Heritage Report: The Pumphouse: Peoples History Museum, Manchester

Abstract

Manchester was the 'shock city7 of the British Industrial Revolution, seen by many then and since as the 'home of the modern',1 and it will come as no surprise to readers of Labour History that the city and its surrounds enjoy a rich industrial heritage which has a prominent place in the city's quest to attract tourists. Disused canals, once central to the city's cotton industry, are now enjoyed by tourists and diners on pleasure boats, while derelict factories and warehouses are being gradually transformed into caf?s, bars, restaurants and museums.2 The Castlefield area, once a byword for 'neglect and decay', is now 'a vibrant part of the city centre'. That, at least, is what one of the signs told me; it was actually a rather quiet corner of the city on the Sunday morning I was there to visit the Pumphouse Peoples History Museum.3 (On my way, I stopped off for a coffee at the nearby Y-Club, which most assuredly has nothing to do with its defunct Melbourne namesake.4 This one's a chic gym.) The Pumphouse is part of the National Museum of Labour History. During the week, I'd been working at the impressive Archive and Study Centre, located a short walk away in Princess Street, in the old Manchester Mechanics' Institution. This was the site of a meeting in 1868, organised by the Manchester and Salford Trades Council, which many labour historians regard as the first annual Trades Union Congress. The Museum was originally opened in London in 1975, based on material collected by the Trade Union, Labour, Co-operative, Democratic, History Society (abbreviated, mercifully, to TULC). The Study Centre still contains a few exhibits, including some posters and trade union banners (from the Museum's collection of about 300), and visitors are permitted to look through a large glass window into the room where the conservation of banners is being carried out. Most of the Museum's exhibits, however, are located in a converted Edwardian pumping station that provided the city with hydraulic power until 1972. It has been impressively transformed. The exhibits commence with a video narrated by Glenda Jackson. It helpfully defines the Museum's objectives, and makes clear its roots in the people's history movement. The museum, we are told, is not just about strikes, protests and demonstrations it deals with ordinary people's everyday lives. Visitors are invited to identify with the lives of the people in the exhibitions: 'This is their story; it is also your story.' The past is not a dead past, for the people featured in the Museum used history to help bring about change. Nor is the Museum an old building with exhibits provided by curators merely for the amusement of the paying customer. It is a space for a story that 'is not yet finished'. The Museum, we are warned, also has its absences: the poor, women and the various ethnic groups that have contributed to British labour history are not given adequate coverage. Jackson appeals to the public to help rectify this problem by supplying ideas and exhibits, particularly as there is no satisfactory exhibit dealing with Britain as a multicultural society. Above all else, the democratic credentials of the museum are emphasised: 'This is a museum of the