Robert Samuel Theodore Chorley, 1895 - 1978, was born in Kendal and educated at Kendal School and Queens College, Oxford. During World War I, he served in the Foreign Office and Ministry of Labour. Although he was called to the Bar in 1920 he spent most of his early life teaching law. He was a tutor at the Law Society's School of Law 1920 - 1924 and Lecturer in Commercial Law 1924 - 1930, the Sir Ernest Cassel Professor of Commercial and Industrial Law at the London School of Economics 1930 - 1946, Dean of the Faculty of Laws at the University of London 1939 - 1942, and was made an honorary fellow of the London School of Economics in 1970. He was involved with the Association of University Teachers from 1938 to 1965. After the war he contested Northwich Division for Labour in the 1945 General Election. He became interested in penal reform and was a vice president of the Howard League for Penal Reform in 1948, president of the National Council for the Abolition of the Death Penalty 1945 - 1948, chairman of the Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency, 1950 - 1956 and president 1956 - 1976. His other main interest was the countryside, serving as vice-chairman of the National Trust, honorary secretary of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England 1935 - 1967, vice-president and president of the Fell Rock Climbing Club of the English Lake District, and a member of the Friends of the Lake District.
Born 1860; educated at the Stationers' School, London; entered the civil service, 1878, in the legal department of the Local Government Board; established a correspondence society for manuscript exchange called the MS Club, [1881]; member of the Progressive Association, 1882; founder member of the Fabian Society, 1884; joined the London branch of the Fellowship of the New Life, an intellectual discussion and study group dedicated to developing models of alternative societies, 1884-1889; member of the Ethical Society, 1886; emigrated to the USA, 1889; Lecturer at Thomas Davidson's School of the Cultural Sciences, Farmington, Connecticut; Lecturer, Brooklyn Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1890-1892; Head of English, Brooklyn Manual Training High School, 1893-1897; Principal of the Second Grade, New York Society's Ethical Culture School, 1897; Lecturer at the Pratt Institute and New York University, New York; Associate Leader, Society for Ethical Culture of New York, [1897-1910]; married his second wife, Anna Sheldon, the widow of Walter Sheldon, the founder of the St Louis Ethical Society; Leader of the St Louis Ethical Society, 1911-1932; President, Drama League of America, 1915-1920; retired 1932; President of the American Ethical Union, 1934-1939; died 1960. Publications: editor of Dryden's Palamon and Arcite; or the Knight's Tale from Chaucer (New York, 1908); On the religious frontier: from an outpost of ethical religion (Macmillan Co, New York, 1931); The teaching of English in the elementary and secondary school (Macmillan Co, new York, 1902); introduction to Select writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1888); editor of Essays of Montaigne (1893).
The Commission on Citizenship was set up in 1988 by the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Rt Hon Bernard Weatherill, in order to consider how to 'encourage, develop and recognise Active Citizenship within a wide range of groups in the community, both local and national, including school students, adults, those in full employment, as well as volunteers'. The Chair was Maurice Stonefrost, and the Secretary Frances Morell. The Commission's report was published as Encouraging citizenship (HMSO, 1990).
Walter McLennan Citrine, 1887-1983, left school at 12 to work in a flour mill. He soon became an electrician holding a variety of jobs. He joined the Electrical Trades Union in 1911, becoming Mersey District Secretary, 1914-1920, and General Secretary of the Electrical Trades Union, 1920-1923. He was Assistant Secretary of the TUC, 1924-1925, and General Secretary, 1926-1946. From 1928 to 1945 he was President of the International Federation of Trade Unions. He was also a Director of the Daily Herald Ltd, 1929-1946. During World War Two, Citrine was a member of the National Production Advisory Council, 1942-1946 and 1949-1957, and a trustee of the Imperial Relations Trust, 1937-1949,and the Nuffield Trust for the Forces, 1939-1946. He was also a member of the Cinematograph Films Council, 1938-1948, and served on the Executive Committee of the Red Cross and St John War Organisation, 1939-1946. He was chairman of the Production Committee on Regional Boards (Munitions)in 1942. After the war, he returned to the electrical industry, becoming President of the British Electrical Development Association, 1948-1952, Chairman of the Central Electricity Authority, 1947-1957, and President of the Electrical Research Association, 1950-1952 and 1956-1957. He was also a member (and President in 1955) of the Directing Committee, Union Internationale des Producteurs et Distributeurs d'Energie Electrique. He was a part time member of the Electricity Council, 1958-1962, and a part time member of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, 1958-1962.
No information available at present.
Publications: editor of Anatomy of decline: the political journalism of Peter Jenkins (Cassell, London, 1995); David Astor and the Observer (Deutsch, London, 1991); editor of My dear Max: the letters of Brendan Bracken to Lord Beaverbrook, 1925-1958 (Historians' Press, London, 1990); Twilight of truth: Chamberlain, appeasement, and the manipulation of the press (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1989).
No information available at present.
Richard Trevithick, a Cornish engineer, built the first steam locomotive for a railway, in 1804. The Manchester to Liverpool railway of 1830 was the first to convey passengers and goods entirely by mechanical traction. By 1852 nearly all the main lines of the modern railway system in England were authorised or completed.
Sir John Parnell (1744-1801), Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer, was a student of Lincoln's Inn 1766, and a bencher at King's Inns, Dublin, 1786. From 1761 to 1768 he was MP for Bangor in the Irish Parliament, and for Inistioge 1776-1783. He became Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer in 1785. He opposed the liberal policy of the English government, and in consequence of his opposition to the Union was removed from his post in 1799. In 1801 he entered the first parliament of the United Kingdom as MP for Queen's County.
In 1846 three companies, London and Birmingham, Grand Junction Railway and Manchester and Birmingham amalgamated to form the London and North Western Railway. The amalgamation created 247 miles of railway that linked London, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and Preston. The London and North Western Railway continued to expand and by 1868 the company had added links to Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds, Swansea and Cardiff. However, attempts to amalgamate with Midland Railway ended in failure. By 1871 the London and North Western Railway employed 15,000 people.
