Campaign letter
Public meeting notice 5th Oct. 1932
Public meeting notice 6th Oct. 1932
Public meeting notice 12th Oct. 1932
The Labour Party was swept from Government on 27th October 1931. It launched a national campaign in an attempt to recover its position with the electorate. The challenge for the Party was to overcome the popular view at the time, that it had "run away" when faced in 1931 with a financial crisis.
The letter, reproduced here, announces a series of conferences at which leaders of the Labour movement were to speak. As you can see one was arranged to take place in Birmingham in January. The platform ticket it refers to would be for a seat on the main platform for Charles Sitch to sit alongside the main speakers.
Charles was very active in the campaign at the local level. He was appointed as agent and prospective labour candidate for the Kingswinford Division. He was involved in a major re-organisation of the division. The aim was to re-motivate the party faithful through a series of ward meetings, before launching a wider public campaign.
Between January and May of 1932 Chares Sitch attended and spoke at 56 such meetings. In a letter to a Labour colleague he wrote that, as a result, the number of paying members had reached 1,200. Previously the number had never been more that 500. The membership fee was 1 shilling (5p) for men and 6d (2.5p) for women.
Public meetings, at which Charles was one of the main speakers, were held on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of every week throughout October and the early part of November. Examples of the calling notices are included for you to see. The note at the bottom of the posters raises an interesting question. Why did it take an act of bravery to display such a notice in the window?
The campaign was successful in that membership of the Labour Party rose steadily, but by 1935 it had not reached its target of one million. Membership stood at 419,000.
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| Reference: | 648 |
| Keywords: | |
| Archive Ref: | 2007/001/0015 |
| Updated: | Mon 19 Feb 2007 - 1 |
| Interpretation written by | Barbara Harris |
| Author's organisation | |
| Organisation's website | |
| Workers Institute | 2007/001/0016, 2007/001/0017 |
| Workers Institute | 2007/001/0015 |