From the first ever minute book of the Labour Representation Committee to Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham’s jacket, People’s History Museum is offering people the opportunity to see some of the vast collection of objects in its care that help reflect the story of the Labour Party.

Among the highlights of the collection now online to mark the centenary of the first Labour government that took office on 22 January 1924 are a postcard sent by Keir Hardy to his ‘young comrades’ in Gateshead to thank them for their birthday wishes and to assure them he is ‘fighting against this sinful [First World] war’; and a photograph of Margaret Bondfield, one of Labour’s first women MPs and later the first female cabinet minister of any political party.

Other items include a Spitting Image dummy of John Prescott from around 1992; the Jo Cox memorial wall featuring the handwritten notes of hundreds of people erected outside the Houses of Parliament in the days following the murder of MP Jo Cox on 16 June 2016; and Mansfield Labour Party Women’s Section banner from the 1980s.

Although some items are on show at the Manchester museum, including the Mansfield banner, which will form part of the 2024 banner exhibition, others are not currently on public display, and the online selection offers an opportunity to see these historic and fascinating objects.

See the full selection of items online at the PHM website.

If you are in Manchester on Saturday 20 January 2024, you may also like to visit the John Rylands Library, which is jointly hosting a drop-in collection encounter with People’s History Museum featuring objects from their James Ramsay MacDonald archive. Find out more.