Library Live

The Riot Act
2019-07-20 13:30 - 16:00 UTC | Performance Space
Written by Rob Johnston. On August 12th 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 protesters were confronted by the authorities and read The Riot Act. A gripping mix of tragedy and humour from the WINNER of BEST DRAMA at Greater Manchester Fringe Festival 2017.
Performed in association with Greater Manchester Fringe Festival 2019.
“The Riot Act is a profoundly moving and poignant play” – North West End
1.30pm Performance – Book Now
3pm Performance – Book Now

Saturday Spectacular
2019-07-20 13:00 - 16:00 | Media Lounge
Join us to make posters to mark the 200th anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre using pens, inks and quills. Join in with our board game challenge and much more.
Free – please drop in

Peterloo: Witnesses to a Massacre
2019-07-19 15:30 - 16:30 | Performance Space
Join the authors of the verbatim graphic novel ‘PETERLOO: Witnesses to a Massacre’ for an illustrated, behind the scenes look into the research, writing and art that went into this historically accurate and visually vivid account of the 1819 massacre of pro democracy reformers from around the Greater Manchester region.
‘This amazing artwork makes a powerful testimony’ Maxine Peake
‘A vivid and poignant retelling’ Tony Robinson
Free – pleae drop in

1819-1981 Exhibition
2019-07-18 09:00 - 17:00 | Performance Space
Linda Brogan, Excavating The Reno, who excavated the Reno cellar club in Moss Side MCR, and Manchester Histories have joined forces to present 1819 – 1981. This one day exhibition (running on Sat 15 June, Thurs 18 July and Tues 13 Aug) will tell the stories of the memoirs of police and communities from the 1981 Moss Side riots to give voice to the long dead 1819 Hulme Hussars and the Peterloo protesters.
At the end of each day people will be invited to have discussions about the issues provoked by the exhibition, and the Peterloo story of deprivation, laws, the people’s journey to fight for their rights, the conflict, aftermath, and how it relates to today.
Free – please drop in

Peterloo Event Day
2019-07-17 10:30 - 15:00 | Performance Space
The Manchester & Lancashire Family History Society host a special Peterloo Event Day. From 10.30am – 12pm, Ed Glinert, Manchester tour guide, will speak about Peterloo. Ed has worked with Mike Leigh and also the great radical activist Paul Foot. Ed has been talking, walking, reading, thinking, sleeping, writing, giving lectures and guided tours about Peterloo for more than 30 years! So, this talk should be something special.
There will be lunch break featuring performances by Oakenhoof and Friends, a visit from a Rochdale based clogging group and some special friends.
In the afternoon we will be holding a special handling session with three ‘stations’ that can be visited including a cotton themed table; with a variety of cotton related archives, including sights and sounds from the cotton industry, The John Owen collection, Early Poor Law archives and a musical performance by the Free Radicals.
Keen to start researching to your own family tree? Have you discovered possible ancestors at Peterloo? Then why not visit the Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society (MLFHS) Family History Help Desk and speak with one of our family history experts? Open throughout the day.

Queer
2019-07-16 16:00 - 19:00 | Performance Space
Manchester Histories are proud to present “Queer”, a platform showcasing some of the ways that LGBT+ communities and their allies have stood strong for protest, democracy and freedom of speech. We invite you to: hear the story of Manchester’s Clause 28 protest march, the history of one of the most important queer publications in Manchester, discover how archivists and activists have been using historical material to share LGBT+ heritage and much more.
Free – booking recommended

Trace Your Peterloo People
2019-07-13 10:00 - 16:00
Join us in a full day of discovery at our Peterloo focused genealogy open day. Book a 30 minute 1-1 session with a member of the Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society (MLFHS) and delve into the wealth of resources to start you off on your own family tree, or help break through a brick wall in your research.

