Historians are well aware that Britain's cities have a history of conflict between rival youth gangs. Scuttling gangs were neighbourhood-based youth gangs which were formed in working-class districts across the Manchester conurbation, from the independent county borough of Salford to the west of the city to the townships of Bradford, Gorton and Openshaw to the east. In order to develop an analysis of the relationship between masculinity and violence, it is useful to consider the role models for boys growing up in working-class neighbourhoods in Manchester and Salford before 1900. In the working-class neighbourhoods of late Victorian Manchester and Sal-ford, there co-existed a range of very different conceptions of what "being a man" entailed. In order to develop an analysis of the relationship between masculinity and violence, it is useful to consider the role models for boys growing up in working-class neighbourhoods in Manchester and Salford before 1900.