This collection of correspondence consists mostly of letters written by a school teacher, Hellmut Lange from Chemnitz, Saxony, to an English woman, Miss Jessie Nicholson in South London between 1933 and August 1939.
The League of Old Judeans had been brought together by Louis Sarna, who organised the annual wreath laying at the Cenotaph, which continued until 1928. In that year he was instrumental in founding the Jewish Ex-Servicemens Legion which eleven years later was to become AJEX - The Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women. AJEX had its beginnings at a Meeting in London in 1928. One of a series of Meetings held throughout Britain to protest at Arab anti-Jewish riots in Palestine. Louis Sarna was Honorary Secretary until his retirement in 1952.
The Waffen-SS was the combat arm of the Schutzstaffel or SS. In contrast to the Wehrmacht, Germany's regular army, the Waffen-SS was an elite combat unit composed of volunteer troops with particularly strong personal commitments to Nazi ideology.
The Bavarian Political Police was created by Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler in 1933. It was independent from the authority of the police headquarters in Munich, allowing the Nazi party to control the police.
The Geheime Staatspolizei or Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany, under the overall administration of the Schutzstaffel (SS).
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Karl Schreiner and his wife Katharina, from Trier, were resisters of the Nazi regime. Karl was a lawyer, he was forced to retire from his post Sep 1935 for being 'politically unreliable' and Katharina was imprisoned in 1942 for 4 months for making inflammatory remarks against the state.
Hans von Dohnanyi was a Jewish 'Mischling', a term used during the Third Reich for a person deemed to have partial Jewish ancestry. He was born in Vienna, Jan 1902 and was a lawyer from 1929-1938. He worked in the Reichsjustizministerium, 1938 and as Reichsgerichtsrat at the Reichsgericht, Leipzig, 1939-1943. Whilst he was head of the political section of the Abwehr des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht he was implicated in the resistance movement and on 5 Apr 1943 was arrested, and is reported to have died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp on 8 Apr 1945.
Max Landenberger and his wife Frieda owned a house at Burgschmietstrasse 12, Nürnberg, which was mortgaged for RM 40,000. In Nov1938 Max was arrested and sent to Dachau. Frieda was forced to go to the 'Brown House', the Nazi Headquarters, where she was made to sign a contract for the sale of their house to Gauleiter Hölz for the sum of RM 4,000. This they achieved by making her do physical exercises for several hours to break her will to resist. Her husband also signed the contract after his release from Dachau. The 'purchase price' of RM 4,000 was never paid.
Otto Bendix was born in Wilmersdorf, Berlin, 1878, of Jewish heritage. He married a non-Jew and was deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp on one of the 'old people's transports' on 3 October 1942, where he died on 8 January 1943.
The Regent's Park School was founded by Dr Bruno Schindler and his wife, Alma in 1933, mainly for Jewish refugee children from Germany. It was the aim of the Schindlers to make the children as independent as possible as they knew that a number of them would probably never see their parents again. There was a strong emphasis on Judaism and Dr Schindler made it a rule that every Friday evening he would give a talk about the history of the Jews and Judaism. There were also many discussion groups on a variety of subjects led by the matron of the school. The aim of the school was thus to encourage independent thinking, an ability to act independently and a feeling that, despite adversity, it was possible for all to achieve the kind of life and standard of living from which most of the children had come. The fact that the school produced an exceptionally large number of men and women in the professions is testimony to this.
The Hay internment camp was located outside of the town of Hay in the Riverina district of southern New South Wales. It was constructed in 1940. The first arrivals were 2036 Jewish internees from Nazi Germany and Austria - mostly professionals who had simply fled for their lives - along with 451 German and Italian POWs. They were transported from England on-board the HMT Dunera, and they became known as 'the Dunera Boys,' which was applied, in particular to the Jewish refugees.
The refugees (and POWs) were transported to Hay via train and then placed in the camps behind barbed wire. They remained active, holding physical education courses and concerts, teaching the children and printing their own money.
The Bing family was a German Jewish family from Berlin some of whose members died in the Holocaust and others managed to escape to Great Britain.
Klara Rosenzweig was born in 1890 in Altleiningen, Rheinland Pfalz, and was deported to France from Mannheim in October 1940. She was imprisoned at Gurs in the Basses Pyrenées from 22 October 1940 to 20 Jan 1942. She was then transferred to de Noé in the Haute Garonne until 3 August 1942. From there she was moved to Recebedon and thence to Drancy. Her name appears on the transport list of 'Convoy' No. 18 which left Drancy on 12 August 1942 and arrived at Auschwitz on 14 August 1942. It is assumed that she died very shortly after her arrival. The letter of 16 March 1941 carries a postscript signed by Bert Franck. The transport list of 12 August 1942 includes the name Bertha Franck, born 4 August 1875, Hunfeld, Germany.
