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117-619: The Green Quarter is an area of Manchester , England, just north of the city centre between Cheetham , Strangeways and the River Irk . From the mid-nineteenth century, the area, then known as Red Bank, was a slum housing impoverished Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, but is now home to digital start-ups and e-commerce businesses, new apartments, microbreweries, gin distilleries and restaurants. 53°29′24″N 2°14′20″W  /  53.490°N 2.239°W  / 53.490; -2.239 This Greater Manchester location article

234-622: 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

351-673: A fort named Mamucium in the year 79 to ensure that Roman interests in Deva Victrix ( Chester ) and Eboracum ( York ) were protected from the Brigantes. Central Manchester has been permanently settled since this time. A stabilised fragment of foundations of the final version of the Roman fort is visible in Castlefield . The Roman habitation of Manchester probably ended around the 3rd century; its civilian settlement appears to have been abandoned by

468-598: A local river goddess ). Both usages are preserved in Insular Celtic languages , such as mam meaning "breast" in Irish and "mother" in Welsh . The suffix -chester is from Old English ceaster ("Roman fortification", itself a loanword from Latin castra , "fort; fortified town"). The city is widely known as "the capital of the North". The Brigantes were

585-460: A seaport at Liverpool , the availability of waterpower from its rivers, and its nearby coal reserves. The name Manchester, though officially applied only to the metropolitan district within Greater Manchester, has been applied to other, wider divisions of land, particularly across much of the Greater Manchester county and urban area. The "Manchester City Zone", " Manchester post town " and

702-476: A 118-acre (48 ha) site, while Ford engineers went on a fact finding mission to Derby. Their chief engineer commented to Sir Stanley Hooker that the tolerances used were far too wide for them, and so the 20,000 drawings would need to be redrawn to Ford tolerance levels, which took over a year. Ford's factory was built with two distinct sections to minimise potential bomb damage, it was completed in May 1941 and bombed in

819-582: A bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in the Manchester Arena ; the bomb killed 23, including the attacker, and injured over 800. It was the deadliest terrorist attack and first suicide bombing in Britain since the 7 July 2005 London bombings . It caused worldwide condemnation and changed the UK's threat level to "critical" for the first time since 2007. Birmingham has historically been considered to be England or

936-423: A deepened channel into Manchester. With the city about 60 feet (18 m) 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

1053-532: 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. In the 1880s, plans for

1170-559: A large transport and distribution infrastructure: the canal system was extended, and Manchester became one end of the world's first intercity passenger railway—the Liverpool and Manchester Railway . Competition between the various forms of transport kept costs down. In 1878 the GPO (the forerunner of British Telecom ) provided its first telephones to a firm in Manchester. The Manchester Ship Canal

1287-553: A mechanic at the Brooklands aerodrome, Surrey, where he learned to fly at Ducrocq's flying school, gaining his pilot's licence there in November 1912. By summer 1914 he was proficient enough to compete in a Hendon-Birmingham-Manchester and return air race, flying a Farman biplane. He landed at Trafford Park Aerodrome and flew back to Hendon the same day. Alcock became an experienced military pilot and instructor during World War I with

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1404-639: A member of the English Core Cities Group since its inception in 1995. The town of Manchester was granted a charter by Thomas Grelley in 1301 but lost its borough status in a court case of 1359. Until the 19th century local government was largely in the hands of manorial courts , the last of which was dissolved in 1846. From a very early time , the township of Manchester lay within the historic or ceremonial county boundaries of Lancashire . Pevsner wrote "That [neighbouring] Stretford and Salford are not administratively one with Manchester

1521-497: A navigable river, without communicating with its waters ...". 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

1638-476: 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

1755-575: A notable place in the history of Marxism and left-wing politics; being the subject of Friedrich Engels ' work The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 ; Engels spent much of his life in and around Manchester, and when Karl Marx visited Manchester, they met at Chetham's Library. The economics books Marx was reading at the time can be seen in the library, as can the window seat where Marx and Engels would meet. The first Trades Union Congress

1872-508: A number of famous aviation companies, most notably Avro . In 1910, French aviator Louis Paulhan flew from London to Manchester in approximately 12 hours. Paulhan won the first Daily Mail aviation prizes who offered the prize in 1906. Jack Alcock was born on 5 November 1892 at Seymour Grove, Old Trafford , Stretford , England. He attended St Thomas's primary school in Heaton Chapel , Stockport . He first became interested in flying at

