The Library’s popular series of free ‘Invisible Histories’ talks begins again on Wednesday 14 September at 2pm with a talk by Granville Williams entitled Pit props: music, international solidarity and the 1984/85 miners’ strike.
A new book edited by Granville marks the end of an era in coal mining in the UK and highlights how the year-long struggle by the miners in defence of jobs and communities still resonates today. It focuses on the vital creative links between music, politics and protest which grew up during the strike.
This is followed by four more talks at fortnightly intervals:
28 September 2pm Ray Physick The Olimpiada Popular of 1936 and the worker sport movement in the inter-war years.
Organisations linked to the international worker sport movement responded to an invitation to take part in an alternative Olympics, the Olimpiada Popular, in Barcelona in July 1936, but following the fascist rising in Spain that month the Games had to be abandoned despite attempts by the organisers to go ahead with a truncated programme.
12 October 2pm Katrina Navickas Protests and public space in Lancashire and Yorkshire in the age of radicals and the Chartists, 1789-1848.
This talk examines how radicals and Chartists in early 19th century Lancashire and Yorkshire contested restrictions on their right to meet and speak in public spaces. We will also get to see an exciting new 3D visualisation of a Chartist procession in 1840s Manchester.
26 October 2pm Nicole Robertson “Organise, educate and agitate”: trade unionism and office workers in Britain, 1914-39.
The rising prominence of the clerical sector was one of the most important changes in the 20th century workplace. Clerical workers became a key component of cityscapes and urban communities. This talk explores how these white-collar workers challenged, resisted and negotiated their working conditions through clerical unions.
9 November 2pm Mervyn Busteed Engels, the Burns Family and the Manchester Irish.
Mervyn will discuss Engels’s personal background in both Germany and Manchester, his reliance on the work of earlier sanitary reformers and help from Mary Burns for the material on the Manchester Irish in his classic work on the condition of the working class in England, and the possible influence of the Burns family on the evolution of his thinking about Irish affairs.
23 November 2pm Malcolm Pittock Albert Evans, Bolton WW1 conscientious objector
Veteran Bolton peace campaigner Malcolm will talk about his uncle Albert Evans, one of the conscientious objectors taken to France in 1916, put before a firing squad and then reprieved at the last minute. The talk will include sound recordings of Albert speaking about his experiences and about what motivated his stand.
The talks are free; all are welcome; light refreshments available afterwards.