Michala Hulme, professional genealogist and historian at Manchester Metropolitan University, will bring to life stories of modern day descendants of Peterloo witnesses, tracing links over 200 years of family history. Join Michala’s masterclass for expert guidance in furthering your own research or explore the amazing library building on a special tour with a member of the library team, including a visit to the vaults!
Tour of the Library and Vaults:
10am – Book Now
12.30pm – Book Now
2.30pm – Book Now
MLFHS Helpdesk, drop in from 10.30am
10.30am – Peterloo 1-1 Sessions with MLFHS members – Book Now
11am – Peterloo Descendants Talk with Michala Hulme – Book Now
2pm – Masterclass, Tracing Peterloo Ancestors with Michala Hulme – Book Now

Ballads and Songs of Peterloo, with Dr Alison Morgan
2019-07-12 14:00 - 15:00 | Performance Space
Ballads and Songs of Peterloo by Dr Alison Morgan is based on her unique collection of more than seventy poems and ballads which highlight the outrage, grief, defiance and resolution felt by labouring-class people in the immediate aftermath of the Peterloo Massacre in which eighteen people were killed and more than 600 injured as they listened to the radical Henry Hunt speak on the need for electoral reform.
Alison’s talk focuses on a selection of these poems and songs which were circulated in radical journals and performed at markets and in taverns, highlighting how they aimed to keep a true record of the day in the public consciousness and counter the official government narrative. The talk will be illustrated by audio recordings from musicians who have worked with Alison to bring these important and entertaining songs to life once more.
Free – please drop in

Speaking Out!
2019-07-11 17:30 - 19:30 | Performance Space
Journalist Bob Dickinson introduces a selection from films made by the Workers Film Association, formerly based in Lucy Street, Hulme.
The film clips show the diversity of the WFA’s interests, their commitment to the history of the Afro-Caribbean and South Asian communities, their response to political events of the 1980s and 90s, and the importance of several of their films as oral history. From Eddie Frow’s memories of The National Unemployed Workers Union and the Battle of Bexley Square in 1931, to Viraj Mendis speaking from inside the church where he took refuge for two years during his fight to stop the government deporting him, to Buzzcocks founder member, the late great Pete Shelley, describing why punk rock in Manchester was so different – discover why there is a wealth of people’s history to be seen and heard in what the WFA left behind. A discussion follows the films. Watch a trailer here

Peterloo Film Screening
2019-07-11 13:00 - 16:00, 2019-06-13 13:00 - 16:00 | Performance Space
Join us for relaxed screenings of the Peterloo Film every month from June – August.
The Peterloo Massacre was a defining moment in British democracy which also played a significant role in the founding of The Guardian newspaper. Written and directed by Mike Leigh, Peterloo is an epic portrayal of the events surrounding the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where a peaceful pro-democracy rally at St Peter’s Field in Manchester turned into one of the bloodiest and most notorious episodes in British history. Each month we’ll be screening Mike Leigh’s Peterloo to mark 200 years since this watershed moment.
Pay what you can – £3 / £5 / £8

Prostest in the Surveillance State: The East German Jewish Dissident Stefan Heym
2019-07-09 18:00 - 20:00 | Performance Space
This talk traces strategies of civil disobedience in Cold War Eastern Germany through the case of the German Jewish dissident Stefan Heym. Born into a German-Jewish family in Chemnitz (now notorious for its recent outbreaks of Far Right violence) in 1913, Heym was an early sympathiser of the Communist Party. He fled from Nazi Germany in 1933 and spent his year’s of exile in Czechoslovakia and the US, serving during WWII as a US Army intelligence officer. He settled in East Germany in 1952, where he witnessed the unfolding of the antisemitic Stalinist show trials in Prague and East Berlin, and subsequently became disenchanted with state socialism (but never the communist idea itself). As well as being an internationally renowned writer, Heym was a life-long advocate of social justice and personal freedom and witness of the 20th struggle for these ideals.

People’s Landscapes – Unearthing Passion and Protest
2019-07-06 12:00 - 16:00 | Performance Space
Developed out of their work at local National Trust properties with a connection to Peterloo, artists Grace Surman, Gary Winters and their children will lead a creative family workshop exploring ideas around collective action, democracy and children’s rights. Expect craft-based activities, discussion on what you think matters, personalised portraits and banging a drum.
This commission has been supported using public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England and with additional support from Art Fund.
This event is part of the National Trust’s People’s Landscapes programme, exploring the role our own places have played in social change.
This is a family event, all children to be accompanied by a participating parent/adult.
Part of Trust New Art, the National Trust’s programme of contemporary arts
Learn more about Peterloo and the National Trust
Learn more about People’s Landcapes
Learn more about the two new films are inspired by protest, rights and responsibilities
Drop in sessions: 12pm, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm
The drop-in events begin on the hour and last for approximately 40minutes.
Free – booking recommended

Generation Revolution
2019-07-04 17:30 - 19:30 | Performance Space
As part of this years Peterloo bicentenary, the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre invite you to a screening of Generation Revolution, a feature-length documentary film that brings to screen the powerful story of London’s new generation of black and brown activists who are set on changing the social and political landscape in the capital and beyond.

