THE history of working-class struggle is to be revived for new generations through the trade union movement and the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA), it was announced yesterday.

The WEA and the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU) have launched a joint programme of online discussions on key moments in working-class history such as the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt, the Diggers and Levellers which emerged from the English Civil War and the Chartist movement in the 1800s.

Leading academic historians warned recently that closures of University history departments were reducing the subject to the province of elites.

At the same time trade unions, which have seen membership fall from 13.5 million in 1979 to 6 million today,“rarely look at” working-class history as part of their education curriculum.

GFTU general secretary Doug Nicholls said: “So much of our history has been deliberately buried, people might have heard of Henry VIII, but not of equally important figures like Robert Kett or Anne Askew — and there’s been a reason for hiding our past.

“This is going to be a pioneering series of learning opportunities led by some of our great popular educators with exceptional knowledge of the subjects covered.”

Oxford University modern history professor Selina Todd said: “This series represents all that is best in adult and trade union education and something that my father [Nigel Todd, to whom the course is dedicated] would have been proud of.

“To forget the past is to ignore the future. The areas of study in this series cover moments in time when the people made history very decisively and with an impact still felt today.”

The series of discussions is titled Their Legacy — Our History. Visit: gftu.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/GFTU-History-Prog-3-39475.pdf