Stockport, Greater Manchester: Hat Works

How could I not visit the “UK’s only museum dedicated to the hatting industry, hats, and headwear”?! So after leaving Manchester, we headed straight for Stockport to see Hat Works (passing a McVitie’s factory en route, though I sadly couldn’t find evidence of a factory shop. I was hoping to obtain a sack of defective caramel digestives that had been rejected due to having too much caramel or something). Apparently there is parking right around the corner from Hat Works, which we noticed belatedly after parking in a garage halfway across town. But no harm done, we needed the exercise anyway (including the hike up a giant set of steps, because Stockport is hilly) after eating grilled cheese for breakfast for the second day in a row.

  

I’m a bit confused as to what Hat Works’ official admission policy is, because the website states that admission is £5, but the woman at the desk didn’t charge us anything. They do offer guided tours, so perhaps the admission fee only applies to those? Anyway, I’d just assume you have to pay the fiver, and then you’ll be pleasantly surprised like we were if you don’t. We had to drive back to London before rush hour, so we did not have time for a 90 minute tour, and opted to just wander by ourselves instead. The museum is spread out over two levels (both located below the floor that you enter on), and is much bigger than I was expecting based on some of the reviews.

  

The exhibition level is where all the hats are, and it was a delightful array of headgear indeed (though seriously, why would a clown have a hat with a skeleton inside? Clowns are creeps). The lighting was pretty dim for conservation reasons, but as promised, our eyes did eventually adjust, so it was easier to see all the splendid hats, which even included some worn by celebrities (if you consider Fred Dibnah and Ainsley Harriott celebrities, that is (in fairness, they did have one of Judi Dench’s hats too, I’m just not a big Judi Dench fan.)). I quite liked the ones shaped like things, like cauliflowers and cakes, though I’m not sure how they’d look on.

  

Happily, I did get to see how I would look in a variety of other hats, because they had an amazing hat dress-up corner. I confess that a large factor in my deciding to visit the museum was my love for trying on hats, since I figured they’d have to have at least a couple out for that purpose. It was way more than a couple – there was a whole shelved wall full of hats, probably thirty different ones! I’m sure they were intended for children, but we were the only people visiting the museum, and frankly, some of the hats were on shelves that a child would have struggled to reach (even I struggled with the topmost ones), so I think they really wanted me to be able to take full advantage. Best hat corner ever!

  

I also really enjoyed the displays curated by various staff members at their partner museums, and I loved the one guest curator’s idea of having a “hats and cats” museum instead (the sample stuffed cat wearing a hat was pretty great, though I strongly suspect real cats would be not so enthused about hats). All the vintage hat ads were cool too, and may have inspired me to start wearing the cloche I acquired a few years back, but have never worn out of the house because I fear unruly youths will mock me and snatch it off my head.

  

The floor underneath the hatstravaganza contained old hat factory machinery (the building is housed in an old factory, though I wasn’t real clear on whether it was actually a hat factory. I think it may have just been a cotton mill). This is where the guided tour would have paid off, because tour groups are allowed access into a couple special areas that we weren’t, and got way more information about the machinery than what was provided on the signs (judging by the group that was going through while we were there), but to be honest, my interest in hat manufacturing is nowhere near as great as my interest in looking at and trying on unusual hats, so I was content with just reading the signage.

  

There was also a mock-up of an old hatter’s cottage, which was pretty depressing, and perhaps authentically cold, as well as some information about the history of hat makers (not enough info about them going mad from mercury poisoning, but there was a bit). Basically, like everyone else who was working class in Victorian Britain, they had grim lives, with the added benefit of potential insanity, and male hatters were incredibly resentful of female hatters because they drove wages down. By this point it was already cutting it close for us getting back home at a reasonable hour, so I didn’t spend as much time in here as I probably should have, but the hat exhibition floor was definitely my preferred floor anyway, and I had ample time to look at that.

