Library Live

Northern Publishers' Fair
2022-05-14 11:30 - 16:00 UTC | Performance Space
Drop in, chat about books, buy way too many, and find your new favourite people at our annual Northern Publishers’ Fair, organised by Fly on the Wall Press!
Publishers so far: Bluemoose Books, TTA Press, Stairwell Books, Manchester University Press, UCLAN Publishing, Confingo Publishing, Fly on the Wall Press, Comma Press, Crocus Books (CommonWord), Flapjack Press, Saraband, Carcanet, Harper North
Free – for more info and to register to attend please visit our Eventbrite page

Devolved Vision: Granada TV and the Future of British TV
2022-05-18 16:00 - 17:30 | Performance Space
Granada TV has a very significant place in British television history and still holds a powerful place in the cultural memory of northerners. Once described as the ‘greatest television company in the world’, it was founded by Sidney Bernstein in 1954 and began broadcasting to the North in May 1956, when independent television was born. Granada produced many path-breaking programmes, including Coronation Street, World In Action, Brideshead Revisited, The Jewel In The Crown, Seven Up and Disappearing World.
Today’s television landscape looks very different: the number of TV channels has proliferated, global broadcasters, streaming services and social media compete for audiences and public broadcasters face significant political threats, as do those in the devolved nations. In response, the BBC and Channel 4 have made strategic investments outside London to show that they reflect the whole of the country by creating outposts in Bristol, Salford and Leeds, and at the same time, small, independent programme makers are producing some of the most exciting and innovative TV.
Hannah Barker, Professor of British History at The University of Manchester and Director of the John Rylands Research Institute will introduce the event.
This roundtable discussion, ‘Devolved Vision: Granada TV and the Future of British TV’, asks: Will be ever see another Granada TV? What is the future for British TV?
Dorothy Byrne is President of Murray Edward College, Cambridge. She began her television career at Granada as a producer on World in Action and became Head of News and Current Affairs at Channel 4 in 2003, before moving to a role as Editor-at-Large for the company until recently. She was made a Fellow of The Royal Television Society for her Outstanding Contribution to Television and won the RTS Journalism award for Outstanding Contribution to Television Journalism. She is the author of Trust Me, I’m Not A Politician: A Simple Guide to Saving Democracy, and an alumna of the University of Manchester.
David Olusoga OBE is a historian, writer, broadcaster, presenter and film-maker from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, now based in Bristol. His recent work includes the multi-series A House Through Time, Our NHS: A Hidden History, and the BAFTA award-winning Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners. He is Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester and recently appeared as an expert witness in the trail of the ‘Colston four’.
Liza Williams is the BAFTA award-winning television film-maker responsible for the critically acclaimed BBC series The Yorkshire Ripper Files: A Very British Crime Story. She has an impressive track record as a producer and director of programmes including Catching A Predator (BBC 2) Stacey Dooley Investigates and Panorama. An alumna of the University of Manchester, she still lives and works in the city.
This event marks the return of the Granada TV Archive to Manchester as part of the British Pop Archive at the John Ryland’s Research Institute and Library.
The British Pop Archive is a national collection dedicated to the preservation and research of popular culture. The collection will launch on 19 May 2022 with an exhibition featuring highlights from the collection.
Photo: Historic shot of Granada credit Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, m06286 791.41, Granada Television, Offices, 1960 H. Milligan
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Living Library: Domestic Violence
2022-05-20 12:00 - 17:00
Every year, over two million people in the UK experience domestic abuse. None of them should have to wait until they’re in crisis before we pay attention. We need to see the whole person, the whole family and the whole society if we are to truly see the whole picture.
Alongside Allie Crewe’s powerful exhibition, I Am, SICK! Festival has been working with SafeLives and local organisations to create a Living Library.
Living Library – Domestic Violence gives you an opportunity to meet people who have survived domestic violence, those who campaign against it, people who help survivors to rebuild their lives and others who help perpetrators change their behaviour. Visitors to the Living Library have 15 minutes for frank, open conversation, to listen, ask questions and reflect.
SafeLives is a UK-wide charity dedicated to ending domestic abuse, for everyone and for good. SafeLives work with organisations across the UK to transform the response to domestic abuse.
Free – please drop in

