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Angel Meadow: Victorian Britain's Most Savage Slum
Step into the Victorian underworld of Angel Meadow, the vilest and most dangerous slum of the Industrial Revolution. In the shadow of the world's first cotton mill, 30,000 souls trapped by poverty are fighting for survival as the British Empire is built upon their backs.
Thieves and prostitutes keep company with rats in overcrowded lodging houses and deep cellars on the banks of a black river, the Irk. Gangs of 'scuttlers' stalk the streets in pointed, brass-tripped clogs. Those who evade their clutches are hunted down by cholera and tuberculosis. Lawless drinking dens and a cold slab in the dead house provide the only relief from this filthy and frightening world.
Former Manchester Evening News journalist Dean Kirby takes readers on a hair-raising journey through the alleyways, gin palaces and underground vaults of the nineteenth century Manchester slum considered so diabolical it was re-christened 'hell upon earth' by Friedrich Engels in 1845.
Enter Angel Meadow if you dare..
Thieves and prostitutes keep company with rats in overcrowded lodging houses and deep cellars on the banks of a black river, the Irk. Gangs of 'scuttlers' stalk the streets in pointed, brass-tripped clogs. Those who evade their clutches are hunted down by cholera and tuberculosis. Lawless drinking dens and a cold slab in the dead house provide the only relief from this filthy and frightening world.
Former Manchester Evening News journalist Dean Kirby takes readers on a hair-raising journey through the alleyways, gin palaces and underground vaults of the nineteenth century Manchester slum considered so diabolical it was re-christened 'hell upon earth' by Friedrich Engels in 1845.
Enter Angel Meadow if you dare..
224 pages, Paperback
Published April 28, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
March 27, 2016
Angel Meadow – The Slum of Slums
Angel Meadow the name alone can conjure up images of a beautiful place, and by all accounts it once was, that was until the Industrial Revolution arrived in Manchester. By the end of the nineteenth century we soon learn that Angel Meadow had lost its beauty and had become the slum that ended all slums. This was a dark, dank, horrible place to be, from the tightly packed slums to the rough ale houses this was not a place to live or the living.
Angel Meadow came back to the fore in Manchester recently as the Co-operative Group was building its brand new headquarters on what was Angel Meadow. For nearly fifty years the people had slowly forgotten about Angel Meadow, its history and the horrors that it used to behold. In fact, while they were clearing the site ready for construction a murder victim’s body was found from over forty years before. Like many slums that surrounded Manchester in the early twentieth century was pulled down, cleared and forgotten to the anals of history.
Dean Kirby, a former Manchester Evening News Journalist, was attracted to Angel Meadow not just by the story but because it has a place in his own family history. When he discovered that one of his Victorian forebears, William Kirby, left his life as a farm labourer from County Mayo, who had survived the Great Famine, to fight to survive in Manchester.
Kirby has researched Angel Meadow through the numerous archives that are held by various institutions across Manchester. He was able to discover William Kirby had loved on Charter Street, one of the main thoroughfares. His ancestors home was discovered back in 2012 and he was able to actually visit the site, see that his house was 10ft square house and that the walls were only half a brick thick, so you would be able to hear the neighbours. To where the privy (toilets) served over 100 residents just does not bare thinking about.
Dean Kirby goes on to tell the story of Angel Meadow through the archives and those that lived there, he does not paint a romantic picture of the place, but a very honest picture. All I can say is I am glad I did not live there at that time, especially as there a cholera epidemic there amongst the large Irish population. This being a population that had survived famine to die in a slum in Manchester.
Some people talk about the beauty of Victoria Station and the lost Exchange Station, what they forget is that the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway built a viaduct, straight through the slum in 1844. As he notes that those that lived in the lowest Streets of the Meadow were now in a permanent shadow with the addition of the soot of smoke deposits from the trains marking their homes. Kirby also makes the pertinent observation that the safest place to view Angel Meadow was from the trains on the viaduct.
Dean Kirby has written and researched one of the best books on Manchester’s social history in years, what makes this so good is that it is readable, uses some excellent illustrations of the people in written form. This a book that those who want to know more about those that worked and somehow survived the Industrial Revolution in Manchester. This is not a romantic vision of history but a stark and an honest account, that sees the place for what it was, the Slum of Slums.
Angel Meadow the name alone can conjure up images of a beautiful place, and by all accounts it once was, that was until the Industrial Revolution arrived in Manchester. By the end of the nineteenth century we soon learn that Angel Meadow had lost its beauty and had become the slum that ended all slums. This was a dark, dank, horrible place to be, from the tightly packed slums to the rough ale houses this was not a place to live or the living.
Angel Meadow came back to the fore in Manchester recently as the Co-operative Group was building its brand new headquarters on what was Angel Meadow. For nearly fifty years the people had slowly forgotten about Angel Meadow, its history and the horrors that it used to behold. In fact, while they were clearing the site ready for construction a murder victim’s body was found from over forty years before. Like many slums that surrounded Manchester in the early twentieth century was pulled down, cleared and forgotten to the anals of history.
Dean Kirby, a former Manchester Evening News Journalist, was attracted to Angel Meadow not just by the story but because it has a place in his own family history. When he discovered that one of his Victorian forebears, William Kirby, left his life as a farm labourer from County Mayo, who had survived the Great Famine, to fight to survive in Manchester.
Kirby has researched Angel Meadow through the numerous archives that are held by various institutions across Manchester. He was able to discover William Kirby had loved on Charter Street, one of the main thoroughfares. His ancestors home was discovered back in 2012 and he was able to actually visit the site, see that his house was 10ft square house and that the walls were only half a brick thick, so you would be able to hear the neighbours. To where the privy (toilets) served over 100 residents just does not bare thinking about.
Dean Kirby goes on to tell the story of Angel Meadow through the archives and those that lived there, he does not paint a romantic picture of the place, but a very honest picture. All I can say is I am glad I did not live there at that time, especially as there a cholera epidemic there amongst the large Irish population. This being a population that had survived famine to die in a slum in Manchester.
Some people talk about the beauty of Victoria Station and the lost Exchange Station, what they forget is that the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway built a viaduct, straight through the slum in 1844. As he notes that those that lived in the lowest Streets of the Meadow were now in a permanent shadow with the addition of the soot of smoke deposits from the trains marking their homes. Kirby also makes the pertinent observation that the safest place to view Angel Meadow was from the trains on the viaduct.
Dean Kirby has written and researched one of the best books on Manchester’s social history in years, what makes this so good is that it is readable, uses some excellent illustrations of the people in written form. This a book that those who want to know more about those that worked and somehow survived the Industrial Revolution in Manchester. This is not a romantic vision of history but a stark and an honest account, that sees the place for what it was, the Slum of Slums.
January 5, 2020
‘Angel Meadow’ is a collection of anecdotes regarding the famous slum of Manchester. Kirby has clearly researched it well and has taken a keen interest in the colourful characters of the area. The anecdotes are interesting and are laid out in somewhat chronological order, ending with the destruction and demolition of the slum followed by its gentrification.
That being said, the narrative voice is missing. There’s no common thread; Kirby would have improved the book’s cohesion greatly by focusing on a couple of historical figures and following them through the years rather than compiling lists of anecdotes. Detective Jerome Caminada pops up frequently in the book and yet he’s never given any real context or background, instead introduced each time anew — he would have perhaps served well as a point of focus for readers. I suspect Kirby struggled with the organisation of the book — sometimes stories are gathered according to themes (religion, politics), other times demographics (ethnicities, gender), other times occupations (thieves, prostitutes, mill workers) all while trying to maintain chronological order.
People are introduced in sometimes very detailed ways (physical descriptions clearly pulled from police ledgers, down to moles, freckles, and boils), but the anecdote involving them is so short it barely runs a few sentences, and then they’re never mentioned again. Some people either pop up again in other anecdotes or are simply people who happen to share the same name (a “Thomas Kelly” reappears three times yet no reference to prior mentions is given, leaving readers to guess). Other times, people are referenced again but so many chapters have passed — and so many names mentioned — that it’s difficult to recall them at all.
Other anecdotes begin in dramatic detail but are then abruptly dropped — one chapter begins with the detailed description of two desperate, starving children turning up at a school, pleading for help; the inspector agrees, and then the narrative immediately turns to a lengthy history of a school in the area, which eventually meanders into the wartime bombing of the slum. The two waifs are never referenced again and their fate never disclosed. This is not an uncommon occurrence in Kirby’s narrative. Understandably, Kirby is limited by available historical sources, but if he is unable to find an ending to an anecdote, then perhaps it would be better to omit it rather than spending time hooking readers with an elaborate beginning that goes nowhere.
I appreciate the research behind the book, and it provides an interesting look into 18th and 19th century life in metropolitan England, but it doesn’t have cohesion and would have very significantly benefited from a skilled editor. I was also unimpressed to find a couple of passages that nearly match, word-for-word, Andrew Davies’ 2008 book, the Gangs of Manchester.
That being said, the narrative voice is missing. There’s no common thread; Kirby would have improved the book’s cohesion greatly by focusing on a couple of historical figures and following them through the years rather than compiling lists of anecdotes. Detective Jerome Caminada pops up frequently in the book and yet he’s never given any real context or background, instead introduced each time anew — he would have perhaps served well as a point of focus for readers. I suspect Kirby struggled with the organisation of the book — sometimes stories are gathered according to themes (religion, politics), other times demographics (ethnicities, gender), other times occupations (thieves, prostitutes, mill workers) all while trying to maintain chronological order.
People are introduced in sometimes very detailed ways (physical descriptions clearly pulled from police ledgers, down to moles, freckles, and boils), but the anecdote involving them is so short it barely runs a few sentences, and then they’re never mentioned again. Some people either pop up again in other anecdotes or are simply people who happen to share the same name (a “Thomas Kelly” reappears three times yet no reference to prior mentions is given, leaving readers to guess). Other times, people are referenced again but so many chapters have passed — and so many names mentioned — that it’s difficult to recall them at all.
Other anecdotes begin in dramatic detail but are then abruptly dropped — one chapter begins with the detailed description of two desperate, starving children turning up at a school, pleading for help; the inspector agrees, and then the narrative immediately turns to a lengthy history of a school in the area, which eventually meanders into the wartime bombing of the slum. The two waifs are never referenced again and their fate never disclosed. This is not an uncommon occurrence in Kirby’s narrative. Understandably, Kirby is limited by available historical sources, but if he is unable to find an ending to an anecdote, then perhaps it would be better to omit it rather than spending time hooking readers with an elaborate beginning that goes nowhere.
I appreciate the research behind the book, and it provides an interesting look into 18th and 19th century life in metropolitan England, but it doesn’t have cohesion and would have very significantly benefited from a skilled editor. I was also unimpressed to find a couple of passages that nearly match, word-for-word, Andrew Davies’ 2008 book, the Gangs of Manchester.
August 5, 2016
Angel Meadow was a Victorian slum in the heart of Manchester, one of the Industrial Revolutions most prosperous cities in England. While the city’s bosses flaunted their wealth, the factory workers lived in filth, arguing and confronting each other under horrendous conditions of poverty.
In Angel Meadow, author Dean Kirby has gathered together the history, personal tales and reality that was the vilest and most dangerous slum of the Industrial Revolution. He has found key characters and significant events which populates the appalling history of this desolate slum, reporting these events with the facts, injecting the truth and the reality of the era and very much expressing the desperation of the ill-fated residents who found themselves trapped in these conditions and in unimaginable poverty.
An excellent book which leaves you in no doubt of the conditions endured and the danger which hung over this slum day and night. With a personal connection to the slum after discovering his great-great grandfather lived there in 1877, Dean Kirby is eager to tell its story. This is well written, engaging and as fascinating as it is chilling. For anyone interested in historical true crime and the Victorian era, this is a book which will leave its mark.
Read my full review at Crime Traveller: http://www.crimetraveller.org/2016/08...
