The writer of the entertaining article in the _Cornhill_ for February
1880 upon "The Origin of London" shows that had the choice of the best
site for a capital to be made _now_, and for the first time, the
selection would naturally fall upon south-east Lancashire, and on the
particular spot covered by modern Manchester. Geographically, as the
author points out, it is the centre of the three kingdoms; and its
advantageousness in regard to commerce, all things considered, is
paramount. These facts alone suffice to give interest to the locality;
and that the town itself should have acquired the importance now
possessed, in some respects almost metropolitan, looks not so much
like accident or good fortune as the fulfilment of a law of Nature.
The locality in question is by no means picturesque. The ground, as
said before, is, on the Cheshire side, and westwards, nearly level,
the country being here bordered by the Mersey, a river, as Pennant
long ago remarked, utterly devoid along its course of the charms
usually identified with fairly broad and winding streams. At Northen
there are some pleasant shaded pathways, with willows and poplars like
those upon which _OEnone_ was carved; but the bank, if much above
the level, is artificial, the original having been raised with a view
to protecting the adjacent fields from inundation in time of floods,
such as occur not infrequently--the Mersey being formed in the
beginning by the confluence of several minor streams, which gather
their waters from the moors and the Derbyshire hills, and are apt to
be well filled and of rapid movement.
At a few miles' distance in other directions, or receding from the
Mersey, the ground becomes slightly elevated, and in parts agreeably
broken, as at Prestwich, and near Heywood, where there are numberless
little dells and ravines, ferny and full of trees. These are a
pleasant change after the flatness on the Cheshire side, but are too
far away to be called Manchester. To the Mersey Manchester makes no
claim: three other rivers are distinctly its own--the Irwell, which
divides the town from Salford, with its tributaries, the Medlock, and
the Irk; and of these, though the colour is inexpressible, unless we
go to mythology for a term, it is proud, since no three rivers in the
world do harder work. All three pass their earlier life in valleys
which in the bygones must have been delightful, and in some parts
romantic. Traditions exist to this day of the times when in their
upper reaches they were "silver-eddied." For a long distance before
entering, and all the way while passing through, they have now for
many years been converted into scavengers; the trout, once so
plentiful, are extinct; there are water-rats instead. This, perhaps,
is inevitable in a district which, though once green and tranquil, has
been transformed into an empire of workshops.
The Manchester rivers do not stand alone in their illustration of what
can be accomplished by the defiling energy of "works." In the strictly
manufacturing parts of South Lancashire it would be difficult to find
a single watercourse of steady volume that any longer "makes music
with the enamelled stones." The heroine of Verona[18] would to-day be
impelled less to poetical similes than to epitaphs; no sylvan glade,
however hidden, if there be water in it, has escaped the visitation of
the tormentors. Are we then to murmur?--to feel as if robbed? By no
means. Nothing can be regretful that is inseparable from the
conditions of the industry and the prosperity of a great nation. The
holidays will be here by and by. A couple of hours' railway journey
enables any one to listen to the "liquid lapse" of streams clear and
bright as Cherith. Everything lovely has its place of safety
somewhere. However doleful the destiny of the South Lancashire
streams, a thousand others that can never be sullied await us at a
little distance.
[18] _Two Gentlemen_, ii. 7.
Little can be said in praise of the Manchester climate, and that
little, it must be confessed, however reluctantly, is only negative.
The physicians are not more prosperous than elsewhere, and the work of
the Registrar-general is no heavier. On the other hand, the peach and
the apricot cannot ripen, and there is an almost total absence of the
Christmas evergreens one is accustomed to see in the southern
counties--the ilex to wit, the bay, the arbutus, and the laurustinus.
In the flourishing of these consists the true test of geniality of
climate; rhododendrons and gay flower-gardens, both of which
Manchester possesses in plenty, certify nothing. Not that the climate
is positively cold, though as a rule damp and rainy. Snow is often
seen in the Midlands when in Manchester there is none. The special
feature, again negative, is deficiency of bright, warm, encouraging
sunshine. Brilliant days come at times, and sultry ones; but often for
weeks together, even in summer, so misty is the atmosphere that where
the sun should be in view, except for an hour or two, there is only a
luminous patch.