FIND OUT MORE: Allie Crewe – I Am

Confucius Institute Talk: The portrayal of gay characters in Chinese cinema
2022-05-24 18:00 - 19:00 | Performance Space
This talk will introduce the audience to the changing representations of gay characters in films from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The films that will be explored include, but are not limited to, East Palace, West Palace (Zhang Yuan, 1996), Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai, 1997), and The River (Tsai Ming-liang, 1997).
About the speaker:
MaoHui Deng is Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Manchester. His research is interested in the ways in which film about dementia and ageing can further and/or complicate our understanding of time in cinema, gerontology and the wider society. His essay, ‘Singapore as Non-Place: National Cinema through the Lens of Temporal Heterogeneity’, published in Asian Cinema, was awarded the Best Doctoral Student Article by the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies in 2021. His monograph, Ageing, Dementia and Time in Film: Temporal Performances will be published by Edinburgh University Press in January 2023.
Free – booking required

North West Mixtape
2022-05-30 17:00 - 19:00 | Performance Space
Join us for this closing event ‘North West Mixtape’ in which selections of archive audio from the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project are celebrated. We’ve spent the last three years digitising, cataloguing and clearing the rights for over 4000 recordings from archives across the North West region. This event pairs an audio-visual showreel of key recordings preserved during the project with live performances from two local artists. Gary Fisher and Freda Wallace will use and rework archive extracts from Kirkby Local History Society and Women Cotton Mill Workers recordings (respectively) to form new, live pieces of sound art. Gary Fisher is a sound artist and experimental composer whose work explores sound through processes of inquiry and experimentation with objects, actions, words, places, and technologies. Freda Wallace is a multi-disciplinary artist, one strand of which allows her to create industrial soundscapes using sewing machines.
Free – drop in – please consider making a donation if you can either online or at one of our cash or contactless donation boxes in Central Library
https://northwestsoundheritage.org/
You can find out more about the national Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project at the British Library’s website. Unlocking Our Sound Heritage is supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
https://www.bl.uk/projects/unlocking-our-sound-heritage

Word Central
2022-05-31 18:00 - 19:45 | Performance Space
WORD CENTRAL RETURNS TUESDAY 31 MAY 2022
James Hartnell is a poet, newspaper columnist and writer who has been published globally. He is presently editor of Current Accounts, the international magazine of Bank Street Writers, and is a regular contributor to Worktown Words, the writing arm of Live from Worktown, a major community project in Bolton.
James created the Bolton International Writing Project which saw work in twenty-nine languages published and read at various venues in nineteen shows, engaging more than five hundred immigrants from the Bolton community.
His new poetry collection, Songs of Submission, was published by Flapjack Press earlier this year.
Book your open mic slot from noon on Tuesday 17th May via mail@flapjackpress.co.uk
NB Open mic slots are 3 minutes per performer
Performance slots are allocated on a ‘first come first served’ basis from the stated booking day
If they are already filled you will be offered a space on the reserve list

Shadow Girl
2022-06-01 13:30 - 17:00
Shadow Girl is a new adventure story about a girl called Sabrina, who has a vivid imagination. It is a playful and adventurous show about friendship, growing up and discovering what it means to be brave. Sabrina is growing up fast, but her parents haven’t noticed yet. Feeling invisible and alone, Sabrina hastily forms a plan to escape with her newfound companion, Alf. Together they venture out into the world to discover what it means to be brave. Separated from her new friend and thwarted by powerful forces, Sabrina discovers the power of her shadow and steps into the light.
For families and children aged 8 and over
Free – to book a free place call 0161 234 1983

Sunday Funday: A Royal Celebration
2022-06-05 12:00 - 16:00 | Performance Space
Enjoy a free, fun packed afternoon with lots to do for all the family as we come together to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. There wil be Jubilee themed art and craft family workshops with artists Caroline Coates and Simone Frater-Russell throughout the afternoon. Family film screening starting at 1pm, plus popcorn! Free face painting for all with talented artist, Vix.
Free – drop in – please consider making a donation if you can either online or at one of our cash or contactless donation boxes in Central Library

Every Picture Tells a Story
2022-06-06 08:00 - 2022-08-13 17:00 | Archives+ Ground Floor
Heritage Schools (part of Heritage England), Archives+ and artist Lorraine Rudyard, have created an exhibition working with 12 year-5 classes from Manchester schools. The schools have created figures for scenes to go in front of local listed buildings. The children learned about the history of Central Library and then visited the venue to create their scenes.
Free – drop in – please consider making a donation at our cash or contactless donation boxes

