Timeline of Manchester history

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Manchester in north west England.

Pre 1000

* c. 79 – Romans build a wooden fort at Mamucium in the Castlefield area
* 200 – Wooden fort is replaced by a stone one. A little town has grown up by the fort.
* 407 – Roman army leaves Britain and Roman forts and towns are abandoned.
* c. 870 – Nico Ditch dug.

1000–1299

*1080s – The area around "Mamecester" is in the hands of Roger the Poitevin before being granted to Albert de Gresle.
* 1100s – Hulme Hall is in the ownership of John de Hulme.
* 1227 – 19 August: Charter granted for an annual fair, at Acresfield (the later St Ann's Square).

14th Century

* 1300s (probable) – Buckton Castle built.
* 1301 – Manchester is granted a charter from Thomas Gresley making it a baronial borough, governed by a reeve.
* 1315 – Manchester is the starting point for Adam Banastre's rebellion.
* 1330 – Lady Chapel (Chetham Chapel) of St Mary's Church is built.
* 1343 – First reference to the Hanging Bridge.
* c. 1350 – Flemish weavers introduce the textile industry.
* 1368 – Salford Old Bridge is built across the River Irwell connecting with Manchester.

15th Century

* 1421 – Thomas la Warre, 5th Baron De La Warre, lord of the manor and rector of Manchester, raises St Mary's into a collegiate church. The adjacent Hanging Bridge is probably also rebuilt at this time.
* 1465 – Nave of St Mary's Church is begun.

16th Century

* 1515 – 2 July: Manchester Grammar School is endowed by Bishop Hugh Oldham, the first free grammar school in England.
* c. 1538 – The manor of Manchester passes from the De la Warres to the West family.
* 1552 – The building that becomes the Old Wellington Inn is constructed.

17th Century

* 1603 – The plague strikes Manchester. Up to a quarter of the population die.
* 1620 – Fustian is woven in Manchester for the first time.
* 1637 – Silk is woven in Manchester for the first time.
* 1639 – 24 November (Julian calendar): William Crabtree is one of the two first and only scientific observers of a transit of Venus, probably from his home in Broughton.
* 1642 – July–September: English Civil War – Royalists try to capture Manchester but fail. On 12 July in a scuffle following Lord Strange's initial attempt to seize the militia magazine for the Royalists, Richard Percival, a linen weaver, is killed, reckoned as the first casualty in the war.
* 1644 – May: Civil War – Prince Rupert of the Rhine and his Royalist army camp at 'Barloe More', near the fort of the River Mersey at Didsbury, en route to the Battle of Marston Moor. A year later, Parliamentary troops under William Brereton muster at the same place.
* 1654 – 3 September: Major-General Charles Worsley of Rusholme becomes the first Member of Parliament for Manchester in the First Protectorate Parliament.
* 1656 – Mid: Chetham's Hospital, founded by bequest of Sir Humphrey Chetham (d. 1653) as a school, admits its first poor children; the Chetham's Library opens in the same year as Britain's first free public library.
* 1687 – 18 May: First known Manchester Racecourse meeting on Kersal Moor.
* 1694 – 24 June: A Dissenters' Meeting House, the predecessor of Cross Street Chapel, is opened by Henry Newcome.

18th Century

1710s

* 1712 – 17 June: St Ann's Church, sponsored by Ann, Lady Bland, is consecrated.
* 1715 – Jacobite rising of 1715:
** Early May: James Stuart is proclaimed King James III in Manchester.
** 28 May–23 June: 1715 England riots by Jacobites extend to Manchester. On 10 June a mob sacks the Cross Street Chapel in Manchester, going on to destroy others in the area.
** November: Charles Wills assembles royal troops in Manchester to march against the Jacobites.
* 1719 – Publication of the first newspaper to be printed in Manchester and the first book, John Jackson's ''Mathematical Lectures read to the Mathematical Society in Manchester'', printed by Roger Adams.

