A Specialist Labour History Archive The National Museum of Labour History Archive Centre

Abstract

There has long been a need for a specialist labour history archive. There are of course very good archives that have collected labour history records. The Modern Records Centre at Warwick University has done an excellent job over the past twenty years in collecting the records of the trade unions, including the Trades Union Congress. It also however collects the records of the Confederation of British Industry and other employers' organizations and is therefore an industrial archive, an archive of industrial relations, rather than one of the labour movement in itself. Similarly the British Library of Political and Economic Science and Hull University Library have also been collecting labour history records, but what they have represents only one small part of their respective archives. The establishment of an Archive Centre at the National Museum of Labour History in Manchester fulfils this need. This new specialist labour history archive aims first to collect national collections of organizations and people connected with working-class causes, political, industrial and social; and second to act as a focal point for information about labour history collections in other archives; in such a capacity it will build up a microfilm collection. The founding of this archive centre came about more by necessity than design, with a bit of good fortune thrown in. By 1988 the Labour Party Archives had filled up beyond the capacity in Walworth Road. As the Party's archivist, I was seeking suitable premises for them. The National Museum of Labour History was being relocated in Manchester. Once the Museum's future had been secured through funding from Manchester City Council and a professional staff was being placed in it, the deposit of Labour Party Archives with the existing collections seemed to be the