Railway workers were a uniformed and respectable section of the Victorian and Edwardian working class. They built their trade unions in the face of employer hostility and their organisations played a crucial role in the construction of effective labour politics. Local political organisations owed much to the patience and creativity of railway workers, not least in small towns and country districts. Respectable Radicals uses rich archival sources to analyse this history through a series of case studies. It focuses, among other topics, on disasters, strikes, the modernisation policies of companies, inter-union rivalries and the promises and frustrations of labour politics. A dominant theme is the complex relationship between changing experiences of work, shifting trade union strategies and political identities. The result is a new perspective on a significant sector of trade unionism and on the character of labour politics from the 1890s to the 1950s.

David Howell

Contents: Introduction; Company servants and labour pioneers; Part One: Edwardian Questions: A mystery and a feud; Modernisation and conciliation; Conflict; The Aisgill disaster; The Lib-Lab moment: the rise and fall of Edward Harford; Towards a politics of labour; Conclusions - 1914 - the prospects; Part Two: A New Deal and New Problems: Jimmy and Jack; Solidarities; Conclusions - Traditions and Innovations: Part Three: The Fat Director is now the Fat Controller?: The Lodging Turns Strike of 1949; Conclusion: A view from the tracks; Bibliography; Index.