Once Upon a Time in Manchester

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Manchester cellar dwellings - a Victorian housing scandal
In 1850s Manchester, more than 16,000 people lived underground in cellars
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Dean Kirby
7
Finding George: A Remembrance Sunday Story
A journey to find one soldier who never returned home from the First World War
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Dean Kirby
2
The fall and rise of Nancy Dickybird
She was the terror of Manchester police, but Nancy Dickybird became beloved by Mancunians for her singing from the city's jail cells
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Dean Kirby
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How archaeologists unearthed my ancestor’s house
 • Dean Kirby
10
Finding William: An Irish family history story
 • Dean Kirby
6
Finding George: A Remembrance Sunday Story
 • Dean Kirby
2
Step inside Victorian Manchester's wildest pubs
 • Dean Kirby
The fall and rise of Nancy Dickybird
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Slugs and spuds: Victorian Manchester's strange homemade remedies
At a time when there was little real support for the sick outside hospital, working people in Manchester relied on some bizarre remedies
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Dean Kirby
How Manchester came close to a massacre a decade before Peterloo
Years before the Peterloo Massacre, a cavalry charge on unarmed protestors left one man dead
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Dean Kirby
1
A New York policeman's terrifying 'adventure' in a Manchester lodging house
Bill Lambert had spent his career battling the Big Apple's hardest criminals, but he came unstuck against two Mancunian thieves
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Dean Kirby
A hot night in a Manchester rat pit
The pub's landlord nipped the rats’ spines with his own teeth to make sure they were dead
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Dean Kirby
2
Step inside Victorian Manchester's wildest pubs
'We've only had five fights and a stabbing since eight o’clock. It’s been very quiet indeed,' the landlord said
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Dean Kirby
An Angelic Book Thief
The slum missionary John ‘Angel’ Gibbons knew a thing or two about the Ten Commandments. Most of all, he knew how to break them
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Dean Kirby
2
The Ancoats Skylark
The forgotten story of a Manchester songbird that inspired a poet
Was your ancestor a Manchester scuttler?
The scuttlers of Ancoats, Collyhurst, Miles Platting, Beswick and Bradford were among the most feared street fighters in the Victorian city. Can you…
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Dean Kirby
9
The hidden heroes of the Manchester Cotton Famine
How children sold their pet rabbits for the pot to help starving Mancunians in the harsh winter of 1862
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Dean Kirby
3
Once Upon a Time in Manchester
Once Upon a Time in Manchester
Stories from the streets of the Victorian city by Mancunian historian and author Dean Kirby. Subscribe for free to receive my newsletter in your email inbox. You’ll never miss an edition and you’ll be helping the newsletter to grow and become sustainable.
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