A one-day archive event in celebration of the Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson will take place at People’s History Museum in Manchester on Saturday 9 November. The event marks the centenary of her election to Parliament, as MP for Middlesbrough East, on 29 October 1924.

Born in Manchester in 1891, and known as ‘Red Ellen’ both for the colour of her hair and the colour of her politics, Wilkinson is best remembered as MP for Jarrow (1935-1947) and for her role in the Jarrow Crusade, when she and David Riley, chair of Jarrow Council, led 200 men on a 282-mile march to Parliament. Here she presented a petition of 12,000 signatures setting out the ‘urgent need that work should be provided for the town without further delay’ as a result of the thousands of jobs that had been lost following the closure of the shipyard and steelworks.

Wilkinson went on to become Minister for Education in 1945, making her the second woman to achieve a place in the British cabinet (after Margaret Bondfield). In this role she oversaw the introduction of free school milk, raised the school leaving age to 15 and increased the number of university scholarships.

During the Ellen Wilkinson Archive Exploration event visitors will be able to see some of the archive materials held in PHM’s collection that help to tell Ellen’s story. There are copies of the monthly magazine The Labour Woman, that she wrote for; press cuttings from the Jarrow Crusade; and correspondence during the Spanish Civil War. A highlight is the opportunity to look through Wilkinson’s own scrapbooks, of which PHM has six in its collection, dating from the early 1920s until her death in 1947. The scrapbook covering the period 1928 to 1930 is on permanent display in Gallery One of the museum, but the others will all be available on the day.

There will also be a pop-up exhibition about Ellen’s extraordinary life, which has been curated by Helen Antrobus and Dr Tessa Chynoweth and commissioned by the Mechanics Institute. This will be on display at the museum from 10am to 5pm during the event.

PHM notes that Wilkinson was not always successful. In 1931 she lost her Middlesbrough seat and was out of parliament for a period of time. She also lost the first time she stood for election, which was in 1923 for Ashton-under-Lyne. The next woman to hold the seat would be Angela Rayner, now Deputy Prime Minister. The jacket that Angela Rayner wore during her first appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions on 16 September 2020 has recently gone on display in Main Gallery One of the museum.

Tickets to the Ellen Wilkinson Archive Exploration are priced at £15, £10 and free. There are two sessions that run from 11am to 12.45pm and 1.15pm to 3pm.  All the booking information is here.