1989-442: A peak of 108 in 1853. Thereafter the number began to decline and Manchester was surpassed as the largest centre of cotton spinning by Bolton in the 1850s and Oldham in the 1860s. However, this period of decline coincided with the rise of the city as the financial centre of the region. Manchester continued to process cotton, and in 1913, 65% of the world's cotton was processed in the area. The First World War interrupted access to

2106-585: A population of 2,539,100 in 2004. In addition to Manchester itself, the LUZ includes the remainder of the county of Greater Manchester . The Manchester LUZ is the second largest within the United Kingdom, behind that of London. Religious beliefs, according to the 2021 census Since the 2001 census, the proportion of Christians in Manchester has fallen by 22 per cent from 62.4 per cent to 48.7 per cent in 2011. The proportion of those with no religious affiliation rose by 58.1 per cent from 16 per cent to 25.3 per cent, whilst

2223-644: A population of approximately 2.92 million.  It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The city borders the boroughs of Trafford , Stockport , Tameside , Oldham , Rochdale , Bury and Salford . The history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort ( castra ) of Mamucium or Mancunium , established c.  AD 79 on

2340-457: 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. Manchester became

2457-602: A sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell . Throughout the Middle Ages , Manchester remained a manorial township but began to expand "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century. Manchester's unplanned urbanisation was brought on by a boom in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution and resulted in it becoming the world's first industrialised city. Historically part of Lancashire , areas of Cheshire south of

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2574-559: 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

2691-655: 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

2808-522: Is 35.0 miles (56.3 km) north-east of Liverpool and 35.0 miles (56.3 km) north-west of Sheffield , making the city the halfway point between the two. The city centre is on the east bank of the River Irwell , near its confluences with the Rivers Medlock and Irk , and is relatively low-lying, being between 35 and 42 metres (115 and 138 feet) above sea level. The River Mersey flows through

2925-447: Is 806.6 millimetres (31.76 in) compared to a UK average of 1,125.0 millimetres (44.29 in), and its mean rain days are 140.4 per annum, compared to the UK average of 154.4. Manchester has a relatively high humidity level, and this, along with abundant soft water, was one factor that led to advancement of the textile industry in the area. Snowfalls are not common in the city because of

3042-412: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Manchester Manchester ( / ˈ m æ n tʃ ɪ s t ər , - tʃ ɛ s -/ ) is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester , England, which had an estimated population of 568,996 in 2022. It contributes to the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom as a part of Greater Manchester, which has

3159-496: Is achieved by restricting inappropriate development within the designated areas and imposing stricter conditions on permitted building. Due to being already highly urban, the city contains limited portions of protected green-belt area within greenfield throughout the borough, with minimal development opportunities, at Clayton Vale , Heaton Park , Chorlton Water Park along with the Chorlton Ees & Ivy Green nature reserve and

3276-778: Is also contiguous with Salford and its borough but is separated from it by the River Irwell . This urban area is cut off by the M60 , also known as the Manchester Outer Ring Road , which runs in a circular around the city and these areas. It joins the M62 to the north-east and the M602 to the west, as well as the East Lancashire Road and A6 . The name Manchester originates from the Latin name Mamucium or its variant Mancunio and

3393-452: Is contiguous on all sides with several large settlements, except for a small section along its southern boundary with Cheshire . The M60 and M56 motorways pass through Northenden and Wythenshawe respectively in the south of Manchester. Heavy rail lines enter the city from all directions, the principal destination being Manchester Piccadilly station . Manchester experiences a temperate oceanic climate ( Köppen : Cfb ), like much of

3510-491: 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

3627-525: Is one of the most curious anomalies of England". A stroke of a baron's pen is said to have divorced Manchester and Salford, though it was not Salford that became separated from Manchester, it was Manchester, with its humbler line of lords, that was separated from Salford. It was this separation that resulted in Salford becoming the judicial seat of Salfordshire , which included the ancient parish of Manchester . Manchester later formed its own Poor Law Union using

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3744-402: Is recorded as within the hundred of Salford and held as tenant in chief by a Norman named Roger of Poitou , later being held by the family of Grelley, lord of the manor and residents of Manchester Castle until 1215 before a Manor House was built. By 1421 Thomas de la Warre founded and constructed a collegiate church for the parish , now Manchester Cathedral ; the domestic premises of

