The Anglo – Catholic convert to the left, Hugh Holmes Gore, was a key figure in Bristol’s labour movement during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Gore linked Clifton Christian Socialists, morally concerned about the poverty and suffering caused by economic depression, with the working class revolutionaries in the Bristol Socialist Society. His eloquence as a speaker moved dockers and miners and attracted working class votes in local elections. He was popular as the ‘people’s […]
Not A BRHG Event
At Waterstones, use Union Street Entrance. Sheila Rowbotham recounts the interweaving lives of four women and two men – Helena Born, Miriam Daniell, Gertrude Dix, Robert Nicol, and William Bailie – as they migrate to America from Bristol, Edinburgh and Manchester. Radicalised by the rise of socialism, they cross the Atlantic dreaming of liberty and equality. Their lives open fascinating slants on both political and cultural movements and upon influential individuals like Walt Whitman, Eleanor […]
Not A BRHG Event
The Haymarket, Chicago and Mayday On the evening of Tuesday May 4th 1886 near the Haymarket, Chicago, armed police attempted to violently disperse a few hundred members of a peaceful demonstration called to protest about the police killing of striking workers. As the police moved against the crowd a bomb was thrown by an unknown person wounding several of their number. In the ensuing chaos the police opened fire slaughtering demonstrators and police alike. In the days following the incident […]
Dear Friends and comrades, Swindon TUC would like to invite you to an exciting event to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the 1926 General Strike, to be held from midday on Saturday May 7th . As part of an afternoon of activities, we will assemble at midday at Central Community Centre (Emlyn Square, Swindon, SN1 5BP) for a march to re-enact and commemorate the large marches that took place in Swindon in 1926 to support the strike. Edwardian dress is encouraged, but not compulsory! Union […]
The history of Bristol’s Great Western Cotton Works in Barton Hill, which opened in 1838, is little known. The story of its workforce — mainly low-paid women and children — has never been told. From the 1830s to the early twentieth century, Barton Hill workers endured long working hours, high rates of industrial accidents and ill-health from the cotton dust and humidity. Moreover, they were subjected to wage cuts and fines by a series of unrelenting managers. Divided along age and gender lines […]
It is 44 years since the first-ever national building workers strike in Britain. Five months after the strike ended, 24 pickets were picked up and charged with over 200 offences, including unlawful assembly, intimidation and affray. Six of the pickets were also charged with ‘conspiracy to intimidate’. None of the pickets had been cautioned or arrested during the strike. There were no police complaints laid against the pickets at the time. At the first Shrewsbury trial, beginning in October 1973, […]
The history of Bristol’s Great Western Cotton Works in Barton Hill, which opened in 1838, is little known. The story of its workforce — mainly low-paid women and children — has never been told. From the 1830s to the early twentieth century, Barton Hill workers endured long working hours, high rates of industrial accidents and ill-health from the cotton dust and humidity. Moreover, they were subjected to wage cuts and fines by a series of unrelenting managers. Divided along age and gender lines […]
Hesitant Comrades is the first book to explore the actions and attitudes of the British working class towards the Irish Revolution of 1916–21.With sources ranging from newly discovered writings to reports of police spies, Geoffrey Bell brings to light new evidence. He shows how the leaders of British trade unions were complicit in Belfast loyalist sectarianism and he explores the troubled nature of the Labour Party's relations with its Irish community, and how the Bolsheviks criticised British […]
Jeremy Corbyn MP speaking at Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival 19/07/2015 South West Unison Tent. The Captain Swing rioters get a nice mention near the start.
With a new afterword by Kevin Morgan. A 2015 reprint of a 1915 pamphlet, originally published at the height of reaction during World War One. Proposing class struggle and international solidarity in response to nationalism and war, it’s a unique voice of dissent within the British labour movement of the time. Only a few copies of the original pamphlet exist; there is no copy in the British Library, and even the well-known libraries of labour movement history do not usually have a copy. This […]
