Public History Group:In Search of Florence Hancock: How to put a museum exhibition together when Wikipedia lets you down
Saturday 9th February 10.30 for 11
In Search of Florence Hancock: How to put a museum exhibition together when Wikipedia lets you down
Paul Connell, Assistant Curator, Chippenham Museum & Heritage Centre
To mark the centenary of the event which launched her career in the trade union movement, the formation of a branch of the Workers Union and then a strike at the local Nestles & Anglo-Swiss Milk Factory, Chippenham Museum & Heritage Centre is putting together an exhibition on the life and work of Dame Florence Hancock for January 1913. Florence’s life story, one of a family of 14, leaving school at 12 to work in a café for 5s a week, to starting a union branch then progressing up through that union (through two World Wars) has been described as a ‘microcosm of the union movement in the 20th century’. You might expect that researching the life of second female president of the TUC, a dame of the British Empire, National Women’s Officer for the TGWU would be easy, but it has proved to be anything but – and also a lesson in not believing everything you read and checking facts.
Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, London, EC2M 4QH. This is a few minutes walk from Liverpool Street station (in the direction of Shoreditch and Spitalfields market.
Sessions begin promptly at 11 and will finish before 1. Please bring your own coffee – lots of places nearby.
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