Records of the National Union of Public Employees, and oral history recordings by Peter Wyncoll

This small collection includes files of printed circulars and other literature (U DX125/1-12) produced by the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) between 1984 and 1987. The files contain circulars of NUPE and other bodies, distributed by NUPE, relating to various public sector workers' issues including salaries, annual leave, working conditions and local government superannuation schemes. Further items relate to NUPE's work and negotiations with other organisations such as the Whitley Councils for the Health Services, the National Joint Council for Local Authorities' Administrative, Professional, Technical and Clerical Services and the Trades Union Congress. NUPE items include minutes of meetings of the Executive Council, reports of national negotiations, reports of NUPE national conferences and information bulletins from the NUPE research department. There are also items relating to NUPE's activities concerning government initiatives such as Health Service Reorganisation, Water Reorganisation and Local Government Reorganisation.

Other items in the collection include transcripts of tape-recorded conversations of Peter Wyncoll with Nottingham militants such as Jack Charlesworth and Ernest Cant (U DX125/13). There are also typescript copies of documents issued by the Nottingham General Strike Committee in 1926, which comprises copies of some editions of the Nottingham Strike Bulletin and a file of [exhibition] items relating to working class conditions in Hackney (1770s-1940s) (U DX125/14).

Established in 1908 as the National Union of Corporation Workers the union was later renamed the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) in 1925. Representing public sector workers, membership increased dramatically and by 1977 it was the fifth largest union in Britain. NUPE merged with the National and Local Government Officers Association (NALGO) and the Confederation of Health Service Employees (COHSE) in 1993 to form UNISON.

Peter Harold Wyncoll was born on 24 May 1939 in Basford, Nottinghamshire. Whilst in his teens, he joined the Young Socialists but later became a committed life time member of the Communist Party. Interested in history and the labour movement generally he wrote a pamphlet on Nottingham Chartism in 1966, interviewed veterans of the general strike of 1926 and in 1969 interviewed several Nottingham activist militants including Jack Charlesworth and Ernie Cant. During the 1970s he began working as an official for the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) and later began a course at the Open University in Post-graduate Research on the History of the Labour Movement in Nottingham.

Sadly, he died from cancer in 1982. His thesis was prepared for publication by his supervisor John Saville, his NUPE colleagues and his widow, Wendy, and was published posthumously as The Nottingham Labour Movement 1880-1939 in 1985.

Access will be granted to any accredited reader

Donated by Peter Wyncoll, Coalville, through Prof. John Saville, Dec 1976 [U DX125/1-11] and Jun 1990 [U DX125/12-14]

Records of the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) (Hull and District Association) [U DSA]

Papers of Jock Haston including records of the Revolutionary Communist Party and other Trotskyist Groups [U DJH]

Records of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Hull Branch) [U DCP]

National Union of Teachers: Hull and District Branch [L DUNT]

Other repositories

University of Warwick, Records of the National Union of Public Employees [Ref. MSS.281]