First published in 1967, South Wales Miners: Glowyr de Cymru is a vivid portrayal of contending personalities in the generation before the first world war, often set forth in their own words. Outstanding amongst them are the founder of the Labour Party., Keir Hardie and the young Liberal politician Winston Churchill whose successive ministerial duties brought him into close relation with the miners of South Wales. Out of the almost insurrectionary situation of 1910 in Glamorgan there has come a widespread belief that Churchill was responsible for the shooting down of Welsh miners and that Tonypandy in the Rhondda was once a scene of massacre. In destroying this picturesque myth, Page Arnot uncovers an array of facts that are stranger than this long-lived fiction and also richer in their interplay of personalities. Here, soberly, recorded, are the facts that could make a chronicle play with dramatis personae ranging from Monarch and Minister to mineowners and working miners who daily lives create the tensions of the time. Their national characteristics and their exceptional conditions, at home or in chapel, underground or on the surface, form one side of the picture, of which the other is furnished by the entrenched position of the associated coal owners. This book will be of interest to students of history, economics and labour studies.

First published in 1967, South Wales Miners: Glowyr de Cymru is a vivid portrayal of contending personalities in the generation before the first world war, often set forth in their own words. Outstanding amongst them are the founder of the Labour Party., Keir Hardie and the young Liberal politician Winston Churchill whose successive ministerial duties brought him into close relation with the miners of South Wales. Out of the almost insurrectionary situation of 1910 in Glamorgan there has come a widespread belief that Churchill was responsible for the shooting down of Welsh miners and that Tonypandy in the Rhondda was once a scene of massacre. In destroying this picturesque myth, Page Arnot uncovers an array of facts that are stranger than this long-lived fiction and also richer in their interplay of personalities. Here, soberly, recorded, are the facts that could make a chronicle play with dramatis personae ranging from Monarch and Minister to mineowners and working miners who daily lives create the tensions of the time. Their national characteristics and their exceptional conditions, at home or in chapel, underground or on the surface, form one side of the picture, of which the other is furnished by the entrenched position of the associated coal owners. This book will be of interest to students of history, economics and labour studies.

There can be few statesmen whose lives and careers have received as much investigation and literary attention as Winston Churchill. Relatively little however has appeared which deals specifically or holistically with his first senior ministerial role; that of Secretary of State for the Home Office. This may be due to the fact that, of the three Great Offices of State which he was to occupy over the course of his long political life, his tenure as Home Secretary was the briefest. The Liberal Government, of which he was a senior figure, had been elected in 1906 to put in place social and political reform. Though Churchill was at the forefront of these matters, his responsibility for domestic affairs led to him facing other, major, challenges departmentally; this was a time of substantial commotion on the social front, with widespread industrial and civil strife. Even given that ‘Home Secretaries never do have an easy time’, his period in office was thus marked by a huge degree of political and social turbulence. The terms ‘Tonypandy’ and ‘Peter the Painter’ perhaps spring most readily to mind. Rather less known is his involvement in one of the burning issues of the time, female suffrage, and his portrayal as ‘the prisoners’ friend’ in terms of penal reform. Aged 33 on appointment, and the youngest Home Secretary since 1830, he became empowered to wield the considerable executive authority inherent in the role of one of His Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, and he certainly did not shrink from doing so. There were of course commensurate responsibilities, and how he shouldered them is worth examination.

In this important contribution to the study of industrial relations, Roy Church and Quentin Outram present research into the strike activity of British coalminers from the late nineteenth century to the mid-1960s. The authors consider not only the major national strikes and lock-outs which made the industry a byword for industrial militancy, but also the multitude of small-scale strikes which formed a routine part of British colliery lifes. Strikes and Solidarity, first published in 1998, is multi-disciplinary in approach and views coalfield conflict from the perspectives offered by sociologists, industrial relations specialists, and economists, as well as social and economic historians. Church and Outram have successfully blended quantitative and qualitative investigations to explain the long-standing issues presented by industrial relations in the coalfields.

Reference book comprising a bibliography aiming to bring together secondary source interdisciplinary material on labour relations in the UK between the years 1880 and 1970 - covers employees attitudes, trade unions and employees associations, employers organizations, the labour market and working conditions, etc.