Daniel Asher Alexander (1768-1846) was educated at St Paul's School. He was a silver medallist, Royal Academy. He was also surveyor to London Dock Company (1796-1831) and to Trinity House. Alexander designed lighthouses at Harwich and Lundy Island, and prisons at Dartmoor and Maidstone. William Vaughan (1752-1850) was a merchant and author. He was a director of the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation, London, 1783-1829. He advocated canal extension, 1791; published pamphlets urging extension of London Docks, 1793-1797. His publications include: "Answer to objections against the London-docks" (1796); "A collection of tracts on wet docks for the Port of London: with hints on trade and commerce and on free-ports" (1797); "A comparative statement of the advantages and disadvantages of the docks in Wapping and the docks in the Isle of Dogs" (1799); "A letter to a friend on commerce and free ports and London-docks" (1796).
John Francis Bray (1809-1897) was born in Washington in the United States, the son of a singer and comedian who was descended from West Riding farmers and cloth manufacturers. In 1822 the Bray family returned to Leeds. When his father died a few days following the family's return to Yorkshire Bray stayed with his aunt who was a milliner. During the 1820s he became apprenticed to a printer and bookbinder in Pontefract, West Yorkshire. He later moved to Selby, North Yorkshire to complete his apprenticeship. In 1832 Bray returned to Leeds and in the following year worked on the "Voice of the West Riding" periodical. He then moved to York and contributed to the "Leeds Times" until 1837 when he moved back to Leeds. He became involved in the town's working class movement and helped to set up the Leeds Working Men's Association. He became its treasurer and delivered a number of lectures on its behalf. Bray returned to the United States in 1842 and became a printer in Detroit. From 1856 to 1865 he ran a daguerreotype gallery in Pontiac, Michigan. In the following decade Bray became involved in the Young American Socialist Movement. He helped draft a number of political tracts, addressed public meetings in parts of the mid-West and was a correspondent on economic and social questions. By this time Bray was living on a farm near Pontiac, Michigan, where he spent the rest of his life producing corn and fruit for market. He joined the Knights of Labour in 1886 and the Pontiac branch of the knights subsequently took the name the "John F Bray Assembly". Bray died on 1st February 1897 at his son's farm in Pontiac.
His publications include: "Labour's wrongs and labour's remedy" (1839); "Government and society considered in relation to first principles" (1842); "The coming age devoted to the fraternisation and advancement of mankind through religious, political and social reforms. No. 1 Spiritualism founded on a fallacy" (1855); "No. 2 The origin of mundane and human energies unfavourable to spiritualism" (1855); "American destiny what shall it be? Republican or Cossack? An argument addressed to the people of the late Union North and South" (1864); "God and man a unity and all mankind a unity; a basis for a new dispensation social and religious" (1879).
Richard Potter MP (1778-1842) was the brother of Sir Thomas Potter (1773-1845), MP and first Mayor of Manchester (1838). They grew up on their father's farm at Tadcaster, North Yorkshire and collaborated both in business and politics in Manchester. They helped found the Manchester Guardian newspaper in 1821, which became The Guardian in 1959 to reflect its national distribution and news coverage. The Potter brothers also founded the Times(Manchester), later called the Examiner and Times, and established the wholesale house in Manchester trade which became known as "Potter's". This place became a rendezvous for political and philanthropic reformers. In 1830 Richard Potter joined a group campaigning for parliamentary reform. The group proposed that the seats of rotten boroughs convicted of gross electoral corruption should be transferred to industrial towns. In 1831 Absalom Watkin (fl 1807-1861) drew up a petition asking the government to grant Manchester two Members of Parliament. As a result of the 1832 Reform Act Manchester had its first two Members of Parliament. Richard Potter was returned as Liberal MP for Wigan in 1832, 1835 and 1837. He later unsuccessfully contested Gloucester. His political views earned him the nickname "Radical Dick". Richard Potter's son, also called Richard, was President of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada and Chairman of the Great Western Railway (1817-1892),and his granddaughter Beatrice Webb (1858-1943), daughter of his son Richard, was a prominent social reformer and wife of fellow reformer Sidney Webb, Baron Passfield (1859-1947). His publications include: "To the independent inhabitants of the Borough of Wigan" (1831).
Henry Solly, 1813-1903, was born in London, the son of a businessman. His family were radical Protestant Dissenters, and Solly was educated at schools run by Unitarian ministers. He was one of the first students to attend University College, London (1829-1831), where he studied classics and mathematics. In 1840 Solly became minister at the Unitarian Chapel at Yeovil, Somerset. He became involved with the Chartist movement and several of the working class gropus in the town. After he served as a representative at the Birmingham chartist conference of 1842, Solly was forced out of his ministry. He was then minister at Tavistock 1842-1844, Shepton Mallet 1844-1847, Cheltenham 1847-1851, Carter Lane, London 1852-1857. In 1862 Solly founded the Working Men's Club and Institute Union in London. The aim of the organisation was to encourage the formation of clubs by working men "where they can meet for conversation, business, and mental improvement, with the means of recreation and refreshment, free from intoxicating drinks". He became its first paid secretary in 1863. When Solly opposed the clubs' practice of selling alcohol he was forced to resign. He returned in the 1870s but left again following disputes about his salary. By the time of solly's death in 1903 there were 992 clubs with 380,000 members in Britain. In 1869 Solly was instrumental in founding the Charity Organisation Society. Its aim was to better administering charity relief while emphasising the need for self help, and accompanying it with personal care. In 1884 Solly also established the Society for the Promotion of Industrial Villages. The society's purpose was to provide good-quality housing for working people. In 1868 Solly's daughter Emily Rebeecca married the Unitarian minister and temperance camaigner Philip Wicksteed (1844-1927). Solly died at Wicksteed's home in 1903. His publications include: 'Facts and fallacies connected with working men's clubs and institutes' (1865); 'Destitute poor and criminal classes: a few thoughts on how to deal with the unemployed poor of London, and with its roughs and criminal classes?' (1868); 'Re-housing of the industrial classes; or, village communities v town rookeries' (1884); 'The condition of the English working class: the papers of the Reverend Henry Solly' (1990).
