page_title: Hull University Labour Club
section_title: The Hull University Socialist Society, c. 1958 – 1966
hierarchical_section_title: Hull University Labour Club / History / The Hull University Socialist Society, c. 1958 – 1966
caption_attribution_description: English: The Hull Daily Mail gave front-page coverage to the Lister Street tenants' rent strike in 1963. The strike was openly supported by both John Saville (pictured) and Hull students.
context_page_description: Hull University Labour Club is a Hull University Union society for University of Hull students who support the Labour Party. It is one of the oldest societies at Hull, first formed as the Hull College Labour Society from 1952-1958, the Hull University Socialist Society from 1958-1967, and the Hull University Labour Club from September 1967.
  Influential in the earlier stages of the National Association of Labour Students Organisations in the 1950s, it has also had a role in the National Union of Students, Labour Students and Young Labour movements since their individual formations. Most notable was their large involvement in local and national campaigning in the 1960s and the 2015 general election. Their influence has waned in recent years but is starting to experience a renewal.
  Membership levels took a significant decline in the period between 2010 and 2015 but have since started to increase since 2016.
context_section_description: The 1960s was something of a golden age for left-wing politics in Hull. Various factors - the strong city Labour Party; the influence of left-wing lecturers such as John Saville, Tony Topham, Axel Stern and Janet Blackman; and Hull University's links with Ruskin College, an institution for the education of (generally left-wing) working class adults at Oxford, which provided many students to fill SocSoc's ranks, such as future MPs John Prescott and Harry Barnes, and Bob Heath, SocSoc chair from 1962 to 1965 - gave Hull University a reputation in the press and amongst staff and students as the "reddest of the red bricks." Many left-wing prospective students minded to attend an institution which offered them opportunities for political activism, as well as the chance to pursue academia, were attracted to Hull University to study.
  SocSoc campaigns in this era, at their height, galvanised the support of at least 10% of Hull University's student population (then 1700), and wherever possible members sought to build a broad coalition of supporters, of all shades of opinion. In 1962, SocSoc members led a march to the Hull City Hall calling for peace in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Some 200 other students, including Conservatives and devout Christians, joined them in the march, which achieved local newspaper coverage. In 1963, a small number of SocSoc members, amongst some others, were - at the clandestine instigation of John Saville - also involved in what was dubbed the "Battle of Lister Street" by students. Lister Street, owned by private sector landlords, was the site of some of Hull's worst slum housing, and in protest at the conditions in 1963, tenants had refused to pay the rents. Facing eviction from private landlords, some Hull students decided to support the tenants in resisting eviction. The campaign carried a front-page headline in the Hull Daily Mail titled "Barricade in Lister Street", and thus succeeded in its aim of drawing attention to the poor conditions of slum housing in Hull, which was often ignored by members of the Hull City Council. Although otherwise insignificant in Student Union affairs relative to the Hattersley/McNamara era, SocSoc did campaign to get the University Union to boycott South African products. When the Union refused to endorse SocSoc's motion for the boycott, they proceeded to put up a slate of a dozen candidates for the Union elections. Most of them got elected and the ban was implemented. In addition, they assisted the local Labour party, and David Whitely in the then rather influential Hull and East Riding Cooperative Society, to impose a ban. They also campaigned against the then Blackburn (now BAE) factory at Brough's manufacturing of Buccaneer bombers for sale to Apartheid South Africa. In 1964, when Harold Wilson was returned as Labour Prime Minister, he proceeded to stop all arms sales to South Africa.
  
   
  Like in the 1950s, SocSoc continued to play a prominent role in NALSO, hosting a NALSO conference in Ferens Hall at Hull in 1962 and having some of its members elected to executive positions in NALSO, such as Colin Livett as Vice-Chair. Furthermore, in the 1962 NALSO conference, SocSoc students Colin Livett and Hedley Taylor moved perhaps the first ever NALSO motion on the decriminalisation of homosexuality.
  Speakers hosted by SocSoc included a range of New Left figures, often thanks to the links of John Saville, to speak to the Society. Hugh Gaitskell, then Labour leader, also spoke to the club during a tour of Hull in 1962. Indeed, on 2 March 1962, J.T. Anson, the Labour Party's regional organiser, confided in Gaitskell in advance of his visit that,  
  "I think I should mention that this University Socialist Club is not a Labour Club in the strict sense of the term, but has within its ranks all those who believe in Socialism, no matter whether it is the CP or any other type. The son of Mr [Stephen] Swingler, MP, is an official of the Club and he, of course, is very much on the 'left.'"
caption: The Hull Daily Mail gave front-page coverage to the Lister Street tenants' rent strike in 1963. The Socialist Society - at the instigation of John Saville (pictured) - assisted tenants in the rent strike, and Sociology student and SocSoc member Robert Moore (also pictured) conducted a survey of rent levels in the area.
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