Ms Hazel Perry

Job: PhD student

Faculty: Arts, Design and Humanities

School/department: School of Humanities

Address: De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH

T: N/A

E: P16200450@my365.dmu.ac.uk

 

Personal profile

Studied with the Open University as a mature student while working full time as an administrator for various organisations. Completed a BA in History and then an MA after studying modules on the industrial revolution, local history, the poor and poverty, total war and social change, nation states, princes and peoples and the Fronde, among others. The MA dissertation looked at trade unions in the 1926 general strike, focussing on the role that trades councils played as organising committees and councils of action. The focus of the thesis was outside of London and the large metropolitan areas of the north and the midlands. Therefore, the city of Peterborough was used as a case study, where there was also a lack of historical research on trade unionism locally. The focus and discoveries in the thesis provided inspiration for the PhD research.

Research group affiliations

Research interests/expertise

Trades councils and trade unions, modern and social history, politics, women and identities.

Qualifications

  • BA (Hons), History, The Open University.
  • MA in History, The Open University.

Conference attendance

  • ASA Briggs Conference 2017, poster presentation 'What do we know about trades councils?'
  • European Social Sciences History Conference (ESSHC) 2018, 'Hats off to the past, coats off to the future: the missing history of British trades councils.' 
  • Social History Society Conference 2019, 'The 1928 Celta mill strike.' 
  • Protest Memory Conference 2019, 'The workplace strike and protest memory:
  • Peterborough in the 1926 general strike and the 1928 Celta mill strike.'

PhD project

Title

Peterborough Trades Union Council 1898-1979: A forgotten Arena for Working Class Politics.

Abstract

Trades councils have been a part of the trade union movement since 1850, yet largely neglected by labour historians. However, trades councils have played an important role in forming the TUC, creating the Labour Party and as civic leaders in their local communities. More crucially, their functions have changed throughout the twentieth century. This project will analyse the activities of trades councils and the identities of delegates using Peterborough Trades Union Council as a case study. The aim of the project is find out if trades councils were 'debating groups' and delegates 'pot-house politicians,' or if they were something more and should be recognised as such.

Name of supervisor(s)