3861-424: Is the UK's largest city-centre shopping centre. Large city sections from the 1960s have been demolished, re-developed or modernised with the use of glass and steel. Old mills have been converted into apartments. Hulme has undergone extensive regeneration, with million-pound loft-house apartments being developed. The 47-storey, 554-foot (169 m) Beetham Tower was the tallest UK building outside of London and

3978-669: The Bridgewater Concert Hall , the Manchester Arena , and (in Salford) the rebranding of the port as Salford Quays . Two bids to host the Olympic Games were part of a process to raise the international profile of the city. Manchester has a history of attacks attributed to Irish Republicans, including the Manchester Martyrs of 1867, arson in 1920, a series of explosions in 1939, and two bombs in 1992. On Saturday 15 June 1996,

4095-691: 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 which 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. Consequently,

4212-480: The Christmas Blitz on the nights of 22/23 and 24 December 1940, when an estimated 474 tonnes (467 long tons) of high explosives plus over 37,000 incendiary bombs were dropped. A large part of the historic city centre was destroyed, including 165 warehouses, 200 business premises, and 150 offices. 376 were killed and 30,000 houses were damaged. Manchester Cathedral , Royal Exchange and Free Trade Hall were among

4329-473: 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

4446-519: The Manchester Baby and on the 21 June 1948, the machine was switched on. Despite its low performance by modern standards – the Baby only had a 32-bit word length and a memory of 32 words – it was the first computer capable of storing data in the world and was breakthrough in the computer science world. The Baby had provided a feasible design and development began on a more, usable and practical computer in

4563-543: The Manchester Mark 1 . Joined by Alan Turing , the university continued development and by October 1949, the Mark 1 was finished. The computer ran successfully, error-free, on the 16 and 17 June 1949. Thirty-five patents resulted from the computer and the successful implementation of an index register . In 1978, after a decade of research by Manchester-born Robert G. Edwards and his colleague, Patrick Steptoe, Louise Brown ,

4680-511: The Museum of Science and Industry celebrating Mancunian, as well as national achievements in both fields. 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 Broughton and was educated at The Manchester Grammar School . He married into

4797-499: The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) carried out the 1996 Manchester bombing , the detonation of a large bomb next to a department store in the city centre. The largest to be detonated on British soil, the bomb injured over 200 people, heavily damaged nearby buildings, and broke windows 1 ⁄ 2 mile (800 m) away. The cost of the immediate damage was initially estimated at £50 million, but this

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4914-773: The River Mersey were incorporated into Manchester in the 20th century, including Wythenshawe in 1931. Manchester achieved city status in 1853. The Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1894, creating the Port of Manchester and linking the city to the Irish Sea , 36 miles (58 km) to the west. The city's fortune declined after the Second World War , owing to deindustrialisation, and the IRA bombing in 1996 led to extensive investment and regeneration. Following considerable redevelopment, Manchester

5031-824: The Royal Naval Air Service , although he was shot down during a bombing raid and taken prisoner in Turkey . After the war, Alcock wanted to continue his flying career and took up the challenge of attempting to be the first to fly directly across the Atlantic . Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown took off from St John's, Newfoundland, at 1:45 pm local time on 14 June 1919, and landed in Derrygimla bog near Clifden, Ireland, 16 hours and 12 minutes later on 15 June 1919 after flying 1,980 miles (3,186 km). The flight had been much affected by bad weather, making accurate navigation difficult;

5148-501: The Rutherford model , which was later improved on by Niels Bohr who proposed the Bohr model . Rutherford would later have a great influence on students such as Niels Bohr , Hans Geiger , Ernest Marsden and James Chadwick . Rutherford's main work would come in 1917 when he would ' split the atom '. From the advent of aviation at the beginning of the 20th century, Manchester has been home to

5265-505: 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

5382-401: The University of Manchester and Royal Northern College of Music in the 2011/2012 academic year. Of all households in Manchester, 0.23 per cent were Same-Sex Civil Partnership households, compared with an English national average of 0.16 per cent in 2011. The Manchester Larger Urban Zone , a Eurostat measure of the functional city-region approximated to local government districts, had

5499-545: The mass spectrometer . All of which, contributed to his award of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906. Thomson also proposed the plum pudding model, which was later confirmed as scientifically incorrect by Rutherford. In 1907, Ernest Rutherford, a scientist who had been taught by Thomson at the University of Cambridge , moved to Manchester to become chair of physics at the Victoria University of Manchester . Rutherford hypothesised