Kurt Sabatsky was District Syndicus of the Centralverein Deutscher Staatsbürger Jüdischen Glaubens, who later worked for the Wiener Library.
Werner Rüdenberg, export merchant and sinologist was born in Hanover, November 1881. He married Anni née Pincus. He spent 16 years in Shanghai spread over a 30 year period. He compiled a Chinese/ German dictionary, first published in 1924, with a second edition in 1936. He arrived in Great Britain in 1938 and taught for a few months at the School of Oriental Studies, whilst working on an English/ Chinese dictionary (Shanghai dialect). He received a grant for this work. In 1940 he was interned in a camp on the Isle of Man. He later taught German at Westfield College and continued his merchant activities with China.
[Lotte] was a resident of Prague; interned at Theresienstadt concentration camp, Nov 1941-Aug 1945; returned to Prague, 1945; emigrated to Canada, 1947.
Olga Benario was born into a family of Jewish intellectuals in Munich in 1911. At the age of 16 she was already a member of the Communist party. In 1926 she, along with others, stormed the Berlin-Moabit district gaol in order to free some comrades, later going into hiding. In 1928 she went to Moscow and in 1934 she accompanied the Brazilian revolutionary, Luiz Carlos Prestes (whom she later married), to Brazil where she took part in the resistance to the regime of President Vargas. However, such was the affinity between Hitler and Vargas that once captured, she was deported back to Nazi Germany where she was interned in the concentration camp Lichtenburg. She was gassed in the concentration camp at Bernburg an der Saale in 1943 at the age of 34.
This collection of copies of papers deals with the project of a group called the Langham Committee, whose object was to put to work several hundred German, Austrian and Czech Jewish refugees on the renovation of a dilapidated manor house and grounds, Tythrop House, Leicestershire.
Paul Dickopf was born in 1910 in Müschenbach in Oberwesterwaldkreis. After studying law and administration he joined the criminal police and later the security service. From September 1942 he went into hiding in Belgium (the circumstances of which are unknown) and later fled to Switzerland where he lived as a refugee until the end of the war. In 1947 he returned to Germany and joined the Federal German Police where he progressed to become head of the Bundeskriminalamt, Wiesbaden, and from 1968 was president of Interpol. Dickopf died in Bonn in 1973.
The Zentralvereinigung österreichische Emigranten was a non-political organisation with no party or religious affiliations, the objective of which was to help all Austrians in exile after the outbreak of war. It was based in Paris and the advisory council comprised Alfred Polgar, Frederike Zweig and Berthe Zückerkandl. Its principal activities were to provide assistance for immigrant internees; to assist their wives and children, many of whom ended up in homes; and to procure residency permits.
Paul Hollander was born in Cologne in 1908. After leaving school he decided to work abroad to improve his language skills. He spent time in London, Rotterdam and France where in 1938 he stumbled into a career in journalism.
At the outbreak of war he volunteered for the French forces but as a German he was immediately interned. His only alternative was to volunteer for the French Foreign Legion where he served for a little under a year as engagé volontaire pour la durée de la guerre. After which time he spent the next two and a half years in various camps including Kenadsa. In the Spring of 1943 he managed to bluff his way out of the camp and arrived in Algiers where he joined the British Alien Company.
Hampstead Garden Suburb Care Committee for Refugee Children has a connection with the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany (British Inter-Aid Committee). Nothing is known about the origin or background of the Hampstead Garden Suburb Care Committee for Refugee Children. The Inter-Aid Committee was founded in March 1936 by agreement between the Central British Fund, Save the Children Fund and the Society of Friends with the special object of looking after Christian Children of Jewish extraction. The Inter-Aid Committee sought out children whose anti-Nazi parents had been arrested or were in danger of incarceration. This committee re-formed under the title of the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany in 1939.
Siegfried Kessler was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, in 1879; he was married with two sons who all accompanied him to England in 1939; and when he left Czechoslovakia he was a retired senior civil servant.
He was a member of the Jewish Social Democratic Workers' Party Poale Zion for 30 years. He was also vice president of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (Jewish cultural community), Brno for which organisation he managed the provision of assistance to prospective Jewish emigrants in the late 1930s. It was in this capacity that he was arrested by the Gestapo on the day that the Nazis marched into Czechoslovakia. After release and continual harassment he eventually managed to secure visas for himself and his family and arrived in England in June 1939.
Whilst in England he maintained contact with the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde, Brno and applied himself to assisting with the expatriation of Czech Jews. He was involved with such organisations as the Czech Refugee Trust Fund, the Jewish Agency Group, the Self Aid Association and the Jewish Agency for Palestine.