  

The gift shop sells, as you might expect, a variety of hats for men and women, though I declined to purchase one on this occasion, since I already own that cloche that I’m not wearing. I did get a postcard of what was allegedly the Duke of Wellington’s hat from Waterloo (the big feathery thing) which is also on display inside the museum (see below). I was pleasantly surprised that the museum was so much larger and hattier than I was expecting, and even if I had to pay £5, I would have been quite content with what I got to see in return, because it really was an excellent hat museum (as well it might be, if it’s the only one in Britain). 4/5 for the Hat Works, and it’s not the only museum in Stockport – I might have to go back some day to tour the old air raid shelter (and investigate the biscuit factory further – I want those defective extra caramelly digestives that may or may not exist)!

  

Manchester: John Rylands Library + General Manchesteriness

I want you to think those are the creepy kind of adult twins who still dress identically, but really it’s one woman accidentally transformed through the  “magic” of Photoshop.

The John Rylands Library was recommended to me on the strength of its historic toilets, which is a pretty good way to get my attention. It is an excellent-looking building (and I don’t have a decent looking picture of the front of it both because of how it is situated on the street, and because it was sleeting and incredibly windy, so we did hurry inside), so interesting toilets were just the icing on the cake. The library is free to visit (and to join, though it’s a reference library, so you have to do all your reading there), and is so much more chill than your typical archives or reference library. We merrily wandered in with our bags, and no one approached us at any time to yell at us for touching things or just breathing the wrong way (which is what it sometimes seems happens at the National Archives).

  

The interior of the old building is very Gothic, as you can probably see (it also has a modern extension, which is where you enter). It was founded by the uniquely named Enriqueta Rylands, widow of John, in her husband’s memory (she was 42 years younger than him, so spent quite a long time in widowhood). It was designed in 1889, and construction was finished in 1900. It is now part of the University of Manchester, serving as its official library, and even though I actually think the Maughan Library at KCL was the best damn part of that school (which isn’t saying much, because I hated it there, but the library is admittedly awesome), I think John Rylands may well have it beat (because of the historic toilets, though that said, the Wetherspoons across the street from Maughan Library has fantastic toilets too).

 

John Rylands has a couple of exhibition spaces, and one of them was hosting an exhibition on the Reformation which I have to admit I didn’t find terribly interesting, so I didn’t spend much time there. The other exhibition showcasing some of the highlights of the collection was much cooler, especially the medical stuff, including a pair of forceps invented by a Manchester physician (the Chamberlen family of London are credited with inventing the first forceps, but like jerks, they kept the invention to themselves, causing thousands of women to needlessly die until their secret was revealed. So other physicians had to independently come up with the concept of forceps, made to their own different designs), and some drawings he made of a deformed pelvis (the mother eventually died in childbirth as a result, though not until after her seventh baby). They also have the world’s oldest surviving fragment of the New Testament, dating to the 2nd or 3rd century (CE, obviously), for which fragment is an apt term, but it’s still cool to see something that old.

  

The historic reading room was also pretty rad. There were people actually using the space to work in, but there were also a bunch of signs down the middle of the room talking about the history of the building, and an opportunity to put on a silly hat and take photos. My favourite thing was the automaton outside the reading room of Enriqueta Rylands taking tea with a dragon.

  

And I’m not gonna lie, the historic toilets were pretty great too (they also have modern ones, for people who don’t like to pee in historic surroundings). They have these giant wooden seats, and the old fashioned pull chains, which I just love. I always feel like I’m really accomplishing something when I yank down one of those chains. They were a bit draughty, but that was part of the charm.  The library gets an enthusiastic 4/5 from me, not least because of the loos.

Because there isn’t a lot else to say about the library, this gives me a chance to talk about some of the other, non-museum stuff we did in Manchester (and also gives me an excuse to show you what I think is a rather hilarious photo collage of me eating a brownie sundae at Ginger’s Comfort Emporium). Manchester is fairly well known for its Christmas markets, which are scattered throughout the city, and I do enjoy a Christmas market when I’m in the right sort of mood, so I was keen to check them out.

