Location : Old Fire Station, University of Salford
Start date : 1st May 2010
End date : 1st May 2010
In memory of the Library's founders Edmund and Ruth Frow the Inaugural Frow Memorial Lecture will take place on Saturday 1 May at 2pm: Till the Struggle is O'er: The Poetry of Chartism by Dr Mike Sanders, with Chartist poems read by Maxine Peake and a selection of Chartist songs sung by Corista.
Thanks to the Unversity of Salford the lecture will take place at the Conference Room, Old Fire Station, Crescent, Salford, a couple of hundred yards from the Library.
Between 1837 and 1852, the leading Chartist newspaper The Northern Star published over 1,000 poems by more than 350 poets, most of whom were ordinary working class people. The sheer volume of verse produced by individual Chartists demonstrates the importance of poetry to the movement.. Published in newspapers, recited at meetings and even sung in prison, poetry was everywhere in the Chartist movement. Our speaker will talk about the importance of Chartist poetry as an outlet for working class creativity, and as a vital part of Chartism's struggle for fundamental democratic rights.
Dr Mike Sanders is Senior Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of Manchester, and the author of The Poetry of Chartism: Politics, Aesthetics, History (Cambridge University Press, 2009).
The event is free; everyone is welcome; light refreshments will be available after the lecture.