Manchester is where we chose to base ourselves, so we are hardly impartial about the place. Here are four things that make it great.
It is no secret that Manchester has deep history and culture. It is often called the world’s first truly modern city, it is where the atom was first split, and it is the birthplace of the first modern computer. Disraeli said it first and plenty have repeated it since: what Manchester thinks today, the world thinks tomorrow.
1. Manchester music
Manchester has turned out a remarkable number of musicians for a city of its size. Bands like Joy Division, The Smiths, The Stone Roses and Oasis shook up the foundations of popular music and put the city firmly on the map, and plenty have followed them since.
It is still one of the busiest places in the country for live music. The arena by Victoria station, known as Manchester Arena for years and renamed the AO Arena in 2020, puts on more than 200 events a year. It was joined in 2024 by Co-op Live over at the Etihad campus, so the city now has two of the largest indoor venues in the country and both pull in the biggest touring names.
Manchester is well known for its classical music too, with the grand Bridgewater Hall home to three resident orchestras: the Hallé, the BBC Philharmonic and Manchester Camerata.
2. Manchester is the birthplace of the industrial revolution
In the early 19th century the growth of Manchester’s cotton industry drove the town’s expansion and made it the beating heart of the world’s manufacturing and trade. Many of those old mills and warehouses are still standing, in the city centre and in the towns around it, most of them now flats, offices and bars.
The canals came first. The Bridgewater Canal, opened in 1761 to carry coal from the Duke of Bridgewater’s mines at Worsley into Manchester, is widely regarded as the first canal of the industrial age and the start of the whole thing. For the first time, heavy goods could be moved cheaply and in quantity. Much later, in 1894, the Manchester Ship Canal gave the city a direct route to the sea, so ocean-going ships could unload a long way inland.
The worker bee has been a symbol of Manchester since 1842, when it was added to the city’s coat of arms. The bee stands for Mancunians’ work ethic and for Manchester as a hive of activity. You will spot it on bins, bollards and tram stops all over town.
Manchester’s dominance in textiles went so far that in Australia, the household linen section of a department store is still called the Manchester department.
3. Manchester’s suffragette movement
Emmeline Pankhurst was born in Moss Side in 1858 and became one of the boldest political activists this country has produced. Frustrated by the lack of progress in the fight for votes for women, she set up the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1903. The women-only party became known as the suffragettes, and they were deliberately provocative.
Pankhurst was named by Time as one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. Her statue, Rise up, Women, has stood in St Peter’s Square since 2018, a short walk from where the WSPU began.
4. Manchester’s football
Manchester has two prominent football clubs, Manchester City and Manchester United, and the rivalry between them fills a fair amount of conversation in the city. United became the first English club to be crowned European Champions, in 1968.
Manchester United was founded in 1878 under the name Newton Heath LYR FC. In 1902 the club was renamed Manchester United, and in time picked up the nickname The Red Devils. It is one of the most successful clubs in English football, with 20 league titles, 13 FA Cups, 21 Community Shields and 6 League Cups. In Europe it has won the European Cup three times, in 1968, 1999 and 2008, along with the Europa League, the UEFA Super Cup and the Cup Winners’ Cup.
Manchester City came along a little later, founded in 1880 under the name St Mark’s. It was renamed Ardwick Association Football Club in 1887, then Manchester City in 1894. The club won its first major trophy in the 1903/04 season, taking the FA Cup. Its best early run came at the end of the 1960s: the league title in 1968, the FA Cup in 1969, then the League Cup and the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1970.
City could not keep that going, and by 1998 had fallen as far as the third tier. They were back in the Premier League in the early 2000s, and in 2008 the club was bought by the Abu Dhabi United Group for £210 million. Heavy investment followed, and City went on to become the dominant side of the Premier League era, winning the title repeatedly under Pep Guardiola and completing the treble in 2023 with the league, the FA Cup and a first Champions League.
FAQ
Why is the bee a symbol of Manchester?
The worker bee was added to the city’s coat of arms in 1842, when Manchester was full of mills running around the clock. It stood for the city as a hive of activity and for the people who kept it going. More than 180 years on it is still everywhere, from the bins and bollards to the tram stops and the tattoo shops.
Why is Manchester called the birthplace of the industrial revolution?
Manchester grew up around cotton, and around the machinery, mills and transport links the trade needed. The Bridgewater Canal, opened in 1761 to bring coal into the town, is widely seen as the first canal of the industrial age, and the mills that followed turned a market town into the world’s first industrial city within a couple of generations.
Where is the Emmeline Pankhurst statue in Manchester?
The statue, called Rise up, Women, stands in St Peter’s Square, next to the tram stop and across from the central library. It was made by the sculptor Hazel Reeves and unveiled in December 2018, a century after the first British women were able to vote. Pankhurst herself was born in Moss Side in 1858.
Why we are here
None of this is why a business picks an office, but it is why we are glad we picked this one. Strand Creative works out of Sale, a few miles south of the centre, and nearly everyone we work with turns up somewhere in the story above: a restaurant in a converted mill, a dentist on a high street, a shop that started out on a market stall. Building websites for Manchester businesses is easier when you know the place they are selling to, and we cover the towns around the city as well, from Altrincham out to Wilmslow.
Photo by Matthew Waring on Unsplash
