University of Oxford, UK
This essay gives an overview of the trade union, socialist, and political labour movements in Britain from 1848 to 1914, focusing in particular on the ideas, movements, and organisations that went on to shape the history of Britain in the twentieth century. Beginning after the decline of Chartism, the essay first considers the character and strategies of trade unions, the relationship between radicalism and liberalism, and the political impact of franchise reform in the years leading up to the 1880s. It then examines the fortunes and significance of socialist organisations that were formed during the ‘socialist revival’ in the 1880s and charts the early history of the ‘new unions’ that were founded by formerly marginalised workers, including women, agricultural labourers, and unskilled workers, throughout the 1890s. The growing calls for direct labour representation in the final decades of the nineteenth century are the focus of the third section, which considers the varied and sometimes conflicting attempts to achieve this goal. The fourth section gives an overview of the early years of the Labour Party, reflecting on its objectives, ideology, composition, electoral performance, and complex relationship with the two major political parties. The essay concludes by outlining the major scholarly debates that have taken place about the early Labour Party.
After Chartism
When compared to the turbulent 1830s and 1840s, the decades following the defeat of Chartism represented a far less dramatic phase in British history in which working people abandoned their former militancy and embraced a form of politics characterised more by moderation, reformism, and cross-class collaboration. Laying aside their projects of fundamental political and social reform, workers, including former Chartists, now devoted their attention to less confrontational activities and institutions, including cooperative, friendly, and temperance societies (Roberts 2009). They formed new trade unions, taking advantage of the mid-Victorian expansion of the British economy and the subsequent willingness of employers and the state to make concessions to the industrial working class. They also showed signs that they were willing to work with, and even accept the leadership of, moderate members of the Liberal Party, a ‘broad church’ party that included Peelites, Whigs, and others opposed to the Conservatives. By the end of the 1860s, the benefits of adopting such a conciliatory strategy were becoming clear. The 1867 Reform Act, which enfranchised a large portion of the male working class, saw the return to Parliament, with Liberal support, of the first working-class MPs, Thomas Burt and Alexander Macdonald. And during William Gladstone’s first ministry (1868–74), radicals could point to the Irish Church Act (1869), the Trade Union Act (1871), and the Ballot Act (1872), among other reforms, as proof that the Liberal Party, with regular prodding from its radical wing, were dedicated to the principles that all radicals held dear.
Despite these achievements, one should not exaggerate the novelty of a conciliatory form of radicalism. As Gareth Stedman Jones (1983), Patrick Joyce (1991), Eugenio Biagini and Alastair Reid (1991) have shown, radicalism in both its Chartist and post-Chartist forms could embrace populist strategies and discourse, presenting itself as a movement of ‘the people’ – a broad group that included artisans, small tradesmen, and organised workers – which sought to reform the political system without altering the economic basis of society. Among other benefits, identifying key continuities in the development of nineteenth-century radicalism calls into question the once-dominant idea that British working-class history can be divided into three distinct phases: a militant burst in 1840s, a dormant phase beginning in the 1850s, and a revival of militancy in the 1880s (Hobsbawm 1984; Kirk 1998).
There is also evidence to suggest that the distinctions between radicalism and Liberal politics in the years after Chartism were more pronounced and complex than many scholars have previously acknowledged. Between the 1850s and 1880s, radicals sustained a widely read national press, publishing and circulating newspapers such as Reynolds’s News, which took as much pleasure in criticising the Liberal Party as it did in condemning the Conservatives. Radicals continued to play a leading role in trade union activities, including forming local trades’ councils and leading strikes (Owen 2014). In some towns and cities, radicals formed independent organisations that stood candidates against Liberal politicians, particularly in constituencies that returned two MPs to the House of Commons (Kidd 2020). They also led extra-parliamentary campaigns that operated outside the confines of official Liberalism, including agitation around parliamentary reform, anti-monarchism, cooperation, secularism, and, in an especially curious case, the cause of an Australian butcher who claimed to be the long-lost aristocrat Sir Roger Tichborne (McWilliam 2007; Taylor 2010).