October 18, 2020
Excellent book about Angel Meadow, a notorious slum in Victorian Manchester.
This is both fascinating and grim. My great, great grandfather lived here as a child after emigrating from Ireland.
I found it distressing to read of the harsh conditions he faced, for at least a decade.
Made me very grateful for his strength in surviving.
This is both fascinating and grim. My great, great grandfather lived here as a child after emigrating from Ireland.
I found it distressing to read of the harsh conditions he faced, for at least a decade.
Made me very grateful for his strength in surviving.
October 22, 2024
A fantastic biography! In popular discussions of the industrial age, we often miss the sordid details of the true extent of the squalor and poverty that characterised many people's lives during this era.
This book tells the stories of street gangs, con men, thieves, troubled marriages, prostitution, alcoholism, disease, poor migrants, passionate reformers, brave journalists, hardened cops, all coexisting in a place that is an unambiguous demonstration of the systematic exploration that occured during this period. Some of the stories moved me to tears.
Cannot recommend this book enough.
This book tells the stories of street gangs, con men, thieves, troubled marriages, prostitution, alcoholism, disease, poor migrants, passionate reformers, brave journalists, hardened cops, all coexisting in a place that is an unambiguous demonstration of the systematic exploration that occured during this period. Some of the stories moved me to tears.
Cannot recommend this book enough.
April 29, 2016
This non-fiction book gives a grim glimpse of the area that was known as ‘Victorian Britain’s Most Savage Slum,’ otherwise known as Angel Meadow in Manchester. The author covers various aspects of life in the slum, which, it has to be said, proves to be nearly all violent and criminal. The conditions in which people live are horrific and it is a wonder that anyone survived as long as they did. Typical is the fact that a communal toilet could serve up to 100 people. Disease and vermin-infested dwellings were rife; one could hardly call them houses, as many families would be crammed into one dwelling, often in dark, dank and often flooded cellars. This particularly resonated with me because some of my own ancestors lived in a cellar, along with another family. As did the fact that when I worked in Manchester in 1961/62, I must have walked past this area twice daily as I walked to and fro from Victoria Station and yet I knew nothing of it. If I have one criticism, it would be that I would like to have known more about the ordinary inhabitants – and surely there must have been some. For anyone interested in social history, this is a must-read.
March 14, 2019
An excellent read
Thoroughly researched, it really was like stepping back in time reading this book. The author breathed life into the long gone characters that once had the misfortune to call Angel meadow home. My family on my father's side were Irish immigrants who settled in Glasgow in the late 1840s, no doubt living in similar squalor and facing the same hardships as their kinsmen in Manchester. Truly a brutal existence in every sense of the word, the author portrays it as it was, cruel, violent, depressing and hopeless. The added photographs gave the book further interest.
Thoroughly researched, it really was like stepping back in time reading this book. The author breathed life into the long gone characters that once had the misfortune to call Angel meadow home. My family on my father's side were Irish immigrants who settled in Glasgow in the late 1840s, no doubt living in similar squalor and facing the same hardships as their kinsmen in Manchester. Truly a brutal existence in every sense of the word, the author portrays it as it was, cruel, violent, depressing and hopeless. The added photographs gave the book further interest.
September 27, 2020
Brilliant
This book is fascinating to read. It's so well written that the events he is describing makes you very aware of the misery that people suffered in that era. It must be said poverty and terrible living conditions (if you can call it that!) were bound to result in many of the crimes committed. How these people survived amaze me! I was born in Salford and worked in Manchester in the late sixties, but alas I only have a vague idea of the area referred to. I have never heard of Angel Meadow prior to this . Well done for all the research that must have been done.
This book is fascinating to read. It's so well written that the events he is describing makes you very aware of the misery that people suffered in that era. It must be said poverty and terrible living conditions (if you can call it that!) were bound to result in many of the crimes committed. How these people survived amaze me! I was born in Salford and worked in Manchester in the late sixties, but alas I only have a vague idea of the area referred to. I have never heard of Angel Meadow prior to this . Well done for all the research that must have been done.
