Uncomfortable Manchester: The City’s Dodgy Imperialist, Colonialist, Racist, Sexist Past

This tour: Sunday 15 March.
Meet: TfGM Travelshop, Piccadilly Gardens, 2.30pm.
Booking: Please press here to book with eventbrite.

We name the guilty men (and women): the slave traders, colonialists, warmongers, racists, fascists, plunderers. Yes, even this right-on city’s history was shaped by those on the wrong side of right – and they’re still being honoured, with too many statues, paintings and streets named after the bad guys.

• The Duke of Wellington (statue, Piccadilly Gardens) – reactionary bigot who opposed the people having the vote. So he beat off Napoleon? Vive la revolution!
• Queen Victoria (statue, Piccadilly Gardens) – vehemently against women having the vote. Wouldn’t elevate a “Jew” to the House of Lords.
• The Mosleys (Mosley Street) – they owned Manchester for 250 years and gave us Oswald Mosley, the 1930s fascist leader and his lovely son, Max Mosley, who was so welcoming to “coloured immigrants”.
• Charles, 9th Lord Cathcart – why does the Art Gallery feature a painting of Charles, 9th Lord Cathcart, ADC to “Butcher” Cumberland at the Battle of Culloden? Hang it upside down!
• Queen Elizabeth Tudor (statue, Albert Square): murderer, slayer of Mary, Queen of Scots.
• The Gregs (Greg Buildings on Tib Street) established Quarry Bank Mill – on the backs of the slaves in their sugar plantations on Dominica.
• William Gladstone (statue, Albert Square) enjoyed a lavish lifestyle on the back of slavery. Backed the wrong side in the American Civil War.

***

Tour devised by Ed Glinert who has spent 35 years combating injustice in his hard-hitting journalism for City Life and Private Eye, and in books for Penguin, HarperCollins, Bloomsbury, Random House and Emons.