Henry Pelling

Henry Mathison Pelling (27 August 1920 – 14 October 1997) was a British historian best known for his works on the history of the British Labour Party.

Life

Pelling was born in Prenton, Wirral, the son of a wealthy stockbroker. He was educated at Birkenhead School and St John's College, Cambridge, where he gained firsts in Part I of the Classical tripos and Part II of the Historical tripos prior to completing a PhD in 1950.[1] He began his career as a fellow at Queen's College, Oxford, where he remained until his return to St John's in 1966.[1] He was Reader in British History at Cambridge from 1976 to 1980, at which point he decided to retire from university teaching. Doing so, however, led St John's to terminate his college fellowship as well, much to his chagrin, and it was only after a great deal of protest that he was reinstated (an interregnum he referred to thereafter as socius ejectus, in imitation of Thomas Baker).[2][3] He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 1992.[1] Pelling's collection of British left-wing political pamphlets is held at Senate House Library, while his papers are lodged with St John's College.

Publications

Pelling's main contributions to the study of the Labour Party were as follows:

  • The Origins of the Labour Party (1954) and
  • A Short History of the Labour Party (1961) (later editions co-written with Alastair J. Reid)

He was also a pioneer of the serious study of twentieth-century electoral and party politics, and wrote such other works as:

  • Modern Britain 1885-1955
  • Social Geography of British Elections: 1885-1910
  • Winston Churchill
  • Britain and the Marshall Plan
  • American Labor
  • A History of British Trade Unionism, London, 1963
  • America and the British left: from Bright to Bevan
  • The British Communist Party: a historical profile
  • The 1945 General Election Reconsidered
  • Popular Politics and Society in Late Victorian Britain
  • Britain and the Second World War
  • The Labour Governments 1945-51

References
  1. "PELLING, Henry Mathison". Who's Who & Who Was Who. Vol. 2018 (online ed.). A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. Clarke, Peter, 'Obituary: A life of Labour and capital: Henry Pelling', The Guardian, 21 October 1997.
  3. 'Thomas Baker (1656-1740)'. St John's College, Cambridge. Retrieved 4 January 2023.


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