The bulk of the material in this collection was collected on the initiative of the Wiener Library in 1939. Former rabbis of synagogues in Germany who had managed to escape to Great Britain were asked to supply information on the fate of their synagogues. 985/1 consists of these responses, most of which are dated November or December 1939. In addition, there is a list of respondents. The project's results comprised a set of statistics on the fate of Germany's synagogues.
Club 1943, in Hampstead, was founded as a weekly rendezvous for refugees from Nazi oppression. Its membership was first confined to writers and scientists, but later opened up to all those interested in literature, politics and other intellectual subjects. Lectures were in German or English and were usually attended by between 40 and 75 people. They covered political theory, literature, music, art, science, history, medicine, psychology, ethics and religion. The first president was H J Rehfisch, one of the co-founders of the club with Karl Wolff, Monty Jacobs and others.
In the wake of its triumphal consolidation of power, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) decided to establish an archive to preserve for posterity its own records and those of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront. On Jan 15, 1934, at the suggestion of Reichsschulungsleiter (Reich Education Director) Otto Gohdes, headquarters for an archive and library under the name 'NSDAP Hauptarchiv' were established in Berlin. There was a forerunner to the archive established Aug 1926. A press archive for the party in Munich was founded by Mathilde von Scheubner-Richter, widow of Max von Scheubner-Richter at the behest of Hitler with the following functions: to collect material on hostile personalities; to scan and make cuttings from the Communist press and the Nazi press. Around 1928 the organisation was taken over by the Reichspropagandaleitung of the NSDAP, which also collected posters, leaflets, pamphlets and other propaganda and election material for the use of various Nazi organisations.
The NSDAP Hauptarchiv's first director was Dr Erich Uetrecht from the Reichsschulungsamt. The archive moved in October 1934 from the Maerkisches Ufer in Berlin to its permanent location in Munich, 15 Barerstrasse. The already existing records of the Reichspropagandaleitung were incorporated with it. In mid 1935 the entire organisation was made directly responsible to Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.
The purpose of the archive was no longer that of acting as a central clearing house of information for the various party organisations. In addition to collecting books, periodicals, newspapers and government publications, operating a reference service for party and government figures, and presenting occasional exhibits, the party archive was to be the main depository for documents relating to the party's history from its earliest days.
As a relatively new institution, the Hauptarchiv had great difficulties in finding original material. With the help of newspaper advertising, leaflets and questionnaires, the archivists appealed to old party members to donate their memorabilia of strife-torn days and to write down their personal reflections.
The old established state archives were unwilling to turn over their collections of party material. Only the Munich police and the Bavarian political police gave the Hauptarchiv their pre-1933 documentation on the NSDAP. In 1938, Dr Uetrect wrote an elaborate memorandum discussing the re-organisation of all German archives and assigning the Hauptarchiv a central place in the scheme. The eventual result of this memorandum was a circular signed by Rudolf Hess and sent in July 1939 to the various state agencies, directing them to collaborate fully with the Hauptarchiv. In response these agencies drew up lists which enabled the Hauptarchiv to ascertain the location of files pertinent to NSDAP history, although the documents themselves were not transferred.
In 1939 the Hauptarchiv was designated as depository for the Fuhrer's deputy, the Reich Chancery and the Reich Leadership of the NSDAP. It was also given jurisdiction over the various Gaue (districts) archives and of the NSDAP 'Gliederungen' (formations) (eg Stormtroopers, SS, Hitler Youth).
By 1943, it had become apparent that Munich was no longer safe from aerial attack and that the most precious holdings of the Hauptarchiv would have to be moved. Three Bavarian sites were chosen: Passau-Feste-Oberhaus, Neumarkt-St Veit, and Lenggries-Schloss Hohenburg. The material transferred consisted mainly of the archival section proper. The library under its new head, Dr Arnold Bruegmann, continued to operate in Munich until it was wiped out by bombing in January 1945. Records for material stored at Neumarkt-St go up to March 1945. At the end of the war the American army seized what archives it could find in Passau and Neumarkt-St Veit. (The fate of the Lenggries material is unknown). The confiscated documents were then reassembled at the Berlin Document Center in early 1946.
Established by law in 1933, the Reichskulturkammer (RKK) was created to enable the Reichsministerium fuer Volksaufklaerung und Propaganda (RMfVP)(Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda) to control virtually all aspects of organised cultural life in Germany. The RKK was closely linked to the RMfVP under Joseph Goebbels, who also served as president of the RKK. The card index relates to some 185,000 members and applicants of the RKK and its affiliated organisations, including staff members of the RMfVP. For those whose livelihood derived from the arts, membership was compulsory in the RKK and its subordinate chambers of literature, music, film, theatre, radio, graphic arts and the press. Those denied membership were effectively prevented from practising their profession.
