tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33152836886318430182024-03-16T01:23:11.931-07:00London Socialist Historians GroupThe official blog of the LSHG - Email Keith Flett at keith1917@btinternet.com for more information - follow us on twitter @LSHGofficial Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.comBlogger1162125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-36205602446653189912024-01-12T14:33:00.000-08:002024-03-11T14:02:31.848-07:00LSHG seminars - Spring 2024<p><b>London Socialist Historians Group seminars Spring 2024</b></p><p>'<span face=""Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif">Doctor Who and the Communist: the work and politics of Malcolm Hulke TV scriptwriter' - Michael Herbert </span><span face=""Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-weight: 700;">Date: Mon 22 January Start time: 1730</span><span face=""Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif"> On Zoom. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">‘Hen Chartists’ and ‘Vulgar Viragos’: Rethinking the role of women in the Chartist Movement - Judy Cox <span style="font-weight: 700;">Date: Monday 5th February</span> <span style="font-weight: 700;">Start time: 5.30pm</span> On Zoom - </p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Transnational Perspectives on French Anarchism(1880-1918), Biography, Networks and Print Culture - Constance Bantman <span style="font-weight: 700;">Date: Monday 4th March </span><span style="font-weight: 700;">Start time: 5.30pm</span> In Person. Room 301, Institute of Historical Research - please book at the link below</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.history.ac.uk/events/transnational-perspectives-french-anarchism1880-1918-biography-networks-and-print-culture">Transnational Perspectives on French Anarchism(1880-1918), Biography, Networks and Print Culture | Institute of Historical Research (history.ac.uk)</a></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif;">https://www.history.ac.uk/events/transnational-perspectives-french-anarchism1880-1918-biography-networks-and-print-culture</span></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">The Great Defiance. How the World Took On The British Empire - David Veevers(Bangor) <span style="font-weight: 700;">Date: Monday 18th March Start time: 5.30pm </span>On Zoom</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">
David Veevers will be speaking at the final Spring term seminar of the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research on Monday 18th March at 5.30pm
The seminar is free on Zoom but booking is essential to get a secure link:
https://www.history.ac.uk/events/great-defiance-how-world-took-british-empire
David Veevers is the author of the recently published book, The Great Defiance, How the World Took on the British Empire (Penguin).
All welcome - for more information on seminars contact Dr Keith Flett on the address above </p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-89176861953540955372023-10-18T06:04:00.007-07:002023-10-18T06:04:40.972-07:00LSHG seminar - Tony Collins on the Rugby World Cup<p><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Socialist History Seminar Mon 23</span><sup style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif;">rd</sup><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Oct 5.30pm. Tony Collins on the Rugby World Cup. William Webb Ellis- his role in the class struggle</span></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">In person seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet St, London WC1</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Free but please register as space is limited:</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.history.ac.uk/events/rugby-william-webb-ellis-his-role-class-struggle" rel="nofollow" style="color: #006699; text-decoration-line: none;">https://www.history.ac.uk/events/rugby-william-webb-ellis-his-role-class-struggle</a></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Room 301 on the 3<sup>rd</sup> Floor</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Tony Collins will look at the origins of the William Webb Ellis trophy currently being played for in the Rugby World Cup in France, and the class struggles behind its origins</p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-2381072147645471582023-10-03T05:53:00.005-07:002023-10-03T05:53:24.178-07:00LSHG seminar- Chartism in London in 1848<p><b> S<span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">ocialist History Seminar - Monday 9</span><sup style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">October. Catherine Howe, Chartism in London in 1848</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiXncl2x9W_eFE2H_3L3dRijvkFpvyTt4B2Gui5IjwaiIe3DI3YWGy6Io0md-qTm1ZRlOwkl5foM8wARY0KA54vR35F42yFZXN0YUKwHkepR1PSAqyT5lrV6mn_KQHy6ecDzK6YLClqMqtMlv84f5EDus6-vzyprbGefPeNRXuRu-cPUr4gYgD1bZ7x8Q" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="189" data-original-width="258" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiXncl2x9W_eFE2H_3L3dRijvkFpvyTt4B2Gui5IjwaiIe3DI3YWGy6Io0md-qTm1ZRlOwkl5foM8wARY0KA54vR35F42yFZXN0YUKwHkepR1PSAqyT5lrV6mn_KQHy6ecDzK6YLClqMqtMlv84f5EDus6-vzyprbGefPeNRXuRu-cPUr4gYgD1bZ7x8Q" width="320" /></a></b></div><b><br /><br /></b><p></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">1848 was a year of revolution across Europe, but Britain appeared to be an exception.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Catherine Howe’s book on London Chartism in 1848, 175 years ago, explores a rather different reality. The revolutionary currents and activists at work in the Spring and Summer of 1848 that caused a significant response from the State.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Chartism in London in 1848 Catherine Howe <span style="font-weight: 700;">Monday 9th October Time: 5.30pm</span></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Free on Zoom. Book here: <a href="https://www.history.ac.uk/events/chartism-london-1848" style="color: #006699; text-decoration-line: none;">https://www.history.ac.uk/events/chartism-london-1848</a></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Organised by the Socialist History Seminar at the Institute of Historical Research and the London Socialist Historians Group.</p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-81386426384170241912023-06-07T03:03:00.001-07:002023-06-07T03:03:26.858-07:00Visions of Labour and Class in Ireland and Europe Conference - 14-17 September 2023<p> <a href="https://www.irishlabourhistorysociety.com/conference-23/conference-23-tickets/">Conference 23 tickets - Irish Labour History Society</a></p><p><a href="https://www.irishlabourhistorysociety.com/">Irish Labour History Society - Museum & Archive</a></p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-53694762733761605872023-04-24T05:21:00.008-07:002023-05-21T01:37:19.515-07:00 London Socialist Historians Summer Term Seminars 2023<p><b> <span face=""Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-size: 15px;">London Socialist Historians Summer Term Seminars 2023</span></b></p><p class="x_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px;">Monday 15<sup>th</sup> May 5.30pm - Keith Flett: The Coronation. Inventing and Reinventing Royal Traditions.</p><p class="x_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px;">Free on Zoom</p><p class="x_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Book at this link: <a href="https://www.history.ac.uk/events/coronation-inventing-and-reinventing-royal-traditions" style="color: #006699; text-decoration-line: none;">https://www.history.ac.uk/events/coronation-inventing-and-reinventing-royal-traditions</a></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger argued that all traditions are invented and the British monarchy have been experts at it for centuries.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">This seminar will look at what is real and what is invented in the Coronation of a monarch and grapple with what this means for an understanding of British history beyond patriotic posing</p><p class="x_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="x_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px;">Monday 22<sup>nd</sup> May 5.30pm - Duncan Stone: Gentlemen v Players 60 years on. Deconstructing the Gentleman Amateur</p><p class="x_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Free on Zoom Link to Book <a href="https://www.history.ac.uk/events/60-years-gentlemen-v-players-deconstructing-gentleman-amateur" style="color: #006699; text-decoration-line: none;">https://www.history.ac.uk/events/60-years-gentlemen-v-players-deconstructing-gentleman-amateur</a></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Duncan Stone, author of one of the most insightful cricket books of recent years, Different Class, speaks on the Gentleman Amateur in cricket 60 years after Gentlemen v Players was abolished and the 60 over a side Gillette Cup started</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px;"></p><p class="x_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px;">Monday 5<sup>th</sup> June 5.30pm - Ralph Darlington, Labour Revolt in Britain 1910-1914. In person seminar only Room 301. Institute of Historical Research</p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-78477557265971925712023-03-06T05:32:00.006-08:002023-03-06T05:32:56.828-08:00Saturday 18 March - Resist Racism / Marx Memorial Library book sale<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh3ElyImLNkUWg4YeTyoP7f-J2cCqKsZKlqlQbd1DyrIwElL9NjfQWrlOtLZZMinFTCm4xUemRlkJ-u0wbK5eBX26wM_DWrgNCrxHi_lrVRB_a0Vb8keGlGXgAnQgvjuO1VFVeKFGQNfd7i0_iPx9Kd8H9ONhb1uHHfa3s4_v91Tj0J5yPS3PEyUFQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh3ElyImLNkUWg4YeTyoP7f-J2cCqKsZKlqlQbd1DyrIwElL9NjfQWrlOtLZZMinFTCm4xUemRlkJ-u0wbK5eBX26wM_DWrgNCrxHi_lrVRB_a0Vb8keGlGXgAnQgvjuO1VFVeKFGQNfd7i0_iPx9Kd8H9ONhb1uHHfa3s4_v91Tj0J5yPS3PEyUFQ=w320-h320" width="320" /></a></div><p style="border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></p><p style="border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Resist Racism </b>- Saturday 18th March, 12 noon National demonstration, Assemble: Portland Place, London W1A 1AA</p><p></p><p style="border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In Britain the Rishi Sunak government is attempting to use racism to generate the politics of divide and rule in our communities and make ordinary people pay for the cost of living crisis.<br />Suella Braverman’s talk of an ‘invasion’ of Southern England, the Rwanda plan to deport asylum seekers and the Nationality and Borders Act (NABA) are all part of the brutal racist hostile environment for refugees and migrants. It is targeting the most vulnerable and costing many lives.<br />More deaths in the Channel have shown us once again the reality of these policies in practice.<br />The government denies the existence of institutional racism – despite massively disproportionate deaths in black communities during the pandemic, ongoing deaths in police custody, racist stop and search and discrimination across society.<br />Internationally we are seeing the growth of the racist and fascist right.<br />Fascists such as Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy and the Sweden Democrats are in government. Fascist Le Pen and her National Rally in France have made electoral breakthroughs.<br />Internationally we are witnessing an alarming growth of racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, Sinophobia and attacks on Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.<br />We need to mobilise the antiracist and anti-fascist majority.<br />Join us on the streets as part of an international day of action to mark UN anti-racism day.