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From City of Manchester Talk:City of Manchester/Archive 1 Archive 1 (16-Oct-2005 to 01-Nov-2005): Initial discussions Focus on article improvement Requested move Box1 (including long-running debate on "second city" status) Box2 24 September 2005 - 27 October 2005 Box3 28 October 2005 - 28 February 2007 Box4 4 March 2007 - 31 May 2007 Box5 June 2007 (Infobox Image and GA discussion) Box6 September 2007 (Vandalism debates and 2nd/3rd city "discussion") Box7 September 2007 - August 2008 Box8 Box9

This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 5 sections are present.

Hi guys, as you've probably noticed, I've created a new montage image.

I know it's come a bit suddenly (I'm not sure how long these kind of things are supposed to take on Wikipedia), but I took this step because I strongly felt that the previous montage image, although not a poor montage on its own merits, contained too many pictures for the purpose of 270px image.

At 12 pictures, it contained often well over double and sometimes even triple the number of pictures found in the articles of other cities such as London (4 pictures), Liverpool (5 pictures), Birmingham (6 pictures), Barcelona (6 pictures), New York City (7 pictures) and Tokyo (5 pictures). I did not feel that Manchester warranted being such an extreme exception to this general standard, and regardless of whether my own montage survives here for long, I strongly believe that it contains a much more appropriate number of images.

Indeed, the sheer quantity required each individual picture be dramatically reduced in size to make room for the others. The end result was simply far too cramped, and from an NPOV standpoint I feel several of the images were simply too small to be clearly comprehended by non-Mancunians - particularly the very small pictures of Albert Square and Piccadilly Gardens which were very hard to understand at such small scale.

The montage contained other problems, too:

+ 1 Angel Square, although sure to be a significant building in Manchester's future, is still under construction and at this present time, wary of limited pixel resources!, I do not feel it warrants a headline inclusion above and beyond other major landmarks. + The Exchange Square image prominently features the Wheel of Manchester, which has very recently been taken down and removed, making this an outdated and inaccurate depiction of Manchester. + The Daily Express building, although noteworthy, is not of such great architectural or historical significance that its inclusion is warranted in the article's most important image at the expense of other more historically and nationally significant locations. + The same again for the Civic Justice Centre - an important and distinctive building for sure, but with such limited screen estate and a need to establish the most important aspects of the city, I feel that the Beetham Tower and Urbis are sufficient as depicting Manchester's modern architectural style. + The John Rylands image was so small that it is not depicted in a way that makes clear its architectural and historical significance. My montage drops this building too because of limited space and preference for more famous landmarks, but I admit this one is a potentially controversial compromise.

I keep referring to "other major landmarks", and by this I mean that I feel better candidates for montage inclusion would be locations such as Ancoats, Castlefield, the Royal Exchange, Cross Street, the Printworks, Market Street, the CIS Tower, the Arndale, Chinatown, etc. which all are of great local, national or historic significance in one way or another.

In addition, my montage makes provision for small white gaps between each image for purpose of easy viewing. The previous montage simply pushed each image against one another which made it more difficult to understand.

I appreciate that my own montage may be in its own way controversial in its inclusion of Canal Street and Spinningfields, but I believe these two images speak to two famous aspects of modern Manchester's regeneration and fame - the nightlife, nationally-recognised Gay Village and gay population, the city's industrial canals/canalside features, and also the emergence of Manchester as an increasingly popular English city for business with a growing private sector, and sustained comprehensive regeneration to the extent that new districts such as this sprang up in a matter of years.

I know this has been a bit of a long rant, but I really wanted to give the article a quality image and I strongly feel this sufficiently captures a mix of historic and modern Manchester while preserving "legibility".

