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A Great
City - a Preface
The author
makes no apology for admitting a somewhat biased attitude and
abiding love for this, his adopted home, the City of Manchester.
It is, unquestionably, a great place to live.This was self-evident
immediately upon arrival; when the author first stepped down from
the train at Piccadilly Station as a young student from the Black
Country in 1964, he immediately fell in love with the place -
so much so that he stayed here, raised a family, and spent all
of his working life here!
So what follows
is by way of a personal and somewhat partisan tribute to the great
city.
An Historic
Town
The City of Manchester is relatively new, but
it already had a long history before it gained a city charter.
Its history traces almost two millennia.
The first recorded settlement of Manchester began in Roman times,
when General Julius Agricola, marching northwards with conquest
in mind, built a fort in what he considered a good defensible
position just north of the present day city. However, it was not
until the 18th century that this hitherto remote and inconspicuous
little medieval township sprang into the forefront of world attention,
and not until the mid-19th century that it became a city.
Actually, it was the neighbouring City of Salford, located immediately
opposite across the River Irwell, that dominated the region, Manchester
was at that time little more than an outlying suburb; Salford
WAS the city. The Salford Hundred, of which the city was its administrative
hub, covered all lands between the River Ribble to the north and
the Mersey to the south, so important and valuable a possession
that to this day the sovereign owns and bears the title of Lord
of the Manor of Salford.
Not until the 19th century, after many protests and petitions
to parliament, notably by the Chartists, did Manchester gain the
status of a city.
Read more of Manchester
History >>
During the Industrial Revolution the powerhouse
that was Manchester became the hub of a wide network of many small
Lancashire townships - "little Manchesters" as they
were sometimes known - towns that serviced the city's massive
cotton industry.
Surrounding County Borough townships like Blackburn, Burnley,
Bolton, Wigan, Salford, Oldham and Rochdale sent their woven and
spun produce to the Royal Exchange in Manchester and from thence
to the world via the newly created Manchester Ship Canal, and
received raw materials which were distributed out from the city
and its well established system of canals and railways. Other
related crafts such as dyeing, fulling and every possible aspect
of the textile industry cause Manchester to be designated "Cottonopolis"
where 'King Cotton' ruled.
The Manchester Ship Canal saw goods arriving from all over the
world into its large Manchester Docks complex, (actually in Salford)
now reinvigorated as Salford Quays.
Steam power drove the Victorian city, with water from the many
local rivers like the Irwell, Medlock, Irk and Tame, and coal
from Worsley via the Duke of Egerton's Bridgewater Canal to Castlefield,
or other coal pits around Wigan. A network of newly cut and navigable
canals enabled the efficient transportation of raw materials and
manufactured goods right into the heart of the city.
Even today, Manchester is marked by its many fine surviving warehouses
(now mostly ressurected as hotels and executive apartments) and
mills (now frequently relegated to small industrial units).
It held onto its reputation as the prime source of world textiles
until its decline in the 1950s, when cheaper foreign import of
cotton from India sounded the death knell for the region's pre-eminence.
Read
more about Manchester Textile Industries >>
Manchester
skyline on a dull December morning showing the Town Hall and Extension
In the 1970s, Greater
Manchester was born - a still controversial grouping of 8 boroughs
and 2 cities, which were subsumed into one large administrative
connurbation, the Metropolitan County of Greater Manchester.
Manchester and Salford already existed
as cities in their own right. Two other boroughs, Tameside and
Trafford, were newly created (again, quite controversially) for
the purpose, while other former County Boroughs like Bolton, Bury,
Oldham, Wigan and Rochdale (in Lancashire) and Stockport (in Cheshire)
lost their administrative independence to a large degree to the
new Metropolitan County.
These Metropolitan Boroughs are connected by the Manchester Orbital
Motorway, the M60, as well as the ever more extensive Metrolink
Tram System and two major mainline railway stations. Internationally,
Manchester connects to the rest of the world by a major Airport.
This fabricated "county", paradoxically existing still
in name but with less than intended powers and authority, still
produces more than half of Britain's manufactured goods and consumables,
though manufacturing continues its steady decline.
The Greater Manchester conurbation
is a big place. While some 2½ million people live within
its actual boundaries, over 7 million others live in the wider
region, making it second only to London in Great Britain - Manchester
still vies with Birmingham for the title of England Second City!.
For 11 million people living within
50 miles of the City of Manchester, it is the place where they
come to work, or to shop or to visit the many attractions and
entertainments which only a large dynamic city such as this could
hope to offer.
Read more about
Greater Manchester >>
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Manchester
Town Hall
Manchester's Busy
Bee
Symbol of Manchester Industry
Queen Victoria Monument
Piccadilly Gardens
Julius Agricola
Manchester Town Hall
Manchester Central
Library
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