The Burnley ballads launch event with Boff Whalley and Jennifer Reid

William Cunliffe, a Burnley blacksmith and poet, published his poems in the Burnley Free Press during the great Lancashire cotton famine in the 1860s.

Cunliffe wrote in his native Lancashire dialect about the crippling hardships faced by millworkers and their families - within the space of a year thousands of workers became unemployed and went from being the most prosperous workers in Britain to the most impoverished; Cunliffe was able to write about these circumstances with both honesty and humour.The poems were unseen in the archives of Burnley Central Library for 150 years, but in the past decade were discovered and reprinted by researcher Simon Rennie as part of the Cotton Famine Poetry database.

Three of these poems have been re-imagined by Lancashire balladeer and scholar Jennifer Reid and composer and writer Boff Whalley.Their new musical and filmic setting reminds us how 165 year-old history can still tell us stories about ourselves, our families and communities, and about everyday working class experience.The three short films were directed by three different film-makers and the project was funded and made possible by Lancashire Libraries.

This launch event will include a talk about the project and performances by Jennifer Reid.