Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery holds hand-painted banners from the first political union in Britain founded in the 1820s, a plaque made from plaster scraped from the walls of Wormwood Scrubs by a First World War conscientious objector and over 100 badges collected by a local supporter of the miners’ strikes to name a few items, and this exhibition is presenting this hidden collection to the public in many cases for the first time.
Local History
Performative walking round the radical pubs and coffee houses of London
Stuart Butler writes on performative walking along the Thames, tracing the life of Thomas Spence, a leading revolutionary in 18th century England, advocating for the complete common ownership of land.
Researching race in contemporary Britain
Kieran Connell takes us through his personal journey on what brought him to researching Handsworth, an inner city locality in Birmingham, and what it might tell us about multiculturalism in modern Britain.
Remembering 1968: The Hackney Centerprise Co-operative
An oral history of the Centreprise co-operative has captured the feelings, emotions, experiences and dilemmas of the people who created this social experiment
‘Up the Dale – history is made, not bought’: making history from below in the industrial revolution
In 2017, three centuries of iron-making came to an end in Coalbrookdale, the birthplace of the industrial revolution. Now iron workers are writing their own history as the legacy of the foundry hangs in the balance.
The 1943 Bethnal Green Shelter Disaster: 75 Years of Forgetting and Remembering
In March 1943, 173 people were crushed to death as they took shelter in Bethnal Green’s underground station. Toby Butler led a project remembering the disaster.
The Maltreated and the Malcontents: Working in the Great Western Cotton Factory, 1838-1914
Direct militancy of women as well as male factory workers over several decades at Bristol’s Great Western Cotton Works.