1720s

* 1724-1727: Daniel Defoe's ''A Tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain'' is published, describing Manchester as 'one of the greatest, if not really the greatest meer village in England'.
* 1729: First Cotton Exchange is built.

1730s

* 1730 – Sawyer's Arms first licensed.
* 1734–6 – Mersey and Irwell Navigation completed up to Manchester, where in 1735 a quay is built on the River Irwell.

1740s

* 1745 – 25 November: Jacobite rising of 1745: The rebel army of Prince Charles Edward Stuart enters Manchester on its march into England and a Manchester Regiment of around 300 is raised. On 8 December the forces retreat through Manchester. On both occasions the troops probably ford the River Mersey at Didsbury.

1750s

* 1752 – Foundation of what will become the Manchester Royal Infirmary as a cottage hospital in Garden Street, Shudehill, by surgeon Charles White, moving to Lever's Row (Piccadilly) in 1755.
* 1753 – The first theatre opens in Manchester.
* 1759 – 23 March: Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, is authorised to construct the Bridgewater Canal; he appoints James Brindley as engineer.

1760s

* 1760 – Garratt Mill and Meredith's Factory, early cotton mills water powered by the River Medlock, are built and cotton is first exported from Manchester.
* 1761
** 17 July: The Bridgewater Canal is opened to bring coal from the Duke of Bridgewater's Worsley Navigable Levels to Stretford.
** Blackfriars Street footbridge is built across the River Irwell.
** Approximate date: Cross Street Chapel becomes a Unitarian meeting house.
* 1763 – Manchester Lunatic Asylum built next to the Infirmary.
* 1765 – By 1 August: The Bridgewater Canal is extended to Castlefield. The first Duke's Warehouse here is built in 1771.

1770s

* 1772
** Sir Thomas Egerton commissions James Wyatt to rebuild Heaton Hall.
** First directory of Manchester published, ''The Manchester Directory'' by Elizabeth Raffald.
* 1774/6 – St Chad's Roman Catholic chapel is established in Rook Street.
* 1775 – 5 June: The first Theatre Royal opens in Spring Gardens.
* 1777 – 14 September: Manchester is shaken by an earthquake powerful enough ring the bells of several churches.
* 1778 – Strangeways Brewery is founded by grain merchants Thomas Caister and Thomas Fry.

1780s

* 1781
** 28 February: The Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester is founded.
** "Manchester Infirmary, Lunatic Asylum and Public Baths" opens near Piccadilly as the country's first public baths.
* 1782 – Shudehill Mill is opened as a cotton mill by Arkwright, Simpson and Whitenburgh.
* 1783 – First guidebook to Manchester published, ''A Description of Manchester'' by "a native of the town", James Ogden.
* 1785
** 12 May: James Sadler makes a balloon ascent from Manchester.
** 17 July: Fairfield Moravian Church is opened in Fairfield, Droylsden. With its surrounding settlement it has been founded by Benjamin La Trobe as a centre for evangelistic work for the Moravian Church in the Manchester area.
** New Bailey Bridge is completed across the River Irwell connecting with Salford.
** Borelle Dyeworks established at Blackley.
* 1786
** Following dissolution of the Warrington Academy, the Manchester Academy is opened in Mosley Street by Presbyterian Dissenters. It relocates to York between 1803 and 1840, to London in 1853 and to Oxford in 1889.
** History of the Jews in Manchester: About 14 Jewish families settle in Manchester.
*1788
**11 December: First stone of St Peter's Church, Peter Street, is laid.

