The Great Labour Unrest examines the struggle between liberals, socialists and revolutionary syndicalists for control of Britain's best established district miners' union. Drawing widely on a vast and rich body of primary sources, this study reveals the debates that grassroots activists had during the fascinating and turbulent 'Great Labour Unrest' period. It charts the contexts in which the socialists challenged the union's Liberal leaders from the late 1890s and considers the complex strikes in 1910 against the implementation of the Liberal government's miners' eight-hour day. It analyses the emergence and development of a mass rank-and-file movement in the coalfield based around demands for a miners' minimum wage and, when this principle was won in March 1912, for an improved minimum wage. This book is of interest to academics, advanced students and lay people interested in political, social and economic history, political thought, economics, and industrial relations. -- .

The Great Labour Unrest examines the struggle between liberals, socialists and revolutionary syndicalists for control of Britain's best established district miners' union. Drawing widely on a vast and rich body of primary sources, this study reveals the debates that grassroots activists had during the fascinating and turbulent 'Great Labour Unrest' period. It charts the contexts in which the socialists challenged the union's Liberal leaders from the late 1890s and considers the complex strikes in 1910 against the implementation of the Liberal government's miners' eight-hour day. It analyses the emergence and development of a mass rank-and-file movement in the coalfield based around demands for a miners' minimum wage and, when this principle was won in March 1912, for an improved minimum wage. This book is of interest to academics, advanced students and lay people interested in political, social and economic history, political thought, economics, and industrial relations. -- .

Was British Labour activist support for the anti-Franco cause 'the most outstanding example of international solidarity in British history'? Here Lewis Mates challenges this myth and argues that support for the anti-Franco cause was varied and multi-faceted. He analyses the 'Aid Spain movement': activities undertaken at grassroots level in support of the Spanish Republic. He explores the nature of grassroots support, its extent and depth, the motivations of activists, the institutions they operated through, and importantly, the role and impact of ideas on activism. Those within the British Left who did not embrace the Republic's cause are also examined as are the consequences of these divisions for the labour movement at its different levels from grassroots to national.
Mates provides new perspectives on an important period of twentieth-century British history, contributing to debates about the nature of the British left, grassroots activism and popular political engagement in a contradictory epoch.