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City of Manchester
Manchester City Centre
Nickname(s): 
"Capital of the North", "Cottonopolis", "Madchester"
Motto(s): 
"Concilio Et Labore" "Wisdom and effort"
Manchester shown within England
Manchester shown within England
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Constituent countryEngland
RegionNorth West England
Ceremonial countyGreater Manchester
Admin HQManchester City Centre
Founded13th century
City Status1853
Government
 • TypeMetropolitan borough, City
 • Governing bodyManchester City Council
 • Lord MayorGlynn Evans
 • MPs:Paul Goggins (L)
Sir Gerald Kaufman (L)
John Leech (LD)
Tony Lloyd (L)
Graham Stringer (L)
Area
 • Borough & City44.65 sq mi (115.65 km2)
Elevation
256 ft (78 m)
Population
 (2005 est / Urban 2006)
 • Borough & City(Ranked )
 • Density9,880/sq mi (3,815/km2)
 • Urban
2,240,230
(Greater Manchester Urban Area)
 • Metro
4,209,132
 • County
2,547,700
 • County density5,172.2/sq mi (1,997/km2)
 • Ethnicity
(2001 Census)
81% White
9.1% Asian
4.5% Black British
2.17% Chinese
3.23% Mixed race
Time zoneUTC+0 (Greenwich Mean Time)
Postcode
Area code0161
ISO 3166-2GB-MAN
ONS code00BY
OS grid referenceSJ838980
NUTS 3UKD31
Websitewww.manchester.gov.uk

Manchester (pronounced /ˈmæntʃɛstə/) is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. The City of Manchester metropolitan borough has a population of 441,200.[1] Manchester lies at the centre of the wider Greater Manchester Urban Area which has a population of 2,240,230,[2] the United Kingdom's third largest conurbation.

Forming part of the English Core Cities Group, and often described as the "Capital of the North",[3] Manchester today is a centre of the arts, the media, higher education and commerce. It is also regarded as the third best place to locate business in the UK,[4] is the third most visited city in the United Kingdom by foreign visitors and now often considered to be the second city of the UK.[5] Manchester is also well known for its sporting connections, with two Premier League football teams, Manchester United and Manchester City,[6] and hosted the XVII Commonwealth Games in 2002.

It is claimed that Manchester was the world's first industrialised city[7] and is notable for the central role it played during the Industrial Revolution. It was the dominant international centre of textile manufacture and cotton spinning.[8] During the 19th century it was nicknamed Cottonopolis,[9] denoting that the area was a metropolis of cotton mills. Manchester City Centre is now on a "tentative list" of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, mainly due to its network of canals and mills that facilitated its development during the 19th century.[10]

History

Toponymy

The name "Manchester" (pronounced /ˈmæntʃɛstə/) came from the Roman name Mamucium, thought to be a Latinisation of an original Celtic name (possibly meaning "breast-like hill" from mamm- = "breast"), plus Anglo-Saxon ceaster = "town", which is derived from Latin castra = "camp".[11]

Early history

A map of Manchester from 1801
The Peterloo massacre of 1819.

There are few signs of prehistoric occupation of the city. The only major Bronze age find is at the far south of the city, where the remains of an extensive farming community overlooking the River Bollin were found during the construction of the second runway of the airport.[12]

Central Manchester has been settled since at least Roman times.[13] The Roman general Gnaeus Julius Agricola constructed a fort in the 70s AD on a defensible hill where the River Medlock meets the River Irwell, at the junction of roads to Chester, York, Buxton, Ribchester, and Melandra.[12] A stabilised fragment of foundations of the final version of the fort is visible in Castlefield. The Romans withdrew in the early fifth century, and by the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066 the focus of settlement had shifted to the confluence of the rivers Irwell and Irk.[12][14] Much of the wider area was laid waste in the subsequent Harrying of the North.[15][16]

Thomas de la Warre, lord of the manor, founded and constructed a collegiate church for the parish in 1421. The church is now Manchester Cathedral; the domestic premises of the college now house Chetham's School of Music and Chetham's Library.[17]

Around the 14th century, Manchester had seen an influx of Flemish weavers, sometimes credited as the foundation of the regions textile industry.[18][19] Manchester became an important centre for the manufacture and trade of woolens and linen, and by about 1540, had expanded to become, in John Leland's words, "The fairest, best builded, quickest, and most populous town of all Lancashire."[20][21] The cathedral and Chetham's buildings are the only significant survivors of Leland's Manchester.[22]

Significant quantities of cotton began to be used after about 1600, firstly in linen/cotton fustians, but by around 1750 pure cotton fabrics were being produced and cotton had overtaken wool in importance.[23] The Irwell and Mersey were made navigable by 1736, opening a route from Manchester to the sea docks on the Mersey. The Bridgewater Canal, Britain's first wholly artificial waterway, was opened in 1761, bringing coal from mines at Worsley to central Manchester. The canal was extended to the Mersey at Runcorn by 1776. The combination of competition and improved efficiency halved the cost of coal and halved the transport cost of raw cotton.[24]

Manchester became the dominant marketplace for textiles produced in the surrounding towns.[25] A commodities exchange, opened in 1729,[26] and numerous large warehouses, aided commerce.