Manchester Histories Festival 2022
2022-06-09 08:00 - 2022-06-11 17:00 | Performance Space
Manchester Histories Festival are delighted to be returning to Manchester Central Library. Throughout the festival, the library will play host to a series of events featuring talks from environmental activists and academics, as well as performances from theatre groups and a talk from Manchester Histories Patron, David Adetayo Olusoga OBE. To view all the events at Central Library and to book tickets, please visit the Manchester Histories Festival 2022 website

For those who are to come
2022-06-09 08:00 - 2022-06-16 17:00 | Wolfson Reading Room
For those who are to come presents the diverse faces and colours of Amazonia. The exhibition was first shown at COP26 and is now in Manchester for the first time as part of the festival. Curated by Eduardo Carvalho and Vanessa Gabriel–Robinson the exhibition presents photographs from three influential photographers that show the different Amazonias within a single Amazonia: Marcela Bonfim, from Rondônia State; Bruno Kelly, from Amazonas State; and Nailana Thiely, from Pará State.
Free – please drop in

The Wicked Problem from Ergon Theatre
2022-06-09 19:30 - 21:30 | Performance Space
What would you put first, the planet or your family? Set in the year 2061, the audience act as jury for the trial of an individual who has broken a climate law created by the new authoritarian green government, Ergon. The jury will hear from witnesses across the globe and Greater Manchester before deciding whether the defendant should be punished for what they did, or be allowed to return home.
Free – £3-10 suggested donation

David Adetayo Olusoga OBE
2022-06-10 13:30 - 14:30 | Performance Space
On Sunday 7 June 2020, protestors marching to support the Black Lives Matter movement in Bristol tore down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston and threw it in the city’s harbour. This dramatic action thrust the city onto the global stage and put it at the forefront of an ongoing and bitter culture war. Broadcaster and historian David Olusoga will explore how the commemoration of individuals from our historical past remains a matter of continued and highly contested importance.
Free – booking required

Climate Change is a Race and Migration Issue
2022-06-10 18:00 - 19:00 | Performance Space
This panel presentation and discussion will look at the history of migration, and how environmental refugees have always been there but have been increasing drastically over recent decades. Manchester’s history of activism on migration will be at the fore-front of this event, looking at how this activism may need to further evolve in the future. Panel members will include researcher and writer Alex Randall from the Climate & Migration Coalition; creative producer, artist and filmmaker Kooj Chuhan; musician and activist Emmanuela Yogolelo from DR Congo; visual researcher and activist Rabia Begum; and the antiracist activist Peninah Wangari-Jones who directs the Racial Justice Network.
Free – please make a donation if you can

GHOORNI – a Disastrous Cycle by Ayna Arts
2022-06-10 19:30 - 20:30
A powerful drama performance about a young person piecing together their grandfather’s arrival in the UK from Bangladesh in the ’70s, when due to the colonial legacies of conflict and poverty he left a country with little climate impact to work in a UK industry with high climate impact. This climate impact would be damaging mostly his own home country rather than the country he ended up working for. His grandchild is climate vigilant through their lessons in school, but only through the grandfather’s story do they realise the global system that brought them here is the same as that which is destroying the climate especially for Bangladesh. Performance will be followed by a Q+A session.
Free – please make a donation if you can

Create Your Own Climate Cartoon
2022-06-11 10:00 - 23:30
A short, illustrated behind the scenes talk by professional cartoonist Polyp, revealing what goes into creating one of his climate cartoons, followed by a hands on workshop session helping aspiring artists create their very own climate cartoon!
Free – booking required

Activism Past, Present and Future
2022-06-15 16:00 - 19:00
Are you passionate about issues facing the world today? As part of Festival of Libraries week, we invite you to explore Activism past, present and future, as captured in Manchester’s Archives, and to share your own experiences. An artist will be on hand to help you get creative and add your views to our Wall of Activism!
Free – drop in – please consider making a donation at our cash or contactless donation boxes

Inspired By Libraries with Lemn Sissay
2022-06-16 18:30 - 19:30 | Performance Space
As part of the Festival of Libraries, join poet Lemn Sissay OBE for an exciting talk for young people on how libraries have inspired him in his life. Lemn says: “A library is the loudest place on the high street, because books are bursting with very loud ideas! Yet it is where you can go for peace and quiet; among all that is happening in our world, peace and quiet has great value. Libraries change the world because people who use libraries change the world.”
Ages: young people / all ages welcome
Pay what you can – £2, £6 or £10