</p><p>https://standuptoracism.org.uk/resist-racism/</p><p><b>Plus - Marx Memorial Library Book Sale</b> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiiomQUGKuPdnFQPDkiWr_eCGTW0dDP3mIiCso2oPJWD-AUybhcEYi_mSapyhU0-JX2iYB-hTXtvXZJDDMmP6eGA--UYvnA7Qi9BczcbsB_gYe4SJrslHpTzYBJ-kX-KnoEogSW1GYhaVdNdFrFyyPmtc0WyBuvwVpmcn7WTk4OpxHNglISuem0jGU" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="680" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiiomQUGKuPdnFQPDkiWr_eCGTW0dDP3mIiCso2oPJWD-AUybhcEYi_mSapyhU0-JX2iYB-hTXtvXZJDDMmP6eGA--UYvnA7Qi9BczcbsB_gYe4SJrslHpTzYBJ-kX-KnoEogSW1GYhaVdNdFrFyyPmtc0WyBuvwVpmcn7WTk4OpxHNglISuem0jGU=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-42403633625182253642023-02-14T10:12:00.002-08:002023-02-14T10:12:18.643-08:00Richard Croucher<p> R<b class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">ichard Croucher (1949–2022) </b></p><p class="x_MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0cm; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b></b></p><p class="x_MsoNormal x_ContentPasted0" style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0cm; white-space: pre-wrap;">Richard Croucher, who died at the age of 73 last December, was a well-known figure in the field of labour studies in Britain and beyond. His books <i class="x_ContentPasted0">Engineers at War</i> and <i class="x_ContentPasted0">We Refuse to Starve in Silence</i> made a significant contribution to understanding and popularising working-class resistance in the first fifty years of the twentieth century and engaged a wide readership. For twenty years he worked as Tutor-Organiser for the WEA teaching courses for trade union activists. Subsequently he was a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Strategic Trade Union Management at the Cranfield Business School, Cranfield University. As Professor of Comparative Employment Relations at the Middlesex University Business School from 2005, he published on a diverse range of subjects in the fields of employment relations, Human Resource Management and labour history. A gifted researcher and talented teacher, he was a keen but critical advocate of trade unionism and its study. Richard did much to rescue the neglected dimension of international trade unionism from academic marginality. His book, co-authored with Elizabeth Cotton, <i class="x_ContentPasted0">Global Unions, Global Business</i>, was particularly well received. </p><p class="x_MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0cm; white-space: pre-wrap;"></p><p class="x_MsoNormal x_ContentPasted0" style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0cm; white-space: pre-wrap;">Colleagues may be interested in reading a full appreciation of Richard’s life and times written by John McIlroy and Alan Campbell. It may be accessed on the website of the Society for the Study of Labour History at: </p><p class="x_MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0cm; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a class="x_ContentPasted0" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0" href="https://sslh.org.uk/2023/02/11/richard-croucher-1949-2022/" id="LPlnk260383" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Richard Croucher (1949 – 2022) – Society for the Study of Labour History (sslh.org.uk)</a></p><div class="LPBorder694757" id="LPBorder_GTaHR0cHM6Ly9zc2xoLm9yZy51ay8yMDIzLzAyLzExL3JpY2hhcmQtY3JvdWNoZXItMTk0OS0yMDIyLw.." style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font: inherit; margin: 16px 0px; max-width: 800px; min-width: 424px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: 800px;"><table id="LPContainer694757" role="presentation" style="border-color: rgb(200, 200, 200); border-radius: 2px; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; font: inherit; padding: 12px; width: 800px;"><tbody><tr style="border-spacing: 0px;" valign="top"><td><div id="LPImageContainer694757" style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font: inherit; height: 160px; margin: 0px 12px 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://sslh.org.uk/2023/02/11/richard-croucher-1949-2022/" id="LPImageAnchor694757" style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" height="160" id="LPThumbnailImageId694757" src="https://testtet378908538.files.wordpress.com/2023/02/8c098b1f-e8e7-4ef0-8162-c1692012f068.jpeg" style="border: 0px; color: inherit; display: block; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="160" /></a></div></td><td style="width: 592px;"><div id="LPTitle694757" style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: wf_segoe-ui_light, "Segoe UI Light", "Segoe WP Light", "Segoe UI", "Segoe WP", Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 8px 12px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://sslh.org.uk/2023/02/11/richard-croucher-1949-2022/" id="LPUrlAnchor694757" style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Richard Croucher (1949 – 2022)</a></div><div id="LPDescription694757" style="border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: wf_segoe-ui_normal, "Segoe UI", "Segoe WP", Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 8px 12px 0px; max-height: 100px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Richard Croucher, who died aged 73 on 16 December 2022, was a versatile scholar and talented labour historian who became well-known as a teacher and researcher in the field of employment relations …</div><div id="LPMetadata694757" style="border: 0px; color: #a6a6a6; font-family: wf_segoe-ui_normal, "Segoe UI", "Segoe WP", Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">sslh.org.uk</div></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div> <p></p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-69990717318542951162022-12-05T06:40:00.004-08:002023-01-31T13:39:06.314-08:00LSHG seminars - Spring 2023 <p><strong style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Socialist History Seminars Spring Term 2023</strong></p><p>These will be on zoom - links to register below the seminar title when they are ready</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Monday January 23<sup>rd</sup> 5.30pm - Steve Cushion. 'The Drax Family Dynasty and the Business of Slavery: Reparations for Enslavement as a Trade Union Issue' [past event - recording below]</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://kmflett.wordpress.com/2023/01/24/steve-cushion-the-drax-family-dynasty-the-business-of-slavery-reparations-for-enslavement-recording-of-socialist-history-seminar-on-23rd-january/">Steve Cushion- the Drax Family Dynasty & the Business of Slavery. Reparations for Enslavement. Recording of socialist history seminar on 23rd January | Kmflett's Blog (wordpress.com)</a></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Monday February 13th 5.30pm John Foot, 'The Left and Italian Fascism. Violence and Victims?'</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.history.ac.uk/events/left-italian-fascism-violence-victims">The Left & Italian Fascism. Violence & Victims? | Institute of Historical Research (history.ac.uk)</a></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Monday February 20th 5.30pm, Judy Greenway, '"A Poet among the Social Reformers": Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne, Suffragist, Socialist and Freethinker.'</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.history.ac.uk/events/a-poet-among-social-reformers-elizabeth-gibson-cheyne-suffragist-socialist-freethinker">'A Poet Among the Social Reformers' Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne. Suffragist, Socialist & Freethinker | Institute of Historical Research (history.ac.uk)</a></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Monday March 6th 5.30pm Merilyn Moos, 'Living With Shadows. A memoir of a daughter of German Anti-Nazi activists'.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.history.ac.uk/events/living-shadows-a-memoir-a-daughter-german-anti-nazi-activists">Living With Shadows. A memoir of a daughter of German Anti-Nazi activists | Institute of Historical Research (history.ac.uk)</a></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">''I will be talking about how my memoir, through a series of evocative vignettes, casts light on the impact of being the child of activist political refugees from Nazi Germany. It is often supposed that a person born in the UK will not feel like an outsider but this talk will consider how far the shadow of the past shaped my lived experience and sense of being as well as the contrary ways by which I became a revolutionary''</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">For more information please contact Keith Flett on the address above</p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-57174608372769136612022-09-27T05:28:00.003-07:002022-11-21T07:46:27.149-08:00London Socialist Historians Group Autumn seminars 2022<p><b> <span face=""Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14px;">London Socialist Historians Seminars Autumn 2022</span></b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;"><i>From the Defence Economy to Anti-Nazi Memoirs</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHXNaEpkbAZ4_EGiuoL1fkSxY-W5EeYyxmSwBP39ijBbEfUuE_hu-kj1vDVK7GJlrs99u-Sd1KSxrNefc3C6VlplM-pPKk0KjI68NskRSdwZy36P6QkkuTzWZVzzvWhWxBpYTVfK8qmRKs_dmz4zyMJOTCjzPOk7L1ewbD29SPHUR2K26UBa9XHWg/s730/stw15feb.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="730" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHXNaEpkbAZ4_EGiuoL1fkSxY-W5EeYyxmSwBP39ijBbEfUuE_hu-kj1vDVK7GJlrs99u-Sd1KSxrNefc3C6VlplM-pPKk0KjI68NskRSdwZy36P6QkkuTzWZVzzvWhWxBpYTVfK8qmRKs_dmz4zyMJOTCjzPOk7L1ewbD29SPHUR2K26UBa9XHWg/s320/stw15feb.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">All seminars are on Mondays at 5.30pm via Zoom. Please register via the Institute of Historical Research links</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Mon 24<sup>th</sup> October 5.30pm. Keith McLoughlin. The British Left and the Defence Economy: competing visions of social democracy</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;"> Book: <a href="https://www.history.ac.uk/events/british-left-and-defence-economy-competing-visions-social-democracy" style="color: #006699; text-decoration-line: none;">https://www.history.ac.uk/events/british-left-and-defence-economy-competing-visions-social-democracy</a></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Mon 7<sup>th</sup> November 5.30pm Jane McChrystal and Anne Padfield. The Splendid Mrs McCheyne & the East London Federation of Suffragettes.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Book: <a href="https://www.history.ac.uk/events/splendid-mrs-mccheyne-east-london-federation-suffragettes" style="color: #006699; text-decoration-line: none;">https://www.history.ac.uk/events/splendid-mrs-mccheyne-east-london-federation-suffragettes</a></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Mon 21st November 5.30pm. Catherine Howe, Chartism in London in 1848 - seminar postponed</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">Mon 5<sup>th</sup> December Merilyn Moos, Living With Shadows. A memoir of a daughter of German Anti-Nazi activists - seminar postponed </p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;">For more information please contact Keith Flett on the email address above </p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px;"><br /></p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-2123986130594577492022-09-26T07:48:00.004-07:002022-09-26T07:48:45.648-07:00Stalinism and Ultra-Leftism: A Warning from History<p> <b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">New
article on the ‘Third Period’ - correspondence from John McIlroy and Alan Campbell</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">John
McIlroy and Alan Campbell, ‘“Class Against Class: The leadership of the
Communist Party of Great Britain during the Comintern’s Third Period,
1928–1934’, <i>Labor History</i>, vol. 63, no. 2 (2022), pp. 145–189.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">This article
continues our extended prosopographical study of leading British Communists
between the wars. It reports on a survey of the 66 members who served on the
Central Committee (CC) of the British party (CPGB) between 1928 and 1934. We
were able to assemble basic details of 63 of the 66 CC representatives during
these years which are usually termed the Third Period of the Comintern. We drew
a blank on ‘Miss Phillipson’ and ‘J. Parcell’ and were only able to establish a
fragmentary profile of Alexander McLean employed at the Cowlairs Railway
Workshops in Glasgow. This constitutes an authoritative sample unusual in a
literature where studies which combine statistical rigour with collective
biography are rare.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Third Period and the politics of
‘Class Against Class’ in Britain related in intimate but distinctive fashion to
the consolidation of Stalinism, brutal industrialisation and coercive
collectivisation of agriculture in the Soviet Union – Stalin’s ‘second
revolution’. Class Against Class announced a resurgence of capitalist crisis,
the ‘revolutionisation’ of the proletariat and a turn to fascism by the
leadership of the labour movement. As the ‘social fascists’ sought to integrate
labour with the bourgeois state and manage their members in the interests of
capital, the Comintern terminated ‘united front’ initiatives with reformist
leaders, only a ‘united front from below’ of Communists and workers rebelling
against reformism was permissible. The mantle of ‘independent leadership’ fell
on the CPGB which in favourable conditions should attempt to build
revolutionary trade unions. Historians for the most part have concurred with
the party’s official history in deeming the episode ‘a disaster’ (Branson, <i>History
of the Communist Party of Great Britain, 1927–1941</i>, p. 17). The
independent-minded scholar, Leslie Macfarlane, considered that ‘by the end of
the twenties [CPGB] policies had lost almost all contact with reality’ (<i>The British
Communist Party: Its Origin and Development until 1929</i>, p. 279). Roderick
Martin believed the CPGB line was ‘alien to the whole tradition of British
trade unionism, had no chance of success and could only lead to Communist
isolation’ (<i>Communism and the British Trade Unions</i>, p. 121). James
Hinton and Richard Hyman observed ‘the insane sectarianism of Stalin’s “third
period” … by 1930 the CPGB was little more than an isolated sect’ (<i>Trade
Unions and Revolution</i>, pp. 48, 73). Pronouncing ‘The view that social
democracy was therefore a greater danger than the rise of Hitler, indeed that
it could be described as “social fascism” bordered on political insanity’, Eric
Hobsbawm reflected: ‘Excuses for the lunacies of the Comintern may no doubt be
found’ (<i>Interesting Times</i>, pp. 68–69). Within this all-encompassing
political failure, some have drawn attention to Communist work among the unemployed,
workers’ theatre, sporting activity and ‘Little Moscows’ (see, for example,
Matthew Worley, <i>Class Against Class: The Communist Party in Britain Between
the Wars</i>, 2002) – which, of course, Communists saw as an ancillary means of
progressing towards revolution, not as a substitute for it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Much has been written about the
Third Period in Britain; but little is known about many of those who steered
the CPGB through these stormy years. Recuperation repairs an absence in the
historiography. The 63 Communists we studied were examined in relation to their
origins, occupations, prior affiliations, political careers and destinations.
