TONY BUNYAN’S LIBRARY AND ARCHIVE – RESOURCES ON THE STATE AND CIVIL LIBERTIES – PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
This Collection started in the late 1950s when I became immersed in the new “wave” of exciting literature, cinema and theatre – the cultural revolution of the late 1950s – which took me to the Central School of Speech and Drama where I did the full-time course on Stage Management and Production when the Stanislavski “school” was thriving there – and I started “collecting”. The middle to late 1960s saw me involved in the 1967 and 1968 protests and the extra-parliamentary movements of the 1970s.
In the late 1960s I met the Institute of Race Relations people Siva, Jenny, Hazel, Frances and Hilary among others and a whole new chapter in my life began. I was elected to the IRR Council in 1972 and am still a Council Member.
I also met up with Agitprop Street Theatre, the Agitprop bookshop, Agitprop Information centre and started the Agitprop column in Time Out, then a radical weekly, and became joint News Editor. I left in 1973 age 30 to go North London Poly to do a degree (1st Sociology) and started my book “The history and practice of the Political Police in Britain”. This came out in 1976 and I then joined with a small group of activists to start “State Research” (1977-1981) – labelled by the UK state as run by “unaffiliated revolutionaries”!. In 1981 I went to the GLC first as Deputy then Head of the Police Committee Research & Monitoring Unit. I left local government in 1991 to start Statewatch where I’ve been able to travel right across the EU and made many friends and comrades. SInce 1976 I’ve given over 600+talks believing it is important not just to write but also to test ideas on the ground.
My main work switched from the British state to the emerging EU state but alongside this new work I have continued to collect books and pamphlets.
On 31 January 2018 I became an Irish citizen.
Having been collecting material for decades now the time has come to start cataloguing and make it available to researchers and activists.
WHAT’S IN THE LIBRARY & ARCHIVE?
– 1,000 + books including key historical sources (223 uploaded)
– 1,300+ pamphlets (718) uploaded)
– 50+ journals with 400+ issues (1968-1990)
– Special collections 100+ (34 uploaded)
– Theatre & Literature 80+ (15 uploaded)
Total uploaded to date: 1,028 items
NB: click “Browse all” or “view all items” to get full listing instead of just recent items.
WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUT THIS RESOURCE?
All libraries and archives have a different emphasis and history. This personal archive has been gathered over 60 years and holds unique materials from national and local struggles in pamphlet format, from Roneo to lithographic publications, alongside key books and journals from the 1920s and before. It is one of the ways to make sense of the past, learn from mistakes and keep fighting for a just world.
I am a Life Time Member of the NUJ, a Trustee at the Institute of Race Relations since 1972 and Director Emeritus at Statewatch – a Life time position.
Access will initially be for Statewatch staff and Trustees plus Friends of Statewatch.
See also: Statewatch Library: https://statewatch.omeka.net/
[This site is under construction by Tony Bunyan and Zak Suffee]
Contact
tony.bunyan [at] aol.co.uk and zak [@] the-shape.org
Footnote:
Tony retired as Director of Statewatch and is now Director Emeritus: See Tony’s personal statement after 30 years and the future: https://www.statewatch.org/news/2020/september/tony-bunyan-retires-as-director-of-statewatch-after-30-years/
At an event marking the occassion Jenny Bourne of the Institute of Relations commented:
“State Research/Statewatch and the Institute of Race Relations & Race & Class grew up together – out of the questioning, challenging terrain of the early 1970s. They were like cousins, meeting at weddings and funerals ie supporting one another’s events, thinking and development, each with their own focus and family following but both conscious of the encroaching and dehumanising power of the state. Under their respective uncles, Tony and Siva, grew an enduring important political link between two key unorthodox organisations – the one informing the other – but always inflected by friendship and an unspoken radical vision. Tony’s massive contribution to statewatching in the UK and across Europe – for years on his own – deserves the hugest of celebrations.”