1790s

* 1790
** By 1 May: Piccadilly Mill in Auburn Street is in operation; owned by Peter Drinkwater, it is the first cotton mill in Manchester to be directly powered by a steam engine. An attempt to introduce power weaving at a Knott Mill factory is resisted by the workers.
** St Mary's Hospital is founded as the "Lying-in Charity" by Dr Charles White in a house in Old Bridge Street, Salford; in 1795 it becomes the Manchester Lying-in Hospital.
** First Jewish burial ground leased.
* 1792
** Manchester and Salford Police Act creates Police Commissioners responsible for providing a night watch and fire engines and for maintaining, cleaning, draining and lighting (by oil) the streets within the ancient township.
** Workhouse opens in New Bridge Street.
* 1793 – 15 April: Manchester Penny Post launched, the first such service in the English provinces.
* 1794
** 6 September: St. Peter's Church on Peter Street is consecrated.
** 31 October: John Dalton delivers a pioneering paper on colour blindness (a condition which he has inherited) to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society a few weeks after joining.
** St Mary, Our Lady of the Assumption, Roman Catholic Church dedicated in Mulberry Street.
** William Green's map of Manchester is published.
* 1795–7 – The first of the McConnel & Kennedy Mills, a steam powered cotton mill in Ancoats, is built by James M'Connel and James Kennedy.
* 1796
** Autumn: The Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal is substantially completed.
** End: The Ashton Canal opens from Ducie Street through Ancoats.
* 1797 – Food riots.
* 1798
** Old Mill, the first part of the Murrays' Mills cotton mill complex on Redhill Street, Ancoats, is completed, the oldest mill in the city to survive.
** Nathan Mayer Rothschild moves from Frankfurt in the Holy Roman Empire to England, settling up in business as a textile trader and financier in Manchester.
* 1799 – Soup kitchens provided.

19th Century

1800s

* 1800 – The Ashton Canal is physically connected with the Rochdale Canal at Piccadilly.
* 1801 – 10 March: First national census. The population of Manchester is 78,727.
* 1803
** 21 October: John Dalton's atomic theory and list of molecular weights are first made known, at a lecture in Manchester.
** Volunteer militia formed.
* 1804 – 21 December: The Rochdale Canal opens from Dale Street throughout, the first to cross the Pennines.
* 1805 – The Rochdale Canal is extended through Deansgate Tunnel to Castlefield.
* 1806
** The Portico Library, designed in the Greek Revival style by Thomas Harrison, opens as a subscription library and newsroom; its first secretary is Dr Peter Mark Roget.
** Galloway, Bowman form a partnership as millwrights.
* 1807 – 12 July: The second Theatre Royal opens in Fountain Street.
* 1808 – December: The Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal is physically connected by locks with the river Irwell in Salford.
* 1809 – c. 4 June: New Cotton Exchange in Market Street opens.
* 1808 – Regent Bridge is completed across the River Irwell connecting Hulme with Regent Street, Salford.

1810s

* 1810
** Independent Order of Oddfellows Manchester Unity formed.
** Derryfield is renamed Manchester, New Hampshire, after its English counterpart.
* 1812 – Food riots in Shudehill and Deansgate.
* 1814 – Chorlton New Mills, a cotton mill at Chorlton-on-Medlock, is established, the oldest mill of flameproof construction in Manchester to survive.
* 1815 – The number of cotton warehouses in Manchester's Cottonopolis reaches 1,819.
* 1816
** Manchester gains a piped water supply.
** Manchester Cricket Club is founded.
* 1817
** c. 28 February: Foundation stone laid for Strangeways (toll) Bridge across the River Irwell connecting Strangeways with Greengate, Salford.
** 10 March: The Blanketeers set out to march to London; on 11 March 160 are arrested at Stockport.
** November: William Fairbairn, who moved to Manchester in 1813, sets up his own business, which becomes the Ancoats ironfoundry and engineering works of William Fairbairn & Sons.
** The first Manchester gasworks is erected by the Commissioners of Police at St Mary's Parsonage, Water Street, the world's first municipal installation to sell gas to the public; it also provides street lighting.
* 1818 – First Manchester Golf Club founded.
* 1819 – 16 August: Peterloo Massacre in St Peter's Field: a cavalry charge into a crowd of protesters results in 15 deaths and over 400 injuries.

