I must admit it was by complete chance that I discovered
not only the Raphael Samuel archive but now the New Left Review archive at the
Bishopsgate Institute. I must say upfront the archive at Bishopsgate is a
wonderful resource.
Head of the Archive Stefan Dickers and his staff make the
archive a very good place to study. I will use the archive at least up until my
dissertation on Samuel’s time at Universities and New Left is written. I must
admit with such a good resource it is mightily tempting to do a biography of
him. There is a complete dearth of biographies of the Communist Party
historians.
The first few files of the archive concentrate on the
early days of University and New Left (ULR). Samuel it would have seem spent
most of his time sending begging letters to everyone under the sun for money
and articles for the new project.
The letter to Michael Foot the then Labour MP is
indicative of the fact the new journal still wanted to remain tied in some way
to the coattails of the Labour Party. Samuel I believed after 1956 joined the
Labour Party.
While working at the archive sometimes the best moments
are meeting other people who are working on the Samuel archive. A special
mention goes to Florence who is working on a documentary on East End lives.
Finally, while talking to Stefan he told me of a very
disturbing matter. According to Historical Association “Archive material dating
back to the first decades of the twentieth century of the internationally
renowned labour movement college, Ruskin College, Oxford has been destroyed and
material constituting its radical history has been dispersed. The integrity of
the material in the college as an archive of working class history no longer
exists. Sadly, this process of destruction and dispersal has not finished”[1]
[1]
http://www.history.org.uk/resources/public_news_1607.html