Beatrice Webb, 1858-1943, was born Martha Beatrice Potter at Standish House near Gloucester, she was the eighth daughter of the railway and industrial magnate Richard Potter (1817-1892). Beatrice was educated privately and became a business associate of her father after her mother's death in 1882. She became interested in reform and began to do social work in London. Beatrice investigated working-class conditions as part of the survey 'Life and Labour of the People in London' (1891-1903), directed by her cousin Charles Booth (1840-1916).
In 1892 she married Sidney Webb (1859-1947), later Baron Passfield, a member of the socialist Fabian Society. Sidney and Beatrice Webb served on many royal commissions and wrote widely on economic problems. In 1895 they founded the London School of Economics and Political Science. After a tour of the United States and the Dominions in 1898, they embarked on their massive ten-volume work, 'English Local Government' (1906-1929). Beatrice Webb also served on the Poor Law Commission (1906-1909) and was joint author of its minority report. During World War I Beatrice Webb was a member of the War Cabinet committee on women in industry (1918-1919) and served on the Lord Chancellor's advisory committee for women justices (1919-1920), being a justice of the peace herself from 1919 to 1927.
Sidney Webb became an MP in 1922 and held ministerial office in both the early Labour governments. In 1932, after he had left office, the Webbs visited the Soviet Union. They recorded their views in 'Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation' (1935). The Webbs retired to their home in Hampshire in 1928. Beatrice Webb produced two volumes of autobiography: 'My Apprenticeship' (1926) and 'Our Partnership' (1948), which was published after her death. Her publications include: 'The co-operative movement in Great Britain' (1891); 'The history of trade unionism' (1894) (co-author with Sidney Webb); 'The case for the Factory Acts' (1901); 'English Local Government' (1906) (co-author with Sidney Webb); 'The charter of the poor' (1909); 'The break-up of the Poor Law: being part one of the Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission' (1909); 'The coming of a unified county medical service and how it will affect the voluntary hospital' (1910); 'Complete national provision for sickness: how to amend the insurance acts' (1912); 'The abolition of the Poor Law' (1918); 'Wages of men and women-should they be equal?' (1919); 'A constitution for the socialist commonwealth of Great Britain' (1920); 'Decay of capitalist civilisation' (1923) Co-author with Sidney Webb; 'My apprenticeship' (1926); 'Soviet Communism: a new civilisation' (1935); 'Our partnership' (1948).
The Independent Labour Party: The activities of the Manchester Independent Labour Party (established in 1892) inspired Liberal-Labour MPs to consider setting up a new national working class party. The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was consequently formed in 1893 under the leadership of James Keir Hardie (1856-1915). The chief objective of the ILP would be "to secure the collective ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange". The ILP had 35,000 members at the time of the 1895 General Election, and put forward 28 candidates, but only won 44,325 votes. The party had more success in local elections, winning over 600 seats on borough councils. The ILP joined the Social Democratic Federation in 1898 to make West Ham the first local authority to have a Labour majority. On 27th February 1900 representatives of all the socialist groups in Britain (the Independent Labour Party, the Social Democratic Federation and the Fabian Society, joined trade union leaders to form the Labour Representation Committee.
The Alice Patterson Foundation Program (formerly known as the Alice Patterson Fund) makes awards to USA journalists to study in a foreign country. It was established in 1965 in memory of Alicia Patterson (1906-1963), who was editor and publisher of "Newsday" for nearly 23 years before her death in 1963. One-year grants are awarded to working journalists to pursue independent projects of significant interest and to write articles based on their investigations for the "The APF Reporter", a quarterly magazine published by the Foundation. Winners are chosen by an annual competition. Applicants must have at least five years of professional journalistic experience. The website for the Foundation can be found at: http://www.aliciapatterson.org.
The collection is based on that assembled by David Collis and recorded in the printed bibliography British Birth Control Ephemera 1870 to 1947: A catalogue. by Peter Fryer (Barracuda Press, Leicester, 1947). Some of the material listed in the bibliography is missing but there is also additional material not recorded in the bibliography.
The Fellowship of Reconciliation was founded in Cambridge 1914 by a group of pacifist Christians. During the summer of 1914 an ecumenical conference of Christians who wanted to avert the approaching war was held in Switzerland. However, war broke out before the end of the conference and, at Cologne station, Henry Hodgkin, an English Quaker, and Friedrich Siegmund-Schulze, a German Lutheran, pledged themselves to a continued search for peace with the words, "We are at one in Christ and can never be at war". Inspired by that pledge, about 130 Christians of all denominations gathered in Cambridge at the end of 1914 and set up the FoR, recording their general agreement in a statement which became 'The Basis' of the FoR, namely:
1) That love as revealed and interpreted in the life and death of Jesus Christ involves more than we have yet seen, that is the only power by which evil can be overcome and the only sufficient basis of human society.
2) That, in order to establish a world-order based on Love, it is incumbent upon those who believe in this principle to accept it fully, both for themselves and in relation to others and to take the risks involved in doing so in a world which does not yet accept it.
3) That therefore, as Christians, we are forbidden to wage war, and that our loyalty to our country, to humanity, to the Church Universal, and to Jesus Christ our Lord and Master, calls us instead to a life-service for the enthronement of Love in personal, commercial and national life.
4) That the Power, Wisdom and Love of God stretch far beyond the limits of our present experience, and that He is ever waiting to break forth into human life in new and larger ways.
5) That since God manifests Himself in the world through men and women, we offer ourselves to His redemptive purpose to be used by Him in whatever way He may reveal to us.
The FoR supported conscientious objectors during World War I and was a supporter of passive resistance during World War II. In 1919, representatives from a dozen countries met in Holland and established the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, which now has many branches in all five continents.
The Independent Labour Party: The activities of the Manchester Independent Labour Party (established in 1892) inspired Liberal-Labour MPs to consider setting up a new national working class party. The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was consequently formed in 1893 under the leadership of James Keir Hardie (1856 - 1915). The chief objective of the ILP would be "to secure the collective ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange". The ILP had 35,000 members at the time of the 1895 General Election, and put forward 28 candidates, but only won 44,325 votes. The party had more success in local elections, winning over 600 seats on borough councils. The ILP joined the Social Democratic Federation in 1898 to make West Ham the first local authority to have a Labour majority. On 27th February 1900 representatives of all the socialist groups in Britain (the Independent Labour Party, the Social Democratic Federation and the Fabian Society, joined trade union leaders to form the Labour Representation Committee.