The history of Manchester dates, the authorities tell us, from the
time of the "ancient Britons." There is no need to go so far back. The
genuine beginnings of our English cities and large towns coincide with
the establishment of the Roman power. They may have been preceded in
many instances by entrenched and perhaps rudely ramparted clusters of
huts, but it is only upon civilisation that a "town" arises. Laying
claim, quite legitimately, to be one of the eight primitive Lancashire
towns founded by Agricola, A.D. 79, its veritable age, to be exact, is
1812 years, or nearly the same as that of Warrington, where the
invaders, who came from Chester, found the river fordable, as declared
in the existing name of the Cheshire suburb, and where they fixed
their original Lancashire stronghold. What is thought to have happened
in Manchester during their stay may be read in Whitaker. The only
traces remaining of their ancient presence are some fragments of the
"road" which led northwards over the present Kersal Moor, and which
are commemorated in the names of certain houses at Higher Broughton.
The fact in the local history which connects the living present with
the past is that the De Traffords of Trafford Hall possess lands held
by their ancestor in the time of Canute. How it came to pass that the
family was not displaced by some Norman baron, an ingenious novelist
may be able perhaps to tell. Private policy, secret betrothals,
doubtless lay in the heart of as many adjustments of the eleventh
century as behind many enigmas of the nineteenth. The Traffords reside
close to "Throstlenest," a name occurring frequently in Lancashire,
where the spirit of poetry has always been vigorous, and never more
marked than in appellations having reference to the simple beauty of
unmolested nature. At Moston there is also Throstle-glen, one of the
haunts, half a century ago, of Samuel Bamford. At the time spoken of
the county was divided into "tithe-shires." The "Hundred of Salford"
was called "Salford-shire," and in this last was included Manchester;
so that whatever dignity may accrue therefrom belongs properly to the
town across the river, which was the first, moreover, to be
constituted a free borough, receiving its charter in the time of
Henry III., who died in 1272, whereas the original Manchester charter
was not granted till 1301. To all practical intents and purposes, the
two places now constitute a social and commercial unity. Similar
occupations are pursued in both, and the intercourse is as constant as
that of the people who dwell on the opposite sides of the Thames.
The really important date in the history of Manchester is that of the
arrival of the Flemish weavers in the reign of Edward III. Though
referable in the first instance, as above mentioned, to the action of
the king and the far-seeing Philippa, their coming to Manchester seems
to have been specially promoted by the feudal ruler of the time--De la
Warre, heir of the De Grelleys, and predecessor of De Lacy--men all of
great distinction in old Manchester records. Leading his retainers to
the field of battle, De la Warre literally, when all was over, turned
the spear into the pruning-hook, bringing home with him some of these
industrious people, and with their help converting soldiers into
useful artisans. A wooden church had been erected at a very early
period upon the sandstone cliff by the river, where the outlook was
pleasant over the meadows and the arriving Irk. By 1422, so much had
the town increased, it sufficed no longer, and then was built the
noble and beautiful "old church," the "cathedral" of to-day, the body
of which is thus now nearly 470 years old.[19]
[19] The original tower remained till 1864, when, being
considered insecure, it was taken down, and the existing
_facsimile_ erected in its place.
Up till 1656 the windows of this fine church, in conformity with the
first principles of all high-class Plantagenet and Tudor
ecclesiastical architecture, were coloured and pictorial; the design
being that they should represent to the congregation assembled inside
some grand or touching Scripture incident, making palpable to the eye
what the ear might be slow to apprehend. In the year mentioned they
were broken to pieces by the Republicans, one of the reasons, perhaps,
why the statue of Cromwell--the gloomy figure in the street close
by--has been so placed as for the ill-used building to be behind it.
While the church was in its full beauty the town was visited by
Leland, who on his way through Cheshire passed Rostherne Mere,
evidently, from his language, as lovely then as it is to-day:
"States fall, arts fade, but Nature doth not die!"
"Manchestre," he tells us, was at that period (temp. Henry VIII.) "the
fairest, best-builded, quikkest, and most populous Tounne of
Lancastreshire" (v. 78). Whatever the precise comparative meaning
of "fairest and best-builded," there can be no doubt that in Leland's
time, and for a long subsequent period, Manchester was rich in houses
of the Elizabethan type, including many occupied by families of note.
The greater number of these would be "magpie," or wood and plaster
fronted, in black and white, the patterns, though simple, often very
ingenious, as indicated in relics which have only lately disappeared,
and in the old country halls of the same period still perfect, which
we shall come to by and by. The style of the inferior kind is shown in
an old tavern, the "Seven Stars," in Withy-grove.
