Site News February 2019

Only a couple of new articles during January as the main focus has been on uploading new documents to the archive. ALmost all of the Steve Lambert archive is now available, although indexing is, as always, far from complete. Descriptions and Contents need adding for almost all items, but initial tagging is complete.

You can find a list of the Steve Lambert material here https://green-history.uk/library/doc-archive/category/tag?tagid=68. It starts with a 1975 "Statement of Aims" document from the Ecology Party and moves through a lot of material relating to the foundation and early days of the London Ecology Party which Steve and Jean were highly involved in. 

This includes some material from the successful long term campaign against transporting nuclear waste from Dungeness by train through the capital on its way to storage in Cumbria.

Also included is a leaflet for Paul Tyler's 1976 by-election campaign in Walsall - the first national election entered by the EP and where many early activists were drafted in to help including Steve as a brand new member and David Taylor.

Undoubtably this material will generate several interesting articles. As well as London, the documents awaiting processing include some on the early days of Oxford and Bristol Eco/Green parties.

Preparing the next tranche of material has generated a short piece on the development of the party newsletter - from "Alliance" through various iterations of "Eco News" to "Green Activist" and "Green World". See articles/publications/econews-greenworld

We would also like to draw your attention to the articles on our Future Plans and the related Fundraising Appeal appeal. There is a lot of work to do and you can help very easily by using the Donate button on the left. 

Author: Roger CO

Published: 12 December 2018   

Last updated: 04 February 2019

Site News 22^nd October

The site has a new look which is considerably more "mobile friendly" for those browsing on handheld devices. As part of this refresh some menu items will have moved - we hope to more logical places.

There is a new section "Blog" where the Custodians, David and Roger, can comment on the material and implications for action today and in the future without attempting to be "objective" about historical facts. We don't envisage using it a lot, but we do sometimes find ourselves wanting to express a personal opinion so this is the place where we can do that.

The News and Updates section has been broken into three - General News will appear under Home - News on the menu. Details about new and updated articles will appear under Articles - Article Updates. Details of additions to the Library will appear under Library - Library Updates. These items may also be reflected on the home page where there are significant changes.

Author: Roger CO

Published: 22 October 2018   

Last updated: 03 December 2018

Work-in-progress

Most work this month has been diverted into preparing materials for the Exhibition at the Green Party Conference on 2nd March. In doing so we have uncovered much new information in areas that we haven't really covered yet. This has included looking at the context, people, organisations and publications that existed before 1972 - the nascent Green culture. More information on the relationship between PEOPLE and Movement for Survival. More background on early developments in other countries. More on the internal development of Ecology Party. All of this will feed into new and revised articles over the coming months.

Help needed

We are specifically looking for copies of "Good Earth" magazine published between about 1974 and 1977. Copies were mailed to Ecology Party members as well as subscribers and casual sales - do you have a pile?

Author: David Taylor

Published: 01 March 2018   

Last updated: 18 October 2018

Work-in-progress

As with the document library, the images are undergoing some reorganisation to get them better indexed; a set of image galleries will appear over the next months which will include photos not used within articles.

We have a significant number of new documents to catalogue and make available including collections from Peter Cox (including much material on the Peace movement) and Peter Frings (especially covering early Ecology Party and the members newsletter) as well as miscellaneous other documents. Getting through this backlog will be a major focus over the next month or two including to continue to work through the Green Line archive which needs scanning and indexing.

Articles in preparation include work on Green CND, Green Gatherings, more on the Green Fields at Glastonbury, a look at early local election successes by Ecology Party and details of the 1979, 1983 and 1987 General Election campaigns.

Help needed

We are keen to extend the Green Pioneers section - if you fancy writing 300 words introducing an early green thinker, writer or activist predating 1972 who you are keen to see recognised then please feel free to send us a contributions.

We offer the following suggestions as ideas to help, but your own favourites would be ideal as well: 

• William Blake
• Murray Bookchin
• Karl Marx
• Prince Kroptokin
• Lady Eve Balfour
• Barry Commoner

Let us know if you'd like to do someone. 300 factual words is all it takes.

Author: David Taylor

Published: 28 January 2018   

Last updated: 18 October 2018