The Association of Professional, Executive, Clerical and Computer Staff was founded in 1890 when about a dozen men met in an office in the Strand and decided to form the Clerk's Union. As membership increased and spread across the country, the name was changed to the National Union of Clerks. In 1920, after rapid growth and the absorption of a number of other unions, the membership figure was around 40,000 and the name was again changed to the National Union of Clerks and Administrative Workers (NUCAW). In 1940, the Association of Women Clerks and Secretaries transferred to NUCAW and a new title was agreed: the Clerical and Administrative Workers Union. Then, in 1972, arising from the spread of the union's influence, changes in office skills and the growing ability of the union to represent staff at all levels, it changed its title to the Association of Professional, Executive, Clerical and Computer Staff (APEX) and they joined GMB in 1989. More recently, APEX accepted the Transfer of Engagements of the Automobile Association Staff and the General Accident Staff. Since the amalgamation, the Greater London Staff Association, who earlier transferred to GMB, have joined the APEX Partnership and the National Union of Labour Organisers and Legal Aid Staff Association have also transferred to APEX.
The Stapletons were an old landed family in Carlton, North Yorkshire. Their seat was Carlton Hall. Thomas Stapleton's son Miles claimed the title of Baron Beaumont in 1840.
The Independent Labour Party: The activities of the Manchester Independent Labour Party (established in 1892) inspired Liberal-Labour MPs to consider setting up a new national working class party. The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was consequently formed in 1893 under the leadership of James Keir Hardie (1856 - 1915). The chief objective of the ILP would be "to secure the collective ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange". The ILP had 35,000 members at the time of the 1895 General Election, and put forward 28 candidates, but only won 44,325 votes. The party had more success in local elections, winning over 600 seats on borough councils. The ILP joined the Social Democratic Federation in 1898 to make West Ham the first local authority to have a Labour majority. On 27th February 1900 representatives of all the socialist groups in Britain (the Independent Labour Party, the Social Democratic Federation and the Fabian Society, joined trade union leaders to form the Labour Representation Committee.
The posters were produced by the Ministerstvo Edravookhraneniia of Russia in 1930.
The British Association for Labour Legislation was a small group of people who were attached to the London School of Economics. The association dealt with issues such as the health and welfare of workers, education and the implementation of a National Health Service.
The Joint Board consisted of three representatives and the secretaries from the Parliamentary Committee of the Trade Union Congress, the General Federation of Trade Unions and the Labour Party. The Joint Board met to:
- consider and report as whether new societies connected with trades already covered by existing organisations should be encouraged or otherwise.
- consider and agree upon joint political or other action when such is deemed to be advantageous or necessary.
3.use its influence to bring about a settlement in cases of trade disputes, provided it had the concurrence of the Executive of the union or unions affected.
Edward Pease 1857-1945 was the sixth of fifteen children, was born at Henbury Hill, near Bristol on 23rd December, 1857. Edward was the grandson of Edward Pease (1767-1858) the railway entrepreneur. His parents were devout Quakers. Pease moved to London in 1874 where he found work as a clerk in his brother-in-law's textile firm. Later he became a partner in a brokerage company. The business was very successful, but Pease, who was gradually developing socialists ideas, became increasingly uncomfortable about his speculative dealings on the Stock Exchange. In the early 1880s Pease became friends with Frank Podmore (1856-1910), who invited him to join the Society for Physical Research. The following year, the two men, joined a socialist debating group established by Edith Nesbit and Hubert Bland. In January, 1884, the group became known as the Fabian Society. Podmore's home, 14 Dean's Yard, Westminster, became the official headquarters of the organisation. The success of "Fabian Essays in Socialism" (1889) convinced the Fabian Society that they needed a full-time employee. In 1890 Pease was appointed as Secretary of the Society. In 1894 Henry Hutchinson, a wealthy solicitor from Derby, left the Fabian Society £10,000. Hutchinson left instructions that the money should be used for "propaganda and socialism". Hutchinson selected Pease, Sidney Webb (1859-1947) and Beatrice Webb (1858-1943) as trustees of the fund, and together they decided the money should be used to develop a new university in London. The London School of Economics (LSE) was founded in 1895. Pease was also a member of the Independent Labour Party. On 27th February 1900, Pease represented the Fabian Society at the meeting of socialist and trade union groups at the Memorial Hall in Farringdon Street, London. The Conference established a Labour Representation Committee (LRC). Pease was elected to the executive of the Labour Representation Committee (named the Labour Party after 1906) and held the post for the next fourteen years. Pease established the East Surrey Labour Party and served on local council.
Charlotte Wilson (1854-1944)was born in Kemerton, Overbury, Tewkesbury. Her father was surgeon to the Shrewsbury Union and to the Worcester Friendly Institution. She was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. Sometime between 1880-1883 she married Arthur Wilson, a stockbroker who became editor of "The Investors Review". In 1884 she met Edward Pease, who introduced her to the Fabian Society. Wilson was elected a member of the society on 17th October 1884 and on 7th November read a paper to the society on anarchism. When the executive was established on 19th December she was made one of its members. Wilson left the Fabian Society in 1915 on the grounds of ill health. She was honorary secretary to the Prisoner of War Fund, Oxford and Bucks Regiment 1918-1919, and died at Irvington-on-Hudson, New York in 1944.
Margaret Harkness (1854-c1921) was a relative of the social reformer Beatrice Potter, and was born at Upton-upon-Severn in 1854. Her father was an Anglican priest. In 1877 she went to London to train at Westminster Hospital. In January 1878 she began as an apprentice dispenser, but around 1881 decided to try to earn a living as a journalist and author. Her first known publication was an article entitled "Women as Civil Servants" in the liberal monthly journal "Nineteenth Century". At the same time she began writing books and novels. During the early 1880s she became interested in the social problems of London's East End. In January 1888 Harkness joined the group around Henry Hyde Champion (1859-1928), editor of the Social Democratic Federation's journal "Justice", for which she published several of her articles. She left the group in 1889. In 1906 she went to India, where she stayed for several years working as a writer and probably a journalist. Harkness appears to have died some time after 1921.