Peterloo Now: Is Devolution the Way to a Healthier Democracy?
2019-07-02 17:30 - 19:00 | Performance Space
In partnership with the University of Manchester and the Guardian, join our panel chaired by Guardian northern editor Helen Pidd and including Professor Andy Westwood and Lisa Nandy MP, as they discuss the devolution of government and its impact on the future of our democracy.
In 2018, Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham said, “Devolution is not just a series of technical changes to the machinery of government. It has had a profoundly positive effect on the culture of our city-region. It has created a new energy; a sense of possibility; a shaft of light in an otherwise gloomy political sense.”
Is it true that devolution, as Burnham suggests, has invigorated our democracy and led to a more representative and represented Manchester? Or is it a project that is merely papering over the cracks of a deeply divided Britain?
This event is part of a series called Peterloo Now. Other events in this series:

Tuesday 11 June: The roots of protest in 2019
Tuesday 18 June: The gaps in representation
Tuesday 25 June: AI and the fourth industrial revolution

Photo by Tolga AKMEN / AFP)TOLGA AKMEN/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

Peterloo - Te Read, to Hear, to Feel
2019-06-29 14:00 - 15:00 | Performance Space
We will perform dramatic readings from a book called Mules Masters and Mud by local author G.J.Griffiths. Graham captures the Zeitgeist of the times and will read from a chapter covering events on the day of Peterloo. Local folk group Trebuchet will perform traditional and contemporary music and songs, marking key events of the era.
As an exhibition piece we will be displaying mill art with an interpretation . These pieces are interactive and can be handled but are a talking point for before and after the session. This is a table top display.
Free – please drop in

Peterloo 1819-2019 - A Talk by Robert Poole
2019-06-28 14:00 - 15:00 | Performance Space
A timely illustrated lecture on the Peterloo massacre of 1819, with the emphasis on new findings and on connections with the local area.
Robert Poole Professor of History at the University of Central Lancashire, author of the new book Peterloo: the English Uprising, co-author of the graphic novel Peterloo: Witnesses to a Massacre, and consultant historian to the Peterloo 2019 programme.
Free – booking required

Our Sam, The Middleton Man
2019-06-27 17:00 - 19:00 | Performance Space
Our Sam follows the story of a teenager, Samantha (a secret poet), who travels around her home Town of Middleton observing and writing of the exclusion and voicelessness of the other young girls she sees. On her travels she learns of Samuel Bamford, the radical, reformer and writer who was born in Middleton in 1788. While reading Bamford’s books ‘Early Years’ and ‘Passages in the Life of a Radical’ Bamford appears to Samantha and through a series of discussions, we learn about life in Middleton 200 years ago, poverty, hunger and riots brought on by the ‘Corn Laws’ and industrialisation, the fight for representation of the Working Class in Parliament and the Peterloo Massacre. With Sam’s encouragement that ‘there’s strength in Unity lass” Samantha brings together the Towns teenagers to find a way they can represent themselves in a positive way to the adult World but Samantha, like Bamford, finds the road to reform a treacherous one.
The film screening will be followed by a Q&A
Free – booking required

Our Town Hall Project - the transformation
2019-06-27 13:00 - 2019-06-29 17:00
Timescales: next steps
Meet the Team and find out more
We’re now onto the next stage of the renovations, partial restoration and refurbishment of The Town Hall, and are inviting interested parties to see what we’ve got planned. Come and meet some of the project team and find out how we’re going to tackle this fabulous challenge, at our Meet the Team events in Central Library on:

Thursday 27 June, 1pm to 7pm
Friday 28 June, 1pm to 5pm
Saturday 29 June, 10am to 2pm

We’ll be right next to the lifts on the Lower Ground Floor. Drawings and illustrations will be on display to give a good sense of how the building itself will be improved, and how Albert Square will be revitalised at the same time: the work will make sure that the space and its facilities are updated, and fit to continue at the heart of Manchester; as a key focus for events, celebrations and times that we, as a city, feel the need to come together.
Free – please drop by

