The Working Class Movement Library has been awarded £99,847 to fund a project opening up access to its records of the Big Flame revolutionary group.

Started in Liverpool in 1970, Big Flame was a revolutionary socialist group with a feminist, anti-racist, internationalist vision that emphasized mass class engagement and prioritized non-sectarian, non-authoritarian community organizing and political methods. It spread to Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Nottingham and London before dissolving around 1984.  The group got its name from the title of a play written by Jim Allen in 1969, which was set during a fictional strike on Liverpool docks and aired on the BBC.

The Working Class Movement Library is home to a Big Flame archive and holds copies of their newspaper, Big Flameand journal Revolutionary Socialism.

The grant, from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, provides an opportunity to deliver a project focused on engaging young individuals and local working-class activists in exploring, researching, and enhancing accessibility to the Big Flame archive. WCML plans to recruit two dedicated staff members to deliver the project and will work in partnership with RECLAIM, a charity dedicated to empowering working-class young people.

The grant will also help build links with other archives and activists who might hold material about Big Flame and work with them to bring their work to a wider audience. Additionally, a portion of the grant will be allocated towards refurbishing the WCML temporary exhibition space..

The project will culminate in an exhibition at the Working Class Movement Library in 2025, newly digitized archive material, oral histories, and a public events programme. Belinda Scarlett, Library Manager at the Working Class Movement Library said: ‘We are hugely grateful to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for supporting our project and our vision to make the Working Class Movement Library open and relevant to all working class people.  We are also very excited to be working in partnership with RECLAIM and to co-create an exhibition with young people.

Applications for the fixed-term project roles are open until 12 April 2024. More information and application packs can be found here.