Manchester is the UK’s second city by GDP, with an expanding knowledge-led economy and developed service industries. Today, we’re exploring its history and how it became one of the core forces in the UK economy.
Wool I wonder
Like other regions of the UK, Manchester long thrived on its wool trade in the medieval period and the following centuries. The city was a vital hub for the trade in wool – a crucial income for the English crown.
The trade was built with the help of Flemish settlers, who brought their expertise from Flanders, building the foundation for the city’s prominence in the trade. Manchester’s wool made its way to Europe in return, exported via London.
The city’s success in wool lasted through to the 17th century, when wool was replaced by cotton and woven textiles at the core of the city’s trade, with the development of new textiles, including fustian, a major turning point. The first cotton mill in the city was built in 1780, following the development of a canal linking the city with Runcorn, which brought coal to Manchester as the first rumblings were felt of the Industrial Revolution.
Cottonopolis
It was that revolution that turned Manchester from a hub for wool manufacture to a commercial centre for the textile trade.
Canal expansion linked Manchester with the nearby port of Liverpool, giving it another route out of the country for its cotton imports and exports. That link grew stronger with the opening of the world’s first ever passenger railway line between the two cities in 1830. Annual raw cotton imports hit 205,000 tonnes in 1841, and eventually peaked at almost 1bn tonnes in 1914.
Employment in the cotton industry of ‘Cottonopolis’ declined during the 1800s, however, with only 18% of the city’s workforce working in the cotton mills by 1840. The reliance on imports of raw cotton also put Manchester at a disadvantage when supply chain shocks hit during the American Civil War.
Decline
When the American Civil War saw Union North put a blockade on the Confederate States in North America, where the slave trade propped up enormous cotton exports, Manchester was forced to recalibrate. Its cotton processing industry declined as processing capacity developed in regions closer to where the raw product was sourced.
The city adjusted by becoming a commercial and financial hub for the textile trade instead. The palatial Royal Exchange building, constructed in the late nineteenth century, hosted traders aspiring to make money on the trade as production moved to Lancashire towns like Preston and Bolton.
While the city became England’s fourth busiest port by the early twentieth century, the cotton trade declined and tariffs on cotton imports did little to delay the process.
Services
Like many UK cities, the story of Manchester in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has been the shift from industry to services.
It was among the first cities in Europe to have a telephone exchange, opened in 1879, and it has today become a communications hub, with Salford in Greater Manchester now a centre for UK media firms including BBC North and ITV Granada at the MediaCityUK development.
Manchester has adapted in recent years after its industrial decline, defying shocks from the pandemic and other events to see growth in jobs and population.
Its cultural exports include some of the UK’s most recognisable bands, among them The Smiths, Oasis and Joy Division. The success of its football clubs, including Manchester United and more recently Manchester City, has also given the city a renewed international footprint.
It has become a hub for a host of service and creative industries, including financial and legal services as well as the media and digital services industries. The shadow of deindustrialisation looms, however, and it remains the country’s second most deprived city after Blackpool.