The Central-Verein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens (CV) was founded by German Jewish intellectuals on 26 March 1893 in Berlin, with the intention of opposing the rise of Anti-Semitism in the German Empire. Shortly after its founding it had 1,420 members and in 1926 approximately 60,000 members.
The CV's aim was to unify German citizens of Jewish faith, to fight for the Jews' rights as citizens and to combat rising Anti-Semitism. Commitment to the German Nation was an important part of the CV's agenda, the members saw themselves primarily as German citizens with their own religion. Consequently, the CV repudiated Zionism.
Beginning in 1922, the CV published a weekly newspaper, called C.V.-Zeitung (C.V.- Newspaper) and continued fighting the rising Anti-Semitic threat. Through publications and conversations with Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg and economic leaders the CV tried to call attention to the threat.
In 1928 the 'Büro Wilhelmstrasse' (Wilhelmstrasse Office) was created with the instrumental support of Alfred Wiener. It documented Nazi activities and issued anti-Nazi materials until 1933, when Hitler came to power.
During the Nazi era, the CV was forced to change its name several times. From 1936 onwards it was called 'Jüdischer Central Verein' (Jewish Central Association). After the Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass or November Pogrom) in 1938 the CV had to stop publishing its newspaper and the association was prohibited a short time later.
The World Jewish Congress (WJC), is an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations. Its headquarters are in New York City, USA; its research institute is located in Jerusalem. It maintains international offices in Paris, France, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Geneva, Switzerland and most recently, Miami, Florida.
The WJC includes Jewish organizations from across North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Israel and the Pacific. It attempts to build consensus between different Jewish groups of varying political and religious orientations; it works to act as a diplomatic envoy for the worldwide Jewish community. It is a Zionist organization, strongly supporting the State of Israel.
In 1951, Nahum Goldmann, then president of the WJC, cofounded the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany -the Claims Conference, as a body to engage the German government in negotiations for material compensation for Jewish victims of Nazi persecution. The World Jewish Congress designate two members to the Board of Directors of the Conference.
In 1992 the WJC established the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) as an organization for the restitution of Jewish property in the rest of Europe (outside Germany). It has been active in the claims against Swiss banks.
In 2000 the World Jewish Congress shaped the policy debate about looted art by criticizing museums for waiting for artworks to be claimed by Holocaust victims instead of publicly announcing that they have suspect items.
The WJC is involved in inter-faith dialogue with Christian and Muslim groups. One of its major new programmes is concerned with the plight of Jewish refugees from Arab lands.
The papers include a printing correspondence course of Walter Rankin (1892-1965). He was apprenticed as a printer to C Joscelyne, Printers, of Braintree, Essex, in 1907. In 1913 he moved to J G Hammond and Co, of Birmingham, and after taking his printing correspondence course, sat the examinations of the City and Guilds London Institute in 1915 and 1916. He worked at Manifoldia of Birmingham, 1916-1924; Century Press, Fulham Rd, London, 1924-1927; Manager of South Western Press, Fulham Rd, London, 1927-1928. He was appointed Manager of Alfred Couldrey and Chas Pearson, Aldgate, London, in 1928, and worked later for McGlashen Greogry, Stanhope Press of Rochester, Vacher and Sons of Westminster, Baird and Tatlock, and McCann Erickson.
Edward Bawden was born in Braintree, Essex in 1903. He was educated at Braintree High School, the Friends' School in Saffron Walden, Cambridge School of Art. From 1922-1925, he studied under Paul Nash at the Royal College of Art (RCA), and was a contemporary student and friend of Eric Ravilious and Douglas Percy Bliss. Bawden continued to study at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, and worked as tutor in the School of Graphic Design at the RCA, as well as teaching at the RA Schools and Goldsmiths' College. He exhibited watercolours at the St George's Gallery, 1927, and held his first on-artist show at the Zwemmer Gallery in 1934. In 1925 he was commissioned by Harold Curwen to illustrate a booklet, Pottery making in Poole, and together with Ravilious was designing patterned paper, borders and fleurons for Curwen Press. From 1928-50, he illustrated a number of other publications. Curwen became his friend, sponsor and teacher, and encouraged him to draw directly on the stone. In 1947, he illustrated The Arabs, for the Puffin Picture Book series, published by Penguin.
As an official war artist from 1940-1945, he was sent on a number of expeditions to the Middle East and other sectors, finally visiting Italy. He considered this period as the time when he "really learned to draw". During 1949 and 1950 he visited Canada as a guest instructor at Banff School of Fine Arts, Alberta.
He was a most skilful artist in black and white and colour, using several techniques in his work, including woodcuts, line drawing, linocutting and auto-lithography. As well as illustrating many books and book jackets, he painted in watercolour and gouache, painted a number of successful murals, designed wallpaper and ceramic wall tiles, produced linocut prints and did commercial work, including poster designs.