5616-644: The urban warming effect but the West Pennine Moors to the north-west, South Pennines to the north-east and Peak District to the east receive more snow, which can close roads leading out of the city. They include the A62 via Oldham and Standedge , the A57 , Snake Pass , towards Sheffield , and the Pennine section of the M62 . The lowest temperature ever recorded in Manchester

5733-539: The " Manchester Congestion Charge " are all examples of this. For purposes of the Office for National Statistics , Manchester forms the most populous settlement within the Greater Manchester Urban Area , the United Kingdom's second-largest conurbation. There is a mix of high-density urban and suburban locations. The largest open space in the city, at around 260 hectares (642 acres), is Heaton Park . Manchester

5850-450: The "Police Commissioners". In 1853, Manchester was granted city status . 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 a county borough , as did many larger Lancashire towns, and therefore not governed by Lancashire County Council . Between 1890 and 1933, more areas were added to

5967-404: The 1,183-acre (4,790,000 m ) country estate belonging to Sir Humphrey Francis de Trafford for £360,000 (equivalent to £52.6 million in 2023). 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 1.5-mile (2.4 km) frontage onto the canal. With

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6084-685: The 2011 census. The city experienced the greatest percentage population growth outside London, with an increase of 19 per cent to over 500,000. Manchester's population is projected to reach 532,200 by 2021, an increase of 5.8 per cent from 2011. This represents a slower rate of growth than the previous decade. The Greater Manchester Built-up Area in 2011 had an estimated population of 2,553,400. In 2012 an estimated 2,702,200 people lived in Greater Manchester . An 6,547,000 people were estimated in 2012 to live within 30 miles (50 km) of Manchester and 11,694,000 within 50 miles (80 km). Between

6201-584: The 20th century. The Avro Lancaster bomber, devised for World War II was a redeveloped version of the Avro Manchester and subsequently became the most important British aircraft of the war alongside the Supermarine Spitfire . In the 1930s, Bernard Lovell , an astronomer moved to Manchester to become a research fellow on the cosmic ray research team at the Victoria University of Manchester . He spent war time years working on developing radar systems and

6318-639: The Air Ministry was zero. Not one engine of the 30,400 produced was rejected ...". Some 17,316 people worked at the Trafford Park plant, including 7,260 women and two resident doctors and nurses. Merlin production started to run down in August 1945, and finally ceased on 23 March 1946. The Ship Canal is now past its heyday, but still sits at Europe's largest industrial estate, Trafford Park and there are plans to increase shipping. Its importance highlighted by

6435-467: The British Isles, with warm summers and cold winters compared to other parts of the UK. Summer daytime temperatures regularly top 20 °C, quite often reaching 25 °C on sunny days during July and August in particular. In more recent years, temperatures have occasionally reached over 30 °C. There is regular but generally light precipitation throughout the year. The city's average annual rainfall

6552-422: The City of Manchester became a metropolitan district of the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester . That year, Ringway , the village where the Manchester Airport is located, was added to the city. In November 2014, it was announced that Greater Manchester would receive a new directly elected mayor. The mayor would have fiscal control over health, transport, housing and police in the area. Andy Burnham

6669-476: 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. The Bridgewater Canal , opening in 1761 is generally regarded as the earliest successful canals. The Bridgewater Canal connects Runcorn , Manchester and Leigh , in North West England. It

6786-410: The Electrical Engineering department at the Victoria University of Manchester. Williams also recruited Tom Kilburn , with whom he worked with at the Telecommunications Research Establishment during World War II. Both worked on perfecting the cathode ray tube which Kilburn worked on. They eventually came up with the Williams tube , which allowed the storage of binary data. Consequently both worked on

6903-548: The Industrial Revolution brought wealth to the city, it also brought poverty and squalor to a large part of the population. Historian Simon Schama noted that "Manchester was the very best and the very worst taken to terrifying extremes, a new kind of city in the world; the chimneys of industrial suburbs greeting you with columns of smoke". An American visitor taken to Manchester's blackspots saw "wretched, defrauded, oppressed, crushed human nature, lying and bleeding fragments". The number of cotton mills in Manchester itself reached

7020-414: The Manchester Ship Canal Company. Engineering companies such as Ford and Metropolitan-Vickers had a large presence at Trafford Park alongside non-engineering companies such Kellogg's who remain to this day. Trafford Park was also home to the first Ford production plant for their revolutionary Model T car outside of the United States. During World War II, Trafford Park became an important centre for