The socialist revival and ‘new unionism’
Several developments in the final two decades of the nineteenth century forced radicals to reflect on their long-held views about politics, society, and the economy. As the ‘golden age’ of Victorian capitalism came to an end, and with unemployment steadily rising, ‘collectivism’ became a heated topic of discussion in political circles. Although the word often meant different things to different people, collectivism offered a challenge to the classical liberal doctrine of laissez-faire, the idea that the state should not interfere in the workings of the market economy. If the doctrine of ‘individualism’ had failed to eradicate unemployment, low pay, long working hours, and poverty in old age, then why, many began to ask, should the state not step in to resolve these problems? This was one of the key arguments put forward by those who established the Social Democratic Federation (SDF, 1881), the Fabian Society (1884), the Socialist League (1885), and other organisations that promoted socialism as the answer to Britain’s problems (Lawrence 1992). Over the course of the 1880s, socialist leaders and orators such as William Morris, Annie Besant, and Henry Hyndman complained to all who would listen about the brutality and inefficiency of the capitalist system. They engaged in public debates against their critics – both Liberal and Conservative – who either feared the consequences of social revolution or felt that the socialists’ theories were utopian and impractical. They organised public demonstrations, some of which turned violent, to protest against rising unemployment and violations of the rights of free speech and assembly (Crick 1994). They also created their own press to urge workers in particular to acknowledge their true power and take the lead in ushering in a new social order in which land and capital would be owned by the state on behalf of the people.
British socialism was nothing if not eclectic. Comprising Christians and atheists, revolutionaries and ‘gradualists’, and former Liberals and former Conservatives, the socialist movement was united – ideologically if not politically – by the dream of a ‘co-operative commonwealth’ (Bevir 2011). For many socialists, the wave of militant strike activity that gripped industrial centres from 1888 was a sign that things were moving towards this lofty ideal. The fuse was lit by the London Matchgirls’ Strike in July 1888, which saw women take action over poor working conditions in a match factory in Bow, London (Boston 1980). By the time of the London Dock Strike a year later, the new unions of dockers, seamen, gasworkers, and general labourers were rapidly growing (Clegg, Fox, & Thompson 1977). Composed of unskilled rather than skilled workers and often led by socialists such as Tom Mann (gasworkers) and Ben Tillett (dockers), the new unions welcomed almost all workers, from women to agricultural labourers, who had been neglected by the old craft unions. They adopted militant strategies and were ambitious in their goals, fighting not just to protect the wages and conditions of their members but to further the wider cause of social reform. They also provided the early leadership of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), an organisation founded in 1893 that would go on to play a significant role in British politics over the following three decades (Howell 1983).
Although the decline of the new unions was almost as rapid as their growth, their militant spirit infected members of the old unions, with workers in skilled trades such as boot and shoe making and engineering, who were also facing the challenge of technical modernisation, engaging in long and bitter disputes with employers’ federations in 1895 and 1897 respectively. However, both strikes failed, and trade unionists went on the defensive for the remainder of the decade (Pelling 1972). As well as meeting with an employers’ counter-offensive in the industrial sphere, trade unionists also faced challenges in the courts where decisions relating to picketing put the unions’ legal position under threat. It was in this context that delegates at the 1899 Trades Union Congress agreed to organise a conference that would bring together cooperative, socialist, trade union, and other working-class organisations to discuss increasing the number of labour representatives in Parliament.