May 12, 2019
amazing history
It took me awhile to get into this, but when I did i couldnt put it down, with stories from the past, cabbage anne, one arm Kate & German Johnny who was chinese, how they lived, in disgusting conditions, how they lived together with many people sharing damp cellars & small room's.
It took me awhile to get into this, but when I did i couldnt put it down, with stories from the past, cabbage anne, one arm Kate & German Johnny who was chinese, how they lived, in disgusting conditions, how they lived together with many people sharing damp cellars & small room's.
June 13, 2021
Brilliant.
I could not put this book down. A fascinating insight into life in Victorian Britain and the birth of education. At times it was hard to believe it was not a work of fiction, sadly it is not. Very engaging, well written, extremely educational, especially if like me, you had no idea how tragic things were.
I could not put this book down. A fascinating insight into life in Victorian Britain and the birth of education. At times it was hard to believe it was not a work of fiction, sadly it is not. Very engaging, well written, extremely educational, especially if like me, you had no idea how tragic things were.
June 18, 2020
What an eye opener
Great read into the history of Manchester really interesting to see how we have evolved as a city and people. I never New about Angel Meadow until I read the book. It opened a whole new side of the city to me.
Great read into the history of Manchester really interesting to see how we have evolved as a city and people. I never New about Angel Meadow until I read the book. It opened a whole new side of the city to me.
January 2, 2024
A really good insight into this poverty-stricken area of Manchester, told through the stories of the characters who populated Angel Meadow. Unfortunately, this country seems to be heading back to these dark days of homelessness, hunger. So this should be seen as a warning, too.
January 24, 2024
A history I was not aware off and it was brought to life in such a detailed personal way. Excellent read and I will be recommending to other locals also. I will never again look walk the streets of Manchester without thinking of those that came before.
December 30, 2025
The irony of the name is not wasted - no-one could romanticise the life of the lower classes in Victorian England if they read this. Bleak and savage living at its worst. Clearly explained and engagingly written.
April 21, 2019
Fantastic
Top ratings for a true and harrowing account of what life in the slums of Manchester was truly like. You can almost smell the cesspits and feel.The squalor.
Top ratings for a true and harrowing account of what life in the slums of Manchester was truly like. You can almost smell the cesspits and feel.The squalor.
September 20, 2020
A wonderful insight to slum life in Victorian Manchester. A book I chose completely at random, and I'm glad I did.
September 13, 2021
A fascinating insight into into the Victorian slum area of Manchester called Angel Meadow. An excellent but disturbing read.,
October 27, 2022
Excellent
April 23, 2023
Enjoyed it very much.
Excellent factual references, very sad subject. Good flow, well narrated. An example of man's inhumanity to man. Enjoyed it very much.
Excellent factual references, very sad subject. Good flow, well narrated. An example of man's inhumanity to man. Enjoyed it very much.
March 20, 2024
Historically interesting and (presumably) well researched, but this really was a pretty grim read.
I kept hoping for a little glimmer of light in the gloom but there really wasn't much let up.
I kept hoping for a little glimmer of light in the gloom but there really wasn't much let up.
December 27, 2025
compulsory reading
A very sad book that’s so well written. We all should read it and reflect on the story of the awful conditions people had to live in
A very sad book that’s so well written. We all should read it and reflect on the story of the awful conditions people had to live in
June 8, 2016
I have the paperback of this book, which is worth getting if you're into nicely produced hard copies. Beautifully presented, with a section of old photographs and drawings from the time, in the middle.
Angel Meadow was a slum that evolved in Manchester, near the river Irk, at the time of the Industrial Revolution; once green fields and pastures and headgerows, the cotton mills and factories brought forth the necessity to house its workers, which soon became 'Victorian Britain's most savage slum'. Eventually, the area was occupied by drunks, tramps, hustlers, prostitutes, pickpockets, and just about every other type of criminal, as well as the people who worked in the mill. Violence, hunger, early pregnancy, infant death and illness were the norm for the people ekeing out an existence, often living in such filthy conditions that it actually turned my stomach to read some parts. Warning: don't read this while eating. I did, alas...
