It’s been a long, hard journey for the Selina Cooper project team in Nelson, from a dusty archive in the local library to a long-delayed public launch at one of the town’s oldest buildings. But with Covid restrictions finally easing, their struggle to commemorate the locality’s proud socialist history is finally coming to fruition....
ROGER SMALLEY recounts the life of a Blackburn ILPer who wanted her work ‘to sting people into rebellion against poverty and fire their hearts with a cause’. Ethel Carnie left an impressive legacy of dissent that continues to have relevance today....
The first ever biography of socialist pioneer and Burnley Labour MP Dan Irving is due to be published by Nelson ILP Land Society....
The Orwell Society has released the latest recording in its online ‘George Talks’ series featuring an interview with Sylvia Topp, author of the highly-regarded biography of Orwell’s first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy....
Like many working-class socialists, Blackburn ILPer Johnnie Duxbury left only a faint footprint on the historical record. Yet his life of brave activism and everyday kindness ‘enriches our understanding of socialist commitment’, argues ROGER SMALLEY....
A new website has been launched by ILP and Labour movement historian Ian Bullock to highlight his decades of work examining the relationship between socialism and democracy in Britain....
To mark International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we are highlighting the lives of nine ILP women who played important roles in the early years of the Labour movement. All of them were tireless campaigners for women’s votes and gender equality, and against war and poverty....
BARBARA HARGREAVES pays tribute to her father, an ILPer from Blackburn who dedicated his life to ‘every progressive cause that arose’. ‘His intelligence and integrity allowed him to transcend his circumstances and help those who could not,’ she says....
When Eric Preston died on 20 September this year it not only brought to an end his long and active life in the struggle for socialism, but marked the passing of an era for the ILP too. Eric’s writing and thinking over more than 60 years of ILP membership was hugely influential, not only...
JAIME REYNOLDS reveals the remarkable achievements of four unknown ILP women who became important local government leaders between the wars but have since been left out of Labour history....
One of the founding members of the ILP and a leading suffragist is to be celebrated by a major exhibition and education programme in Nelson next year. The Selina Cooper Project will be launched in 2021 thanks to a £50,000 Heritage Lottery Fund grant raised earlier this year by local volunteers Gary and Kevin Webb....
Our dear friend and comrade Eric Preston died on 20 September. He was a driving force in the ILP for 60 years, shaping much of its perspective and political thinking. ILP chair DAVID CONNOLLY gave the eulogy at his funeral on 8 October....