Entry compiled by Richard Temple.
John Burns was born in Lambeth in 1858; trained as an engineer and became active in the labour movement and local politics; leader of the London dock strike of 1889; elected to London County Council on its inception in 1889, remaining in office until 1907; also served as MP for Battersea (1892-1918) and was president of the Local Government Board (1905-1913) and the Board of Trade (1914); resigned from the Cabinet in protest at the British decision to declare war in August 1914; died 1943.
Notes, correspondence, press-cuttings and ephemera found in the Burns library. Correspondents include Charles Booth (1903). Press-cuttings cover subjects such as unemployment, local government, religion, and trades unions. Also includes a scrapbook of William Cobbett letters (1831-1832) and minutes of Liverpool branch of Association of All Classes of All Nations (1837-1839).
Divided into correspondence, notes, press-cuttings, archives collected by Burns, and subject files.
Transferred from Senate House Library. The Burns Library was transferred to Senate House Library from the Trades Union Congress Library.
Open for research.
Senate House Library
Copies may be made, subject to the condition of the original. Copying must be undertaken by the Palaeography Room staff, who will need a minimum of 24 hours to process requests.
Fully catalogued on the ULRLS on-line catalogue, http://archives.ulrls.lon.ac.uk
Papers include: British Library Manuscript Collections: correspondence and papers including diaries (64 vols, 1874-1942, Add MSS 46281-46345, 59669), Labour History Archive and Study Centre: correspondence and miscellaneous papers; Oxford University: Bodleian Library: Special Collections and Western Manuscripts: correspondence with Herbert Asquith; London Metropolitan Archives: correspondence with the Central Unemployed Body for London, 1920-1922, diaries, lectures and reports (ACC/2337), records including Trade Union papers and correspondence, 1888-1939, additional correspondence including records relating to administration of the Burns' estate, 1860-1951; London School of Economics Library, Archives Division: correspondence with the Fabian Society, 1893-1907, letters to AG Gardiner, 1906-1925, correspondence with ED Morel, c1903-1921; Parliamentary Archives: letters to Herbert Samuel, 1893-1895 and 1902, correspondence with John St Loe Strachey, 1898-1914; National Library of Scotland: miscellaneous correspondence, 1899-1930; California State University, Northridge: 100 letters (DA/530/A3/C6).