ABSTRACT
Given the recent, and long overdue, rediscovery of the problems inherent in the process of middle-class formation, it is not surprising that the image of Manchester as the central site - and the campaigns against the Corn Laws as the fundamental issue - in the formation of the British middle class has recently come under much scrutiny and revision.1 Even for those who hesitate to believe with Wahrman that it is 'impossible' to write the history of the creation of the English middle class, the recent studies of Morris, Nenadic, Koditschek and Trainor have demonstrated that the process of class formation was as contingent and complex for the middle class as it was for the working class: the historian, even when confined to one urban location, assumes its chronology and degree at peril.2
