Portraits of Chartist Political Prisoners in 1841

Chartist meetings were banned by proclamation of the government in 1839. Mass arrests followed with Chartists being imprisoned and transported. In a movement that nurtured personality cults and where Chartist leaders vied for the hero-worship of their followers, rancour and rivalry was inevitable. William Lovett, a member of the ‘London Workingmen’s Association,’ published his People’s [...]

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The Anti-Irish Riot in Ashton-under-Lyne, May 1868

In the 1860s a number of anti-Irish riots occurred in the Midlands and the North of England, provoked by William Murphy who gave virulently anti-Catholic lectures. The worst local riot took place in Ashton-under-Lyne in May 1868. According to his own account William Murphy was born a Catholic in Limerick in 1834 but his family [...]

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Fascism and anti-fascism in 1930s Manchester

The following article on Fascist leader Oswald Mosley’s humiliation by anti-fascists at Belle Vue is reproduced by kind permission of Manchester University’s Centre for Jewish Studies, and is by Michael Wolf of the anti-fascist periodical Searchlight. The introduction to the article is based on an article by Yaakov Wise, also on the CJS website. One [...]

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Paul Rose and the Campaign for Democracy in Ulster

Paul Rose, MP for Manchester Blackley, helped to set up the Campaign for Democracy in Ulster in 1965. The campaign attempted to raise the question of discrimination and civil rights abuses in northern Ireland, largely unsuccessfully. Paul Rose was born in 1935 in Manchester and educated at Bury Grammar School and the University of Manchester. [...]

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Irish Republican Operations in Manchester 1920-1922

During the Irish War of Independence, Irish Republicans mounted a number of armed operations in British cities, including Manchester, which were intended to cause economic damage and put pressure on the British government to cede independence to Ireland The Campaign in Manchester 1920-22 In the autumn of 1920 the IRA launched a series of attacks [...]

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Betty Tebbs: “I’ve always been a revolutionary!”

Betty Tebbs joined her first trade union at 14, lost her first husband in WWII and spent her entire life working for rights for women and workers, global peace and justice and nuclear disarmament.

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