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Silvertown

The Lost Story of a Strike That Shook London and Helped Launch the Modern Labour Movement

John Tully author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Lawrence & Wishart Ltd

Published:5th Mar '14

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Silvertown cover

In 1889, Samuel Winkworth Silver's rubber and electrical factory was the site of a massive worker revolt that upended the London industrial district which bore his name: Silvertown. The workers, long ignored by traditional craft unions, aligned themselves with the socialist-led 'New Unionism' movement. They shut down Silvertown and, in the process, helped to launch a more radical, modern labour movement. With a foreword by John Callow and an introductory comment by John Marriott.

John Tully shows us how meticulous research and empathy for the dispossessed can recreate a past that is either forgotten or reduced to the forlorn. This is history at its best: rigorous in its use of sources and capacities to broaden our ways of seeing experience; analytically demanding in the ways it pushes us to rethink conventional wisdoms; and imaginative in the range of its arguments. Bryan D. Palmer, Canada Research Chair, Trent University This is a major contribution to labour history and to the history of East London. It is a serious work written not with the usual academic detachment, but with profound and moving empathy for the dispossessed and the exploited. This is recommended reading not only to historians and those concerned with East London, but as inspiration to those participating in today's urgent struggle against increasing social and economic injustice. Alvaro de Miranda, London East Research Institute, University of East London

ISBN: 9781907103995

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown