CONFERENCE REPORT

Labouring Lives

Harry Knowles

The purpose of the 'Labouring Lives' conference was to explore the various ways of researching and writing the lives of people involved in labour and other radical social movements. It was organised around four themes: suffrage history; autobiography; biography; and the international scene.	1
The speakers list included the likes of John Saville, David Howell, Bryan Palmer, Shelia Rowbotham (an unfortunate late withdrawal due to illness), Stefan Berger, Sandra Holten, Kevin Morgan and Nina Fishmen. The venue was the Mechanics Institute, Princess Street, Manchester—a plaque on the outside wall reminded all who entered that this had been the site of the First Intercontinental Trade Union Congress in 1868. Two panels of speakers ran concurrently in both the morning (writing suffrage histories and comparative/international) and afternoon (collective biography/biography and autobiography) sessions.	2
The keynote address was delivered by the rather spritely, mid-octogenarian John Saville, who provided a most entertaining and intriguing reminiscence of his 'labouring life'. A student at the London School of Economics and a Communist Party member when war broke out in 1939, Saville joined the British Army. In a very amusing account of this period, he recalled how he repeatedly refused a commission in defiance of the Party directive and in the face of persistent demands of his commanding officer. It was only after the Army threatened to post him to a base in Iceland that Saville relented, though he still believed he could serve the Party better from the ranks.	3
As might have been expected, given the reputation of many of those on the speakers' list, the papers were of an impressive standard, and it was a revelation to me to learn of the variety of approaches British labour historians have adopted to incorporate biographical/autobiographical methodology in the writing of history. For example, Bryan Palmer delivered a convincing re-interpretation the origins of early American Bolshevism through a biographical assessment of the life of James P. Cannon whilst Nina Fishman examined underlying similarities in the lives of three Communist miners' leaders in three different countries.	4
David Howell employed a biographical approach to re-open the history of the British Labour Party of the early 1930s through the lives of labour renegades. Stefan Berger analysed seven British and nine German autobiographies of social democratic activists of the inter-war period in an attempt to establish how they constructed the relationship between their social narratives and the imagined collectivities of nation and class.	5
Amongst the younger historians, two papers particularly stood out. Both papers revealed new insights into the nature of industrial activism in the immediate past era of British mining unionism. Keith Gildart's paper was based on an examination of the autobiographies of miners from the previously under-researched coalfields in North Wales. Meg Allen examined the construction of collective resistance during the 1984-85 Miners Strike through the recollections of activism of women participants.	6
As one of the three of four 'internationals' represented at the conference, I cannot speak highly enough of the hospitality extended by the conference organisers and the degree of camaraderie experienced during the conference and in my all too short stay in Manchester. The conviviality experienced over a few pints at The Old Monkey on arrival and several more at the post-conference get-together at the Lass o'Gowrie will long be remembered.	7
Manchester is indeed a 'mecca' for labour historians. My hotel had been a cotton warehouse in a previous life whilst the conference venue itself at 103 Princess Street also housed the Labour History Archive & Study Centre managed by the John Rylans Library. The Centre is the only specialist repository for the political wing of the labour movement. Its holdings include the records of the working-class political organisations from the Chartists to Tony Blair, the archives of the Labour Party and of the Communist Party of Great Britain. There are also assortment of personal papers of radical politicians, writers and left-wing organisations along with collections of banners, photographs, prints, ceramics, and ephemera from over 200 years of labour movement history. The John Rylans Library, a particularly impressive example of modern Gothic architecture, also has collections of labour movement records and manuscripts.	8
Finally, a stroll from the centre of the city down to Bridge Street on the Left Bank will reveal the impressive Pump House Peoples' History Museum which houses the galleries and education service of the National Museum of Labour History. The Peoples' History Museum offers reconstructions of working life (the 'tramping artisan' exhibit was particularly revealing), documents, objects, and a claimed world-renowned collection of banners. Exhibits include the role of cotton manufacturing and political radicalism in the early years of the industrial revolution in Manchester, the growth of trade unions and friendly societies, the evolution of socialism and birth of the Labour Party, the history of the campaign for women's vote, coal miners and their communities from the 1790s to the 1990s, and how workers spent their leisure time—football, sea-side holidays and music.	9
All of this is housed in a former Edwardian hydraulic pumping station. On the day I visited, one of the highlights was the obvious interest expressed in the exhibits of Manchester's working-class history by a succession of visiting school groups. It made me wonder why, with our own rich traditions in labour history, we lack a similar venue.	10

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