Thanks very much to Geoff who has not only recently donated to the Library two interesting items, but has also researched and written up for us a bit about them:
Sorting out family archives, trying to practise what I preach, I found two items from my partner Judy Paskell's side of the family, almost certainly kept by her maternal grandfather Richard Brown Edwards, known as Dick Edwards, born in Leeds 1875, died 1962, a watch repairer and jeweller and a member of the Leeds Labour Church from the 1890s up to around 1906 - the family think he may have been president and his wife Myra was secretary.
First, a small postcard sent by Edward Carpenter to 'Comrade Brotherton' together with a short note by David Howell (whom Judy worked with in the 1980s). David dates the note as probably July 1897, just before the start of the great engineering employers' lockout of the 90,000 strong Amalgamated Society of Engineers, ASE, that lasted from July 1897 to January 1898. It was “the first major national strike or lock-out in British history”, as Carpenter predicts, writing on the card 'There is war in the air just now in the Labour World - and I suppose a longish battle may be expected, and much suffering. May success crown the A.S.E.'s effort'. Alas, this was not to be. The employers were able to force the ASE to agree to a harsh settlement.
The card offers two talks that Carpenter proposes to give on the first Sunday in September, the first at 3pm, on 'Stock Exchange Politics in Greece and S. Africa (as continuation of speech on Woodhouse Moor)', the second at 6.30 on 'Shelley and the Modern Democratic Movement'. Goodness knows what the 3pm talk was about. We can guess the second talk included references to Peterloo and Shelley's poem The Masque of Anarchy. It seems likely that the meetings were held in the Leeds Labour Church where Dick Edwards was likely to have listened to and met Carpenter.
Second, a largish sheet, printed on both sides, 'Labour's Call To Action, the nation's opportunity'. It's a broadsheet s
ummary of Labour's 1931 election manifesto. Starting with a sharp attack on 'the capitalist system which is broken down', arguing that 'Socialism provides the only solution', it commits a Labour government to nationalising the banks, power, transport, iron and steel industries and creating a National Investment Board. At the same time it opposes raising tariff barriers, calls for international disarmament, promises to repeal the Conservative government's 1927 anti-union legislation, and pledges to reverse the cuts in unemployment benefit and the increases in contributions. Its radicalism is limited: it accepts the need for a balanced budget and refers to 'nation' and 'people' not working and ruling classes. It's worth remembering that this broadsheet was issued at almost exactly the same time as the Battle of Bexley Square on 1 October 1931, four weeks before the election, when the National Unemployed Workers Movement led a demonstration of ten thousand against the cuts to benefits and the introduction of the means test. For more on this read the WCML booklet http://www.wcml.org.uk/shop/Books/?product=the-battle-of-bexley-square.
Labour suffered its worst ever defeat, being reduced to 52 MPs, while the Tories won 470 (Labour got 31% of the vote, the Conservatives 55%). Dick Edwards and his wife Myra were in Slaithwaite in 1931 where Dick had a jeweller and optician's shop.
Geoff Brown, reader at WCML and donor of these items