MEN'S

The present volume provides a fascinating sidelight into the operations of an archetypal Working Men's Club (Labour leader Ed Milliband was recently described as being 'more at home in Primrose Hill than Kenfig Hill') at what was perhaps the high point of such an institution, covering the period from just before the Great War to the end of the Depression of the 1930s. The accounts relate to two locations: the Cefn Institute and the Talbot Miners' Welfare Institute. The latter was founded in 1911 after a gift from the Talbot family, and closed in 1959.

8pp., 12mo. In blue-grey printed wraps. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper. Stamp, shelfmarks and label of the Board of Education Reference Library, London. Engraved illustration of the college on front cover, and full-page photographs of 'The Vestibule' and 'General Lecture Room' within. Scarce: no copy on COPAC or OCLC WorldCat.

[4]pages, 8vo, grubby and foxed, last page (blank) with vestiges of glue from being laid down in album. A note is printed at the end, "Young Men, who may receive or read this paper, are affectionately invited to the Bible Classes of the Young Men's Christian Association [...] | W. Edwyn Shipton" (venues given). No other copy traced - COPAC lists another series of the same name only (published by Nisbet). Discussion of Jesus Christ, using metaphor of a river.

An interesting and scarce item. There are no copies of any issues of this magazine on either OCLC WorldCat or COPAC, and there is no record whatsoever of 'Group IV' itself. Now acknowledged as one of Britain's finest landscape painters, Keith Grant joined the Working Men's College on finishing his National Service with the RAF; he then enrolled at Willesden Art School, before joining the Royal College of Art, where he studied under Colin Hayes, John Minton and Kenneth Rowntree. 22pp., 4to.