  

The main, central market was only a couple of blocks from our hotel, so we ended up stopping by three or four times (creepy Santa made it even better). The first time was around 10 am on a Monday, right when the market opened for the day, which was great because there were no crowds at all. I decided a giant stroopwafel and a grilled cheese would be a perfectly acceptable breakfast, and enjoyed the grilled cheese so much that I came back for another the next morning before we left.

  

I also couldn’t resist trying a hot Vimto, which seems to be a local (or at least a Northern) specialty, along with something called “Hot Blobs,” which I wasn’t brave enough to sample (it’s apparently hot white wine with sugar and lemon). The hot Vimto was surprisingly tasty though, kind of like hot Slushpuppie syrup, and I did not reclaim the deposit on my souvenir mug, because that Santa-adorned beauty was going straight home with me.  Avoid the “hot” cinnamon rolls though: when we bought them they were freezing cold, and at least a day or two old. I still ate them, because cinnamon rolls, but I wouldn’t have wasted money on them if I’d known.

  

Manchester is also where Alan Turing lived and worked after the war, and was sadly where he was arrested in 1952 for “gross indecency” (which was simply having consensual sex with another man, because homosexuality was still illegal at the time). This set in motion the chain of events that would lead to him committing suicide just two years later. He has since been formally pardoned (fat lot of good that does him now), and Manchester has tried to make amends by commemorating Turing on a number of buildings, and with this excellent statue on a bench in Sackville Gardens, right in Manchester’s gay village. A passing lady was nice enough to take a picture for us, and we also grabbed a picture of this nearby mural, which features an…interesting interpretation of Turing.

  

The last thing I need to tell you about is this “memorial to Vimto” which is very probably my favourite thing in Manchester. Vimto doesn’t seem to be big in Southern England, but I’d actually been drinking it before I moved here because it is apparently very popular in the Middle East, and I used to buy it from the hummus stall in the West Side Market (yes, they have a hummus stall AND a falafel stall. Is it any wonder I love that place?). Despite hating blackcurrant, I actually quite like a Vimto on occasion (though it will never replace orange or cherry soda in my affections) – I reckon the raspberry helps to hide the ickiness of the blackcurrant – so I was pretty excited to see this statue, and it doesn’t disappoint. Just look at all those giant fruits! The other statue is of a constipated-looking Archimedes who we found right near Vimto for no apparent reason.  Manchester is a pretty rad city, and I’d definitely like to go back someday, though preferably during less awful weather (if that’s ever actually the case…I kind of suspect the weather is awful year-round, but I’d go back anyway).

 

Manchester: The People’s History Museum

Manchester wasn’t only at the forefront of the movement for women’s suffrage; it was also a hotbed for labour movements due to its position as “Cottonopolis,” home to the milling industry, and thus one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution, along with all the abuses of workers’ rights that went along with it. Manchester still seems like a pretty progressive place (a bee is the symbol of the city because it represents industriousness and working towards the collective good,) and it is home to the People’s History Museum, which is about “Britain’s struggle for democracy over two centuries.”

  

The museum is located inside a former pump house that was fully restored in 2010, complete with a modern four story addition that looks out over the river Irwell. The permanent galleries are located on the first and second floors, and there’s a gallery for temporary displays on the ground floor. Even though it was only a ten minute walk away from our hotel, by the time we reached the museum, I was so grateful to get out of the sleet and wind (flagpoles were actually bending) that I probably would have paid whatever they were asking, but happily, admission is free, though donations are encouraged.

  

We began our journey through the museum by punching into an old-fashioned time clock, just like mill workers would have done (and me, for most of my working life, having only had salaried jobs in the past year or so), and entered the gallery on people’s history from the late 1700s until 1945. The opening section was all about the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, where 15 people were killed and hundreds injured when cavalry charged the crowd during a protest for voting reform. It then segued into famous Georgian supporters of reform, like Thomas Paine (they had his desk, and a lock of his hair!) and John Wilkes, who was apparently notoriously ugly (he was cross-eyed in the portrait they had of him).

  

There were actually a fair few interactive elements, like doors and bundles you could open that sometimes produced sound effects, and some opportunities for dressing-up (as you’ll see), which I was grateful for, because I have to admit that I have never been the biggest fan of labour history. I mean, sure, I appreciate the fact that people fought and died for the rights we enjoy today, but whenever I had to study it in school, it just seemed like an endless list of names, dates, and worst of all, obscure acronyms, which is exactly the kind of history I hate. As a former punk, I actually feel kind of guilty about this, but I’m primarily interested in how people lived (and died! Especially how they died, if I’m being honest), and I don’t want to just memorise lists or numbers (for someone with two history degrees, I’m actually pretty bad with dates). So I was glad the museum tried to dress up labour history a bit, but there were still sure a lot of names and dates and strikes that I’d never heard of.

  

But it wasn’t all labour history at the museum, fortunately. There was also information about political and social movements (though I’m admittedly not overly interested in those either), like the suffragettes; the socialist movement, the communist movement, and the effect WWI had on society. There was also a small section on British fascism, and I was struck by how stupid their leader, Oswald Mosley looked. The guy wore black turtlenecks and waist belts, like he was trying to look like he came from the future or something. Even without the appalling beliefs, how could anyone follow an idiot like that?  Now I really see what P.G. Wodehouse was getting at with Roderick Spode and his “Black Shorts”.

  

And there were some fantastic posters and political cartoons in here (and even more cartoons in the temporary display, as you’ll see later).  I don’t think Churchill would have particularly agreed with being “comrades in arms” with Stalin though…

  

I especially enjoyed the section relating to the formation of the Labour Party, mainly because it contained this amusing cartoon of a young flapper being wooed by the hip Ramsay MacDonald (with his superb moustache) who was apparently down with the kids, while David Lloyd George and Stanley Baldwin lurk awkwardly in the background, looking like old fuddy-duddies (or the Monopoly man). There was also, rather randomly, Clement Attlee’s pipe on its own special wall, which I thought was kind of hilarious.

  

The gallery upstairs covered the years from 1945-the present(ish, it seemed to stop around the 1980s or ’90s), and contained a lot of splendid stuff too, though I do find late 20th century labour history even more boring than early 20th century labour history (I guess because the changes were less dramatic?). I liked the puppets, and you could actually move around Thatcher and whoever the guy next to her was meant to be (Marcus thinks it’s Neil Kinnock, but I have no idea), but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t figure out how to open and close their mouths, much to my dismay (it’s hard to put on a puppet show if you can’t make the puppets talk).

  

This gallery also contained some of the museum’s collection of political banners, which they restore on site (you could peer in on the conservators hard at work in their glass-walled office, which made me feel really bad for them. It’s bad enough my office is on the way to the public toilets and I have to keep my door open, so I often have museum visitors gawping at me or sometimes randomly stopping to chat with me even though I try to give the impression of being hard at work, but I couldn’t deal with people staring at me all day every day). At the end, there was a re-creation of an early Co-op supermarket, and a room with a free-play jukebox so you could listen to protest songs (and a few greatest hits) from the last few decades.

   

And then there was the temporary exhibit, which was my absolute favourite part of the museum. It was called “Savage Ink,” which I initially hoped was about tattoos, until I found out it was actually about political cartoons, which was probably even better. I love political cartoons, when done well, and there were some real gems in here. I actually tend to prefer British cartoonists (Peter Brookes is my favourite); I think they capture the absurdity of Trump better than many American cartoonists, and this was no exception – the two delightful pieces featured below are both by British artists.

