Working Class Movement Library
The Working Class Movement Library (WCML) is a collection of English language books, periodicals, pamphlets, archives and artefacts relating to the development of the political and cultural institutions of the working class which was created by the Industrial Revolution. It is situated in Salford , England.
History
In 1953 two bibliophiles, Eddie (Edmund) Frow and Ruth Haines, met at a Communist Party Summer School. In 1956 they set up home together in Greater Manchester and the merger of their book collections was the beginning of the Working Class Movement Library. They spent their spare time and money travelling round Britain, gathering new items for the collection. By 1960 the collection was being consulted by historians and academics and they had attracted the support of other collectors of labour movement material. Later they gained charitable trust status. By the mid 1980s the collection had filled their semi in Trafford. The City of Salford Council agreed to support the library and, in 1987, gave the WCML, and the Frows, a new home in an old nurses home, Jubilee House, situated near Salford University. In 2007 the relationship changed when the trust took full responsibility for the housing and staffing of the collection with the council providing a lease of the building and an annual financial grant. The WCML is otherwise funded by trade union and individual subscription.
The Collection
The focus of the collection is the development of the political and cultural institutions of the working classes which were created by the Industrial Revolution. The three main parts of that development are the trade union movement, the co-operative movement and the political parties and campaigns of the left. The WCML houses 30,000 books covering these and related subjects.
Since 1985 the WCML has been the official archive of the GMB union. It also has a large collection of material from the engineering and the various textile unions, especially the North west regional branches. It also holds varying amounts of material from dozens of other trade unions, old and new.
As well as holding local and national material from the mainstream UK co-operative movement, the WCML also holds archival material from local branches of the Co-operative guilds, and periodicals of co-partnership and workers’ co-operative organisations.
The main political parties represented are the Labour Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain, of whom the WCML holds large collections of pamphlets, periodicals and ephemera. Many of the smaller parties are represented by collections of similar material. Campaign groups are similarly represented , as well as in collections of archive material from bodies as diverse as the National League of the Blind and Disabled, Manchester CND, Manchester Unity Theatre, Big Flame and the Jubilee Group.