ABSTRACT
The Stockport town and its district possessed some economic importance before the eighteenth century because Stockport lies at the point where the meandering Tame and Goit rivers join to form the Mersey. The increase in the population and extent of Stockport were almost incredible. A new town was erected as if by inchantment. Most of the housing in Stockport township, whatever the type, was built by individuals for their own habitation or by entrepreneurs of various sorts outside the cotton industry. The notion that popular disorders inevitably go hand-m-hand with rapid population growth does not gain support from the Stockport district. By that reckoning disturbances should have wracked Stockport township in the 1780s, its suburbs in the years from 1790 to 1841, and the Hyde-Denton area from 1801 to 1841. Structural changes in the industry also promoted strong, countervailing tendencies. With more masters controlling large- and medium-sized firms, there was greater homogeneity than before.
