Victorian Manchester was described in the 1800s as ‘Hell upon Earth.’ A grim industrial city of smoking chimneys set amongst the crunching gears of industry, with many of its people living in terrible dirt, poverty and squalor. Today, you will an account by a Victorian journalist of what he discovered on Manchester’s filthy slum streets – wretched poverty, gambling, terrible food, hungry children and the ever present escape of the dram shop.