RyanTheHeretic (talk) 15:01, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Top and left looks alright but right side of the montage feels a little off, I think its because you have the one tall Beetham and then two lots of short stubby buildings, Beetham feels too big and the other buildings feel too small. WatcherZero (talk) 16:20, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I feel the same way about the Beetham Tower and Manchester Town Hall image. I understand both are not particularly photogenic due to their height (Beetham Tower) and awkward layout (Town Hall). The Beetham Tower image that is in the montage could be any building from the angle the photo is taken from. This one is better image from a better angle, but shame about the bloody clouds: [1] Might be something similar and fair use knocking about on Flickr. Stevo1000 (talk) 01:26, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting that after the last census undercount in 2001 that Manchester's population has been upped to 503 000. Details can be found here (on page 15) http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_270487.pdf or http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census/population-and-household-estimates-for-england-and-wales/stb-e-w.html 146.90.227.225 (talk) 11:05, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've only seen {{Geographic location}} used in the external links section of an article, is there any particular reason it is in the middle of the article here? In addition, is it necessary to use {{Climate chart}} and {{weather box}}? If we do use both, should {{weather box}} default to collapsed? Finally, since there is no prose in the "Location and climate" sub-section, and the material covered by the charts and graphs is presented in prose in the "Geography" section, should we remove the subsection level 3 heading? I see no reason for it. Ryan Vesey Review me! 19:33, 19 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a reason why only the population for the metropolitan borough of the city of Manchester is in the info box? If you look at other British cities e.g. London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Birmingham, Sheffield etc have urban and metro populations too. Shouldn't this article have the same info? 146.90.115.43 (talk) 21:13, 14 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am surprised to see absolutely no mention at all of Manchester's links to the slave trade and North American slavery during the 18th and 19th centuries. There was previously a very modest reference to this important issue buried in the text of the article, but that has now been completely removed without any discussion, which I find a bit shocking. According to Dr Emma Poulter of the British Museum and formerly of Manchester University:

"Cotton is integral to the story of the Industrial Revolution and the wealth on which Manchester was built during the late eighteenth and the majority of the nineteenth centuries. Yet where this cotton came from is rarely discussed..." Indeed, it isn't discussed anywhere in this article.

http://www.revealinghistories.org.uk/how-did-money-from-slavery-help-develop-greater-manchester/articles/slave-grown-cotton-in-greater-manchester-museums.html

The current article doesn't read as a mature and honest coverage of Manchester and its history; it reads more like a promotional puff piece, which papers over any uncomfortable facts. I would suggest that the article needs to be updated, or the former references to the 18th and 19th century slavery reinstated.

Lenatron (talk) 21:14, 25 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome on board. Would you like to post here what you would like included- so it can be chewed over and a judgement made whether and how to integrate it in a way that retains balance. The problem editing this article is staying rigidly on focus. From July 1761 to the present the role that Manchester played in the textile industry varied moving from wool and fustian yarn spinning to trading in cotton as a commodity, then regaining some manufacturing capacity- and none of this is discussed in depth. Look too to the more specialist article eg Cottonopolis which may be a more appropriate place to work. --ClemRutter (talk) 22:20, 25 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The article is about Manchester and gives a brief history of the city. The section on the period you're talking about - the Industrial revolution - is eight paragraphs long. One of those paragraphs reads

Although the Industrial Revolution brought wealth to the city, it also brought poverty and squalor to a large part of the population. Historian Simon Schama noted that "Manchester was the very best and the very worst taken to terrifying extremes, a new kind of city in the world; the chimneys of industrial suburbs greeting you with columns of smoke". An American visitor taken to Manchester’s blackspots saw "wretched, defrauded, oppressed, crushed human nature, lying and bleeding fragments"

That doesn't sound like a promotional puff piece papering over anything to me. Yes, there should be a reference to cotton being produced by slaves, but you couldn't go into it in too much depth as the article is about Manchester, not the southern states of America. There is also no mention in that section of the cotton famine and support the Manchester workers gave to the fight for the abolition of slavery, although that gets a miniscule mention later in the article. If you feel that something has been removed that shouldn't have been, then you need go back through the history of the article and find it so we know what you're referring to. Richerman (talk) 23:38, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

This would seem to prove my point somewhat - the attitude seems to be that things perceived as being negative should either not be mentioned, or should be mitigated against by something positive. The abolition movement that you mention is, quite frankly, an extremely minor event when considered in the context of the enormous wealth and development, over a century or more, that was derived from slave labour. It borders on being disrespectful to suggest that a very minor episode of opposition could make amends.

