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DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20250322T134500
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DTSTAMP:20260421T204848
CREATED:20250611T115158Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260318T185027Z
UID:26203-1742651100-1742656500@www.newmanchesterwalks.com
SUMMARY:Jewish Manchester: Guided Tour
DESCRIPTION:“The Old Jewish Ghetto of Manchester” \nNext tour: To be re-arranged\nMeet: Victoria Station wallmap. \nEnds: At the Jewish museum.\nBooking: \n*** \nHere’s the full S.P.\nThe Manchester area is home to Britain’s second biggest Jewish community. Yet it was not until 1788\, just over a hundred years after Oliver Cromwell allowed the Jews to return to the country\, that the first recorded Jewish presence appeared in Manchester: Hamilton Levi\, a flower dealer of Long Millgate\, listed in that year’s trade directory. \nIronically\, Manchester’s first Jewish community settled around the parish church (what is now Manchester Cathedral)\, for that was where the old town was located. \nLike the Germans and Irish who were settling locally at the same time\, the Jews saw in Manchester\, cradle of the industrial revolution\, opportunities for trade. They opened their first synagogue in 1794 in a warehouse on Garden Street\, a barely noticeable alley at the side of what is now the Printworks\, the building long gone\, near their burial ground. It was paid for by Samuel Solomon\, a well-known quack doctor\, responsible for the supposed cure-all “Balm of Gilead” which could allegedly cure all ills. \nThe 19th century saw a battle for acceptance. The upwardly mobile Manchester Jews adopted many tenets of established gentile Manchester society – cricket\, similar mufti\, Gilbert & Sullivan’s light operas – until the peace was shattered by the arrival of refugees fleeing persecution in eastern Europe following the assassination of the Russian Czar\, Alexander II in 1881. The new arrival spoke only Yiddish\, wore their hair and clothes in a strange wild manner and most certainly didn’t want to fit in. \nThe established Jews were frightened and believed their hard-fought battle for acceptance would be threatened by these strange figures\, and so did everything they could to anglicise them. \nThe pattern of Jewish migration went north\, this way: town (18th century)\, Red Bank and Strangeways (19th century)\, Hightown\, Crumpsall (early 20th century)\, Broughton\, Prestwich (mid 20th century)\, Whitefield (post war)\, And that’s it. No Jew has crossed the Irwell into Radcliffe\, like Moses failed to cross the Jordan into the Holy Land. Prosaically there was a huge migration to affluent parts of south Manchester and the suburbs: Didsbury\, Bowdon\, Hale. \nManchester area Jews have made significant contributions to Manchester society: \n* Benjamin Hyam was one of the first tailors to sell ready-to-wear clothes and had a shop on Market Street mid-19th century. \n* Chaim Weizmann came to Manchester as a chemist in 1904\, spent his time pushing the new creed of Zionism\, and convinced the British government to lend their support in what was a remarkable coup\, expertly told on the tour. \n* Israel Sieff who made Marks & Spencer into one of the country’s most successful retail companies. \n* Louis Golding wrote the best novel of Manchester Jewry: Magnolia Street (1932) \n* Graham Gouldman ranks as one of the greatest songwriters of the rock era\, responsible for the Hollies’ “Bus Stop”\, Herman’s Hermits’ “No Milk Today” and the Yardbirds’ “Heart Full of Soul”\, before forming 10cc and opening Strawberry Studios in Stockport. \nOn the tour we also reveal the less-celebrated side of well-known Jewish figures who made a significant contribution to the city\, such as Robert Maxwell and Karl Marx. (Ah\, but was the latter really Jewish?).
URL:https://www.newmanchesterwalks.com/event/mif-tours-jewish-manchester/
LOCATION:Victoria Station Wallmap\, Victoria Station Approach\, Manchester\, M99 1ZW\, United Kingdom
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DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20250320T143000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20250320T161500
DTSTAMP:20260421T204848
CREATED:20260212T161323Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260318T185230Z
UID:26610-1742481000-1742487300@www.newmanchesterwalks.com
SUMMARY:The Ancoats Explorer
DESCRIPTION:Next tour: \nMeet: Band on the Wall\, Swan Street.\nBooking:\nCost: Free to register. Pay at the end if you think it was worth it.\nLarge groups: Please contact us to book a separate tour. \nWelcome to Ancoats\, the cradle of the industrial revolution\, a factory hoot from Manchester city centre\, now one of the most successfully regenerated areas in Britain. In 1700 the area was a semi-rural enclave by the river Medlock\, with Ancoats Hall home to the lords of the Manchester manor. By 1800 it was a teeming\, squalid suburb\, blackened with soot\, the smell of belching smoke hanging in the air. \nThe conditions were shocking: the noise of thundering machinery\, suffocating air\, high accident rates and notorious employment practices at the expense of an emaciated\, underpaid workforce slave-driven for unsustainably long hours amidst disease\, darkness\, damp and desperate heat\, living in dingy streets of tiny workers’ houses\, jerry-built two-up two down brick boxes standing back-to-back so that as many properties as possible could be squeezed into the smallest of spaces. \nChild labour was rife. \nAs one Ancoats mill owner explained to the early 19th century poet laureate Robert Southey\, when he visited Manchester in 1808\, “You see these children\, sir. By the time they are seven or eight years old they are bringing in the money. They come at five in the morning\, they leave at six and another set relieves them for the night; the wheels never stand still.” \nThis was never a pleasant area\, yet some of the mid 19th century buildings\, such as the Ice Palace\, which we will visit on the walk\, were exquisitely detailed with Italianate effects\, perfect for the large influx of Italian immigrants\, while the earlier mill buildings by the Rochdale Canal\, though functional and formal\, were palaces of Mammon\, monuments to mercantilism\, magnificent in their might and mass. \nLater experiments in social planning saw some wonderful additions to the locale: the vast Victoria Square\, Manchester’s oldest surviving municipal estate\, is still an astonishing site. Even more striking is the jazzy Daily Express building on Great Ancoats Street\, its gorgeous curves of glass and vitrolite the perfect coating for what was then a quality mass market newspaper owned by the formidable Lord Beaverbrook. \nThe late 20th century saw Ancoats die. The mills shut\, the workshops wound down\, the canal almost dried up. Now it’s all cleaned up. The mills are modern workshops; the factories smart apartments\, while new developments such as the much lauded New Islington project with its funkily named Chips Building and Dutch-styled houses are attracting huge investment.
URL:https://www.newmanchesterwalks.com/event/the-ancoats-explorer/
LOCATION:Band on the Wall\, 25 Swan Street\, Manchester\, M4 5JZ\, United Kingdom
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