Collection: Local Studies-Lending

Manchester is steeped in railway history going back almost 200 years to the opening of Liverpool Road station in September 1830. The line from Liverpool was widely regarded as the first ever inter-city railway in the world. The railway network around the city greatly expanded in the second half o...

Stella is enjoying life as an almost student, or at least she is until a man falls from the sky right in front of her, leaving a big old hole in the pavement for Manchester Council to fill. The obvious question of how he ended up in the sky in the first place has no obvious answers, which is wher...

The renewal cities of Britain, those that began their reconstruction after 1960, are rich in utopian visions. This book delves into Manchester's visual history, mapping legislative shifts, Cold War dynamics, decolonisation and the surge of consumerism.

Ireland is an extraordinarily beautiful island from which millions can claim their direct ancestry. But Ireland is also an island which has experienced some truly extraordinary moments of crisis which will have directly impacted our forebears, helping to shape us into the individuals that we are ...

Campbell's splendidly funny and touching work gives voice to people you don't hear much of in fiction: the working class of Manchester. A working class of Manchester in danger of being forgotten as the city's skyscrapers spread high and wide. A Manchester where Hacienda cliches turn into corporat...

The sinking of the RMS Titanic on the night of 14/15 April 1912 remains one of history's most tragic maritime disasters. Striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic during its maiden voyage, the ship left countless heart-breaking stories of lives lost or changed forever. Greater Manchester, in Engl...

This text tells the true story of Hannah Beswick, the so-called 'Manchester Mummy'. Debunking the legends that have sprung up around this unusual case of modern mummification, it sheds light on the history of museums and the collection of human remains.

Everyone dies, it's the one certainty in life. Whilst burials have been taking place for thousands of years, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw the start of the gravestone boom as public graveyards became commonplace and personalised gravestones became more financially viable. The inform...