Description

Admin History:

Frederick William Dalley was born in 1885 in Stapleford, Nottinghamshire, and went to Nottingham University. He joined the railway trade union movement and then became a member of the Labour Party's national executive. He was on the advisory committee of the Secretary of State for the Colonies and these papers were generated by his work in that capacity. He travelled widely, including to the West Indies, West Africa, Israel, Germany and South East Asia. With S. S. Awbery he jointly wrote 'Trade unions in Malaya and Singapore' in 1948 (drafts and copies are in the collection) and in 1955 he was invited to report on industrial relations in Singapore. He died in 1960.

Description:

The papers of Frederick William Dalley were arranged for microfilming before arrival in Hull University Archives and that arrangement has been retained for cataloguing purposes. The collection mostly dates from the period 1948-1955 and is mainly related to his work in Malaya and Singapore. The organising principle is basically geographical and is as follows: Trinidad 1 (1927-1952) including a map, press cuttings, lists of trade unions and the 1927 Trade Disputes Act; Trinidad and British Guiana (1947-1955) including several reports on trade unions by Dalley, papers relating to the suspension of the constitution in British Guiana in 1954 with related articles and broadcasts by Dalley; Trinidad 2 (1950-1954) including reports on the Caura Water Scheme and the Commission of Enquiry into the Port-of-Spain Authority, papers relating to the sugar industry and its employees and correspondence from Solomon Hochoy, G. F. Woodroffe, J. A. M. Braithwaite, Ralph Lewis, Walter Bernard and Oli Mohamed; Nigeria (1948-1966) including newspaper cuttings, reports and lecture notes especially on nuclear power and living standards; Nigeria and West Africa (1950-1953) including Dalley's diary notes, reports on trade unions, correspondence relating to the employment of children in the mines and an article by Dalley on West Africa; Malaya and Singapore 1 (1920-1952) including six printed pamphlets on politics, agriculture and the cooperative movement, a memorandum on trade unions and labour and correspondence with Kingsley Martin, Woodrow Wyatt, Francis Thomas and Mrs Selwyn Clarke; Malaya and Singapore 2 (1946-1956) including information on the Trades Union Council, correspondence with R. G. D. Houghton, biographical notes on ministers, notes on talks and membership of trade unions, an article by Dalley on trade unionism in Malaya, a report by Dalley and S. S. Awbery on trade unions in Malaya and a number of printed pamphlets on the same subject by other people; Malaya 1 (1947-1953) three articles on the Chinese in Malaya by W. L. Blythe; Malaya 2 (1948) press cuttings; Malaya and Singapore 3 (1948-1949) report on trade unions in Malaya by Dalley and S. S. Awbery and the comments on it of the Malayan and Singapore governments and press; Malaya 3 (1948-1953) including correspondence with W. L. Blythe, R. G. D. Houghton, R. Caddick, A. Creech-Jones, A. Lennox-Boyd, John Brazier, M. H. Dhoss, Alex Simpson, T. Silcock, P. P. Narayanan, P. Sang of the Thai Labour Union and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, as well as two printed articles on Malayan labour by Ooi Thiam Siew and Charles Gamba; Malaya and Singpore 4 (1949-1952) including correspondence with N. D. Watson, John Brazier, M. Phillips, V. S. Mathur, Tsung Tze Meng, Francis Taulin, Charles Gamba, Walter Hood, press cuttings, notes and speeches and articles on rubber workers; Malaya 4 (1953-1954) including a draft of the Dalley/Awbery report, information about employers, employees, the press, the housing situation, immigration, secret reports on communists in trade unions, transport, social welfare, social unrest and correspondence with the colonial secretary in Singapore; Singapore (1940-1959) including the invitation of 1955 issued to Dalley to report on Singapore industrial relations and the papers related to it such as reports, press cuttings, information about government departments, colonial office papers from E. W. Barltrop, visits to offices and factories and correspondence with the Employers' Federation as well as with R. N. Broome, Aneurin Bevan and Sir Vincent Tewson (about Lee Kuan Yew's relationship with the communists in the 1950s), and a miscellaneous extract from the Hong Kong Trade Unions and Disputes Ordinance of 1948.

These sections are followed by a bundle of papers relating to the East Africa Royal Commission (1952-1955) including correspondence about the appointment of the commission, notes on talks, reports and printed articles on such things as African women and trade unions and a bundle of papers on East Africa (1955) comprising information on labour training.

These sections are followed by one on Israel (1956-1961) which includes maps, photographs, press cuttings and printed material and one on Germany (1950-1953) with printed material and newspaper cuttings on trade unionism.

There follows a section on trade unionism generally (1945-1950) and this is largely printed material and then a section of articles and notes for lectures written by Dalley and Marjorie Nicholson (1947-1953) on trade unions in Britain, Malaya, South-East Asia more generally, the West Indies, and West Africa. Miscellaneous material in the collection (1917-1955) includes papers of the Colonial Labour Advisory Committee, a letter of N. D. Watson and biographical notes on Dalley prepared for Who's Who in 1951.