The CC was made up overwhelmingly of workers: 89.1% were from working-class
homes compared with 10.9% from middle-class backgrounds – a slight increase on
earlier years. The male segment of the proletariat predominated, with skilled
manual workers – conventionally seen as the backbone of Communist parties – but
also miners strongly represented. The number of women on the committees more
than doubled; but females remained a small minority – only ten of the 66
representatives, 15.2% were women, while there was only one person of colour,
Palme Dutt, who came from an atypical bourgeois background. Consonant with the
Comintern’s determination to purge those leaders who had been associated with
‘the old line’, 62% of these representatives were newcomers, turnover accelerated
– significantly compared with 1923–1927 – and the Old Guard was removed.
Prominent among those who suffered destructive criticism and whose careers and
lives changed, were Albert Inkpin, Arthur Horner, Tommy Jackson, Andrew
Rothstein, Jock Wilson and, a little later, Jack Murphy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Overall, the mean age of
representatives declined from 37 to 34 years – hardly a triumph of the
Comintern aspiration to youthful renewal. Moscow’s demand that the CC be
restructured to include more factory militants new to the struggle met with
mixed success. Many brought into the leadership on that basis at a time of high
unemployment and victimisation graduated to the party payroll, rather than
continuing to agitate in the workplace. By 1934, 90% of CC representatives were
employed by the CPGB; although the spectrum ran from the semi-permanent to
those on insecure ‘short-term contracts’. Nonetheless, professionalisation of
the party, while still limited, was marked in comparison with the Communist
Party’s predecessors, the British Socialist Party and the Socialist Labour
Party, although they were not subsidised by a state.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But short-term upheaval in these
years failed to achieve a <i>lasting</i> renewal of the party leadership.
Around 75% of those who made their debut on the CC during the years of ‘Class
Against Class’ did not survive beyond them as committee representatives; or
took other leading roles. This had negative implications for Lenin’s
injunctions to construct a stable cadre. On the other hand, a group of 12 who
served on the CC before, during and after the Third Period was bolstered by a cohort
of 10 Newcomers who continued in the party leadership after 1934. However,
renewal was limited. In succeeding decades, none of the latter group challenged
the influence and prestige of the inner core of ageing veterans, notably Harry
Pollitt, J.R. Campbell, Rajani Palme Dutt, Willie Gallacher – all founder
members – and Peter Kerrigan who joined a little later – a group which, for
better or for worse, directed the CPGB from the 1920s until the end of the
1950s.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">To
read the full article:</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/KZR5A6S2ZJKNNVC38TU8/full?target=10.1080/0023656X.2022.2074973"><span style="background: white; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/KZR5A6S2ZJKNNVC38TU8/full?target=10.1080/0023656X.2022.2074973</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-56742911067129031082022-09-13T01:02:00.005-07:002022-09-13T01:02:33.300-07:00Valentine Ackland: A Transgressive Life<div><b>Socialist History Society Talk Via Zoom </b></div><div><b> </b></div><div><b>Valentine Ackland: A Transgressive Life </b></div><div> </div><div>Speaker: Frances Bingham </div><div> </div><div>Wednesday 28th September 2022 at 7pm </div><div> </div><div>Register here (free) </div><div><br /></div><div>http://www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk/?p=1416 </div><div> </div><div>Valentine Ackland was a poet, gender-rebel, and lover of the writer Sylvia Townsend Warner. For much of her life she was under MI5 surveillance for ‘abnormality’ as well as Communism. This talk about Ackland’s transgressive life, by her biographer Frances Bingham, considers her lifelong political activism – which included volunteering for the Spanish Civil War – and the personal politics of her gender deviance. It will also explore Ackland’s poetic role as a champion of the oppressed or silenced – refugees, political prisoners, condemned criminals, hunted animals – and a queer witness to key events of the 20th Century. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>About the speaker </b></div><div>Frances Bingham is a London-based freelance writer who works across the literary spectrum, focusing on gender-transgressive lives like her own. As well as editing <i>Journey from Winter: Selected Poems of Valentine Ackland</i>, and writing the biography <i>Valentine Ackland: A Transgressive Life</i>, she’s published fiction, plays and poetry including a novel, T<i>he Principle of Camouflage; The Blue Hour of Natalie Barney</i>, produced at Arcola Theatre London; <i>Comrade Ackland and I</i>, broadcast on BBC Radio 4; the epic poem MOTHERTONGUE and <i>London Panopticon: a city incantation </i>(both with images by Liz Mathews). </div><div><br /></div>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-91603184553544948762022-07-26T04:28:00.006-07:002022-07-26T04:30:12.835-07:00Communist Women Leaders - John McIlroy and Alan Campbell<p><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Colleagues
may be interested in the following articles:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">John
McIlroy and Alan Campbell, ‘The Comintern, Communist women leaders and the
struggle for women’s liberation in Britain between the wars: a political and
prosopographical investigation, Part 1’, <i>Critique: Journal of Socialist
Theory</i>, 50 (1), pp. 51–105.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/FJTTS325GNNXGRRASJCD/full?target=10.1080/03017605.2022.2050532"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="background: white; font-size: 9pt;">https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/FJTTS325GNNXGRRASJCD/full?target=10.1080/03017605.2022.2050532</span></a><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">John
McIlroy and Alan Campbell, ‘The Comintern, Communist women leaders and the
struggle for women’s liberation in Britain between the wars: a political and
prosopographical investigation, Part 2’, <i>Critique: Journal of Socialist
Theory</i>, 50 (1), pp. 107–153.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YXJJWRYDXGAMUDQEHQXH/full?target=10.1080/03017605.2022.2050533"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="background: white; font-size: 9pt;">https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YXJJWRYDXGAMUDQEHQXH/full?target=10.1080/03017605.2022.2050533</span></a><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">These
articles examine a small group of women active in the labour movement who
participated in the leadership of British Communism between the foundation of
the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1920/21 and the outbreak of the
Second World War. We were able to assemble reasonably fully data on 15 of the
18 women who sat on the Central Committee (CC) of the CPGB during its first
twenty years. They range from well-documented figures such as Helen Crawfurd
and Dora Montefiore to hitherto largely unknown women such as Annie Cree,
Esther Henrotte and Nellie Usher. The sample included women who feature in the
historiography but largely as names, such as Kath Duncan and Beth Turner. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The
two essays provide miniature life histories of our protagonists which focus on
factors such as their social origins; ethnicity; religion; education;
occupation; previous affiliations; political attitudes; and career in the
Communist Party.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In
accordance with prosopographical method, collective biography is complemented
by a statistical survey of this cohort of unusual women who made up no more
than 13% of the total CC membership between the wars. This figure is small,
even when compared with the percentage of women in the party as a whole and is
suggestive of the subordination of women not only in society but in a self-proclaimed
revolutionary party. The group was substantially proletarian but they were more
middle-class than their male CC counterparts or in the party at large. A
majority of women leaders – 60% – had Communist partners; however, it is
perhaps surprising that in 70% of such cases it was the woman who was more
prominent politically. We found high turnover among the female CC
representatives – a factor which hindered construction of a strong cadre – 83%
of our sample served only a single term on the committee. If children and the
calls of family life intruded, in these cases it did not preclude high levels
of activism. Moreover, measured by longevity of CPGB membership, these women
exhibited greater loyalty to the party than comparable male CC representatives.
