R.I.P Nicola Verdon - whose book on English farmworkers from 1850 to present day is excellent

 Late last year I heard the sad news of the death of  Nicola Verdon who 'completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Sussex before moving to Leicester for her MA, completed in 1995, and subsequent PhD.

'She held various lecturing positions since completing her doctorate in 1999, including at Harlaxton College, the University of Reading and the University of Sussex. In January 2011 she took up the position of Reader in History at Sheffield Hallam and was appointed Professor of Modern British History there in 2018.

'Her research interests focused on life and labour in the British countryside in the 19th and 20th centuries and she had published many journal articles and book chapters on women’s and children’s work in agriculture, on poverty and standards of living, and on family life on British farms, and was the author of two books, Rural Women Workers in 19th century England (Boydell, 2002) and Working the Land: A History of the Farmworker in England from 1850 to the Present Day (Palgrave, 2017)'

A review of Nicola's book Working the Land: A History of the Farmworker in England from 1850 to the Present Day was written by myself in 2018 

https://writemark.blogspot.com/search?q=verdon

Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the West Riding textile strike or Lock Out

 

In late July 2025, Calderdale Industrial Museum hosted a crowd of 30 people keen to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of the 1925 West Riding textile strike or Lock Out. Those present enjoyed listening to speeches by Professor Keith Laybourn and shopworker Iain Dalton, who is following the latter in writing a book on 1925

At a time of a general attack on wages, 1925 saw 175,000 textile workers, never previously known for their organisation or militancy, successfully combine to restore pay cuts.

Led by President Ben Turner, later the TUC President, the National Union of Textile Workers in July-August 1925 brought together over three and a half weeks the office lass, the designer, the long brat men, overlookers and woolcombers. Skilled and unskilled workers had combined.  Nothing similar had occurred previously and despite their desperation the actions of the workers was, with some exceptions in Bradford, almost entirely peaceful.

Laybourn is a tour de force when speaking. His 35-minute presentation kept the audience entertained as he outlined the background – including “the Chancellor Winston Churchill’s restoration of the £ to the Gold Standard” - to the struggle in which 10,000 were out in Halifax, 24,000 in Huddersfield and 55,000 in Bradford. 55% of the operatives were women and juveniles. 45% were men.

UNITY

According to Laybourn; “there was a tremendous amount of support regionally with large amounts donated with the colliers prominent.” In return textile workers, “despite not being asked to assist, took strike action in support of the miners in 1926.”

When the Government intervened in 1925 to bring both sides to the negotiating table the result was the establishment of a 5-man Court of Investigation with an independent chair and two from the employers and trade unions. With the workers back at work it was agreed to restore wages as they were with no cuts in pay. As Laybourn explained “this success encouraged the TUC into supporting the miners a few months later.”  

Dalton went into how tens of thousands of textile workers not previously in a union joined up. Unable to claim strike pay “this encouraged big demonstrations to the Board of Guardians to encourage outdoor relief,” in order to prevent destitution.

Laybourn and Dalton were joined on stage by Alan Fowler who provided a fascinating and amusing historical summary of Calderdale’s much better organised cotton operatives.  

You can also watch Keith Laybourn speaking at length on textile workers in Bradford up till 1930 and his take on the 1925 dispute – titled STITCHED UP at:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e58Hfhboes

Bradford’s early trade union struggles till 1930 by Keith Laybourn:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWxqiCUeaSY

Unpublished article regarding Walshaw Moor blanket bog - September 2015

This was written for the Landworker magazine in autumn 2025 but which has yet to be published. 

For over a decade Landworker has reported on destructive developments on Walshaw Moor blanket bog. This comprises part of the 245,000 acres of upland peatlands nationally. These form the UK’s largest carbon land store and which makes them essential for mitigating extreme weather events such as flooding. They are also one of the most diverse habitats worldwide.

In 2014, Natural England handed out on behalf of the coalition government over £2.5 million to landowner Richard Bannister to help him burn the bog. This facilitated grouse shooting for his chums. Over the following years many local residents in Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge were to become convinced that the increased flooding they experienced were the result of the destruction.

Further public monies were spent on increased flood defences. Due to dissolved organic carbon entering the water supply, Yorkshire Water also needed to spend more on increased treatment for pollution. Customers had to foot the bill.

Yet remarkably, Walshaw Moor may now become the first peatland in Britain to have built on it an onshore wind farm, which would dwarf anything to date.

Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd (CWFL), who are disputing claims that it is one of many similar schemes they hope to construct, assert that the electricity generated from the scheme would power 286,000 homes.

There is strong local opposition to the proposals. Over 2,500 people in the Calder Valley constituency signed a national petition of over 15,000 signatures calling for a ban on wind farms on protected peatland. Although the government has rejected this, campaigners from the long-established Ban the Burn campaign group, who met MPs on a Parliamentary visit, have noted that planning minster Matthew Pennycock mentioned blanket bog during debates on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.

This legislation has been criticised by environmental campaigners who contend it will remove protections for important habitat and species.

The Bill is currently being examined in the House of Lords. Ban the Burn, which otherwise supports wind farms, is lobbying Peers and hope some will present amendments blocking wind farms on peat bog.

Jenny Shepherd of Ban the Burn, which also believes CWFL should be required to provide additional information to Calderdale Council’s planning department to enable local residents to properly study the planning application, wants to make contact with people in windy, peaty constituencies.

“These number around 30 across parts of Northumberland, Exmoor, Dartmoor and the Lake District. The outcome of the Walshaw Moor application will have significant implications for these localities. Some readers might want to alert their MPs,” said Shepherd who claims that work wise it would be far better for the government to back restoring blanket bog “as this will help build a skills base to help with conserving and restoring the source of 5% of the UK’s carbon emissions and which need reducing to tackle global warming.”

Jenny can be contacted on 07309 388887 changingmorethanlightbulbs@gmail.com

Any readers who might like to visit the proposed wind farm site would be welcome to join Jenny and members of Calderdale TUC, including the author, on Saturday 6th September for a walk that will take around 4 hours and starts outside Halifax.