North East Labour History

Newcastle City Library Event: Enemy Alien, Civilian Internment in the British Empire, 1914-1919
2019-11-20 17:00 - 20:00 UTC | Bewick Hall, Newcastle City Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8AX
Click on image below to enlarge

Mushroom Works, Newcastle: Jane Smallcombe, opening of her Art Studio
2019-11-22 18:00 UTC | Mushroom Works, St Lawrence Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 1AR
From Bede Woods, Secretary of Monkton Ward Labour Party in Jarrow.
Jane Smallcombe has supported the Monkton Ward and Jarrow CLP behind the scenes for several years. Lately, she has helped both the CLP Woman’s Officer and the Fund Raiser in relation to our high profile speakers. She has herself personally created, at very short notice, an exceptional artwork for us and helped commission unique pieces of art for presentation gifts.
This amazingly talented artist, who lives with us in the Monkton Ward, put together a piece that took Baroness Shami Chakrabati’s breath away. Jane didn’t subsequently hog the limelight but instead introduced others from her art collective studios to share in having their creations presented to speakers such as Ken Loach, Emily Thornberry and Ricky Tomlinson.
Join us to support Jane Smallcombe
So when I heard about the annual 20/20 art exhibition http://www.mushroomworks.com/open-studios-2019 I thought we should return the favour by supporting Jane and her colleagues who have assisted our cause. A small group from our ward are going to meet outside the Mushroom Works in Newcastle at 6.00pm on Friday 22nd November.
Jane has only recently moved to a new space in this location. This is an opportunity to acquire original art from several local artists in person at a bargain price! It’s also a chance to lift our minds and spirits, dress up and have a cultural injection. Hope you can come as well.

POSTPONED due to General Election. Bridge Hotel: NELHS Christmas Social - Now 14 January
2019-12-03 19:00 UTC | The Bridge Hotel, Castle Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear, NE1 1RQ, United Kingdom
The North East Labour History annual social event has been postponed until the new year to allow members to concentrate on the General Election campaign.

First Tuesday, BRIDGE HOTEL: Mike Greatbatch will talk about William Parker: A Chartist Life
2020-01-07 19:00 UTC | The Bridge Hotel, Castle Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear, NE1 1RQ, United Kingdom
NOTE – THIS FIRST TUESDAY WILL BE HELD AT THE BRIDGE HOTEL INSTEAD OF THE USUAL VENUE.
William Parker served as Secretary of the Ouseburn Working Men’s Association and was an original member of the Council of the Northern Political Union (NPU), Tyneside’s principal agency of Chartist agitation in 1838-39.
The People’s Charter was just one of a number of causes that Parker championed over an almost twenty-year period. A widower with three teenage daughters by 1841, Parker was an unskilled labourer competing for work in one of Tyneside’s most competitive labour markets, a lowly status that appears to have strengthened his self-belief in the justice of his words and actions, and his unwavering commitment to his fellow workers.
By presenting the biography of William Parker, I hope to demonstrate how Chartism in Newcastle could be an intellectual commitment, not just for the educated radical elite but also for the unskilled and the poor.
Originally prepared for the 2019 Chartist Study Day, this presentation will include additional biographical information recently brought to light.

Bridge Hotel: NELHS Christmas Social
2020-01-14 19:00 UTC | The Bridge Hotel, Castle Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear, NE1 1RQ, United Kingdom
Attractions include Tyneside folk singer Jack Burness and Peter Brabban’s famous historical quiz.
This social event was due to be held on 3 December but was postponed because of the General Election.

Tyneside Irish Centre: Music and Poetry celebrating cultural traditions on Tyneside. Part of Newcastle's Holocaust Memorial Day Commemorations for 2020.
2020-01-23 19:00 UTC | Tyneside Irish Centre, 43 Gallowgate, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4SG, United Kingdom
From Peter Sagar:
Hi everyone,
I wish to invite you to a special event on Thursday 23 January.
Celebrating Our Traditions IV: Standing Together
Music and Poetry celebrating cultural traditions on Tyneside. Part of Newcastle’s Holocaust Memorial Day Commemorations for 2020.
This is the fourth of series of events bringing different musical traditions on Tyneside together as a celebration. This will involve music from Northumbrian and Tyneside traditions, as well as from Ireland and Bosnia and the eastern European Community. We will stand together by celebrating the great musical and cultural heritage on Tyneside, including both the heritage which developed here and those traditions which have come to us as people have fled persecution and injustice elsewhere, including the genocide in Bosnia.
Gallowgate Room, Tyneside Irish Centre, 41 Gallowgate, Newcastle NE1 4SG at 7.00pm on Thursday 23 January
FREE. Donations on the night welcome.
There is an Eventbrite page here, where you can sign up for the event:https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/celebrating-our-traditions-iv-standing-together-tickets-85066238409?utm_term=eventname_text
I hope to see you there.
Best wishes,
Peter Sagar, Company Secretary, A Living Tradition CIC

Northern Stage: The Ballad of Johnny Longstaff
2020-02-04 - 2020-02-23 | Northern Stage, Barras BridgeNE1 7RH, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 7RH
The true story of a one man’s journey from unemployment in Stockton on Tees, through the Hunger Marches of the 1930s, the mass trespass movement and the battle of Cable Street, to fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War.
Click here for details of showings and bookings.

First Tuesday: India Gerritsen on “Memory Lingers Here”: Are Newcastle’s Monuments Sites of Collective Memory?
2020-02-04 19:00 UTC | Old George Inn, Old George Yard, Newcastle, NE1 1EZ
India Gerritson will talk about her essay that won the 2019 Sid Chaplin prize.
NELH Chair John Creaby and India Gerritsen
The winner of this year’s Sid Chaplin prize is India Gerritsen for her essay about people’s memory of Newcastle landscapes and how they affect their consciousness. India’s essay: “Memory Lingers Here”: Are Newcastle’s Monuments Sites of Collective Memory? will be published in next year’s North East History.
NELH Chair John Creaby, Grahame Chaplin and India Gerritsen

For a second year we were delighted to have Grahame Chaplin, Sid’s grandson, to present the prize. Here is his speech.
It’s once again a pleasure to be here this evening to present the annual Sid Chaplin prize, and to thank the Society for continuing to remember and honour my Grandfather in such an apposite manner. As some of you will recall both Sid and his wife Rene enjoyed all that the Society offered.
The Sid Chaplin prize is awarded for a piece of academic writing, so it differs, by definition, to the majority of Sid’s published work, and although I am not on the judging panel, I am grateful to that cadre for their work, and twice now I can see they have not lost sight of Sid’s underlying motivation to write. You see my Granda was driven to write and record stories of people and place that he thought were verging on extinction, but more than that they were people and places, and a way of life that he knew intimately and undoubtedly held close to his heart. And he was right to do so, because today I would say his legacy in a plethora of words both entertains, but importantly educates us all as well.
So turning to the work that tonight claims the Sid Chaplin prize: It’s a fascinating piece exploring the relationship between, people, their memory or collective memory and well known and less well known monuments within the City of Newcastle, and how over time the landscape those monuments occupy can change consciousness of the public to purpose and history of the very monument.
What the work makes clear – it seems to me – is that the people regardless of their knowledge of the purpose or original intent of the monument was that they are fiercely defensive of the presence, I think because over time those monuments, like bridges and buildings become intrinsic to place.
In the 1960’s Sid wrote of his first visit to Newcastle as a young teenager, not all that long after the Tyne Bridge opened, the trip from Durham, most likely by bus must have been around 1930/32.
“I stood on the Gateshead side of this top-heavy bridge and looked down into the mighty trough. On one side was the little wonder of a swing bridge and high above it was the great High Level……That was one view. The other was from the heart of the City and a scamper up the one hundred and fifty one steps of Grey’s Monument. Up the hollow heart of reform I went running and came out at the top to see the merry go round of the city. Because I hadn’t learned to swear I remember saying to myself ‘By Gum – I’d give two years from the back end of my life to come and live in the heart of all this”
And there we have the link to Tonight’s winner and Sid’s work – the academic exploration of the philosophy behind the architectural landmarks that make a landscape that in turn creates a community.
And now I’d like you to warmly congratulate the winner of the 2019 Sid Chaplin prize as I invite India Gerritsen to come and accept this trophy.

