Name: Manchester Women and the General Strike: 100 Years On
Start: 2026-03-14T10:00:00+00:00
End: 2026-03-14T13:00:00+00:00
Location: Mechanics Institute

Manchester Women and the General Strike: 100 Years On

Join us for the 5th Annual Margaret Ashton lecture celebrating the forgotten women of Greater Manchester's rich history.
About this Event

Join us for the annual Margaret Ashton Lecture, marking 100 years since the 1926 General Strike.

This year, we're welcoming three fantastic speakers, Dr Michael Sanders, Janet Hughes and Dr Dan Edmonds to bring to life the part that women played in the General Strike and their legacies.

Doors will open at 10am for refreshments and stalls from some of our fantastic community partners, plus a wonderful display of banners and craftwork from the Trailblazers! stitching group.

Complementary teas and coffees will run throughout the morning.

Our speakers

Dan Edmonds is a postdoctoral researcher on the Royal Holloway project, ‘Inclusive Histories’, and is developing learning resources for school students on histories of workers’ struggles for their rights throughout British history. He has previously worked conducting engagement and research for public history programmes for Cheshire Archives, the Global Labour Institute, University College London, and Read Manchester, among others.

Janet Hughes holds an MA and has over 20 years’ experience as a history lecturer in both Higher and Further Education. She is currently completing a PhD on Labour Women and the General Strike and Lockout of 1926.Janet’s research was inspired while working at the People’s History Museum during the development of a teaching module on women in the interwar years. What began as a long-held ambition to pursue doctoral study became a focused project when she discovered how central women were to sustaining miners and their families during the 1926 lockout — and how little their contribution had been acknowledged. As she researched further, Janet found that women, and the lockout itself, were largely invisible in existing historical accounts. Her work seeks to address this gap, bringing to light the powerful and inspiring stories of the women of 1926, whose organisation, resilience and solidarity placed community survival at the heart of the struggle.