In 1780, Richard Arkwright began construction of Manchester's first cotton mill.[27]

Industrial Revolution

A map of Manchester from 1894.
Manchester (or Cottonopolis as it was sometimes referred) during the early 19th century.

During the 19th century Manchester grew to become the centre of Lancashire's cotton industry and was dubbed "Cottonopolis". During this period the canal system was extended, and Manchester became one end of the world's first intercity passenger railway – the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

Manchester quickly grew into an important industrial centre. At that time, it seemed a place in which anything could happen – new industrial processes, new ways of thinking (the so called "Manchester School", promoting free trade and laissez-faire), new classes or groups in society, new religious sects, and new forms of labour organisation. It attracted educated visitors from all parts of Britain and Europe. A saying capturing this sense of innovation survives today: "What Manchester does today, the rest of the world does tomorrow."[28]

As well as being a centre of capitalism the city saw its fair share of rebellion by the working and non-titled classes, with the most famous being the events on St Peter’s Field on 16 August 1819 which have become known as 'Peterloo'. The first Trades Union Congress was held in Manchester (at the Mechanics' Institute, David Street), from 2 to 6 June 1868. Manchester was the subject of Friedrich Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, Engels himself spending much of his life in and around Manchester.[29] Manchester was also an important cradle of the Labour Party and the Suffragette Movement.[30] In 1878 the GPO provided its first telephones to a firm in Manchester.[31]

Manchester's golden age was perhaps the last quarter of the 19th century. Many of the great public buildings (including the Town Hall) date from then. The city's cosmopolitan atmosphere contributed to a vibrant culture, which included the Hallé Orchestra. In 1889, when county councils were created in England, the municipal borough became a county borough with even greater autonomy. During this period, the Manchester Ship Canal was created by the canalisation of the Rivers Irwell and Mersey for 36 miles (58 km) from Salford to the Mersey estuary. This enabled ocean going ships to sail right into the Port of Manchester. By 1963 the port was the UK's third largest[32][33] and employed over 3000 men, but the canal was unable to handle the increasingly large container ships. Traffic declined, and the port closed in 1982.[34]

Manchester suffered greatly from the inter-war depression and the underlying structural changes that began to supplant the old industries, including textile manufacture.

World War II

During World War II Manchester was involved in heavy industrial construction. The city was attacked a number of times by the Luftwaffe, particularly in the "Christmas Blitz" of 1941, which destroyed a large part of the historic city centre. In 1940 Manchester Cathedral was partially destroyed by a German air-raid.[35]

The devastation left by the IRA bombing

1996 bomb

Manchester has a history of attacks attributed to Irish Republicanists, including arson in 1920, a series of explosions in 1939, and two bombs in 1992. On Saturday 15 June 1996, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonated a large bomb adjacent to a department store in the city centre. The largest to be detonated on British soil, the bomb caused over 200 injuries, heavily damaged nearby buildings, and broke windows half a mile away. The cost of the immediate damage was initially estimated at £50 million, but this was quickly revised upwards.[36] The final insurance payout has been estimated at over £400 million, and many affected businesses never recovered from the loss of trade.[37]

Redevelopment

Spurred by the investment after the 1996 bomb, and aided by the XVII Commonwealth Games, Manchester's city centre has undergone extensive regeneration.[38] New and renovated complexes such as The Printworks and the Triangle have become popular shopping and entertainment destinations. The Manchester Arndale is the UK's largest city centre shopping mall.[39]

Exchange Square undergoing regeneration.

Large sections of the city dating from the 1960s have been either demolished and re-developed or modernised with the use of glass and steel. Old mills have been converted into modern apartments, Hulme has undergone extensive regeneration programmes, and million-pound lofthouse apartments have since been developed. The 169 metre tall, 47-storey Beetham Tower, completed in 2006, is the tallest building in the UK outside London and highest residential accommodation in the Western Europe. The lower 23 floors form the Hilton Hotel, featuring a 'sky bar' on the 23rd floor. Its upper 24 floors are apartments.[40] In January 2007, the independent Casino Advisory Panel awarded Manchester a licence to build the only supercasino in the UK to regenerate the Eastlands area of the city,[41][42][43] but in March the House of Lords rejected the decision by three votes rendering previous House of Commons acceptance meaningless. This left the supercasino, and fourteen other smaller concessions, in parliamentary limbo until a final decision was made.[44] On 11 July 2007, a source close to the government declared the entire supercasino project "dead in the water".[45] A member of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce professed himself "amazed and a bit shocked" and that "there has been an awful lot of time and money wasted".[46] After a meeting with the Prime Minister, Manchester City Council issued a press release on 24 July 2007 stating that "contrary to some reports the door is not closed to a regional casino".[47]

Governance

Manchester Town Hall, used for the local governance of Manchester, is an example of Victorian era Gothic revival architecture.