NEW TIME: 6:30pm. First Tuesday: Peter Sagar on History of the NUT in the North East
2020-03-03 18:30 UTC | Old George Inn, Old George Yard, Newcastle, NE1 1EZ
The National Union of Teachers, founded in 1870, ceased to be on 1st January 2019, as it merged fully with the Association of Teachers and Lecturers to become a new union, the National Education Union.
This seemed to be an appropriate time to write a history of the NUT in North East England, to chart its successes and its failures, how it worked independently and how it worked in tandem with the rest of the union and labour movement. The result is a fascinating story, which should be of interest to any teacher, to any trade unionist and to anybody with an interest in the regional history of North East England.
Peter Sagar will guide us through this history, but in many respects do a lot more than this. He will also highlight the numerous ways in which we can learn from the history and use the knowledge to revive the trade union movement as we enter the third decade of the 21st century.
This will be a presentation which you should find both interesting and thought provoking.

Durham University: The History of Palestine
2020-03-03 19:00 UTC | St Aidan’s College, Windmill Hill, Durham University, DH1 3LJ
From Sean Creighton

There is an event at the Lindisfarne Centre, St Aidan’s College, Windmill Hill, Durham University DH1 3LJ next Tuesday 3 March at 7.00pm which includes discussion on the history of Palestine. For more information see St Aidan’s Palestine evening

EVENT CANCELLED. Northumbria University: Will Kaufman performs a live documentary - Woody Guthrie and “Old Man Trump”
2020-03-11 18:00 (Europe/London) | Room 020a, Squires Building, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8SB
This event has been cancelled. The organisers hope to reschedule it and we will post once the new details become available.

American Studies at Northumbria, in collaboration with the Institute of the Humanities and the Tyneside Branch of the Historical Association present
Woody Guthrie and “Old Man Trump”

In December 1950, Woody Guthrie moved his family into a new apartment in Brooklyn’s Beach Haven. His new landlord, it turned out, was none other than Fred Trump, father of the current US president. Over 60 years later, Donald Trump would proclaim on the campaign trail: “My legacy is my father’s legacy.” It was, among other things, a legacy of corruption and race-hatred, as Woody Guthrie soon found out.
Will Kaufman – singer, multi-instrumentalist, and Professor of American Studies at the University of Central Lancashire – is recognised as the world’s leading authority on Woody Guthrie. He is the author of Woody Guthrie, American Radical (2011), Woody Guthrie’s Modern World Blues (2017), and Mapping Woody Guthrie (2019).
In 2014, Will discovered, buried in the Guthrie archives, previously unpublished song lyrics and other writings condemning Fred Trump’s racism. He has now turned these discoveries into a new music and a spoken-word presentation, following on from his celebrated shows, Woody Guthrie: Hard Times and Hard Travelin’ and Woody Guthrie: The Long Road to Peekskill.
Woody Guthrie and “Old Man Trump” brings to life all the anger and contempt that Guthrie felt for those in power who will deny justice to their fellow human beings on account of the colour of their skin. Against the backdrop of Guthrie’s racial awakening and emergent activism, Will introduces such previously unheard songs as “Trump Made a Tramp Out of Me” and “Beach Haven Ain’t My Home,” along with a host of other Guthrie songs about racial injustice and struggle. All in all, we hear Woody Guthrie speaking and singing from beyond the grave, warning us about the dangers of ignoring and repeating history.

Praise for Will Kaufman:
Listen up all you Jim Crow fascists and you race-hate mongers, too:
Will Kaufman is a-comin’ and he’s got his eye on you.
Won’t brake for no excuses, won’t stand no messin’ around,
Your bigot ways can’t save you ’cause Will Kaufman’s gonna run you down.
– Ry Cooder
No one can understand the American people without listening to Woody Guthrie. Will Kaufman’s doing important work here. – Tom Paxton

I thank Will Kaufman for introducing a new generation of Europeans to “the other America.” It’s a wonderful job he’s doing. – Pete Seeger

Will presents this exhilarating show in the fastest hour and a half you are likely to witness when you consider the breadth and depth of his subject. He performs Woody’s songs with great skill and understanding, playing the guitar, banjo and fiddle with enviable panache and brio. His presentation is accomplished with great musicality, wit, honesty, and compassion. – Ralph McTell

I so appreciate all of your efforts to take his legacy further. Who knows where he’ll end up! – Nora Guthrie

www.willkaufman.com

Newcastle University: 2020 Festival of Oral History
2020-03-24 - 2020-03-27 | Newcastle University
We are delighted to announce the full programme for our 2020 Festival of Oral History, taking place across March 24-26. The festival will focus on the future of oral history, and will include a public keynote lecture by Dr Indira Chowdhury from the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore.

