Shakespeare and Manchester …. the exhibition which became the book ...

Earlier this year I met Ian Nickson who talked me through his story of how seven personalities transformed Manchester into a global centre of Shakespearean theatre in the Victorian era and revealed present-day evidence of the city’s innovative engagement with the works of Shakespeare.

Shakespeare Window, 2025 

These seven people operated in diverse fields - business, religion, theatre, architecture, academia, politics - but were united by their appreciation of Shakespeare’s cultural value and, as if imitating the seven bees atop Manchester’s coat of arms, they collaborated to create an urban, libertarian, distinctively Mancunian interpretation of Shakespeare’s works.

Mr. Shakespeare at the Theatre Royal, 2024

And I was lucky enough to accompany Ian on a guided tour of his exhibition of that story at Central Ref.

It presented traces of Manchester’s Victorian influence that can still be found today – the portrait of Ira Aldridge in Manchester Art Gallery, the Shakespeare Window in the entrance of the Central Library, and the Shakespearean Garden in Platt Fields Park.

One aim of this exhibition is to raise awareness of the benefits to mental and physical health conferred by the Shakespearean Garden and to obtain funding for a full-time gardener who can secure the future of the garden for the benefit of the citizens of Manchester.

And now we have the book which as the publisher’s notes record is “an engagingly written book providing the first comprehensive explanation of Manchester's innovative and enduring contributions to the development of Shakespearean theatre in the nineteenth century. 

The book, 2026

Beyond repairing this gap in theatre history, it documents Manchester's collective adoption of Shakespeare's works as a means of providing moral guidance to the world's first industrial city and of achieving political change through non-violent means.

This account of Manchester's reciprocal engagement with Shakespeare, situated within Victorian cultural, social, political and economic trends, is told through the careers of seven people - John Knowles, George Dawson, Charles Calvert, Henry Irving, Alfred Darbyshire, Bishop James Fraser and Rosa Grindon.

Both a theatrical and a cultural history, it examines the makers of an urban, libertarian, Mancunian Shakespeare using hitherto unexplored primary sources, principally a rich trove of digitised newspapers”.

So there you have it.  Ian’s book was published on September 22nd by Manchester University Press published and is entitled Shakespeare and Manchester: A Victorian Powerhouse.

Ira Aldridge, 1826

More details are available at https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526193186/ [manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk]

The Mural of  Rosa Grindon, 2026

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Mr. Shakespeare at the Theatre Royal, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson; the Shakespeare Window, 2025 and image from the exhibition  courtesy of Ian Nickson, Ira Aldridge, 1826 painted by James Northcote, Manchester Art Gallery Accession number 1882.2, and The Mural of  Rosa Grindon Facing Platt Fields Due To Her Part In The Creation Of The Shakesperian Garden, 2026, from the collection of C. Roman