Manchester is represented by three tiers of government, Manchester City Council ("local"), UK Parliament ("national"), and European Parliament ("Europe"). Greater Manchester County Council administration was abolished in 1986, and so the city is effectively a unitary authority. Since its inception in 1995, Manchester has been a member of the English Core Cities Group,[48] which, amongst other things, serves to promote the social, cultural and economic status of the city at an international level.

Civic history

The town of Manchester was granted a charter by Thomas Grelley in 1301 but lost borough status by a court case in 1359. Until the 19th century local government was largely provided by manorial courts which were not finally ended until 1846.[49] From a very early time, the township of Manchester lay within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire.[49] It formed its own ecclesiastical parish and Poor Law Union by the name of Manchester.[49] In 1792 commissioners, usually known as police commissioners, were established for the social improvement Manchester. In 1838 Manchester regained borough status, and comprised the townships of Beswick, Cheetham Hill, Chorlton upon Medlock and Hulme.[49] By 1846 the Borough Council had taken over the powers of the police commissioners. In 1853 Manchester was granted city status in the United Kingdom.[49]

In 1885 Bradford, Harpurhey, Rusholme and parts of Moss Side and Withington townships became part of the City of Manchester. In 1889 the city became the County borough of Manchester, which was external to the administrative county of Lancashire, and thus not governed by Lancashire County Council.[49] Between 1890 and 1933, more areas were added to the city from Lancashire, including former villages such as Burnage, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Didsbury, Fallowfield, Levenshulme, Longsight, Withington. In 1931 the Cheshire civil parishes of Baguley, Northenden and Northern Etchells from the south of the River Mersey were added.[49] In 1974, by way of the Local Government Act 1972, the City of Manchester became a metropolitan district of the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester.[49] In this year, Ringway was also added to the city.

Geography

Topography

Manchester
Climate chart (explanation)
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
 
 
69
 
 
6
1
 
 
50
 
 
7
1
 
 
61
 
 
9
3
 
 
51
 
 
12
4
 
 
61
 
 
15
7
 
 
67
 
 
18
10
 
 
65
 
 
20
12
 
 
79
 
 
20
12
 
 
74
 
 
17
10
 
 
77
 
 
14
8
 
 
78
 
 
9
4
 
 
78
 
 
7
2
Average max. and min. temperatures in °C
Precipitation totals in mm
Source: [3]
Imperial conversion
JFMAMJJASOND
 
 
2.7
 
 
43
34
 
 
2
 
 
45
34
 
 
2.4
 
 
48
37
 
 
2
 
 
54
39
 
 
2.4
 
 
59
45
 
 
2.6
 
 
64
50
 
 
2.6
 
 
68
54
 
 
3.1
 
 
68
54
 
 
2.9
 
 
63
50
 
 
3
 
 
57
46
 
 
3.1
 
 
48
39
 
 
3.1
 
 
45
36
Average max. and min. temperatures in °F
Precipitation totals in inches

Manchester lies in a bowl-shaped land area bordered to the north and east by the Pennine hills, a mountain chain that runs the length of Northern England and to the south by the Cheshire Plain. The city centre is on the east bank of the River Irwell, near the confluence with the Rivers Medlock and the Irk, and is relatively low-lying, being between 35 and 42 metres (115 to 138 ft) above sea level.[50] The River Mersey flows through the south of Manchester. Much of the inner city, especially in the south, is flat, offering extensive views from many highrise buildings in the city of the foothills and moors of the Pennines, which can often be capped with snow in the winter months. Manchester's geographic features were highly influential in its early development as the world's first industrial city. These features are its climate, its proximity to a seaport at Liverpool, the availability of water power from its rivers, and its nearby coal reserves.[51]

Climate

Manchester experiences a temperate marine climate, like much of the British Isles, with relatively cool summers and mild winters. There is regular but generally light precipitation throughout the year. The city's average annual rainfall is 806.6 mm[52] compared to the UK average of 1125.0 mm[53] and its mean rain days are 140.4 per annum[54] compared to the UK average of 154.4.[55] Manchester also has a relatively high humidity level, which lent itself to the optimised and breakage-free textile manufacturing which took place there. Snowfall is not a common sight within the city, due to the urban warming effect. However the Pennine and Rossendale Forest hills that surround the city to its east and north receive more snow in the winter and roads leading out of the city can be closed due to snow,[56] notably the A62 road via Oldham and Standedge, the A57 (Snake Pass) towards Sheffield,[57] and the M62 over Saddleworth Moor.

Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Record high °C (°F) 14.3
(57.7)
19.0
(66.2)
21.7
(71.1)
25.1
(77.2)
26.7
(80.1)
31.3
(88.3)
37.0
(98.6)
33.7
(92.7)
28.4
(83.1)
27.0
(80.6)
17.7
(63.9)
15.1
(59.2)
37.0
(98.6)
Mean daily maximum °C (°F) 7.3
(45.1)
7.6
(45.7)
10.0
(50.0)
12.6
(54.7)
16.1
(61.0)
18.6
(65.5)
20.6
(69.1)
20.3
(68.5)
17.6
(63.7)
13.9
(57.0)
10.0
(50.0)
7.4
(45.3)
13.5
(56.3)
Daily mean °C (°F) 4.5
(40.1)
4.6
(40.3)
6.7
(44.1)
8.8
(47.8)
11.9
(53.4)
14.6
(58.3)
16.6
(61.9)
16.4
(61.5)
14.0
(57.2)
10.7
(51.3)
7.1
(44.8)
4.6
(40.3)
10.0
(50.0)
Mean daily minimum °C (°F) 1.7
(35.1)
1.6
(34.9)
3.3
(37.9)
4.9
(40.8)
7.7
(45.9)
10.5
(50.9)
12.6
(54.7)
12.4
(54.3)
10.3
(50.5)
7.4
(45.3)
4.2
(39.6)
1.8
(35.2)
6.6
(43.9)
Record low °C (°F) −15.0
(5.0)
−13.1
(8.4)
−9.7
(14.5)
−4.9
(23.2)
−1.7
(28.9)
0.8
(33.4)
5.4
(41.7)
3.6
(38.5)
0.0
(32.0)
−4.7
(23.5)
−10.0
(14.0)
−14.0
(6.8)
−15.0
(5.0)
Average precipitation mm (inches) 72.3
(2.85)
51.4
(2.02)
61.2
(2.41)
54.0
(2.13)
56.8
(2.24)
66.1
(2.60)
63.9
(2.52)
77.0
(3.03)
71.5
(2.81)
92.5
(3.64)
81.5
(3.21)
80.7
(3.18)
828.8
(32.63)
Average snowfall mm (inches) 24
(0.9)
19
(0.7)
10
(0.4)
1
(0.0)
0
(0)
0
(0)
0
(0)
0
(0)
0
(0)
0
(0)
2
(0.1)
15
(0.6)
71
(2.7)
Average precipitation days (≥ 1.0 mm) 13.1 9.7 12.3 11.2 10.4 11.1 10.9 12.0 11.1 13.6 14.1 13.5 142.9
Average snowy days 6 5 3 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 20
Average relative humidity (%) 83 81 77 74 72 74 76 77 79 81 83 84 79
Average dew point °C (°F) 2
(36)
2
(36)
3
(37)
4
(39)
7
(45)
9
(48)
11
(52)
12
(54)
10
(50)
8
(46)
5
(41)
3
(37)
6
(43)
Mean monthly sunshine hours 52.5 73.9 99.0 146.9 188.3 172.5 179.7 166.3 131.2 99.3 59.5 47.1 1,416.2
Mean daily sunshine hours 3.4 3.4 5.2 6.8 6.7 6.4 6.6 6.0 5.9 3.8 3.5 3.6 5.1
Average ultraviolet index 0 1 2 4 5 6 6 5 4 2 1 0 3
Source 1: Met Office[58] NOAA (relative humidity and snow days 1961–1990)[59]
Source 2: KNMI[60][61] Current Results - Weather and Science[62] Meteo Climat[63] Time and Date: Average dew point (1985-2015)[64] WeatherAtlas[65]

Demography

Manchester Compared[66][67]
UK Census 2001 Manchester Greater Manchester England
Total population 441,200 2,547,700 49,138,831
Foreign born 15% 7.2% 9.2%
White 81% 91% 91%
Asian 9.1% 5.7% 4.6%
Black 4.5% 1.2% 2.3%
Christian 62% 74% 72%
Muslim 9.1% 5.0% 3.1%
Hindu 0.7% 0.7% 1.1%
No religion 16% 11% 15%
Over 75 years old 6.4% 7.0% 7.5%
Unemployed 5.0% 3.5% 3.3%

The United Kingdom Census 2001 showed a total resident population for Manchester of 392,819, a 9.2% decline from the 1991 census.[68] Approximately 83,000 were aged under 16, 285,000 were aged 16-74, and 25,000 aged 75 and over.[68] 75.9% of Manchester's population claim they have been born in the UK, according to the 2001 UK Census. Inhabitants of Manchester are known as Mancunians or Mancs for short. Manchester reported the second-lowest proportion of the population in employment of any area in the UK. A primary reason cited for Manchester's high unemployment figures is the high proportion of the population who are students.[68]

Religion

Religion Percentage of
population[68]
Christian 62.4%
No religion 16.0%
Not stated 9.7%
Muslim 9.1%
Jewish 1.0%
Hindu 0.7%
Buddhist 0.5%
Sikh 0.4%
Other 0.3%

Manchester is a religiously diverse city. Manchester boasts the second largest Jewish population in the country, and one of the largest Muslim populations in Greater Manchester.

