Working Class Movement Library

29/05/2026

We are thrilled to announce that we have achieved Accredited Archive status. The scheme, ran by the National Archives, shows that individual archives meet the UK standard for archive management, including providing access to the public and resilience in the face of changing circumstances. We are very proud of all the hard work by the library team that has gone into achieving this and we will continue to build on our approach to collections care and access that has made accreditation status possible.

‘The Trustees are delighted that the WCML has achieved this status which recognises the levels of care the library provides in keeping the collection safe and in the best condition possible for the archive to continue to enable current and future users, access to such an important internationally relevant collection of documents relating to the working class movement’ - Sam Ingleson Chair of Trustees

12/05/2026

Part of Salford 100 celebrations

Manchester and Salford Film Society & WCML are proud tp present a special screening of Walter Greenwood’s ‘Love on the Dole’ as part of Salford 100 celebrations, an afternoon of film and poetry with the UK’s oldest active film society and a chance to see a character inspired by our libraries founder Eddie Frow in his former home.

Date: Saturday 27th June 2026

Time: 1.30pm for a 2pm start

Location: WCML annex

Refreshments will be available and a limited edition artwork by Carol Moores will also be for sale.

Join us for an introduction to the Working Class Movement Library with Naomi Buckley, the Manchester and Salford Film Society with Carol Moores and poetry by award winning poet Oliver Lomax.

Delve into the Manchester and Salford Film Society archives and take a peak at the beautiful, stylised film posters and ephemera in a special archival session in the reading room.

Tickets in the link below

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/love-on-the-dole-an-afternoon-of-film-and-poetry-tickets-1989296162372?aff=oddtdtcreator

11/05/2026

Wrapping up the People’s Papers project

As a final wrap up to her research placement, PhD student Arielle Lawson provides an overview of her research and a summary of paper profiles that she’s put together. The project will also have a dedicated research page on the website soon.

Read the round up here-

Building on my previous blog posts, the aim of this last update is to provide a fuller summary of some of the papers I looked at in the WCML collection — as a series of paper profiles — along with resources for those interested in learning more or who might want to carry this research forward. A...

11/05/2026

Wrapping up the People’s Papers

As a final wrap up of her research Arielle Lawson provides an overview of the newspapers she has researched and a summary of the paper profiles she has put together.

This project - that explored radical community newspapers from the late 1960s forward - will also have a dedicated research page on our website soon.

Read the post here -

https://wcml.org.uk/blog/wrapping-up-the-peoples-papers-project/

and follow

07/05/2026

A sister archive - the - based on Fleet Street in London - is currently building a dedicated archive of punk materials - redressing punk’s impact on radical politics during the 1980s/90s and beyond.

If you were in a band, made a zine or organised punk benefits to build support for political campaigns- and have any punk related materials you no longer want - then why not reach out to them on [email protected]

The MayDay Rooms is open Wed - Friday each week between 11am - 6pm.
No appointment is needed.

The MayDay Rooms houses over 100,000 items - the majority of which relates to the ‘post-68’ extra-parliamentary left.

01/05/2026

Happy International Worker’s Day! ✊❤️🖤

27/04/2026

We are pleased to announce our new exhibition, opening at the library on May 1st 2026.

A Great Betrayal? One Hundred Years On. The lessons of the 1926 strike revisited.

To mark the centenary of the 1926 General Strike the Working Class Movement Library has produced a new exhibition. The exhibition features archive material and objects from the library’s unique collection and tells the story of the strike from the beginnings of the conflict, through the nine days of the strike and onto its aftermath and legacy.

The exhibition also explores the stories of some of the individuals who took part in the strike including Bill Muckle, a striking miner involved in the derailment of the train at Cramlington, Isabel Brown a trade unionist imprisoned during the strike for her vocal support of workers and local activist, Jack Forshaw, also imprisoned for his involvement in the strike.

On display you can see the typewriter on which the Hackney strike bulletin was produced alongside other bulletins and hear recordings of our founder, Ruth Frow, speaking about the strike.

This exhibition is part of the General Strike 100 national partnership of museums, libraries, archives and history groups, coordinated by the General Federation of Trade Unions. To learn more about the strike, discover other General Strike 100 places of history and find other organisations taking part, use the interactive map at www.generalstrike100.com

This exhibition and its accompanying events programme have been generously supported by Salford City Council’s Salford Centenary Fund, celebrating a century of pride in our city.

24/04/2026

24 April 1908

Barmaids 1, Winston Churchill 0! On this day in 1908, Winston Churchill was defeated in a North West Manchester by-election, losing his seat in part because of a high-profile campaign to defend barmaids’ jobs.

Churchill supported a Licensing Bill introduced by Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquith that aimed to impose much stricter regulation on pubs. Its most controversial proposal was a ban on the employment of women behind the bar. Although presented as a “protective” measure, it was widely criticised as moralistic and discriminatory, threatening the livelihoods of tens of thousands of working-class women.

In Manchester, sisters Eva Gore-Booth and Constance Markievicz helped establish the Barmaids’ Defence League and campaigned vigorously against both the bill and Churchill’s re-election. Their tactics included public meetings, leafleting, and dramatic street actions, such as touring the city in a horse-drawn carriage and addressing crowds in Stevenson Square.

The dispute also exposed tensions within socialist politics. Many socialists supported temperance and backed Asquith’s proposals, viewing alcohol as damaging to working class organisation, family life, and economic security. Others argued that banning women from bar work punished workers rather than addressing exploitation, highlighting the tension between moral reform and the defence of women’s right to work.

Come to the Working Class Movement Library and learn more! We hold a wide range of material illuminating the 1908 Barmaids’ Defence League campaign and its wider political context: pamphlets in the Temperance and Licensing section debating women’s employment behind the bar; Women’s Labour League pamphlets on conditions for women working in pubs and hotels; annual reports of the National Union of Women Workers, which frequently discuss service-sector employment campaigns. Early shop workers’ union material provides further context on waitresses and bar staff, while contemporary newspapers such as The Clarion and Votes for Women include 1908 coverage of women’s labour rights, suffrage activism, and protests surrounding Churchill’s Manchester by-election.

20/04/2026

Salford Star…
An Exhibition of Archive Salford Star Photos by Steven Speed

2026 marks the centenary of Salford as a city, and also twenty years since the community magazine 'Salford Star' first appeared, originally in a glossy magazine print format and later as a website featuring over six thousand articles.

While the Star folded in 2021, its fifteen year lifespan of news, views, investigations, cultural happenings and community fightbacks mapped the history of a city undergoing huge change.

Now, from the Salford Star's archive (containing tens of thousands of items), two hundred photographs by Steven Speed (of Salford people who appeared in the Star), are to be donated to the Library’s archive.

To celebrate this, there will be an exhibition of photographs and graphics that defined the Star’s 15 years of ‘attitude and love ###’ available to see by individuals and groups using the Annex events space at the Working Class Movement Library from May 4th 2026.

This is the first step towards making the archive accessible to the community.

There will also be an open event on May 9th where the plans for the future of the whole archive will be discussed. The exhibition and discussion is free to visit and open to all.

16/04/2026

🚩 Join the Working Class Movement Library and our partners at the People’s History Museum, the John Rylands Library and the Cooperative Heritage Trust as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1926 General Strike.

📅 Saturday 9 May
🕥 10:30am – 4:15pm
📍 People’s History Museum

Join us as to explore, and be inspired by, this seminal moment in British working-class history.