Elizabeth Gaskell and Manchester:
Identity, Culture and the Modern City
Conference, 19/20/21 July 2005

Elizabeth Gaskell added to Manchester’s fame if not notoriety when she used it as the location for her treatment of the social problems of industrialism in novels such as Mary Barton and North and South. As was often the case in the nineteenth-century, Manchester was a symbol for much that was connected with the industrial system. Today after almost one hundred years of economic decline, this former industrial giant is well into a process of economic and cultural regeneration. Indeed some have argued that those responsible for what they call ‘the political theatre of regeneration’ since the 1980s have been more successful at place promotion in Manchester than in any other UK city. In this process the emphasis has been on Manchester’s (post)modernity and there has often been unease about the heritage of the industrial past unless it can be detached from the very social problems identified with Gaskell’s ‘industrial’ novels. Jamie Peck & Kevin Ward comment in the introduction to their recent book on the restructuring of Manchester in the 1990s: “This city, which has never had much patience for nostalgia or tradition, seems again to have trampled over its past on the way to a new future” (Peck & Ward eds, City of Revolution: Restructuring Manchester, MUP, 2002, p.4) There is much in that comment with which we might agree. But is it an oversimplification? I will argue that there is ample evidence that, in earlier promotions of the city’s identity, concern for historical tradition and even nostalgia has played a big part. The paper will draw on a variety of themes including attempts to promote the city’s identity and economy through international festivals and civic celebrations (from 1857 to 2006) and a more detailed look at the way in which reconstruction and planning was promoted after the Second World War. The paper will be supported by a variety of visual sources including film.