1820s

* 1820 – The stone Blackfriars Street road bridge across the River Irwell replaces a footbridge.
* 1821 – 5 May: ''The Manchester Guardian'' newspaper is founded by John Edward Taylor and fellow members of the Portico Library and Little Circle.
* 1822 – Chios massacre and Greek War of Independence lead to establishment of a refugee Greek community in Manchester.
* 1823
** 1 October: Royal Manchester Institution established.
** School for the deaf and dumb established in Stanley Street.
** Primitive Methodist chapel is opened in Jersey Street, Ancoats
* 1824
** 1 January: John Greenwood begins a horsebus service from Pendleton, the first such regular service in the British provinces.
** 7 April: Mechanics' Institute established, predecessor of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.
** 96th Regiment of Foot re-formed in Manchester.
* 1825
** 1 January: The ''Manchester Courier'' newspaper is founded by Thomas Fowler.
** Old Town Hall in King Street (begun 1822) completed.
** St Matthew's Church completed to the design of Charles Barry on Liverpool Road as a Commissioners' church.
* 1826 – September: Branch of the Bank of England opened in Manchester.
* 1827
** Botanical and Horticultural Society founded and establishes a botanical garden at Trafford Park.
** Approximate date: Little Ireland established as an immigrant community.
* 1827–28 – Merchants' Warehouse at Castlefield built.
* 1828 – William Gaskell joins the Unitarian ministry at Cross Street Chapel, where he will serve until his death in 1884. He will be active in social charities, supported by his wife (from 1832), novelist Elizabeth Gaskell.

1830s

* 1830
** Summer: National Association for the Protection of Labour established by John Doherty.
** 15 September: The Liverpool & Manchester Railway, the world's first purpose built passenger railway operated by steam locomotives, opens officially to Manchester Liverpool Road railway station.
** Eaton Hodgkinson’s pioneering paper on the optimum cross section for cast iron structural beams, based on his work with William Fairbairn on the design of the Liverpool and Manchester Railways’ Water Street Bridge, is published by the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society.
** The twin-hulled iron paddle steamer ''Lord Dundas'' is built by Fairbairn & Lillie in Manchester for service on the Forth & Clyde Canal.
** Manchester Royal Infirmary is granted its "Royal" prefix.
* 1831 – 30 May: National census. The population of Manchester reaches 142,000.
* 1832
** 1829-51 cholera pandemic strikes Manchester and kills 674 people. It returns in 1848.
** Dr James Kay's study ''The moral and physical condition of the working-class employed in the cotton manufacture on Manchester'' is published.
** 8 December–8 January 1833: 1832 United Kingdom general election, the first following the Great Reform Act 1832 (4 June): Manchester elects its first MPs since 1656. Five candidates, including William Cobbett, stand and Liberals Charles Poulett Thomson and Mark Philips are elected.
** Richard Cobden settles in Manchester to manage his interests in the textile industry.
* 1833 – Joseph Whitworth begins his precision machine tool manufacturing business in Chorlton Street.
* 1834
** Methodist New Connexion church opens in Peter Street
** Wilson's Brewery established.
** Approximate date: Inventors Charles Macintosh and Thomas Hancock move the production of their waterproof fabric (used for manufacture of the Mackintosh) to Manchester.
* 1835
** Royal Manchester Institution building in Mosley Street completed as a natural history and art museum.
** Manchester Athenaeum established.
* 1836
** June: Belle Vue Zoological Gardens open.
** 23 September: Esteemed Spanish opera singer Maria Malibran dies in Manchester after collapsing while performing at a music festival here.
** Manchester and Salford Bank building in Mosley Street completed.
* 1837
** First Corn Exchange opens in Hanging Ditch.
** Manchester Athenaeum building on Princess Street is opened
* 1838
** 18 September: The Anti-Corn Law League is founded by Richard Cobden and John Bright in Manchester, embracing the cause of Manchester Liberalism.
** 1 November: Manchester is incorporated as a municipal borough under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, following a campaign by Cobden, absorbing Beswick, Cheetham, Chorlton-on-Medlock and Hulme; in December Thomas Potter becomes first mayor.
** Victoria Bridge is built across the River Irwell on the site of Salford Old Bridge.
** A statue of chemist and physicist John Dalton (in marble by Sir Francis Chantrey) is erected in Manchester during the scientist's lifetime.
* 1839
** 14 July: First section of Manchester & Leeds Railway opens.
** 19 October: George Bradshaw publishes the first national railway timetable, ''Bradshaw's Railway Time Tables and Assistant to Railway Travelling'', in Manchester.
** 28 October: Manchester and Salford Junction Canal opens through the centre of Manchester.
** Upper Brook Street Chapel (Unitarian), designed by Charles Barry, is completed.
** Harvest House in Mosley Street is built as a textile warehouse for Richard Cobden by Edward Walters in the Italian palazzo style.

