People's History Museum - Gallery One - Review

It is snowing. I spend the morning baking a loaf of bread. Leaving it to cool I decide to spend the day visiting some Manchester museums I have not yet visited. The walk over is cold, the closer I get to the city centre, the less snow there is on the ground until, walking through Spinningfields, there is little more than a trace of slush.

Image via People's History Museum

Weather notwithstanding, the first port of call is the People’s History Museum. I am writing this from their café. The entrance hall is oddly municipal, and the flat grey light from outside makes the space feel rather sparse. There were, however, plenty of people within the museum itself.

I plan to split this review into two posts. The entire museum is split into three gallery spaces – the third of which being a collaborative make space. Leaving two galleries to explore. This post considers the first. The floors are split chronologically, Gallery One focussing on pre-1945.

Now, the People’s History Museum explores the history of labour movements, the path to suffrage, and working-class people’s history. A subject which is unavoidably and unapologetically radical. The platforming of various personal narratives across different themes is impressively incorporated and applaudable.

The first aspect of note is an explainer, positioned outside the gallery – next to a time-clock that visitors can use to ‘clock in’ if they wish. Colours are chosen to represent certain ideas. We are informed that different sections of the gallery have different background colours, each with different meanings. Red for Courage and Revolution, for example. The interesting ones are ‘Purple for Dignity’,  ‘White for Purity’, and ‘Gold for Ambition’.

The visual coding of the gallery is both effective for navigation, but also visually appealing. It allows for immediate recognition of the introduction of a new theme.

Image via planetfulloflove.com

We are introduced to the theme of revolution. It is here where a few brilliant techniques come to light. Firstly, the gallery seems to be designed to engage both a young and mature audience. Provocative questions written in simple English seem created to be used by parents to engage their children. Key to this is the definition circles. Occasionally, a key word within the gallery text is written in bold. These words have a nearby corresponding white circle, in which a definition is given. There is no assumption of prior knowledge, yet it is far from patronising. Plus, the way some terms are defined allows insight into the mindset of the institution.

The definition plaques cut through the jargon that could have really hampered this Museum. A brilliant example is the clear statement that New Model Unionism focussed on skilled labour, while New Unionism, unskilled. Points of potential confusion in the subject matter are classily navigated.

The second technique employed by the museum is thematic trails throughout the exhibitions. The Passport Trail links personal stories of refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers worldwide to the development of workers rights in the United Kingdom. For instance, a wall explaining the Peterloo Massacre is juxtaposed with a panel about the 2019 protests in Hong Kong. When lifted, this panel reveals the personal stories of two people who fled Hong Kong to Britain.

Alongside this we find yellow cards relating to a different trail: ‘Never Going Underground: The Fight for LGBTQ+ Rights’. Stories of LGBTQ+ individuals from the past few centuries are included next to other items or displays, situating queer individuals in history in a very successful way. We have always been here.

The stars of the show are the Banners, each of which speaks to a different angle of the labour movement or unionism. This aspect will be expanded on in the subsequent post.

There are some fun interactive elements throughout. Multiple dress up stations, recreations of domestic rooms. I even tried on a top hat that was comically too big for me. A lot of fun.

Here, I have some specific highlights from this floor. An item of note was Tom Paine’s writing desk – the actual one – whereupon he wrote The Rights of Man. Most of the items were more to fulfil an educational purpose, to reinforce the subject matter of that section of the display. In fact, it felt like a very well-structured GCSE history class at times, with its collection of propaganda posters, newspaper cuttings and more mundane ephemera used to explain broader historical trends and trajectories. I mean this wholeheartedly as a complement.

A shining success was the Collection Spotlight display. Here, less displayed objects from the collections are frequently rotated, a printed set of object labels explaining some rather punchy items, dealing with more contemporary issues of resurgent fascism in the united kingdom, even mentioning the riots during the summer of 2024, and the role of anti-fascist activists in suppressing and countering them. In an already activist space, this might have been the most refined example of their commitment to ongoing social justice. They do not shy away from calling out bad actors and fascist organisations.

Image via People's History Museum

Finally, the entire layout of the gallery was excellent. Multiple routes of navigation allowed one to approach the information from multiple directions, moving between different themes creating different resonances. Yet, the gallery subtly pushes you both in a chronological and thematically developing direction, without ever feeling overbearing or authoritative. I think that I actually took the path of best fit for this space, allowing myself to see everything, and pick up on the connections between disparate aspects of working-class history. Yet, I noticed other visitors moving in different ways. There was never a sense that anyone was doing the museum wrong, and the spaces of flow never rushed you past anything. There were ways to loop back, reconsider, compare, or skip aspects without feeling left out. It wasn’t entirely free choice, but the guiding hand of the architecture was very well mannered and unintrusive.

So far, I was very impressed by this museum – and I must give a special mention to the inclusion of pacifism as a theme, alongside the statement that peer pressure was a significant factor in volunteering for service in the first world war. I exited Gallery One both more informed and intrigued as to how the themes and messages would be continued upstairs.

Join me next week for an exploration of Gallery Two – 1945 onwards.

The People’s History Museum is free to visit and open every day except Tuesdays.