Manchester has a long and honourable tradition of welcoming people from around the world – refugees, immigrants, visitors, tourists. This has included Irish, Jews, Italians, Indians, Chinese, Germans …

The city has always welcomed those from afar, echoing the words of Pericles, the enlightened 5th century BC ruler of Athens, who proclaimed: “We throw our city open to all, and never, by the expulsion of strangers, exclude anyone from either learning or observing things”.

This is a tour of the locations where the history of immigration has been made and includes:

• The Free Trade Hall where Paul Robeson, the great American radical activist, spoke on a number of occasions.
• The Chinese Arch on Faulkner Street
• The Midland Hotel where Winston Churchill made his famous “aliens” speech.
• The Little Ireland plaque near Oxford Road station.
• The Dancehouse where Jomo Kenyatta, later first president of Kenya, taught African tribal dance in the 1940s.
• Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall which hosted the 5th Pan-African Congress in 1945, the 80th anniversary of which was recently celebrated.

Tour led by Ed Glinert of New Manchester Walks, author of the epic history “Manchester: The Biography”.

Meeting Place
Starts at 6 p.m. outside the site of the Lit & Phil’s 20th Century HQ, 36, George Street, Chinatown.

Ancoats has been described as the world’s first industrial suburb. The area was open land until the 1780s but over the next 40 years it became intensely developed. Huge steam-powered cotton spinning mills, foundries and engineering works, many alongside the new Rochdale Canal, filled much of the area with squalid slum housing squeezed into any available spaces. The area attracted great attention with visitors coming from Europe and North America to see this new phenomenon. There a four ways into history, documentary sources, archaeological evidence, what can be seen and what we can imagine. All of these will be used to explain Ancoats then and now.

The guided walk will cover about one and a half miles. Be aware that parts of the canal towpath are uneven.

Curious about the hidden stories of peace in our city? Come along with Steve Roman, passionate peace activist and storyteller, as we wander through Manchester’s streets uncovering the remarkable Peace Trail. 

Meeting Point: Manchester Victoria Station, underneath the large, tiled map 

Duration: 2 hours 

Accessibility: It is suitable for people in wheelchairs. The route is paved and flat, apart from one slope. When we go through the Library there are lifts for those who need them. 

The Walk along the Peace Trail will bring alive Manchester’s radical history, its growth as the world’s first industrial city and its importance as a centre for peace, tolerance and promotion of social justice in the city and around the globe. 

Memorials and locations will gain new meanings as we learn about their peace history and the relevance for civil rights movements. What might we discover about our city’s evolving role—from industrial powerhouse to global advocate for justice and peace? Each stop invites us to see Manchester through fresh eyes. 

The walk will include the following themes / sites with perhaps some new perspectives: 

• Migration and the movement of peoples 

• Gandhi, Manchester Cathedral, the campaign against Chattel Slavery, and Abraham Lincoln 

• John Dalton, the “Nuclear Timeline”, the Peace Garden, MAG (Mines Advisory Group) and the Nobel Peace Prize 

• The Hidden Gem and religious tolerance, Free thinking and Science 

• Elizabeth Raffald, Margaret Ashton, Erinma Bell, Lydia Becker, Suffragists and Suffragettes 

• and, subject to time, Peterloo, the popular reform movement and Engels 

The guide is donating his fee to charity