Ethnicity

In 2001, 80% of people identified themselves as White British, 9% Asian or Asian British, 5% Black or Black British, 3% Mixed Race and 2% Chinese or other ethnic group.[69] However correct these statistics are for the year 2001, it is now estimated that Manchester's black and minority ethnic population has made a significant growth and white British now make up 75% of the population compared to 80% in 2001. Moss Side, Longsight, Cheetham Hill, Rusholme, and Whalley Range, but to name a few are particularly noted for their ethnically diverse population. It has been estimated that around 35% of Manchester's population has Irish ancestry.[70]

Manchester's Irish Festival, including a St Patrick's Day parade, is one of Europe's largest.[71] Also, Manchester's Palace Hotel hosted the 2007 Lloyds TSB's Northern Jewel Awards, where leaders of the Asian community in the North of the UK were recognized.[72]

Economy

File:ManchesterCore.PNG
Manchester City Centre from the Beetham Tower at night. The city has become a large economic centre for the UK.

Manchester is regarded to have been at the forefront of the 19th century industrial revolution, and was a leading centre for manufacturing, particularly cotton. However the city has now switched to a largely service-based economy with many financial institutions based in the city including the Manchester Building Society and the Co-operative Bank. The Co-operative Group, which is the world's largest consumer-owned business, is based in Manchester and is one of the city's biggest employers. The city is a growing centre for business and was recently ranked the third best place to locate a business in the UK.

Manchester's Central Business District is in the centre of the city, adjacent to Piccadilly, focused on Mosley Street, Deansgate, King Street and Piccadilly. Spinningfields is a large new business centre west of Deansgate that will serve as home to several headquarters, squares, and cafes. The first building on the site was the Royal Bank of Scotland's new headquarters[73] on Deansgate. The project is being spear-headed by Sir Norman Foster. Other buildings include a 110-metre (361 ft) tall office building, a new civil justice centre[74] and new Magistrates Court,[75] to be built over the next few years.

The city boasts large numbers of shops from large chain stores up to high-end boutiques such as Vivienne Westwood, Emporio Armani, DKNY. The city also has several shopping malls including the Manchester Arndale which is currently the UK's largest inner city shopping mall.[39]

Landmarks

Manchester Skyline, May 2007
Beetham Tower on Deansgate, currently Manchester's tallest building.

Architecture

Manchester has a wide variety of buildings, ranging from Victorian architecture to modern. Much of the architecture in the city harks back to its days as a global centre for the cotton trade.[76] Just outside the immediate city centre is a large number of ex-cotton mills, some of which have been left virtually untouched since their closure whilst many have been redeveloped into apartment buildings and office space. A fine example of gothic revival architecture is the Manchester Town Hall located on Albert Square, noted for its use in film as a replacement location for the Palace of Westminster as filming is not permitted. Manchester also has a number of skyscrapers built during the 1960s and 1970s, the tallest of which is the CIS Tower located near Manchester Victoria station, although recently there has been an upsurge in interest for building more. The Beetham Tower, completed in 2006, is an example of the new surge in high-rise building and includes a Hilton hotel, a restaurant, and apartments. It is currently the tallest building in the UK outside London although an even taller building, the Piccadilly Tower, is scheduled to commence construction in 2007 behind Manchester Piccadilly station.[77] Another form of modern building in the city is The Green Building, opposite Oxford Road station, which is a pioneering eco friendly housing project, being an apartment complex it is almost unique in the UK.

Monuments

See also: Places of interest in Manchester
B of the Bang

Two large squares hold many of Manchester's public monuments. Albert Square, in front of the Town Hall, has monuments to Prince Albert, Bishop James Fraser, Oliver Heywood, William Ewart Gladstone and John Bright. Piccadilly Gardens has monuments dedicated to Queen Victoria, Robert Peel, James Watt and the Duke of Wellington.[78][79]

Other notable monuments include the Alan Turing Memorial (the father of modern computing) in Sackville Park, adjacent to Sackville Street.[79] A monument to Abraham Lincoln was presented to the city by Mr. & Mrs. Charles Phelps Taft of Cincinnati, Ohio. The statue, located in the eponymous Lincoln Square, is the work of George Gray Barnard[78][79] and marks the part that Lancashire played in the cotton famine and American Civil War of 1861–1865.[80]

The success of the 2002 Commonwealth Games is commemorated by the 56 m (184 ft) tall B of the Bang, located near the City of Manchester Stadium in the Eastlands area of the city.[79] As of 2007, the sculpture is the tallest in the UK.[81]

Transport

Manchester Piccadilly Station, the principal railway and Metrolink station in Manchester.

