Research group: The Long Nineteenth-Century Network
Looking back at nineteenth-century literature, culture and art to help us understand our present and future in Manchester and beyond.
About our research
About our research
Manchester’s fascinating history and wide range of regional and diasporic communities make it the ideal place to explore the nineteenth century.
The Long Nineteenth-Century Network brings together academics and students specialising in history, literature and the arts. Our researchers’ expertise spans from the early Romantic period up to the onset of the First World War, as well as Neo-Victorianism.
We work closely with the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies, the Special Collections Museum, the Manchester Centre for Public History and Heritage, the Centre for Place Writing and Manchester Fashion Institute.
A nineteenth-century research group has been active in the English Department since 2014, organising public events, exhibitions and reading groups. We host the North West Long Nineteenth-Century Seminar three times a year.
There is a vibrant community of postgraduates studying the nineteenth century with us. We encourage our PhD and MA students to collaborate and get involved with the centre. We also offer a range of specialist units on our MA programmes.
Our cultural partners include:
- Elizabeth Gaskell’s House and the Gaskell Society
- the People’s History Museum
- the Science and Industry Museum
- the Portico Library
- the Guild of St George
- Manchester Art Gallery
- Manchester Histories
- Ordsall Hall, Salford
- Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth
- Speke Hall, Liverpool
- Bury Art Museum and Sculpture Centre
Manchester in the nineteenth century
Nineteenth-century Manchester
Cottonopolis, Manchester’s nickname, comes from its key role in the industrial revolution.
Manchester Met is uniquely placed to demonstrate the continuing relevance of this nineteenth-century city. This past is problematic: Manchester’s industry exploited both the environment and local and global workers.
But Manchester was also the site of important cultural and political events, from Peterloo in 1819 to suffragette demonstrations in the early 1900s. Many artists, writers and activists called Manchester home, including Elizabeth Gaskell, Friedrich Engels, Isabella Banks, the Pankhursts, Annie Swynnerton and LS Lowry. Influential visitors to the city include William Morris, John Ruskin, Queen Victoria, Olaudah Equiano and Frederick Douglass.
The growth in this period of Manchester’s Chinese, Irish, Jewish and Muslim communities, as well as its industrial workforce, gave the city the multi-culturalism it thrives on today.
Research themes
Our research themes
Urbanisation and globalisation
Industrial Manchester, Victorian crime, detection and criminal underworlds, Elizabeth Gaskell, Manchester and diasporic communities, Orientalism, American slavery, mobilities and horizons, shopping, the suffrage movement, sport and leisure, heritage.
Art and material culture
Arts and crafts, John Ruskin, textiles, magazines, print culture, global nineteenth-century periodicals, fashion, greetings cards, country houses in the North West.
Gothic literature and architecture
Supernatural fiction, vampires, the novelist Ann Radcliffe, the poet Matthew Lewis, haunted houses, European Gothic, historical fiction.
Selected projects
Contact information
Contact us
For general enquiries about our Long Nineteenth-Century Network, you can contact research group leads: