The Church and politics in 'disaffected' Manchester, 1718-31

Historians have given contradictory pictures of early eighteenth‐century Manchester: as a growing industrial centre, and as a bastion of religious and political disaffection. This article aims to integrate these two elements and to elucidate the ecclesiastical and civic contentions of Mancunians, specifically as they relate to Church appointments and to the workhouse trust. Local disputes involved the dignitaries of the Church of England, individual M.P.s and the government, and the rivalry among three religious affiliations, alongside the party politics of the age, doomed many public schemes to failure. Out of these same contentions, however, an incipient public sphere was developing.