The emergence of labour politics
The socialist demands put forward by the new unions had helped to bring formerly abstract questions into the realm of practical politics. By the end of the 1890s, many trade unionists, including those who did not join any of the new socialist parties, had come to favour a range of collectivist policies that would have been seen as unrealistic in former decades: a state-based system of old-age pensions, public works schemes for the unemployed, a state-funded education system, and the collective (i.e. state) ownership of ‘natural monopolies’ such as the railways, docks, and mines (Emy 1973; Wolfe 1975). For many contemporaries, this was proof that socialism had begun to take hold of the British labour movement. But it is important not to overstate the influence and numerical strength of socialism at this time. Some trade unionists clung to the old faith of self-help, individual thrift, and laissez-faire economics. A larger proportion accepted that the state could help to resolve some social problems but not all of them (Reid 1991). Proponents of the latter viewpoint were keen to downplay the socialistic connotations of their demands, emphasising the practicality and moderation of their requests. For them, the state was not to become the owner of the entire economy; it was simply an effective instrument that could be used in the context of existing society to improve the lives and conditions of the workers. These differences may appear trivial in hindsight, but political actors at the time certainly considered them to be important. And such disagreements often led to heated arguments and political splits (Kidd 2020).
Despite the political and intellectual differences within the trade union movement, many scholars believe that the revival of socialism, the new unionist strike wave, and the emergence of independent labour politics signified the emergence of ‘class politics’ in Britain (Cole 1965; Harrison 1965). Once again, though, this narrative of change has been accused of failing to account for the survival of older ways of thinking about society and politics (Biagini & Reid 1991). One way of evaluating whether this was a time of change or a time of continuity is by considering the history of the demand for direct labour representation. There was nothing particularly new about the idea that working-class voters should be represented in Parliament and on local governing bodies by working-class representatives (Owen 2014). However, the demand was given added urgency by the socialist revival, the emergence of the new unions, and a growing sense that the Liberal Party was failing to deliver on its promises to working-class voters. This last criticism struck a chord with those who had come to describe themselves as ‘labour’ activists, many of whom rejected the full programme offered by the socialists but agreed with them that more workers and trade unionists should be represented on local and national governing bodies. How to achieve this goal was a matter of heated debate, at both a national and local level.
The business of achieving labour representation at the end of the nineteenth century was a complex affair. It was also a largely futile exercise. While trade unionists scored some notable successes at a local level, only nine candidates – all of whom received Liberal support – were elected to the House of Commons in the final general election of the nineteenth century in 1895. But for many scholars, the electoral failure of independent labour politics during the 1890s is not the central issue. What is crucial is the fact that people were putting the question of labour representation on the table at all, for it signified a decisive shift in the way workers were thinking about politics and society. In short, workers’ political activity was increasingly coming to revolve around the question of class (Cole 1965; Kirk 1998). Even ‘Lib-Lab’ trade unionists who refused to break their ties with the Liberal Party began to see themselves, and describe themselves, as members of a ‘labour party’, even though a labour party in an organisational sense did not yet exist. Politicians and journalists followed suit, defining ‘the labour party’ as all those at a local and national level who took a prominent role in trade union matters regardless of their party-political affiliation. Labour politics, whether it worked on independent lines or in conjunction with the Liberals, was becoming an important presence in political life (Shepherd 1991).
The ‘rise’ of the Labour Party
At a conference held in London on 26 and 27 February 1900, delegates representing the ILP, the SDF, the Fabian Society, and a number of skilled and unskilled trade unions agreed to establish ‘a distinct Labour group in Parliament’ that would ‘embrace a readiness to cooperate with any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interests of labour’. The Labour Representation Committee (LRC), as it was then known, was founded as a federal body to which trade unions, socialist societies, trades’ councils and local LRCs could affiliate and pay subscription fees. As it was not possible for individuals to become members of the LRC except through membership of an affiliated society, the trade unions dominated the young party (Thorpe 1997). Electoral progress was slow. At the October 1900 general election, just two LRC candidates were elected. However, events in the political, industrial, and legal worlds proved to be the catalyst for increased agitation on the labour representation question. Trade unionist support for the LRC was boosted by the 1901 Taff Vale case, which held that unions could be liable for loss of profits to employers that were caused by strike action. This ruling seemed to validate what many socialists and trade unionists had been saying since the 1880s, namely, that existing institutions would never accommodate ‘the labour interest’ until MPs from trade union backgrounds were adequately represented in Parliament. Although the SDF disaffiliated in 1901, the LRC’s chances of electoral success were improved by the signing of an informal pact with the Liberals in 1903, which saw the two parties agreeing (in secret) that both would withdraw candidates in some constituencies so as not to split the anti-Conservative vote. At the 1906 general election, which saw the Liberals win a landslide victory, 2929 LRC MPs – who subsequently agreed to rename themselves the ‘Labour Party’ – were elected (Pelling 1993; Thorpe 1997).
Liberal governments between 1906 and 1914 introduced a range of social legislation, including free school meals, medical inspections in schools, old-age pensions (for those over 70, with certain exemptions), labour exchanges to help the unemployed, and a system of health and unemployment insurance, which formed the basis of the welfare state (Freeden 1978). Labour MPs offered crucial support to these reforms, although many Labour supporters felt that they did not go far enough. Labour MPs also attempted to push other issues, such as unemployment, to the top of the political agenda. Candidates at by-election contests gave unemployment a leading place in their manifestos, claiming that Liberals and Conservatives had not done enough to deal with the problem. Labour MPs also introduced ‘right to work’ bills into the House of Commons, which would have given local authorities the necessary powers and funding to provide temporary employment to those who found themselves out of work. Extra-parliamentary agitation and violence around this issue peaked in 1907–08, when official figures suggested that 5.8 per cent of all trade unionists in Britain were out of work (Brown 1971).
Labour activists went into the two 1910 general election contests with mixed emotions. On the one hand, they were buoyed by the recent decision of the powerful Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, which had long adopted the Lib-Lab strategy, to affiliate to the party. On the other, they were fearful that a recent ruling by the House of Lords in 1909, known as the Osborne judgement, which held that the law did not allow trade unions to collect a levy for political purposes, threatened Labour’s main source of income. Furthermore, there was some concern that the constitutional crisis of 1909–10, caused by the House of Lords’ rejection of the Liberals’ ‘People’s Budget’, would make it difficult for Labour candidates to differentiate themselves from the Liberals, as both were on the side of ‘the people’ against ‘the peers’. Nevertheless, despite the peculiarity of the two elections in 1910, Labour improved on its performance in 1906 by ending the year with 42 MPs.
The ‘Great Industrial Unrest’ of 1910–14 presented the party with new opportunities and challenges. This was a period of unprecedented and sometimes violent strike action (Todd 20144). The unrest encouraged a minority of trade unionists to embrace a violent and oppositional view of class relations, which some, including workers in Liverpool and the South Wales coalfields, expressed in revolutionary terms (Holton 1976). Anger was not only directed at employers but also at government ministers who, for some, had acted unconstitutionally by calling in the military during the 1911 national railway strike and by issuing a circular to local police authorities advising them to enrol special constables. Many rank-and-file trade unionists also exhibited hostility to moderate trade union leaders who continued to display what George Dangerfield called a ‘theological reverence for the operations of Parliament’ and a sense of dismay ‘at the very mention of the word “revolution”’ (Dangerfield 1935, pg. 192). It was in this context that Labour began planning their strategy for the expected general election in 1915.
Historiography of the Labour Party
The extent to which the Labour Party achieved its original objectives has been well studied and passionately debated, as have questions regarding its electoral performance, its relationship with the Liberal Party, its perceived lack of ideology, and, more broadly, its wider social, cultural, and ideological significance in British history (Callaghan, Fielding, & Ludlam 2003). In his seminal 1935 work The Strange Death of Liberal England, George Dangerfield argued that the growth of the Labour Party was one of the four rebellions prior to the First World War that sounded the death knell for ‘Liberal England’. Despite their landslide victory in 1906, the Liberal Party were ‘already doomed’ due to the small yet significant increase in Labour’s parliamentary representation. Labour’s growing industrial and political strength before 1914 coincided with the threat of civil war in Ireland, the militancy of the suffragette movement, and the Conservative fight against House of Lords reform. For Dangerfield, it was these great rebellions that ultimately explained why the Liberals fell from their once prominent position in British political life, and why they were replaced by the Labour party in the 1920s (Dangerfield 1935).
