A TINY hymn book found in a cigar box at Todmorden Library is believed to be the only one of its kind in existence.

The chance discovery of the 165-year-old National Chartist Hymn Book has now been acclaimed by academics as a significant social history find.

Dr Mike Sanders, an English lecturer at Manchester University, said the pamphlet was devised by Victorian radicals as a forerunner to the universal Hymns Ancient and Modern songbook.

And instead of overtly religious themes, the 16 verses chiefly trumpet the merits of social just-ice and ‘striking down evil-doers’, as Chartists fought for workers’ rights and the extension of the vote.

The lecturer only came across the fragile document after being tipped off about its existence by Linda Croft, a historian working for the Todmorden branch of the Workers' Educational Associa-tion.

Dr Sanders found the hymn book among boxes of uncatalogued material held in the Rochdale Road library’s archives. He said: “It’s pretty rare, even the British Library doesn’t have a copy.

“It is an amazing find and opens up a whole new understanding of Chartism which as a movement in many ways shaped the Britain we know today.

“What is so fascinating is that the singing of hymns was not the best known feature of Chartism so this attempt to produce an equivalent to Hymns Ancient and Modern is significant.”

Only two other known attempts were made at creating a hymn book for the Chartist movement —Cooper’s ‘Shakespearean Chartist Hymn Book’ and Hobson’s ‘Hymns for Worship’.

But Dr Sanders research, using the Chartist newspaper The Northern Star, has found three references to the Todmorden hymn book.

Other hymns decry child labour and slavery.

The lecturer is an acknowledged expert on the movement, and has previously written The Poetry of Chartism.