Amber Blanco White, nee Reeves (b 1887) was the eldest daughter of William Pember Reeves (1857-1932), High Commissioner of New Zealand, and Maud Pember Reeves (1865-1953), a member of the Fabian Society's executive and founder of the Fabian Womens Group. She was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge, gaining a double first in moral sciences. She was involved in the suffrage movement and the Fabian Society.
John Robert Riding, 1902-1983, was born in Gateacre, near Liverpool, and lived at Newcastle-under-Lyme until he was three years old, when his parents moved to London. Ridings began his career as an office boy with Camberwell Metropolitan Borough Council in 1917. In September 1940 he became Assistant Solicitor for Camberwell Metropolitan Borough Council. Riding was appointed Solicitor and Deputy Clerk to Hayes and Harlington Urban District Council, Middlesex in July 1943. In October 1946 he was appointed Clerk and Solicitor to Willenhall Urban District Council, Staffordshire. He retired from this post in March 1966 on the re-organisation of local government in the West Midlands. He went on to become Clerk of Shifnal Parish Council, Shropshire in 1968. In October 1976 Riding was appointed Town Clerk of Shifnal when the Parish Council became a Town Council. In March 1977 Riding retired after sixty years in local government. In February 1926 Riding was appointed Secretary to the Joint Committee of the Peckham branch of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and Camberwell Local Communist Party. In 1930 Riding retired from this post as he was moving from the Borough following his marriage. In 1928 Riding became Acting Secretary to the ILP South London Federation. He became Propaganda Secretary for the Federation in 1930. He was Member of the National Executive Committee of the Society of Clerks of the Urban District Councils, 1952-1968; President of the Society of Clerks of the Urban District Councils, 1954-1966; Member of the Executive Council of the Urban District Councils Association, 1966-1967; Member of the National Executive Committee of the Society of Local Council Clerks, 1972-1975; Chairman of the Executive Committee, Shropshire Association of Parish & Town Councils, 1974-1977, and continued as a co-opted member of this Committee after his retirement.
The South Wales Miners' Federation (SWMF) or "The Fed" as it was sometimes known was founded in 1898. William Brac of the South Wales branch of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) became Vice-President, and the Lib-Lab MP for the Rhondda William Abraham (1842-1922), who was prominent within the Cambrian Miners' Association, became the President. Abraham was also Teasurer of the MFGB. He was often referred to as "Mabon" (Welsh for the bard) by miners. A few months after its founding the SWMF became affiliated with the Miners' Federation of Great Britain. In 1899 it had 100,000 members, and by 1914 it had 200,000, making it the largest group affiliated to the MFGB. It became the largest unit within British coalmining unionism. In 1912 the SWMF secured a minimum wage for coalminers by advocating the first Britain-wide coal strike. However, the failure of the 1926 General Strike saw a decline in the SWMF's membership from 136,000 to 60,000 by 1932. Relevant publications include: The Fed: A History of the South Wales Miners in the Twentieth Century (1980) by Hywel Francis and Dai Smith.
The committee comprised representatives of organisations affiliated to, or eligible for affiliation to the Labour Party. They discussed the relief of civil distress, food prices, housing and pensions.
Leonard Henry Courtney, 1832 - 1918, was born in Penzance and educated at St John's College, Cambridge. He was called to the Bar in 1858 and became a Bencher in 1889. He left law to became Professor of Political Economy at University College, London in 1872, a post that he held until 1875. He also entered politics, becoming the Liberal Party MP for Liskeard from 1875 to 1885, and then MP for the Bodmin Division of Cornwall until 1900. He was made Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department 1880 - 1881, and for the Colonial Office 1881 - 1882. In 1884 he resigned the office of Financial Secretary to the Treasury. His last post was as Chairman of Committees and Deputy Speaker, which he held 1886 - 1892. Leonard Courtney was also a contributor to The Times and The Nineteenth Century. He married Catherine (née Potter, sister of Beatrice Webb) in 1883.
Anthony Crosland was educated at Highgate School and Trinity College, Oxford. He graduated in PPE in 1946, following war service in Italy, and was a lecturer and fellow of Trinity College from 1947-1950. He was Labour MP for South Gloucester 1950-1955 and for Grimsby 1959-1977. He was Minister of State for Economic Affairs 1964-1965, Secretary of State for Education and Science 1965-1967, for Local Government and Regional Planning 1969-1970, and for the Environment 1974-1976, and Foreign Secretary 1976-1977. He was also secretary of the Independent Commission into the Co-operative Movement, 1956-1958, and a member of the Consumer's Council, 1958-1963. He married Susan Catling in 1964.
Charles Vickery Drysdale, 1874 - 1961, was educated at Finsbury Technical College and Central Technical College, South Kensington. He became the Associate Head of the Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics Department at the Northampton Institute 1896 - 1910. After a brief period as a partner in the firm of H. Tinsley and Co from 1916 to 1919, he joined the Admiralty Experimental Station at Parkston Quay in 1918. From there he went on to become Scientific Director at the Admiralty Experimental Station, Shandon, 1919-1921, Superintendent at the Admiralty Research Laboratory, Teddington, 1921-1929 and Director of Scientific Research at the Admiralty 1929-1934. From 1934 onwards he was a member of the Safety in Mines Research Board. This collection focuses on Drysdale's interests in population and birth control. He was Honorary Secretary of the Malthusian League and Editor of 'The Malthusian', 1907-1916, and president of the Neo-Malthusian Conferences in London 1921 and New York 1925. He was the author of a number of works on population control and eugenics, and was also the first witness to be called before the National Birth-Rate Commission in 1913. He married Bessie Ingman Edwards in 1898.
