The lecture will seek to address a major omission in the history of the Labour Party: the lack of substantial work on the Roman Catholic contribution to it. Within the study of the origins of the Labour Party, this omission is often accounted for by factors such as the politics of Irish nationalism and home rule, prior to 1922 and the achievement of Irish self-government, the instruction of the clergy and traditional clerical suspicion of socialism, opposition to Labour Party policy over issues such as Catholic schooling prior to the 1918 Education Act, and the product of a restricted franchise and limited Roman Catholic participation at elections. Consequently, the Catholic contribution is a neglected area of study, often replaced either by a deterministic secularised Labour history, or one that emphasises the role of dissenting Protestant traditions in helping shape this history.

This neglect also extends to the pre-history of Labour, the period the historian Stephen Yeo has described as the era of the ‘religion of socialism’ – the 1880s and 1890s. Yet this is when Catholic Social Teaching truly developed, particularly with the 1891 Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum. There were also numerous Roman Catholic leaders within the late-nineteenth-century labour movement such as Pete Curran, Tom McCarthy and James Sexton.

The lecture is part of a wider project to reinsert the Roman Catholic contribution within Labour’s history. It will examine debates over Catholic marginalisation, alongside theological developments within Catholic Social Teaching and its links to questions of ideological renewal throughout labour history, from the era of the ‘religion of socialism’ to the present day significance of the so-called ‘Blue Labour’ movement. It will acknowledge key Catholic figures within Labour history, such as its forgotten leader J.L Clynes; the great Red Clydeside leader and founder of the Catholic Socialist Society, John Wheatley; TUC General Secretary, George Woodcock; the former Education Secretary, Shirley Williams; and Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair. It will also address the role of Catholics and wider questions of public policy and social reform integral to the history of the British welfare state.