British labour history has been one of the dominating areas of historical research in the last sixty years and this book, written in honour of Professor Chris Wrigley, offers a collection of essays written by leading British labour historians of that subject including Ken Brown, Malcolm Chase and Matthew Worley. It focuses upon trade unionism, the co-operative movement, the rise and fall of the Labour Party, and working-class lives, comparing British labour movements with those in Germany and examining the social and political labour activities of the Lansburys. There is, indeed, some important work connected with the cultural developments of the British labour movement, most obviously in the essay written by Matthew Worley on communism and Punk Rock.

Chris Wrigley: a tribute
Professor the Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, FBA
Chris Wrigley: a personal reflection
Professor Margaret Walsh
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Introduction
Keith Laybourn and John Shepherd
1 George Howell, the Webbs and the political culture of early labour history
Malcolm Chase
2 The appointment of Herbert Gladstone as Liberal Chief Whip in 1899
Kenneth D. Brown
3 A question of neutrality? The politics of co-operation in northeast England, 1881-1926
Joan Allen
4 Transforming the unemployed: trade union benefits and the advent of state policy
Noel Whiteside
5 The trade union contribution to the British Labour Party
Andrew Thorpe
6 The disaffiliation crisis of 1932: the Labour Party, the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and the opinion of ILP members
Keith Laybourn
7 Voices in the wilderness? The Progressive League and the quest for sexual reform in British politics, 1932-59
Janet Shepherd
8 Working-class culture in Britain and Germany, 1870-1914: a comparison
Dick Geary
9 Women at work: activism, feminism and the rise of the female office worker during the First World War and its immediate aftermath
Nicole Robertson
10 'We never trained our children to be socialists': the next Lansbury generation and Labour politics 1881-1951
John Shepherd
11 Comrades in bondage trousers: how the Communist Party of Great Britain discovered punk rock
Matthew Worley
12 Must Labour lose? Lessons from post-war history
Kevin Jefferys
A select list of the publications of Chris Wrigley

Editors

Keith Laybourn is Professor of History and the Diamond Jubilee Professor of the University of Huddersfield

John Shepherd is Visiting Professor of Modern British History at the University of Huddersfield and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society