Alan Masterson; Manchester: The First Modern Metropolis (Manchester University Press, 2011)
The Roots of Mancunian Culture
For many around the world, the images that come to mind when one speaks of “England” is the England of Oxford, London and the South East. The Elite of England since the 17th century had largely been Anglican, tied to a handful of ancient institutions like the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. However, it is not this cultural establishment that gave rise to the Industrial Revolution, the processes that made England and the rest of the United Kingdom into an economic colossus, the likes of which had never been seen before on the planet. Many of the important inventors and businessmen who began the industrial revolution had not been educated in the great universities of Oxford or Cambridge, but had largely built their achievements on a more practical basis. These “practical men” not only triggered the industrial revolution, but in Manchester particularly gave rise to one of the world’s most successful counter-cultures.
The roots of this culture were humble indeed. Although Manchester was economically prosperous during the 18th century, there was very little in the way of culture. Those who had the means instead focused on London, thinking of Manchester as a cultural backwater. There were few steps made to remedy this in the later 18th century, even as Manchester expanded from a provincial backwater into a booming industrial town. The Manchester Literary and Philosophical society was formed in 1781. Institutions such as this were joined by the Portico Library of 1806. These institutions, although not much compared to the many intellectual societies and amenities that could be found in London, were widely considered to be the basis for Middle-Class Mancunian culture throughout the 19th century.
As Manchester’s economy reached meteoric rates of growth in the early 19th century, Manchester’s Middle Class grew correspondingly. However, Manchester was far more famous for the legendary disorder of the working classes. Although the sympathies of many had been with the working class following the Battle of Peterloo, the crime and general rambunctiousness of the Mancunian working classes soon drowned out the image of the virtuous and informed working classes created in the aftermath of Peterloo with one focused on their drunkenness and debauchery. Crime in Manchester was no worse than in working class neighbourhoods of London, but nevertheless for the first few decades of the 19th century, Manchester would be known as one of the rowdiest cities in the United Kingdom.
However, even as Manchester became notorious for the uncultured ways of its workers, many institutions that would later grow into important bastions of the city were founded. Following the foundation of the Manchester City Corporation in 1827, the number of natively Mancunian organizations began to increase exponentially. The Corporation increased the funding of educational institutions in the city, and was a major backer behind the Manchester Technical College, a college which focused almost exclusively on the sciences while neglecting traditional subjects such as Theology and Classical languages. This joined the previous “Mechanics Institute in Manchester”, and would later be joined by the Owen’s College as the flagship higher-education institutions in the city.
The growth at the upper end of education was mirrored by investment into its primary stages. A large number of new schools were built throughout Manchester, with the ground-breaking premise of a free education. This was something that would not be seen in the rest of the United Kingdom for decades. Despite this attraction, the parents of many working-class children preferred to have their children work for most of the day, which provided an income for the family that school did not. Children would not be free to focus on school for quite some time, until the Westminster government gradually eradicated child labour. However, by no means was the provision of education in Manchester in the early 19th century a failure, as evidenced by the fact that around 50% of school-aged children in Manchester were attending a primary school by 1840.
This development was inspired by the middle classes of Manchester, who saw the apparent “uncultured” ways of the working class to be caused poor education. The “Society for the Advancement of the People” was one of these largely middle-class organizations which attempted to influence the way that working people in Manchester behaved. They saw the war against disorder as being fought with two weapons, namely the Manchester City Police and the Manchester Educational Board. Although many of the members of these societies were religious, they rejected the system of Sunday Schools which provided education in the rest of the United Kingdom as inadequate. Although it would not be until later in the 19th century that school were seen primarily as a way to increase the quality of Manchester’s workforce, many believed that a basis for the understanding of the physical world should be part of the education of children. However, it should be remembered that despite the praises of later secularists, it was still the belief of many in Manchester’s elite that morals should be derived from religion rather than from human knowledge.
Toward the middle of the 19th century, the impression of Manchester was beginning to shift. Although Alexander de Tocqueville found Manchester to be a “Sewer from which flows pure gold”, dominated by filth and smog, other visitors were reassessing their impressions of the city. The German social scientist Friedrich Engels, whose family operated a number of businesses in the city, contrasted the appalling health of the city with the “increasing high-mindedness and civilization of the middle class of the city”. The later Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli commented that “Manchester is not just a city, but indeed the harbinger of a new age, grounded as much on the machine as on man”. The impression that Manchester represented the dawn of a new age of urbanization was palpable both among its supporters and detractors.
The increased profile of Manchester was beginning to attract immigration not only from other areas of the United Kingdom, but from abroad too. The Germans brought a significant amount of business know-how, setting up businesses in a number of industries. Levantine Merchants set themselves up as middle-men between Egyptian cotton growers and Mancunian mill owners. Another significant group would be Jews, whose numbers would increase rapidly in the 1870s onwards. Although a fairly small minority in the early 19th century, Manchester’s Jewish population would go on to be a scientifically significant one in later years. But in terms of numbers, it was the Irish which dominated immigration to the city. The area around the River Medlock on Oxford Road was dominated by Irish neighbourhoods, and became a byword for squalor and deprivation. Immigration from outside Europe and the Mediterranean basin was still a long way into the future, though even in the first half of the 19th century Manchester was a multicultural city.
This positive view carried over to the increasingly proud elite of Manchester. The owners of the great cotton mills had stopped aspiring to join the traditional British elite in the South of the Nation. Although many attempted to carry the air of country gentlemen, this was largely done in houses in close proximity to Manchester rather than on estates in the South East. And perhaps more curiously, a number chose to build great houses on the outskirts of the city. A number can still be seen, particularly in Moss Side, which served as one of Manchester’s wealthiest neighbourhoods for much of the 19th century. The intelligentsia of Manchester proclaimed to be the leaders of a counter culture; an English identity that was forward-looking, embracing of sciences, urbanism and modernity and perhaps most importantly, one that was not centred on London.