I am not suggesting that there should be lots of detail about slavery, but it absolutely should be mentioned. After all, the city's wealth in the late 18th and 19th centuries was largely based on the processing of a commodity that was picked using slave labour. Trans Atlantic slavery and the exploitation of slave labour in North America is highly relevant to the city's development - it underpins everything else from that period, which we do have a lot of detail about (economic development, prominent architecture, canals, railways, etc). I don't see any reason why this issue couldn't be covered in some depth, providing it clearly relates to Manchester. After all, the Manchester article as a whole could easily be 10, 20, or even 100 times longer than it is and still be relevant - it just depends on how much detail people want to provide on given points. As it is, the article isn't especially detailed, so perhaps a couple of sentences would be appropriate. I would suggest something along the lines of what was there before, and subsequently deleted, or perhaps as follows:

"much of the economic development of Manchester in the late eighteenth, and for much of the nineteenth, centuries was based on the exploitation of African slave labour in North America, where the bulk of the UK's cotton was imported from." The above link would seem a sufficient source given the academic rigor supporting it.

Even better would be a mini section with its own heading. It isn't just about honouring the facts, but also about showing our respects for those who suffered so much for so long during the 18th and 19th centuries, and from whose suffering so many of us in this country have benefited. Lenatron (talk) 19:37, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

"This would seem to prove my point somewhat - the attitude seems to be that things perceived as being negative should either not be mentioned, or should be mitigated against by something positive." You are really beginning to piss me off. There is no "attitude" other than your own. Try assuming good faith instead of assuming there is some conspiracy here to paper over anything unpleasant. I pointed out that the stand that the workers took against the slave trade wasn't given much prominence in the article, the point being that if this was the promotional piece you say it is it would have been made more of. The truth is that you are denigrating the sacrifices made by people who were not much more than slaves themselves. The ones making the money were the mill owners, not the workers. Richerman (talk) 01:18, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

As I understand it the reason US imports made up such a high percentage was because a 75% tariff was slapped on Indian cotton because it was so cheap it dramatically undercut domestic clothing material production, the US imports were costlier allowing domestic supply to remain competitive as a cottage industry and so the US became the bulk of supply without undercutting local producers. WatcherZero (talk) 01:32, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

The above comment concerning import costs is a separate discussion point really, and I don't think we should get side tracked by it here. Unless anybody has any objections, I will add a small section on slavery in this article. Nobody seems to have added anything yet. Any thoughts? Lenatron (talk) 20:08, 5 December 2012 (UTC)Lenatron

The above comment is just as relevant as your own. This is far more relevant to Liverpool as the raw cotton was sold on from the exchange there. Perhaps you ought to post it here for discussion as the consensus seems rather against any more than a sentence. I presume you are aware of the anti-slavery movement in Manchester.J3Mrs (talk) 20:49, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

What are these "former references to 18th and 19th century slavery" you're fixated on Lematrin? Malleus Fatuorum 21:04, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Any thoughts? There are references and reliable references and a lot of hot air written by tabloid journalists- and folks employed to precis comments in order to promote a website. There is a difference between Manchester and Greater Manchester. Personally, I think anything that you add to this, or any cotton related article that is not fully referenced with proven reliable sources will be zapped. I gave sound advice in my posting of 25 November 2012 (UTC), and stick by it. Bouncing a POV by citing an unreliable reference- then going ahead with out listening does not impress.--ClemRutter (talk) 22:35, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be quite a bit of resistance to adding anything on this topic, which I just find bizarre. Look at J3Mrs's comment above suggesting that it is more relevant to Liverpool - but the slave-picked cotton would never have been brought in to that port were it not for the huge demand in Manchester to use the raw material to create cotton products. Let's stay on topic - this is about Manchester, and it simply isn't credible to say "wasn't us guv" and then try to point the finger at others. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia; the only thing that is important is factual accuracy.

