Manchester

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Manchester
512px-Montage of Manchester 6.jpg


Sovereign state United Kingdom
Country England
Shire county Lancashire (majority)
Cheshire (part)
Council Manchester City Council
Population 568,996
Demonym Mancunian
Manc

Manchester is a major industrial city in north-western England. It is primarily in the county Lancashire, with suburban areas south of the River Mersey, plus Manchester Airport, being in Cheshire. It lies approximately 30 miles east of the Irish Sea at Liverpool, 37 miles south-west of Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire and 32 miles north of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. Greater Manchester is the UK's third largest metropolitan area. This, combined with its cultural importance, means it is generally considered to be the UKs 'third city'. More recently it has even laid claim to be the UKs 'second city', a source of ongoing debate, particularly between Manchester and Birmingham. It was formerly an important inland port, served by the Manchester Ship Canal beside the River Mersey.

The earliest documented settlement at Manchester was a Roman fort, Mamucium, at the modern inner-city area Castlefield, established in 79 AD. By the 16th century, Manchester was a booming market town thanks to the textile trade. In the 18th and 19th centuries, with the industrialisation of the trade, Manchester became the centre of Lancashire's cotton industry, being dubbed "Cottonopolis". This resulted in an explosion of the local population, with particularly large numbers coming from Ireland; by 1851, it was estimated that 15% of Mancunians were Irish born.

The city of Manchester forms the council area of the unitary authority Manchester City Council. The wider Manchester post town also includes the towns of Droylsden, Eccles, Prestwich, Swinton and Tyldesley.

History

Originally a Roman military settlement named Mamcumium, and later of a tenth century burh (Anglo-Saxon fortified place), Manchester was of only regional importance until the Industrial Revolution, when it became a major centre of the cotton industry and renowned as a "shock city", a place where new urban and social developments were undertaken. Manchester and its environs saw the first large-scale application of factory technology and organisation; Manchester was the first city to experience full-scale suburbanisation; it was (with Liverpool) the first city to have a fully locomotive-hauled public railway, in 1830. It also experienced in full measure the negative aspects of this headlong rush to modernise and urbanise in its terrible slums, described in a dramatic piece of reportage by Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1844–45; first published in English 1892). In recent years the city centre has seen large scale renovation, including that of a quarter damaged by an IRA terrorist bomb in 1996. The city is home to the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University.

The city was the home of the free trade, anti corn law movement, led by Cobden and Bright, and recalled in the Free Trade Hall. This movement sought to abolish government interference in the free market of goods (the 'Corn laws', which restricted grain imports to Britain, impeding industrialisation and the economic welfare of the population, in favour of the interests of a feudal landed clique of aristocrats), and can be seen as pioneering free market economics.

Manchester is world-renowned not only for its position as one of the most important cities during the industrial revolution, but also for the scientific progress made during the 20th century. Below are some of the most notable scientists:

Geography

Manchester is located around 70 miles north-west as the crow flies from Birmingham, Warwickshire and around 30 miles east of Liverpool. It is bound to the east by the Pennines and to the south by the Cheshire Plain, with the River Mersey running through the city's southern suburbs. Much of the city lies within the Salford hundred of Lancashire; those south of the Mersey are in the Macclesfield hundred of Cheshire.

Culture

Manchester has a number of major museums and is also home to the John Rylands Library, now part of the University of Manchester, which has in its collection the earliest fragment of the New Testament known to exist. It is the home of the Halle Orchestra, which is based in the city's Bridgewater Hall, and it was formerly the headquarters of the ultra-liberal daily newspaper The Guardian, known as The Manchester Guardian until it moved to London.

A number of significant bands have come from Manchester, including:

Manchester was also the location for the successful TV series Life on Mars.

Sport

  • Lancashire County Cricket Club play many of their matches at Old Trafford, which has also been the venue of many test matches.
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