[Illustration: MANCHESTER CATHEDRAL]
At the commencement of the Civil Wars Manchester was important enough
to be a scene of heavy contest. The sympathies of the town, as a
whole, were with the Parliament; not in antagonism to royalty, but
because of the suspicion that Charles secretly befriended Popery. It
was the same belief which estranged Bolton--a place never in heart
disloyal, so long as the ruler does his own part in faithfulness and
honour. Standing in the Cathedral graveyard, it is hard to imagine
that the original of the bridge now called the "Victoria" was once the
scene of a deadly struggle, troops filling the graveyard itself.
Here, however, it was that the severest assault was made by the
Royalists, unsuccessfully, as were all the other attacks, though
Manchester never possessed a castle, nor even regularly constructed
fortifications.
The town was then "a mile in length," and the streets were "open and
clean." Words change their meaning with lapse of time, and the visitor
who in 1650 thus describes them may have been given a little to
overpraise; but if Manchester deserved such epithets, alas for the
condition of the streets elsewhere! As the town increased in size, the
complexion may also very possibly have deteriorated. The fact remains,
that after the lapse of another 150 years, say in 1800, it was
inexpressibly mean and common, continuing so in a very considerable
degree up to a period quite recent. People who know Manchester only as
it looks to-day can form no conception of the beggarly appearance of
most of the central part no further back than during the reign of
George IV. Several years after he came to the throne, where Market
Street now is, there was only a miserable one-horse lane, with a
footpath of less than twenty-four inches. Narrow "entries" led to
adjacent "courts." Railed steps led down to cellars, which were used
for front parlours. The shops were dark and lowbrowed; of ornament
there was not a scrap. Mosley Street, King Street, and one or two
others comparatively modern, presented, no doubt a very decided
contrast. Still it was without the slightest injustice that so late as
in or about 1845 Mr. Cobden described Manchester as the shabbiest city
in Europe for its wealth. That the town needed some improvement is
indicated rather suggestively by the fact, that between 1832 and 1861
the authorities paved, drained, and flagged the footways of no fewer
than 1578 streets, measuring upwards of sixty miles in length. Many of
them, certainly, were new, but the great mass of the gracious work was
retrospective. These matters are worth recalling, since it is only by
comparison with the past that modern Manchester can be appreciated.
Shortly after the Restoration there was a considerable influx, as into
Liverpool, from the surrounding country; and by 1710 again had the
population so much increased that a second church became necessary,
and St. Anne's was erected, cornfields giving place to the "Square."
St. Anne's being the "new" church, the existing one was thenceforwards
distinguished as the "old."[20] Commerce shortly afterwards received
important stimulus by the Irwell being made navigable to its point of
confluence with the Mersey, and by the erection of the original
Manchester Exchange. In 1757 Warrington, the first town in Lancashire
to publish a newspaper, was imitated in the famous old _Manchester
Mercury_. Then came the grand inventions above described, upon which
quickly arose the modern cotton manufacture. In 1771 a Bank and
Insurance Office were found necessary, and in less than a year
afterwards the renowned "Jones Loyds" had its beginning. Social and
intellectual movements were accelerated by the now fast developing
Manchester trade. Liverpool had founded a Subscription Library in
1758: Manchester followed suit in 1765. In 1781 a Literary and
Philosophical Society was set on foot, and in 1792 Assembly Rooms were
built.
[20] St. Anne's was so named in compliment to the queen then on
the throne. "St. Ann's," like "Market-_street_ Lane," came of
carelessness or something worse. The thoroughfare so called was
properly Market-_stead_ Lane--_i.e._ the lane leading to the
Market-place.
[Illustration: ST. ANNE'S SQUARE, MANCHESTER]
New streets were now laid out,--to-day, so vast has been the
subsequent growth, embedded in the heart of the town,--the names often
taken from those of the metropolis, as Cannon Street, Pall Mall,
Cheapside, and Spring Gardens, and at a little later period Bond
Street and Piccadilly. Factories sprang up in not a few of the
principal thoroughfares: perhaps it would be more correct to say that
the building of factories often led to the formation of new streets.