It is a historic fact that slave-picked cotton was the raw material of Cottonopolis - it ought to be mentioned in the article. The fact that it hasn't been mentioned in the article for years, and then when it was recently added, somebody removed it without any discussion, just raises suspicions that people don't want it being mentioned. This is only compounded by the negative comments above - with one exception, nobody has wanted to engage in a discussion about how to improve the article - my earlier suggestion was ignored until I declared I would add something. And then the comment was that only the most stringently filtered sources would be acceptable. I think people from the local area are possibly a bit surprised and embarrassed about this and are resistant to it for this reason. But what is there to be embarrassed about!? It is history; nobody today is to blame for it - the whole of the UK benefited. Perhaps Manchester was a disproportionate beneficiary - but so what?

Clemrutter, the source I suggested above seems fine to me. Yes, it is a website, but it is the author and not the medium of communication that is important. Dr Emma Poulter is a credible authority on this subject; what are your objections to the use of that source? What would you suggest should be added? I know you want to improve the article as much as I do so I'm interested to hear your views on the subject, and indeed, those of anybody else with an open mind and genuine interest in the subject. Lenatron (talk) 11:48, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

What Dr Poulter is doing in her role as curator of an exhibition is reportage not research. The established expert is Doug Farnie. Read Farnie, D.A. (1979), The English Cotton Industry and the World Market 1815-1896., Clarendon Press, ISBN 0-19-822478-8 {{citation}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help) pages 57, 58 then 59 through to 60.Again at around p93. Para-phrasing wildly: until 1800 cotton was bought on the plantations in The British West Indies and Egypt and India and imported through London, Bristol and Liverpool. When the triangular trade collapsed, the US forced the UK to trade principally with New Orleans, and Liverpool became the sole port of entry. Manchester spinners travelled weekly to Liverpool to buy their cotton on the Liverpool market. Cotton can be stored so Liverpool had a stranglehold in the supplies. New Orleans solely supplied Liverpool. Liverpool built the L&M railway to ease its the trade with the Cotton Towns. The US was the principle export market for Lancashire Calicos until the Cotton Famine, where Manchester history of opposing the slave states was one of the reasons for the decline in the industry. The Ship Canal was in part an attempt to bypass Liverpool so cotton could be bought directly from the plantations. Lancashire was again shafted by US protectionism. (hideously simplified- please don't bother to correct the fine details) The value of Farnies book is that he supports each statement he makes with a reference. The bibliography on the cotton famine runs from p358-365. It is all there- Dr Poulter had a job to do and selected the material she needed to fulfil her brief.

Our brief here is to provide a brief balanced article on the city- we have to stay on focus, which means excluding more than we include. I repeat what I said above: post here on the talk page what you wish to post so it can can be chewed over, but do look to Farnie for solid information. --ClemRutter (talk) 17:22, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for this. I am familiar with Farnie's work, but certainly wouldn't depend upon it in relation to this particular discussion. He was, after all, a local lad - born and bred in the Manchester area and very proud of it, so I wouldn't necessarily expect him to be the most unbiased source of information when it comes to the more emotive matter of - who benefited from slavery and by how much? - and this was never really his focus anyway. I have to say, it seems odd to suggest that Manchester had no choice but to accept slave-picked cotton; they did have a choice, but went with what was by far the cheapest. Perhaps there is a separate discussion to be had about whether Manchester spinners could have sourced their raw material from elsewhere, and whether they would have had there somehow been a different state of world affairs with more choice. It is a moot point, and one that would be difficult to prove either way. In any case, it is debatable whether any part of the world could have matched America on price and quality (given that theirs were enormous plantations worked by slaves, and given that transportation from there by sea would have been easier than from the likes of India.) Farnie doesn't go into this, so I'm not sure what your point is in mentioning much of the above (?) This is all becoming a bit more complicated than it need be, and yet again, the issue is being dodged.