The festival will include a number of discussion panels on the future of oral history, promoting discussion among practitioners and teachers on how oral historians can address future challenges and opportunities.

Please see the full programme of events here. To register for the festival, email oralhistory@newcastle.ac.uk and please do let us know if you would like to be a discussant on any of the panels that have been organised.

Tyne Bank Brewery: Five Centuries of the Tyne
2020-03-24 17:00 - 20:00 UTC | Tyne Bank Brewery, 375 Walker Rd, Byker,, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2AB
From Leona Skelton, Northumbria University
I’ve organised a free Tyne history event with Tyne Rivers Trust at the Tyne Bank Brewery on Tuesday 24 March, 5.00pm – 8.00pm which I think NELHS members could get a lot out of, even though it’s focused on the management of the river first and foremost rather than labour history. Attendees need to register for a free ticket at the following link as places are limited.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/96057070283
This a fun, informal, social event providing an opportunity to learn about the experiences and challenges of Tyne managers and conservators over five centuries. The evening comprises a pub quiz, archival stories, interactive discussions and a presentation to inspire us all to consider the challenges of working, living and playing with the River Tyne over a longer-term chronology.
Using a ‘Tyneline’, we will debate how and why our relationships with the Tyne have changed so dramatically over time and what this might mean for the river’s future. A buffet will be provided free of charge and the brewery bar will be open.
The event will be led by Dr. Leona Skelton, an environmental historian of water, rivers and sanitation infrastructure in Britain (1500 – present) at Northumbria University, and author of Tyne after Tyne: An Environmental History of a River’s Battle for Protection, 1529 – 2015

CANCELLED - Jesmond Library: Eileen: The Making of George Orwell
2020-03-27 19:00 UTC | Jesmond Library, St George's Terrace, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 2DL
This meeting has beeen cancelled as part of the measures to limit the Covid 19 outbreak.
Eileen: The Making of George Orwell, an interview with biographer Sylvia Topp at Jesmond Library, St. Georges Terrace NE2 2DL on Friday 27 March at 7.00pm
This is the never-before-told story of George Orwell’s first wife Eileen O’Shaughnessy, who was born and brought up in South Shields and who shaped, supported, and even saved the life of one of the twentieth century’s great writers.
Sylvia, who lives in Kingston, Ontario will be in the UK to support the publication of Eileen in March.

CANCELLED - First Tuesday: Janet Allen. The Miners Strike 1984/85 – my role as newly qualified solicitor with Thompsons
2020-04-07 19:00 UTC | The Bridge Hotel, Castle Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear, NE1 1RQ, United Kingdom
This meeting has beeen cancelled as part of the measures to limit the Covid 19 outbreak.
Where possible, meetings will be rescheduled once this becomes possible. Notices will appear on this website as soon as this happens.
In an effort to defeat the striking miners the government, judiciary and police used the law as a method of reducing the civil liberties of striking miners and their supporters by all possible means.
Road blocks were employed to intercept suspected pickets. Those arrested on the picket line faced draconian bail conditions often including curfews to prevent further demonstrations. Medieval charges of riot and unlawful assembly were used against those attending the mass pickets at both Orgreave and Mansfield.
Mike Mansfield the leading barrister at the Orgreave trials referred to the cases as “the worst example of mass frame up in this country in this century”.
I joined Thompsons in September 1983 and Bill Etherington, then General Secretary of the Durham Colliery Mechanics Association instructed Thompsons to be the union lawyers. The Durham NUM followed later. I represented two Durham Mechanics arrested at Orgreave and one at Mansfield.
My day to day experience of representing striking miners during the period from March 1984 to March 1985 will form the basis of this presentation.

CANCELLED - First Tuesday: John Charlton will talk about the 1931 general election
2020-05-05 19:00 UTC | The Bridge Hotel, Castle Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear, NE1 1RQ, United Kingdom
This meeting has beeen cancelled as part of the measures to limit the Covid 19 outbreak.
Where possible, meetings will be rescheduled once this becomes possible. Notices will appear on this website as soon as this happens.

Online History Courses from Ronnie Hanna
2020-05-26 - 2020-07-03
Ronnie Hanna has asked us to mention these three online history courses which may be of interest to some of our members and supporters. The courses were originally part of Queen’s University Belfast’s Open Learning Programme for the spring, which was cancelled due to the current situation. If you are interested, please contact Ronnie at: ronnie.hanna@btinternet.com
26 May: The American Presidency in the Twentieth Century
29 June: A City Upon a Hill: The Pilgrim Fathers and America’s Puritan Legacy
2 July: The Korean War

CANCELLED - Second Tuesday: Nigel Todd will talk about the 1983 general election
2020-06-09 19:00 UTC | The Bridge Hotel, Castle Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear, NE1 1RQ, United Kingdom

Janet Allan will talk on The Miners Strike 1984/85 – my role as newly qualified solicitor with Thompsons (by Zoom, link to be circulated)
2020-08-25 19:00 (Europe/London) | Zoom
Please let us know if you would like to attend this meeting by clicking this link and giving us your email address and name. We will then contact you before the meeting with the Zoom link.
In an effort to defeat the striking miners the government, judiciary and police used the law as a method of reducing the civil liberties of striking miners and their supporters by all possible means.
Road blocks were employed to intercept suspected pickets. Those arrested on the picket line faced draconian bail conditions often including curfews to prevent further demonstrations. Medieval charges of riot and unlawful assembly were used against those attending the mass pickets at both Orgreave and Mansfield.
Mike Mansfield the leading barrister at the Orgreave trials referred to the cases as “the worst example of mass frame up in this country in this century”.
I joined Thompsons in September 1983 and Bill Etherington, then General Secretary of the Durham Colliery Mechanics Association instructed Thompsons to be the union lawyers. The Durham NUM followed later. I represented two Durham Mechanics arrested at Orgreave and one at Mansfield.
My day to day experience of representing striking miners during the period from March 1984 to March 1985 will form the basis of this presentation.

The Annual General Meeting of the North East Labour History Society, followed by Alex Niven: New Model Island: How to Build a Radical Culture Beyond the Idea of England (by Zoom, agenda and link to be circulated)
2020-09-08 19:00 (Europe/London) | Zoom
Please let us know if you would like to attend this meeting by clicking this link and giving us your email address and name. We will then contact you before the meeting with the Zoom link.
Please note that any member wishing to submit a change to the Constitution (see pages 187 – 188 of the 2019 Journal) must submit a motion in writing to the Secretary by 10 August.
The meeting will be followed by a talk by Alex Niven, Lecturer in English at Newcastle University on his recently published book, New Model Island: How to Build a Radical Culture Beyond the Idea of England

In the early twenty-first century, “Englishness” suddenly became a hot topic. A rash of art exhibitions, pop albums and coffee table books arrived on the scene, all desperate to recover England’s lost national soul. But when we sweep away the patriotic stereotypes, we begin to see that England is a country that does not — and perhaps should not — exist in any essential sense.
In this provocative text combining polemic and memoir, Alex Niven argues that the map of the British Isles should be torn apart completely as we look towards a time of radical political reform. Rejecting outdated nationalisms, Niven argues for a renovated model of culture and governance for the islands — a fluid, dynamic version of regionalism preparing the way for a new “dream archipelago”.

“One of the sharpest, most unusual critics writing today, and with this call for the end of England, he has surpassed himself. Personal, polemical and historical in equal measure, this is a strange, powerful and beautiful book.”
Owen Hatherley

Tommy Hepburn: Folk of Jarrow Commemoration on Saturday 10 October at the Joplin Monument at 10.30am.
2020-10-10 10:30 (Europe/London) | Jobling Memorial, Jarrow
Please note that the planned Memorial Service on the 17 October has been cancelled.

