Collection encounter
To celebrate International Women’s Day, curators at the University’s John Rylands Library are running a free, drop-in event exploring recent collection acquisitions relating to the Suffragettes. Highlights of the encounter will include Hunger Strike Medals awarded to sisters Margaret and Frances McPhun, alongside letters they wrote while imprisoned in Holloway Prison. This event is an opportunity to see these items up close and speak with curators about both the items on display and the wider archives.
The collection encounter will be held at the 126-year-old library, founded by Enriquetta Rylands, and will also feature archives and objects in the library’s collections, which continue to draw new interest and conclusions about the female experience.
This is a drop-in event; there’s no need to book.
Price: Free
Date: 5 March 2026
Time: 2-3:30pm
Location: The John Rylands Library, 150 Deansgate, Manchester, M3 3EH
- Find out more about What’s on at John Rylands Library
- Please contact jrl.events@manchester.ac.uk with any questions.
The John Rylands Library is free to enter and open to visitors Wednesday–Saturday, 10am-5pm (last entry 4:40pm). The library holds roughly 1.5 million items in its collections, ranging from 4,000-year-old clay tablets and Medieval manuscripts to vinyl records. The current Special Exhibition is Cottonopolis, which explores Manchester’s cotton industry and global connections.