Maxine Peake pays tribute to cultured Victorian rebels

Acclaimed actress Maxine Peake is to pay tribute to the working class poets who published hundreds of poems in a Chartist newspaper more than 160 years ago, by performing their work. The star of Shameless, Dinner ladies and Early Doors will join Chartist influenced choir Corista and Senior Lecturer Dr Michael Sanders from The University of Manchester, who will talk about the Chartists in a public lecture. The free event, organised with the Working Class Movement Library in Salford, is the first Frow Memorial Lecture in honour of the library's founders Eddie and Ruth Frow. Dr Sanders will discuss the poetry column of the Northern Star, which printed over 1,000 poems between 1838 and 1852 and discussed in his book, the Poetry of Chartism: Politics, Aesthetics, History published by Cambridge University Press last year. According to Dr Sanders the poems provide a forgotten record of what life was like in the decade known as the 'Hungry 'Forties', as well showing how poetry was once central to working-class communities. He said: "The sheer volume of poetry produced by rank and file Chartists literally forced the poetry column from the margins to the centre of the paper. "Moreover, with a peak circulation of 50,000 and a readership of around one million, these writers had the largest audience of any Victorian poet." He added: "These poems show us that poetry was once central to the way working-class communities expressed themselves both politically and otherwise.