Peterloo Now: AI and the Fourth Industrial Revolution
2019-06-25 17:30 - 19:00 | Performance Space
Manchester Histories, in partnership with the University of Manchester and the Guardian, our panel, which includes Professor Deborah Howcroft, will be discussing the fourth industrial revolution and asking whether the rise in artificial intelligence will lead to a new wave of social unrest.
In 1819, St Peter’s Field was packed with working class Mancunians who were demanding political representation as a means of addressing the hardships they were facing in the world’s first industrial city. A few decades earlier, the same workers were caught up in Luddite riots, fearful of the role that the march of technology might have on their jobs and livelihoods.
Today, we hear that in the fourth industrial revolution, AI will irreversibly transform the world of work for the 21st century, threatening the jobs of many in the workforce. Indeed, many jobs have already been permanently altered or replaced in favour of advanced technology, and the institutions whose technology is slow to advance, such as the NHS, suffer.
What will happen to the companies that cannot afford to advance their technology? Will their workers be safeguarded against the threat of AI, or is it a ticking clock of inevitability? 200 years after the Peterloo massacre, should we be ready for mass protest as people fight for their right to a decent wage and place of work?
Running time: 90 minutes, no interval.
This event is part of a series called Peterloo Now. Other events in this series:

Tuesday 11 June: The roots of protest in 2019
Tuesday 18 June: The gaps in representation
Tuesday 2 July: Is devolution the way to a healthier democracy?

Image: Robotic farmers in agriculture spray chemical fertiliser. Photograph: Sompong Sriphet/EyeEm/Getty Images/EyeEm

Peterloo in Sound
2019-06-22 15:30 - 18:30 | Performance Space
Sound as Being will present ‘Peterloo in Sound’ a 5.1 sound composition by Mark Pilkington inspired by a historical event that came to be known as ‘The Peterloo Massacre’, that happened in Manchester, England on the 16th August, 1819.
The sound material consists of location recordings captured from student protests held in Manchester 2010 and the rural the setting of Maccelesfield Forest, Cheshire in 2010. Historical transcriptions and archive sound recordings were gathered with the help of Prof. Robert Poole of the University of Central Lancashire, The Peoples History Museum, Manchester, The North West Sound Archive and the British Library. The text transcriptions provided a narrative framework to structure the electroacousitc sounds. The soundscape recordings were sonically transformed using a computer and spatially arranged within a 5.1 loud speaker array.
The spatial aspect of the composition considers the listeners position, reception and inclusion. Realised at NOVARS Research Centre, the University of Manches
Free – booking recommended

Make Music Day 2019
2019-06-21 10:30 - 16:30 | Performance Space
This event celebrates the diverse and inclusive nature of music making in Manchester. Showcasing the musical talent of our visitors to Central Library, and demonstrating the range of musical instruments freely available to our library members, join us throughout the day for impromptu performances.
Free – just drop in

Greenham Women Everywhere: Intimate Testimonies of the Woman Who Lived at Greenham Common Peace Camp 1981 – 2000
2019-06-20 17:30 - 19:00 | Performance Space
Rebecca Mordan, Scary Little Girls Productions and co-cordinator of the Heritage Lottery project interviewing the Women of Greenham Common peace camp, explains the work and shares anecdotes from these extraordinary campaigners. Evening finishes with a Q&A with Rebecca and local Greenham Women who have contributed to the Greenham Women Everywhere project.
A partnership project between Scary Little Girls Association and The Heroine Collective. Funded by Heritage Lottery South West. Supported by The University of The West of England in Bristol, Cornwall Council, Falmouth University, The Women’s Library at The London School of Economics, The East End Women’s Museum, Goldsmiths University of London, The Hypatia Trust, The Feminist Library, the UK Parliament Vote 100 Project and Dreadnought South West.
Images supplied by Sandie Hicks for Exeter Women for Peace
Free – booking recommended

Peterloo Now: The Gaps in Representation
2019-06-18 17:30 - 19:00 | Performance Space
In partnership with the University of Manchester and the Guardian, we will be hosting a panel, including Professor Francesca Gains, as they discuss representation in politics.
On 16 August 1819, the peaceful protestors at St Peter’s Field had gathered to call for parliamentary reform, demanding for their views and concerns to be represented in a Parliament that was run exclusively by corrupt and wealthy men. Though the protests and massacre were a pivotal moment in political history, it was a further century before universal male suffrage was achieved, and limited rights to vote for women.
Today, we are seeing more than ever the effects of a slow-moving mechanism; legislation can take years to pass, and what we are seeing 200 years on from the Peterloo massacre is a web of laws and a House of politicians that no longer represent the people of Britain. There are huge gaps in representation; politics appears to be a game for white middle-aged men in suits from an elite group of institutions, a game inaccessible to anyone from different backgrounds. Those who are, such as Diane Abbott and Jess Phillips, are subjected to violent threats to their lives and safety on a daily basis. Meanwhile, the two main parties are in the middle of separate crises: antisemitism in Labour and Islamophobia among the Conservatives.
How can we ensure that the voices in politics reflect our society? Is there a way for all to feel as though they are represented in our political system?
This event is part of a series called Peterloo Now. Other events in this series:

Tuesday 11 June: The roots of protest in 2019
Tuesday 25 June: AI and the fourth industrial revolution
Tuesday 2 July: Is devolution the way to a healthier democracy?

