MemoryWorkshop - Handout (5578) - CMA

Manchester’s Hidden Histories
Below are some ideas for getting inspiration to write your hidden histories!
Places to visit either in-person or online
The University of Manchester Special Collections
The University of Manchester Special Collections has lots of materials on Manchester’s

hidden histories. You can learn more on their Made in Manchester website here:
https://medium.com/special-collections/made-in-manchester/home. You might also look at
the Manchester Digital Collections here: https://www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/
Manchester Central Library
The Central Library in St. Peter’s Square is a great place to learn about Manchester’s hidden
histories. The library has a large collection of books as well as the region’s leading repository
for archives and family history, Archives+. You can visit the library in-person or online to
explore old newspapers, documents, and photographs:
https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/448/archives_and_local_history.
The Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre
Located in Manchester Central Library, the RACE Centre is a historical archive and library
special collections containing material documenting the history of global majority, migrant
and refugee communities particularly within Greater Manchester and North West England.
You can explore the collections and listen to some of the sound archive here:
https://www.racearchive.org.uk/collections/. The AIU RACE Centre also has lots of oral
histories conducted with people from Manchester which you can learn more about here:
https://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/aiu-race-centre/collections/oral-histories/
The Dr Louis Sterling Reading Room, Louise Da-Cocodia Trust, Manchester
Established in memory of sociologist Dr Louis Sterling, the Reading Room is located in the
Wesley Centre in Hulme and contains over two thousand volumes on a wide variety of topics
across the social sciences and humanities with a particular focus on the lived experience of
people of African and Caribbean heritage. In addition, select primary source material is
available including the Women of the Soil oral history project which examines the life and
work of Black women in Manchester. Open by appointment on Tuesday/Thursday
afternoons by contacting the Louise Da-Cocodia Trust at: [email protected]
The Working Class Movement Library, Salford
The Working Class Movement Library has books and archival collections related to the
histories of working people’s struggles in Manchester. You can explore their collections here:
https://www.wcml.org.uk/our-collections/introduction/.
The People’s History Museum
Another key heritage institution in Manchester is the People’s History Museum – the national
museum of democracy dedicated to telling the story of the development democracy in
Britain: past, present and future. Website: https://phm.org.uk/visit/
A few books and websites you might like
There are lots of good books and websites you might look at to learn more about
Manchester’s hidden histories. Below are just a few recommendations…
For general histories of Manchester, see:
Alan J. Kidd, Manchester: A History. 4th ed. Lancaster: Carnegie Publishing, 2006 -
@Manchester Central Library.
Alan J. Kidd, and Terry Wyke. Manchester: Making the Modern City. Liverpool: University
Press, 2016 - @Manchester Central Library.
If you are interested in migration histories, see:
‘Coming to Manchester: Stories of South Asian Migration to Manchester,’ Ahmed Iqbal Ullah
RACE Centre Blog, https://www.racearchive.org.uk/coming-to-manchester-stories-of-south-
asian-migration-to-manchester/
Busteed, M. A. The Irish in Manchester c.1750-1921: Resistance, Adaptation and Identity.

(Manchester: University Press, 2016) - @Manchester Central Library
Virinder Kalra, “Writing British Asian Manchester: vernacular cosmopolitanism on the ‘Curry
Mile’,” in ed. Sean McLoughlin, William Gould, Ananya Jahanara Kabir, Emma Tomalin
Writing the City in British Asian Diasporas (Routledge 2018), chapter 4 - @AIU RACE
Centre
SuAndi, Afro Solo UK: 39 Life Stories of African life in Greater Manchester 1920-1960,
edited by SuAndi (artBlacklive, 2014), Available online:
https://issuu.com/afrosolouk/docs/afro_solo_uk_by_suandi.
If you are interested in histories of resistance and activism, see:
Michael Herbert, Never Counted Out!: The story of Len Johnson, Manchester’s Black
boxing hero and communist (Manchester: Dropped Aitches Press, 1992) – @Manchester
Central Library
Shirin Hirsch and Geoff Brown, ‘Breaking the ‘colour bar’: Len Johnson, Manchester and
anti-racism,’ Race & Class 64:3 (Dec., 2022). Available online:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/03063968221139993
Anandi Ramamurthy, Black Star: Britain's Asian Youth Movements (Pluto 2013) - @AIU
RACE Centre
SuAndi, Strength of our Mothers (Manchester: Black Arts Alliance, 2019) - @AIU RACE
Centre
Diane Watt and Adele Jones, Catching hell and doing well: black women in the UK – the
Abasindi Cooperative (Stoke on Trent, Trentham Books, 2015) - @AIU RACE Centre

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Manchester’s Hidden Histories

Places to visit either in-person or online

The University of Manchester Special Collections

The University of Manchester Special Collections has lots of materials on Manchester’s

Manchester Central Library

The Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre

The Dr Louis Sterling Reading Room, Louise Da-Cocodia Trust, Manchester

The Working Class Movement Library, Salford

The People’s History Museum

For general histories of Manchester, see:

If you are interested in migration histories, see:

Busteed, M. A. The Irish in Manchester c.1750-1921: Resistance, Adaptation and Identity.

If you are interested in histories of resistance and activism, see:

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