The kind of variety they conferred on the frontages is declared to the
present day in Oxford Road. Similar buildings, though not so large,
existed till very lately where now not a vestige of them remains. The
"Manchester and Salford Bank" occupies the site of a once important
silk-mill. Gathering round them the inferior class of the
population,--the class unable to move into more select neighbourhoods
when the town is relished no longer,--it is easy to understand how, in
most parts of Manchester that are fifty years old, splendour and
poverty are never far asunder. In London, Bath, Leicester, it is
possible to escape from the sight of rags and squalor: in Manchester
they are within a bow-shot of everything upon which the town most
prides itself. The circumstance referred to may be accounted for
perhaps in part by the extreme density of the population, which
exceeds that of all other English manufacturing towns, and is
surpassed only in Liverpool.[21] Manchester, it may be added, has no
"court-end." When the rich took flight they dispersed themselves in
all directions. They might well depart. The reputation of Manchester
in respect of "smuts," that, like the rain in Shelley, are "falling
for ever," is only too well deserved; and, despite of legal
enactments, it is to be feared is inalienable.
[21] The population per statute acre of the towns referred to,
and of one or two others, which may be usefully put in contrast,
is as follows:
Liverpool 106
Manchester 85
Plymouth 54
London 49
Bristol 49
Birmingham 48
Salford 38
Oldham 26
Nottingham 18
Sheffield 16
Leeds 15
Norwich 12
Architecturally, modern Manchester takes quite a foremost place among
the cities by reason of its two great achievements in Gothic--the
Assize Courts and the new Town-hall. Classical models were followed up
till about 1860, as in the original Town-hall (1822-25)--now the City
Free Library; the Royal Institution, the Concert Hall (1825-30), and
the Corn Exchange--one of the happiest efforts of a man of real
ability, the late Mr. Lane. The new Exchange also presents a fine
example of the Corinthian portico. After Mr. Lane, the town was
fortunate in possessing Mr. Walters, since it was he who introduced
artistic details into warehouse fronts, previously to his time bald
and vacant as the face of a cotton-mill. Very interesting examples of
the _primitive_ Manchester warehouse style are extant in Peel Street
and thereabouts. Manchester is now employed in rebuilding itself, to a
considerable extent, under the inspiration received originally from
Mr. Walters, and here and there very chastely. Would that his impress
could have been seen upon the whole of the newly-contrived. We should
then have been spared the not uncommon spectacle of the grotesque, to
say nothing of the grimaces of the last few years. It is not to be
overlooked that the whole of the improvement in Manchester street
architecture has been effected since 1840. Four-fifths of all the
meritorious public buildings, the modern banks also, and nearly all
the ecclesiastical architecture that deserves the name, may be
referred to the same period. The Assize Courts and the new Town-hall
are both from designs by Mr. Waterhouse completed. The former were in
1866, but not used till July 1868, three months after which time the
first stone was laid of the superb pile in Albert Square. The gilt
ball at the apex of the tower, 286 feet high, was fixed 4th January
1876. The dimensions may be imagined from the number of separate
apartments (314), mostly spacious, and approached, as far as possible,
by corridors, which are as well proportioned as elaborate in finish.
The cost up to 15th September 1877, when much remained to be done,
including nearly the whole of the internal decoration, was £751,532.
In designing the coloured windows, Mr. Waterhouse is said to have had
the assistance of a lady. Without pressing for the secret, it is
undeniable that the tints are blended with a sense of delicate harmony
purely feminine. Some people prefer the Assize Courts--a glorious
building, peculiarly distinguished for its calmness. Structures of
such character cannot possibly correspond. Perhaps it may be allowed
to say that the Assize Courts seem to present in greater perfection
the unity of feeling indispensable to all great works of art, however
varied and fanciful the details. Due regard being paid to the
intrinsic fitness of things and their moral significance, which in
Art, when aspiring to the perfect, should always be a prime
consideration, it may be inquired, after all, whether Gothic is the
legitimate style for municipal offices. We cannot here discuss the
point. Liverpool would have to be heard upon the other side. Better,
in any case, to have a Gothic town hall than to see churches and
chapels copy the temples devoted a couple of thousand years ago to the
deities of pagan Greece and Rome. It is not pleasant on a Sunday
forenoon to be reminded of Venus, Apollo, and Diana. The new Owens
College buildings, Oxford Road, are early fourteenth century Gothic,
and when complete will present one of the finest groups of the kind in
England. The architect (Mr. Waterhouse), it has been well said, has
here, as elsewhere, "not fettered himself with ancient traditions, but
endeavoured to make his learning a basis rather than a limit of
thought." A great treat awaits the stranger also in the Catholic
"Church of the Holy Name," a few steps beyond the Owens College. For a
passer-by to help noting the beautiful western front and the maze of
lofty buttresses and pinnacles is impossible. Ornament has been
expended with a lavish but not indiscriminate profusion, the general
effect being one of perfect symmetry--a character possessed equally by
the interior. The style is geometric Gothic of the thirteenth century,
to the capacities of which, all will acknowledge, Mr. Hanson has done
full justice. The very gracefully designed Tudor buildings at Old
Trafford, well known as the Asylums for the Blind and the Deaf and
Dumb, were erected in 1838.