His work is represented in the Tate Gallery, London, and by water-colour drawings in several London, Dominion and provincial galleries; exhibitions at: Leicester Galleries, 1938, 1949, 1952; Zwemmer Gallery, 1934, 1963; Fine Art Society, 1968, 1975, 1978, 1979, 1987, 1989; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1978; Imperial War Museum, 1983; V&A, 1988, 1989; retrospective touring exhibition, 1988-1989.
As printmaker and graphic designer, he designed and cut blocks for a series of wallpapers printed by Messrs Cole & Son, and painted mural decorations for the SS Orcades and SS Oronsay, also for Lion and Unicorn Pavilion on South Bank site of Festival of Britain.
In 1932 he married Charlotte Epton of Lincoln (died 1970). Bawden died on 21 November 1989.
He held the positions of Trustee of Tate Gallery, 1951-1958, Honorary Dr RCA; DUniv Essex; Honorary RE, RWS. He was awarded CBE 1946; RA 1956 (ARA 1947); RDI 1949.
Books written and illustrated: Hold fast by your teeth, Routledge, 1963; A book of cuts, Scolar Press, 1979.
Illustrated books include: The Histories of Herodotus, Salammbô, Tales of Troy and Greece, The Arabs, Life in an English Village, and many others.
Until 1934, Post Office headquarters consisted of the Secretary's Office; the Solicitor to the Post Office's Office; The Chief Medical Officer's Office; three financial services (the Accountant-General's department; the Savings Bank and the Money Order Office); and two technical services (the Engineering Department and the Department of the Controller of Stores). The Secretary of the Post Office was the permanent head of the Post Office and the principal adviser to the Postmaster General. Assisted by the Second Secretary and the staff of the Secretary's Office, he was responsible for the policy and organization of the entire department and the efficient working of its various services. Control of the mail services and the telegraph, telephone and wireless services were the responsibility of the Director of Postal Services and the Director of Telegraphs and Telephones respectively, who reported directly to the Secretary. The Secretary's Office was divided into seven adminstrative divisions, each headed by an Assistant Secretary. These dealt with mail (inland and foreign); inland telegraphs; overseas telegraphs, including wireless services; telephones; establishments (ie the numbers, organization and pay of Post Office staff); staff (ie personnel matters); and buildings and supplies. The Secretary's Office also consisted of an inspectorate: the Chief Inspector of Postal Traffic, the Chief Inspector of Telegraph and Telephone Traffic and the Inspector of Wireless Telegraphy and their staffs. The office also included a small detective staff, known as the Investigation Branch, which investigated suspected offences against the Post Office.
In 1934, a new structure was introduced for the organization of the Post Office following the recommendations of the Bridgeman Committee. The new posts of Director General and Assistant Director General were created to replace the positions of Secretary and Second Secretary (who had been perceived as having too much autonomy), and the Secretary's Office was disbanded and replaced by three administrative departments: the Postal Services Department (comprising the Mails branch and the Postal Traffic Section); the Telegraph and Telephone Department (comprising Telephone, Inland Telegraph and Overseas Telegraph Branches, Telegraph and Telephone Traffic Section and Wireless Telegraphy Section); and Personnel Department (comprising the Chief Clerk's, Establishments, Staff, Medical, Investigation and Buildings Branches, Architectural Staff and Registry). In addition, a further Department called the Public Relations Department was set up comprising a Sales and Publicity Section and a Film Unit and Library. As part of this reorganisation, a Post Office Board was also established to direct the actions of the Director General, although the Postmaster General continued to have the power to overrule the Board in matters of policy. At the same time, the organisation of the Post Office was decentralised: regions were established, with their own Regional Directors and Boards.
The General Directorate oversaw the policy and general management of the Post Office. The Director General was responsible for carrying out the directions of the Post Office Board (which was first appointed in 1934), following the abolition of the position of Secretary. The Secretary had effectively been allowed to run the Post Office, dealing with all matters of policy as well as maintaining a general managerial control.
Sir Thomas Gardiner chaired a departmental committee tasked with the applying the increased decentralisation recommended by the Bridgeman Committee report of 1932 which advocated that the Post Office should be organised along more commercial lines. The Gardiner Committee's recommendations, published in its report of 1936, led to eight regions being established in the provinces, each in the charge of a Regional Director responsible for the control and co-ordination of all Post Office services within his region. Additional to these eight provincial regions, two further regions were set up in London - one for Posts and one for Telecommunications. The provincial regions were divided into Head Postmasters' districts for the management of the postal and the telegraph services (in practice these were already in existence).
The telephone service regions were divided into telephone Areas under Telephone Managers, of which there were ultimately 57 for the provinces and nine in London. Telephone Managers, with Head Postmasters acting as their agents on certain matters, were to be responsible for the day-to-day control of all aspects of the telephone service (engineering, traffic, sales and accounts). They were also to be accountable to the Regional Director for the overall efficiency of the telephone service in their territory.
