A COMMUNIST activist, labour studies academic and writer has died at the age of 81.

Peter Waterman, who settled in Oxford with his first wife and children, wrote on capitalism, globalisation and trade unions.

His work was published in 10 languages and, in later life, he was invited to speak as an activist at at academic events all over the world.

Mr Waterman was born in the East End of London to parents Alec and Ray. His father worked in many trades before managing a bookshop and selling homeware while his mother worked as a secretary and penned two semi-autobiographical novels.

After attending school he joined a journalism course at Regent Street Polytechnic, now part of the University of Westminster) in 1954.

He became the English editor and chief sub-editor of World Student News for the International Union of Students in Prague, which ran during the 1950s.

Mr Waterman met his wife, Ruthie Kupferschmidt, while on a march in Aldermaston against the use of nuclear weapons. The couple had two children and lived together in Oxford.

While living in the city, he took an Oxford University diploma at Ruskin College and a degree in philosophy, politics and economics, and supported his family with a year of truck driving in between.

After his studies, Mr Waterman returned to Prague to work for the World Federation of Trade Unions, but ultimately left the world of communism after witnessing the actions Soviets took against the Prague Spring.

He then returned to education, completing a master’s degree in social science, undertaking West African Studies at the University of Birmingham and writing a thesis on the Nigerian trade union movement.

Mr Waterman worked at a Nigerian university in the early 1970s before moving to The Hague where he worked as a senior lecturer at the Institute of Social Studies until retirement. As a lecturer, he specialised in unions of the developing world and other social movements.

He separated from his wife in 1996 and years later would find a partner in feminist writer and activist Gina Vargas. The pair would marry in 2012.

Despite his retirement in 1998, he remained involved with global labour solidarity initiatives.

An early enthusiast for the internet and its possibilities for activist communication, he made most of his writing available free online. He published his autobiography in 2014.

In recent years, Mr Waterman, who died in June, was active in a number of social movement journals.

He is survived by Gina, his children Danny and Tamara, and his grandchildren, Joëlle and Nick.