[Illustration: TOWN HALL, MANCHESTER]
Manchester is much less of a manufacturing town at present, in
proportion to its extent and the entire breadth of its business life,
than when the cotton trade was young. Now, as described in the
preceding chapter, the towns and villages outside are all devoted to
spinning and weaving. While Liverpool is one great wharf, the middle
of Manchester is one great warehouse--a reservoir for the production
of the whole district. The trade falls under two principal heads--the
Home and the Export. In either case, the produce of the looms,
wherever situate, is bought just as it flows from them--rough, or,
technically, "in the grey." It is then put into the hands of
bleachers, dyers, or printers, according to requirement, and
afterwards handed to auxiliaries called "makers-up." Very interesting
is it to observe, in going through a great warehouse, not only how
huge is the quantity waiting transfer, but how differently the various
fabrics have to be folded and ornamented so as to meet the taste of
the nations and foreign countries they are intended for. Some prefer
the absolutely plain; others like little pictures; some want bright
colours, and embellishment with gold and silver. The uniformity of the
general business of Manchester allowed of agreement, in November 1843,
to shut all doors upon Saturdays at one o'clock. The warehouse
half-holiday movement soon became universal, and now, by four or five
p.m. on Saturdays large portions of the middle of the town are as
quiet as upon Sundays.
The composition of the Manchester community is extremely
miscellaneous. A steady influx of newcomers from all parts of Great
Britain--Scotland very particularly--has been in progress for eighty
or ninety years, and seems likely to continue. Not very long ago the
suburb called Greenheys was regarded as a German colony. Many
Levantine Greeks have also settled in Manchester, and of Jews the
estimated number is ten thousand. Notwithstanding the influence which
these newcomers have almost necessarily, though undesignedly, brought
to bear upon the general spirit of the town, the original Lancashire
character is still prominent, though greatly modified, both for the
better and the worse. Primitive Lancashire is now confined perhaps to
Rossendale, where, after all, it would be felt that Manchester is the
better place to live in. The people were distinguished of old by
industry and intense frugality, the women in particular being noted
for their thrift. They were enterprising, vigilant, shrewd, and
possessed of marvellous aptitude for business; they had judgment, and
the capacity for minute and sleepless care which is quite as needful
as courage to success in life, and which to many a man has been better
capital to start with than a well-filled purse. Hence the countless
instances in South Lancashire of men who, additionally fortunate in
being born at the favourable moment, though at first earning wages of
perhaps fifteen shillings a-week as porters or mill-hands, rose by
degrees to opulence, and in many cases laid the foundation of families
now in the front rank of local importance. Considering the general
history, it is easy to understand why carriage-heraldry, except of
the worthless purchaseable kind, is scanty; and not difficult either
to account for the pervading local shyness as to pedigrees and
genealogies. Curiously in contrast, one of the very rare instances of
an untitled family having supporters to the heraldic shield is found
in Ashton-under-Lyne, Mr. Coulthart the banker being entitled to them
by virtue of descent from one of the ancient Scottish kings. To a
Lancashire magnate of the old school it was sufficient that he was
_himself_. The disposition is still locally vigorous, and truly many
of the living prove that to be so is a man's recommendation. None of
the excellent attributes possessed by, for instance, the original
Peels and Ainsworths, have disappeared, though it cannot be denied
that in other cases there has been inheritance of the selfish habits,
contracted ideas, and coarsely-moulded character, so often met with in
men who have risen from the ranks. Given to saying and doing the
things natural to them, no people were ever more devoid than the
genuine Lancashire men, as they are still, of frigid affectations, or
less given to assumption of qualities they did not possess. If
sometimes startled by their impetuosities, we can generally trust to
their candour and whole-heartedness, especially when disposed to be
friendly, the more so since they are little inclined to pay
compliments, and not at all to flatter.
