Selected papers of George Howell

Catalogue record

Notes

Part 2 of the BOA series, People & Protest in Britain and Abroad, 1800-2000.

The archive of George Howell (1833-1910) comprises one of the most invaluable resources on nineteenth century liberal and radical politics available, and has been described as ‘the best collection on the Victorian labour movement in the world’. After coming to prominence in the nine-hours dispute in the building trades from 1859 to 1862, Howell went on to be involved in most of the important radical movements of the nineteenth century, including the London Trades Council, the Reform League, the International Workingmen’s Association and a fledgling Trades Union Congress before finally serving as ‘Lib-Lab’ MP for North-East Bethnal Green between 1885 and 1895. He also remained an active campaigner for suffrage reform throughout his career, including the early women’s suffrage reform movement, and played a leading role in the agitation for the Second and Third Reform Acts, passed in 1867 and 1884. An active journalist, he contributed to the leading radical newspapers of the day, including the seminal labour journal, Bee-Hive, in the 1870s, and published numerous books, most importantly, A Handy Book of Labour Laws (1876), The Conflicts of Capital and Labour (1878) and Labour Legislation, Labour Movements and Labour Leaders (1902). His biography of chartist and poet Ernest Jones, although never published in book form, was serialised in the Newcastle Daily Chronicle in 1898.

Always operating primarily as an administrator and bureaucrat, Howell amassed a huge archive of material relating to his activities and the organisations with which he was involved, all of which are included in the archive here. These include the entire records of the Reform League and subsequent suffrage campaigns and the minute book of the General Council of the First International (1866-1869), attended by Karl Marx amongst others, both critical resources for understanding radical politics not only nationally but internationally. The archive also contains Howell’s own correspondence to many of the leading political figures of the day, his numerous written works and journalism, and a handwritten autobiography which provides a wonderful and important commentary on his activities and the events of the time. The George Howell Archive, housed at the Bishopsgate Institute, London, and presented here for the first time online, should be the first research resource for anyone wanting to understand British politics and the labour movement from Chartism in the 1840s to the advent of the Labour Party in the early twentieth century.

Also available on microfilm.

Read online

This collection has been digitised and is available to read online in British Online Archives.