Leading women exercised the right to be active in a revolutionary organisation and
participate in the general activity of the party as well as specialist work
amongst women. On the whole – and on what we know – they respected conventional
gender roles and sexual mores and with some exceptions offered little explicit
critique of the bourgeois family or the subordinate, secondary role women
usually played in the CPGB. These and other findings are further explored in
the two essays. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The
study contextualises the lives and practice of Communist women in the theory of
women’s liberation adopted by the early Comintern and the CPGB. This derived
from the innovative work of Friedrich Engels and its development and
application by Marxists such as August Bebel and Clara Zetkin in Germany;
Alexandra Kollontai and Konkordiya Samoilova in Russia; and in Britain Dora
Montefiore of the British Socialist Party and Lily Gair Wilkinson in the
Socialist Labour Party. Their approach was blessed by the Second International
but received a fillip from the 1917 Russian Revolution. It was carried over
from the Second to the Third International, approved by Lenin and spearheaded
by Zetkin. Any successful struggle for the meaningful liberation of women, the
Comintern asserted, could not pivot on the struggle of women of all classes to
achieve equal rights and overcome male oppression within the economic and
social status quo. What was necessary was a struggle of women workers in
partnership with their male, working-class comrades to overcome capitalism –
the root cause of women’s oppression and exploitation. The feminists, the
‘equal rightsters’, who pursued equality between the sexes, sometimes within
the bourgeoisie, invariably within the limits set by capitalism, would never
liberate women in any complete human sense. That required that women transcend
their role under capitalism in the reproduction of labour power. They would only
experience full parity and full humanity as equal partners controlling a
socialised productive process and managing the means of production.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The
CPGB never really implemented this approach which demanded the participation of
male Communists working beside their female comrades in the organisation and
execution of agitation among women. The party never adequately educated itself
in the Marxist theory and practice of women’s liberation – or critically
examined the failure of Marxist theory to come to terms with patriarchy and
chauvinism within the working class. Inability to explore the material and
social factors underpinning socially structured prejudice contributed to the
party’s failure in practice. Thwarted by the antagonistic context of interwar
Britain, a weak, overburdened, economistic party and leadership permeated by
conventional consciousness, the degeneration of the Comintern and encroachment
of Stalinism, women’s liberation was shunted into a siding signposted ‘women’s
work’.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Recuperating
revolutionary women frequently hidden from history and representing suppressed
traditions is its own reward. At a time when the socialist left is entering a
fifth decade of sequential decline and feminism has been substantially co-opted
by capitalism, revisiting this past may provide insight into how we reached the
present impasse and provoke rethinking as to how we transcend it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">John
McIlroy and Alan Campbell</span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-25092222031050761182022-05-02T03:44:00.010-07:002022-05-29T03:48:31.616-07:00LSHG Summer Seminars 2022<p><b>Socialist History Seminars Summer 2022</b></p><p><b>[Update - both of these seminars have had to be postponed due to illness]</b></p><p>Below are details of London Socialist Historians seminars for the Summer Term 2022.</p><p>We have been rather constrained by meeting on Mondays and clashing with Bank Holidays this year. Once again seminars are on Zoom. We had hoped to resume in person seminars and while the IHR is allowing this, arrangements are not I’m afraid yet back to pre-pandemic times. We hope to resume some in person seminars in the Autumn term 2022.</p><p>You will need to register via the Institute of Historical Research site (free). They will send you joining details and a reminder of the seminar details the day before.</p><p>Keith Flett, Convenor</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Monday May 16th 5.30pm</b> Jane McChrystal and Anne Padfield. '<b>The Splendid Mrs McCheyne & the East London Federation of Suffragettes'.</b></p><p><br /></p><p>Jane McChrystal writes "The Splendid Mrs McCheyne and the East London Federation of Suffragettes" tells the story of an unsung heroine of ELFS who worked tirelessly in the "back room" supporting brave women such as Nellie Cressall and Annie Barnes, whose names have lived on, in their struggles on behalf of the women, men and children of the East End. Sylvia Pankhurst wrote this about her: " All the ELFS’ members know Mrs McCheyne, for she was one of our first recruits in East London, and has always been one of our hardest workers, having served on the ELFS Social Committees and in many other ways as well as Joint Honorary Secretary in Bromley".</p><p>I first came across her name in the minutes of ELFS' committee meetings and was struck by how often she attended and, yet, how infrequently she spoke or was mentioned there. Intrigued, I resolved to find out whatever I could about her. In the course of my investigation, I was fortunate to be put in touch with her relative, Anne Padfield, who was able to tell me all about her origins, family and the life she led after ELFS.</p><p>Sylvia Pankhurst left behind a record of her years as the leader of ELFS in her collected papers, which proved an invaluable source of background material for "The Splendid Mrs McCheyne". My own research into the key political and social changes in the late nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century provides an historical context for Rosaline's life and work, while an interview with Anne Padfield gives a fascinating insight into the woman her family knew.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Monday May 30th 5.30pm</b>. Catherine Howe. <b>1848: London Story</b></p><p><br /></p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-50793865795347864112022-04-12T08:50:00.006-07:002022-04-13T02:39:43.422-07:00New book - Living with Shadows by Merilyn Moos<p>Merilyn Moos has got in touch to let us know about the publication of her memoir, which we are happy to let LSHG supporters know about. As Merilyn says: </p><p><span color="inherit" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><i>''Living with Shadows</i></span><span color="inherit" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"> is a brief memoir about how I, the daughter of two German refugees and anti-Nazi activists, spent so much of my life 'living with shadows'. I was born into a home of secrets and silences. My father did not speak of his time as a militant anti-Nazi in Berlin nor about how he only just escaped Germany. My mother never spoke of having to flee Moscow, leaving behind her lover who died in the gulags. Neither parent ever spoke of their families. My parents were burdened with fear, regret and guilt. I sucked in their trauma but I also absorbed from them a political and cultural awareness rooted in their earlier lives in Germany. Each chapter of the book addresses distinct episodes in my life. In this short memoir, I reflect on the pains and joys of being the child of refugees.''</span></p><p><span color="inherit" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit;"><b>Living with Shadows</b></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdyIuW3NOzg72ao1Qhlvt73Z0gt043MddLQdBMKDOeP6G3GXBVqkPhvCZAMC0LXscYr_E2Btk6mxT8_aUef-Rr4YNU5G1sQQvPBN0g81y7EAkYFVtki4yYno5I7QZLNaHx76HCdoYRF57FUPj3z9xXxzdVntEi3OmcAgLZTx251ixEmal2tLldcMM/s499/merilynmoos.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="313" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdyIuW3NOzg72ao1Qhlvt73Z0gt043MddLQdBMKDOeP6G3GXBVqkPhvCZAMC0LXscYr_E2Btk6mxT8_aUef-Rr4YNU5G1sQQvPBN0g81y7EAkYFVtki4yYno5I7QZLNaHx76HCdoYRF57FUPj3z9xXxzdVntEi3OmcAgLZTx251ixEmal2tLldcMM/s320/merilynmoos.jpg" width="201" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span face=""Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-size: 14px;">In this short memoir, Merilyn Moos, who was born towards the end of the Second World War, reveals how her life was framed by the two ‘isms’ of the 20th century: Nazism and Stalinism. Her parents had grown up in the political cauldron of early twentieth century Germany and became committed anti-Nazis before fleeing to Britain. In a series of brief autobiographical chapters, Merilyn Moos writes about how she was deeply affected by her parents’ political and cultural heritage and teases out the pains and joys of being the child of refugees: 'the second generation'.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span><span class="a-text-italic" face=""Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic;">Living with Shadows</span><span face=""Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-size: 14px;"> is a succinct and emotionally revelatory book which translates the 'grand events' of recent history into the personal details of lived experience....</span></p><div id="app" style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: 625px; 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font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #201f1e;" type="cite"><div style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="x_ox-6e834d9807-x_thread-view x_ox-6e834d9807-x_list-view" style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="x_ox-6e834d9807-x_mail-detail-content x_ox-6e834d9807-x_noI18n x_ox-6e834d9807-x_simple-mail" style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="font-style: inherit;">Reviews</p><p><span style="font-style: inherit;">'I've just finished reading Living with Shadows which came through the letter box a couple of hours ago. It's is a terrific book: moving without being sentimental and brilliantly able to communicate the nature of our imbrication in the cultural and political air and shadows we inhabit and absorb. You are so wonderfully present in your writing that I can almost imagine you here in person. Thank you for writing it.' Ian Patterson, author of </span><i>Nemo's Almanac,Guernica</i><span style="font-style: inherit;"> and </span><i>Total War</i><span style="font-style: inherit;">, co-edited,</span><i>War and Literature</i><span style="font-style: inherit;"> and lots of poetry books</span></p><p><span style="font-style: inherit;">'Merilyn Moos is well known for her profound analyses of cultural history, especially the experience of the second generation whose parents fled Nazism, and of German resistance to Nazism. In this short and fascinating memoir, she reveals how her life in Britain was shaped by the cultural heritage of Germany as well as by the political forces of the twentieth century, and how the continuing ripples of the long, and dark, shadows of wars and revolution continue to affect her. Deeply personal yet politically luminous, this is writing that translates the largest cultural and political forces into the details of everyday life.'’Hugh Brody, author of </span><i>Maps and Dreams</i><span style="font-style: inherit;"> and</span><i> The Other Side of Eden</i></p><p><span style="font-style: inherit;">'The great grand niece of Albert Einstein and daughter of German refugees, Merilyn was born into a home of secrecy and paranoia. Her parents lived under Nazism and Stalinism.Her father was a member of the Red Front. After the Reichstag fire,he escaped the Gestapo by walking across Germany. Her mother fled Moscow, leaving behind her lover who died in the gulags.She never stopped mourning him or blaming herself.<br aria-hidden="true" />Brought up in Durham, Merilyn's parents were burdened with regret and guilt. As a child, Merilyn took comfort in books, and as an adult in her sculptures and her own political activism.<br aria-hidden="true" />This short memoir is a penetrating and personal reflection on her life.' David Wilson, founder of </span><i>War Child</i><br aria-hidden="true" /></p></div></div></div></blockquote><div style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="x_ox-6e834d9807-x_thread-view x_ox-6e834d9807-x_list-view" style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="x_ox-6e834d9807-x_mail-detail-content x_ox-6e834d9807-x_noI18n x_ox-6e834d9807-x_simple-mail" style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p><br /></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com40tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-75704749829893726322022-03-06T02:49:00.007-08:002022-03-06T02:49:42.620-08:00London Socialist Historians Group Newsletter online and final Spring seminar<p><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The latest issue of the <i>London Socialist Historians Group Newsletter </i>75 (spring 2022) is now online on this site - with pieces by Ian Birchall, John Newsinger and Keith Flett among other things - and the final seminar in our Spring programme will be: </span></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Simon Hannah 'Lessons of Lambeth: municipal socialism in the 1980s' </p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Monday 14<sup>th</sup> March 5.30pm</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">This is the last in our series of Spring seminars. Simon Hannah will talk on his latest book on radical Lambeth</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">It is free on Zoom but you need to register below</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.history.ac.uk/events/lessons-lambeth-municipal-socialism-1980z" rel="nofollow" style="color: #006699; text-decoration-line: none;">https://www.history.ac.uk/events/lessons-lambeth-municipal-socialism-1980z</a></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><em>In the 1980s Lambeth was synonymous with rebel Labour councillors and featured regularly in national newspaper headlines for its protests, its squatting, and its resistance to and defiance of central government. From the Town Hall to the front line of Railton Road it confronted racism in the police, the Poll Tax, the Gulf War, and the nascent Thatcherism of the Conservative government. It was a site of overlapping resistance from trade unionists, black residents, the LGBTQ community, and other local people.</em></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><em>Condemned in the press as a ‘loony left’ borough, Lambeth was at the heart of the struggle against the Conservative agenda in the capital. This was a fight for municipal socialism, for solidarity with causes both at home and abroad, and against the crisis of inner city urban life in a decade dominated by greed is good capitalism at the expense of working people.</em></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><em>Drawing on first-hand accounts from those involved, this book tells the story of Radical Lambeth, an inner London community that fought back.</em></p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-5498723751292460232022-02-28T10:05:00.002-08:002022-02-28T10:05:12.626-08:00Review Article: Germans Against the Nazis<p><i>[From London Socialist Historians Group Newsletter 75 Spring 2022]</i></p><p><b>Germans against the Nazis </b></p><p>The treatment of Afghan refugees has revealed both the
incompetence and the deep-lying racism of the British
state. But there is nothing new here. While we should
not draw parallels too closely, it can be illuminating to
compare episodes from the past. So it is interesting to
look at the way the British state responded to the arrivals
of refugees from Nazi Germany after 1933. </p><p>Merilyn Moos has already written a good deal on the topic
of anti-Nazi German exiles. Some readers may know her
fascinating semi-autobiographical novel <i>The Language of
Silence</i> [http://grimanddim.org/cultural-writings/2012-
the-language-of-silence/ ] , her biography of her father
Siegfried Moos [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beaten-ButNot-Defeated-Siegfried/dp/1782796770 ] and her book on
anti-Nazi Germans written jointly with Steve Cushion.
[https://www.rs21.org.uk/2020/04/09/review-anti-nazigermans/ ]</p><p> Now she has published, on her website
[http://anti-nazi-resistance.net/. ], no fewer than three
more books on the subject.
