🚨Big news: My new book The Scuttlers is coming!

The Scuttlers: The True Story of Manchester's Most Feared Gangs will be published by HarperNorth on 6 May 2027 and is available to pre-order now.

🚨 Exciting news!

I’m thrilled to be able to announce that I’m writing a new book…

The Scuttlers: The True Story of Manchester’s Most Feared Gangs will be published by HarperNorth, the Manchester-based imprint of HarperCollins, on 6 May 2027.

It will tell the story of the incredibly-tough lads and girls who ruled the streets of Victorian Manchester and Salford in the late nineteenth century.

Keep scrolling for a reveal of the cover. 👇🏻

The book is available to pre-order now using this link or the button below.

🚨 If you are planning to buy the book, please do pre-order it. Pre-ordering really helps to support my writing by making the book more visible to other readers in its first week. 🚨

Here’s a description of the book to whet your appetite: “The Scuttlers plunges readers into the dark street corners of Victorian Manchester, where gangs of ruthless street fighters ruled with fear and violence. These young men and women turned the world’s first industrial city into a battleground — their brutal clashes leaving blood on the cobblestones and terror in their wake.

“But these gang members did not fight for money. Brutalised by the industrialisation and urbanisation of the first modern city, the scuttlers found protection in the gangs, they fought for pride, to assert dominance against rivals, to defend their territories, and ultimately, to survive.”

I’m really grateful to my agent Amy O’Shea at Graham Maw Christie literary agency in London for believing in the book and to Jonathan de Peyer, Editorial Director at HarperNorth, for aquiring the book and for his passion for the subject.

I’m also grateful to readers of this newletter and to the many people who have joined me on my walking tours in Manchester.

Most of you will know that in 2023 I gave up my career in journalism to follow my passion for writing about the people’s history of Manchester.

Starting out again at 50 was tough, so I’m thrilled to be writing this book and to keep doing what I love doing — sharing the story of my home city with more people.

I’m particularly grateful to those of you who have become paid subscribers to this newsletter — and especially those who have stuck by me while I have taken time away over the last few months to focus on researching and writing the book.

By supporting me and this newsletter you have helped me devote more time to the book — so thank you.

If you are a free subscriber and want to help me carry on this work, you can upgrade your subscription using this button. To mark the book announcement, I’ve created a special newsletter subscription offer:

I have some plans to create some behind the-scenes-content about the book as the publication date approaches, as well as details for a special tour which I can talk about soon.

Here are some posts I’ve previously written about the scuttlers (£):

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The scuttlers: Was your Victorian ancestor in a Manchester gang?

Scuttler ancestors: Using tattoos to investigate your family history

The scuttlers: How scuttling began in Manchester

The scuttlers and the police who fought back

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If you want to ask anything about researching or writing The Scuttlers, drop me a line in the comments.

Please share this post too if you think other people might like to read the book.

Thank you again — and I can’t wait to share more about the book soon!

PS: Here’s a first look at the book’s cover. Let me know what you think in the comments.