The first two regions (Scotland and North East) were set up in 1936, followed by the two London regions (Telecommunications and Postal), and the changes throughout the country were in place by 1940. (The records note that Midlands telecommunications region was due to be established in 1940 but its formation was formed in haste on 2 September 1939, the day before the declaration of the Second World War.)
The City Polytechnic was formed in 1891 by a Charity Commissioners' scheme linking Birkbeck Institute, The City of London College and a proposed Northampton Institute in Finsbury (now City University), to facilitate funding for these institutions by the City Parochial Foundation. Whilst each institute was to be managed by its own governing body, the institutes were to organise their educational and recreational work cooperatively to economise on resources and avoid duplication. There was to be a Council of twelve for the City Polytechnic comprising three members from the Trustees of the London Parochial Charities and three members from each of the constituent institutes' governing bodies, all serving a six year term of office. However, no real links were ever established between the three institutions and the name "City Polytechnic" was rarely used by the individual institutions on their prospectuses and annual reports. The Technical Education Board of the London County Council noted that Birkbeck Institute and The City of London College acted as though no formal federated structure existed and the Board itself treated the Northampton Institute as an independent polytechnic in the later 1890s. Efforts to dissolve the City Polytechnic were eventually successful in 1906.
Born in 1840; educated at Littlemore Village School, Oxfordshire; worked in a blacksmith's shop, then as a stonemason until 1872; Secretary, Labour Representative League, 1875; Secretary, Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, 1875-1890; MP for Stoke-on-Trent, 1880-1885, Bordesley, 1885-1886, Nottingham, 1886-1892, and Leicester, 1894-1906; Under-Secretary of State, Home Department, 1886; served on Royal Commissions, including Reformatory and Industrial Schools, Housing of the Working Classes, and the Condition of the Aged Poor; offered and refused Inspectorship of Factories and Workshops, 1882, and the Inspectorship of Canal Boats, 1884; JP and Alderman, County of Norfolk; Poor Law Guardian, Erpingham Union; member of Cromer Urban District Council; Chairman, Lifeboat Committee; founder of Tooting Common Club; founder of the Golf Links, Cromer and Sheringham, Norfolk; died 1911.
Publications: Henry Broadhurst, M.P: the story of his life from a stonemason's bench to the Treasury bench told by himself (Hutchinson & Co., London, 1901); Handy book on household enfranchisement (1885).
The Daily Herald was set up by striking printers in 1911 as a temporary newssheet to publicise their cause. It remained in publication after the end of the strike and was taken over by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the Labour Party. It ran as an independent newspaper supporting the workers of Britain. It survived until taken over by Odhams Press in 1929. In 1964 it changed ownership again and immediately changed its name to The Sun.
In 1923 the Daily Herald observed that there `had not yet been established a method of recognising the bravery of the toilers, though scarcely a day passes without some example of valour or self-sacrifice in the industrial field.' In an effort to address this omission, the newspaper took the decision to establish its own award, The Daily Herald Order of Industrial Heroism.
The award, designed by Eric Gill, and popularly known as the `Workers' VC' was always given for the highest levels of bravery, many of the awards being given posthumously. In many cases the recipients also received medals from the Crown, such as the George Medal, Sea Gallantry Medal, British Empire Medal as well as awards by the Royal Humane Society, Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society and the Society for the Protection of Life from Fire.The Order was awarded on 440 occasions between 1923 and 1964, and was discontinued after the sale of the TUC's interest in the Daily Herald.
Emilia Frances Dilke: Born Ilfracombe, Devon, 2 Sep 1840, daughter of Major Henry Strong; educated privately; married firstly Mark Pattison, Rector of Lincoln College Oxford (d 1884) in 1862, secondly Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke Bt, MP, in 1885; contributed articles and reviews on art history to many periodicals including to The Westminster Review, The Saturday Review, Academy, The Art Journal and the Gazette des Beaux Arts.
In 1876 she joined the Women's Protective and Provident League (later the Women's Trade Union League) which had been founded by Emma Patterson in 1874. She spoke at annual meetings of the League in 1877 and in 1880, when she urged the need for technical education for women. She founded a branch in Oxford and was also an active member of the Women's Suffrage Society at Oxford. From 1889-1904 she attended the Trades Union Congress as a representative of the League, and frequently spoke at meetings throughout the country on labour questions affecting women, particularly the cause of unskilled workers in dangerous trades. She died at Pyrford Rough, Woking, 24 Oct 1904.