7137-463: The Sun Mill, which it extended in 1913 to create the UK's largest flour mill, with its own wharf, elevators and silos. Inland from the canal the British Westinghouse Electric Company bought 11 per cent of the estate. Westinghouse's American architect Charles Heathcote was responsible for much of the planning and design of their factory, which built steam turbines and turbo generators . By 1899 Heathcote had also designed fifteen warehouses for

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7254-402: The UK's second city, but in the 21st century claims to this unofficial title have also been made for Manchester. The City of Manchester is governed by the Manchester City Council . The Greater Manchester Combined Authority , with a directly elected mayor , has responsibilities for economic strategy and transport, amongst other areas, on a Greater Manchester-wide basis. Manchester has been

7371-424: The Whitworth rifle is considered one of the earliest examples of a sniper rifle , if not the first. 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. By the 1850s, Manchester had grown into an industrial city, but the alacrity of such development had placed great strain on

7488-411: The age of seventeen. In 1910 he became an assistant to Works Manager Charles Fletcher, an early Manchester aviator and Norman Crossland, a motor engineer and founder of Manchester Aero Club. It was during this period that Alcock met the Frenchman Maurice Ducrocq who was both a demonstration pilot and UK sales representative for aero engines made by Spirito Mario Viale in Italy. Ducrocq took Alcock on as

7605-468: The atom in 1917; Frederic C. Williams , Tom Kilburn and Geoff Tootill developed the world's first stored-program computer in 1948; and Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov first isolated graphene in 2004. Manchester has a large urban sprawl , which forms from the city centre into the other neighbouring authorities; these include The Four Heatons , Failsworth , Prestwich , Stretford , Sale , Droylsden , Old Trafford and Reddish . The city

7722-422: The atom. Scientists who were part of the 'nuclear family' in Manchester included J. J. Thomson , Ernest Rutherford , Niels Bohr , Hans Geiger , Ernest Marsden , John Cockcroft and James Chadwick . J. J. Thomson, a Manchester-born physicist hailing from Cheetham Hill , who enrolled to Owens College as a 14-year-old. Thomson would go on to discover the electron in 1897 and isotope , as well as inventing

7839-437: 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. 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

7956-474: The beginning of July 2011 and end of June 2012 (mid-year estimate date), births exceeded deaths by 4,800. Migration (internal and international) and other changes accounted for a net increase of 3,100 people between July 2011 and June 2012. Compared with Greater Manchester and with England, Manchester has a younger population, with a particularly large 20–35 age group. There were 76,095 undergraduate and postgraduate students at Manchester Metropolitan University ,

8073-418: The buildings seriously damaged; restoration of the cathedral took 20 years. In total, 589 civilians were recorded to have died as result of enemy action within the Manchester County Borough. Cotton processing and trading continued to decline in peacetime, and the exchange closed in 1968. By 1963 the port of Manchester was the UK's third largest, and employed over 3,000 men, but the canal was unable to handle

8190-439: The citizens are still referred to as Mancunians ( / m æ n ˈ k juː n i ə n / ). These names are generally thought to represent a Latinisation of an original Brittonic name . The generally accepted etymology of this name is that it comes from Brittonic * mamm - (" breast ", in reference to a " breast-like hill "). However, more recent work suggests that it could come from * mamma ("mother", in reference to

8307-638: 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 Water Works recommended that 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 which were close enough to Manchester. The Lake District , Peak District and Snowdonia are traditionally rainy areas with its numerous valleys, ideal for

8424-512: The city, which had been administered by Lancashire County Council, including former villages such as Burnage , Chorlton-cum-Hardy , Didsbury , Fallowfield , Levenshulme , Longsight , and Withington . In 1931, the Cheshire civil parishes of Baguley , Northenden and Northen Etchells from the south of the River Mersey were added. In 1974, by way of the Local Government Act 1972 ,

8541-455: The college house Chetham's School of Music and Chetham's Library . The library, which opened in 1653 and is still open to the public, is the oldest free public reference library in the United Kingdom. Manchester is mentioned as having a market in 1282. Around the 14th century, Manchester received an influx of Flemish weavers, sometimes credited as the foundation of the region's textile industry. Manchester became an important centre for

8658-427: The consequences of poor air. 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. The system he created in 1841 would become known as

8775-415: The consistent development through the generations in nuclear physics, beginning with Thomson in the late 18th century and ending with James Chadwick in the 1930s who discovered the neutron . Ernest Rutherford is often described as the 'father of nuclear physics', equally the same could be said of J. J. Thomson who discovered the electron and isotopes, and ultimately taught Rutherford who later go on to split

