Detailed Record
Labour Leader, The;
no 1, 10 Oct 1891 - no 11, 19 Dec 1891; vol 5 no 1 [2s], 31 Mar 1894 - 1900
then: Labour Leader and Socialist Herald. 06 Jan 1900 - 24 Oct 1903
then: New Leader, The; the socialist weekly of the Independent Labour Party. vol 1 no 1, 06 Oct 1922 - vol 38 no 24, 15 Jun 1946
then: Socialist Leader, The. vol 38 no 25, 22 Jun 1946 - vol 67 no 13, 21 Jun 1975
then: Labour Leader. vol 67 no 14, Jul 1975 - vol 78 no 12, Dec 1986/Jan 1987//
then: New Leader, The; the socialist weekly of the Independent Labour Party. vol 1 no 1, 06 Oct 1922 - vol 38 no 24, 15 Jun 1946
then: Socialist Leader, The. vol 38 no 25, 22 Jun 1946 - vol 67 no 13, 21 Jun 1975
then: Labour Leader. vol 67 no 14, Jul 1975 - vol 78 no 12, Dec 1986/Jan 1987//
Glasgow,Midlothian (1899)
London,Middlesex
Editor:
J. Bruce Glasier (1903)
Keir Hardie (1891)
Fred Henderson
W.B. Hodgson
J.B. Joyce
Philip Snowden
Keir Hardie (1891)
Fred Henderson
W.B. Hodgson
J.B. Joyce
Philip Snowden
Proprietor:
Keir Hardie
Trade Union Labour
Trade Union Labour
Publisher:
The Independent Labour Party
Trade Union Labour
Trade Union Labour
Printer:
Trade Union Labour
Contributors:
Lily Bell
Fred Brocklehurst
W.A. Carlile
Allan Clarke
Charles Allan Clarke
George Gissing
R.B. Cunninghame Graham
Keir Hardie
Richard Holt Hutton
David Lowe
J. Murray MacDonald
William McQueen
Ada Nield Chew
Bessie Rayner Parkes
H.C. Rowe
John Ruskin
William Saunders
Robert Smillie
Frank Smith
Ben Tillet
Fred Brocklehurst
W.A. Carlile
Allan Clarke
Charles Allan Clarke
George Gissing
R.B. Cunninghame Graham
Keir Hardie
Richard Holt Hutton
David Lowe
J. Murray MacDonald
William McQueen
Ada Nield Chew
Bessie Rayner Parkes
H.C. Rowe
John Ruskin
William Saunders
Robert Smillie
Frank Smith
Ben Tillet
Names:
Victor Grayson
James K. Hardy
Fred Henderson
Harry Quelch
Russell Smart
James K. Hardy
Fred Henderson
Harry Quelch
Russell Smart
Size:
43cm, 8pp; 16pp
Price:
1d
Circulation:
50,000 (1895)
Frequency:
weekly
Illustration:
engravings
Issued by:
Independent Labour Party, The
Indexing:
T of C/no; T of C/vol? (1900)
Departments:
zig-zag jottings, life and limb, chats with the children, watchwords of the week, our woman's page, labour diary (1891); advertisements, again in London, between ourselves, answers to correspondents, short stories, death, Glasgow, our readers' views, among trade unions, abroad, London letter, here and there (1899); poetry, correspondence, parliament, news, comics, cartoons, political cartoons, alcohol, working classes, Boer War, women's column, book notes column
Orientation:
labour, socialist, working class
Sources:
COPAC; DNB xxvi, supplement 3, 239-40.; Mitchell.; Henson, Louise, Geoffrey Cantor, Gowan Dawson, Richard Noakes, Sally Shuttleworth, and Jonathan R. Topham, eds. Culture and Science in the Nineteenth-Century Media. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.; Sumpter, Caroline. The Victorian Press and the Fairy Tale. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p.1-178.; Uffelman, 1992.
Histories:
VPR 14:1, p. 6; VPR 16:3/4, p. 127; VPR 20:2, p. 66; Boyce, George, et al, eds. Newspaper History from the Seventeenth Century to the Present Day. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1978.; Burke and Sumpter. "Labour Leader." DNCJ, p.338.; Chittick, K. "R.S.V.P at Leicester: 1-3 July 1983." VPR 16 (1983): 126-8; Cole, G. D. H. and Raymond Postgate. The British People 1746-1946. 2nd ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1947.; Coustillas, P. "A forgotten appraisal of Gissing's work by Alfred Richard Orange." GN 19 (1983): 1-12.; Fredman, W. E. "Emily Faithfull and the Victoria Magazine press: an experiment in sociological Bibliography." Library (Fifth Series) 29 (1974): 139-64.; Harrison, Brian. Drink and The Victorians: the Temperance Question in England 1815-1872. London: Faber and Faber, [1971].; Harrison, Stanley. Poor Men's Guardians: A Record of the Struggles for a Democratic Newspaper Press, 1763-1973. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1974.; Inglis, K. S. Churches and the Working Classes in Victorian England. London: Routledge and K. Paul, [1963].; Marley, Michael Davitt, p.107.; Miller, Literary Radicalism and Late Victorian Print Culture.; Mutch, "Are We Christians".; Mutch, "Social Purpose Periodicals" p.334.; Simon, Brian. Education and the Labour Movement, 1870-1920. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1965.
