ABSTRACT

Manchester could be, and was, pointed to as the living embodiment of what was happening in and to the modern world. The new inventions that pushed the cotton industry into revolution were relatively simple; a number of them were contrived in the vicinity of Manchester itself. The two major operations into which the manufacture of cotton can be divided are spinning and weaving. In 1810 in Manchester the first great strike of factory workers took place; several thousand cotton spinners walked out in a concerted effort, and organized their activities on remarkably modern lines—weekly strike pay, for example, was raised and distributed. Manchester, the capital of industry, was also a capital of dissent, dissidence and disturbance—though unlike Birmingham, its radicalism tended to be separated into distinct working-class and middle-class groups. Manchester with its long history of riot and protest led the way for Chartism in Lancashire.