Publications: Renaissance of Art in France (1879); a critical biography of Lord Leighton in the series Dumas' Modern Artists (1881); Art in the Modern State or the Age of Louis XIV , (1884); Claude Lorrain, d'apres des documents inedits (1884); French Painters of the Eighteenth Century(1889); French Architects and Sculptors of the Eighteenth Century (1900); French Engravers and Draughtsmen of the Eighteenth Century (1902) and two volumes of short stories The Shrine of Death, and other Stories (1886) and The Shrine of Love, and other Stories (1891).
The H G Wells Society was founded in 1960, to promote widespread interest in the life, work and thought of Herbert George Wells, to encourage active implementation of his ideas, and generally to stimulate a Wellsian outlook on the many old and new problems facing humanity. The society produces an annual Journal The Wellsian, and a quarterly Bulletin.The Collection also contains papers relating to an earlier H G Wells Society, founded in 1934, for the discussion, study, research and propaganda of the sciences of social biology and the effective application of their principles. The society grew out of the Federation of Progressive Societies and Individuals, founded in 1930. In November 1934 the name was changed to the Open Conspiracy, and in November 1935 to Cosmopolis. By 1936 there were nearly 500 members, a central office and a paid full-time secretary.
The archive was begun by the Irish in Britain History Group, and was donated to the Irish Studies Centre at the University of North London in 1991, who have continued to develop and expand the collection. The aim is to create a representative record of the experiences of the Irish in Britain.
In June 1888, Clementina Black gave a speech on Female Labour at a Fabian Society meeting in London. Annie Besant, a member of the audience, was horrified when she heard about the pay and conditions of the women working at the Bryant & May match factory.
The next day, Besant went and interviewed some of the people who worked at Bryant & May. She discovered that the women worked fourteen hours a day for a wage of less than five shillings a week. However, they did not always receive their full wage because of a system of fines, ranging from three pence to one shilling, imposed by the Bryant & May management. Offences included talking, dropping matches or going to the toilet without permission. The women worked from 6.30 am in summer (8.00 in winter) to 6.00 pm. If workers were late, they were fined a half-day's pay.
Annie Besant also discovered that the health of the women had been severely affected by the phosphorous that they used to make the matches. This caused yellowing of the skin and hair loss and 'phossy jaw', a form of bone cancer. Although phosphorous was banned in Sweden and the USA, the British government had refused to follow their example, arguing that it would be a restraint of free trade.
On 23rd June 1888, Besant wrote an article in her newspaper, The Link. The article, entitled White Slavery in London, complained about the way the women at Bryant & May were being treated. The company reacted by attempting to force their workers to sign a statement that they were happy with their working conditions. When a group of women refused to sign, the organisers of the group were sacked. The response was immediate - 1400 of the women at Bryant & May went on strike.
William Stead, the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, Henry Hyde Champion of the Labour Elector and Catharine Booth of the Salvation Army joined Besant in her campaign for better working conditions in the factory. So also did Sydney Oliver, Stewart Headlam, Hubert Bland, Graham Wallas and George Bernard Shaw. However, other newspapers, including The Times, blamed Besant and other socialist agitators for the dispute.
Besant, Stead and Champion used their newspapers to call for a boycott of Bryant & May matches. The women at the company also decided to form a Matchmakers' Union and Besant agreed to become its leader. After three weeks the company announced that it was willing to re-employ the dismissed women and would also bring an end to the fines system. The women accepted the terms and returned in triumph. The Bryant & May dispute was the first strike by unorganized workers to gain national publicity. It also helped to inspire the formation of unions all over the Country.
Annie Besant, William Stead, Catharine Booth, William Booth and Henry Hyde Champion continued to campaign against the use of yellow phosphorous. In 1891 the Salvation Army opened its own match-factory in Old Ford, East London. Only using harmless red phosphorus, the workers were soon producing six million boxes a year. Whereas Bryant & May paid their workers just over twopence a gross, the Salvation Army paid their employees twice this amount. William Booth organised conducted tours for MPs and journalists round this 'model' factory. He also took them to the homes of those "sweated workers" who were working eleven and twelve hours a day producing matches for companies like Bryant & May.The bad publicity that the company received forced the company to reconsider its policy. In 1901, Gilbert Bartholomew, managing director of Bryant & May, announced it had stopped used yellow phosphorus.