Comments:
"Readers of the Leader and Workers' Advocate will be surprised to get a new paper under the title of The Labour Leader this week. We hasten to explain. It is only the old, old difficulty that has always arisen when capitalists have been behind a Labour paper, whose staff was determined to speak out without fear or favour. Complications have arisen, with the result that no Labour paper would have appeared this week but for the fact that we, the staff of the old Leader and Workers' Advocate, are determined, come what may, that the good work shall not drop. We have thrown all our hearts into the matter; and from every quarter of England we have received encouragement. The sale of the old paper was going up by leaps and bounds. Knowing no comprise with political humbugs, capitalists, and landlords, we spoke out of the fullness or our hearts, and the workers of the country were welcoming our efforts. As soon as we understood that the monied men behind the paper were growing fearful and failing to keep their promises, we resolved to cut ourselves adrift from them the growing success of the old paper encouraged us. Sooner than have our outspokenness and our chances of success barred by the squabbles of monied men, we resolved to do without them. We will wield no fettered pen. We will either speak out straight or not speak at all" (Chucking the Capitalists no 1, p.1).
In many ways, the Labour Leader was designed to keep "Hardie's exploits before the public eye" (Marley 107).
The Labour Leader became the Independent Labour Party's paper in 1892.
It "began in Glasgow and continued to have a wide readership base in the North, including Scotland, Newcastle and Yorkshire, when it became a weekly." It had "strong affiliations to an ethical socialist movement, and a broad base of working-class activists" (Sumpter 94).
It may not have been an official organ of the ILP until much later, writes Marley. It, along with the Clarion, vied for the attention of ILP members (107).
Sumpter: "In April 1894, Hardie used his children’s column [titled "Daddy Time"] to establish the ‘LabourCrusaders’, a club for those under 16 who were willing to fight for socialequality by furthering the cause of socialism" (119).
Marley also writes that it was a serious political paper, which rejected "the commercialism of 'new journalism', [and it] was intended as a strictly edifying organ" (107).
Associated names: Fred Henderson; "Editorials in his weekly, the Labour Leader, show him diverging in emphasis from men like [Harry] Quelch, [Victor] Grayson and Russell Smart: for he insisted that drunkenness was a problem in all societies, and that though it might be intensified by `landlordism or capitalism', it was not created by it'" (Harrison 400).
"After 1884...the situation was radically changed -- the revival of socialism was marked by a 'flood of socialist periodicals and pamphlets'" -- including this one.
Lily Bell's column "Matrons and Maidens" ran from 1894 to 1898 and "encouraged readers to write to her, to interact with the column, and to think of the column as the drawing room or salon within the broader architecture of the paper" (Miller, "A Column" 406).
"Such new papers attained a considerable circulation among the working-man's political clubs, which in turn had little broadsheets for their own for local purposes" (Simon).
"The Labour Leader claimed circulation figures of 50,000, and acted as an organ for Independent Labour Party (ILP) socialism" (Henson 30).
In many ways, the Labour Leader was designed to keep "Hardie's exploits before the public eye" (Marley 107).
The Labour Leader became the Independent Labour Party's paper in 1892.
It "began in Glasgow and continued to have a wide readership base in the North, including Scotland, Newcastle and Yorkshire, when it became a weekly." It had "strong affiliations to an ethical socialist movement, and a broad base of working-class activists" (Sumpter 94).
It may not have been an official organ of the ILP until much later, writes Marley. It, along with the Clarion, vied for the attention of ILP members (107).
Sumpter: "In April 1894, Hardie used his children’s column [titled "Daddy Time"] to establish the ‘LabourCrusaders’, a club for those under 16 who were willing to fight for socialequality by furthering the cause of socialism" (119).
Marley also writes that it was a serious political paper, which rejected "the commercialism of 'new journalism', [and it] was intended as a strictly edifying organ" (107).
Associated names: Fred Henderson; "Editorials in his weekly, the Labour Leader, show him diverging in emphasis from men like [Harry] Quelch, [Victor] Grayson and Russell Smart: for he insisted that drunkenness was a problem in all societies, and that though it might be intensified by `landlordism or capitalism', it was not created by it'" (Harrison 400).
"After 1884...the situation was radically changed -- the revival of socialism was marked by a 'flood of socialist periodicals and pamphlets'" -- including this one.
Lily Bell's column "Matrons and Maidens" ran from 1894 to 1898 and "encouraged readers to write to her, to interact with the column, and to think of the column as the drawing room or salon within the broader architecture of the paper" (Miller, "A Column" 406).
"Such new papers attained a considerable circulation among the working-man's political clubs, which in turn had little broadsheets for their own for local purposes" (Simon).
"The Labour Leader claimed circulation figures of 50,000, and acted as an organ for Independent Labour Party (ILP) socialism" (Henson 30).
Location:
complete runs: LO/N38 A; partial runs: CA/U-1 A 5:1 (31 Mar 1884-26 Dec 1903), QZ/P-1 (1897-1922 inc, wanting 1891-1896, 1900, 1902, 1904-1913); Full text available at CENGAGE; BNAN.America: see Fulton and ULS 2&3
Reproduced by permission, Cambridge University Library
Reproduced by permission, British Newspaper Library
Reproduced by permission, the British Library