MANCHESTER, EDWARD MONTAGU, 2ND EARL OF, VISCOUNT ...

born 1602 died May 7, 1671, Whitehall, London, Eng. Parliamentary general in the English Civil Wars. Son of the 1st earl, Henry Montagu, he was educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He sat in Parliament from 1624 to 1626 and in the latter year was raised to the peerage as Baron Kimbolton, but he was known generally by his courtesy title of Viscount Mandeville. At the beginning of the Long Parliament he was a leader of those opposed to King Charles I in the upper house, his name being joined with those of the five members of the House of Commons whom the king charged with treason in 1642. At the outbreak of the Civil Wars, having succeeded his father in the earldom in November 1642, Manchester commanded a regiment in the army of the earl of Essex. In August 1643 he was appointed major general of the Parliamentary forces in the eastern counties, with Oliver Cromwell as his second in command. He became a member of the Committee of Both Kingdoms in 1644 and was in supreme command when the Royalist Army was defeated at Marston Moor (July 2, 1644); but later that year he disagreed with Cromwell and strongly expressed his disapproval of continuing the war. Cromwell brought his shortcomings before Parliament, and early in 1645 Manchester resigned his command. He took a leading part in the frequent negotiations for an arrangement with Charles I and, with William Lenthall, was custodian of the great seal (164748). He opposed the trial and execution of the king and retired from public life during the Commonwealth; but after the Restoration, which he actively assisted, he was honoured by Charles II. In 1667 he was made a general. History Early settlement and medieval growth Early in the Roman conquest of Britain, a fort was established (AD 7886) on a low sandstone plateau at the confluence of the Rivers Medlock and Irwell. In its first form, the fort was a simple field fortification of shallow ditches, earth banks, and timber palisades. By the early 3rd century, it had been rebuilt in stone and contained a number of buildings; excavations have uncovered evidence of substantial activity. A vicus (Latin: row of houses) of merchants and craftsmen had grown outside the walls, along the well-made road to York. But Roman occupation left no permanent imprint, except to give the modern city its name, derived from Mamucium (Place of the Breastlike Hill). There is no evidence of occupation after the 4th century, and the site seems to have lain empty for 500 years. In 919 the West Saxon king Edward the Elder sent a force to repair the Roman site as a defense against the Norsemen, and some traces of this reoccupation have been discovered. By then, however, the growth of Manchester had recommenced almost a mile from the fort, at the junction of the Rivers Irk and Irwell near the present cathedral. The Norman barony of Manchester was one of the largest landholdings in Lancashire, and its lords built a fortified hall close to the church. During the 13th century, Manchester began its transition from village to town, and sometime before 1301 a charter was granted. Although Manchester was acquiring regional importance, it was subordinate to its near neighbour, Salford, which was the capital manor of the hundred (district) and which had an earlier borough charter. The full development of the medieval borough followed the establishment in 1421 of a college of priests to take charge of the church. Part of the college survives as Chetham's Hospital, while a free church school set up in 1506 became the Manchester Grammar School in 1515, founded by Hugh Oldham, bishop of Exeter. Evolution of the modern city By the 16th century Manchester was a flourishing market borough important in the wool trade, exporting cloth to Europe via London. By 1620 a new industrial era had begun with the weaving of fustian, a cloth with a linen warp but a cotton weft. This was the origin of the cotton industry that was to transform southern Lancashire after 1770. As the trade grew, Manchester expanded and improvements were added, including the fine square and church of St. Ann (1712). From the 1760s onward, growth quickened with the onset of the Industrial Revolution. The first canal, bringing cheap coal from Worsley, reached the town in 1762; later extended, it linked Manchester with the Mersey and Liverpool by 1776 and so served the import-export needs of the cotton industry. Manchester's first cotton mill was built in the early 1780s. By 1800 Manchester was said to be steam mill mad, and by 1830 there were 99 cotton-spinning mills. The world's first modern railway, the Liverpool and Manchester, was opened in 1830, and by the 1850s the greater part of the present railway system of the city was complete. Despite its growth to a population of more than 70,000 by 1801, the town had no system of government and was still managed, like a village, by a manorial court leet (a court held semiannually by the lord of the manor or his steward to conduct local government). A police force was established in 1792, but not until 1838 did a charter of incorporation set up an elected council and a system of local government. Manchester's economic history during the second half of the 19th century was one of growth and diversification. The city became less important as a cotton-manufacturing centre than as the commercial and financial nucleus of the trade; on the floor of the Royal Exchange, the yarn and cloth of the entire industry was bought and sold. From an early textile-machinery industry, many specialized types of engineering developed. Products included steam engines and locomotives, armaments, machine tools, and, later, those of electrical engineering. The opening of the 37-mile Manchester Ship Canal (1894) linked Manchester, via the Mersey estuary at Eastham, to the Irish Sea and the world markets beyond. By 1910 Manchester had become the fourth port of the country, and alongside the docks, at Trafford Park, the first (and still the largest) industrial estate in Britain was developed. New industries also took sites there, with a prominent role played by such American companies as Westinghouse and Ford, the latter moving to Essex in 1929. At its height, more than 50,000 workers were accommodated within factories of the estate, though that number later declined. The Manchester of the 19th century was a city of enormous vitality not only in its economic growth but also in its political, cultural, and intellectual life. The Manchester Guardian became Britain's leading provincial newspaper, achieving international influence, while the Hall Orchestra was its equal in the world of music. Owens College (now known as Victoria University of Manchester) became the nucleus of the first and largest of the great English civic universities, while the academic success of the Manchester Grammar School made it something of a model in the development of selective secondary education in England. Politically, Victorian Manchester often led the nation: in the agitation for parliamentary reform and for free trade, its influence was crucial. The Peterloo Massacre of 1819 arose from a peaceful political assembly, held on fields near the city, to demand parliamentary reform. In the period 184244 the German social philosopher Friedrich Engels lived in Manchester, and his influential book Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) was based on his experiences there. Among its other intellectual achievements were John Dalton's development of the atomic theory as the foundation of modern chemistry and the work of the Manchester school in the application of economic principles to the problems of commerce, industry, and government. There was a price to be paid for this precocious growth. In its urban fabric, inner Manchester remained essentially a 19th-century city, and by the late 20th century it faced massive redevelopment problems. An industrial collar of obsolescent factory zones encircled the city centre, and huge areas of old slum housing survived with little renewal into the 1960s. Manchester, then, is a city in transition: its face is being transformed by redevelopment, and its dependence on the insecure base of the textile industries is declining with the growth of a much broader economic structure.