20.3 Methodology

The aim of this project, with reference to Manchester in 1841 – 1851, is to find the “unknown unknowns – the ones we don´t know we don´t know” (Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 2002). A related requirement is to quantify some aspects, that until now have not been objectively quantified. The resulting document helps us to have a equilibrated description of Manchester in these years.

Examples of the first phrase, are that:

• the town had a zoo,
• parts of the working class liked to go to concerts and to sing in choirs,
• all the municipal health services for the poor were without charge,
• half of the infant mortality was due to the mothers not being able to care for their children;
• there were 32 libraries in Manchester in 1852;
• the local group of the Mechanics’ Institutes gave 5 exhibitions of scientific and technological progress in ten years;
• from 1843 there was a Street-Sweeping Machine, which removed the thick deposits of compressed dust and refuse in the side streets.

Examples of the second target, are that: –

• the cotton workers were very well paid at 30 – 33 shillings per family per week, when meat cost six pennies the pound;
• the meat consumed was equivalent to 2 pounds per average person per week (although not equally eaten by the different economic segments);
• infant mortality in Manchester and Liverpool (the worst cases in England) were less than the average of other countries (i. e. average of urban and rural in each case);
• the really horrible districts as regards housing, sanitation and inhabitants were not more than 10 % of the urban area;
• the working-class persons (leaving aside the indigents and the Irish) were decently dressed.

Please note that, in conformity with the “instructions” below, sources written after the year 1900 are not used in the searches for this project.

The solution to the first interrogative is to “read everything about Manchester in this period”, although this may appear unscientific; but if we are wanting to find things that we do not know about, this is the only way. That is, read the totality of:  “Reports to the Morning Chronicle” (Angus Reach), “Annals of Manchester” (Axon), “Handbook of Manchester”, (Benjamin Love), “The Moral and Physical Conditions of the Working Classes employed in the Cotton Manufacture in Manchester” (Dr. J. P. Kay), “Manchester in 1844: Its Present Condition and Future Prospects” (Léon Faucher), “Manchester, Its Political, Social and Commercial History” (James Wheeler).

Further, the official reports to the Poor Law Commissioners, the Factory Inquiry Commission, “Rate of Wages, David Chadwick.  On the Social and Educational Statistics of Manchester and Salford, 1861, David Chadwick,

Consult the indices of the reports of the Manchester Statistical Society for 1841-1851, and read the articles on financial and social investigations