WATCH: Our story, beautifully told
06 Jun 2016
Professor Michael Wood celebrates Manchester’s rich history
Professor Michael Wood celebrates Manchester’s rich history in a beautiful film to mark the partnership between the University and Manchester Histories for a historic festival.
Created by the Faculty of Humanities, it shows our Professor of Public History taking an inspiring tour of the campus, declaring: “This is Manchester and in this University our humanity ignites revolution, forges creation and helps us understand the world.”
The University is involved in a number of special events as part of this year’s Manchester Histories Festival (MHF), from the life and death of a Manchester-born First World War soldier and historian to discovering the city’s historic links with Italy and its early immigrant population.
This MHF is organised and run by Manchester Histories, a charity that celebrates and reveals the unique past and heritage of Greater Manchester. This year’s festival is taking place over ten days until Saturday, 11 June with events at a wide range of venues across the City.
The University’s is a key partner for the festival and its School of Arts, Languages and Cultures (SALC) will join the John Ryland’s Library and other historical organisations, such as English Heritage, to educate, entertain and inform the city’s inhabitants of its colourful and historically important past.
The film marks one of the Festival’s highlights – the award winning historian, author and broadcaster bringing the ‘Seven Ages of Manchester’ alive in an illustrated talk that looks through the long history of the City from its beginnings as a Roman settlement, to the birth of the Industrial Revolution to the new post Industrial Manchester of today.
In addition, the Festival’s Celebration Day brings together historical societies and heritage groups from across Greater Manchester, providing a wide range of activities to entertain, inform, challenge and engage all of historical interest. On the Celebration Day SALC will join 90 exhibitors from across the city including, Community Arts North West’s Congolese Heritage Project, Salford Heritage Services, Middleton Heritage and Conservation Group and Rochdale Pioneers Museum.
And for those interested in looking through the city’s history through the prism of its press, you can join the John Ryland’s Library at the Celebration Day as it delves into its Guardian archive. The archive is one of the Library’s most significant collections, depicting the newspaper’s key place in the city’s history of campaigning for social and political reform.
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