Location : WCML
Start date : 3rd February 2011
End date : 24th March 2011
Robert Tressell, author of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, the world-famous novel about working class life and struggles, died on 3 February 1911. It has been published well over 150 times in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Russia, Germany, Czechoslovakia and Slovakia, Bulgaria, Belgium, Holland, Poland, Hungary, Turkey and Japan, and has sold millions of copies which get passed from hand to hand time and again.
Manchester Trades Union Council has organised an exhibition at the Library to celebrate Tressell's life and work. It include many original documents from The Robert Tressell Family Papers, courtesy of Mr Reg Johnson, who is the curator and the grandson-in-law of the author
Image courtesy of Jeremy Hawthorn
The Robert Tressell Centenary Exhibition is open at the Working Class Movement Library between 1.00pm and 5.00pm, Wednesdays to Fridays, until 24 March.
Dave Harker, author of Tressell: the real story of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, is willing to give guided tours of the exhibition, and to speak to groups of ten or more from union branches, trades councils and other community groups and organisations at WCML, or elsewhere, by arrangement. Contact him at d1harker@btinternet.com
Quotes about Tressell:
Stephen Lowe, Dramatist
"It's a cliché to say that a book 'changes your life', but it's undeniable, by the testimony of men and women throughout the world, that Tressell's The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists has done that for generations, and will do so for generations to come."
Laurence Hunt, Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians
"The fear that the lads experience in the 'Cave' in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is still alive on building sites today."
Jeremy Corbyn MP
"Mugsborough is a brilliant description of deferential abusive and exploitative England and how socialism is the only path to democracy and justice. Robert Tressell, (aka Noonan) set his brilliant work in Hastings and like many seaside towns in recession, the same degrees of exploitation and deference are returning to Britain. I was inspired by this book when I first read it (as a youngster) and I still have the very same copy. I was inspired by it then and I still am. Eric Heffer took me to Noonan's beautifully kept grave in Liverpool. May this book continue to inspire many more generations."
Dennis Skinner MP
"Robert Tressell is responsible for one of the most important books about the working class. He produced a work of art when he wrote "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists". It characterised class divisions at a time of extreme poverty and mass unemployment but its message lives on today in Britain. Manufacturing base shattered - pits, textile mills, steel industry, shipbuilding and the rest almost gone. Now, at a time when trades unions are shackled, the Tory and Libdem coalition are hell-bent on an ideological war on workers. Robert Tressell did not only write a book for the last century - its powerful message resonates today in almost every facet of working class life. Celebrate his life and his work but act upon the book's message and fight back."