British labour movement, 1770 - 1920

this book should say something about George Tate, since he not only wrote the greater part of it, but did more, perhaps, than anyone else to bring it into existence. I remember very clearly the part he took in the discussions held in the summer of 1953 among a number of Marxist historians and others interested, out of which the plan for this history of the British Labour Movement emerged. It is a great grief to all of us who worked with him on this project that his sudden death has robbed him of the pleasure of seeing its publication. Nevertheless, when he died the work was done, and I think that this volume is the kind of memorial he would most have wished.

George Tate was born on August 25th, 1914, and went to Brasenose College, Oxford, with a Junior Hulme Scholarship from Dame Alleyn's School, Newcastle. At Oxford he took an Honours degree in history, and there, in 1936, he joined the Communist Party. By all who have known him, he will be remembered as an example of the Communist intellectual in the best sense of that sometimes misused term.

After a couple of years on The Newcastle Journal, he came to London early in 1939, to become a member of the staff of The Daily Worker. On the outbreak of war he joined the Army, but was invalided out in January, 1941, after a long illness. He never fully recovered from the effects of this, but began after a few years to suffer great and increasing pain and disa bility. This he faced with a courage, patience and cheerfulness that seemed never-failing, and he never allowed it to stand in the way of whatever he felt to be important work for the movement.

In 1941, too, he married, and I think the happiness of his family circle gave him immense help in overcoming the handicap of his ill-health. The picture of George at home with his wife and daughters is one that all his friends must look back to with real pleasure.