Art Assembly: City as Art School Exhibition
2022-06-18 09:00 - 2022-08-03 17:00 | Wolfson Reading Room
Foundation Art and Design Students from The Manchester College have brought the Art School’s ethos of research to the iconic circular reading room with a series of stunning works. Each exhibited board is an insight in to personal research and subject matter, produced in traditional messy art school rooms where students become inspired and have tested the possibilities of ideas, research and practical production.
The exhibition launches on Saturday 18 June as part of a day of Art Assembly actvities and events taking place across 19 Manchester venues, and runs till Wed 27 July. Art Assembly is a one-day festival of art, brought to you by Art Fund with some of Manchester’s leading arts organisations including Castlefield Gallery, HOME, Manchester Art Gallery, The Whitworth and The Manchester College. The theme of this year’s festival is ‘City as Art School’. With new work by Greater Manchester artists popping up around the city, everywhere will become a spot for creative learning.
Visit the Art Assembly website to find out more and download a map for the day.
Free – drop in – please consider making a donation at our cash or contactless donation boxes

Trailblazers! Women of Manchester and the North West
2022-06-18 13:00 - 16:00 | Performance Space
This Festival of Libraries event celebrates pioneering women throughout Manchester’s history. Come and join us for family-friendly activities, including badge-making, memorial walks, and an archive-handling workshop. There will be short talks on influential women, including Louise Da-Cocodia and Ellen Wilkinson. Kate Green MP will give the Margaret Ashton Memorial Lecture on ‘Women and Politics’, and there will be a performance by the feminist band LittleSheGirls.
Free – booking required

Sunday Funday – See Myself in Books
2022-06-19 12:00 - 16:00 | Performance Space
Join in a range of family-friendly activities celebrating the joy of books and stories celebrating diversity. Relax in the story tent with our storyteller sharing stories with characters and authors/illustrators of colour. Listen to music from a range of cultures and spend some time getting creative with a selection of craft activities for families.
Free – drop in – please consider making a donation if you can either online or at one of our cash or contactless donation boxes in Central Library

The Darker Side of Pink
2022-06-20 08:00 - 2022-07-17 17:00
A Breast Cancer Awareness Exhibition Tour
Patient advocacy group METUPUK, is hosting a pop-up exhibition throughout the venue to highlight the need to improve care and research around secondary (metastatic) breast cancer. The exhibition aims to highlight the seriousness of Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) the biggest killer of women under the age of 50 here in the UK – via a powerful display that counteracts other ‘fluffier’, baby pink-branded campaigns. The campaign ‘The Darker Side of Pink’ is a physical interactive mobile and online experience. The Darker Side of Pink features 31 transparent figures, to depict the invisibility of the disease – one for each woman who dies every day from Metastatic Breast Cancer. Each figure contains a QR code that plays a video from a real-life woman living with secondary breast cancer, explaining the struggles and issues they face. Filmed only last year, some of these brave women unfortunately have died from the disease, becoming a statistic they spoke about whilst also campaigning for change, to benefit others. Many of these videos are incredibly emotional, as befits the seriousness of the topic.
METUPUK is a self-funded charity and the only patient advocacy group in the UK focussing on secondary (metastatic) breast cancer. Founder Jo Taylor created the group in 2016 to campaign and promote the issues affecting those diagnosed, highlighting the red flag signs and symptoms, access to drugs, treatments, and clinical trials. The volunteer-led organisation works to push and promote issues affecting those with a particular focus on tackling the backlog of care for patients as well as awareness of this invisible disease.
FACT: 31 women die every single day of Metastatic Breast Cancer.
Free – please drop in

Armed Forces Day
2022-06-25 11:00 - 16:00
Join the Archives+ team as we honour the outstanding contribution of the nation’s armed forces at a special celebration for all the family. Pop along to our stall just outside Central Library
Free – drop in – please consider making a donation if you can either online or at one of our cash or contactless donation boxes in Central Library