8892-475: The dominant marketplace for textiles produced in the surrounding towns. A commodities exchange , opened in 1729, and numerous large warehouses, aided commerce. In 1780, Richard Arkwright began construction of Manchester's first cotton mill. In the early 1800s, John Dalton formulated his atomic theory in Manchester. Manchester was one of the centres of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution . The great majority of cotton spinning took place in

9009-583: The engineering achievement that was the Manchester Ship Canal, the only ship canal in Britain and growth of the first industrial estate in the world in Trafford Park . In the late 19th and early 20th century, Manchester gained a pioneering reputation for a city at the centre of physics, namely in the field of nuclear physics . The 'Nuclear Family' was the alias given to a group of scientists who studied nuclear physics in Manchester. 'Family' highlights

9126-601: The export markets. Cotton processing in other parts of the world increased, often on machines produced in Manchester. Manchester suffered greatly from the Great Depression and the underlying structural changes that began to supplant the old industries, including textile manufacture. Like most of the UK, the Manchester area was mobilised extensively during the Second World War . For example, casting and machining expertise at Beyer, Peacock & Company 's locomotive works in Gorton

9243-531: The floodplain surrounding the River Mersey, as well as the southern area around Manchester Airport. The green belt was first drawn up in 1961. Historically the population of Manchester began to increase rapidly during the Victorian era , estimated at 354,930 for Manchester and 110,833 for Salford in 1865, and peaking at 766,311 in 1931. From then the population began to decrease rapidly, due to slum clearance and

9360-518: The following years, and also doubled up as a long range ballistic missile radar system, a beneficial trait which helped the telescope gain funding from the British government. The Jodrell Bank Observatory is currently operated by the University of Manchester and was nominated for UNESCO World Heritage Status in 2011. In December 1946, Stockport-born Frederic Calland Williams returned to Manchester to head

9477-568: The government, and soon an 89-metre height structure, which was the largest telescope in the world at the time of construction, was operational in 1957. The telescope became operational in October 1957, which was just before the launch of Sputnik 1 , the world's first artificial satellite. Only the Soviet hierarchy were aware of Sputnik and it was the Lovell Telescope which tracked the satellite. While

9594-514: The highest residential accommodation in Europe when completed in 2006. It was surpassed in 2018 by the 659-foot (201 m) South Tower of the Deansgate Square project, also in Manchester. In January 2007, the independent Casino Advisory Panel licensed Manchester to build the UK's only supercasino , but plans were abandoned in February 2008. On 22 May 2017, an Islamist terrorist carried out

9711-478: The increased building of social housing overspill estates by Manchester City Council after the Second World War such as Hattersley and Langley . The 2012 mid-year estimate for the population of Manchester was 510,700. This was an increase of 7,900, or 1.6 per cent, since the 2011 estimate. Since 2001, the population has grown by 87,900, or 20.8 per cent, making Manchester the third fastest-growing area in

9828-451: The increasingly large container ships. Traffic declined, and the port closed in 1982. Heavy industry suffered a downturn from the 1960s and was greatly reduced under the economic policies followed by Margaret Thatcher 's government after 1979. Manchester lost 150,000 jobs in manufacturing between 1961 and 1983. Regeneration began in the late 1980s, with initiatives such as the Metrolink ,

9945-942: The intrepid duo also had to cope with turbulence, instrument failure and ice on the wings. The flight was made in a modified Vickers Vimy bomber, and won a £10,000 prize offered by London's Daily Mail newspaper for the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic. His grave in Southern Cemetery, Manchester is marked by a large stone memorial alongside other famous Mancunian figures. He is buried in grave space "Church of England, Section G, Grave Number 966", alongside 4 other individuals: John Alcock, Mary Alcock, Edward Samson Alcock and Elsie Moseley. In 1910, Eccles-born Alliott Verdon Roe founded Avro on at Brownsfield Mill on Great Ancoats Street in Manchester city centre . Alongside, Farnworth -born aircraft designer Roy Chadwick , Avro would go on to design some recognisable British aircraft of

10062-556: The like to assist in the war effort. After the war, he continued his studies in cosmic rays, but background radiation and light in the large Manchester impeded his work. He decided to push for funding for a large radio telescope which would be based away from the city on the Cheshire Plain south of Manchester at the Jodrell Bank Observatory . Funding was granted from the Nuffield Foundation with some contribution from