Merilyn is the daughter of two exiles from Nazi Germany
who came here in the 1930s. She herself is very much
English. Her parents never taught her German, and she
has had to rely on comrades and friends for translations
of German-language material. She doubtless cheered for
England when they beat West Germany in the famous
World Cup final of 1966. She has spent her life active in
the British labour movement, in particular helping to
build a rank-and-file current in NATFHE which laid the
foundations for today's UCU Left. Few people know that
her distinctive surname should be pronounced mow-ss (to
rhyme with gross) and not “moose”. </p><p>But national identity is a complex thing in a globalised
world and Merilyn has been fascinated with getting a
better understanding of her origins. In the first of the
three books, <i>Anti-Nazi Exiles: German Socialists in
Britain and their Shifting Alliances 1933-1945</i>, she looks
at the reception given to anti-Nazi exiles. As she makes
clear it wasn't much of a welcome. The British authorities
did their best to limit the number of Germans admitted,
even though they faced persecution and death in their
native land. Those who were allowed in were subjected
to intensive surveillance – indeed the fact that we can
know so much about them is partly a result of MI5
archives. Even when at war with Hitler's Germany the
British state found the time and resources to scrutinise
the activities of those who had risked their lives to
oppose Hitler. They were followed and observed even
when researching in the British Library. For a time they
were interned on the Isle of Man. Some were deported to
Alabama, where they were kept in a concentration camp
alongside Nazi prisoners, which put them in considerable
physical danger; some anti-Nazis were actually murdered
by fellow-prisoners. The camp commander simply stated:
“For me you are all Germans”. </p><p>All this makes sense in the context of the British war
aims. Contrary to later myths and pretences Britain was
not fighting a war against fascism. The British ruling class
had been quite sympathetic to fascism, as was shown by
the policy of “non-intervention” in the Spanish Civil War,
which feared communism more than fascism, and by
Churchill's publicly expressed admiration for Mussolini. </p><p>For a significant section of the British ruling class their
support for the war took the form of what is often called
Vansittartism. Robert Vansittart, a leading civil servant,
claimed that Nazism was a natural outcome of the
German national character; so all Germans were
ultimately the same and German refugees were all
suspect. This view even infected the Labour Party. Denis
Healey described Labour's International Secretary,
William Gillies, as a “cantankerous Scot who distrusted
foreigners and hated all Germans”. </p><p>In fact, as Merilyn shows, there were many courageous
anti-fascists among the German exiles – they were much
more consistent anti-fascists than those who were
running the British state. As she reminds us, it was only
two decades since the 1918-23 period, when Germany
had come close to the brink of working-class revolution.
The many thousands who had been active in those mass
struggles had not gone over to Nazism – on the contrary a
great many remained active in the opposition to Hitler.</p><p>Merilyn does not romanticise the German left. There
were deep political divisions which weakened the
resistance and often revealed a serious misunderstanding
as to who was the real enemy. The absurd line that Social
Democrats were “social fascists” was only a few years in
the past, and the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939 caused
confusion and unnecessary antagonisms. Beyond that, as
Merilyn points out, there were the divisions that are all
too familiar on the left: “The struggles amongst and
between the different groupings were vicious. Old
political enmities were not overcome despite their being
in a foreign land and with a common enemy. People
within the same group fell out disastrously with each
other: mistrust flourished and old friendships
terminated.” </p><p>Nonetheless she gives us a vivid picture of what the
resistance to Hitler was able to achieve. Despite
repression oppositional literature was circulated quite
widely and she describes various means by which it was
smuggled into Germany and circulated. 3 inches square
newspapers were printed and distributed. A manifesto
was got into Germany disguised as a promotional booklet
for razor blades. One pamphlet was printed on specially
thin paper that could be swallowed in an emergency.
Railway workers deposited smuggled pamphlets in the
sleeping cars of express trains; local activists pulled the
pamphlets out when the train stopped. </p><p>The second volume, <i>Hans Jahn: Biography of an Anti-Nazi
Trade Unionist</i>, deals with one individual, Hans Jahn. To
my shame I had never heard of him; his remarkable story
should be more widely known. Jahn was a central figure
in organising the anti-Nazi underground struggle amongst
railway workers. As Merilyn points out, the railways were
indispensable to the Nazi regime: “the railways became
the crucial transport for deportations as well as of
military equipment. The railway carried Jews, political
prisoners and others to the ghettoes and the camps, and
shuttled soldiers and supplies to the front.” At the very
beginning of the war he was involved in launching
balloons from Luxembourg which carried leaflets into the
occupied territories. </p><p>At the end of 1940 he came to Britain. In 1943 he helped to
organise an international railway workers' conference in
London. Amazingly in wartime conditions, it was attended by
46 trade unionists from fourteen European countries. </p><p>The third volume is <i>German Anti-Nazis and the British
Empire: The Special Operations Executive, Deserters from
the German Army and Partisan Movements in Occupied
Europe</i>. It deals with German anti-Nazis who did not come
to Britain, but who fought alongside British forces in
various parts of the world. As Merilyn points out, this
involved a clash of loyalties. Many anti-Nazis considered
themselves revolutionaries; to agree to cooperate with the
British imperialist state was a serious compromise, though
one whose necessity they recognised. </p><p>Some German anti-Nazis had gone to fight on the
republican side in Spain; when Franco triumphed they
fled to France. Here I note one of the very few significant
errors of fact in Merilyn's account. She writes that in April
1939, “many had fled to France where the Vichy
Government quickly interned them, often in appalling
conditions”. But this was over a year before the pro-Nazi
Vichy regime was established. The (brutal) camps for
veterans of the Spanish war were set up by the French
Popular Front parliament, which had been elected with
such high hopes only three years earlier.</p><p> Some of these German exiles went on to fight alongside
British forces in the Special Operations Executive (SOE),
set up to promote sabotage and subversion in enemy occupied territory. Here they were able to contribute to
the British war effort. </p><p>But a conflict of loyalties came in Greece. As the war
drew to a close, Churchill was more concerned to
preserve British influence in Greece than to fight fascism.
Some Germans had deserted from the Wehrmacht to fight
alongside the Greek partisans. But then British forces
were turned against the Greek anti-fascist partisans who
were seen as having communist sympathies. This was too
much for the German anti-Nazis, some of whom fought
with the Greek partisans. </p><p>Merilyn only touches on developments after 1945; there is
a whole further book to be written there. Some German
anti-Nazis stayed in Britain; others returned to their now
divided country, becoming either members of the ruling
Communist Party in East Germany, or turning to the
rightward-moving Social Democratic Party in the West. A
few moved to the right. And as she also notes, some exNazis went to work for the American CIA.
Within a few years everything would change. With NATO,
Korea and the Cold War, West Germany had to be brought
into the military alliance against the USSR. Vansittartism
was forgotten; suddenly everything German was to be
made attractive and West Germany welcomed into the
ranks of Britain's allies.</p><p> If Vansittartism survived, it was in that home of lost
causes, the British Communist Party. I remember
attending a Nuclear Disarmament demonstration in about
1963 and being shocked to find it flooded with placards of
the Young Communist League with the slogan “No
German finger on the trigger”. I had been attracted by
the generous internationalism of the nuclear
disarmament movement, and was appalled by the
suggestion that German nuclear weapons were somehow
worse than British or American. </p><p>Merilyn is cautious about drawing parallels with the
present but some are obvious. Thus we read of one
German Jew who got to France from Italy “on an
overcrowded fishing boat from which several passengers
fell and drowned”. In her conclusion she warns of the
dangers of the re-emergence of fascism, quoting Brecht:
“The bitch that bore him is in heat again.” I am
sceptical. There are some very unpleasant and dangerous
trends in contemporary politics. But they may not lead to
a rerun of fascism, but rather to something new and
unprecedented if equally nasty. </p><p>But overall Merilyn has made a very useful contribution to
our understanding of the Second World War. Her
research, in the National Archives and elsewhere, is
extensive and meticulous – even if one might have wished
for a somewhat more orderly presentation. But there is
much to be learned here, and these three books should
be widely read and discussed. </p><p><b>Ian Birchall</b></p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-41944587953577342082022-02-28T09:55:00.005-08:002022-02-28T10:12:41.128-08:00Book Review: Different Class<p><i>[From the London Socialist Historians Group Newsletter 75 Spring 2022]</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHLLRbF0VFiLQ8yJ_r-swpzSR4J4NauCnj_AxB0P--LmNhGxJ268_bd_GGTGji3K2Yjzirf4JqBd7oRIOGgcJxjlDNvqDvCY-Z2ySxY9MdeErnFome9crGelUrrqv7mXgaCnhGNpCNvk7mtvjx6upuqZjzo_yxzDqSpnGiLkWEexN7IbaFaV2v_l0=s300" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHLLRbF0VFiLQ8yJ_r-swpzSR4J4NauCnj_AxB0P--LmNhGxJ268_bd_GGTGji3K2Yjzirf4JqBd7oRIOGgcJxjlDNvqDvCY-Z2ySxY9MdeErnFome9crGelUrrqv7mXgaCnhGNpCNvk7mtvjx6upuqZjzo_yxzDqSpnGiLkWEexN7IbaFaV2v_l0" width="300" /></a></div><i><br /></i><p></p><p><b><i>Different Class: The Untold Story of English Cricket</i></b></p><p>By Duncan Stone </p><p>Repeater, January 2022 </p><p>978-1913462802 </p><p>300pp paperback </p><p>Duncan Stone’s new book on the history of English
cricket, will not be popular with the cricket
Establishment. A discussion on <i>Test Match Special </i>seems
unlikely, and while it’s quite early days I could find only
two mainstream media reviews, both positive. These were
in the <i>Yorkshire Post </i>and the <i>Northern Echo</i> and let’s face
it, Yorkshire cricket has problems that need explaining. </p><p>Stone did a Ph.D at Huddersfield and is a keen cricketer.
We are talking here about grassroots cricket not the
County structures let alone England. Yet without the
former the latter struggle as the recent Ashes series
underlined, again. </p><p>The book looks at his early attempts to become a league
cricketer in Surrey where, compared to the north of
England, the cricket was organised on a relatively exclusive
class focused basis. He looks at class discrimination in
cricket from the bottom up and how this has to an extent,
but only to an extent, changed over time. After all the
majority of the current England red ball team attended
public school as did the England Under-19 squad. </p><p>Of course this point reflects the reality that facilities to
learn the skills of cricket for teenagers are often only to
be found at public schools now, so attendance, as for
example in the case of Joe Root, was a matter of
necessity, rather than privilege. The disappearance of
school playing fields and the lack of cricket played in
state schools, as well
as the decline of
company cricket
facilities in recent
decades, underlines
the point.</p><p> Stone then rightly
overlays this with the
rise of cricket
competitions and
leagues played by
ethnic minority
cricketers. These are
separate to the
existing leagues,
again no doubt with
discrimination being a
key issue. Official
efforts to integrate and promote players into the upper
professional structures of English cricket, for example
<i>Chance to Shine</i>, have perhaps been well intentioned but
had relatively little impact. The recent revelations about
Yorkshire cricket underline the point and one of the key
reasons for it: racism. </p><p>Stone’s conclusion argues that the ECB which runs English
and Welsh cricket cannot be reformed. It has to be
replaced and a body with different assumptions about
cricket brought into being. Here Stone sees the
dominant, conservative, history of cricket as a key issue.
The assumption cricket is about fair play and gentlemanly
conduct reflects a game with origins in the ruling class.
