Cottonopolis, Poverty, and Protest

This chapter provides an account of Manchester at the time the journalism was produced. It focuses on Stevenson Square and the city as a centre of commercial activity and of poverty. It outlines the extent of poverty, and the disputing of the severity, at a time when capitalists benefited from the cotton crisis, as well as legislation put in place to manage poverty. Consideration is given to the protests outside Stevenson Square, including a strike at Crumpsall Farm and the Stalybridge Riot which erupted as a reaction to that legislation.