  

The “shart” in the one on the left makes me lose it every time. There were also older cartoons, including pieces by Gillray, Hogarth, the Cruikshanks (Isaac and George), et al, and cartoons from throughout the 20th century, though I have to admit that I was more familiar with the figures depicted in Georgian cartoons than I was with ones in British political cartoons from the 1980s (which is why I didn’t know who the other puppet was meant to be).

  

They also offered visitors to chance to contribute to a collaborative comic strip, and though I declined to take part due to my total lack of drawing ability, I did enjoy looking at the efforts of previous visitors.

  

The final section of the museum, located in what I imagined was a restored part of the pump house, due to the large industrial looking space with impressively high ceilings, contained photographs of ordinary people in Manchester in the 1950s, some of their identities presumably unknown, since there was a request to get in touch with the museum if you recognised any of the people in the photos.

 

I was kind of excited for the shop, hoping it would be rather like the one at the Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum, with lots of political t-shirts and badges and things (since I’d noticed a Tolpuddle Martyrs tea towel on the way in), but it was a little disappointing. I didn’t see a single t-shirt, and the only badges were ones with the name of the museum on them (which you can make yourself on the badge-making machine in the upstairs gallery, for a £1 fee). We did manage to get a couple of good postcards, and I noticed some nice greetings cards too, but it wasn’t quite what I’d been hoping for. Still, I found the museum enjoyable for the most part, particularly “Savage Ink,” but I have to admit that some of the material inside the permanent galleries was a little boring for my tastes, mainly because some of the displays seemed to assume a level of knowledge that I didn’t possess, due to not being particularly interested in this facet of British history (and not growing up in this country, when I would presumably have been forced to cover some of this material at school). I did appreciate their attempts to make the museum fun and interactive (the inclusion of so many cartoons meant that I learned something just from looking at those, even when I skipped the museum’s signage) – the artefacts on display were generally excellent – and it’s not their fault that my eyes glaze over when I try to read about labour movements. 3.5/5 for the museum.

Manchester: Manchester Museum: A Visit Interrupted

Truth be told, I wasn’t all that enthused about visiting the Manchester Museum. From the name, I initially assumed it was a local history museum, and was amenable enough, but then Marcus told me that actually, it was a natural history and ethnographic museum, and I became much less keen. Nothing against ethnography or natural history (my love of taxidermy is well known), but I could see that stuff anywhere, and Manchester had so many unique and interesting sounding museums that it seemed a shame to waste time on this one. But after leaving the Pankhurst Centre, we found ourselves with an hour to kill before we could check into our hotel (and put our car in the lot), so we needed to go somewhere with parking to kill time, which pretty much ruled out anywhere in the city centre. Since Manchester Museum is on the university campus, there was a parking garage right around the corner, and the museum was free, so that sold us.

  

The Manchester Museum was bigger than I expected, and our visit time was going to be limited no matter what, because we were due to meet friends later that afternoon, but it turns out that it was more limited than even I expected (as the title gives away), so this will by necessity be a partial review (but I still wanted to blog about it, because Marcus took lots of photos).  We opted to start with the permanent galleries rather than the temporary exhibitions, so headed upstairs to see the ethnographic collections. I loved their sign about the statue of Ganesha, because it explained that he is holding a bowl of his favourite sweets, which made me feel a real affinity with him.  In addition to religious artefacts from various world cultures, there was also a small section on weaponry, particularly archery equipment, in the back of the gallery.

  

And there was also an ancient Egypt section, which is pretty much de rigueur for this kind of museum. One thing I did like was that one of the sarcophagi was open over glass, so that you could see the mummy inside (the mummy had apparently been a victim of a Victorian unwrapping – the kind that was the inspiration for the performance I witnessed at the National Archives’ Halloween event).

  

But after muddling through all the uninspiring stuff, at last we got to natural history, and that’s where the museum started to shine. Because there was so damn much taxidermy, two whole floors of it, to be exact! And we all know that I love taxidermied animals way more than any vegetarian has a right to.

