Surveying the surveyors: Richard Thornton and his publishers

Richard Thornton produced two outstanding large-scale plans of Manchester as the pinnacle of his work as a map surveyor. Yet, like the vast majority of nineteenth-century surveyors, little is known about him. This reflects the fact that most private surveyors were held in very low esteem, although the quality of Thornton’s work should have exempted him from any such scorn. His two plans, published in 1832 and 1851, are shown to be valuable and accurate depictions of the rapidly expanding town as it flourished as the groundbreaker of industrialization. Some new evidence about Thornton’s life and work has been unearthed, yet even the most assiduous searches have produced relatively little to flesh out his skeletal details. What is clear, however, is that the impact of Thornton’s two plans owes much to the respective support of Thomas Bancks - a local bookseller - and Joseph Adshead - estate agent, social campaigner and local politician - both of whom took the risk of publishing and promoting Thornton’s surveys in the very uncertain market for commercial maps.     

Excavating ‘Hell Upon Earth’ Towards a Research Framework for the Archaeological Investigation of Workers’ Housing: Case Studies from Manchester,UK

This paper uses 16 years of targeted fieldwork on excavating workers’ housing in the Manchester region, UK, to assess a variety of research approaches to the investigation of urban industrial housing of the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. Manchester was one of the ‘shock’ cities of industrial Britain, and a honey pot for social commentary during the Victorian period. Using data from more than 30 excavation sites, it looks at the way in which archaeological evidence can be used to explore issues around house build quality, overcrowding, sanitation and disease, and reconstructing households from their material remains. Manchester's reputation for poor living conditions during the industrialising period was crystallised around the comments of contemporary social commentators from Engels to Gaskell. Yet, the archaeological evidence reviewed in this article demonstrates the value of archaeological approaches in challenging and testing such views through detailed case studies. More importantly, it shows that archaeological material can be used to study directly features of the new industrialised form of urban living, providing a set of research questions applicable across the industrial urban workers’ housing of Britain.     

“A German Bred Revolt”: the Manchester Guardian’s perceptions of the Irish Easter Rising, 1916

ABSTRACT

At the time of the Easter Rising of 1916 Britain had been engaged in the Great War against Germany for almost two years and on a scale and intensity previously unprecedented. This broader Great War backdrop is significant when analysing the 1916 Easter Rising, as it not only influenced the events which occurred in Dublin, but also the interpretation and presentation of the political violence. Despite the Easter Rising being well-documented in secondary literature, with a resurgence accounted for by its recent centenary, the British press and its portrayals of the events of 1916 has been one aspect which has not received as much scholarly attention. By analysing key stages in the uprising’s portrayal, it can be determined that the Manchester Guardian’s utilisation of the German connection had a two-fold implication. Utilising historical precedents of German-Irish “friendship”, such as the gun-running episodes of pre-War 1914, the newspaper justified its portrayal of Germany provoking violence in Ireland to disrupt British war efforts. Additionally, for the Manchester Guardian, the Irish rebels were depicted negatively in its articles as it attempted to halt the growth of republicanism, thereby ensuring the promotion of a more “moderate” form of nationalism.