Manchester (Historically in Lancashire)
IN THE NORTH WEST OF ENGLAND
ROMAN AND ANGLO-SAXON MANCHESTER
Manchester lay within the territory of the Celtic tribe called the Brigantes and started life as a Roman fort situated at the confluence of the Rivers Irwell and Medlock in the Castlefield area of Manchester. Much of the fort was still visible in the sixteenth century but was lost during the Industrial revolution. Today the north gateway of the fort has been reconstructed at Castlefield.
Manchester fort was established by Julius Agricola in 79 AD and had a a garrison of 500 men. It was known to the Romans as Mamucium (not Mancunium), meaning the fort near the breast-shaped hill. It was rebuilt around 160 AD and a civillian settlement had grown outside the fort where around 2,000 civilians lived. The fort must have been an important location as it was on the Roman road between the great Roman forts of Chester (Deva) and York (Eboracum). Other Roman roads led north to Ribchester and north east to Ilkley.
Around 411 AD the Roman fort was abandoned and in the following decades the Anglo-Saxons began to settle on the eastern coasts of England and by the late sixth century they had begun to penetrate into the area later to be known as Lancashire. Celtic survival may have been strong in Lancashire as it certainly was in the Lake District to the North but many of the ancient Britons were driven into neighbouring north Wales. In Anglo-Saxon times the area between the Ribble and the Mersey was disputed between the Kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia, so that Mamecester as the Anglo-Saxons knew it was either firmly in Mercia or on the fringe of Northumbria.
In the late 800s the Danes arrived from the east across the Pennines, but although their settlement was extensive in Yorkshire and in the east Midlands, most of Lancashire escaped their colonisation. The Manchester area was an exception however and most of the Danish settlement in what was to become Lancashire fell upon the Manchester area. Places like Urmston, Davyhulme , Cheadle Hulme and Hulme are all of either Danish origin or contain Danish personal names.
It is interesting to compare the Danish Viking settlement around Manchester with place names in western Lancashire, Merseyside and the Lancashire coast which tend to be Norwegian or of an Irish-Norwegian mix. Norwegian place names are not found in the Manchester area. The Irish-Norwegian settlement in the west came around 918 AD and was associated with invasions from the Norwegian colony of Dublin in Ireland. Manchester lay in the Danish settled area of the North West, not the Norwegian territory, and so probably had strong links with the Danish settlements in Yorkshire and the East Midlands.
On the whole the Manchester and the North West, must have been a relatively unstable area, disputed by Anglo-Saxons of Mercian and Northumbria, by native Celts and Celts from Wales and the Lake District and later by Danes and Norwegians. Following the victory of Alfred the Great over the Danes in the south of England, the Anglo-Saxon Kings of Wessex gained supremacy in England and they recognised the instability of the region to the north of the Mersey. Alfred’s son, Edward the Elder built and strengthened Anglo-Saxon forts in this frontier zone and in 922 AD an existing Anglo-Saxon fort or ‘burgh’ at Manchester was stengthened as a defence against the neighbouring Danes and Norseman, who were by this time a unified force.
Edward the Elder defeated the Danes and Norwegians in battle at an unknown site called Brunnaburgh (Bromborough in Cheshire has been suggested) and in a settlement after the battle he limited the southern boundary of Northumbria to the River Ribble. The land between the Ribble and the Mersey, including Manchester was not however given to Mercia but became land belonging to the King a neutral Royal domain, and so it remained until after the Norman Conquest.
Around 1074 King William the Conqueror gave the land between the Ribble and the Mersey including Manchester to Roger de Poitou, who was the son of the Earl of Shrewsbury. Later Manchester was recorded in William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book of 1086 which mentions that the place has a parish church.
The book records that Roger de Poitou granted part of the huge Royal Manor called Salford Wappentake to one Albert Grelley, whose new territory inclkuded Manchester and whose family were to live in the area for the next two-hundred years. The wappentake covered a huge area and was similar in shape and size to the present day Greater Manchester area.
In 1222 Manchester was granted a two-day annual fair, a sign of growing status and five years later the fair was obviously proving to be a success as it was extended to three days. A charter was granted to the Manchester burgesses in 1301 by Thomas Grelley, although the Duke of Lancaster (1359) insisted that Manchester be regarded as a market Town and not a Borough. Manchester was still technically under the control of the Lord of the Manor but now had a mayor and in 1322
A reference to a fulling mill in 1322 was the first indicator of the textile industry which was to mean so much to Manchester’s fortunes. Flemish weavers introduced by Edward III settled in Manchester in the fourteenth century and this was to mark the early beginning of the textile industry.
By 1422 the manor of Salford belonged to the De La Warre family and the old manor house of the Grelleys was given to the clergy. Adjacent to the cathedral this building later became Chetham’s School in 1655. Thomas De La Warre had converted and reconstructed the parish church of Manchester into a collegiate church in 1422 dedicated to St Mary, St Denys and St George. In 1847 this building became Manchester Cathedral and is located at the junction of Cateaton Street and Victoria Street. The present day cathedral is largely fifteenth century in origin and built in Perpencicular Gothic style, but the tower was added in 1868.