  

Though the animals, on a whole, seemed to be pretty well done (and nothing like the gems in the National Museum of Ireland), which, given my love for bad taxidermy, was admittedly something of a disappointment, I did of course manage to find a few derpy examples, which I present here for your enjoyment.

  

OK, the baby elephant was more adorable than derpy, but he was such a cutie that I had to include him (though I felt really bad that he was in there. I sincerely hope he died of natural causes). Other highlights included a couple of plaster casts from a man and dog who died in Pompeii, and the skull of “Old Billy,” an allegedly 62 year old horse. I mean, I don’t know exactly how long horses normally live, but I thought it was more in the 30 year range, so this seemed far-fetched, but it seems to be verified in various places, so maybe Old Billy was just an extremely ancient horse. Of course, he lived from 1760-1822, when it presumably would have been easier to run an old horse scam without anyone checking up on it, but he was just an old barge horse, so I’m not sure if anyone was actually exploiting his age for monetary gain or not.

  

The upper hall of taxidermy eventually led into the “Vivarium,” which holds the museum’s collections of living animals, primarily reptiles, amphibians, and insects. This area was pretty crowded with parents and children (it was a Sunday when we visited, and Manchester Museum seems like the go-to weekend place, probably because it’s free, and most kids like looking at animals), so it was hard to get a peek at most of the cases, but I did spot this excellently lazy lizard.

  

And sadly, that is where my experience of Manchester Museum comes to an end, because as I was about to pass from the Vivarium into the next gallery, a fire alarm started going off really, really loudly (as they do, I guess, but this really seemed close to a permanently damaging level of sound).   So we were all directed down the nearest staircase, where people got to the bottom and then just sort of milled around confusedly in front of the fire door, instead of, you know, going out it, so Marcus and I had to take the lead and push our way outside. In fairness to the people just standing about, the exit wasn’t particularly well marked, and there were more stairs leading into the basement from where we were, so it wasn’t completely obvious what we were supposed to do. Also, because we were in the first group down, there wasn’t a staff member by the door yet to direct people out.

  

After evacuating the building, we stood around the front for a while, but the alarms didn’t show any sign of letting up, and they really were hurting my ears, so we gave up and headed back to the car (it was nearly time to check into the hotel by then anyway). I’m pretty sure it was just a drill, because I didn’t hear anything more about it, so I assume the museum is still fully intact.  But as a result of the alarm, I missed the rest of the permanent galleries, and the temporary exhibitions, one featuring art by Reena Saini Kallat, and also one on memories of Partition, about the creation of India and Pakistan. So I guess I can’t fairly score this one, because I didn’t see the whole museum. I will say that the natural history section was enjoyable, and it’s certainly much bigger than other museums of this type, but it’s not really anything you couldn’t see in any other major city (except maybe Old Billy), there’s just more of it. Good for killing time, but not worth a special trip if your time in Manchester is limited, at least as far as the permanent collections go, though I can’t comment on the temporary stuff, since I didn’t see it.

Manchester: The Pankhurst Centre

It’d been a few years since Marcus and I had managed to go somewhere on our anniversary, so I thought it would be nice if we could swing a short break somewhere this year. I initially wanted to go somewhere picturesque, but then thought about the reality of England in late November: terrible weather + loads of places that close for the season, and decided it would be best to do a city break instead. Manchester seemed a likely candidate, since I’d never been, and in addition to Christmas markets (which I can often be Grinchy about, but I secretly enjoy them if they’re not too crowded), it also had a lot of museums that sounded really interesting. Inspired by Joy’s post, one of the museums I wanted to make sure to visit was the Pankhurst Centre, which I thought might be tricky due to their limited opening hours, but fortunately, they are open from 1-4 on the fourth Sunday of each month, which just happened to be when we’d arrive, so we were able to head straight there on our way into Manchester, and arrived just as they were opening.

