North East Labour History

Dear friend and colleagues, As many of you will know, Blind Willie Purvis was the earliest-known named vernacular songwriter in Newcastle, and he became an iconic figure among middle-class people by the 1820s, while Bobby Nunn was the earliest-known semi-professional songwriter for the town’s working-class people from 1829. I will be launching my Tyneside Song […]

In 1937 Orwell visited a coal mine in Lancashire and was exhausted by the time he had walked to the coal face. He marvelled at the endurance of the miners and wrote of how you could “easily drive a car right across the north of England: and never once remembered that hundreds of feet below... […]

From Smajo Beso of Newcastle’s Bosnian Community You are warmly invited to Newcastle’s St Nicholas Cathedral on Thursday 11 July at 6.30pm to remember the victims and survivors of the single largest atrocity mass killing on European soil since the Second World War. This year marks the 24th anniversary of the Bosnian genocide, in the town […]

The Church is situated between Breamish Street and City Road. The main entrance is on Breamish Street where there is on-street parking.  

This is the story of the Peterloo Massacre told through many of the ballads that were written at the time, please book at https://peterloo.eventbrite.co.uk There is also a guided walk on Newcastle's Campaign for the Vote, starting at Grey's Monument which you can join on Sunday at 2.30pm, £5 for adults, £3 for over 60s […]

In this illustrated talk, Val will describe researching for her two novels set in the North East:  My Name is Eleanor and Molly Bowes.  Having begun with eighteenth-century Gibside, her interests evolved to encompass the wider nineteenth-century social history of the area.  She will discuss the processes involved in writing historical fiction with a didactic purpose. […]

The Vicarage 11 Gibson Street Newcastle upon Tyne

George Stephenson Lord Eldon In 2019 the issue of climate change has moved centre stage with the spread internationally of school student strikes and the emergence of Extinction Rebellion. One aspect of the discussion has been the exploration of its historical roots. John Charlton will try to make a case for the romantic period in […]

During the 200th Anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre, the radical tradition of the North East is celebrated at a special event organized by Sunderland Heritage Forum and Sunderland City Council Heritage Team as part of the Heritage Open Days programme. If you would like to attend this meeting of the forum please contact Janet Robinson […]