The Ascent of Manchester: A Personal View

The Manchester Murals are a series of twelve paintings by the artist Ford Madox Brown representing the history of Manchester. They were painted between 1879 and 1893 and can still be seen at Manchester Town Hall. The story starts in 80 A.D. with the Romans building a fort and ends (in around 1800) with John Dalton collecting Marsh-Fire Gas.

DALTON COLLECTING MARCH-FIRE GAS

THE OPENING OF THE BRIDGEWATER CANAL A.D. 1761

JOHN KAY - INVENTOR OF THE FLYING SHUTTLE

BRADSHAW'S DEFENCE OF MANCHESTER A.D. 1642

CHETHAM'S LIFE DREAM A.D. 1640

CRABTREE WATCHING THE TRANSIT OF VENUS A.D. 1639

THE PROCLAMATION REGARDING WEIGHTS AND MEASURES A.D. 1556

THE TRIAL OF WYCLIFFE

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF FLEMISH WEAVERS IN MANCHESTER A.D. 1363

THE EXPULSION OF THE DANES FROM MANCHESTER

THE BAPTISM OF EDWIN

THE ROMANS BUILDING A FORT AT MANCENION A.D. 80

In 1969 the BBC commissioned a new TV documentary series to complement Kenneth Clark's landmark series Civilisation, an outline of Western art, architecture and philosophy. It was presented by Jacob Bronowski and it was called The Ascent of Man.

This blog, The Ascent of Manchester, is an outline history of one of the world's most important cities. It begins with the Peterloo Massacre, picking up from where Ford Madox Brown left off. Like the Manchester Murals, it is based around twelve events. The first six are:

1. The Peterloo Massacre

2. The Opening of Liverpool and Manchester Railway

3. The Abolition of the Corn Laws

4. Abraham Lincoln addressing the working people of Manchester

5. The Opening of the Manchester Ship Canal

6. The Geiger-Marsden Experiment

I will be posting the rest over the next couple of months. It is an unashamedly pro-Manchester history, intended to counter the negativity which with which people usually write or talk about the city. A good example is the widespread idea that the IRA 'did us a favour' in '96. With this in mind I have decided to end the project before 1996 to show that the Ascent of Manchester predates the bomb. The early '90s also has some personal resonance because it was the time when my own consciousness was raised about being a part of the city and its heritage – and it was also in 1992 that Francis Fukuyama published The End of History and the Last Man.