The amount of intricate research that has gone into this book is apparent; there is scarcely a stone of the area unwalked, and there are many case histories taken from archives held by various institutions in the area. A couple of reviews have said it relies on sensationalism, but many of us are fascinated by and like to view, with horrified fascination, the lowest levels of the society's underclass. I'd like to say that it's unbelievable that thousands of people could be left to live as they did in this so-called civilised country, but it's not surprising, given the social structure of the Victorian age. One thing that I couldn't understand, though, is why anyone stayed in such a living hell; however penniless a person is, surely a better life could have been had roaming the countryside. Maybe some did. One teacher said:
"The parents are a disgrace to the city so far as their bodies are concerned. Years of heredity have gifted these animals - for they are as unclean as moneys, and their gestures and their learning unconscious of shame remind me irresistibly as apes - with peculiar characteristics which it will take a century of proper treatment to remove."
The book is split into chapters such as Family Life, The Cholera Riot, Living Conditions, etc. The result is that it becomes a little repetitive; once you have read about the state of the lavatorial facilities in one group of houses, for instance, you don't really need to read it again, about the next street. I couldn't stop reading it, though. Dean Kirby has made a spectacularly good job of this book that he began to research after discovering that one of his forefathers had lived there. An achievement, indeed.
Angel Meadow was a slum that evolved in Manchester, near the river Irk, at the time of the Industrial Revolution; once green fields and pastures and headgerows, the cotton mills and factories brought forth the necessity to house its workers, which soon became 'Victorian Britain's most savage slum'. Eventually, the area was occupied by drunks, tramps, hustlers, prostitutes, pickpockets, and just about every other type of criminal, as well as the people who worked in the mill. Violence, hunger, early pregnancy, infant death and illness were the norm for the people ekeing out an existence, often living in such filthy conditions that it actually turned my stomach to read some parts. Warning: don't read this while eating. I did, alas...
The amount of intricate research that has gone into this book is apparent; there is scarcely a stone of the area unwalked, and there are many case histories taken from archives held by various institutions in the area. A couple of reviews have said it relies on sensationalism, but many of us are fascinated by and like to view, with horrified fascination, the lowest levels of the society's underclass. I'd like to say that it's unbelievable that thousands of people could be left to live as they did in this so-called civilised country, but it's not surprising, given the social structure of the Victorian age. One thing that I couldn't understand, though, is why anyone stayed in such a living hell; however penniless a person is, surely a better life could have been had roaming the countryside. Maybe some did. One teacher said:
"The parents are a disgrace to the city so far as their bodies are concerned. Years of heredity have gifted these animals - for they are as unclean as moneys, and their gestures and their learning unconscious of shame remind me irresistibly as apes - with peculiar characteristics which it will take a century of proper treatment to remove."
The book is split into chapters such as Family Life, The Cholera Riot, Living Conditions, etc. The result is that it becomes a little repetitive; once you have read about the state of the lavatorial facilities in one group of houses, for instance, you don't really need to read it again, about the next street. I couldn't stop reading it, though. Dean Kirby has made a spectacularly good job of this book that he began to research after discovering that one of his forefathers had lived there. An achievement, indeed.
December 16, 2016
I really enjoyed this book. well written full of new,to me, information.
May 2, 2017
I loved this book. It's a non-fiction account of Angel Meadow 'Victorian Britain's most savage slum' from its pleasant beginnings to its crime-filled darkest hours, to its somewhat dependent end.
It was well-written and fast-paced, with plenty of interesting anecdotes. The chapters were pretty short, which suited the book perfectly, and covered pretty much everything from the state of the housing, the schools, the crime and the disease. A really good read for anyone interested in the Victorian era or Manchester's history.
It was well-written and fast-paced, with plenty of interesting anecdotes. The chapters were pretty short, which suited the book perfectly, and covered pretty much everything from the state of the housing, the schools, the crime and the disease. A really good read for anyone interested in the Victorian era or Manchester's history.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews