Radical Lives
The people who shaped the radical and labour movement of North East England — organisers, councillors, trade unionists, communists and campaigners, remembered in their own appreciations and obituaries.
This page provides an index of appreciations and obituaries of figures from the history of the radical and labour movement in the north east of England. Click on the links to read their full stories. If you know someone who should be included here, or would like to add something to one of the existing articles, please contact us. The entries we have are predominantly male and exclusivly pale (but not stale!) so appreciations of radical women and BAME people, or both, would be especially welcome. The North East does have female BAME activists but, we are pleased to say, the ones we know of are still among us.
Lionel Anwell
Active in the Newcastle Labour Party from the early 1920’s. Because he was a civil servant from 1945 he was unable to stand for the Council till after he retired in 1973.…
Read their story →Dave Atkinson
A lifelong communist and one of Tyneside’s most outstanding trade unionists of the twentieth century. Dave started work at the Post Office in 1929 and he quickly became an officer in the…
Read their story →Kenny Bell
Trade unionist, internationalist, feminist, able mentor and enabler of those around him. Deputy Convenor, UNISON Northern Region, Branch Secretary, UNISON Newcastle City Council Branch. Kenny recognised the need constantly to build, renew…
Read their story →Albert Booth
Former “Old Labour” Cabinet Minister, lifelong socialist, trade unionist and advocate of unilateral nuclear disarmament. He drafted some important legislation, including the employment sections of the Race Discrimination and Sex Discrimination Acts…
Read their story →Ray Challinor
One of the driving forces of the North East Labour History Society from his arrival in the north east in 1971 to the mid-1990s. Despite a stroke in his later years he…
Read their story →Rene Chaplin
A founder member of Live theatre, Newcastle, and vice-president of the city's People's theatre, as well as a keen but by no means uncritical patron of the Stone, Bede and Northumbria galleries.…
Read their story →Sid Chaplin
Prolific Writer, Playwright, Poet. The link takes you to John Mapplebeck's revealing discussion of Chaplin's literary work. There is also an appreciation in Volume 20 of North East History which is currently…
Read their story →Joe Clarke
The founding secretary of the North East Labour History Society in 1966. Born in Dublin in 1927, his earliest encounter with authoritarianism was a ferocious Catholic priest whose method of teaching him…
Read their story →Dick Copland
Early pioneer of progressive, comprehensive education who, with his family, lived close to Ryhope Comprehensive school in Sunderland, so that he could be close to the community of the school he led.…
Read their story →Norman Cornish
Sublimely talented artist of Spennymoor. Cornish went down the pit at an early age, 14 years. His chosen pit, Dean and Chapter Colliery, had such a poor safety record that it was…
Read their story →Norman Dennis
Notable Wearsider, Academic and Labour Activist. The son of a Sunderland tram-driver, Norman graduated with a first from the LSE in 1952, the best graduate of his year. Following his academic…
Read their story →Val Duncan
Trade union organiser, socialist, fighter for women’s rights and engineer whose MA thesis was titled ‘Women into Science and Engineering’. Val held a number of positions in both the Labour Party and…
Read their story →Len Edmondson
Elected full-time official of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, becoming a member of the Executive Council in 1966. He was also President of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions. Always identified with…
Read their story →Don Edwards
A prodigious reader including: Plato’s Republic, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist and Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Don was a lifelong trade unionist and member of the Newcastle and district Trades Council, becoming elected Secretary,…
Read their story →Bob Fryer
Trade unionist and adult educator. For 15 years from 1983 he was the principal of the Northern College near Barnsley and in the early 1990s he played a key role in bringing…
Read their story →Mike Furlonger
History teacher, Chair of Heddon Local History Society, teacher at the Centre for Lifelong Learning and long-time member of the North East Labour History Society. His paper on the Primrose League ,…
Read their story →Alex Glasgow
Writer and performer of socialist songs, peace campaigner, journalist, broadcaster and creator of the occasional musical. Perhaps his most famous song was Close the Coalhouse Door which was used in Alan Plater's…
Read their story →Frank Graham
International Brigade soldier who later became one of the most successful local publishers in Britain since the Second World War. Born in Sunderland in 1913, he was academically gifted, he won…
Read their story →Bill Griffiths
Poet, archivist and historian who combined his extensive knowledge of community dialects such as pitmatic with the history of the people spoke them. He helped to establish the Tyneside and Durham Dialect…
Read their story →Mary Gunn*
became the first female Mayor of Gateshead in 1942. She was the first woman to chair the town’s Labour Party, and was the first female Roman Catholic municipal councillor in the Diocese…
Read their story →*
This link is to an article in the website of exiles in England: Irish nationalists in North East England on the founding of the Irish Labour Party in Gateshead at the time…
Tom Hadaway
Playwright. Tom wrote sixteen stage plays, seven television plays and three screenplays. Tom was a natural storyteller and he had the talent to write authentic dialogue. He wrote about ‘the commonfolk’ from…
Read their story →Tony Hepburn
Leading historian and teacher of modern Irish history. Becoming an "accidental" expert on Ireland at Cambridge, he went on to study the roots of the sectarian divide at Coleraine University and, in…
Read their story →Davey Hopper
General Secretary of the Durham Miners, and a lifelong activist in the NUM, taking part in both the 1972 and 1984 strikes. Davey Hopper adapted himself to new ways of thinking and…
Read their story →Chris Killip
One of Britain’s best post-war photographers. In 1975 he won a two-year fellowship from Northern Arts to photograph the northeast of England. He moved to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to pursue this work, to which…
Read their story →John King
Social worker in Newcastle who identified the prevalence of mental health problems among the homeless and established Hill Court in Pitt Street as a centre of good practice in addressing these problems.…
Read their story →Peter Latham
Lifelong trade union activist, chair of the Newcastle College NATFE branch, Peter was one of the local and national leaders of the resistance to the Thatcher government’s attacks on the pay and…
Read their story →Phil Lenton
National Secretary for Unison, internationalist, CND activist, communist. Like others in this list, he earned his spurs at the great Grosvenor Square demonstration against the Vietnam war. His internationalism was practical: working…
Read their story →Douglas Malloch
(use this link to Journal Issue 39 and scroll to page 179) Active in the Labour and Union movement on Tyneside, 'Dougie' worked at Parsons turbine works in Byker and as a…
Read their story →Terry MacDermott
One of the four people who formed a steering committee that launched the North East Labour History Group in 1966. He served as Chair from 1977 to 1982, and in 2017 was…
Read their story →John McNair
(use this link to Journal Issue 49 and scroll to page 71) Chair of the ILP from 1939 to 1954, a writer and biographer he travelled widely, including living in France for…
Read their story →Mo Mowlam’s
most significant political achievement was her part in the Northern Ireland Good Friday agreement in 1998. A long-standing member of the Labour Party before becoming an MP, she was adopted by New…
Read their story →Jim Murray
Shop stewards’ convenor of Vickers Elswick works at a time when such a position held an almost mythic status on the left. Add to this his intellect, speaking ability and slightly bohemian…
Read their story →Bernard Newbold
Miner and mining engineer with a specific interest in researching mine safety. He was chair of the Housing Committee of North Tyneside Council during the Thatcher years when he struggled, with great…
Read their story →William Parker
Chartist, campaigner for improved conditions for the working poor and soldier. Parker was born in Wandsworth in 1790. He came to Tyneside about 1820 after discharge from the army following the killing…
Read their story →Archie Potts
Lifelong Labour activist, Sunderland FC supporter, fan of boxing and wrestling, and a founding member, latterly President, of the North East Labour History Society. Archie started his career as a railway clerk…
Read their story →Bill Purdue
Born in North Shields, Professor A.W. (Bill) Purdue was a historian whose early career covered the growth of the Labour Party in the North East and other Labour history of the late nineteenth…
Read their story →Fred Ramsey (use this link to Journal Issue 45 and scroll to page 163)
Miner, poet and seaman. Fred Ramsey was born into a mining family in Tantobie and, although at Grammar School on a scholarship, soon went down the pit himself, forced there by his…
Read their story →Mick Renwick
Trade union activist, Wobbly, anarcho-syndicalist, anti-fascist, internationalist, and Geordie working class hero. Mick Renwick began his long and varied political career in CND and the Committee of 100, taking part in demonstrations…
Read their story →The Richardson family of Usworth*
Over several generations the Richardson family of Usworth were closely involved in the Labour and Trade Union Movements in and beyond Usworth in Co Durham. *Read their stories via the link to…
Read their story →T Dan Smith
. Leader of Newcastle City Council from 1960 to 1965. Responsible for massive slum clearance and rebuilding but eventually imprisoned for corruption. Perhaps history has been a little kinder to T Dan…
Read their story →Elizabeth Spence-Watson
(use this link to Journal Issue 47 and scroll to page 73) Social reformer, pacifist, quaker, suffragist. 1838-1919. Positions she held included President of the district’s Women’s Liberal Association (WLA), which she founded,…
Read their story →Pete Steffens
Journalist, teacher, staunch opponent of the Iraq invasion with friends in the many parts of the world he worked and lived. Born in Italy to American left-wing journalist parents Ella Winter and…
Read their story →Nigel Todd
was primarily a community activist but his interests were wide ranging: Greening Wingrove, the Bike Garden, tackling climate change and food poverty, fighting racism and fascism, his forty years as a Labour…
Read their story →John Veit-Wilson*
Sociologist, socialist, quaker and anti-poverty campaigner. In the early 1960s John worked with Professors Peter Townsend and Brian Abel-Smith on the first national study on poverty. In 1965 he was one of…
Read their story →Harriet Vyse
Trade Unionist who became a household name (more recognisable as Harriet Hopper) in Sunderland in the 1970s when, as shop stewards' convenor, she led a protracted series of industrial actions at Plessey…
Read their story →Eric Wade
The son of an Ashington pitman, Eric left school at sixteen and followed his dad into mining. At first via evening classes, he went on to study mining engineering to doctorate level.…
Read their story →Eric Walker
Lifelong socialist and Labour Party member of decades standing, Eric Walker collected money for Basque refugees in the 1930s, took part in the Normandy landings in 1944, served in Palestine at the…
Read their story →Sam Watson
Miners' leader who started his working life at the Dean and Chapter pit in County Durham where he met Sid Chaplin. Like Chaplin, Watson was an excellent witer, but he was also…
Read their story →Ellen Wilkinson
(use this link to Journal Issue 36 and scroll to page 114) Jarrow Marcher, author of The Town That Was Murdered, Minister of Education in Attlee's post-war government, Labour MP for Middlesbrough…
Read their story →Ethel Williams
Newcastle's first female general practitioner, radical suffragist, pacifist, educationalist and social welfare campaigner. She co-founded both the Northern Women's Hospital and the Medical Women's Federation in 1917. See also Nigel Todd's article…
Read their story →Thomas Wilson
Radical Whig councillor on the newly formed Gateshead Council in the 1830s, campaigner for the 1832 Reform Act, dialect poet, businessman, scientist, writer of an invaluable journal of his times and, creator…
Read their story →