Now the idea that the City Council should work with local commerce and industry to promote the city is not a new development.
Long before the partnership to regenerate the city after the IRA bomb, or other development schemes, Manchester Corporation had initiated a Civic Week in 1926 with the express desire to “increase the knowledge of the city within and without to encourage the appreciation not only in its citizens and visitors but in the country generally of the manifold activities carried out in the great industrial area of which Manchester is the hub, [with the aim] of stimulating commercial development and increase our social capital”.*
It came during a difficult period, when the unprecedented economic growth of the nineteenth and early twentieth century had stalled, and so in the words of the President of the Board of Trade, Civic Week had a “two-fold value. It was a demonstration to the world that the whole world was Manchester’s customer and its second value was its incentive to Manchester’s citizens to equal and to surpass the achievements of the past”. **
Early plans focused on the role of the Council departments, showcasing the power of gas and electricity to transform the lives of people, the work to improve the public health of the city along with the provision of municipal drinking water and that of the Marketing Committee which over saw the food markets.
On a lighter note there were plans to transform a tram “into a ship with the trolley pole ingeniously used to represents smoke coming from a funnel whose basis is the upright to which the pole is attached, [and another which will] be a tram as a hive, with illuminated bees swarming on it”.***
There were to be lectures at the University and guided tours of the Ship Canal, business houses and factories. These were supported by a fashion show and a procession through the city which was captured by Pathe News. ****
And on the Monday of October 4th, along with the procession, there were bands in the Piccadilly and Albert Square, followed in the evening by the spectacle of many buildings being flood lit.
And mindful that we were in the twentieth century much emphasis was put on the cinema industry, and Manchester films. But the real bit I like, was a series of broadcasts by the Lord Mayor, "broadcasting from 2ZY [which] described the city’s efforts as the first attempt of the kind to allow a great city to write its own autobiography”. *****
And for those intrigued by 2ZY, this was the name of the radio station of the BBC which broadcast from Manchester, from 1922 and 1927.
The programmes were made and broadcast from the Metropolitan -Vickers electricity works in Old Trafford. I like the fact that our Lord Mayor’s broadcasts predated King George V’s first Christmas broadcast by six years, although the old King was recorded on the wireless in 1924.
The week was judged a success, especially the day of the procession which attracted people from all over Greater Manchester.
But it is an event I knew nothing about until David Harrop sent over a series of memorabilia from that week including a pin badge a postcard of an illuminated tram, and a set of stamps which were stuck on the back of letters to advertise events and in stamp circles are known as cinderellas.
So, there you have it.
As yet I haven't found any references to how the Labour Movement thought about the week.
Location; Manchester
Pictures; from the collection of David Harrop, and Bill Sumner, 1926
The week had long been in the planning and took place during Oct 2nd through to October 9th.
*Manchester Civic Week, Manchester Guardian, June 9, 1926
**Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister, Manchester ‘s Civic Week, October 5, 1926.
*** Manchester Civic Week, Manchester Guardian, June 9, 1926
****Pathe, https://www.britishpathe.com/video/manchester-civic-week
*****Lord Mayor’s Broadcast, A Reply to those Who Sneer at Industrial Lancashire, Manchester Guardian, October 5th, 1926
It came during a difficult period, when the unprecedented economic growth of the nineteenth and early twentieth century had stalled, and so in the words of the President of the Board of Trade, Civic Week had a “two-fold value. It was a demonstration to the world that the whole world was Manchester’s customer and its second value was its incentive to Manchester’s citizens to equal and to surpass the achievements of the past”. **
On a lighter note there were plans to transform a tram “into a ship with the trolley pole ingeniously used to represents smoke coming from a funnel whose basis is the upright to which the pole is attached, [and another which will] be a tram as a hive, with illuminated bees swarming on it”.***
There were to be lectures at the University and guided tours of the Ship Canal, business houses and factories. These were supported by a fashion show and a procession through the city which was captured by Pathe News. ****
And mindful that we were in the twentieth century much emphasis was put on the cinema industry, and Manchester films. But the real bit I like, was a series of broadcasts by the Lord Mayor, "broadcasting from 2ZY [which] described the city’s efforts as the first attempt of the kind to allow a great city to write its own autobiography”. *****
The programmes were made and broadcast from the Metropolitan -Vickers electricity works in Old Trafford. I like the fact that our Lord Mayor’s broadcasts predated King George V’s first Christmas broadcast by six years, although the old King was recorded on the wireless in 1924.
The week was judged a success, especially the day of the procession which attracted people from all over Greater Manchester.
As yet I haven't found any references to how the Labour Movement thought about the week.
Location; Manchester
Pictures; from the collection of David Harrop, and Bill Sumner, 1926
The week had long been in the planning and took place during Oct 2nd through to October 9th.
*Manchester Civic Week, Manchester Guardian, June 9, 1926
**Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister, Manchester ‘s Civic Week, October 5, 1926.
*** Manchester Civic Week, Manchester Guardian, June 9, 1926
****Pathe, https://www.britishpathe.com/video/manchester-civic-week
*****Lord Mayor’s Broadcast, A Reply to those Who Sneer at Industrial Lancashire, Manchester Guardian, October 5th, 1926
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