Cricket’s future lies with the grassroots, where it is
played between equals and which school someone went
to or club they belong to is not a relevant issue. </p><p>Stone’s book is an important historical intervention into a
sporting debate that is touching on some of the key
issues facing British society. </p><p><b>Keith Flett</b></p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-72456111717230485882022-02-28T09:51:00.002-08:002022-02-28T09:51:19.881-08:00A history of the present<p> [From the<i> London Socialist Historians Group Newsletter</i> 75 Spring 2022]</p><p><b>The Report of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel: A history of the present </b></p><p>With the government proposing draconian new legislation in
its Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill, it might be worth
looking at an incident in the history of the Metropolitan Police,
which is one of the forces charged with carrying out its
provisions. Last year, The Report of the Daniel Morgan
Independent Panel appeared that charged the Metropolitan
Police with "Institutional Corruption". Since then the silence
has been deafening. The report has been buried. Below are
some direct quotations from the The Report of the Daniel
Morgan Independent Panel: </p><p>It is now more than three decades since Daniel Morgan was
murdered with axe blows to the head in a dark car park
behind a public house in Sydenham, South East London, on 10
March 1987. An investigation began that would prove to be
the first of several murder investigations and other police
operations arising from, or linked to the murder, or those
associated with it, none of which has succeeded in bringing to
justice the person or persons responsible for Daniel Morgan’s
murder.</p><p> Allegations of police corruption arose soon after the
murder, and the case became notorious because of this. When
successive investigations failed to identify the perpetrator(s)
of the murder or expose the role of police corruption in the
murder or the murder investigations, the family of Daniel
Morgan, frustrated by the lack of progress, mounted a
formidable campaign. In 2013, the Home Secretary appointed
the Independent Panel to conduct ‘a full and effective review
of corruption as it affected the handling of this case and of
the treatment of the family by the police and other parts of
the criminal justice system’. </p><p>In 2011, the Metropolitan Police stated that ‘[t]he MPS
[Metropolitan Police Service] has accepted that police
corruption in the original investigation was a significant
factor in this failure’. When asked for specific details of what
that corruption was which prevented those responsible from
being brought to justice, how and when this corruption had
been investigated and what they were doing to prevent such
corruption occurring again, no clear answer emerged. </p><p>The Metropolitan Police have not been able to explain what
it meant by its various statements about individual police
corruption adversely affecting the investigation of Daniel
Morgan’s murder. This is an extraordinary situation, given that
the concerns about police corruption have been the strongest
concern (other than the identification of the murderer(s) of
Daniel Morgan) of the members of his family and others, and
have created enormous public interest in this case. </p><p>When failings in police investigations are combined with
unjustified reassurances rather than candour on the part of
the Metropolitan Police, this may constitute institutional
corruption. The Metropolitan Police’s culture of obfuscation
and a lack of candour is unhealthy in any public service.
Concealing or denying failings, for the sake of the
organisation’s public image, is dishonesty on the part of the
organisation for reputational benefit. In the Panel’s view, this
constitutes a form of institutional corruption. </p><p>Lack of candour about past failures is not conducive to
better policing, especially when those failures include
corruption. There is a risk that, if a police force does not
acknowledge corruption and combat it promptly and robustly,
some officers may believe they can behave corruptly without
consequences. With regard to the murder of Daniel Morgan
and its investigation, placing the reputation of the
organisation above the need for accountability and
transparency did not prevent further corrupt behaviour. </p><p>The historical intelligence examined does not reflect a
‘rotten apple’ model of corruption. It is indicative of systemic
failings, including the existence of a corrupt culture.</p><p>The family of Daniel Morgan suffered grievously as a
consequence of the failure to bring his murderer(s) to justice,
the misinformation which was put into the public domain,
and the denial of failings in investigation, including failures to
acknowledge professional incompetence, individuals’ venal
behaviour, and managerial and organisational failings.
Unwarranted assurances were given to the family, and the
Metropolitan Police placed the reputation of the organisation
above the need for accountability and transparency. The lack
of candour and the repeated failure to take a fresh, thorough
and critical look at past failings are all symptoms of
institutional corruption, which prioritises institutional
reputation over public accountability. </p><p>There has been a failure over decades to tackle police
corruption effectively and to resource anti-corruption work
properly. There is evidence that, despite efforts over many
years, a culture still exists that inhibits both organisational
and individual accountability</p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-78182367287329071092022-02-28T09:47:00.004-08:002022-02-28T10:10:47.056-08:00Book Review: Hijacking History<p><i> [From London Socialist Historians Group Newsletter 75 Spring 2022]</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjuLtsKWZNJGBG6yD0dCVxlDR2v5o1Zl1-il5VTjAwjGh727yLe9EJPKCh4GmR1gZeh5yRaZh10NPqjjsk4x61s_VGneQB5xkqUonPwgMkYqlgfo3FJjq7WhjakwglgjYyFAj3psvgMWbT22V248278GCGqMA84_k7qILz7BHspp7pbXyuzsjp_HHo=s1200" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjuLtsKWZNJGBG6yD0dCVxlDR2v5o1Zl1-il5VTjAwjGh727yLe9EJPKCh4GmR1gZeh5yRaZh10NPqjjsk4x61s_VGneQB5xkqUonPwgMkYqlgfo3FJjq7WhjakwglgjYyFAj3psvgMWbT22V248278GCGqMA84_k7qILz7BHspp7pbXyuzsjp_HHo=s320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><i><br /></i><p></p><p><i>Hijacking History
How the Christian Right Teaches
History and Why It Matters </i></p><p>Kathleen Wellman </p><p>Oxford University Press </p><p>2021</p><p>ISBN 9780197579251 </p><p>This might well seem a
peripheral subject of little
real interest or concern,
but anyone thinking that
would be seriously wrong.
The US Christian Right were
crucial in the election of
Donald Trump to the
Presidency in 2016, were
still right behind him in
2020 and are essential to
the continuation of his hold
over Republican politics in
the USA. And as far as they
are concerned, control of
education is an absolutely vital concern. An important
part of their concern is ensuring that the teaching of
history is always Biblically informed. </p><p>What prompted Kathleen Wellman, Professor of History at
the Southern Methodist University, to investigate the
history textbooks and curricula used in evangelical schools
and to write <i>Hijacking History</i> was the decision of the
State Board of Education in Texas to impose ‘ahistorical
stipulations on teaching history’. </p><p>She put herself forward as a reviewer of the textbooks
and curricula that were being considered, but was turned
down, whereas Mark Keogh, a former car salesman and
now an ordained minister and Tea Party supporter was
accepted! As she points out: ‘I was just one of many
academics rejected’. </p><p>She goes on to explain the likely
reason for this rejection: the Christian Right saw ‘the
historical profession as promoting positions antithetical to
theirs, it identified historians as the enemy – left‐wing,
Marxist, feminist, or anti‐American’. For the Christian
Right, it was the Bible that explained the unfolding of
history.
She responded to this by examining the textbooks and
curricula produced by three Christian Right publishers:
Abeka Books, the Bob Jones University Press and
Accelerated Christian Learning. These were, she tells us,
‘all long‐standing, conservative Christian publishers whose
wares served the private schools that proliferated after
desegregation but are now used by homeschoolers and in
charter schools and private schools’. They all began
publishing school materials in the 1970s and have thrived
ever since. Accelerated Christian Education (ACE), for
example, by 2013 claimed to serve some 6,000 schools in
145 countries. </p><p> A particular concern was to proselytise in Africa, but the
organisation also had more than thirty schools, all private,
using its materials in Britain and Ireland. Even more
successful, Abeka, which is attached to Pensacola
Christian College, produces material ‘used in more than
10,000 schools’ along with many thousands of
homeschoolers. The College trains teachers and its
publishing arm, Abeka, ‘has a massive presence online’.
More than 50,000 homeschooled students in the US are
enrolled in its Video Streaming academy. There are over a
million children, both in school and at home, using Abeka
textbooks and materials. Which brings us to the Bob Jones
University Press (BJUP)! </p><p>The BJUP was founded in 1973 as the publishing arm of a
notoriously sectarian and racist so‐called educational
institution, the Bob Jones University. Its vicious anti‐
Catholicism vied with its vicious racism with its founder,
Bob Jones no less, on one occasion notoriously remarking
that he would rather have a ‘nigger’ as President than a
Catholic. This university notoriously banned black students
right up until 1971, then required that they be married up
until 1975, continued to ban mixed‐race married couples up
to 1998 and inter‐racial dating up until 2000. </p><p>This was all ‘on biblical grounds’. Indeed, as far as the first
three of the university’s chancellors were concerned, Bob
Jones I, Bob Jones II and Bob Jones III, segregation was
biblically proscribed, ‘God intended racial segregation’.
