Volunteer Trip to the Working Class Movement Library
Posted
11th December 2024
in blog, blogsNnews, Volunteering
We recently enjoyed a fascinating and very informative tour of the Working Class Movement Library in Salford. The trip was organised by Elaine, who volunteers at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House as well as at the Working Class Movement Library.
The Library is inside in Jubilee House, which is opposite Salford Museum and Art Gallery. It was built to mark Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Designed by architect Henry Lord, and financed by Salford Council who raised the required £10,000 by public subscription, it opened in 1901 as a home for community nurses. Salford was one of the few cities to run such a service before the advent of the NHS, and the fifteen bedrooms, dining room, laundry and accommodation for matron and servants were designed to provide comfort to offset the effects of ‘contact with much that is mean and sordid‘ in the words of a contemporary account.
Since the 1980s it has housed the collection of working class movement materials, books, archives and ephemera amassed by Ruth and Eddie Frow, whose house in King’s Road, Old Trafford swiftly became too small to accommodate it. Eddie died in 1997, Ruth in 2008, and the Library is now run by a board of trustees, alongside library manager Belinda and a team of volunteers of which Elaine is one.
She gave us a fascinating tour of some of the highlights of this amazing collection – the history of Ireland, the Spanish Civil War, oral histories and video cassettes, badges, the miners’ strike, Thomas Paine, the Frows’ archive materials to name but a few.
Oh and some eagle-eyed volunteers spotted items by Elizabeth Gaskell of course!
It was a grand morning out. Thank you to Elaine from all of us!
Blog by Lizzie Gent, Volunteer at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House
