THE poetry of a radical mill worker is set to be showcased in her home town - more than a century on.

Ethel Carnie Holdsworth was renowned as probably the first working-class woman to see her work appear in print.

And 112 years later, some of her published works have been reproduced as part of research work by Burnley-based Mid Pennine Arts.

Her poetry has been re-recorded by broadcasters Liz Robinson and Scott Robinson, with voice professional Jules Gibb and it is being installed in the National Poetry Archive.

This collection, part of her Rhymes From the Factory series, will form part of a special presentation at Great Harwood Library, on Friday, June 7, from 5.30pm.

Dr Nicola Wilson, an acknowledged expert on Holdsworth, will also be on hand to detail some of the writer’s works which have been recently republished.

Some of Ethel’s own songs are also set to be recounted.

An MPA spokesman said: “She may have started life as a ‘mill girl’ but she later worked as a journalist in London, went on to publish novels, poetry, articles and stories.

“She was, we think, the first working class woman to publish novels in this country.”

Her prose have been brought into focus by the arts collective under the umbrella of their Pendle Radicals initiative.

Holdsworth was first in print in 1907, with perhaps her best-known piece, The Slavery, published in 1925.

Her title Helen of Four Gates was shot as a silent film five years earlier.

Born to cotton weavers David and Louisa, and a ‘reacher-in’ at local mills by the age of 11, her political education was burnished by the Independent Labour Party leanings of her father.

She later married Alfred Holdsworth and lived around East Lancashire before her death aged 76.