Remembering the German community of Manchester

“I know of no town in Great Britain, except London, which makes so deep an impression upon the stranger as Manchester.  London is alone of its kind and so is Manchester.  Never since the world began, was there a town like it, its outward appearance, its wonderful activity its mercantile and manufacturing prosperity, and its remarkable moral and political phenomena......”*

Well as a source for a description of our city it rings the changes from Friedrich Engels who was here in the 1840s and wrote about Manchester.

German Youth Hostelers, Buxton Youth Hostel, 1953

There were  in fact plenty of German visitors who came to see what all the fuss was about and along with the Frenchmen Leon Faucher and Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about what they saw.

And as the picture opposite shows they just kept on coming.

But I have to admit that all of this was just a contrived way to write about the German community of Manchester and in particular a new booklet on the Story of the German Church.**

It “is a most interesting, if brief work covering over 150 years of the German church in two parts.  The first is the resume of how the Protestant Church was founded and through the diligence of German congregations land was procured, funds raised and ,eventually a church built.  The development of the German church coincided with the rapid development of Manchester as Britain’s 9and perhaps the world’s) first industrial city....The authors have assembled an interesting range of German emigrants who contributed to Manchester’s 19th Century growth – industrially and culturally – notably the Halé Orchestra founded by Karl Hallé in 1857. [and] part two a resume of established members of the German community” including interviews.

So there you have it the story of another of those communities that made a contribution to the city.


Picture; German Youth Hostellers, Buxton Youth Hostel, 1953, m48502, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council

*Johann Geor Kohl, “Journeys Through England & Wales 1844, quoted from Visitors to Manchester, complied by L.D. Bradshaw, 1987, Neil Richardson

**THE STORY OF THE  GERMAN CHURCH IN MANCHESTER History & Recollections £10 available from the Martin Luther Church, ( Park Road, Stretford, Manchester M32 EFF or from Ursula 07970676239*