Fourth Tuesday. Nigel Todd will talk about The Excursionists: Who Will Fight For Garibaldi?
2020-11-24 19:00 (Europe/London) | Zoom
Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84301417060?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0141 7060 Passcode: [REDACTED]
The International Brigade of the 1930s was not the first venture of its kind. Garibaldi’s 1860 campaign to liberate and unify Italy also attracted international volunteers, not least from Britain. Several hundred, including about 18 from Tyneside, joined a ‘British Legion’ that supported Garibaldi in Sicily and Southern Italy.
Recruited via Joseph Cowen’s Newcastle Daily Chronicle the Tynesiders overcame attempts to block their departure, and played a part in Garibaldi’s advance on Naples to overthrow a distinctively despotic local regime.
One of the group John Eyre Macklin, wrote a vivid account of his experiences in the campaign, and of some of the people he met such as Jessie White Mario, female Radical journalist, a frequent speaker at Newcastle political meetings and known as ’the Florence Nightingale of the Garibaldian army.’
Nigel is a Newcastle City Councillor, chairs the UK Co-operative College and has published several books and articles on North East political history, including an autobiography of Joseph Cowen, and histories of anti-fascism, and anarchist and socialist land colonies.
Topic: Tyneside Volunteers for Garibaldi’s Army

North East Labour History Society, Zoom Annual Social
2020-12-08 19:00 (Europe/London) | Zoom
Peter Brabban will do his traditional, fiendish quiz.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81241889086?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 812 4188 9086
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Second Tuesday: Professor Ralph Darlington, Analysing the Contexts and Causes of the 1910-14 Labour Revolt
2021-01-12 19:00 (Europe/London) | Zoom
Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 858 1228 1578
Passcode: [REDACTED]
The ‘Labour Unrest’ – or what more precisely should be termed ‘Labour Revolt’ – that swept Britain in the years leading up to the First World War between 1910 and 1914 was one of the most sustained, dramatic and violent explosions of industrial militancy and social conflict the country has ever experienced. Most explanations for the causes of this strike wave have tended to focus almost exclusively on economic factors, on the way in which the decline in real wages and purchasing power after 1900 and the sudden upturn in trade and employment after 1910 provided the major economic impetus for a series of wage demands that lead to strike action. Yet arguably, even if the most commonly reported single cause of strikes was pay, this hardly offers an adequate explanation, by itself, for the scale, insurgent nature, rank-and-file dynamic and broader political challenge of the industrial rebellion that swept Britain during this period.
This talk attempts to provide an understanding of the way in which there was a coalescence of a multifaceted set of interconnected contextual and casual elements (structure and agency) contributing to the process. Specifically it examines six features: the economic, industrial and social backcloth; industrial relations and trade union framework; political context; bargaining capacity; leadership and mobilisation resources; and broader zeitgeist of defiance of the authorities and rule of law. In the process, it assesses the limits and potential of George Dangerfield’s depiction in his celebrated book The Strange Death of Liberal England of a conjunction of three rebellions – by workers, women and Irish nationalists – that had the cumulative effect of placing the country on the verge of semi-revolution. And there is consideration of the extent to which workers’ readiness to engage in militant strike action depended upon the subjective element – the encouragement they received from the minority of uncompromising working class socialist and syndicalist agitators and propagandists within their own ranks.
Ralph Darlington is Emeritus Professor of Employment Relations at the University of Salford. His research is concerned with the dynamics of trade union organisation, activity and consciousness within both contemporary and historical settings. He is the author of The Dynamics of Workplace Unionism (Mansell 1994) and Radical Unionism: The Rise and Fall of Revolutionary Syndicalism (Haymarket 2013), co-author of Glorious Summer: Class Struggle in Britain 1972 (Bookmarks 2001) and editor of What’s the Point Of Industrial Relations: In Defence of Critical Social Science (2009). He is currently researching to write a book on the 1910-14 Labour Revolt to be published by Pluto Press.

