2022
Welcome to the next in the series #MoreOfManchester - in which we are trying to entice you to join our 6-9th June #EuroMeetUp. In this post I'm going to give you a brief overview of our ancient city - and help you to understand what makes us who we are. For more information on the MeetUp check our original announcement post here , and you can find the confirmation post here and sign up if you can!
Please note that this is an in-person meet-up and currently we do not have any plans for a virtual session.
What’s in a name?
The Brigantes were a Celtic tribe inhabiting the north of what’s now England in the time before the Romans. They established a stronghold on a sandstone hill on the banks of the River Irwell (where the cathedral and Chethams Library now stand). They gave the area a name based on the Brythonic word ‘mamma’ (which means breast-like ) because of the breast-like shape of the hill. And the name has stuck with us for over 2000 years – probably because the Roman invaders in 79CE incorporated the local name into the name of the fort they established in the same area, to control the region: ‘Mamucium’.
From Roman Fort to Market Town
The Roman fort ‘Mamucium’ (still visible in the ruins unearthed in Castlefield) hints at its military purpose controlling the region.
Around the outside of it, and including the ancient British settlement, grew a town to service the military establishment, and the central city has been occupied ever since.
After the Romans departed in the 4th century, Manchester fell under Anglo-Saxon and Viking rule. There’s not a lot of remaining evidence of this – but there are records and stone evidence of a Christian church being where the cathedral now is from about the year 800CE. Eventually the town became a market town mentioned in the Domesday Book (1086) (England’s ancient record of land ownership following the invasion of the Normans from France in 1066). It’s recorded as ‘Mamecestre’ – a combination of the ancient name, and the name given to towns with a Roman fort.
Manchester Cathedral, has some ancient walls dating back to the 13th century and the development of the huge church stands as a testament to the town's growing religious and social significance.
Growing Quietly
For centuries, Manchester, as it became known, existed as a small and fairly insignificant market town, although it grew quietly over the centuries.
It was to this town that Flemish weavers fled in the 1300s following Belgian persecution. They brought with them the skills of lace-making and it is thought that the Piccadilly area got its name from the lace piccadills (16th century lace collars) made here.
This was the quiet start of the textile industry in Manchester.
In the 1400s the older fort/castle on the sandstone hill was replaced with a manor house (now Chetham’s Library) and the cathedral was granted a charter by King Henry V to train priests, and was built as it largely is now.
With the proximity of the sheep- hills of the Pennines, and the international value of wool and wool products, the town gradually became a woollen manufacturing town, with workers working in their own homes to hand weave the cloth which was exported across the nation. We can still see the evidence of this in some of the older buildings with long horizontal windows on the upper floors to give light to the handlooms, and service doors and hoists on the upstairs floors where bales of raw wool were hoisted up, and the finished product lowered down to be carted away by horse and cart.
The Rise of Textiles and the Industrial Revolution
Manchester continued as a textile town over many centuries. However, a real turning point came with cotton. Manchester’s damp climate was ideal for ensuring that the delicate cotton thread was less likely to break. Advancements in textile machinery, like the spinning jenny and the power loom, fuelled a cotton boom. With the proximity of ample water power, and later coal from the ground around the city, and with the birth of canals connecting the city with the sea, Manchester became the world’s pre-eminent cotton city, trading with the USA, India and the whole world, and indeed the world’s first truly industrialised city
The Northern Quarter, with its grid layout and warehouses, emerged as a focal point of the industry, and is now full of trendy bars and restaurants housed in these converted industrial spaces. Manchester's transformation was rapid.
Cottonopolis: Manchester at its Peak
The 19th century saw Manchester become a global industrial powerhouse, earning the nickname ‘Cottonopolis’ as it traded across the globe, primarily in cotton, but also in many other manufactured goods.
The city embraced innovation, pioneering the world's first passenger railway station, Liverpool Road, in 1830. This revolutionized transportation and cemented Manchester's position as a trading centre.
Scientific advancements like atomic theory by John Dalton in the early 1800s further solidified Manchester's reputation for progress. However, the city's rapid growth also had a dark side. Poor working conditions and overcrowding led to social unrest, exemplified by the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, where peaceful protestors demanding parliamentary reform were attacked by cavalry. Manchester's industrial legacy is still visible in the grand Victorian architecture of buildings like the Manchester Central Library, a testament to the city's wealth and cultural aspirations during this period, and its grand neogothic town hall – currently under renovation.
But the city was not without its problems – the rapid growth of the city and an influx of workers from abroad, and from the countryside led to unplanned and unregulated housing development giving rise to frequently unhygienic and impoverished living conditions, and slums were everywhere. It was over these slums that Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels looked out from Chethams Library inspiring their original communist manifesto.
A 20th and 21st Century City
Early in the 20th century he 20th century brought challenges for Manchester. The decline of the British textile industry in the mid-20th century hit the city hard. Many factories closed, leading to unemployment and economic hardship. The Manchester Ship Canal, opened in 1894, offered some relief by providing a direct route to overseas markets, but the city faced a period of adjustment. However, Manchester has shown remarkable resilience. The late 20th and early 21st centuries witnessed a shift towards a more diversified economy, with a focus on finance, media, and creative industries. The Spinningfields district, once a hub of cotton warehouses, now boasts modern office buildings and trendy restaurants, symbolizing Manchester's ability to reinvent itself. The transformation is further highlighted by major cultural institutions like the Manchester Arena and The Lowry arts center, attracting visitors and showcasing the city's contemporary vibrancy.
During this recent evolution, Manchester has continued to have an impact on the nation, and far beyond – from the rise of suffragettes working for the voting rights of women, through the birth of the rolls-royce company, to the world’s first stored memory computer, opening up the world of modern information technology.
Come and See
In June, at the #EuroMeetup2024 event, @AdrianLunsong and I will be your hosts for the event and we have an excellent line-up of places to visit and things to do. From its pre-Roman roots to its industrial peak and its current transformation into a thriving modern city, Manchester offers a glimpse into Britain's social, economic, and technological journey. As you explore Manchester, from the cobbled streets of the Northern Quarter to the glass skyscrapers of Spinningfields, remember that you're walking through a city that has embraced both tradition and innovation throughout its long and fascinating history.
The #MoreOfManchester series:
This series is to help promote Manchester as the host city for #EuroMeetup2024. In it you will find lots of information about Manchester and our personal recommendation of places to visit! We hope that you will enjoy this series and do stay tuned for more posts leading up to June when the event begins!
Here are the posts in this series so far:
- Top Places to Visit
- Top Places for Food
- A Short History (this post)
Whoop! Whoop!! Thanks for the excellent scoop on this @PeteMHW ! History is definitely not my strongest forte and my brain is like a sieve when it comes to history and useful information!
For a compact city, Manchester truly has some interesting gems to uncover and I hope that our UK/European Local Guides will be joining us at #EuroMeetup2024! Please do sign up early as we have to do a fair bit of reservations! The agenda is shaping up pretty well and we'll do a post next month (I think) to reveal the "final" schedule of events!
All the links to the necessary pages are in the post above so do check it out ... and do let your friends know too! Thanks! 😊
Tagging a few UK peeps (I found you via the Favourite Locations feature) 😅
@StretfordSue @Ally91 @JohnBow @Tatys90 @Mike773U @zeemirza @Andrew21 @TimBull @Mrmeer
