Learn About Manchester’s Industrial Origins and Experience Working Life

Located on the site of the world’s oldest passenger railway station, the Science and Industry Museum opened in 1969 and contains collections recounting over 250 years of industrial and scientific achievement in Manchester. The museum’s impressive permanent collections contain an arsenal of showstopping relics that helped shape the modern world, from locomotive trains that transported goods across the British Empire to a replica of the “Manchester Baby”, the world’s first stored-programme computer that was built at the University of Manchester between 1946 and 1948. Meanwhile, its permanent exhibitions are a candid and insightful vivisection of the modern city: the Textiles Gallery considers Manchester’s 19th-century ‘Cottonopolis’ reputation when billions of tonnes of cotton grown by enslaved African people on American plantations poured into the city, while ‘Revolution Manchester’ is a journey through the city’s rich legacy of design and innovation, from the Manchester Baby to one of the world’s first Rolls-Royce motor cars to musical relics from Band on the Wall and Factory Records. ‘Experiment’ is another museum favourite, a family-friendly interactive space where children can engage their minds and the world around them.

Containing over 60,000 objects in its collections - including 2,000 political posters, 300 political cartoons, 400 trade union and political banners, and 7,000 trade union badges - the People’s History Museum in Manchester is the UK’s national centre for working people’s history and tells in intimate and intricate detail the story of working people in Britain over the last two centuries. Highlights include revolutionary theorist Thomas Paine’s writing desk, a cane from the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, and a suffragette banner once owned by Emmeline Pankhurst. The museum also does work to draw and highlight intersections between working peoples’ struggles and anti-racism, womens’ rights, queer rights, disabled peoples’ awareness and rights, and immigrants’ rights, and environmental struggles throughout history, particularly in Manchester as an homage to the city’s singular track record of radical activism. Thus ephemera and relics from advocacy groups and movements such as Earth First!, Lesbiand and Gays Support the Miners, the National Federation of Old Age Pensions Associations, and both the Nicaragua and Chile Solidarity Campaigns are all archived and documented within the collection. The depth and diversity of its collections is unmatched not only in England but around the globe, allowing visitors to explore historical narratives often not written into conventional, big-H History. A visit is essential to understanding the proud community spirit and fire that has so long defined Manchester and much of England’s North, so be sure not to miss out!

Located about half-an-hour out of Manchester, Quarry Bank Mill is a National Trust site that was at one point the largest textile mill in the country and was at the forefront of early Industrial Revolution-era innovation. It was opened in 1784 by Irish-born industrialist Samuel Greg and was relatively unique for its isolated, pastoral setting on the outskirts of the small village of Styal, allowing Greg, alongside his wife Hannah, to experiment with a ‘model village’ system whereby all employees, including children, lived in nearby workers’ cottages erected around the mill and received rudimentary healthcare and education courtesy of the couple. 

Today, the Mill and surrounding estate are open to the public, documenting the history of the British cotton industry, trans-Atlantic cotton trade, and the lives of the people who lived and worked there. It has been described by the Council of Europe as “the most complete and least altered factory colony of the Industrial Revolution” and “of outstanding national and international importance”. The main museum is housed in the old mill building and contains machines that were used to spin and process cotton back in the eighteenth century, while the Styal Village functions partially as a living museum and is a snapshot into day-to-day life at the Mill. The surrounding estate, meanwhile, unfurls four-hundred acres along the banks of the River Boulin and is a patchwork of idyllic English countryside, rolling woodland, vibrant flower gardens, and babbling streams. It’s perfect for a rural escape from the city!