Manchester, and the surrounding towns and cities of North West England are served by Manchester International Airport (MAN). The airport is the largest airport in the UK outside of London, serving 22 million passengers in 2006, with connections to many destinations in Europe, North America, The Caribbean, Africa, The Middle East and Asia (with more destinations from Manchester than from London Heathrow now).

Manchester is also well served by train. Local operator Northern Rail operates all over the north west of England, and other national operators include Virgin Trains. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was the first passenger railway in the world. Greater Manchester has an extensive countywide railway network, and two mainline stations. A network of bus routes radiate from Manchester City Centre. Manchester became the first city in the UK to acquire a modern light rail system called the Manchester Metrolink which is undergoing an expansion program. An extensive canal network also remains from the Industrial Revolution thought it is mainly used for leisure.

Culture

Canal Street, one of Manchester's most active nightspots, part of the city's gay village.

Nightlife

Manchester played several key roles in the development of nightclub and DJ culture (see main article on Culture of Manchester). One of the oldest venues is the Band on the Wall, a live music club in the Northern Quarter. It was built around 1862 as the flagship pub of a local brewery and originally called The George & Dragon. In 1975 it was taken on by jazz musician Steve Morris and Frank Cusick, and renamed The Band on the Wall, a longtime nickname for the club since the late 1920s alluding to its stage high on the back wall.[82]

Along with other areas that are frequented by late night revellers (such as Castlefield, Deansgate Locks, the Printworks and the Northern Quarter), Manchester boasts the famous Canal Street, the centre of the city's gay community. This was made famous by the Channel 4 programme, 'Queer as Folk', and is the centre of the annual Pride celebrations, held on the last weekend in August.

Music

Oasis, one of the biggest musical acts from Manchester.

Manchester is home to two symphony orchestras, the Hallé Orchestra and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. There is also a chamber orchestra, the Manchester Camerata. In the 1950s the city was home to the so-called 'Manchester School' of classical composers, which comprised Harrison Birtwistle, Peter Maxwell Davies, David Ellis and Alexander Goehr. Manchester is a centre for musical education, with the Royal Northern College of Music and Chetham’s School of Music. The main classical venue was the Free Trade Hall on Peter Street, until the opening in 1996 of the 2,500 seat Bridgewater Hall.

Manchester’s main pop music venue is the Manchester Evening News Arena, situated next to Victoria station. It seats over 21,000, is the largest arena of its type in Europe, and has been voted International Venue of the Year.[83] Other major venues include the Manchester Apollo and the Manchester Academy. Smaller venues throughout the city are the Bierkeller, the Roadhouse, and Night and Day Cafe.

Bands that have emerged from the Manchester music scene include The Smiths, the Buzzcocks, The Fall, Joy Division and its successor group New Order, Oasis and Doves. . Manchester was credited as the main regional driving force behind indie bands of the 1980s including Happy Mondays, The Charlatans, Inspiral Carpets, James, and The Stone Roses. These groups came from what became known as the "Madchester" scene that also centred around the legendary club Fac 51 Haçienda (also known as simply The Haçienda) developed by founder of factory records Anthony Wilson. Subsequently The Chemical Brothers, although from southern England, formed in Manchester. Ex-Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown and ex-Smiths Morrissey continue successful solo careers. Other Greater Manchester natives include Richard Ashcroft and Jay Kay of Jamiroquai.

Literature

In the 19th century, Manchester figured in novels that discussed the changes that industrialisation had brought to Britain. These included works such as Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life (1848) by Elizabeth Gaskell,[4] and The Condition of the English Working Class in 1844, written by Friedrich Engels while living and working in Manchester. Charles Dickens is reputed to have set his novel Hard Times in the city, and while it is partly modelled on Preston, it shows the influence of his friend Elizabeth Gaskell.[5]

Theatre

Manchester Opera House, one of Manchester's largest theatre venues.

Larger venues include the Manchester Opera House, featuring large scale touring shows and West End shows, the Palace Theatre, the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester’s former cotton exchange, and the Lowry Centre, a touring venue in Salford. Smaller sites include the Library Theatre, a producing theatre in the basement of the central library, the Green Room, the Contact Theatre, and Studio Salford. The Dancehouse is dedicated to dance productions.

Second City?

Manchester has recently been regarded by many as the Second city of the United Kingdom. A 2007 poll by the BBC placed it ahead of Birmingham in the category of second city, but also ahead in the category of third city. Neither categories are officially sanctioned, and criteria for determining what 'second city' means are ill-defined. Certainly Manchester is not the second largest city in size or population, but some argue that cultural and historical criteria are important.