[Illustration: DEANSGATE, MANCHESTER]
That men of small beginnings, and who have had little or no education,
are apt, on becoming rich, to be irritable, jealous, and overbearing,
is true perhaps everywhere; in Lancashire it has been observed with
satisfaction that the exceptions are more numerous than the rule.
Whatever the stint and privations in the morning of life, these, it
has been again observed, have seldom led to miserly habits when old.
Most of the modern Lancashire wealthy (or their fathers, at all
events, before them) began with a trifle. Hence the legitimate pride
they take in their commercial belongings--a genuine Lancashire man
would rather you praised his mill or warehouse than his mansion. So
far from becoming miserly, no one in the world deteriorates less. Most
Lancashire capitalists are well aware that it is no credit to a man of
wealth to be in arrears with the public, and when money is wanted for
some noble purpose are quick in response. This, however, represents
them but imperfectly. Of a thousand it might be said with as much
truth as of the late Sir Benjamin Heywood, the eminent Manchester
banker, "He dared to trust God with his charities, and without a
witness, and _risk the consequences_." So much for the Lancashire
heart; though on many of its excellent attributes, wanting space, we
have not touched. The prime characteristic of the _head_ seems to
consist, not in the preponderance of any particular faculty, but in
the good working order of the faculties in general; so that the whole
can be brought to bear at once upon whatever is taken in hand.[22]
[22] For delineations of local and personal character in full we
look to the novelists. After supreme _Scarsdale_, and the
well-known tales by Mrs. Gaskell and Mrs. Banks, may be
mentioned, as instructive in regard to Lancashire ways and
manners, _Coultour's Factory_, by Miss Emily Rodwell, and the
first portion of Mr. Hirst's _Hiram Greg_. Lord Beaconsfield's
admirable portrait of Millbank, the Lancashire manufacturer,
given in _Coningsby_ in 1844, had for its original the late Mr.
Edmund Ashworth of Turton, whose mills had been visited by the
author, then Mr. Disraeli, the previous year.
The Lancashire man has plenty of faults and weaknesses. His energy is
by no means of that admirable kind which is distinguished by never
degenerating into restlessness; neither in disputes is he prone to
courtly forbearance. Sincerity, whether in friend or foe, he admires
nevertheless; whence the exceptional toleration in Lancashire of all
sorts of individual opinions. Possessed of good, old-fashioned
common-sense, when educated and reflective he is seldom astray in his
estimate of the essentially worthy and true; so that, however novel
occasionally his action, we may be pretty sure that underneath it
there is some definite principle of equity. Manchester put forth the
original programme of the "free and open church" system; and from one
of the suburbs came the first cry for the enfranchisement of women.
Lancashire, if nothing else, is frank, cordial, sagacious, and given
to the sterling humanities of life. These always revolve upon Freedom,
whence, yet again in illustration of the Lancashire heart, the
establishment of the Society (original in idea, if not unique) for the
Preservation of Ancient Footpaths.[23] The large infusion of the
German element has been immensely beneficial, not only in relation to
commerce, but to the general culture of the town. It is owing in no
slight degree to the presence of educated Germans that the Manchester
"shippers," in their better portion, now resemble the corresponding
class in Liverpool. The change for the better, since the time when
Coleridge met with his odd reception, is quite as marked, no doubt,
among the leaders of the Home commerce, in whose ranks are plenty of
peers of the Liverpool "gentlemen." Records of the past are never
without their interest. During the siege, the command of the defence
was in the hands of Colonel Rosworm, a celebrated German engineer,
who, when all was over, considered himself ill-used, and published a
pamphlet complaining of the town's injustice, enumerating the
opportunities he had had of betraying it to the Royalists, and of
dividing the inhabitants against themselves. "But then," he adds, "I
should have been a Manchester man, for never let an unthankful one, or
a promise-breaker, bear another name!" On the titlepage of "The Pole
Booke for Manchester, 22d May 1690," an old list of the inhabitants,
printed by the Chetham Society, the aforetime owner has written,
"Generation of vipers!"
[23] Founded in 1826. See the interesting particulars in Mr.
Prentice's _Historical Sketches and Personal Recollections_, pp.
289-295. 1851.
