Childhood

2021 ◽  
pp. 39-75
Author(s):  
Lyndsey Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Home Life ◽  
Political Tradition ◽  
Women's Politics

This chapter argues that it is impossible to understand the Kenneys’ politics without understanding their home life. It suggests that we need to see the Kenneys as a product of two related cultures: the tradition of autodidactism and the ‘religion of socialism’. Reading, Christianity, and socialism underpinned these cultures and help explain the sisters’ political trajectory. Though many women were drawn to feminist activism from particular strands of the labour movement, particularly the Independent Labour Party and the trade unions, these were not the only currents of thought which influenced women’s politics. The Kenneys’ childhoods not only give us access to working-class women’s political development outside the workplace but also begin to connect feminist militancy with a different political tradition.

Labour united and divided from the 1830s to the present

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
The 19Th Century

Spanning a period which stretches from the 19th century to the present day, this book takes a novel look at the British labour movement by examining the interaction between trade unions, the Labour Party, other parties of the Left, and other groups such as the Co-op movement and the wider working class, to highlight the dialectic nature of these relationships, marked by consensus and dissention. It shows that, although perceived as a source of weakness, those inner conflicts have also been a source of creative tension, at times generating significant breakthroughs. This book seeks to renew and expand the field of British labour studies, setting out new avenues for research so as to widen the audience and academic interest in the field, in a context which makes the revisiting of past struggles and dilemmas more pressing than ever. The book together brings well-established labour historians and political scientists, thus establishing dialogue across disciplines, and younger colleagues who are contributing to the renewal of the field. It provides a range of case studies as well as more wide-ranging assessments of recent trends in labour organising, and will therefore be of interest to academics and students of history and politics, as well as to practitioners, in the British Isles and beyond.

Concluding remarks

2018 ◽  
pp. 271-279
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Multidisciplinary Approach ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Common Concern ◽  
The Future ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Different Levels

The conclusion begins with an overview of the way the chapters in the volume have offered an exploration of three different levels of conflict – intra-organisational tensions, tensions which exist between different types of organisations, and tensions between labour organisations and spontaneous working-class protests – to collectively provide explanations to the paradoxes affecting the Labour movement. It then stresses the benefits of the volume’s integrated and multidisciplinary approach of the labour movement, underlining the fact that the contributors share a common concern for the future of the British labour movement. In the following section the conclusion ponders the future prospects for the labour movement and the Labour Party, sketching a number of possible scenarios. It stresses the fact that visions of the future differ according to political positioning. It then highlights the shared conviction of the contributors that class remains relevant as an analytical tool.

scholarly journals The Emergence of the Independent Labour Party in Bradford

1975 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Reynolds ◽  
K. Lay Bourn
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Union Support ◽  
Domesday Book ◽  
History Of

Opening the 21st anniversary of the ILP in Bradford in April 1914, J. H. Palin, one of Bradford's most prominent trade unionists, remarked: “Of ordinary historical association, Bradford has none. In Domesday Book, it is described as a waste, and the subsequent periods of capitalist exploitation have done little to improve it. […] The History of Bradford will be very largely the history of the ILP.”1 Palin's remark – unjust as it is, perhaps, to a distinguished list of Victorian philanthropists – stands as testimony to the authority and influence which the labour movement in Bradford had acquired by that date. It also provides a clue to the origins of that authority and influence, for it demonstrates the importance which he and other Bradford trade unionists attached to their association with the independent labour movement. Whatever the reactions of trade unionists in the rest of the country, in Bradford, trade unionists were vital to its success. Indeed, strong trade-union support proved to be an essential corollary of effective independent working-class political action.

Jack, Tommy, and Henry Dubb: The Armed Forces and the Working Class

1978 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 593-621 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Englander ◽  
James Osborne
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Public Order ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Three Generations ◽  
Industrial Disputes ◽  
Compare And Contrast

The five years 1917–21 are commonly regarded as a period of unusual turmoil in Britain when fears of revolution reached an intensity unknown in more than three generations. In explaining this unrest, historians have naturally concentrated upon the organized Labour movement; upon the complex dialectics of a conservative rank-and-file marshalled behind creative revolutionary leaders in the engineering trades; and, in the trades unions and Labour party, upon the genesis and meaning of Clause IV. In all such studies the state's most powerful servants have, however, commanded relatively little attention. Other than as an instrument of public order intruding into industrial disputes, historians of the working class have shown scant interest in the serviceman who remains very much the ‘candy man’ in uniform. This article, by way of redress, is concerned to examine the character of unrest in the armed forces, to compare and contrast disaffection in the army and navy, and to review Labour's response to both veteran and serviceman.