Crime Central with Russ Thomas, Lesley Kara and Stephanie Sowden!
2022-06-30 18:00 - 19:30 | Performance Space
Joining Rob Parker this month is Lesley Kara, Sunday Times Top Ten author of ‘The Rumour’, Stephanie Sowden, Manchester based debut author of ‘After Everything You Did’ and Russ Thomas, Sunday Times bestselling author of the DS Adam Tyler series.
Lesley Kara’s debut ‘The Rumour’ was a Sunday Times bestseller and has been published in 18 countries and optioned for TV. ‘The Rumour’ was the highest selling crime fiction debut of 2019 in the UK and a Kindle No. 1 bestseller. Her second novel, ‘Who Did You Tell?’ was also a Sunday Times bestseller. Her third novel, ‘The Dare’ is out now and her fourth, ‘The Apartment Upstairs’ will be published in June 2022.Lesley worked for many years as a lecturer and manager in a large college of further education in London. She now lives in Suffolk and writes full-time.
A real page turner. An engrossing and suspenseful tale with absorbing characters and plenty of shocking twists. Susan Lewis.
Stephanie Sowden grew up in Manchester. While studying History and Politics at Durham University, she focused her degree on America in the 20th Century and has always found it an irresistible setting when writing. A fascination with the psychology behind crime and why people do bad things is also a driving nature in her work and her debut novel, After Everything You Did, was published by Canelo in 2022, exploring the question of whether killers are born or made.
An Incredible debut. Mel Sherratt.
Russ Thomas was born in Essex and now lives in Sheffield. After a few ‘proper’ jobs (among them: pot-washer, optician’s receptionist and supermarket warehouse operative) he discovered the joys of bookselling, where he could talk to people about books all day. His highly-acclaimed debut novel, Firewatching, was the first in the DS Adam Tyler series. His brilliant third DS Adam Tyler novel, Cold Reckoning was published last month.
A rollercoaster ride of a thriller . . . will keep you hanging on by your fingertips until the tense final moments. Peter Robinson.
PLEASE NOTE: Tickets for this event are on a “pay what you can” basis. They range from £2 – £8 plus the Eventbrite booking fee.
All tickets allow the same access to the event. This is a just a pricing system to accommodate for individual financial circumstances.

'Musick' in Manchester 1744/45
2022-07-11 13:00 - 14:00 | Henry Watson Music Library
Musick in Manchester 1744/45 recreates the first ever public concert series known to have been given in Manchester, prefiguring the remarkable musical tradition that accompanied Manchester’s development into one of Europe’s leading industrial cities. Remarkable, and until now underrepresented, the series includes sixteen concert programmes, which survive in a literary transcript by John Harland written a century later in 1844. Through research by Dr Pauline Nobes, many works can be identified directly, but we also utilise Manchester’s archives, most notably the extraordinary collection of Cardinal Ottoboni, housed at Manchester’s Henry Watson Library, bringing to light a significant amount of neglected music. Join us for the third concert in our series, which recreates the original concert first performed on 9th July 1745.
Pauline Nobes, is recognised as one of Europe’s foremost Baroque vioiniists and specialists in historical performance practice. For many years she worked with period instrument ensembles such as The English Baroque Soloists, The English Concert and Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique playing in the most prestigious concert halls and festivals throughout Europe, the USA and Japan participating in over 100 CD productions. For many years Pauline was concertmaster for The Academy of Ancient Music, Das Neue Orchester and Musica Antiqua Köln. Now guest leading in European Opera theaters, she also continues her commitment to teaching, at home and abroad and is Artistic Director and leader for Manchester Baroque.
Free – drop in – please consider making a donation if you can either online or at one of our cash or contactless donation boxes in Central Library

Documenting Demolition: A Community Evidencing Project of Manchester’s LGBT+ Centre
2022-07-12 09:00 - 2022-09-12 17:00 | Wolfson Reading Room
The LGBT+ Centre (previously known as The Gay Centre) is located on Sidney Street, off Oxford Road and is the longest continuously running LGBT+ Community Centre in the UK. ‘Documenting Demolition’ is a photographic exhibition of the Centre’s final months before the groups moved out and the building was demolished to make way for a brand new LGBT+ Centre, now known as The Proud Place. The photos record the various user groups, staff and volunteers, as well as some of the building’s quirky details. These will be displayed alongside some original ‘love letters’ written to the old Centre from its ‘lovers’.
The project is part of a longer-term design and research project into Manchester’s LGBT+ Centre building undertaken by Emily Crompton, an architect and academic at Manchester School of Architecture. The project was created in partnership with The Proud Trust, the charity which manage the Centre, and architectural photographer Sally-Ann Norman.
Free – drop in – please consider making a donation if you can either online or at one of our cash or contactless donation boxes in Central Library

