Museums still tend to celebrate the Mr Bigs in society: their stately homes and vanity portraits, their inventions and ideas. But on the banks of the River Irwell, opposite Manchester’s high court, sits a curvaceous modern building dedicated to the often ordinary men and women who have fought for Britain’s rights and freedoms. Cloaked in the same weathered steel as the Angel of the North, the People’s History Museum transmits the same warm welcome as Antony Gormley’s winged monolith, but with an excellent gift shop and lovely cafe selling mostly vegan and vegetarian fare.
Its aim is to inspire the next generation of “active citizens” via its 60,000-strong collection, which includes the world’s oldest trade union banner, a pike used in self-defence by a protester at the Peterloo massacre in 1819, and a board game used as a propaganda tool for the suffragettes. More recent acquisitions include Andy Burnham’s navy workers’ jacket, which spawned a mini industry in think-pieces after he wore it to berate the government over the Covid tiering system in 2020; an empty can of BrewDog Barnard Castle Eye Test beer, which marked Dominic Cummings’ infamous lockdown dash to the north-east; and a knitted Black Lives Matter bannerette.