10179-418: The major Celtic tribe in what is now known as Northern England ; they had a stronghold in the locality at a sandstone outcrop on which Manchester Cathedral now stands, opposite the bank of the River Irwell . Their territory extended across the fertile lowland of what is now Salford and Stretford . Following the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century, General Agricola ordered the construction of

10296-406: The manufacture and development in engineering in the aim of giving Britain a technological advantage over its enemies. Having an abandoned factory in Trafford Park , Ford of Britain was approached about the possibility of converting it into an aircraft engine production unit by Herbert Austin , who was in charge of the shadow factory plan . Building work on a new factory was started in May 1940 on

10413-619: The manufacture and trade of woollens 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". The cathedral and Chetham's buildings are the only significant survivors of Leland's Manchester. During the English Civil War Manchester strongly favoured the Parliamentary interest. Although not long-lasting, Cromwell granted it

10530-581: The mid-3rd century, although the fort may have supported a small garrison until the late 3rd or early 4th century. After the Roman withdrawal and Saxon conquest , the focus of settlement shifted to the confluence of the Irwell and Irk sometime before the arrival of the Normans after 1066. Much of the wider area was laid waste in the subsequent Harrying of the North . In the Domesday Book of 1086, Manchester

10647-467: The name "Manchester". In 1792, Commissioners – usually known as "Police Commissioners" – were established for the social improvement of Manchester. Manchester regained its borough status in 1838 and comprised the townships of Beswick , Cheetham Hill , Chorlton upon Medlock and Hulme . By 1846, with increasing population and greater industrialisation, the Borough Council had taken over the powers of

10764-415: 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

10881-558: 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. Within five years Trafford Park, Europe's largest industrial estate ,

10998-591: The proportion of Muslims increased by 73.6 per cent from 9.1 per cent to 15.8 per cent. The size of the Jewish population in Greater Manchester is the largest in Britain outside London. Science and engineering in Manchester 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,

11115-449: The redesign resulted in the 10,000 man-hours needed to produce a Merlin dropping to 2,727 in three years, while unit cost fell from £6,540 in June 1941 to £1,180 by the war’s end. In his autobiography Not much of an Engineer , Sir Stanley Hooker states: "... once the great Ford factory at Manchester started production, Merlins came out like shelling peas. The percentage of engines rejected by

11232-714: 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

11349-505: The rest of the world does tomorrow." Manchester's golden age was perhaps the last quarter of the 19th century. Many of the great public buildings (including Manchester 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. Although

11466-696: The right to elect its own MP . Charles Worsley , who sat for the city for only a year, was later appointed Major General for Lancashire, Cheshire and Staffordshire during the Rule of the Major Generals . He was a diligent puritan , turning out ale houses and banning the celebration of Christmas; he died in 1656. Significant quantities of cotton began to be used after about 1600, firstly in linen and cotton fustians , but by around 1750 pure cotton fabrics were being produced and cotton had overtaken wool in importance. The Irwell and Mersey were made navigable by 1736, opening

11583-416: The same month. At first, the factory had difficulty in attracting suitable labour, and large numbers of women, youths and untrained men had to be taken on. Despite this, the first Merlin engine came off the production line one month later and it was building the engine at a rate of 200 per week by 1943, at which point the joint factories were producing 18,000 Merlins per year. Ford’s investment in machinery and

11700-470: 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

11817-506: 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 by product 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

11934-498: The towns of south Lancashire and north Cheshire, and Manchester was for a time the most productive centre of cotton processing. Manchester became known as the world's largest marketplace for cotton goods and was dubbed " Cottonopolis " and "Warehouse City" during the Victorian era . In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, the term "manchester" is still used for household linen: sheets, pillow cases, towels, etc. The industrial revolution brought about huge change in Manchester and

12051-400: The transmissions from Sputnik itself could easily be picked up by a household radio , the Lovell Telescope was the only telescope capable of tracking Sputnik's booster rocket by radar; it first located it just before midnight on 12 October 1957. It also located Sputnik 2 's carrier rocket at just after midnight on 16 November 1957. Jodrell Bank continued tracking new artificial satellites in

12168-602: The world's first baby conceived by in vitro fertilisation . Louise Brown , was born at 11:47 pm on 25 July 1978 at the Oldham General Hospital and made medical history: in vitro fertilization meant a new way to help infertile couples who formerly had no possibility of having a baby. Refinements in technology have increased pregnancy rates and it is estimated that in 2010 about 4 million children have been born by IVF with approximately 170,000 coming from donated oocyte and embryos In 2010, Robert G. Edwards