The redevelopment of recent years has heightened claims that Manchester is the second city of the United Kingdom.[84]This title however, which is unofficial in the UK, is also claimed by a number of other cities, including Glasgow and Birmingham which have traditionally held this title since the early 20th century.[85]

Education

File:Main Quadrangle University of Manchester by Nick Higham.jpg
The Old Quadrangle of the University of Manchester

Universities

Manchester is home to two universities, the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University. The University of Manchester is the largest full-time non-collegiate university in the United Kingdom, and was created in autumn 2004 by the merger of Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST.[86] Manchester Business School, which offered the first MBA course in the UK in 1965, is also part of the University of Manchester. Manchester Metropolitan University was formed out of the old polytechnic college in the city[87] and subsequently took over the old Crewe and Alsager College of Higher Education in South Cheshire.[88]

The University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University and the Royal Northern College of Music are grouped together around Oxford Road on the southern side of the city centre, and form the largest city-centre group of higher education institutions in Europe.[89]

Schools

One of Manchester's most notable secondary schools is the Manchester Grammar School. Established in 1515[90] as a free grammar school next to what is now the Cathedral, it moved in 1931 to Old Hall Lane in Fallowfield, South Manchester, to accommodate the growing student body. In the post-war period, it was a direct-grant grammar school (i.e. partially state funded), but it reverted to independent status in 1976 after abolition of the direct-grant system.[91] Its previous premises are now used by Chetham's School of Music. There are two schools nearby: Withington Girls' School and Manchester High School for Girls.

Sports

File:CIMG1422.JPG
The City of Manchester Stadium, used for the 2002 Commonwealth Games

Two Premiership football clubs, Manchester United and Manchester City, bear the city’s name. Manchester City's ground is at the City of Manchester Stadium, (48,000 capacity); Manchester United's Old Trafford ground, the largest club football ground in the United Kingdom with 76,000 capacity, and England's only UEFA-rated 5-star stadium, is just outside the city in the borough of Trafford. Trafford is also the home of Old Trafford cricket Ground which is home to Lancashire County Cricket Club (LCCC).

First class sporting facilities were built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, including the Manchester Velodrome, the City of Manchester Stadium, the National Squash Centre and the Manchester Aquatics Centre. Manchester has competed twice to host the Olympic Games, being beaten by Atlanta for 1996 and Sydney for 2000, and various sporting arenas around the city will be used as training facilities prior to the 2012 Olympics in London.

Media

Television

The headquarters of Granada Television

ITV franchisee Granada Television has its original headquarters on Quay Street in the Castlefield area of the city. The city is where programmes including world's oldest and most watched television soap opera Coronation Street which is networked 5 times a week on ITV is made. Local News for the Granada Region, local programmes and Networked Children’s ITV presentations are produced in Manchester.

Manchester is one of the three main BBC bases in England, alongside London and Bristol. Programmes including A Question of Sport, Mastermind[92] and Real Story[93] are made at New Broadcasting House on Oxford Road, just south of the city centre. The hit series Cutting It was set in the city's Northern Quarter and ran on BBC1 for 5 series. Life on Mars was set in 1973 Manchester. The first edition of Top of the Pops was broadcast from a converted church in Longsight on New Year's Day 1964.[94] Manchester is also the regional base for the BBC One North West Region so programmes like North West Tonight are produced here.[95] The BBC intends to relocate large numbers of staff and facilities from London to Media City at Salford Quays. The Children's (CBBC), Comedy, Sport (BBC Sport) and New Media departments are all scheduled to move before 2010.[96]

Manchester has its own television channel, Channel M, owned by the Guardian Media Group and operated since 2000. The station produces almost all content including local news locally and is available nationally on the BSkyB television platform.

Television characters who hail from Manchester includes Daphne Moon (played by Jane Leeves), of Frasier, Charlie Pace (played by Dominic Monaghan) of Lost, Naomi Dorrit (Lost) and Nessa Holt (Las Vegas), both played by local actress Marsha Thomason.

Radio

The city has the highest number of local radio stations outside London including BBC Radio Manchester, Key 103, Galaxy, Piccadilly Magic 1152, 105.4 Century FM, 100.4 Smooth FM, Capital Gold 1458, 96.2 The Revolution and Xfm. BBC Radio Manchester, which became BBC GMR in 1988, returned to its former title in 2006.

Student radio stations include Fuse FM at the University of Manchester and Shock FM at the University of Salford). A community radio network is coordinated by Radio Regen, with stations covering the South Manchester communities of Ardwick, Longsight and Levenshulme (All FM 96.9) and Wythenshawe (Wythenshawe FM 97.2).

Defunct radio stations include Sunset (which became) Kiss 102 (now Galaxy), and KFM which became Signal Cheshire (now Signal 1). These stations, as well as pirate radio, played a significant role in the city's House music culture, also known as the Madchester scene, which was based around clubs like the The Haçienda which had its own show on Kiss 102.

