The SLHS Ian MacDougall Essay Prize
The Scottish Labour History Society is pleased to announce the establishment of the Ian MacDougall Essay Prize, which will:
* honour the memory of Dr Ian MacDougall (1933-2020), founding secretary of
the Scottish Labour History Society and the Scottish Working People’s History
Trust
* encourage the finest standards of scholarship amongst undergraduate students in
the field of labour history in Scotland
* promote the study and recording of labour and popular history in Scotland.
The prize will be awarded annually, the winner to receive:
* a cash prize of £300
* publication of the winning essay in Scottish Labour History
* one year’s free subscription to the Scottish Labour History Society, including
subscription to Scottish Labour History.
A runner-up prize of £100 will be awarded where deemed appropriate. This, and other entries of sufficient quality, may be invited to publish in Scottish Labour History and, if so, will receive one year’s free subscription. The prize will be awarded at the annual Ian MacDougall Memorial Lecture, held at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, in April each year.
The full entry requirements and rules for the prize, together with the application form, can be found on the SLHS website at www.scottishlabourhistorysociety.scot/blog-article/ian-macdougall-essay… Submissions should be sent by email, as Word document attachments, to the Scottish Labour History Society at admin@scottishlabourhistorysociety.scot
Launch of Diverse Voices, Challenging Injustice: Banners Tales From Glasgow
Trade union banners have long been recognised as central to the labour movement, a visual representation of the values and hopes of movements and campaigns, and Glasgow has a long history of trade union organisation and of political protest, with many of the associated banners held in public collections across the city. On 22 September, a launch of the publication, Diverse Voices, Challenging Injustice: Banner Tales From Glasgow, will highlight the function of banners in Glasgow campaigns, in a booklet that is the result of a collaboration between Glasgow Museums, the University of Glasgow Human Geography Research Group and the Scottish Labour History Society.
The publication focuses on banners from Peace March Scotland 1982, banners associated with the contribution of Glaswegians of South Asian heritage to the labour movement, and the relations between Glasgow and the anti-apartheid movement, being the first place in the world to award Nelson Mandela the ‘Freedom of the City’. It brings together seven testimonies and interviews, illustrated with colour images of banners linked to these movements, offering a distinctive view on diverse forms of organising in Scotland against injustices and oppression.
The free launch event, which is being held at the new Scottish Trades Union Congress building at 8 Landressy Street, Bridgeton, Glasgow, G40 1BP, on 22 September, from 1pm to 3.30pm, will include speakers featured in the publication and from the project team. There will also be a display of several banners that are featured in the publication.
Poll taxes revisited: Inequality, resistance and the Community Charge
Online event: Tuesday, 13 September 2022; 5pm–6pm BST: The introduction of the Community Charge in Scotland in 1989 was a defining moment in modern UK politics. Famously defended by Conservative Environment Minister Nicholas Ridley, on the grounds that a Duke would pay no more than a dustman, the arrival of the unpopular tax in Scotland a year earlier than in England and Wales inspired a mass non-payment campaign, helping to end Margaret Thatcher’s prime ministership. But it was not the first time a 'poll tax' had been introduced by a British or US government during the twentieth century.
Using the political ephemera and archive collections of the National Library of Scotland, Professor Jeremy Bearer-Friend will put the Scottish anti-Poll Tax campaign into global perspective, exploring how the everyday act of tax filing can become both a tool of discrimination and a powerful forum for political expression. Looking at the introduction of the Community Charge compared with other twentieth-century poll taxes applied by Anglophone governments, he examines the how neutrality in statutory language can cloak the use of tax as a political and economic weapon, and argues for an enriched understanding of the relationship between taxpaying and citizenship that goes beyond voting rights.