In the 1500s Manchester was beginning to grow and prosper and along with Salford had a population of a few thousand. Manchester’s growth was acknowlegded by Hugh Oldham, the Manchester born Bishop of Exeter in 1515 who established a Grammar School in the town in 1515. It was established to correct the manners and upbringing of the manchester folk who Hugh described as mostly brought up rudely and idly. John Leland who visited the market town in 1538 was more positive describing Manchester as ‘the best-builded, quickest and most populous tounne in Lancashire’
Foreign immigrants must have had a big influence on Manchester’s cloth trade with the arrival of victims of religious persecution from the Netherlands in the sixteenth century. A Court Leet acted in the town to ensure standardized weights and measure and consistency in the quality of products, the town was virtually governed by the court.
In 1565 Parliament appointed ‘aulnagers’ to stamp woollen cloth produced in Manchester once it was ready for sale. Many of the products including Futsian, flax and raw cotton were sold at markets in the south of England or at foreign markets such as Rouen in France. Some Manchester merchants became very wealthy like Nicholas Mosley who became Lord mayor of London in 1599. He bought the manor of Manchester and built Hough End Hall at Charlton-cum-Hardy.
Manchester’s rapid growth and prosperity during this period brought with it new problems, most notably sanitation which contributed to outbreaks of plague in 1605 and 1645. It was at about this time that Manchester became involved in the Civil War, supporting the Parliamentary cause and falling under the siege of the Royalists under Lord stange, Earl of Derby in 1642. The siege failed and Manchester remained in Parliamentary hands.
Manchester's development from a market town into a the huge industrial town really took place in the 1700s. In 1721 improvements were made to the Rivers Irwell and Mersey with the enforcement of the Mersey Irwell Navigation Act. Much larger vessels could now reach Manchester and ensured Manchester's development as an 'inland port'. Road improvements were also being made and in 1724 the first Turnpike Road in the area was opened linking Manchester with the spa town of Buxton in Derbyshire.
In 1729 Sir Oswald Mosley opened Manchester's Cotton Exchange in the town's market place, a symbol that Manchester was now becoming a great cotton town. (The exchange was demolished in 1792.) Manchester's population began to rapidly increase and social improvements were made including the building of the Manchester Royal Infirmary in 1752 and the first workhouse in 1754.
Between 1759 and 1761 James Brindley constructed the Bridgewater Canal at the authorisation of the Bridgewater Canal Act. It was the first modern articical waterway and it linked Manchester to coal mines at Worsley to the North West. A regular and efficient supply of coal was necessary for an industrialised town.
It was the Duke of Bridgewater who had instigated the building of the canal and the most difficult challenge for the engineer Bridnley was how to cross the River Irwell. The Duke had suggested a complex system of locks, but Brindley's solution of building an aqueduct over the Irwell was to save the Duke a fortune. Later in 1761, the canal was extended to Runcorn on the Mersey. It was the first of many canals to coverge on Manchester. Others included Canals to Bolton and Bury (1790), the Ashton Canal (1797) the Rochdale Canal (1804) and of course the Manchester Ship Canal in 1894. This last great canal allowed ships to go 36 miles inland from the Mersey estuary where the canal entered the great river through a lock at Eastham on the Wirral peninsula.
Improvements in spinning notably by Hargreaves at Blackburn in 1767 and by other pioneers like Arkwright enabled Manchester's textile output to increase and by 1789 the town's population had grown to almost 50,000. By this time the age of steam was firmly entered and in 1789 a steam engine was built in Manchester for the manufacture of cotton. and power looms were introduced the following year. This enabled cotton output to be increased to levels as yet unknown. The Steam Age also brought the railways and from 1826 to 1830 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was built. The Rainhill Trials were held in 1829 to decide which locomotive should be used and the winner was George Stephenson’s Rocket.
St Peter’s Square in Manchester stands on the site of St Peter’s Field which was the site of the Peterloo Massacre in 1819. On August 16 of that year 50,000 discontented people assembled on the field to demonstrate against poverty and unemployment. Riots and strikes had become common place and in the face of such a huge crowd, magistrates panicked and ordered troops to disperse the assembly. Troops rode into the crowd charging and laying about them with sabres. Around 500 people were injured and eleven were killed in the massacre which came to be known as ‘Peterloo’, because Waterloo had only been fought four years before.
The Peterloo Massacre did make some difference as the Factory Act was introduced later in the year to improve conditions. Social unrest and working conditions in nineteenth century Manchester produced a climate of radical thinking in the town, for which no othewr town in the country was better known. Despite Peterloo, and despite Manchester’s great size the town still had no representation in Parliament and in 1891, a Middle Class radical called John Edward Taylor founded a newspaper called the Manchester Guardian to campaign for constitutional reform. Simply known today as The Guardian, it is now one of the leading broad sheet newspapers of the United Kingdom
Much of today’s Manchester is Victorian, although the Piccadilly, the heart of the city was largely destroyed by World War Two bombing. The most notable Victorian building is the massive Town Hall facing Albert Square which was built in 1877 by Alfred Waterhouse in Gothic style. The Town Hall covers two acres and has a 281 ft clock tower.
Another notable building is the Free Trade Hall in Peter Street which was built in 1843 by the members of the Anti-Corn League which was based in Manchester. The two main leaders were John Bight a Manchester MP and Richard Cobden who both wanted to see an end to the Corn Laws which placed severe restrictions on the import and export of corn and kept prices artifically high in times of shortage. The league was disbanded in 1846 when the laws were repealed but a new hall was later built where Manchester’s famous Halle Orchestra (founded by Sir Charles Halle 1819-95) gave its first concert the folowing year.
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