Nicola Higgins

Nicola Higgins

Membership of the Portico Library in the period 1806 – 1850 and its connection to Mancunian middle-class cultural values, with particular reference to the local legal community

  • Registration: MRes
  • Principal supervisor: Dr Craig Horner
  • Other supervisors: Dr Sam Oldfield
  • Start and end dates: October 2019 – December 2021

Background and aims

The Portico is a subscription library on Mosley Street in Manchester. Established in 1806 as a library and newsroom, the original subscribers were a group of leading Manchester citizens who funded its construction and built up a significant collection of books, while also contributing to Manchester’s growth and development in this period.

My focus is the period 1806–1850 and the aims of my study are to examine, and answer, the following questions, by reference to a sub-group of subscribers connected to the legal profession:

  • What purpose(s) did the Portico serve for its subscribers and what does its establishment in 1806 tell us about its subscribers’ common values and beliefs, their place in Mancunian society and what the institution might have meant to them as an expression of their class?
  • What is the significance of the Portico’s location on Mosley Street and did that change?
  • How did the members considered for this study contribute to the development of Manchester’s legal profession, were they also members of other institutions and to what extent did they belong to an ‘elite within an elite’ among the middle class of that era?

Publications

  • Will be added when available.

Conference presentations

  • Will be added when available.

Contacts