Lewis Minkin, Born 1936
historian of the labour party
Born in Leeds, Lewis was the son of Annie (Esther Ann, nee Richards) and Bob (Barnet) Minkin, who both worked in the tailoring trade. One of Lewis’s earliest memories was of clothes arriving at the house for his mother to add buttons. Bob’s family had migrated from Tsarist Russia around 1890. Annie’s family had moved from Staffordshire to Yorkshire to work in the mines. At primary school he experienced appalling anti-semitism. A scholarship gave him entry to Roundhay school, where in the late 1940s working-class pupils were scarce. He left aged 15 with no qualifications and worked in a variety of clerical jobs; his national service was in Cyprus during the Eoka campaign. His early involvement in Labour politics came as a leftwing activist in Leeds, a city whose MPs were solidly on the right. He entered Leeds University as a mature student in 1963. After graduating with a first in politics (1966) he went on to postgraduate work at York University. In 1969 he joined the department of government at Manchester University, initially as a research associate, but soon becoming a lecturer and eventually senior lecturer. He published several highly regarded books on the history of the Labour Party.
Click below to view his life story: