Images from our Spanish Civil War collection
In spring/summer 2018 we were delighted to work with English and Politics students from the University of Salford on a collaborative project, Invisible Histories – seeing the hidden, hearing...
200 years ago in St Peter’s Field a crowd calling for electoral reform was attacked by the Manchester & Salford Yeomanry, an event that has become known as Peterloo. This exhibition explores the historical context, the prevailing paranoia and the reactions of the establishment, utilising the Library’s extensive Peterloo......
On 12 August 1842, just 23 years after the Peterloo Massacre, Lancashire cotton workers again marched in protest at appalling pay and conditions. Reaching Preston’s Lune Street, the protestors were confronted by the authorities and read the Riot Act. By 13 August seven men had been shot and four......
An illustrated talk by art historian Christine Lindey on her recent book which explores a vein of British art which kept alive the idea of socially committed and widely understandable art. Art for All reveals a forgotten or marginalised area of 20th century British art. Christine's book provides a......
‘Not just Peterloo’ – the first in a series of talks on state violence. This talk reflects on the history of suppression of political meetings in Manchester and Salford during the 19th century. It examines the role of the authorities at the Peterloo Massacre, and places this within the......
Alison Morgan’s new book includes over 70 poems, published either as broadsides or in radical periodicals and newspapers of 1819. Alongside her talk we will hear musical examples of some of the Peterloo broadside ballads from Pete Coe and Brian Peters. Alison is a senior teaching fellow in the......
‘Not just Peterloo’ – second in a series of talks on state violence. Michael Sanders "How many shots were fired?": the 'Plug Plot Insurrection' and Peterloo. In the late summer of 1842, Lancashire teetered on the brink of insurrection. Textile workers angry at the rejection of the second Chartist......
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