Let's keep it simple: Was a significant amount of Manchester's wealth and development based on the processing of cotton? Yes. (This point is axiomatic, hence "Cottonopolis".) Was a significant amount of that cotton picked by slaves? Yes it was. I don't think anybody here is disputing these two essential points. Why, therefore, is there so much difficulty in improving the article to reflect this? A significant amount of the city's wealth and development in the 19th century was on the back of slave-picked cotton. I would have thought this would be worth mentioning. How would you like the article to be added to? Lenatron (talk) 20:17, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Let's keep it even more simple - take a range of expert sources on Manchester's history and see what mention they make of slavery. Suggesting that people here aren't keen to include details of slavery because they're from the area is ridiculous. Personally, I think any mention of slavery belongs in articles related to the industrial revolution. Parrot of Doom 20:43, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure that you, like me, have seen the metal hoops at Liverpool's Albert Docks to which slaves were attached while in transit to the US. But I'm not aware that Manchester had any significant involvement in the slave trade, except as others have already pointed out to try and help stamp it out. In reality I think that Britain has a rather honourable place in the history of slavery, and perhaps the Royal Navy's finest hour was in fighting the slave traders, something that no other nation at that time could have done. People also seem to have a very one-dimensional view of slavery, and think it was all about evil white Europeans capturing black Africans, but nothing could be further from the truth; it was black Africans selling other black Africans into slavery. And it wasn't uncommon for Barbary pirates even to raid English towns and villages for slaves. In short, some of the cotton used in Manchester's cotton mills may well have been produced by slaves, but so fucking what? Malleus Fatuorum 21:00, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

We are talking about a significant amount of Manchester's wealth in the 18th and 19th centuries being derived from the processing of cotton picked by slaves. All I am saying is that there should be some reference to that. It is like saying "why mention a building? - that should feature in an article about architecture. Why mention cotton spinning technology? - that should be in an article about engineering." You would have no article at all if you were only to discuss Manchester as a concept; of course all sorts of other things are discussed by association. Trans Atlantic slavery has made a significant contribution to the city's development, wealth, and architecture. It should be mentioned in the article; I don't understand why there is resistance to mentioning it. Lenatron (talk) 23:16, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

There are plenty of books around written by historians knowledgeable on Manchester. Why not simply consult one or more of those books to see if their authors have given significant weight to slavery? If that's the case then I wouldn't object to adding something appropriate. Parrot of Doom 23:32, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation

A few things:

1. There is no need for an in-article pronunciation guide for perfectly straightforward names like London and Washington DC. In fact, it is a disservice: the IPA breaks the flow of the lede sentence, is distracting, and is vaguely insulting without being helpful. We must assume our readers can already say them if their English is good enough to read the English-language article at all.
2. For the truly lost who can't, there is always the Wiktionary entry
3. The pronunciation /ˈmæntʃɛstər/ would fall under this, if it were accurate... But it isn't. That's an American pronunciation for what the Brits would read as /ˈmæntʃɛstə/ or /ˈmæntʃɛstəː/, if it were accurate... Which it doesn't appear to be.
4. The local in this thread and these locals and the OED all use some version of /ˈmantʃɪstə/ instead.

I'm going to put that up, identify it as the local pronunciation, and link the OED.

Kindly do not remove that or put up the standard American pronunciation without establishing a consensus here first. If you have better sources of a peculiarly Mancune way of saying the thing, that's fine and would be more local; but kindly don't replace the OED listing without a reliable source (i.e., not a self-published blog, etc.) — LlywelynII 03:06, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Useful source?

Hi all - there's quite a useful high-level article here at economist.com about Manchester. I thought it worth popping here on the talk page as it seems to capture the city and its culture/history very well. Perhaps it could be used as a reference. --Jza84 |  Talk  16:26, 14 September 2013 (UTC)