Word Central - Now We Are Six! Birthday Special!
2022-07-26 18:00 - 19:45 | Performance Space
Word Central Open Mic Night
Hosted by Tony Curry
Presented by Manchester Libraries & Flapjack Press

Join us at Manchester Central Library on Tues 26th July for our Now We Are Six Birthday Special
6.00pm – 7.45pm (doors open 5.30pm)
Free entry

Book your open mic slot from noon on Tues 12th July via mail@flapjackpress.co.uk
NB Open mic slots are 3 minutes per performer
Performance slots are allocated on a ‘first come first served’ basis from the stated booking day
If they are already filled you will be offered a space on the reserve list

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan - Workshop and Book Launch
2022-07-27 14:00 - 19:30 | Performance Space
Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan is a writer, poet, educator and activist, disrupting ideas of history, race, knowledge and violence, co-author of A Fly Girl’s Guide to University (Verve Poetry Press, 2019) and author of Postcolonial Banter (Verve Poetry Press, 2019). In the afternoon from 2pm she will be leading a workshop for young people aged 16+ centred around her new book Tangled In Terror, Uprooting Islamophobia (Pluto Press, 2022); the workshop will explore concepts such as identity and belonging.
The workshop will be followed in the evening from 6pm by a reading and book launch of Tangled In Terror with Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, chaired by Dr Nisha Kapoor, Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Warwick and author of Deport, Deprive, Extradite – 21st Century State Extremism, and ending with a Q&A session with Suhaiymah.
Both events are free and can be booked through Eventbrite:
Workshop (starts at 2pm): https://SuhaiymahWorkshop.eventbrite.co.uk
Reading and book launch (starts at 6pm): https://SuhaiymahBooklaunch.eventbrite.co.uk

Holiday Activities for 11-16 years
2022-08-01 08:00 - 2022-08-24 17:00
Join us at Central Library for free summer holidays activities for 11-16 year olds at Manchester Central Library – including a free lunch!
1/8/22 – Media Cubs pop-up TV studio and newsroom, 12-4pm
4/8/22 – Media Cubs pop-up TV studio and newsroom, 12-4pm
8/8/22 – Media Cubs pop-up TV studio and newsroom, 12-4pm
11/8/22 – Media Cubs pop-up TV studio and newsroom, 12-4pm
18/8/22 – Create 3D Figures with artist Lorraine Rudyard, 12-4pm
19/8/22 – Jewellery making and graffiti writing with artist Caroline Coates, 12-4pm
22/8/22 – Stencils and screen printing with artist Caroline Coates, 12-4pm
24/8/22 – 3D Figures with artist Lorraine Rudyard, 12-4pm
To book your free place phone 0161 234 1983

Who Built Wythenshawe? The Forgotten Story of Ernest & Shena Simon
2022-08-08 08:00 - 2022-09-03 17:00 | Ground Floor
This exhibition traces the story of Wythenshawe during the twentieth century. From a humble collection of small villages, Wythenshawe was developed as a garden city to re-house the tens of thousands of families previously forced to live in Manchester’s inner-city slums in well-built and spacious neighbourhoods amidst green surroundings. Alongside illustrating Wythenshawe’s history, the exhibition tells the captivating lives of Ernest and Shena Simon who played a critical role in Wythenshawe’s development. The Wythenshawe we see today would not have existed without the great energy and inspiring altruism of the Simons. They paved the way for the creation of Wythenshawe in 1926 by purchasing and donating Wythenshawe Hall and its surrounding parkland for the people of Manchester. Yet their role in pushing for a garden city, their wider work in improving the social conditions of working people across Manchester and their fascinating personal lives, are largely forgotten. There is little in the way of memorials to the Simons, but their legacy runs deep, as we hope this exhibition will reveal. Drawing on historical research, documentary photographs, old maps and original records from the archives, this exhibition illustrates many notable moments in the history of Wythenshawe as Manchester’s garden city.
Exhibition Launch. Henry Watson Music Library. Monday 15th August 11am.
Free – drop in – please consider making a donation if you can either online or at one of our cash or contactless donation boxes in Central Library
