High Culture and Tall Chimneys Arts, Sciences and Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Manchester

A one-day interdisciplinary conference on the history and development of the arts and sciences in the first industrial city
Saturday, 3 November 2001, John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Deansgate, Manchester

Abstracts

Elephants at Belle Vue
David Bamaby
The centre of entertainment and zoological garden known as Belle Vue was a key institution in the social and educational life of Manchester. It had its own railway station and its collection of animals was known throughout the world. An unbroken series of elephants lived there for long and short periods from 1860. At least eight of these elephants resided there during the nineteenth century. Even a simple survey of this one species at Belle Vue can provide glimpses and brief insights into some attitudes and institutions of the time; the travelling menageries, the railways, the art world, the status of zoos and zoo animals, the press and so on. This paper simply looks at eight elephants whose fate made them Mancunians.

The Subversive Reach of Richard Carlile - Republicanism, Atheism, the Vegetable Diet, Teetotalism and Sexual Satisfaction in early Nineteenth-century Manchester - and his Plan to Cultivate High Foreheads for All
Professor Michael Bush
Department of History, MMU
Closely connected with Manchester by the Peterloo Massacre at which he was present and through which he became known in the north as a radical, Carlile maintained the association with several visits and a two-year stay from 1837. In the town he had a fair number of supporters and eventually established a Hall of Science and Discussion in Shudehill as well as a Religious Tract Depository in New George Street. This paper examines his cultural mission towards the north-west and the mixed reception it was given in the Manchester region.

Artists in Ancoats: the Art Museum, Rifle Brotherhood, and the Settlement, 1877-1918
Professor Michael Rose
School or History and Classics, Manchester University
From the establishment of the Ancoats Art Museum in 1877 to the severance of the connection between it and the University Settlement in 1918, Ancoats (Manchesters Bethnal Green) was the site of sustained attempts to bring high culture to the mean streets of inner city Manchester. The wealthy Ruskinian, T. U. Horsfall, the pugnacious socialist Charles Rowley ("the only man who could induce any sane man to go to Manchester", as Bernard Shaw described him) and early residents of the University Settlement in Every Street, Alice Crompton, Bertha Hindshaw and T. R. Marr made great efforts to introduce the residents of the neighbourhood to all that was best in the visual, dramatic and musical arts. Historians of popular culture such as Chris Waters have dismissed such efforts as patronising philanthropy - a form of bourgeois cultural imperialism. The paper will examine the motives of these missionaries of culture, and question whether cultural institutions (or a Commonwealth Games?) can aid the regeneration of a district plagued by poor wages, bad housing and high mortality and morbidity.

Art, Culture and Borough-Making In Victorian Salford: The Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery In Peel Park, 1844 to 1890
R L Greenall
formerly Adult Education Department, University of Leicester, whose The making of Victorian Salford was published last year.
Within a very few years of its formation as a municipal borough, Salford had opened one of the first public libraries, museums and art galleries. Seen as an expression of civic pride, liberal optimism and social amelioration, the movement for their foundation was led by some of the borough’s Liberal political and business elite. This paper will look at who these men were, their motives and objectives, how they funded and advanced the project and how their efforts were received by the general public.

Aristocrats, entrepreneurs and philanthropy in late Victorian Manchester the creation of the John Rylands Library
Stella Butler and John Hodgson
The John Rylands Library opened on 1st January, 1900 as a memorial to one of the most successful cotton entrepreneurs of the mid-nineteenth century. Mrs Enriqueta Rylands, his widow had intended a non-conformist theological library. However, through the purchase of two of the most remarkable private collections of the previous century, she created instead a library of international distinction. No expense was spared on either collections or the building commissioned to house the Library. The neo-gothic building designed by Basil Champneys is now regarded as one of the finest library buildings in Europe. This paper explores the motives behind the collections which provided the foundation for this remarkable public library and those behind Mrs Rylands’ philanthropy. The foundation of the Library is set within the context of Manchester in the 1880s and 1890s as Owens College struggled to establish itself as a university.

The People, Science Lectures and Owens College, 1866-1879
D Riley
From 1866 to 1879 world renowned scientists came to Manchester every year to deliver lectures to large audiences in the "science lectures for the people". These lectures were open to all for a nominal entrance fee of 1d and the lecture was available to buy for the same amount. Why were such lectures given? Who were the lecturers? The organiser, H.E. Roscoe, professor of chemistry at Owens College called on all the great scientific naturalists of his day - including Huxley and Tyndall - to offer lectures to the working people of Manchester. This paper explores the origins of the series and the mechanics of lecturing in the later part of the nineteenth century. It also links the lecture series with the expansion of middle class education that Owens College represented in the north of England in this period to show that divisions ran deep in the college and the middle classes about the meaning of "education’ and who were the appropriate "people’ to receive it.

Progress and Danger: The Manchester model of industrialism as viewed from mid-nineteenth century Italy
Martin Brown
Senior Lecturer in European History, School of Humanities & Social Sciences, Staffordshire University
The conference programme refers to Manchester as the ‘first industrial city’. For some commentators in Europe, Manchester provided a vision of scientific and economic progress, while for others it served as a dire warning of the perils of ’industrialism’ and the need to avoid its attendant social ills. The paper will first discuss contrasting images of Manchester among mid-nineteenth century Italian scientists, social reformers and writers. Then a comparison will be made between Manchester and Milan, with similarities in the provision of artisanal technical education, and the role of the scientific expert in promoting ‘civic virtue’ (Kargon). Manchester was also a crucial point of comparison for the ‘new’ knowledge of political economy. In 1847, Cobden made a celebrated tour of Europe, including being feted in Milan. This paper would help promote comparative discussion at the conference about the wider significance of the ‘Manchester model’ for science, political economy and industrialism.