Manchester is one of the principal cities of the United Kingdom, gaining city status in 1853, thus becoming the first new city in over 300 years since Bristol in 1542. Often regarded as the first industrialised city,• • Manchester was a city built by the Industrial Revolution and had little pre-medieval history to speak of. Manchester had a population of 10,000 in 1717, but by 1911 it had grown to 2.3 million.Manchester (England, United Kingdom). Encyclopædia Britannica.
As its population and influence burgeoned, Manchester became a centre for new discoveries, scientific breakthroughs, and technological developments in engineering. A famous but unattributed quote linked to Manchester is: "What Manchester does today, the rest of the world does tomorrow". Pioneering breakthroughs such as the first 'true' canal which spawned 'Canal Mania', the first intercity railway station which led to 'railway mania' and the first stored-program computer. The city has achieved great success in the field of physics, with the electron (J. J. Thomson, 1897), proton (Rutherford, 1917), neutron (James Chadwick, 1934) all being discovered by scientists educated (Chadwick and Rutherford) or born (Thomson) in Manchester.
Famous scientists to have studied in Manchester include John Dalton, James Prescott Joule, J. J. Thomson, Ernest Rutherford, James Chadwick and Alan Turing. A creative and often seen as a bohemian city, Manchester also had the highest number of patent applications per head of population in the United Kingdom in 2003. The city is served by the University of Manchester, previously UMIST and the Victoria University of Manchester pre-2004. The university has a total of 25 Nobel Laureates; only the Oxbridge universities have more Nobel laureates. The city is also served by the Museum of Science and Industry, celebrating Mancunian, as well as national achievements in both fields.
17th century
In 1630, astronomer William Crabtree observed the transit of Venus. Crabtree was born in the hamlet of "Broughton Spout" which was on the east bank of the River Irwell, near the area now known as "The Priory" in BroughtonBroughton and Cheetham Hill in Victorian times by Monty Dobkin pages 48&52 and was educated at The Manchester Grammar School. He married into a wealthy family and worked as a merchant in Manchester. However, in his spare time, his great interest was astronomy. He carefully measured the movements of the planets and undertook precise astronomical calculations. With improved accuracy, he rewrote the existing Rudolphine Tables of Planetary Positions.
Crabtree corresponded with Jeremiah Horrocks (who sometimes spelt his name in the Latinised form as Horrox), another enthusiastic amateur astronomer, from 1636. A group of astronomers from the north of England, which included William Gascoigne, formed around them and were Britain's first followers of the astronomy of Johannes Kepler. "Nos Keplari" as the group called themselves, were distinguished as being the first people to gain a realistic notion of the solar system's size. Crabtree and Horrocks were the only astronomers to observe, plot, and record the transit of the planet Venus across the Sun, as predicted by Horrocks, on 24 November 1639 (Julian calendar, or 4 December in the Gregorian calendar). They also predicted the next occurrence on 8 June 2004. The two correspondents both recorded the event in their own homes, and it is not known whether they ever met in person, but Crabtree's calculations were crucial in allowing Horrocks to estimate the size of Venus and the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Unfortunately, Horrocks died early in 1641 the day before he was due to meet Crabtree. Crabtree made his will on 19 July 1644 and was buried within the precincts of the Manchester Collegiate Church on 1 August 1644, close to where he had received his education.
18th century
The creation of the first economically successful canal
The Bridgewater Canal, opening in 1761, is generally regarded as the earliest successful canal. The Bridgewater Canal connects Runcorn, Manchester, and Leigh, in North West England. It was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester. It was opened in 1761 from Worsley to Manchester, and later extended from Manchester to Runcorn, and then from Worsley to Leigh.
The Duke invested a large sum of money in the scheme. From Worsley to Manchester its construction cost £168,000 (equivalent to £ in ), but its advantages over land and river transport meant that within a year of its opening in 1761, the price of coal in Manchester fell by about half. This success helped inspire a period of intense canal building, known as Canal Mania. Along with its stone aqueduct at Barton-upon-Irwell, the Bridgewater Canal was considered a major engineering achievement. One commentator wrote that when finished, "[the canal] will be the most extraordinary thing in the Kingdom, if not in Europe. The boats in some places are to go underground, and in other places over a navigable river, without communicating with its waters ...".Boughey, Joseph. (1998) Hadfield's British Canals, Sutton Publishing Ltd,
19th century
John Dalton, was born in Cumberland in 1766. A promising young scientist, he moved to Manchester in 1793. He hypothesised the idea of "colour blindness", a theory which was alien to all as it had not been formally talked about before. Dalton hypothesised the idea from his own experience, as he suffered from discoloured eyesight himself. Dalton would go on to propose the Dalton atomic theory in which he hypothesised that elements were made of small particles called atoms.