12285-535: The world. A centre of capitalism, Manchester was once the scene of bread and labour riots, as well as calls for greater political recognition by the city's working and non-titled classes. One such gathering ended with the Peterloo massacre of 16 August 1819. The economic school of Manchester Capitalism developed there, and Manchester was the centre of the Anti-Corn Law League from 1838 onward. Manchester has

12402-507: Was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for the development of in vitro fertilization". In 2010, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov , physicists at the University of Manchester won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on graphene . Successfully isolated in 2004, research and development continues on the 'miracle material' today to find practical, everyday uses for

12519-562: Was built between 1888 and 1894, in some sections by canalisation of the Rivers Irwell and Mersey, running 36 miles (58 km) from Salford to Eastham Locks on the tidal Mersey. This enabled oceangoing ships to sail right into the Port of Manchester. On the canal's banks, just outside the borough, the world's first industrial estate was created at Trafford Park . Large quantities of machinery, including cotton processing plant, were exported around

12636-524: 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 £32,701,440 in 2023), but its advantages over land and river transport meant that within

12753-429: Was elected as the first mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017 . At 53°28′0″N 2°14′0″W  /  53.46667°N 2.23333°W  / 53.46667; -2.23333 , 160 miles (260 km) northwest of London, Manchester lies in a bowl-shaped land area bordered to the north and east by the Pennines , an upland chain that runs the length of northern England , and to the south by the Cheshire Plain . Manchester

12870-843: Was held in Manchester (at the Mechanics' Institute, David Street), from 2 to 6 June 1868. Manchester was an important cradle of the Labour Party and the Suffragette Movement. At that time, it seemed a place in which anything could happen—new industrial processes, new ways of thinking (the 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,

12987-470: Was home to forty firms. The earliest structures on the canal side were grain silos ; the grain was used for flour and as ballast for ships carrying raw cotton . The wooden silo built opposite No.9 Dock in 1898 (destroyed in the Manchester Blitz in 1940) was Europe's largest grain elevator. The CWS bought land on Trafford Wharf in 1903, where it opened a bacon factory and a flour mill. In 1906 it bought

13104-462: Was key to the increase in Manchester's population. Manchester began expanding "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century as people flocked to the city for work from Scotland, Wales, Ireland and other areas of England as part of a process of unplanned urbanisation brought on by the Industrial Revolution . It developed a wide range of industries, so that by 1835 "Manchester

13221-520: Was quickly revised upwards. The final insurance payout was over £400 million; many affected businesses never recovered from the loss of trade. Spurred by the investment after the 1996 bombing and aided by the XVII Commonwealth Games , the city centre has undergone extensive regeneration. New and renovated complexes such as The Printworks and Corn Exchange have become popular shopping, eating and entertainment areas. Manchester Arndale

13338-637: Was switched to bomb making; Dunlop's rubber works in Chorlton-on-Medlock made barrage balloons ; and just outside the city in Trafford Park , engineers Metropolitan-Vickers made Avro Manchester and Avro Lancaster bombers and Ford built the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines to power them. Manchester was thus the target of bombing by the Luftwaffe , and by late 1940 air raids were taking place against non-military targets. The biggest took place during

13455-423: Was the host city for the 2002 Commonwealth Games . The city is notable for its architecture , culture , musical exports , media links , scientific and engineering output , social impact , sports clubs and transport connections . Manchester Liverpool Road railway station is the world's oldest surviving inter-city passenger railway station. At the University of Manchester , Ernest Rutherford first split

13572-426: Was without challenge the first and greatest industrial city in the world". Engineering firms initially made machines for the cotton trade, but diversified into general manufacture. Similarly, the chemical industry started by producing bleaches and dyes, but expanded into other areas. Commerce was supported by financial service industries such as banking and insurance. Trade, and feeding the growing population, required

13689-462: Was −17.6 °C (0.3 °F) on 7 January 2010. The highest temperature recorded in Manchester is 38.0 °C (100.4 °F) on 19 July 2022, during the 2022 European Heatwave . Manchester lies at the centre of a green belt region extending into the wider surrounding counties. This reduces urban sprawl , prevents towns in the conurbation from further convergence, protects the identity of outlying communities, and preserves nearby countryside. It

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