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Mill Girls & Militants

Ludus Dance wins National Lottery funding for Mill Girls & Militants celebrating Lancashire women's contribution to the suffrage movement.

Mill Girls & Militants is a project that uncovered and celebrated the lives of working women from Burnley, Preston and Lancaster who joined the suffrage movement. 

Supported through the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), the project helped local Lancashire women to research the extraordinary steps these women took and the sacrifices they made in the fight for social change. The experiences of these working women were brought to life by working with historians, exploring archive material, hearing specialist talks and visiting exhibitions and historic sights. The project revealed and widely shared an often-overlooked part of Lancashire’s heritage in a creative and accessible way. As well as enabling local women to learn about their heritage and experience high quality art, the project provided creative jobs in the area for local artists.

We worked with women in Lancaster, Preston and Burnley in community workshops to create a mass outdoor piece that was shared with a live site specific performance around the Harris museum in Preston and with audiences across the county through live performances and a digital VR experience. 

 

 

 

Incorporating youth dance and intergenerational community casts , Mill Girls & Militants created a mass performance in Preston.

The performance saw the Mill girls as they gathered at work and word spreads of a secret meeting. Time to make a stand, to call for action, to be heard! The moving performance showed the women’s frustrations, anger, strength, and ultimate perseverance against a system that holds them down.

Performed by the flagship Ludus Youth Dance Company and community groups from Preston, Lancaster and Burnley, the performance guided the audience from outside The Harris – into the museum – and back outside to the Flag Market again, discovering the stories and evoking the spirit and stories of Beth Hesmondhalgh, a mill girl and suffragette from Preston, Selina Martin from Lancaster, and Selina Cooper from Nelson, to celebrate how their bravery paved the way for today’s women, carried along by the grace and resilience that guides the women on.

They paved the way for other minority groups to stand up and fight…

 

Testimonials

Anthony Briggs, Artistic Director and Chief Executive

‘I am thrilled that we will be able to work with women across Lancashire to reveal the unheard stories of the first working women that fought for equal rights. Coming from a northern working class background, and a member of the LGBTQ community myself, I believe that they helped pave the way for other minority groups to stand up and fight for what they believed to be their truth. And, while it wasn’t a total win for women’s rights in 1918, it was a strong first step towards the rights we all take for granted today. We are extremely grateful to National Lottery players and the Heritage Lottery Fund for granting us the money and time to explore this fascinating aspect of the suffrage movement in Lancashire.’

Thank you to our funders...

Mill Girls & Militants is funded by the National Lottery through the HLF, with additional financial support from Preston City Council and Lancashire County Council. HLF grants are made possible by money raised by National Lottery players.

A massive thanks to our supporters and partners at the The Harris Museum and Art Gallery as a venue for this special performance.

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