Down at Alex Park making the point and demanding change

Now there will be many who remember the Rock Against Racism event Alexandra Park in the July of 1978.

The assembly point was Strangeways and after a short number of speeches the march set off through the city streets to Alexandra Park where perhaps a total 40,000 people listened to the music of Steel Pulse, the Buzzcocks, China Street and the local Moss Side reggae band Exodus.

It was a memorable moment and a very successful one which reaffirmed the multi cultural nature of the city and the need to challenge racism. 

But taking the longer historical view it was only one in a line of similar popular marches and demonstrations which began with Keir Hardie and a rally eighty-five years earlier.

That march had started off at Stevenson Square and by degree had travelled via Portland Street and Oxford Street through to “Stretford Road, Great Jackson Street and the other thoroughfares that led to the park.”*

Back then the right to assemble in any of the city’s parks was still prohibited and it was not until 1897 that the Corporation relented and allowed meetings in four of the parks of which Alexandra Park was the only one in the south of the city.

The campaign to establish that freedom is not really part of our story but as Keir Hardie had made the appeal for the right of assembly and free speech in our park it is worth taking a few minutes to record that the campaign had been won by the actions of the Labour Movement and in particular the Independent Labour Party and the Manchester & Salford Trades and Labour Council.

As support grew large meetings were addressed by people like Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst, and Keir Hardie. 

In 1897 the Corporation accepted the principle which as an editorial in the Manchester Guardian observed was recognition of the “reasonable demand for facilities for public meetings in the parks.”**

What followed were a series of meetings in the park some of which were preceded by marches from the city centre and later during the Great War a number of pro peace gatherings at the park gates.

In 1908 one demonstration had called for the State to provide aid for the blind, and at a meeting in the park “several thousands of people interested in the welfare of the blind gathered [with] the desire to impress upon the public the belief that State aid, not private charity, is necessary to make the life of the blind at all worth living..”***

But the early years of meetings in the park were dominated by the demand for votes for women.

The press reported on a series of such rallies from 1908 through to 1912 with speakers ranging from Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst, to Margaret Ashton and Mrs Annot Robinson.

One of the best documented was that held on October 24 1908 with a list of speakers which pretty much covered all the leading lights in the campaign both locally and nationally. ****

There had been a public meeting the night before at the Free Trade Hall and on the Saturday the march set off from Albert Square and by degree made its way along Market Street, Deansgate, Peter Street, Oxford Street and then by way of Stretford Road, Upper Jackson Street to Upper Moss Lane and Alexandra Park.

Such was the distance and the expected numbers that the organisers planned for the march to start at 2.30 and enter the park by 4 o’clock.

Nothing had been left to chance. “A robbing room had been provided at 9 Albert Square where a maid will be in attendance between the hours of 1.p.m and 6.p.m., to take charge of hats &coats etc., for those who are walking in academic dress.”

On reaching the park there was provision in the shop to store the banners but societies wishing to take their banners in to the park were at liberty to do so with that ever so modern warning the “the Joint Demonstration Committee will not be responsible for their safety in any event.”

Today over a century and a bit since the demonstrators arrived at the park it is possible to create something of what happened.

The march had been orderly and in the bright sunshine attracted a large audience of spectators and the “walkers acted on the crowd of watchers like a perpetual provoker of argument.  From Albert Square to the Park there were two miles of debaters for an and against the suffrage.  As one hurried one caught queer fragments of speech – ‘....they’ll never get it; If they pay rates, I say it’s only fair ....’ ‘What’ll they do wiv  it.’ "*****

At the entrance to the park the first half of the procession entered by the man gate beside Hulme Lodge, while the second half made its way down Alexandra Road and entered by the side gate.

Both sections then converged on the large expanse of grassland to the north of the lake where there was the choice of those 35 speakers.

These were arranged on ten different platforms each with a theme, and with the help of the organisers map we can stand in that expanse of open space and choose who to listen to.
Platform one was given over to Housing and Health, two was Prison Reform, three Temperance, four Peace, and five Education. 

The remaining platforms were devoted to the Protection of Children at number six, Social Ethics at seven, the Poor Law at eight and the remaining two were Labour Legislation at nine and Co-operation at ten.

Location; Alexandra Park

 Pictures; Salford Labour Party banner, 1980, Badge, 1979, Aleandra Park, 1908, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Women marching with police escort, date unknown, m08238, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Alexandra Park, Labour Demonstration, Manchester Guardian, May 8 1893

**Editorial article 2, Manchester Guardian, January 4, 189 

***State Aid for the Blind, Demonstration at Alexandra Park, Manchester Guardian, July 27, 1908

****The 35 speakers included Miss Margaret Ashton, Mrs Despard, Mrs Swanwick, Professor Weiss, and Mr Pollit,

****Women’s Suffrage.  Procession in the Manchester Streets; Manchester Guardian, October 26, 1908

Next; the debates on that day in Alexandra Park