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MANCHESTER : Sex, Death and Politics in the Georgian Town. Saddleworth Historical Society Lecture Manchester, for the historian Asa Briggs the 'shock city', is rightly noted for its nineteenth-century growth, squalor, industry, politics and cotton. Most histories of the town concentrate on this period. But this talk will show how the town was fizzing with energy in the eighteenth century, noted, for, well, exactly the same things, just on a smaller scale. Dr Horner's talk will make reference to the diary of the Manchester wigmaker Edmund Harrold (1678–1721), written during the period 1712–15. With his four wives and ten children (nine of whom pre-deceased him), Harrold's jottings give a candid snapshot of grubby everyday life in a town already nationally renowned. Reference is also made to the highly politicised Manchester press of the 1740s, when the Young Pretender passed through Manchester on his way to claim the throne for the Stuarts. Craig Horner is senior lecturer in History at Manchester Metropolitan University. His doctoral thesis was on eighteenth-century Manchester society, and he has published on Manchester's politics and society during this time. 7:30 pm Wednesday 6th December, Saddleworth Museum, Uppermill, OL3 6HS |
