FREE TALKS, DEBATES, EXHIBITIONS AND WALKS Celebrating 800 years of rights and representation Houses of Parliament and venues across the UK 1 September – 25 October 2015 www.parliament.uk/festival-of-freedoms #freedomsfest BOOKING Most events are free of charge and booking in advance is required, unless otherwise stated. With noted exceptions, tickets can be booked via www.eventbrite.co.uk. See individual event listings within this booklet for full details. Admission is on a first-come-first-served basis. For ticketed events, as not everyone who books takes their place, to ensure a full house we offer more tickets than there are places. We cannot guarantee admission to latecomers, so please make sure you arrive promptly to avoid disappointment. Lunchtime events will last no more than 60 minutes and evening events will be approximately 75 minutes. Timings for walks and workshops vary and are detailed in individual listings within this booklet. For events taking place in the Houses of Parliament please allow at least 20 minutes to pass through security and at least 45 minutes during Open House Weekend (19 – 20 September). www.parliament.uk/visiting ACCESS INFORMATION You will find information that will help you to plan your visit, to all Festival of Freedom venues, on pages 21 – 22. Any questions? Email us at [email protected]. Telephone on 020 7219 4272 during our opening hours: 10am – 12pm and 2 – 4pm (Monday to Friday). Callers with a text phone can talk through Text Relay by calling 18001 followed by our full number 020 7219 4272. This brochure is available in a large print version. To request a copy, email [email protected]. All information contained within this booklet correct at time of printing, August 2015. YOU ARE INVITED TO THE FESTIVAL OF FREEDOMS The history of democratic freedom in the United Kingdom reaches two significant milestones this year. Throughout 2015 the Houses of Parliament are commemorating 750 years since the Simon de Montfort parliament and 800 years since the sealing of Magna Carta. To bring these anniversaries to life, we are running a year-long programme: Parliament in the Making. ‘The Beginnings of that Freedome’ banner exhibition in Parliament’s Westminster Hall is at the heart of the programme. Featuring 18 large-scale banners, created by nine artists, this exhibition shows how the UK has built a powerful system of civil rights and representative government over the last 800 years. Each banner provides a dynamic visual representation of the milestone moments and movements which ‘made a difference’ in the journey to the rights and representation that we 3 enjoy today. These themes will be more deeply explored through the Festival of Freedoms. Read on to find out about more than 30 talks, debates, exhibitions and walks, taking place in Westminster and at venues across the UK. We will be questioning the impact of equality legislation, drawing parallels between 18th century petitioners and how to petition Parliament today, examining parliamentary recording and reporting, unearthing hidden histories and introducing you, sometimes in person, to our political and democratic pioneers. Each event celebrates a specific episode over the last eight centuries, starting with King John’s acceptance of Magna Carta at Runnymede taking us through to devolution and ‘Parliament now’ in 2015. Many will spotlight key pieces of legislation including the 1965 Race Relations Act, the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, and the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act. Others – like the Putney Debates of 1647, the People’s Charter in 1838, the struggle of the Tolpuddle Martyrs – mark moments not when people actually achieved rights or liberties, but when the aspiration for them was articulated in a clear and ringing way that still resonates today. Many of the images in this booklet are details from ‘The Beginnings of that Freedome’ banner exhibition. Find out more at www.parliament.uk/2015-banners-exhibition. by Ross Birrell. © House of Commons by Ross Birrell. Detail of banner ‘1647 The Putney Debates’ EXHIBITION The Putney Debates: democratic pioneers Tuesday 1 – Saturday 12 September, 9am – 6pm (Mon – Sat) and 11am – 5pm (Sun) The Putney Exchange Shopping Centre, Putney High Street, London, SW15 1TW This pop-up exhibition traces the roots of universal suffrage, religious freedom and our democratic ideals back to Putney in democratic ideals. 