The Anger and Energy of Gary Mitchell

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Connal Parr
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Housing Estate ◽  
Class Groups ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
White Working Class

Born and brought up on the overwhelmingly Protestant Rathcoole housing estate, Gary Mitchell explored the fragmentation of Ulster Loyalism during the era of the peace process in his key plays and continues to mine the disillusionment and travails of the Protestant working class across Northern Ireland. The Rathcoole focus highlights the dying embers of the Labour movement which carried on in Newtownabbey while the rest of the Northern Ireland Labour Party had faded away, a spirit embodied by the independent councillor Mark Langhammer. Though Mitchell was forced to leave Rathcoole in 2005, he continues to grapple with the strains of working-class Protestant communities in the form of policing tensions, identity questions, and a growing underclass (or ‘precariat’) which considers itself—like other white working-class groups—‘left behind’ by politicians and deindustrialization.

‘The greatest democratic force British politics have known’ – Labour Cohesion and the War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Swift
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Socialist Party ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Women's Groups ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Broad View ◽  
Women’S Groups ◽  
Fabian Society

This final chapter is concerned with the continued cohesion of the labour movement during and after the war. It takes a broad view of all of the various organisations which could be said to compose the British Left at the time of the war: the Labour party itself; the roughly one thousand trade unions in different groups and associations; various women’s groups which, while not necessarily sympathetic with all of Labour’s policies, sometimes co-operated on franchise reform; the three-million strong Co-operative movement, consisting of the Co-operative Wholesale Society and the Co-operative Union; and the socialist societies such as the British Socialist party, the Fabian Society and the Independent Labour party. Finally, the war created a great impetus for an ultra-patriotic secession from the labour movement, or even of a nationalistic coup within labour; the failure of this movement is analysed within this chapter.

scholarly journals The Political Activities Of A Trade Union, 1906–1914

1957 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
J. E. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Political Work ◽  
Common Ownership ◽  
Union Leaders ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Liberal Trade

The British Labour Party was not explicitly socialist until 1918. In February of that year a Special Conference adopted a new constitution which stated that the ultimate aim of the party was:-“To secure for the producers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry, and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible, upon the basis of common ownership of the means of production and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.”Before this change, Ramsay MacDonald, writing in 1911, had said: “The Labour Party is not Socialist. It is a union of Socialist and trade-union bodies for immediate political work…” The new party, founded in 1900 as the Labour Representation Committee, was in many ways un manage de convenance of militant Socialists and Glad-stonian Liberal trade-union leaders. The “immediate political work” for which these groups came together was the representation of the working class in parliament. Of the need for such representation both sides were firmly convinced: the Socialists because they hoped to convert the trade unions to their own way of thinking; the trade-union leaders because they were disappointed by the failure of the official Liberal party constituency caucuses to adopt more working-class candidates.

scholarly journals Whose Left? Working-Class Political Allegiances in Post-industrial Britain

2002 ◽  
Vol 47 (S10) ◽  
pp. 65-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darren G. Lilleker
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
British Economy ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Socialist Movement ◽  
Post Industrial

A romanticized view of class alignment in Britain exists that has been attacked and defended equally in academic works over the last twenty years. Historically, the Labour Party was seen as the defender of working-class interests, though critics within the party and the British socialist movement have often questioned this notion. Such questions have appeared more pertinent with the diminution of the working class due to the de-industrialization of the British economy. In 1983 Andrew Gamble noted that: “The greatest threat to this underlying strength of the British labour movement are the twin trends of declining manufacturing output and rising unemployment”. He argued that it was the failure of the Labour Party to arrest these trends and “translate the overwhelming objective strength [...] into organizational strength and political leadership” which had led to the dealignment of the working class away from Labour.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Jobson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Future Developments ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face ◽  
Late Nineteenth

This chapter argues that nostalgia has shaped Labour’s political development since 1951 in a number of fundamental ways. Labour’s nostalgia-identity has revolved around positively idealised memories of a late nineteenth and early twentieth century heroic male traditional industrial working class. This nostalgia has proven to be problematic in the face of the social and economic changes that have taken place in Britain. It has limited the extent to which modernising agendas could be pursued, defined the parameters within which senior Labour figures could operate and determined the options available to the party. At certain times, Labour has also actively sought to reinstate and restore nostalgic visions of the past in the present. This chapter explores the significance of this book’s findings for the contemporary Labour Party and it outlines and problematizes potential future developments.

At the crossroads: the Labour Party, the trade unions and the choices of direction for the democratic left

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Wrigley
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Comparative Data ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
British Labour ◽  
The Status

Wrigley provides a vital sweeping overview of the path the British Labour Party took during the war. Utilising comparative data highlighting the labour movement across Europe, Wrigley shows how the trade union movement played a key role in the growth of Labour Party in a much needed transnational context. Here we see Labour moving from the status of a client of the Liberals in the summer of 1914 to one where it could meaningfully compete to form a government of its own in under a decade.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document