Dangerfield’s implication that the decline of the Liberals was inevitable has both defenders and detractors. For some, Labour was the political expression of a resurgent class consciousness among Britain’s working-class community. From the 1880s onwards, there was a growing homogenisation of the working class during which the formerly fragmented working class became increasingly segregated, culturally and politically, from other classes in society. Labour, as a class party based on the trade union movement, was the natural beneficiary of this change (Cole 1965; Kirk, 1998). Peter Clarke, while accepting the ‘rise of class politics’ thesis, disagreed with this view, suggesting that the Liberals were in fact responsive to the developments and changes in British society. Even if there was a rise of class politics during this period, it is wrong to assume that Labour would inevitably benefit from this (Clarke 1971). Clarke’s argument stimulated further discussion about Labour’s advance (or failure to advance) before the First World War, a long-running debate that remains inconclusive (McKibbin 1983).
Debates over the ideology of Labour are almost as old as the party itself. Labour’s preference for working within the existing system for immediate, tangible benefits irritated those socialists – mainly within the SDF, renamed the Social Democratic Party in 1908, and the British Socialist Party (BSP), founded in 1911 – who wanted Labour to recognise the class war and commit itself to the overthrow of the capitalist system (Crick 1994). For the SDF/P and BSP, as well as for subsequent critics of the party, this was proof that Labour did not serve the interests of the working class. Beginning in the 1960s, New Leftists such as Perry Anderson (1964), John Saville (1967), and Ralph Miliband (1983) developed the theory of ‘labourism’, a term that they used in a pejorative sense, to describe this attitude. In this view, labourism emerged from the peculiarities of Britain’s political and industrial development, which, for Anderson, invested the British working-class movement with a scepticism towards ideas, a reverence for traditional institutions, an ‘intense consciousness of separate identity’, and an unwillingness to ‘set and impose goals for society as a whole’ (Anderson 1964, 42). Subsequent work has helped to broaden the debate on Labour’s ideology. For Geoffrey Foote, labourism is a set of assumptions rather than an ideology, which has allowed Labour to distinguish itself from other parties while successfully accommodating a diversity of opinion within its ranks (Foote 1986). More recent work has challenged the idea that Labour leaders and activists were indifferent to theory by drawing attention to a range of intellectual strands, from radicalism and liberalism to Fabianism and even ‘Tory socialism’, which exerted an influence on the party in its formative years (Pugh 2010). For as Jose Harris has pointed out, the party’s roots lay not only in trade unionism and democratic socialism, but also in republicanism, Lib-Labism, Marxism, positivism, religious nonconformism, anti-modernist mediaevalism, and the quest for scientific modernity (Harris 2000).
Labour, then, has always been a broad church. Before the First World War, it was also a regionally diverse party that mirrored Britain’s socio-economic structure. Local peculiarities, contexts, pressures, and traditions continued to exert an influence on the party’s development and electoral outcomes well into the 1920s (Tanner 1990). While the establishment of the LRC in 1900 served to impose a certain degree of unity on the previously fragmented forces of socialism and political trade unionism, there remained in effect hundreds of Labour Parties ‘all with similarities but all distinctive within their own geographical context’ (Worley 2005, 2). As a result, Labour candidates and activists had to find the most appropriate vocabulary to win over their chosen audience. For example, if a Labour candidate had the tacit support of a Liberal Association, then it was more likely that they would downplay the social and political differences between the two ‘progressive’ parties in order to win over Liberal voters. While this made sense electorally, it added further fuel to rumours that many within the Labour Party remained close to the Liberals, both politically and ideologically.
