History

Power over nations

When Manchester Town Hall was officially opened in 1877, former Manchester MP John Bright spoke in the Great Hall. ‘[We are] standing in a district more wonderful in some respects than can be traced out on a map in any other Kingdom of the world,’ he said. ‘The population is extraordinary in its number, extraordinary for its interests and industries, for the amount of its wealth, for the amount of its wages, and for the power which it exercises on other nations.’ He wasn’t talking through his hat. At the time, Manchester was the centre of an industrial region larger than any other on the planet – a major commercial and mercantile player with a growing global reputation.

Attitude

Bright’s speech reveals more about the city than its position in the world. It speaks of its character. Manchester has a tradition of truculent independence unlike that of any other UK city. It’s been around since the English Civil War, when Manchester supported Parliament rather than the King, it is part of the lyrics of the Smiths, the self-belief of Manchester United, it’s intrinsic to Emmeline Pankhurst raising the ‘Votes for Women’ banner at the Free Trade Hall in 1905. It is a given.

Peter Saville, the city’s Creative Director, has said, ‘There’s a wilfulness about Manchester which is very condensed. There’s something historically, geographically and socially about the people that prepares you for something.’ Speaking of his time at Factory Records he recalls, ‘we didn’t think we were the best, we knew we were.’ But where does this attitude come from?

Big history

Here’s where. Manchester was the first city of the industrial age, home of the Peterloo Massacre, the birthplace of Western vegetarianism, the Trades Union Congress. This was the city where commentators first noted, 200 years ago, how factories and chimneys were bigger than palaces and churches. Here John Dalton developed the first atomic theory, and it’s where Ernest Rutherford split the atom. Manchester can lay claim through Sir Joseph Whitworth to refining precision engineering, and to the first true computer with the ‘Baby’ at Manchester University. The list of achievements goes on. You could include the country’s first permanent, full-time orchestra (the Hallé), which in turn arose from the biggest temporary art exhibition ever held, the Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857. All this means that Manchester’s history connects with so much that created the world that we live today. It’s hard to imagine us arriving where we are without this city’s contribution. This is history with a capital H.

The dawn of time and all that

So how did Manchester get to its moment of 19th century significance? It started off with the Romans, who brought roads, a fort and a name. Mamucium. A new wave of incomers, the Saxons, pitched up, moving the town centre up the old Roman road to an area they believed was easier to defend. The Vikings burnt it down. The Normans brought new Lords of the Manor. One of their descendents was Thomas de la Warre, part of the same family that would later give its name to the American state of Delaware. Textiles arrived by the 1300s, and Manchester reinforced its market town status to become a regional centre.. ‘Manchester cotton’ (wool and flax mixed together) was becoming prominent in London markets. Around 1600 the first true raw cotton was imported from Turkey.

Wam, bam industry man

Manchester next made a brief appearance in history during Bonnie Prince Charlie’s insurrection against the George II in 1745, when supporters of the old Stuart monarchs were pitted against those who favoured the Hanoverian dynasty. But that was just a sideshow. The industrial cataclysm was coming. Cotton had now firmly established its dominance. Technological advances accelerated the process: Kay had already invented the Flying Shuttle in 1733. Between 1760 and 1790, Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny, Arkwright, the Water Frame and Crompton the Spinning Mule. They were all Lancashire men. Cheap coal arrived in Manchester with the construction of the Bridgewater Canal and the first steam mill fired up in 1783. In 1771, Manchester’s first bank opened. In all, Lancashire, Cheshire and Yorkshire had, at the beginning of the 19th century, 89 steam engines in factories – 32 of them were in Manchester mills. Location, coal, steam, innovation and experience were placing the town at the centre of a new world. Manchester had arrived.

Pages: 1 2 3