Because the Pankhurst Centre is right next to a hospital, we were able to find parking in their car park and headed swiftly over to the museum in the midst of horrible windy sleety weather (that would plague us throughout our stay, but I’ve come to understand that that’s just what Manchester weather is like). We were the first people to arrive that day, so the woman working there gave us a nice little introduction to the house, and turned on the film for us in the middle room of the museum (the whole thing is only three rooms, but it is free). This was a 13 minute film about the suffragette movement, including an initially rather amusing anti-suffragette filmstrip from the 1910s about all the evils of the suffragette movement and the kinds of punishments that the husband of a suffragette thought they deserved.  However, it did get a lot less hilarious when the film moved on to the perils that befell the actual suffragette movement, including force-feeding, because of course the “punishments” in the amusing filmstrip weren’t so amusing when you consider that even worse punishments than the ones depicted in the propaganda filmstrip happened in real life (the ones in the anti-suffragette film were mostly about public shaming, rather than torture, because including the ways that suffragettes were actually treated might have generated public sympathy for them).

This room also contained a lot of signage about the history of women’s suffrage, and though it was pretty wordy, I stuck with it, because it was interesting stuff. I learned a lot about the Pankhurst family (maybe I’m just being dumb, but for some reason I always thought that Emmeline and Christabel were sisters, and Sylvia was Emmeline’s daughter. So it was nice to finally get the relationships straight – Emmeline was the mother, and Christabel, Sylvia, and the lesser known Adela were all her children, as well as two boys that died fairly young), and the history of the Women’s Social and Political Union, or WSPU (from putting together an audio tour of Wimbledon, I knew that we had a WSPU shop, and that during WWI, they decided to focus on the war effort and temporarily put suffrage on the back burner, but I didn’t know much else about it. Turns out that they sold all manner of amazing suffragette merchandise including a board game, these rad Christmas cards, and of course those “Votes for Women” sashes, plus other goods, like soap, to finance their activities).  There was a whole informational poster devoted just to Sylvia, and her typewriter was there too.

Emmeline and her family lived in the house in the early 1900s, and in 1903, the WSPU was founded here. The house was nearly demolished in 1979, but was fortunately saved by protests from women’s groups, and turned into a museum and women’s centre. The back room of the museum is the only one decorated to look as it would have when the Pankhursts lived here – this is meant to be the parlour where the WSPU began (though there was a women’s suffrage movement active in Manchester since 1867 (supported by Emmeline’s husband, Richard) and suffrage groups active nationwide, most groups were more concerned with getting the vote for working class men. It was the WSPU that turned the focus exclusively to women, and started using more radical tactics, such as destruction of property, arson, and hunger strikes).

I was so charmed by this suffragette doll when I saw her in Joy’s post that I had to be sure to grab a photo of her when I was there, and I can report that she is just as delightful in person. The parlour also contains a really neat suffragette handkerchief, and a sign explaining that they have traditionally been able to pay rent on the house using a suffragette sash, so there were a few handmade examples of those in here too.

Naturally, I was hoping there’d be a “Votes for Women” sash available for purchase, because I’d love to have one to wear around the house so I can occasionally break into a Mary Poppins-inspired “Votes for Women, Step in Time” song and dance routine (plus who wouldn’t want a sash? Sashes are great!), but though they had a range of “Votes for Women” merchandise, including aprons and tea towels, alas, there was no sash, so I settled for an enamel pin, which I look forward to wearing. This house, though small, was really nice and informative, and I’m so glad it’s here, both for its history as the birthplace of the WSPU, and the work it does for modern women by serving as a women’s centre. It’s only open for a few hours on Thursdays, and the second and fourth Sundays of each month, but I would definitely recommend stopping by if you can, because I learned a lot about the Pankhursts and the WSPU, and the museum is clearly run by lovely people. I hope they eventually have the resources to expand it a bit, and perhaps acquire more modern signage, but it’s still a delight as is. 3.5/5.