FRANK MEERES reveals how the daughter of a famous builders’ merchant from Norwich became a suffragette and ILPer, and one of the Labour Party’s first women MPs. Dorothy Jewson was born on 17 August 1884, the daughter of George and Mary Jewson of Braemar, on the Thorpe Road in Norwich. She was christened Dorothea but...
PAUL SALVESON laments the decline of labour and socialist clubs. But while many are closing, he says, at least one is being re-born in a new co-operative guise....
HAZEL KENT traces the life and career of Fenner Brockway, with particular emphasis on his long association with the ILP. Although I never had the pleasure of meeting Fenner Brockway, I spent three fascinating years in his company while researching his contribution to the ILP for my PhD thesis. Study of his books, newspaper articles,...
HELEN CORR recalls the life of Scottish ILP activist and social reformer Martin Haddow who worked tirelessly to improve the health and education of Glasgow’s working class children. Born on 29 March 1865, William Martin Haddow was the second son of Robert Haddow, a grain merchant and his wife Janet (née Martin). At the time...
BARRY WINTER reports from two meetings in Leeds addressed by the Labour peer and policy advisor Maurice Glasman earlier this month. Maurice Glasman, who is centrally involved in developing Labour’s new programme, began by addressing the question of where the Labour Party is today. New Labour has left us with a difficult inheritance, he argued....
DAVE WALSH profiles Whitby-born novelist Storm Jameson, the socialist, feminist and activist who was an early ILP supporter and lifelong campaigner for a better society....
JUNE HANNAM traces the life of Isabella Ford, the Leeds ILPer whose tireless campaigning for women’s rights, ‘new life’ socialism and peace remains an inspiration today. Isabella Ford was one of a small number of middle-class women who joined the Independent Labour Party in the 1890s; for her, the struggle for socialism was inextricably bound...
LEON IVESON’s childhood memories include numerous ILP conferences, Socialist Sunday School football matches and events at the ILP’s Clarion House. Here, he remembers growing up with his parents, dedicated ILPers, Stan and Ivy Iveson....
CHRIS HALL recalls the life of a genuine, nice guy, ILPer and Spanish Civil War veteran Stafford Cottman. I feel very honoured to write a brief biography about Staff Cottman – ILP activist, Spanish Civil War veteran, socialist, internationalist, trade unionist, personal friend of George Orwell, Labour Party activist, and a genuine, nice guy....
BARRY WINTER reviews Chris Hall’s latest book on the ILP and the Spanish Civil War....
PAUL SIMPSON examines the life and politics of ILP founder Keir Hardie, uncovering staunch principles, distinct traits and personal contradictions. James Keir Hardie was born in Lanarkshire in Scotland in August 1856. At seven he began work as a message boy and by the age of 10 he was working in a mine as a...
KATH CONNOLLY delves into the early life of socialist firebrand Jennie Lee, finding a woman steeped in the ILP and the politics she learned at the family fireside in Fife. Growing up in the 1950s and ’60s I remember Jennie Lee as a small, grey-haired woman, a fiery speaker and chair of Labour Party conference....