1840s

* 1840
** 4 June: Manchester & Birmingham Railway opens to Stockport.
** June: The Royal Victoria Gallery for the Encouragement of Practical Science opens as a subscription institution in the Exchange Dining Room; it operates only until 1842.
** 11 December: Manchester Poor law union is formally declared and takes responsibility for the administration and funding of the Poor Law in the area.
** The first (temporary) Free Trade Hall is built.
** Approximate date: Hulme Hall is demolished.
* 1841
** 1 March: Opening throughout of the Manchester & Leeds Railway, the first to cross the Pennines.
** 17 November: First section of Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway opens.
** Scientific instrument maker John Benjamin Dancer moves to Manchester and takes the first photographs of it.
* 1842
** 10 May: Store Street (modern-day Manchester Piccadilly railway station) is opened by the Manchester & Birmingham Railway.
** 7–27 August: Riots in and around Lancashire, protesting against the Corn Laws and in favour of Chartists. Manchester is garrisoned by 2,000 troops with field guns.
** December: Friedrich Engels is built.
* 1843
** 23 March: The Chetham Society (the oldest historical society in North-West England, and second oldest in the North of England) is founded during a meeting held at Chetham's Library, Manchester.
** Bridgewater (Chester Road) Viaduct built.
* 1844
** 1 January: Manchester Victoria railway station is opened by the Manchester & Leeds Railway; it becomes headquarters of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway.
** 7 March: The second Theatre Royal is destroyed by fire.
** 27 July: Death of chemist and physicist John Dalton; his body lies in honour in the Town Hall and more than 40,000 people file past his coffin.
** 26 August: Albert Bridge is completed across the River Irwell on the site of New Bailey Bridge connecting with Salford.
** Benjamin Disraeli's ''Coningsby'' is published, describing Manchester as 'as great a human exploit as Athens'
** Construction of new back-to-back houses is prohibited in Manchester.
** Joseph Whitworth introduces the thou measurement.
* 1845
** May: Pomona Gardens open as commercial public pleasure grounds.
** July–August: Karl Marx makes the first of his visits to Friedrich Engels. This year, Engels' ''The Condition of the Working Class in England'', based on his observations in Manchester the previous year, is published in German in Leipzig.
** 29 September: The third Theatre Royal opens.
* 1846
** 22 August: Queen's Park, Hendham Hall, and Philips Park, Clayton together with Peel Park, Salford, open as some of the world's first free public parks.
** The borough corporation purchases remaining manorial rights from the Mosley family, and also acquires Smithfield Market in Shudehill.
* 1847 – 1 September: The Anglican Diocese of Manchester is created and the Church of St Mary is elevated to the status of Manchester Cathedral leading to extensive restoration.
* 1848
** 18 October: Elizabeth Gaskell's first novel, ''Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life'', is published anonymously.
** Construction of the Longdendale Chain of reservoirs for Manchester by John Frederick Bateman begins.
* 1849
** 20 July–1 August – Manchester, South Junction and Altrincham Railway opens to the public, running out of Oxford Road station on a large brick viaduct through Castlefield, the first suburban railway.
** Manchester Royal Lunatic Asylum moves from Piccadilly to Cheadle (Heald Green), 19 miles (16 km) south.

