Manchester Cotton Districts Learning Journey
Come with Victorian visitors and follow the Learning Journey steps into Manchester's busy cotton districts.
Click on the steps below to explore.
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Manchester Cotton Districts Learning Journey Step 3: Weaving and Spinning Districts
* Beswick * Chorlton-on-Medlock * Hulme * Miles Platting 'You hear nothing but the breathing of the vast machines sending forth fire and smoke through their tall chimneys...' (Leon Faucher. Manchester in 1844). The main cotton mill districts, where all the spinning and weaving of cotton is carried out, are clustered around the centre of Manchester on the inner east and south sides of the city and contain '...the great mass of smoky, dingy, sweltering and toiling Manchester...' (Angus Bethune Reach, 1849 - 50). The smoke from the mill chimneys was so thick that it often almost blotted out the sun. '...the volumes of smoke, which, in spite of legislation to the contrary, continually issue from factory chimneys, and form a complete cloud over Manchester... the enjoyment of the inhabitants would be greatly increased could they breathe a purer atmosphere and have a brighter and more frequent sight of the sun...' (Archibald Prentice, 1826). Thomas de Quincey, was born in Greenheys (on the edge of Chorlton-on-Medlock near to Hulme, between Oxford Road and Moss Side) in a house built by his father around 1791. De Quincy says that then it was 'separated from Manchester by an entire mile.' At the time of his writing however de Quincy says that Greenheys was '...now, and for many along year, overtaken by the hasty strides of this great city...' and that '...gloomy the streets of Manchester were at that time, mud below, smoke above...' (Confessions of an English opium eater. 1821) See also: Ancoats and Chorlton-on-Medlock in the Manchester Cottonopolis section of this web site. |
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