Bearer-Friend is Associate Professor at George Washington University Law School in Washington, DC, and 2021-2 Fulbright-National Library of Scotland Scholar. His research focuses on the relationship between tax, race, and citizenship. Prior to academia, he was Tax Counsel to Senator Elizabeth Warren. He remains actively engaged with public policy and regularly provides guidance on tax law to journalists, think tanks, and congressional staff. Join him for this free Zoom event on his research into the Scottish anti-Poll Tax movement. To register, visit: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/poll-taxes-revisited-inequality-resistance-…
New SLHS Occasional Publication in Preparation
The Society is pleased to announce a new forthcoming title in its Occasional Publications series, which is expected to be available during October. It is ’Sell and Be Damned!’: The Glasgow Merrylee Housing Scandal of 1951 by Ned Donaldson & Les Forster, with contributions from Valerie Wright, James Kelman and Anni Donaldson, and it is being reprinted to mark the seventieth anniversary of a strike against the selling-off of council houses in 1951. It is told by the strike leaders, and the booklet will include further comment by present-day authors. It will cost £6.00, plus postage and packing.
In a separate move, the price of some of the older Occasional Publications is shortly to be reduced, with John Maclean’s Speech from the Dock becoming £3.00, Joe Reilly’s The Linwood Line £2.00 and Esther Davies’ “Sanny” Sloan booklet being reduced to £5.00. Full details will be available on the website shortly.
The full list of Occasional Publications is as follows:
1. Cowie Miners, Polmaise Colliery and the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike by Steve McGrail & Vicky Paterson: £5.00 (A5: 146 pages; illustrated)
2. John Maclean: The Speech from the Dock, edited by Ewan Gibbs & Rory Scothorne, and with essays by Ewan Gibbs & Rory Scothorne, Chloe Alexander, Henry Bell and Terry Brotherstone: £3.00 (A5: 36 pages)
3. The Linwood Line: A Memoir by Joe Reilly: £2.00 (A5: 16 pages)
4. ‘Sanny’ Sloan, the Miners’ MP: His Life, Times and Family by Esther Davies: £5.00 (A5)
5. Banner Tales from Glasgow: Diverse Voices, Challenging Injustice, edited by David Featherstone, Fiona Hayes, Helen M Hughes and Isobel McDonald: £8.00 (A5: 112 pages; illustrated)
6. In Preparation: ’Sell and Be Damned!’: The Glasgow Merrylee Housing Scandal of 1951 by Ned Donaldson & Les Forster, with new contributions from Valerie Wright, James Kelman and Anni Donaldson: £6.00 (A5: c80 pages)
All but ‘Sell and Be Damned!‘ can be ordered via the website at www.scottishlabourhistorysociety.scot/back-issues-and-occasional-public…
Glasgow Doors Open Festival
For many years, SLHS has been a participant in Glasgow Doors Open, offering heritage walks on labour movement topics, and we will be there again this year. Having "walked" through World War I, Red Clydeside and George Square 1919, the focus this year is on "Clydeside to Landslide" and the historic Labour victory in Scotland at the 1922 General Election. The walk is at 11am on Sunday 18 September, starting from the south entrance to the Clyde Suspension Bridge on Carlton Place.
History in the Making: The 2022 Jimmy Reid Foundation Annual Lecture
Tickets for the 2022 Jimmy Reid Foundation lecture, at 7pm on Thursday 6 October, are now on sale. The venue is the City Chambers, George Square, Glasgow, and the lecture will be given UNISON general secretary, Christina McAnea, whose subject is Tory Turmoil and the Cost-of-Living Crisis: Challenges and Opportunities for Our Trade Unions. Click https://reidfoundation.scot/2022/08/jimmy-reid-foundation-2022-annual-l… to book tickets and see further information.
Update on the 2022 SLHS Conference/AGM and Lecture
A combination of factors, including guest speaker and venue availability, have so far frustrated the finalising of details for an SLHS conference and annual general meeting in November, as tentatively announced in the August newsletter. At the time of writing, no final arrangements have been made, and it may be that the society holds an online AGM using ‘Zoom’ technology, as was the case last year. More information, when final details are known, will appear in the October newsletter and on the website.
Please send any material for future newsletters to admin@scottishlabourhistorysociety.scot
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