Search

On 1 January 1930 the Communist Party of Great Britain's (CPGB) new daily newspaper, theDaily Worker, was published for the first time. It was heralded by the CPGB as a maturing of the British Communist movement, and an opportunity for the Party to spread its message to a much wider audience than previous weekly newspapers would allow. With leading Party members in control of the paper, theDaily Workerwas very much a Party newspaper; however, the CPGB wanted it to be much more than an internal bulletin. This paper examines the attempts by the CPGB to create a newspaper that spoke both for and with the voice of the working-classes, whilst also spreading the Party's message. It will ultimately conclude that the CPGB's depiction of it as a paper ‘by the working-classes, for the working-classes’ reflected the Party's efforts at locating its own place within the working-class movement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented in which the author discusses the history of paper making in the 18th century in Great Britain, focusing on the papers used to print the works of poet and illustrator William Blake, such as the illuminated book "Songs of Innocence." Countermarks and watermarks are mentioned, as well as paper makers such as James Whatman Jr., Robert Edmeads, and Thomas Pine. Paper mills, books versus pamphlets, and makers such as Charles Ball are also mentioned.

Many people were involved in producing the seven volumes that make up the fourth series of the Royal Society catalogue of scientific papers. Included were about two hundred volunteers and about one hundred people working either on short-term contracts or carrying out piece work. At the Royal Society there was a small, largely female, secretariat working full-time. It included both clerical and bibliographic staff. Coordinating all the work was the chemist Herbert McLeod, appointed director of the catalogue in 1901. As is discussed, the position of director was created especially for him after his forced retirement from the Royal Indian Engineering College. The paper shows the complexity of the work involved in producing the catalogue, as well as something of the office culture at the Royal Society in the early twentieth century. The working conditions of the women employees, and prevailing attitudes toward the largely female clerical and bibliographic staff, are briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the papers of the 19th-century British art connoisseur and curator George Scharf. The author notes that the papers, which are housed at the National Portrait Gallery in London, England, represent a remarkable repository of unpublished information regarding hundreds of old master paintings. Particular focus is paid to a series of papers relating to the art collections of the industrialist Abraham Darby IV and the art dealer John Watkins Brett. The paintings, which toured the U.S. in the 1830s, are related to early efforts to establish the first American national gallery. In addition, the author comments on the display of the paintings at the "Art Treasures of the United Kingdom" exhibition held in Manchester, England in 1857.

The British press, public and parliament are not generally thought to have played a significant role in the process of Britain’s decolonisation in Africa. Neither do most studies of the broad British metropolitan experience foreground the importance of African nationalism. This article begins to challenge both of these views by providing an assessment of the significance of the British press’s rather sensational treatment of an incident of late-colonial violence in the context of an African demonstration in Blantyre, Nyasaland, in 1960. African activists exploited the British press presence in Blantyre as a means of advancing the nationalist cause and fighting the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. British correspondents responded positively for a variety of ideological, political, personal, situational and institutional reasons. In addition, by 1960, the British press recognised the strength of African nationalism in the context of African violence and agitation across that continent in preceding months and years. Its critical articles, which interlocked with British parliamentary proceedings and specific sets of historical concerns, had important effects among two core readerships: sections of the white settler communities of the Federation, and the British Government. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper concerns The Little Red Schoolbook, an English translation of the Danish book Den lille røde bog fur skoleelever. After the book's publication in the UK, opponents were successful in pressing for its publisher's prosecution. The ensuing trial led to its withdrawal and its bowdlerisation. It is argued that the work played some part in changing social and sexual mores and sex education practice in the UK, being, in effect, the Urtext of the ‘harm reduction approach’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses the life and imprisonment of the largely unknown middle-class artist and British suffrage activist Katie Gliddon and analyzes her extensive prison diary, secretly written and drawn in her copy of The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley at London's Holloway Prison in March and April 1912. By creating a platform for the voices of ‘ordinary’ prisoners and by opening up a space for a transgressive gaze between suffragettes, ‘ordinary’ prisoners and female officers, Gliddon's writings allow us to complicate our understanding of cross-class relations within the women's suffrage campaign and in women's prisons more generally speaking. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

London goldsmith-bankers' development of paper credit-money in the seventeenth century ushered in the era of modern banking. This essay argues that this innovation of paper credit-money by goldsmith-bankers was the institutionalisation of the double-ownership scheme known as trust. This trust scheme was at the centre of the custom or morality that underlay the political struggle between the Crown, landowners, and the bourgeoisie in early modern England, the struggle from which goldsmith-banking and, later, joint-stock banking developed. This double ownership remains a central feature of the present banking system. Also during the financial boom of the late twentieth century, which ended in the present world financial crisis, the trust scheme was used extensively by many financial firms, such as mutual funds, pension funds, and asset-securitisation trusts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of 'class strategies' in policy formation is sometimes unseen as plans are unrealised in practice over long periods of historical time. 'Subterranean class strategies' are an extension of existing work on class to consider 'class work' on policy in the 'long unenacted'. Using the example of emergency feeding in a national crisis, the stark difference in school meal planning for post-World War 2 emergencies when compared to the COVID-19 crisis is discussed. Through an analysis of archival records, it is shown that 'subterranean class strategies' - the devaluation of school catering expertise by the army and the private sector, the lack of co-operation of independent schools, and localisation and privatisation - diminished the role of schools in emergency feeding. The paper concludes by considering how the concept of 'subterranean class strategies' could inform work on educational think tanks, privatisation and subsumption, and intersectional areas such as race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the ethos and rationale of The Woman Worker, launched in Britain in September 1907 as the official organ of the all-female trade union, the National Federation of Women Workers (the Federation). As a monthly journal, it was edited and managed by Mary Macarthur, President of the Federation, moving to weekly production in June 1908 with the assistance of Robert Blatchford, founder of the successful socialist newspaper, The Clarion. Under Macarthur, the paper emphasised both the importance of union organisation for women workers and the need for parliamentary legislation to protect them from low pay, victimisation and exploitation in the workplace. It is argued here that although this paper sought to fill a gap in the market, producing a paper that appealed beyond those already converted to the cause of women's organisation was a difficult challenge for Macarthur. Her attempts to provide a readable but didactic paper on a limited budget, relying on Labour colleagues for copy, resulted in a paper that did not always have a clear target readership; it was a union journal seeking broad appeal amongst working-class women but it also reflected the interests of committed labour activists. This arguably resulted in a paper that struggled to achieve its initial aim of binding women workers together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]