A new historical and political
discussion group, the Mary Quaile Club, will hold its first meeting on 15
February 2014 in Salford.
The Mary Quaile Club was set up
in December 2013. It will hold regular discussions on working class history and
its links with contemporary political issues facing working people in
Tory Britain. The Club takes its name from the Manchester trade
unionist, Mary Quaile who was prominent in the 1920s and 1930s.
The organisers say, “We believe
there is a new generation of political activists campaigning on
issues such as the bedroom tax, the privatisation of the NHS, zero hours
contacts, fracking, the slashing of welfare benefits etc who
would engage with discussions on history and politics, but
who are not being reached at present. We will be holding regular
meetings linking history with current political issues.”
The
first public meeting of the Mary Quaile Club will be on Saturday 15
February 2014, 2pm, at the Cornerstones Community Centre, 451
Liverpool Street, Langworthy, Salford M6 5QQ.
The theme of the meeting
will be “What Ever Happened to the Welfare State?”
The
speakers will be Paula Bartley and Hugh Caffrey
Paula Bartley will
discuss the life and politics of Ellen Wilkinson. Paula is the author of Ellen
Wilkinson, from Red Suffragist to Government Minister, to
be published by Pluto Press in February 2014.
Ellen
grew up in Manchester and was an active socialist and suffragist. She was a
Manchester City councillor for a short time before becoming a Labour MP for
Middlesbrough and later Jarrow. In 1936 she took part in the Jarrow
Crusade, a march of the unemployed to London. In 1945 the Labour
party won a landslide victory and set up the NHS and welfare State.
Ellen became Minister of Education. She died suddenly in 1947.
When I
went to the Ministry of Education I had two guiding aims, and they come largely
out of my own experience. I was born into a working-class home, and I had to
fight my own way through to the University. The first of those guiding
principles was to see that no boy or girl is debarred by lack of means … the
second one was that we should remove from education those class distinctions
which are the negation of democracy.Ellen’s speech to the 1946 Labour Party
Conference
Hugh Caffrey is Secretary of
Greater Manchester Keep our NHS Public.. which campaigns against the
privatisation of the NHS. He will outline what is happening at the moment
and explain what people can do to save the NHS from being taken over by
the private sector.
For more information,
email maryquaileclub@gmail.com
