgreave' sslh.org.uk/2025/07/21/h...

ORGREAVE INQUIRY ANNOUNCED!

The government have announced an inquiry will take place into Orgreave. Please see and share our press release. otjc.org.uk/orgreave-tru...

Government launches Orgreave inquiry, 40 years after clashes at miners’ strike Move follows decades of campaigning over violent policing and collapsed prosecutions at South Yorkshire coking plant More than four decades after the violent policing at Orgreave during the miners’ strike and a failed prosecution criticised as a police “frame up”, the government has established a statutory inquiry into the scandal. The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, announced the inquiry having informed campaigners last Thursday at the site in South Yorkshire where the Orgreave coking plant was located. Continue reading...

Government launches Orgreave inquiry, 40 years after clashes at miners’ strike

Text: Chartism Day 2025, Heritage Quay, Huddersfield, Saturday 6 September.

Join us for #ChartismDay 2025. All welcome; tickets from www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/chartism-d...

Text: Chartism Day 2025, Heritage Quay, Huddersfield, Saturday 6 September.

Join us for #ChartismDay 2025. All welcome; tickets from www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/chartism-d...

Orgreave papers destroyed by police thought to include report on notorious truncheon beating Miner who was seen on TV being beaten by officer said he was not aware of report’s existence before it was destroyed

Disturbing news. @araukie.bsky.social absolutely right in its call for better protection for police records. These are important historical documents.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

A hint of the impact of the Chartist leader can be seen in the records of the South Yorkshire Miners' Association, and the registration of Sheffield collier Feargus O'Connor Dale & his family into the union... 🧵

Text: Chartism Day 2025. Heritage Quay, Huddersfield. Saturday 6 September. Illustration: placard advertising Chartist meeting in Huddersfield.

Book your ticket today for Chartism Day 2025
Saturday, 6 September, Huddersfield
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/chartism-d...

Text: Chartism Day 2025. Heritage Quay, Huddersfield. Saturday 6 September. Illustration: placard advertising Chartist meeting in Huddersfield.

Book your ticket today for Chartism Day 2025
Saturday, 6 September, Huddersfield
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/chartism-d...

The new issue includes a good article about colliery closures in Britain's nationalised coal industry:

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Front cover with list of articles: Eric Heffer - the Marxist Years; Wortley Hall - the Workers’ Stately Home; Domestic Service and the Labour Movement in Franco-Era Spain. Plus Book Reviews.

The new issue of Labour History Review is out now sslh.org.uk/2025/07/16/l...

Jamila Squire (Westminster) on international solidarity with Italian political prisoners: 1979-84 My MA dissertation research focuses on a wave of state repression of Italian militants from the late 1970s to mid-1980s. Student mobilisation in Bologna. Year unknown. Marco Pezzi Archive. Click fo…

A bursary from the Society for the Study of Labour History helped Jamila Squire @jamsqu.bsky.social research international solidarity with Italian political prisoners from 1979-84 for her MA dissertation. You can read her report here...
sslh.org.uk/2025/07/08/j...

"In 1833, the small West Yorkshire Bents Mill in Hallas Bridge, Cullingworth, employed 61 people, 42 of whom were under 14 years of age, and 14 of whom were under the age of ten. All workers worked a 69 hours per week – five twelve-hour days with nine hours on a Saturday."

The Social Drama of Daily Work Part manifesto, part manual, this book offers historians of all levels both subject and approach. The subject is work. In every place-time people made and sold objects – and struggled with annoying cu...

Labor historians: take a look at Sarah Schneewind's _Social Drama of Daily Work_. The book poses 100s of questions to ask about workers doing any possible number of things. Useful stuff about expertise and authority, laborers' ability to manage-up, and tacit codes that organize all work sites.

Internationalism in the Co-op Archive During Co-ops Fortnight, UK Co-op Congress and as part of the UN International Year of Co-operatives, Archive Volunteer and Emeritus Professor Tony Taylor, writes about international co-operation from...

New blog post from one of the volunteers at the Co-operative Heritage Trust

tinyurl.com/4xbu7jkd

People interested in this might also like to know that the archives of Dorothy Thompson, historian of Chartism and related movements and wife of E.P., is at the University of Staffordshire in Stoke-on-Trent: libstaff.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/co...

Bowen Ran (Rotterdam) on E. P. Thompson and the formation of The Making of the English Working Class It is one thing to read E. P. Thompson’s published, polished texts; it is quite another to handle the papers he once worked on, to see the rust left by paper clips, the gum pressed between pages, t…

We supported Bowen Ran
with a PhD research bursary. Here he reports back on E.P. Thompson’s cat and the making of The Making of the English Working Class.
sslh.org.uk/2025/06/22/b...

The Chartist Revolution: a challenge to liberalism and market capitalism Liberal interpretations of the Chartist movement continue to dominate the views of historians and of general society, Professor Peter Gurney argued in delivering the Society’s fourth annual John Ha…

New on the website: Professor Peter Gurney challenges the dominance of liberal readings of the Chartist movement and its aims.
sslh.org.uk/2025/06/20/t...

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 …

New on our website
Ellie Townsend dissects the different approaches taken by Co-operative Party candidates in the general election of 1945.
sslh.org.uk/2025/06/18/c...

Professor Peter Gurney delivers the John Halstead Memorial Lecture on the “Chartist Revolution” at the John Rylands Library in Manchester today.

Remembering Coal: Legacy, Memories, Heritage The University of Birmingham is hosting a one-day event titled Remembering Coal: Legacy, Memories, Heritage to mark its links with the mining industry. Click to download the conference programme. T…

Remembering Coal. One-day event at the University of Birmingham next Monday (16 June). Details…
sslh.org.uk/2025/06/11/r...

Ben Howarth (LJMU) on anti-fascist mobilisation in 1930s Merseyside My MA dissertation focuses on the ways in which anti-fascism manifested in 1930s Merseyside, a topic that has received little attention in existing scholarship. I am particularly interested in iden…

Ben Howarth of Liverpool John Moores University is researching anti-fascist mobilisation in 1930s Merseyside for his MA. We gave him a bursary to visit The National Archives in search papers relating to the CPGB and fascist leader Oswald Mosley.
sslh.org.uk/2025/06/10/b...

A New Resource for Chartist Historians! In my time as a postgraduate researcher, some of my most enjoyable times have been spent in Holyoake House, trawling through items from the Co-operative Heritage Trust’s impressive archive of mater…

OF INTEREST TO CHARTISTS!

Come Monday, I will be starting a funded project with the Co-operative Heritage Trust archive to create a research resource highlighting points of interaction between Chartism and co-operation. More details below:

dnhamiltonblog.wordpress.com/2025/06/07/a...

A poster from a periodical promoting Irish Butter

Less than a month to go until the the launch event 'At the Margins of Capitalism: Useful Histories at the Co-op Archive' on 1stJuly.

If you are interested in food production and alternatives to capitalism, join us for conversation and archival exploration.

tinyurl.com/8y34k69n

Letters from a Labour Leader The newly catalogued archive of politician Griff Jones

My latest item on the National Library of Wales blog on the Griff Jones Papers www.library.wales/news/article...