1850s

* 1850 – Belle Vue Gaol opens.
* 1851
** 12 March: Owens College, predecessor of the University of Manchester, is established under the bequest of John Owens (merchant), originally at Cobden House, Quay Street.
** October: Visit of Queen Victoria.
**Population of Manchester has increased to over 300,000
* 1852 – 2 September: The public library in Tonman Street is the first in England to offer free lending under the Public Libraries Act 1850.
* 1853
** c. January: Boddingtons Brewery takes over the Strangeways Brewery.
** 29 March: Manchester is granted city status by letters patent.
** The number of cotton mills in Manchester's Cottonopolis peaks at 108.
** Westphalian-born conductor Charles Hallé first moves to Manchester to direct the orchestra for Gentlemen's Concerts.
* 1854
** 2 September: Elizabeth Gaskell's novel ''North and South'' begins publication, set mostly in a fictionalised Manchester.
** Beyer, Peacock & Company established at Gorton by Charles Beyer, Richard Peacock and Henry Robertson to build steam locomotives.
* 1855
** The Manchester Lying-in Hospital moves from Salford to a building in Quay Street erected at the expense of Dr Thomas Radford.
** Henry Bessemer experiments with his steelmaking process at W & J Galloway's Knott Mill works.
* 1856 – 8 October: The third (and last) Free Trade Hall (begun 1853) is completed.
* 1857
** 5 May – 17 October: The Art Treasures of Great Britain exhibition is held in Trafford Park, one of the largest such displays of all time; it is opened by Prince Albert and on 29–30 June visited by Queen Victoria. The orchestra that plays for visitors becomes The Hallé.
** Manchester Cricket Club moves to Old Trafford Cricket Ground.
** A new Manchester Union workhouse is built in Crumpsall with accommodation for about 2,000.
* 1858
** 19–20 January: High winds cause damage in the city.
** 30 January: The Hallé gives its first concert as a permanent orchestra under Charles Hallé at the Free Trade Hall.
** March: First new steam locomotive completed at the Gorton Locomotive Works of the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway.

1860s

* 1861 – 12 April: The American Civil War breaks out, leading to the Lancashire Cotton Famine (1861–1865).
* 1863
** November: The North of England Co-operative Wholesale Industrial and Provident Society Limited, predecessor of The Co-operative Group, is registered in Manchester.
** Members of the Hulme Athenaeum Club for working men establish an association football club, believed to be the earliest example in Manchester.
* 1864 – 15 October: Prince's Theatre opens in Oxford Road.
* 1865
** Albert Memorial in Albert Square is completed.
** Timpson (retailer) opens as a shoe shop in Oldham Road.
* 1867
** January: Lydia Becker convenes the first meeting of the Manchester Women's Suffrage Committee, one of the first organisations to promote women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.
** 23 November: The 'Manchester Martyrs' are hanged in Salford for the murder of a policeman whilst attempting to rescue two Irish Republican Brotherhood members from imprisonment in Manchester on 18 September.
** Co-op Insurance is established at a meeting held at the Mechanics’ Institute.
** The Crossley mechanical engineering business is established.
* 1868
** 2–6 June: Inaugural meeting of the national Trades Union Congress held at the Mechanics' Institute.
** 25 June: Strangeways Prison opens. First execution 29 March 1869.
** 10 October: The ''Manchester Evening News'' newspaper is first published.
** 26 October: The foundation stone of Manchester Town Hall is laid by the Mayor, Robert Neill
** Approximate date: The mechanical engineering business that becomes L Gardner & Sons is established.
* 1869 – Arthur Brooke opens his tea merchant's business, Brooke Bond, at 23 Market Street.

1870s

* 1870
** 6 August: Alexandra Park opened to the public.
** c. 20 September: Friedrich Engels

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