In the early 19th century, Manchester was the centre of the world’s cotton-spinning industry, the chimneys of the mills creating a strange, new, alien skyline.
It was known as Cottonopolis.
It must have been something to behold.
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“A thick black smoke covers the city. The sun appears like a disc without any rays. In this semi-daylight 300,000 people work ceaselessly. A thousand noises rise amidst this unending damp and dark labyrinth…the footsteps of a busy crowd, the crunching wheels of machines, the shriek of steam from the boilers, the regular beat of looms, the heavy rumble of carts, these are the only noises from which you can never escape in these dark half-lit streets ..”
– Alexis de Tocqueville , Oeuvres Completes, (1835)
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So much of what I’ve seen in China reminded me of what I’ve read of Victorian England…