Marjorie Nicholson was born in 1914. She attended Oxford University in the 1930s and, after graduating, taught before becoming an extra-mural organising tutor with Ruskin College. Whilst on a working trip to Nigeria in 1949 she became convinced that to help develop democratic self governing institutions she had to work full time from within the labour movement. Firstly, she worked as secretary at the Fabian Colonial Bureau. Here she was involved in producing pamphlets and memoranda and editing its monthly journal Venture. The Fabian Society took a special interest in the Colonies, founding its Colonial Bureau in 1940, thanks to the knowledge and enthusiasm of Nicholson and Rita Hinden. They not only provided expert advice to members of both Houses of Parliament, but befriended many young colonials, mainly students, on their first visits to London. Through her work at the Bureau Nicholson met and assisted India's Jawaharlal Nehru and Krishna Menon, Eric Williams from Trinidad, Hugh Springer from Barbados, Siaka Stevens from Sierra Leone, Tom Mboya from Kenya, Lee Kuan Yew from Singapore and Kwame Nkrumah from Ghana, who were to become leaders of the National movements in their own countries. During this period she also stood three times, unsuccessfully, as the Labour candidate for Windsor. From 1955 she worked in the International Department of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), one of the few women working in policy development employed by the trade union movement. After her retirement in 1972, she began writing up the history of the TUC's involvement overseas from her own papers and cuttings collection. The first volume, The TUC overseas: the roots of policy, was published in 1986 and she was still working on a second volume at the time of her death in July 1997. Publications: The TUC overseas: the roots of policy, London (1986).
The National Society of Plate Glass Silverers, Siders, Cutters and Fitters was established in 1891, and had 236 members by 1892. In 1893 it amalgamated with the National Plate Glass Bevellers Trade Union to form the Amalgamated Plate Glass Workers' Trade Union. The partnership between the two organisations lasted only until 1895 when they agreed to separate and resume their former independent existence. The Union resumed with 313 members in 1895, numbers fell to 201 by 1902. The organisation was dissolved in 1903.
The Workers' Educational Association (WEA) was founded in 1903 under the title Association to Promote the Higher Education of Working Men following a scheme proposed by Albert Mansbridge (1876-1952). He became its general secretary in 1905 when the name was changed to The Workers' Educational Association and the first constitution was established in the following year. After a conference on the WEA and Oxford University in 1907, the WEA Central Joint Advisory Committee was established and three year university tutorial classes were started with the close involvement of R H Tawney (1880-1962). The WEA was also linked to the trade union movement and formed the Workers' Education Trade Union Committee in 1919 to strengthen and give cohesion to the educational work with trade unions. The WEA was closely involved in campaigns for better state education and in particular the campaign preceding the 1944 Education Act. The WEA is now a national voluntary organisation existing primarily to provide adults with access to organised learning. It is a registered charity and is non-party in politics and non-sectarian in religion. The WEA is one national organisation in England and Scotland, organised into 13 districts in England and a Scottish Association. It has over 650 local branches and 28 local organisations including 23 national trade unions are affiliated at national level.
The Central Labour College was established in 1909 following a strike at Ruskin College, Oxford. It was in opposition to Ruskin College and had the proclaimed aim of providing "an organisation for the training of workers for the organised labour movement controlled democratically by the representatives of organised workers". It ceased to exist in 1918.
The Workers Educational Association (WEA) was founded in 1903 under the title Association to Promote the Higher Education of Working Men and in 1905 the name was changed to The Workers Education Association. The Central Organisation of the Association dealt with its executive functions, various committees and the general administration as well as the organisation of the annual and national conferences.
The Women's Trade Union League was established by Mrs Emma Patterson in 1874, as the Women's Protective and Provident League. By the 1890s ten London Unions, and over thirty provincial unions were affiliated, from Bookbinding, Shirt and Collar Making, Tailoring, Dressmaking and Milinery, Cigar Making, Match and Matchbox Making, Ropemaking, Weaving, Laundry, Boot and Shoe Making, Silk Working, Upholstery, Lace Making, Pottery, Paper Making and Shop Working. The League was absorbed into the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in 1921.
Jane Lidderdale (1909-1996) was born in Hampstead in Jul 1909, the granddaughter of the painter C S Lidderdale. She was educated at the Society for Home Students (later St Anne's College), Oxford, where she studied PPE. After briefly working at the Royal Institute of British Architects, she moved to the Ministry of Shipping in 1940 where she became the secretary to a number of cabinet committees during the Second World War and its aftermath. She was appointed secretary to the Fuel Committee during the crisis of the winter 1946-7 and went on to work closely with Herbert Morrison during the organisation of the Festival of Britain which took place in 1951, for which she was awarded the OBE the following year. She was then appointed secretary and head researcher for the Nathan Report on Trust Law in 1952 before leaving the Civil Service the following year. After her withdrawal from the service, Lidderdale opened Ray House with Rachel Alexander to provide care for older women. She went on to help found the Kensington Day Centre in 1963 and remained its chair until 1988. She also became involved with the Byham Shaw School of Painting and Drawing in this period and was elected to its council of management in 1961, becoming its Chair nine years later. In 1962 she became one of the guardians of James Joyce's daughter Lucia. Her connection with the Modernists was emphasised in the 1960's when Lidderdale was invited by to write a memoir of Harriet Shaw Weaver, her own godmother and the patron of Joyce, Eliot and Pound. This was published in 1970. She died in Sep 1996.