1647 when a series of debates in St Mary’s For twelve days, to mirror the duration Church brought together radicalised soldiers of the original ground-breaking debates, and civilians known as the Levellers, with key the public will have the opportunity to parliamentarians like Oliver Cromwell. participate in activities and respond to 4 It was a pivotal moment in our nation’s questions posed by the Levellers. Visitors, in democratic past, as men came to discuss the this modern setting, will be encouraged to rights of the people, and the fate of the King. think about what it really means to live in a democracy today. The exhibition will be displayed in the heart of Putney, in The Putney Exchange Shopping No need to book Centre, and will explore ideas about Presented in partnership with The Putney Exchange Shopping Centre WALKS Magna Carta and the City walks Daily until 20 September, 11am – 12pm Meet at Blackfriars Station (entrance to the underground ticket hall on the north of Blackfriars Bridge) On 15 June 1215 King John put his seal So how did it happen? Follow the story of on a document promising to ensure good ‘bad’ King John through the streets of the City government. That document, known as of London on one of these free guided walks. Magna Carta, is seen as the foundation of the No need to book rights and freedoms widely enjoyed today. Presented in partnership with Inner Temple and Middle Temple AUDIO TOUR Suffragettes and Rabble Rousers: a walk in the footsteps of Oxford’s radical thinkers Every Monday to Saturday until Wednesday 30 September, from 10am Starting at Oxford Playhouse, Beaumont Street, Oxford, OX1 2LW Written and performed by artists including Pick up a MP3 Player, headphones and a Anne-Marie Duff, Paterson Joseph, Polly map from the Ticket Office and enjoy a stroll Teale, Margaret Drabble, Molly Naylor and through Oxford with radical thinkers for Glyn Maxwell, Suffragettes and Rabble company. MP3 players must be returned Rousers is a collection of monologues about by 6pm. some of Oxford’s most forward-thinking residents. With tales from the lives of Emily Wilding Davison, who was trampled under the king’s horse; Christian Cole, Oxford Tickets £5 No need to book in advance. Purchase University’s first black student; Civil War on the day at the Oxford Playhouse activists, the Levellers; Percy Bysshe Shelley Ticket Office. and Thomas Cranmer. An Oxford Playhouse Production, supported by ‘Parliament in the Making’ TALK Political skulduggery: what kept Charles Bradlaugh MP from taking his seat in Parliament? 5 Tuesday 8 September, 7.30pm The Library, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL Charles Bradlaugh was and is not everyone’s Deborah is active in the Socialist History hero; Karl Marx and William Gladstone were Society and the Freethought History united in hating him. Elected as a Liberal MP Research Group. She has written and for Northampton in 1880, he was kept from often speaks on Charles Bradlaugh and his taking his seat in Parliament for six long great public row with Karl Marx over the years. Allegedly for being an atheist, but Commune of Paris. could it have been for other reasons? The event takes place in the Conway Speaker Deborah Lavin believes that Hall Library; the UK’s largest and most Bradlaugh deserves attention, not only for comprehensive humanist research resource. his atheism, republicanism and struggle to As well as portraits and sculptures of take his seat, but for his 10-year working Bradlaugh, the Library’s collection of artworks relationship with Annie Besant and their includes luminaries such as Bertrand Russell, joint trial in 1877 under the Obscene Thomas Paine, and William Morris. Publications Act for publishing a pamphlet about birth control. This event will be repeated on Sunday 25 October, at 11am and 2pm, as part of the Bloomsbury Festival. Presented in partnership with Conway Hall Ethical Society TALK The Dagenham Women Wednesday 9 September, 6.45pm | Attlee Suite, Portcullis House, Houses of Parliament The film Made in Dagenham introduced Their fight was to continue for another many of us to the women machinists 17 years, led by a new generation of whose 1968 strike at Ford Dagenham led Dagenham women. Dora Challingsworth to widespread protest about the gender and Pam Brown were part of a seven-week pay gap and ultimately to the Equal Pay strike in 1984 which stopped production at Act 1970. The female factory workers’ Dagenham and finally achieved the demands original demand was not for gender equality, of their 1968 colleagues. but rather to re-grade their jobs from an Dora and Pam will talk about the work and unskilled B grade to a semi-skilled grade C. fight of Dagenham’s machinists and how In their eyes they may have changed the law, 17 years of struggle contributed to current but they had failed in their own demands. employment law. The evening will also They had wanted their skill recognised and explore, how 45 years after the Act was first rewarded. passed, inequalities still remain for women in the workplace. DEBATE Generation Devolution: young people’s views of devolution, now and in the future 6 Thursday 10 September, 6.45pm | Macmillan Room, Portcullis House, Houses of Parliament Last year’s referendum in Scotland galvanised devolved legislatures. a nation of younger voters, and put the whole For this event, the British Youth Council will topic of devolution back on the agenda.