Manchester is now, like Liverpool, if not a school of refinement, one
of the principal seats of English culture. It possesses not fewer than
ten or twelve fine libraries, including the branches of the City Free
Library, established under Mr. Ewart's Act, which last are available
on Sundays, and are freely used by the class of people the opening was
designed to benefit. The staff of assistants at the City Library and
its branches consists very largely of young women. There is another
first-class Free Library in Salford, with, in the same building, a
Free Gallery of Paintings, and a well-arranged and thoroughly useful
museum. The "Athenæum" provides its members with 60,000 newspapers per
annum, and, in addition, 9500 weekly, and 500 monthly and quarterly
magazines. Societies devoted to science, literature, and the fine
arts exist, as in Liverpool, in plenty. The exhibitions of paintings
at the Royal Institution have always been attractive, and never more
so than during the last few years, when on Sunday afternoons they have
been thrown open to the public _gratis_. The "School of Design,"
founded in October 1838, now called the "School of Art," recently
provided itself with a proper home in Grosvenor Square. There is also
a society expressly of "Women Painters," the works of many of whom
have earned honourable places. In addition to its learned societies,
Manchester stands alone, perhaps, among English cities in having quite
seven or eight set on foot purely with a view to rational enjoyment in
the fields, the observation of Nature in its most pleasing and
suggestive forms, and the obtaining accurate knowledge of its
details--the birds, the trees, and the wild-flowers. The oldest of
these is the "Field-Naturalists and Archæologists," founded in 1860.
The members of the youngest go by the name of the "Grasshoppers."
Flower-shows, again, are a great feature in Manchester: some held in
the Townhall, others in the Botanical Gardens. In August 1881 the
greatest and richest Horticultural Exhibition of which there is record
was held at Old Trafford, in the gardens, lasting five days, and with
award in prizes of upwards of £2000. Laid out within a few yards of
the ground occupied in 1857 by the celebrated Fine Art Treasures
Exhibition, the only one of the kind ever attempted in England, it was
no less brilliant to the visitor than creditable to the promoters. No
single spot of earth has ever been devoted to illustrations so
exquisite of the most beautiful forms of living nature, and of the
artistic talent of man than were then brought together.
Music is cultivated in Manchester with a zest quite proportionate to
its value. The original "Gentlemen's Concert Club" was founded as far
back as the year of alarm 1745. The local love of glees and madrigals
preserves the best traditions of the Saxon "glee-men." On 10th March
1881 the veteran Charles Hallé, who quite recently had been earning
new and glorious laurels at Prague, Vienna, and Pesth, led the _five
hundredth_ of his great concerts in the Free-trade Hall. "Our town,"
remarked the _Guardian_ in its next day's report of the proceedings,
"is at present the city of music _par excellence_ in England.... The
outside world knows three things of Manchester--that it is a city of
cotton, a city of economic ideas, and a city of music. Since then the
old character has been more than well sustained. Cobden was perhaps
the first who made all the world see that Manchester had a turn for
the things of the mind as well as for the production of calico and the
amassing of money. Similarly, Mr. Hallé has made it evident to all the
world that there is in Manchester a public which can appreciate the
best music conveyed in the best way." It is but fair to the sister
city to add that the first musical festival in the north of England
was held in Liverpool in 1784, and that the erection of St. George's
Hall had its germ in the local musical tastes and desire for their
full expression.
A good deal might be said in regard to the religious and
ecclesiastical history of Manchester, a curious fact in connection
with which is, that between 1798 and 1820, though the population had
augmented by 80,000, nothing was done on their behalf by the
Episcopate. The Wesleyan body dates from 7th May 1747, when its
founder preached at Salford Cross--a little apartment in a house on
the banks of the Irwell, where there were hand-looms, being
insufficient to accommodate the congregation assembled to hear him.
The literary history of Manchester is also well worthy of extended
treatment; and, above all, that of the local thought and private
spirit, the underlying current which has rendered the last sixty or
seventy years a period of steady and exemplary advance. To some it may
seem a mere coincidence, a part only of the general progress of the
country; but advance, whether local or national, implies impetus
received; and assuredly far more than simple coincidence is involved
in the great reality that the growth of the town in all goodly
respects, subsequently to the uprise of the cotton trade, has been
exactly contemporaneous with the life and influence of the newspaper
just quoted--the _Manchester Guardian_--the first number of which was
published 5th May 1821.
V