Historical Directory of Trade Unions. Volume 5. Including Unions in Printing and Publishing, Local Government, Retail and Distribution, Domestic Service, General Employment, Financial Services, Agriculture

Before his untimely death in 1959, Professor G.D.H. Cole, distinguished labour movement historian, highlighted the importance of collecting labour biographies (including those of unions and kindred organisations). The need was regularly emphasised by the Society for the Study of Labour History, founded in 1960.

Volume 1 of Historical Directory of Trade Unions appeared in 1984. Its prime mover was Arthur Marsh, Fellow of Industrial Relations at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, who died in 1999. Marsh has had superb collaborators: Victoria Ryan, Peter Carter, John B. Smethurst and several others acknowledged in the Introduction. A retired electrical engineer and graduate of...