Successive right‐wing politicians, among them Ronald
Reagan, have sought the endorsement of the Bob Jones
University. </p><p> It is also worth noticing that our very own Ian Paisley, no
less, was a member of the BJU board of trustees. And
according to Wellman, the BJUP at present ‘has over a
million pre‐college students using its textbooks’ and like
both the other publishers she looks at also has offers
online classes and materials.</p><p> Wellman goes on to examine the textbooks and curricula
materials these publishers have produced. As she puts it,
what she lays bare ‘may astound historians unfamiliar
with the religious right’s use of history’, indeed, ‘history as
practiced by historians bears little resemblance to the
polemical stances of these textbooks’. </p><p>She goes on to emphasise how dangerous this is, warning
how the Christian Right’s success ‘in undermining biology
should heighten concern about deliberate distortions in
history’. Her examination is absolutely first class, but there is only space here to briefly dip into her account, to
highlight some of the low points so to speak. </p><p>Abeka materials, for example, are very critical of the way
the Roman populace were kept under control by a
strategy of ‘bread and circuses’, but not for the reasons
one might normally assume. Indeed not: it was the
provision of ‘bread, an early form of ‘welfarism’ that
undermined the moral fibre of the Roman people and
helped bring about the fall of the Roman Empire! And this
anti‐welfarism is brought more up to date when Lyndon
Johnson’s Great Society initiatives are blamed for the US
defeat in Vietnam. </p><p>She looks at Abeka materials dealing with slavery and the
Civil War where it is argued that ‘slavery bestowed the
benefits of evangelization’ with the slaves learning that
‘the truest freedom is freedom from the bondage of sin’. </p><p> The horrors of slavery are effectively diminished with the
Lost Cause myth remaining ‘salient’. As for the BJUP
treatment of slavery, its textbooks actually ‘use biblical
slavery as injunctions to present‐day employers and
employees. The biblical master‐slave relationship…is
invoked as a model for twentieth‐century American labour
relations’ Which brings us to the Ku Klux Klan: while the
BJUP textbook acknowledges its racism, it also ‘defends it
as a force for moral improvement’.</p><p>The textbooks and curricula materials from all three
publishers emphasise the benefits that the colonised
peoples derived from Western Imperialism and
colonialism, not least, of course, the activities of the
missionaries. The exploitation, repression, suffering and
hardship imposed on the colonised are relentlessly
minimised. This is, of course, only to be expected, and the
Christian Right is hardly alone in taking this stance. </p><p> More surprising perhaps was the vehement hostility
towards the United Nations (UN) in Abeka materials. The
UN is ‘a threat to freedom around the world’ and
‘contrary to the basic Judeo‐Christian concept of law
which limits government’. Indeed, it is ‘a collectivist
juggernaut that would crush individual freedom and force
the will of an elite few on all of humanity’. </p><p>This is, in fact, a commonplace of US Right. It is also
interesting to see ACE materials supporting the military
overthrow of the Allende government in Chile in 1973, with
the ‘Chilean people begging the military to overthrow the
government’. She writes of how ‘ACE notes with approval’
that the coup ‘was carried out with the support of the CIA’. </p><p>One last point that is of particular importance at the
present time is that these Christian publishers are anti‐
environmentalist. As far as Abeka is concerned, for
example, ‘Environmentalism poses a direct threat to
Christianity’ and ‘climate science violates the Creation
Mandate’. Never have such attitudes and prejudices
been more dangerous. </p><p>There is so much more of interest in this volume. It deals
with an important subject thoroughly and with
considerable insight. Whether we like it or not the
Christian Right is not going away and we must know our
enemy. </p><p><b>John Newsinger</b></p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-45007772929048441622022-02-28T09:36:00.011-08:002022-02-28T10:09:15.847-08:00Comment - Historians of the Present - David Olusoga at the Colston 4 trial <p><i>[From the London Socialist Historians Group Newsletter 75 Spring 2022]</i></p><p><b>Historians of the Present</b></p><p><b>David Olusoga at
the Colston 4 trial </b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4DePxaG-ci9QFKqFqcCDx9mLyZ7D6DMu8J9_reTSPARwBLuB4m-R_NFZPEBRkanuNqjrMPykBGu4xivBImDnysqYKw2E6ZOGFGEYsJeKbPPLv_e0qHvHgSHibiy4tDjdF6zP2peUfFNUDsD3XktfcNFjYMFxuutNTPs4kbhEDF6Gysx4k0OZJBNE=s1280" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4DePxaG-ci9QFKqFqcCDx9mLyZ7D6DMu8J9_reTSPARwBLuB4m-R_NFZPEBRkanuNqjrMPykBGu4xivBImDnysqYKw2E6ZOGFGEYsJeKbPPLv_e0qHvHgSHibiy4tDjdF6zP2peUfFNUDsD3XktfcNFjYMFxuutNTPs4kbhEDF6Gysx4k0OZJBNE=s320" width="320" /></a></div><b><br /></b><p></p><p>As long ago as the late 1950s the Marxist historian Eric
Hobsbawm called for the then Communist Party
Historians Group to become ‘historians of the present
too’. This was a difficult point because while Marxist
historians were free to opine and disagree on the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the then Soviet
Union determined the view on current history. </p><p>That has now changed but historical input into present
day issues has remained quite limited. One obvious
example is the almost complete absence of historical
views on how Governments have handled pandemics
for example.
On the other hand a very good example was the expert
witness statement that the historian and broadcaster
David Olusoga provided to the trial of the Colston 4 in
December 2021.</p><p>The Colston 4 were found not guilty in January 2022.
Martin Booth, a journalist, provided an account of the
trial, partially reproduced below. </p><p><b>Keith Flett</b></p><p> Thursday Dec 16, 2021 </p><p>There were remarkable scenes in Bristol Crown Court
on Thursday as one of the UK’s foremost historians
was called as an expert defence witness in the trial of
the four people accused of criminal damage to the
statue of Edward Colston.
David Olusoga took the jury back in time several
centuries to the height of the transatlantic slave
trade, described the horrifying conditions enslaved
people were forced to endure and spoke of Colston’s
part in the enterprise.
In front of a packed public gallery, the professor spoke
of Colston’s attempts at “reputation laundering”
during his lifetime and later the “cult” that grew up
around his philanthropy that led to the erection of his
statue in 1895, 174 years after his death in 1721.
Olusoga said that the money to pay for the statue was
raised by “a tiny group of the city’s elite”, with the
wording of the plaque on the now empty plinth “a
form of camouflage”.
“This is not an issue of amnesia. This is people aware
of his background (as a slave trader) finding a way of
not saying it.”
Olusoga told the jury about the “interventions” that
appeared on the statue in recent years when it was
still standing, including a knitted ball and chain made
of red wool, and a “guerrilla plaque”.
He also spoke about an aborted official heritage
plaque, whose words were “toned down” by the
Society of Merchant Venturers and in particular by
Francis Greenacre, one of its members.
Olusoga said that the Merchant Venturers “seemed to
be committed to trying to historically minimise”
Colston’s involvement in the slave trade “by making it
seem more normal”.
“The statue was not just silent about Colston’s
business interests. What offended in particular many
people was that it was silent about his victims”
including the many children who died on his slave
ships.
When a reworded plaque was suggested, Olusoga said
that “it was felt by mayor Marvin Rees that the final
wording was so watered down that it was not
appropriate to be erected”.
Liam Walker, representing Sage Willoughby, asked
Olusoga if the statue of Colston being toppled from its
plinth and rolled into the docks on June 7 2020 was an
act of violence?
“I think it is something I can comment upon,” replied
Olusoga… </p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-60385091235178100222022-02-14T05:06:00.003-08:002022-02-14T05:06:11.597-08:00Socialism in the English-speaking Caribbean seminar series <p><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "PT Sans", serif; font-size: 20px;">The</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "PT Sans", serif; font-size: 20px;"> </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "PT Sans", serif; font-size: 20px;">Socialist History Society</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "PT Sans", serif; font-size: 20px;">,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "PT Sans", serif; font-size: 20px;"> </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "PT Sans", serif; font-size: 20px;">The Institute of Commonwealth Studies</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "PT Sans", serif; font-size: 20px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "PT Sans", serif; font-size: 20px;">and</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "PT Sans", serif; font-size: 20px;"> </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "PT Sans", serif; font-size: 20px;">The Society for Caribbean Studies</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "PT Sans", serif; font-size: 20px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "PT Sans", serif; font-size: 20px;">will be holding a series of online research seminars.</span></p><div class="entry-content" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "PT Sans", serif; font-size: 20px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; overflow-wrap: break-word;">The participants have been invited to submit written papers in advance of the seminars. These will be available to everyone who registers.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-weight: 700;">Attendance is free, but advance registration is necessary.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; overflow-wrap: break-word;">You can <a href="http://www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/programme.pdf" rel="noopener" style="background-color: transparent; color: #2f48d6; transition: background-color 0.15s ease-in-out 0s, border-color 0.15s ease-in-out 0s, color 0.15s ease-in-out 0s, opacity 0.15s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">download the programme and the abstracts of the presentations here…</a></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-weight: 700;">16th March</span> – register here:<br /><a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0rd--vqTgoGdbtgRcXT2iQMtBrSmDvk_Wu" rel="noopener" style="background-color: transparent; color: #2f48d6; transition: background-color 0.15s ease-in-out 0s, border-color 0.15s ease-in-out 0s, color 0.15s ease-in-out 0s, opacity 0.15s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Sans", sans-serif;">https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0rd–vqTgoGdbtgRcXT2iQMtBrSmDvk_Wu</span></a></p><table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); font-size: 18.76px; margin: 0px 0px 1.6em; width: 699px;"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="138">Ozzi Warwick</td><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="543">History of Socialism in the English-speaking Caribbean</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="138">Valentine Smith</td><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="543">The New Left and the Black Power Movement in Trinidad and Tobago</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="138">Ben Gowland</td><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="543">Black Power and Socialism in the West Indies</td></tr></tbody></table><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-weight: 700;">23rd March</span><span style="font-weight: 700;"> </span>– register here: <a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIucOyopzwqHtYXc9zcGRNv2IKnpSzFjRuc" rel="noopener" style="background-color: transparent; color: #2f48d6; transition: background-color 0.15s ease-in-out 0s, border-color 0.15s ease-in-out 0s, color 0.15s ease-in-out 0s, opacity 0.15s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Sans", sans-serif;">https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIucOyopzwqHtYXc9zcGRNv2IKnpSzFjRuc</span></a></p><table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); font-size: 18.76px; margin: 0px 0px 1.6em; width: 699px;"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="138">Michael Niblett & Chris Campbell</td><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="543">Caribbean Socialism, Revolutionary Literature, and the Education of Feeling</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="138">Loraine Thomas</td><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="543">Politics and Caribbean Literature – The Case of St Vincent and the Grenadines in the Era of Independence.</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="138">Tennyson Joseph</td><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="543">The Caribbean Left since the Collapse of the Grenada Revolution</td></tr></tbody></table><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-weight: 700;">30th March </span>– register here:</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Sans", sans-serif;"><a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0oc--srDwoGdPcbCS9vlSPeSE49e9Lnm2R" rel="noopener" style="background-color: transparent; color: #2f48d6; transition: background-color 0.15s ease-in-out 0s, border-color 0.15s ease-in-out 0s, color 0.15s ease-in-out 0s, opacity 0.15s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0oc–srDwoGdPcbCS9vlSPeSE49e9Lnm2R</a></span></p><table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); font-size: 18.76px; margin: 0px 0px 1.6em; width: 699px;"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="138">Matthew Myers</td><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="543">‘Jamaica – Britain – One Struggle!’: Transnational socialisms and black workers’ newspapers between the Caribbean and Britain (Flame, 1975-1979)</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="138">Marsha Hinds</td><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="543">Woman and Caribbean Socialism</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="138">Anne’el Bain</td><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); padding: 0.8em 1.3em 0.8em 0px;" width="543">Under The Eagle’s Eye: Cooperation As A Survival Mechanism Among Leftist Cuba, Grenada And Nicaragua, 1979-1990</td></tr></tbody></table></div>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-70041291720673549542022-02-05T09:16:00.001-08:002022-02-06T06:43:08.943-08:00Neil Faulkner (1957-2022), socialist historian and activist<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjPlo0_IJUN5wF42Gg84_h7nZLrFtIEXhRzyFb8KIRIkuHlWv_VFQIWus6wV6wBBQPakb-EmSEM8NPZRD26deWKPhhgZkwXIAGjOx-0BCCkckxpOya_4JmiNmjZAMeNhtOKhB1D0UvgY8Qoa22o2R7opyGiFv75ZQ-cAsaI6KPy1E-B1DOb8rbAtyI=s3384" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3384" data-original-width="3000" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjPlo0_IJUN5wF42Gg84_h7nZLrFtIEXhRzyFb8KIRIkuHlWv_VFQIWus6wV6wBBQPakb-EmSEM8NPZRD26deWKPhhgZkwXIAGjOx-0BCCkckxpOya_4JmiNmjZAMeNhtOKhB1D0UvgY8Qoa22o2R7opyGiFv75ZQ-cAsaI6KPy1E-B1DOb8rbAtyI=w259-h292" width="259" /></a></div><br /><p>Keith Flett convenor of the London Socialist Historians Group on <a href="https://kmflett.wordpress.com/2022/02/04/neil-faulkner-socialist-historian-activist/">his blog</a> has paid tribute to the socialist historian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Faulkner_(archaeologist)">Neil Faulkner</a> who has sadly died of cancer aged just 64. </p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">''Neil was perhaps best known as an archaeologist-he supported archaeology from below-but he wrote more widely on modern history too. Perhaps his landmark book is a<i> Marxist History of the World from Neanderthals to Neo-Liberals</i> (Pluto). It is classic text firmly in the traditions of Marxist history.