Photograph: Razvan Chisu/EyeEm/Getty Images/EyeEm

Refugee Week - Welcome to Manchester Libraries!
2019-06-17 10:00 - 14:30
To celebrate Refugee Week, please join us for musical performances and shared traditions with the refugee community here in Manchester. Central Library will be offering free tours and a welcome guide to Manchester Libraries’ free services and resources, which are available to new members of our community.
Tour times: 10-11.30am; 11.45am-12.15pm; 1-2.30pm
Celebration event: 12-3pm
To book a place on one of the tours, email Siobhan on s.oconnor1@manchester.gov.uk or phone 0161 219 2534

1819 to 1981 Exhibition
2019-06-15 09:00 - 17:00 | Performance Space

Tracy K Smith - Hosted by Jackie Kay
2019-06-14 19:00 - 21:00 | Performance Space
“Poetry isn’t an escape or even a luxury. I’d argue it’s a necessity, a means of living more deeply with reality.” Tracy K Smith Manchester Literature Festival are delighted to welcome Tracy K Smith to Manchester for a rare UK event. The Poet Laureate of the United States, Tracy is the author of four poetry collections including Life on Mars, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize, and Wade in the Water, which was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. She is also the author of the memoir, Ordinary Light, which was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Tracy’s work considers the lives of black women through their bodies, their desires, their adventures and their experiences. It looks at the cruelty of humanity through verbatim histories of slavery and the separation of a First Nations boy from his family. It asks questions about life, death, power and race. Vogue magazine described Tracy’s poetry as ‘an awakening itself’, while New York Magazine says she ‘Deftly illuminates America’s generational wounds’.For this special MLF event, Tracy will perform poems from Wade in the Water and her forthcoming book Eternity: Selected Poems, and discuss her extraordinary work with much loved Manchester-based poet and Scottish Makar, Jackie Kay.Doors: 6.30pm, event starts: 7pm
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‘The Violence of Empire Come Home’: Slavery, Colonialism and Peterloo
2019-06-13 17:30 - 18:30 | Performance Space
A public talk from Dr Shirin Hirsch (Manchester Metropolitan University and People’s History Museum) on the colonial context and implications of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, alongside spoken word performances of black voices past and present, responding to the themes of slavery, oppression and protest.

The First Across - Alcock and Brown Centenary
2019-06-13 14:00 - 15:30 | Seminar Suite, Floor Two
Celebrate the centenary of the first transatlantic flight with a special North West Film Archive screening of The First Across, a documentary produced in 1969 by the BBC which reconstructed the flight, and a special selection of film extracts documenting early flight in Greater Manchester.

Peterloo Now: The Roots of Protest in 2019
2019-06-11 17:30 - 19:00 | Performance Space
In partnership with the University of Manchester and The Guardian, we will be hosting a series of discussions to mark the 200th anniversary of the Peterloo massacre. Join our panel of speakers, as they debate whether the root causes of the Peterloo massacre are already playing out in 2019 Britain.
When in 1819 tens of thousands of people gathered to peacefully protest for parliamentary reform, the response from the wealthy yeomanry was violent: 18 people were killed and over 600 injured. The national media worked in the pockets of the government and led to the founding of the Manchester Guardian to report the truth.
Now, we have climate change that needs addressing urgently, and a government failing to deliver or even agree on Brexit. As protests gather with increasing regularity and in swelling numbers, and as government continues to fail to discuss anything other than Brexit are the British people going to act on their feelings of under representation? Could these be the roots of a Peterloo in 2019?
This event is part of a series called Peterloo Now. Other events in this series:

Tuesday 18 June: The gaps in representation
Tuesday 25 June: AI and the fourth industrial revolution
Tuesday 2 July: Is devolution the way to a healthier democracy?

Image: The roots of protest Photograph: Johannes Spahn/EyeEm/Getty Images/EyeEm
