Manchester Library and Information Service

Manchester Archives and Local Studies Central Library St. Peter's Square Manchester M2 5PD Tel: 0161 234 1979/80 Fax: 0161 234 1927

Manchester Archives and Local Studies, on the first floor of the Central Library, is home to a wide range of reference and lending materials relating to the history of Manchester, its organisations, its buildings and its people. Anyone studying the city and its history is welcome to use the available facilities.

The Local Studies section has large collections of reference and lending books, and of visual materials such as maps and photographs, 77,000 of the latter in digital form. Many early newspapers and trade directories are available on microfilm. Family history researchers make much use of the microfilm facilities, for the study of parish registers, census returns, electoral registers and probate indexes. Current information files are maintained to ensure that we have details of up-to-date developments in the city, to complement the vast range of historical material.

The Archives section - see special opening hours and access on our website - holds the records of the City of Manchester, the Anglican Diocese and also many of the city's organisations. There are many collections of records - official, legal, religious, political, personal - relating to Manchester's past. The official and public records relate specifically to the City of Manchester. The church records are drawn from a wider area owing to the Archive's status as Manchester Diocesan Record Office and also as a repository for the Manchester and Stockport Methodist District. Our website contains a detailed guide to business collections held. These include thousands of records on the cotton industry, relating to Manchester and other textile areas (e.g. records of Quarry Bank Mill, Styal 1788-1937, and Strutt of Belper, Derby and Milford, 1780-1936), those relating to particular fields of the industry such as calico printing (e.g. records of the Calico Printers Association, and constituent members18th-20th centuries), dyeing and finishing (e.g. partnership agreements of dyers and finishers), as well as a wide range of records on textile Trades Unions (e.g. the Amalgamated Association of Operative Cotton Spinners, the General Union of Associations of Loom Overlookers and National Association of Powerloom Overlookers).

Central Library holds a comprehensive collection of textile periodicals, directories and technical books, including Worrall's Cotton Spinners and Manufacturers' Directory, 1884-1948, Journal of the Textile Institute, 1910-93, Textile Recorder, 1883-1959 and Textile World, 1922-90 and the Cotton Factory Times, 1885-1937.