Local historian launches tour of Conservative Manchester
11.10.11
A historian has devised a tour of ‘Tory Manchester’ – despite the city not having a single Conservative councillor.
Ed Glinert came up with the idea of a trail of Manchester’s true blue landmarks after David Cameron announced the Conservative conference would return to Manchester for the second time in three years.
Ed, from tour guides New Manchester Walks, points out there are two statues of famous Conservatives in the city centre– 19th Century prime ministers the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel – while no Labour figures have been set in stone.
Even as recently as the mid 1970s, the Conservatives ran Manchester council, while in the late 1800s, five out of six of the city’s MPs were Tories.
Ed said: “Everyone knows about Manchester’s radical history, about the Peterloo Massacre, Pankhurst and Engels.
“But the Conservatives and Manchester have a long history together, going back to Disraeli, whose novels such as Sibyl were partly written in Manchester.
Source: Manchester Evening News