Sir Ronald Edwards was Assistant Lecturer, then Lecturer, in Business Administration with special reference to Accounting at the London School of Economics (LSE), 1935-1940. During World War Two, he worked in the Ministry of Aircraft Production. In 1946 he returned to LSE as Sir Ernest Cassel Reader in Commerce, becoming a Professor in 1949. He was Deputy Chairman (1957-1961), then Chairman (1962-1968) of the Electricity Council; Chairman (1968-1975), then President (1975-1976) of Beecham Group Ltd; Director, ICI Ltd, 1969-1976; Director, Hill Samuel Group, 1974-1976; and, Chairman of British Leyland Ltd, 1975-1976. He was a member of several other bodies too, including the Advisory Council of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, 1949-1954; the University Grants Committee, 1955-1964; the National Economic Development Council, 1964-1968; and, the British Airways Board, 1971-1976. He chaired the Government committee of inquiry into the civil air transport industry, 1967-1969. He was a Governor of LSE, 1968-1976.
Stephan R. Epstein, 1960-2007, was brought up in Switzerland and graduated cum laude from the University of Siena. He obtained his PhD in History from Cambridge University and continued there as a postdoctoral research fellow until 1992, when he was appointed to a lectureship on Economic History at the London School of Economics. By 1997 he had been promoted to a readership and he became Professor of Economic History in 2001. At the time of his death he was Head of the Department. Epstein's field of expertise was the economic history of medieval and early modern Europe. He established a formidable reputation in this area early in his career, and left an impressive publication record. He is the sole author of Alle origini della fattoria toscana. L'ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala di Siena e le sue terre, c.1250-c.1450 (Salimbeni, Florence, 1986); An island for itself. Economic development and social transformation in late medieval Sicily Past and Present (Publications Series: Cambridge, 1992); and Freedom and Growth, Markets and states in Europe, 1300-1750 (London: Routledge, 2000). He edited four volumes including Town and country in Europe, 1300-1800 (Cambridge, 2001). He is also the author of dozens of articles in journals and books.
The Fabian Society was founded on 4 January 1884 by Edward Pease and his friends, who wanted to found a "Fellowship of the New Life". The name 'Fabian Society' was derived from that of Quintus Fabius Cunctator, whose policy of holding his forces in reserve until the optimum moment for attack was considered worthy of emulation. The society's aim was "to help on the reconstruction of society in accordance with the highest moral possibilities". This was to be achieved by holding meetings to read papers, hear reports on current political matters and discuss social problems; by delegating members to attend other meetings held to discuss social subjects, to attempt to disseminate their own views at such meetings and to report back to the society on the outcome; and by collecting articles concerning social movements and needs from contemporary literature as a source of factual information. The Society's early members included George Bernard Shaw, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Emmeline Pankhurst and H G Wells.
Soon after its foundation the society established the Fabian News in order to keep members informed of what was going on in the society. This was later followed by the Fabian Quarterly and the Fabian Journal. A publishing firm called Palm and Pine was established in 1938. This was originally independent of the society, but became Fabian Publications Ltd in 1942. It published Society literature until it was dissolved fourteen years later. The society also spread its message by organising public lectures, conferences and various schools.
The Fabian Society is the oldest socialist organisation in Britain, but does not itself issue policy statements or put forward candidates for election to local or national government. Therefore, the society became affiliated to the Labour Party, although it also collaborated with the Independent Labour Party on specific projects. From 1949 onwards, it became customary for the Fabian Society to hold a tea meeting at the Labour Party Conference, at which guests were addressed by a leading Fabian politician.
There have been a number of special interest groups within the society, and these produced their own research and publications. When women's suffrage was a burning issue, a separate Women's Group was established. Similarly, the Fabian Nursery was set up in response to a perceived need to encourage the younger members of the society.
The society has also absorbed a number of organisations that were established independently of it. The New Fabian Research Bureau was set up by G.D.H. Cole with the support of Arthur Henderson as a separate organisation. It developed its own methods of research and propaganda and became much more effective than the original society. After eight years the Fabian Society and the New Fabian Research Bureau amalgamated. However the Fabian Society took on many of the ideas and methods of the New Fabian Research Bureau and these continue to influence it.
The Fabian Colonial Bureau also functioned as a separate organisation from the Fabian Society. The Fabian Society made it an annual grant which was later augmented by the TUC and the Labour Party. The bureau acted as a clearing house for information on colonial affairs and became a pressure group acting for colonial peoples. The bureau was renamed the Commonwealth Bureau in 1958. In 1963 it was amalgamated with the International Bureau and a few years later absorbed back into the main society.
The Fabian International Bureau was set up along the same lines as the Colonial Bureau. The aim of the bureau was the exchange of views on socialist subjects and the future of Europe after the war. After 1945 the main interest of the Bureau was the part that Britain should play in Europe, Anglo-American and Anglo-Soviet relations. During the 1960's they widened their scope to include defence, international agreements, the Common Market, aid to developing countries and the Labour Parties foreign policy.
The Home Research Committee was set up in 1943 to co-ordinate the committees and sub-committees working on social, economic and political issues in Britain. The committee produced reports, pamphlets and submitted evidence to Royal Commissions. They also distributed detailed questionnaires to members on these issues.
The Fabian Society continues to influence political thought in the UK. In the 1990s the society was a major influence in the modernisation of the Labour Party. Its report on the constitution of the Party was instrumental in the introduction of 'one member one vote' and made the original recommendation for the replacement of Clause IV. Since the 1997 general election there have been around 200 Fabian MPs in the Commons, amongst whom number nearly the entire Cabinet, including Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Robin Cook, Jack Straw, David Blunkett and Clare Short.
For a more extensive history of the Fabian Society, see Pugh and Mackesy's catalogue of the papers.
