North Lambeth Labour Party

Minute Books, constituency papers, leaflets and other election ephemera from London County Council and Parliamentary elections, papers of Ray Roberts, the Party agent, 1920-1955.

The North Lambeth Divisional Labour Party was founded in 1926, when its constitution and rules were formally adopted and endorsed by the Labour Party's National Executive Committee. It consisted of members of Trade Union branches, Co-operative Societies, Socialist and other societies affiliated to the Borough Labour Party, plus any other men and women willing to subscribe to the Constitution who lived within the North Division of the Parliamentary Borough of Lambeth. Its objectives were to co-operate with the Borough Labour Party and to unite the forces of Labour within the Constituency, with a view to securing the election of Labour candidates to Parliament and local government authorities.
The Division was managed by a General Council consisting of representatives of affiliated bodies and individual members, Officers elected at the Annual Meeting of the General Council, and an Executive Committee consisting of the Officers and other members elected from the General Council. It also had Ward Associations, a Women's Section and a Young People's Section.
Raymond Colin Roberts was born in Monmouthshire in 1904. Between 1917 and 1933 he worked in various coal mining jobs, including being Miner's Organiser and Sectretary to the South Wales Miner's Federation. He was a student of Social Sciences at the Labour College in Earls Court, London, between 1923-1925, having won a scholarship from the South Wales Miners.
He was Political Agent and Secretary to the North Lambeth Labour Party from May 1933 to April 1941. An accident from his coal mining days meant he was exempt from military service during World War Two and instead was appointed as a Regional Shelter Officer. He was then trained as a Factory Personnel Manager and Welfare Supervisor under a Ministry of Labour scheme and subsequently became an inspector of factories.

This collection is arranged into 3 sections:
1: Constituency files;
2: Papers of Ray Roberts, Labour Party agent;
3: Additional material found in December 1999.

Open

Deposited by North Lambeth Labour Party

Detailed catalogue available from Archives staff

Sources: Copied from LSE Archives CALM database by Anna Towlson.

Microfilm print-outs must be used. No material may be published without the prior permission of both the copyright holder and the Library. All applications for publication must be made to the Archivist in the first instance, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user.