History articles tagged with uk

Long lost wildcat strikes in the UK, 1960s - 1990s

Rubbish piles up during the winter of discontent

Interesting article with snippets of analysis and often personal anecdotes about a number of unofficial strikes in the UK since the 1960s.

An introduction…

Up against the odds

An Account Of The JJ Fast Food Worker's Strike Tottenham 1995-6. This pamphlet looks at the problems the JJ workers faced: of working within the current union structures, of police and State harassment, the bureaucracy of industrial tribunals and the participation of the organised left. It also attempts to draw some positive lessons as to how workers can improve things for the better through direct action and working class organisation

When workers take strike action, things start to change. It is a time when people very quickly start to organise, communicate and think in a different and more positive way and when solidarity becomes more than just a slogan.

Picket - bulletin of the Wapping printers' strike, 1986-1987

PDFs of all 43 issues of Picket, the unofficial newsletter of the News International printers strike of 1986.

digitised by libcom.org

The Sun - spoof newspaper from the Wapping strike, 1986

Short spoof issue of The Sun newspaper produced by anarchists to support the News International printers strike at Wapping in 1986.

digitised by libcom.org

Harrigan, James

A short biography of James Harrigan, anarchist shoemaker and link between the old Chartist movement and the newly emergent anarchist movement

“To have known him and done propaganda with him was an adventure in itself”. Mat Kavanagh, 1945

Kavanagh, Mat, 1876-1954

A short biography of Mat Kavanagh, Liverpool-Irish class struggle anarchist.

“For the young anarchists of the 30s, of whom I was one, and right until the 50s, Mat was our link with the traditional working class Anarchism of the past and our mentor as no other” - Albert Meltzer

A rose by any other name: a radical history of Manette Street, London

A look at the radical history of Manette Street in London, whose buildings housed various elements of the socialist, anarchist and immigrant workers' movements from the late-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth.

Manette Street has probably more long-term associations with anarchism –and radicalism in general-than any other street in Britain. Formerly known as Rose Street, it acquired its new name in 1895 after the fictional Doctor Manette who resides there in Charles’ Dickens The Tale of Two Cities.

Open Letter to the International Communist Current - Ingram

How the ICC is perceived by a very disillusioned ex-member.

Source; www.af-north.org

Dunn, Fred 1884-1925

A short biography of English anarchist Fred Dunn, active opponent of the First World War.

Fred William Dunn was the son of Edwin Dunn, leading light in the Rose Street Club in Soho (Rose Street is now Manette Street). Edwin had been elected secretary of the Marylebone Radical Reform Association at a founding meeting chaired by Joe Lane. He was the initiator for an independent labour party alongside H. M.

Wess, Woolf, 1861-1946

A short biography of Jewish anarchist Woolf, aka William, Wess, active in the Socialist League in East London.

“He was the most modest of men” - Rudolf Rocker
Woolf Wess was born to a Jewish family in Vilkomar (or Ukmerge) near Kovno in Lithuania in 1861.

He was the son of a Hasidic master baker and at age of 12 was apprenticed to a shoemaker.

The Good and Bad Old Days - The Whinger

The following notes look at various developments in employment, unemployment, and industrial struggles, mainly in the UK, through the period of the sixties, and up to the mid-seventies.

These notes are not revolutionary, they don't even claim to be radical,... I_just nicked them and adapted them from an old seventies cyclopedia I found in a charity shop!. But they do tell a story, and they illustrate a big process of change at a critical turning point.

From; The Whinger - Irregular journal of hysterical madterialism; No. 6, Oct 2007.

1911: Liverpool general transport strike

A short history of the strike movement that took hold of Liverpool during the summer of 1911. Culminating in a massive general strike of all transport workers, the movement displayed some of the most extraordinary scenes of class solidarity seen in Britain.

The strike movement of Liverpool occurred during the great period of industrial unrest that was to grip Britain between 1910 and the outbreak of the First World War. Beginning with a walk-out of seamen, the strike soon snowballed and went on to reach epic proportions, involving up to 70,000 people.

Texidor, Greville, 1902- 1964 and Werner Droescher 1911-1978

Short biographies of Greville Texidor and Werner Droescher who both fought with the Spanish anarchist militias.

Greville Texidor was born in 1902 at Wolverhampton, the daughter of William Arthur Foster and Editha Greville Prideaux. Her father, a barrister, committed suicide in 1920 due to a scandal. Her mother was an artist who had originally moved from Auckland in New Zealand to study art in London in 1895.

A brief history of the Gay Liberation Front, 1970-73

A short account of the GLF in the UK which, while we disagree with some of it, contains interesting historical information.

On the 27th June, 1969 as part of its policy of raiding and closing Gay Bars, the New York Police arrived at the Stonewall Inn to rough up the customers and make a few arrests. New York’s finest encountered black and white drag queens, gay men and lesbians, sick of police brutality, and who on being physically provoked fought back.

The Workers' Committee: An Outline of its Principles and Structure

Pamphlet written by J.T.Murphy and published by the Sheffield Workers' Committee in 1917. It describes the structure of the workers' committees that developed during the first world war and proposes coordinating them into local and national committees in parallel with the trade unions.

“Where the men and women think lightly of the laws; . . . . where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of elected persons; . . . . where outside authority enters after the precedence of inside authority; where the citizen is always the head and ideal; where children are taught to be laws to themselves; . . . there the great city stands.” - Walt Whitman.

Notes on working at a sixth form college library, London 2005-2007

Between 2005-2007 a member of the libcom group worked term-time in the library at a Sixth Form College in London. This article/interview documents his attempts to organise his workplace and touches on some wider issues around working in education in the UK.

So where did you work? What was it like?
Since some of my friends are still working there, and I hope there is still some organising going on, I won't identify the college directly, but some background information would be useful.