The Federal Union was founded in 1938 to advance the cause of federal government among democratic states in order to achieve international peace, economic stability and civil rights, by means of research, debate and political activity. The Federal Union flourished throughout the war years and established a series of active local and regional organisations. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Union was involved in political debates on topics such as the United Nations charter, international monetary reform and disarmament. It also concerned itself with post war reconstruction and, through this, the cause of European integration and the British entry into the European Economic Community. Federal Union continues to campaign for federalism for the UK, Europe and the world and argues that democracy and the rule of law should apply between states as well as within them. In 1945, on the initiative of Sir William Beveridge, the Federal Educational & Research Trust, an educational charity, was established. The purpose of the Trust was to encourage the study of international relations and co-operation and further research into federal principles and institutions by conducting enquiries, seminars, conferences and reports. Now known as the Federal Trust for Education and Research it continues to operate as a think tank studying the interaction between regional, national, European and global levels of government. Federal Trust has always had a particular interest in the European Union and Britain's place in it. In more recent years, it has supplemented its European work with studies on devolution and regional government in the United Kingdom and reports on global governance.
The 'Tactical Voting 87' group was a left of centre group set up to try and prevent the Rt Hon Margaret Hilda Thatcher gaining another term of office by persuading the public to vote for the candidate most likely to defeat the Conservative candidate in their constituency. TV 87 was wound up following the 1987 general election. Some of its members then formed 'Common Voice', which widened the scope of the campaign to include both tactical voting and a complete reform of the electoral system. Fishman was a member of both groups.
Professor Maurice Freedman, 1920-1975, was educated at Hackney Downs school and took a shortened two year degree in English at Kings College London in order to enter the army. He served in the Royal Artillery from 1941 to 1945, three years of which were spent in India. In 1946, he entered the Anthropology Department of the London School of Economics, where he became interested in social anthropology. His main interest was the study of Chinese society, a subject on which he produced many works, spending two years from 1949 to 1950 in field research among the Hokkien speaking Chinese of Singapore. In 1950 he was made a lecturer, in 1957 a reader, and in 1965 a professor. In 1970 he left LSE to take over the chair of social anthropology at Oxford on the retirement of Sir Edward Evans Pritchard. Freedman's interest in Asia prompted him to become first organising secretary and them chairman of the London Committee of the London-Cornell Project for research in south and south-east Asia. He was also greatly interested in Jewish culture and ideas, becoming the managing editor of the Jewish Journal of Sociology, which was founded to provide a forum for serious writing on Jewish affairs.
Alfred George Gardiner, 1865-1946, was born in Chelmsford and worked for the Chelmsford Chronicle and the Bournemouth Directory as a boy. In 1887 he became a member of staff of the Northern Daily Telegraph in Blackburn and in 1899 became editor of the Blackburn Weekly Telegraph. In 1902 he was appointed editor of the Daily News which he made into one of the leading liberal journals of the day. After a period of disagreements with the Cadbury family, who owned the Daily News, over his opposition to Lloyd George, he resigned. From 1915 he also contributed to the Star under the pseudonym 'Alpha of the Plough'.
Born 1925; educated Prague English Grammar School, St Albans County School, and Balliol Coll., Oxford University; Private, Czechoslovakian Armoured Brigade, BLA, 1944-45; on staff of London School of Economics, 1949-84, where he received a PhD in Social Anthropology, 1961, and became Professor of Philosophy, 1962-84; Visiting Fellow at Harvard, 1952-53; Co-editor of European Journal of Sociology, 1966-84, and Government and Opposition, 1980; Visiting Fellow, University of California, Berkeley, 1968; FBA, 1974; Visiting Fellow, Centre de Recherches et d'Études sur les Sociétés Méditerranéens, Aix-en-Provence, 1978-79; Member of the Council, Social Science Research Council (later Economic and Social Research Council), 1980-86 (Chairman, International Activities Committee, 1982-84); Member of Council, British Academy, 1981-84; Visiting Scholar, Institute of Advanced Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1982; William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University, 1984-93; Professorial Fellow, 1984-1992, and Supernumerary Fellow, 1992-1995, King's College, Cambridge University; Honorary Fellow, LSE, 1986; Guest of Academy of Sciences of USSR, Moscow, 1988-89; Honorary Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1988; President, Royal Anthropological Institute, 1991-94; First President, Society for Moroccan Studies, 1990-[1995]; Tanner Lecturer, Harvard University, 1990; Member, American Philosophical Society, 1992; FRSA, 1992; Member, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea, Salzburg, 1993; Resident Professor, and Director, Centre for Study of Nationalism, Central European University, Prague, 1993-[1995]; Visiting Lecturer, Center for European Studies, Harvard University, 1994; Erasmus Visiting Professor, Warsaw University, 1995; Member of Senate, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 1994-[1995]; Member, Editorial or Advisory Boards for the British Journal of Sociology, the American Journal of Sociology, Inquiry, Middle Eastern Studies, Journal of Peasant Studies, Society and Theory, Government and Opposition, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Journal of Mediterranean Studies, Third World Review, Nations and Nationalism, Anthropology and Archaeology of Eurasia, Sociological Papers, Moderniyzzazio e Sviluppo; died 1995.
Publications: Cause and meaning in the social sciences (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1973); Contemporary thought and politics (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1973); Legitimation of belief (Cambridge University Press, 1974); Options of belief (South Place Ethical Society, London, 1975); Saints of the Atlas (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1969); The devil in modern philosophy (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1974); Thought and change (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1964); Words and things: a critical account of linguistic philosophy and a study in ideology (Victor Gollancz, London, 1959); editor of Arabs and Berbers: from tribe to nation in North Africa (Duckworth, London, 1973); editor of Populism: its meanings and national characteristics (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1969); editor of The nature of human society (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1962); Language and solitude: Wittgenstein, Malinowski and the Hapsburg dilemma (Cambridge University Press, 1998); Nationalism (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1997); Encounters with nationalism (Blackwell, Oxford, 1994); Anthropology and politics: revolutions in the sacred grove (Blackwell, Oxford, 1995); Liberalism in modern times: essays in honour of José Merquior (Central European University Press, Budapest and London, 1996); Conditions of liberty: civil society and its rivals (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1994); The psychoanalytic movement: the cunning of unreason (Granada, London, 1985); Postmodernism, reason and religion (Routledge, New York and London,, 1992); Reason and culture: the historic role of rationality and rationalism (Blackwell, Oxford, 1992); The concept of kinship, and other essays on anthropological method and explanation (Blackwell, Oxford, 1987); Nations and nationalism (Blackwell, Oxford, 1983); Culture, identity and politics (Cambridge University Press, 1987); Relativism and the social sciences (Cambridge University Press, 1979); Spectacles and predicaments: essays in social theory (Cambridge University Press, 1979); Muslim society (Cambridge University Press, 1981); Transition to modernity: essays on power, wealth and belief (Cambridge University Press, 1992); State and society in Soviet thought (Blackwell, Oxford, 1988); Plough, sword and book: the structure of human history (Collins Harvill, 1988); editor of Islamic dilemmas: reformers, nationalists and industrialisation (Mouton, Berlin, 1985); editor of Soviet and Western anthropology (Duckworth, London, 1980); editor of Patrons and clients in Mediterranean societies (Duckworth, London, 1977).