Erstwhile producer and radio personality Karl Pilkington, of The Ricky Gervais Show fame, hails from Manchester.

Filmography

Manchester is featured in films such as My Son, My Son! (1940), directed by Charles Vidor and starring Brian Aherne and Louis Hayward. Also Grand Hotel (1932), in which Wallace Beery often shouts "Manchester!". Others include Velvet Goldmine starring Ewan MacGregor, and Sir Alec Guinness's The Man in the White Suit. More recently, the entire city of Manchester is engulfed in runaway fires in the 2002 film 28 Days Later.

Manchester is also home to the Manchester Film Festival and has held the Commonwealth film festival.

Magazines and newspapers

The Guardian newspaper was founded in Manchester in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian. Its head office is still in Manchester, though many of its management functions were moved to London in 1964. It shares an office on Hardman Street with sister publication Manchester Evening News (biggest-selling daily paper although now free within the city centre), and the Manchester Metro News (free weekly, Greater Manchester's biggest-circulation newspaper). Another free newspaper is the Metro North West, available from Metrolink stops, rail stations and other busy locations.

For many years most of the national newspapers had offices in Manchester: The Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror, The Sun. Only The Daily Sport remain based in Manchester. At its height, 1,500 journalists were employed. But in the 1980s office closures began and today the "second Fleet Street" is no more. A late attempt to launch a Northern daily newspaper, North West Times, floundered in the late 1980s lasting just three months. Another attempt was made with the North West Enquirer, which hoped to provide a true "regional" newspaper for the North West, much in the same vein as the Yorkshire Post does for Yorkshire or The Northern Echo does for the North East, however it folded in October 2006.

There are several local lifestyle magazines, including 'YQ Magazine' and 'Moving Manchester'.

Foreign consulates and commissions

Manchester and its conurbation are home to a number of foreign consulates and commissions:

  •  Australia Chatsworth House, Lever Street, Manchester M1 2QL.
  •  Bangladesh High Commission,3rd Floor, 28-32 Princess Street, Manchester M1 4LB.
  •  China Denison House, Denison Road, Rusholme, Manchester M14.
  •  Denmark Trade Office,3rd Floor, St James Buildings, Oxford Street M60.
  •  Ireland Trade Board, 56 Oxford Street, Manchester M60.
  •  Italy Rodwell Tower, 111 Piccadilly, Manchester M1.
  •  Monaco Dene Manor, Dene Park, Manchester M20.
  •  Netherlands Apex House, 266 Moseley Road, Levenshulme M19.
  •  Norway Churchgate House, 56 Oxford Street M60.
  •  Pakistan Vice-consulate, 4th Floor Hilton House, 26/28 Hilton Street, Manchester M1.
  •  Spain 1a Brook House, 70 Spring Gardens, Manchester M2 2BQ.

In addition, the British Council maintains a metropolitan centre in Manchester.[97]

Twin cities

Although not an official twin city, Tampere, Finland is known as "the Manchester of Finland" - or "Manse" for short.

Further reading

  • Architecture
    • Manchester. Clare Hartwell. Pevsner Architectural Guides ISBN 0-300-09666-6
    • Manchester: A guide to recent architecture. David Hands and Sarah Parker. Ellipsis. ISBN 1-899858-77-6
    • Manchester — an Architectural History John Parkinson Bailey. Manchester University Press. ISBN 0-7190-5606-3
  • General
    • Hylton, Stuart (2003). A History of Manchester. Phillimore & Company. ISBN 1-86077-240-4.
    • Kidd, Alan J. (1993). Manchester (Town and city histories). Manchester: Ryburn. ISBN 1-85331-016-6.
    • The City Life Guide to Manchester: 6th edition. ISBN 0-9544460-7-0
    • The Mancunian Way Published by Clinamen Press ISBN 1-903083-81-8
    • Manchester — a Celebration. Brian Redhead. André Deutsch Limited, London. ISBN 0-233-98816-5
    • Victorian Manchester & Salford. Published in 1988 by Ryburn Publishing Limited. ISBN 1-85331-006-9
  • Culture
    • Morrissey's Manchester: The Essential Smiths Tour Phil Gatenby ISBN 1-901746-28-3
    • Manchester, England. The story of the pop cult city. Dave Haslam ISBN 1-84115-146-7
    • And God Created Manchester. Sarah Champion. Wordsmith. ISBN 1-873205-01-5
    • The Hacienda Must be Built. Edited by Jon Savage. International Music Publications ISBN 0-86359-857-9
    • Shake, Rattle and Rain — Popular Music in Manchester 1955-1995. CP Lee ISBN 1-84382-049-8
    • Like The Night — Bob Dylan and the road to the Manchester Free Trade Hall. CP Lee ISBN 1-900924-33-1

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