By R.W. Morrell

The Trade Union, Labour, Co-operative Democratic History Society (TULC), with whom our Society works in close harmony, held an important exhibition at the Trades Union Congress headquarters in London. Miss Vanessa Redgrave combined great charm, a deep feeling for the pioneers of the Labour Movement, and a fluently-expressed knowledge of the subject in making the opening address at the exhibition. After having made a brief tour of the exhibition and seen such items as the table, on which Thomas Paine wrote a number of his works, and the death mask of Paine, she said, “This is history, which I did not learn at school, and which most children are not learning today.” Those who have been working to restore to Paine his rightful place in history will echo a loud “Here, here!” to that.

Our Society’s Chairman, Mr. Christopher Brunel, was called on to move a vote of thanks to Miss Redgrave, and he quoted from Paine’s dedication of the second part of Rights of Man, which was addressed to Lafayette: 

“The only point on which I could ever discover that we differed, was not as to principles of Government, but as to time. For my own part, I think it equally injurious to good principles to permit them to linger, as to push them on too fast.” 

Politicians, continued Mr.Brunel, had to learn the importance of timing as much as actors and actresses, and he congratulated Miss Redgrave for adding to this ability the all-important feeling for humanity, which she had so often expressed, and which was another link with Thomas Paine. She had said that progress often appeared to be as natural as a tree growing up, “but there are always people ready to stamp the tree into the ground” – that, said Mr.Brunel, would long remain a most telling expression. 

The exhibition chose the fall of the Bastille as its starting point, which made it of particular interest to students of Paine, and went on immediately to show how his Rights of Man challenged Edmund Burke and the Tories in its support of the principles of the French Revolution, and so forming the keystone of the Reform movement in Britain, Our Society gave practical help to the exhibition with the loan of a number of items, including tokens of Paine, documents of the London Corresponding Society and a copy of T.J.Wooler’s Black Dwarf. 

During its week in London, some hundreds of people visited the exhibition, and, what is particularly pleasing, is that some school parties also came, so beginning the process of showing tomorrow’s citizens their rich social and political heritage.