Book launch: Sylvia Pankhurst Natural Born Rebel
2021-01-28 19:00 (Europe/London) | Online
Online book launch of this major new biography with author Rachel Holmes in conversation with historian Mary Davis
Register here https://www.marx-memorial-library.org.uk/event/289
Born into one of Britain’s most famous activist families, Sylvia Pankhurst was a natural rebel; a talented artist, prolific writer and a newspaper editor. A free spirit and radical visionary, history placed her in the shadow of her famous mother, Emmeline, and elder sister, Christabel. Yet Sylvia Pankhurst was the most revolutionary of them all.
Sylvia found her voice fighting militantly for votes for women, but the vote was just the beginning of her lifelong defence of human rights. From her early warnings of the rise of fascism in Europe, to her campaigning against racism and championing of the liberation struggles in Africa and India, Sylvia’s adventures in America, Soviet Russia, Scandinavia, Europe and East Africa made her a true internationalist. She was one of the great minds of the modern era, engaging with political giants, including Churchill, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, George Bernard Shaw, W.E.B. Du Bois and Haile Selassie.
Holmes argues that Pankhurst’s campaigning reached far beyond the suffragette movement and in Sylvia Pankhurst she interweaves the personal and political to reveal Sylvia Pankhurst as never before.
Attendees will receive the zoom link via eventbrite 24 hours in advance.

First Tuesday: Paul Gailiunas on John Marshall: Printer, Librarian and Radical
2021-02-02 19:00 (Europe/London) | Zoom
Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 834 1749 9047
Passcode: [REDACTED]
John Marshall was very well-known in Gateshead and Newcastle in the first third of the nineteenth century, and there are references to him in a variety of contexts.
The evidence that has survived contradicts some of the assumptions made by previous authors, especially around the winter of 1816/1817, when he first became politically active. Although politics seems to have become less important to him by the mid-1820s, he was present at a political meeting in 1830, and he printed radical material until 1831, when his business collapsed and he disappears from the record.
Paul Gailiunas took early retirement from teaching in 2007 and has researched and published on a variety of topics including local history.

British Association for Local History Digital Workshop : (Postgrad students only) How to get your local history research out there!
2021-02-13 10:00 (Europe/London)
Please note that this session is only available to students registered on a recognised Masters or PhD course of study at an HEI. ECRs who are within 5 years of completing their PhD are also welcome to attend.
Details and booking
Workshop on Public Engagement and Collaborative Working (a student special) with Claire Kennan (BALH)
Practical guidance on how academic research can be communicated to wider audiences, the opportunities that are available for collaborative and partnership working and how your research can have an impact in the wider world. In particular, it will focus on the specific support and opportunities offered by BALH ranging from writing blog posts to producing podcasts, working with teachers, local history societies, museums and much more.

Professor John Bradshaw: Child poverty in the North East region. Event celebrating the life and contribution of Professor John Veit-Wilson
2021-03-02 17:30 - 19:00 (Europe/London) | You tube
Attendance details here
Professor John Veit-Wilson
Celebrating the life and contribution of Professor John Veit-Wilson and the move of the North East Child Poverty Commission to Newcastle University, this lecture will consider the evidence on the most recent trends and spatial distribution of child poverty in the North East, reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of that evidence, in particular in the context of Covid-19. It will also include a review of the impact of the post-Covid interventions and prescribe an agenda for future action.

Professor Jonathan Bradshaw

Jonathan Bradshaw is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at the University of York. He was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2005 for services to child poverty and Fellow of the British Academy in 2010. He is a Board member of the Child Poverty Action Group and Chair of their Policy Committee.
Live Q&A:
The lecture will be followed by a live Q&A with the speaker. You can submit a question in advance by sending an email to public.lectures@ncl.ac.uk or during the event using YouTube Live Chat or via Twitter @InsightsNCL.
This event will be hosted on YouTube, registration is not required.

British Association for Local History Digital Webinar: How to grow your local history social media presence
2021-03-10 18:00 - 19:30 (Europe/London)
A one-hour webinar with BALH’s Social Media Fellow, Daniella Gonzalez.
Daniella will provide an introduction to the various social media platforms available and how local history societies can best use them to promote their work and engage with the wider history community.
Details and booking

Mike Fraser. History through a Northumbrian Lens: Sir William Beveridge
2021-03-13 10:00 - 11:00 (Europe/London)
History through a Northumbrian Lens: Part One; Individual Lectures Tickets, Sat 13 Mar 2021 at 10:00 | Eventbrite
Mike will examine the public and turbulent private lives of these three men in the context of key historical events:
13 March – Sir William Beveridge was the hugely popular architect of the welfare state who became Liberal MP for Berwick in 1944 only to be swept away in the Labour landslide of 1945. Mike will discuss his report, the reasons for his defeat at Berwick and his subsequent career.