Requests for donations of election ephemera were sent out by the BLPES to candidates of all parties throughout the United Kingdom during the 1992 general election campaign, and major deposits were received. Material was also collected by BLPES staff and students.
Requests for donations of election ephemera were sent out by the BLPES to candidates of all parties throughout the United Kingdom during the 1997 general election campaign, and major deposits were received. Material was also collected by BLPES staff and students.
The general election was held in June 2001 and was won by the Labour Party with a large majority. Requests for donations were sent out to candidates of all parties throughout the country and major deposits were received from all parts of the United Kingdom. Parties represented include: Conservative Party, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Green Party, UK Independence Party, Socialist Alliance, Plaid Cymru, Scottish National Party and a range of parties from Northern Ireland. The collection also includes a wide range of addresses and material from smaller parties and Independent candidates.
The collection also contains ephemera from the County Council election, held at the same time, and holds material covering the major parties. The ephemera has been listed by party and entered onto the election ephemera database where material can be located by party, candidate, constituency or region.
Sir Robert Giffen, 1837-1910, was educated at Glasgow University and then went on to work as a clerk in a solicitors office, 1850-1855. However he spent the majority of his career working with statistics. He became sub-editor of The Globe, 1862-1866, and then assistant editor of The Economist, 1868-1876. He then left journalism to become chief of the statistical department of the Board of Trade, 1876-1882, Assistant Secretary of the Board of Trade and afterwards Controller-General of Commercial Labour and Statistical Departments, 1882-1897. From 1882 to 1884, he was president of the Statistical Society.
Dianne Hayter was General Secretary of the Fabian Society for many years and Chair of the Fabian Society 1992-1993.
The Hall-Carpenter Archives were instituted as a registered charity in 1982.
The history of the Albany Trust is inextricably linked with that of the Homosexual Law Reform Society or HLRS. The HLRS was founded in June 1958 following the recommendation of the Wolfenden Report that homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence. Its first Chairman was Kenneth Walker (succeeded by Cecil Hewitt Rolph in 1964), and its first Secretary the Revd Andrew Hallidie Smith. The work of the HLRS was undertaken by a small working group liasing with an honorary committee. The first public meeting was held on 12 May 1960 at Caxton Hall, and culminated with a vote in favour of reform, resulting in a letter to the Home Office. This was closely followed by a parliamentary debate in June 1960. The Society was reconstituted in 1970 as the Sexual Law Reform Society in order to campaign for further legal changes, particularly relating to the age of consent.
The Albany Trust was founded as a registered charity in May 1958 as a complimentary organisation to the HLRS with a remit 'to promote psychological health in men by collecting data and conducting research: to publish the results thereof by writing, films, lectures and other media: to take suitable steps based thereon for the public benefit to improve the social and general conditions necessary for such healthy psychological development'. The founding Trustees were Anthony Edward Dyson, Jacquetta Hawkes, Kenneth Walker, Andrew Hallidie Smith, and Ambrose Appelbe. The Albany Trust developed into a pioneering counselling and investigating organisation for gay men, lesbians and sexual minorities. It published a journal Man and Society from 1961-1973, and a newsletter entitled Spectrum from 1963-1970, as well as a series of pamphlets. It also provided speakers for numerous organisations and established a network of counsellors. Antony Grey became the Acting Secretary of both HLRS and the Albany Trust in 1962. The funds raised and donated for the work of the Albany Trust allowed it to finance office space and staff. These same facilities were then available for the campaigning work of the Homosexual Law Reform Society (HLRS). Following the Sexual Offences Act of 1967, which decriminalised adult homosexual relationships, the Albany Trust became primarily an educational and counselling organisation. Due to an increasing volume of casework, a social caseworker was appointed in 1967, and the Trust was increasingly involved in the training of youth workers and the development of sex education. From 1976 to 1979 a full-time youth officer was employed. A field officer appointed from 1975 to 1980 investigated the Trust's links with social workers and counsellors throughout the country. The Albany Trust remains active today.
The Albany Society Ltd was founded in 1968 as a charitable limited company to deal with the commercial side of the Trust's operations. In 1988 it simplified its name to the Albany Society.
Body Positive is an organisation formed in 1985 to provide support and information for individuals diagnosed as HIV positive, and to represent their views. The activities of the group included running a telephone counselling service, a hospital visiting group and a drop in centre, as well as organising training sessions and workshops for members and volunteer counsellors. Body Positive ceased to exist in 2000.
The Conservative Group for Homosexual Equality was a voluntary organisation founded in 1976 to lobby Conservative Party opinion in favour of gay rights and to provide a political balance within the gay movement. The group was revived in 1980, and a constitution drawn up and adopted on 28 March 1981, establishing an elected Executive Committee to oversee the running of the Group. CGHE was succeeded by TORCHE (Tory Campaign for Homosexual Equality), which now has upwards of 400 members within the Conservative Party.
In 1957, the Wolfenden Report proposed that homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private no longer be considered a criminal offence. On 7 March 1958, a letter, drafted by Anthony Edward Dyson and signed by a number of eminent individuals, appeared in The Times supporting the Wolfenden recommendation.
Dyson was instrumental in the creation of the Homosexual Law Reform Society in 1958, and became one of the original Trustees of the Albany Trust, a counselling and research service for the gay community, in the same year.