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">My review from the London Socialist Historians website is here:</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://londonsocialisthistorians.blogspot.com/2013/09/book-review-grand-narratives.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #006699; text-decoration-line: none;">https://londonsocialisthistorians.blogspot.com/2013/09/book-review-grand-narratives.html</a></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">I had known Neil for over 40 years. He arrived in Tottenham as a fresh faced student and SWP member keen to engage in political activity. He remained a member for many years but his enthusiasm and sharp minded approach were also to be found his history.''</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Neil spoke at LSHG seminars and wrote for the newsletter over an extended period and his written contributions can hopefully be found below:</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://londonsocialisthistorians.blogspot.com/2020/01/neil-faulkner-on-archeology-from-below.html">Archaeology from below - a socialist approach (2004)</a><br /></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://londonsocialisthistorians.blogspot.com/2020/01/great-war-archeology-group-2005.html">Great War Archaeology Group mission statement</a> (2005)<br /></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://londonsocialisthistorians.blogspot.com/2020/01/revisionism-and-new-imperialism-2006.html">Revisionism and the new imperialism (2006)</a><br /></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://londonsocialisthistorians.blogspot.com/2009/10/polemic-britain-outbreak-of-first-world.html">Britain, the outbreak of the First World War and the role of the individual in history</a> (2009)<br /></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">See also:</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/faulkner/index.htm">Neil Faulkner Internet Archive at marxists.org</a><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><br /></p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-16406656461090537812022-01-13T06:32:00.004-08:002022-02-06T06:42:06.299-08:00LSHG seminars spring 2022<p> </p><div id="content" style="float: left; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; padding: 0px; width: 650px;"><div class="type-post post-29824 post status-publish format-standard hentry category-uncategorized" id="post-29824" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="entry" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><figure class="wp-block-image size-large" style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><a href="https://kmflett.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/lshgbanner.jpg" style="border-radius: inherit; color: #006699; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-29826" data-attachment-id="29826" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-caption="" data-image-description="" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="lshgbanner" data-large-file="https://kmflett.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/lshgbanner.jpg?w=640" data-medium-file="https://kmflett.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/lshgbanner.jpg?w=300" data-orig-file="https://kmflett.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/lshgbanner.jpg" data-orig-size="640,480" data-permalink="https://kmflett.wordpress.com/lshgbanner-10/" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" src="https://kmflett.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/lshgbanner.jpg?w=640" srcset="https://kmflett.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/lshgbanner.jpg 640w, https://kmflett.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/lshgbanner.jpg?w=150 150w, https://kmflett.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/lshgbanner.jpg?w=300 300w" style="border-radius: inherit; border: 0px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: bottom;" /></a></figure><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><strong>London Socialist Historians Group Seminars Spring 2022</strong></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><em>Monday 31<sup>st</sup> January 5.30pm John Newsinger The Forgotten Feminist: Ethel Mannin, Women and the Revolution - </em>link to recording for those missed it here: <br /></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://kmflett.wordpress.com/2022/01/23/socialist-history-seminar-31st-jan-john-newsinger-on-ethel-mannin-forgotten-feminist-revolutionary/</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><em>Monday 14<sup>th</sup> February 5.30pm Patrick Hegarty Morrish Interwar Swedish Cycling and the socialist ethos</em></p><p class="x_MsoNormal" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px;"><b style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">Free on Zoom. Register at the link below</b></p><p class="x_MsoNormal" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px;"><a data-auth="NotApplicable" data-linkindex="0" fg_scanned="1" href="https://www.history.ac.uk/events/inter-war-swedish-cycling-and-socialist-ethos" id="LPlnk772524" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">https://www.history.ac.uk/events/inter-war-swedish-cycling-and-socialist-ethos</a></p><p class="x_MsoNormal" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><em>Monday 28<sup>th</sup> February 5.30pm. Duncan Stone, Different Class. The untold story of English cricket</em></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">to register please go to here: </p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.history.ac.uk/events/different-class-untold-story-english-cricket" rel="nofollow" style="color: #333333; text-decoration-line: none;">https://www.history.ac.uk/events/different-class-untold-story-english-cricket</a></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><em>Monday 14<sup>th</sup> March 5.30pm Simon Hannah, The Lessons of Lambeth: municipal socialism in the 1980s</em></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">The Spring term seminars will once again be via Zoom.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Attendance is free but registration on the IHR site is essential.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">A link to register for each seminar will be posted well in advance and after registering the IHR will mail you joining details.</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">We hope to return to in person seminars in the Summer term from May 2022 though I doubt we will entirely forsake Zoom!</p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Keith Flett, Convenor</p></div></div></div>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-28082929331774474492021-11-02T16:21:00.005-07:002021-11-02T16:21:35.581-07:00 Working class history revival - New free courses. <p>The WEA (formerly known as The Workers’ Educational Association), the UK’s largest voluntary sector provider of adult education has
jointly organised with the GFTU a series of online discussions about key moments in working class history from the Peasant Rebellions in
1381 onwards. </p><p>Each 90 minute session will be facilitated by a leading expert on the topic and delivered in an inclusive and accessible manner. The courses
are completely free of charge. The series is titled Their Legacy – Our History.
Among topics to be considered also will be the 1549 rebellions, the development of the Chartists, the fight for the provision of adult
education, great women trade unionists, Winstanley and the Diggers, the Levellers, Captain Swing, how songs changed history. </p><p>The series begins on September 15th with Labour Historian Professor Keith Gildart discussing the origin of the modern trade union
movement.
A recent warning by leading academic historians that the closure of two university history departments reflected the trend that was seeing
British history becoming more and more a subject for the elite, has been reflected in the adult education and trade union education
worlds.
Working class history was one of the primary subjects alongside politics, philosophy and economics on the trade union education
curriculum. Now it is rarely looked at. </p><p>The General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU) has been working to reverse this trend by commissioning, plays, poetry, songs and graphic
novels which keep this history alive in an accessible format. </p><p>Simon Parkinson Chief Executive Officer of the WEA said: "We are dedicating this new series of history courses in memory of Nigel Todd a
former WEA tutor, co‐operator and working class historian. The tradition of which Nigel was an important part deserves rekindling. Whole
generations of activists in trade unions and community organisations were inspired by our history of winning rights, overturning injustices
and creating greater commitments to equality. We hope future generations can feel this power and the living presence of what those who
went before us achieved." (See further comment https://www.wea.org.uk/news‐events/news/tribute‐nigel‐todd) </p><p>Doug Nicholls, General Secretary of the GFTU said: "So much of our history has been deliberately buried, people might have heard of Henry
VIII, but not of equally important figures like Robert Kett or Anne Askew, and there's been a reason for hiding our past. This is going to be a
pioneering series of learning opportunities led by some of our great popular educators with exceptional knowledge of the subjects
covered. </p><p> Selina Todd, Professor of Modern History at Oxford University added: "This series represents all that is best in adult and trade union
education and something that my father would have been proud of. To forget the past is to ignore the future. The areas of study in this
series cover moments in time when the people made history very decisively and with an impact still felt today." </p><p>Contacts for further information and comment: </p><p>Doug Nicholls, doug@gftu.org.uk </p><p>Phil Coward, pcoward@wea.org.uk </p><p> Further information. </p><p>Founded in 1903, the WEA is the UK’s largest voluntary sector provider of adult education, delivering over 6,600 part‐time courses for over 39,000
people each year in England and Scotland. With the active support of around 350 local branches, 2,000 volunteers, 3,000 part‐time tutors and
5,000 members, the WEA provides high quality, student‐centred and tutor‐led education for adults from all walks of life. We also maintain our
special mission to provide educational opportunities to adults facing social and economic disadvantage. For further information on the charity,
please visit http://www.wea.org.uk </p><p>The GFTU was founded in 1899 and played a leading role in providing welfare services for workers and their families, campaigning for the creation
of the welfare state and was the original international arm of the British Labour Movement. It provides free adult education provision for some
2,000 learners a year and a full range of services to trade unions and community organisations, and runs a hotel and learning centre, please visit www.gftu.org.uk.</p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315283688631843018.post-63158257929157005352021-11-02T16:17:00.004-07:002021-11-02T16:17:26.853-07:00Chatham Cuffay (1755-1815)<p><b>Chatham Cuffay (1755-1815) - Black dockyard worker in C18 Kent </b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggUy7kteBKMqVcBM0LhFTun5AOKVGRTJOnR76O4RcDBGp9kScI0COstpptP24wwicy_1ZVDVyr74DDPteRRwd295td80GhnSkCYcsL3LA6wPAYprlvG6zv0wz-Rg8OF8NZub5YBKHuTnc/s1020/chathamcuffay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="765" data-original-width="1020" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggUy7kteBKMqVcBM0LhFTun5AOKVGRTJOnR76O4RcDBGp9kScI0COstpptP24wwicy_1ZVDVyr74DDPteRRwd295td80GhnSkCYcsL3LA6wPAYprlvG6zv0wz-Rg8OF8NZub5YBKHuTnc/s320/chathamcuffay.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /></p>The life of William Cuffay (1788-1870) the black
leader of London Chartism in 1848 is becoming
better known but there is now some detail on his
father.
Chatham Cuffay (not his original first name which
appears to be as yet undiscovered) came from a
slave background and travelled to England on a navy
ship possibly as a chef. He became one of a
significant number of black workers in late
eighteenth and early nineteenth century England. <p></p><p>Many arrived as Cuffay had done and probably the largest cohort remained dock and ship related
workers but over time they may well have had an increased presence in the wider working
population. William Cuffay, a tailor, is one example of this. His father has until now remained very
largely hidden from history.
See </p><p>https://kmflett.wordpress.com/2018/10/30/black-history-month-william-cuffay-leader-of-londonchartism-in-1848/ </p><p>“Chatham Cuffay, believed to have originally been from St Kitts and Nevis. His parents were
possibly former slaves who had been freed but their son Chatham Cuffay was never enslaved. In
1772, he emigrated with his mother to Medway on board a naval ship under Captain Charles
Proby. A young man of about 17, he was baptised in the same year in Gillingham and given his
first name after the port at which he had landed.
Probably later became Resident Commissioner at Chatham and it is his influence which was
likely to have helped Cuffay find employment in the Dockyard as an Able Seaman and Cook. In
1780 he gained a position on the Chatham Yacht –the Commissioner’s official vessel.
The plaque has been positioned where it is as this is the location the Chatham Yacht would have
been moored and subsequently where Chatham, worked and boarded the ship from. Chatham
appears in pay books across several years at Chatham Dockyard, the last entry being March 1803
where he is recorded as a Storehouse Labourer.
Chatham is by no means the first Black worker at the Dockyard but he is the first named. He
represents an unknown number of slaves that, by free will or force, boarded Naval Ships in the
Caribbean and established themselves in England.”</p><p> https://thedockyard.co.uk/news/celebrating-medways-black-heroes/</p><p>[From <i>London Socialist Historians Group Newsletter </i>74 (Autumn 2021)]</p>Snowballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00019207537450855316noreply@blogger.com0