Remembering the General Strike 1926

Visit our archives related to the General Strike 1926 and hear a talk by Chris Coates

Museums, libraries and community groups across the UK are marking the centenary of the 1926 General Strike.

Join us to see the materials in the LSE Library collection and a talk by the former Librarian of the Trades Union Congress, Chris Coates.

Chris will discuss the factors leading up to the Strike, its effectiveness, and its impact on working people.

She has made a case study of the situation in North-West London, and hopes to spark conversation with attendees about what happened during the General Strike in their local areas.

CHRISTINE COATES MA PhD (hon.causa)

Christine Coates worked as Librarian of the Trades Union Congress for 46 years, initially in the TUC Headquarters in Congress House and from 1996 to 2014 at London Metropolitan University. In 2015, the University conferred on her the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Honoris Causa.

She has been a member and held office in various international, national, and specialist committees in the fields of librarianship and social history, including being a member of the British Library Advisory Council 1979-1999, and has had several articles published, mainly in relation to her specialist subject, labour history.

She has managed a large number of library and information projects, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the British Library, and other public bodies, including cataloguing, conservation, oral history, digitisation, and websites.

She has been an active trade unionist and involved in several community projects over the last 50 years. Post-retirement, she helps to manage a Community Library in North West London and maintains her interest and research into labour history.

LSE CHAIR: Cléo Chassonnery-Zaïgouche

Cleo's research focuses on how economists categorize inequalities, distinguishing between legitimate differences and unjust discrimination. She explores how this distinction has evolved since the late 19th century in the history of economics. She is also interested in the intertwined nature of epistemic, political, and ethical values, particularly how the concept of value-free knowledge is strategically used in court and in policy.

Cleo is currently writing on the history of gender and racial discrimination in the United States (1940-2000); the history of equal pay in the United Kingdom (1870-1970), and on the history of labour economics (since the 1970s).

Prior to joining the LSE, Cleo worked at the University of Bologna, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Lausanne. She obtained her PhD from the University Paris 1- Panthéon-Sorbonne.