c. 1760 - 1840

Manchester Cottonopolis

Before the Industrial Revolution, Manchester was a quiet market town where textiles were made slowly in cottages and small workshops. Its modest streets gave little hint of the industrial powerhouse it would soon become.

When new machinery and steam power arrived, everything changed. Mills rose across the city, workers flooded in, and Manchester grew rapidly into Cottonopolis - a place where the mills dominated the skyline and cotton production operated on a scale the old town had never seen.

At the centre of this booming industry stood the Royal Exchange, once the largest trading room on Earth. Beneath its vast glass dome, merchants set the global price of cloth, marking Manchester’s shift from market town to the command centre of a worldwide cotton trade.