The argument that little separated Labour from the Liberals was taken up by scholars in the 1980s and 1990s who wished to challenge the idea that Labour, as a party based on the trade union movement, inevitably benefited from the rise of class politics. For Patrick Joyce (1991), progressive politics, including Labour politics, was primarily concerned with ‘the people’ rather than the working class up until the First World War. But while it is certainly true that Labour politicians used populist terms such as ‘the people’, they often used them interchangeably with class-based terms such as ‘the workers’. They regularly highlighted the party’s class composition, the social background of its MPs, and its proposals for dealing with problems faced by the workers. Liberal candidates were often drawn into discussions about these issues by their Labour opponents who attempted to discredit Liberal candidates by pointing to their wealth, tastes, and educational backgrounds.
But who were the workers? In general, Labour leaders and activists adopted a restrictive conception of the working class that served to reinforce boundaries between those who, in their view, belonged to this group and those who did not. For example, while they consistently reaffirmed their solidarity with the international working-class movement, especially at annual May Day rallies, they also praised the cultural and technical superiority of the white working man, particularly during debates around the Boer War, ‘Chinese Slavery’, and ‘alien’ immigration. Similarly, despite playing a key role in campaigns for the right to work, they drew a sharp distinction between the deserving unemployed who wanted to find work and the ‘unemployables’ who, presumably, did not (Thane 2000).
Despite their prevalence in the workforce, women were very rarely included in Labour activists’ conceptions of the working class. Between 1900 and 1914, there was a marked growth in the number of women employed in certain sectors, including in the textile trades, the boot and shoe industry, and the food-processing industry. Inspired by the National Federation of Women Workers, which ‘organised more women, fought more strikes and did more to establish women trade unionists than any other organisation’ during this period, female trade union membership doubled (Boston 1980, 60). Women continued to play an important role in socialist and labour politics, and in some places they won election to local School Boards and Boards of Guardians. And, of course, they were active in women’s suffrage campaigns, particularly from 1908 onwards. These developments, pushed forward by the tireless work of both famous and little-known activists, forced male trade unionists to pay more attention to ‘the woman question’.
But even as they expressed sympathy with women workers, male trade unionists still marginalised them in overt and subtle ways. Like their nineteenth-century predecessors, they often accused women of causing problems for men by increasing the chances of unemployment or by contributing to low wage rates across a particular industry. At Labour Party and trade union meetings, as well as during election campaigns, they promoted a gendered conception of work that reinforced stereotypes about women’s place in society. Similar sentiments could be found in literature such as trade union reports which were often addressed to ‘fellow workmen’ despite the fact that many of these societies represented both male and female workers. On the rare occasions when they did make specific appeals to women, they tended to appeal to them as wives and mothers rather than as fellow workers. And with a few notable exceptions, male trade unionists generally showed little enthusiasm for the women’s suffrage campaign (Francis 2000).
Women, like other groups that inhabited the world outside of male trade unionism, would have to wait until after the First World War for the Labour Party to take their concerns seriously. Still, despite its faults, the formation and early growth of the Labour Party was a significant development in British political history. For one thing, it drew together previously disconnected trade unionists and socialists under a single party umbrella. The presence and activities of a small body of Labour MPs in the House of Commons then provided activists at a local level with an example to follow. This was as true for activists in areas where Labour was initially weak as it was in areas where the party was strong. The party, its MPs, and leading spokespeople acted as poles of attraction towards which activists could navigate. By trying to force issues such as unemployment, trade union rights, and old-age pensions to the forefront of politics, Labour helped to instil a sense of loyalty even among those who felt ambivalent about adopting the party’s strategy at a local level. While radicals, socialists, and labour activists in the nineteenth century were not without their heroes or political role models, the novelty of the Labour Party lay in the fact that its leading personalities were members of a single party. Acknowledging the importance of these developments is crucial if we wish to understand the post-war realignment of electoral politics, which saw Labour replace the Liberals as the main anti-Conservative force in Britain.
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