Manchester Liverpool Road is a former railway station on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in Manchester, which opened on 15 September 1830. The L&MR station was the terminus of the world's first inter-city passenger railway in which all services were hauled by timetabled steam locomotives. It is now the world's oldest surviving terminal railway station. The station closed to passenger services on 4 May 1844 when the line was extended to join the Manchester and Leeds Railway at Hunt's Bank. Liverpool Road was superseded by Manchester Victoria railway station. Since Liverpool Road ceased operation, the oldest railway station still in use is Earlestown railway station which also opened on 15 September 1830. However the station is still preserved by the Museum of Science and Industry.
Robert Angus Smith, a Scottish chemist, visited Manchester in the 1840s. In his research in Manchester, Smith discovered the existence of acid rain, a byproduct of the industrial revolution. Smith consequently pushed for greater environmental awareness and helped to found the Noxious Vapours Abatement Society in Manchester, which raised awareness of the consequences of poor air.
Joseph Whitworth
Joseph Whitworth was an engineer and inventor who hailed from Stockport, Cheshire (now Greater Manchester). A talented mechanic amongst various other engineering roles, for long periods of his life, he worked in factories in Manchester. Whitworth would ultimately devise a standard screw thread system, the first of its kind in the world.Gilbert, K. R., & Galloway, D. F., 1978, Machine Tools. In C. Singer, et al., (Eds.), A history of technology. Oxford, Clarendon Press & Lee, S., (Ed.), 1900, Dictionary of national biography, Vol LXI. Smith Elder, London The system he created in 1841 would become known as the British Standard Whitworth.
Whitworth also invented the Whitworth rifle, which was a giant leap in the development of the rifle, delivering a shooting range that far exceeded any firearm available at the time. In the American Civil War, Confederate troops equipped with barrel-length three power scopes mounted on the exceptionally accurate Whitworth rifle had been known to kill Union officers at ranges of about 800 yards (731.5m), an unheard-of distance at that time.Snipers in HistoryWhitworth Rifle No. C529 Whitworth Sharpshooter Rifle Consequently, the Whitworth rifle is considered one of the earliest examples of a sniper rifle, if not the first.Artillery of the Civil War In recognition of his achievements, a number of buildings in Manchester are named after him as is Whitworth Street. As part of his bequest, the Whitworth Art Gallery was created in his honour.
John Frederick Bateman and water supply
By the 1850s, Manchester had grown into an industrial city, but the alacrity of such development had placed great strain on the city's infrastructure. Engineering developments such as water supplies, sewers, and transport links (typically via canals) would provide Manchester with the necessary supplies to move forward.
In the 1840s, the Manchester Corporation Waterworks recommended to the city corporation that an infrastructure to increase water supplies to cope with demand must be built. The obvious choice for this supply would come from areas of high rainfall, and there were three choices that were close enough to Manchester. The Lake District, Peak District, and Snowdonia are traditionally rainy areas with their numerous valleys, ideal for a large reservoir. This was rejected in favour of John Frederick Bateman's proposal to build a supply chain of six reservoirs in the Longdendale Valley to the east of Manchester.
Further feats of engineering were required to cope with Manchester's increasing demand for water. From 1890 to 1925, the Thirlmere Aqueduct was constructed from Thirlmere to Heaton Park Reservoir.
Manchester Ship Canal In the 1880s, plans for a new Manchester Ship Canal were proposed. The idea was championed by Manchester manufacturer Daniel Adamson, who arranged a meeting at his home, The Towers in Didsbury, on 27 June 1882. He invited the representatives of several Lancashire towns, local businessmen and politicians, and two civil engineers: Hamilton Fulton and Edward Leader Williams. Fulton's design was for a tidal canal, with no locks and a deepened channel into Manchester. With the city about above sea level, the docks and quays would have been well below the surrounding surface. Williams' plan was to dredge a channel between a set of retaining walls, and build a series of locks and sluices to lift incoming vessels up to Manchester. Both engineers were invited to submit their proposals, and Williams' plans were selected to form the basis of a bill to be submitted to Parliament later that year. The Manchester Ship Canal briefly became the longest ship canal in the world upon opening and at its peak in the 1960s, it was the third busiest port in Britain.
Trafford Park
As the ship canal was opened in 1894, plans were afoot for a new industrial estate, the first of its kind in the world. Two years after the opening of the ship canal, financier Ernest Terah Hooley bought the country estate belonging to Sir Humphrey Francis de Trafford for £360,000 (equivalent to £ in ). Hooley intended to develop the site, which was close to Manchester and at the end of the canal, as an exclusive housing estate, screened by woods from industrial units constructed along the frontage onto the canal.
With the predicted traffic for the canal slow to materialise, Hooley and Marshall Stevens (the general manager of the Ship Canal Company) came to see the benefits that the industrial development of Trafford Park could offer to both the ship canal and the estate. In January 1897, Stevens became the managing director of Trafford Park Estates, where he remained until 1930, latterly as its joint chairman and managing director.