I have found a pamphlet issued by a now long gone education branch of the trades union movement (printed somewhere between 1945 and 1950) -by a chap who had Primrose as one of his middle names - and in it is a line drawing that I would like to put into my chapter on labour power. Any ideas how I can get permission as obviously I can't ask the person, - and the organization who produced the pamphlet no longer exist.

If it's a thesis the chapter is for then permission isn't so important AFAIK i.e. you can reproduce copyright material for fair use. But if it's for a book or a paper the rules are more stringent.

Personally if it's for your thesis I'd say you've tried to contact them, to be fair, but if the organisation no longer exists and you can't trace the person you can't do much more than that, so just use it as it stands.

But if it's for a paper or a book you can't use it.

It is just for my thesis, thanks fo rthat.