manchester tourist guide history
Wednesday, 30th July 2003
Friedrich EngelsOne of the most important C19 political thinkers, Friedrich Engels, lived for almost 22 years in Manchester between 1842 and 1870. He came as an agent for a textile company in which his father had a partnership. Although he loathed the job it allowed him to examine how unregulated Manchester had developed. Touring the city with common-law wife Mary Burns, a working class girl with access to the roughest areas, he compiled material for his famous work The Condition of the Working Class in England. This influenced all subsequent thought on industrialisation, in particular the work of Engels' close friend Karl Marx. The following is an extract from the book regarding Little Ireland off Oxford Road: 'The cottages are old, dirty, and of the smallest sort, the streets uneven, fallen into ruts and in part without drains or pavements; masses of refuse, offal and sickening filth lie among standing pools in all directions; the atmosphere is poisoned by effluvia'.
Engels was not just a social reformer in a sober suit, in character he was warm and approachable. He loved sport and frequented the fox hunt in Cheshire. More than anything else his character shines through in the list of confessions Eleanor Marx extracted from him at his Manchester residence in 1869. The following are a few of them:' Your favourite virtue: jollity. Your idea of misery: to go to the dentist. The vice you excuse most: excess of any kind. The vice you detest most: cant. Your favourite hero: none. Your favourite heroine: too many to name one. Your favourite maxim: not to have any. Your favourite motto: take it easy.'
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