manchester-skyline
Copyright Andrew Brookes Photography http://www.andrewbrooksphotography.com

Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in the North West of England, with a population of 2.7 million.

The University of Manchester has a total of approximately 3,850 Academic staff,  38,500 students, of which 27,000 are undergraduates and 11,500 are postgraduates.

Manchester_Town_Hall_October_2010
Manchester Town Hall
Manchester United versus City
Manchester United versus Manchester City

Manchester is home to two world-famous football clubs, Manchester City and Manchester United.  Historically, Manchester was at the forefront of the industrial revolution, transforming from a small Lancastrian township into one of the most significant cities in the world in less than a century – driven by the enormous surge in the textile industry, but also by scientific innovations.  The world’s first economically successful canal, the Bridgewater Canal, opening in 1761 to transport coal from Runcorn.  Within a year, the price of coal in Manchester had been halved.

 

City of Science

Twenty five Nobel Prizewinners have either worked here or have been students here.  The mathematician Alan Turing was a member of staff, the physicist and broadcaster Brian Cox is a professor in Physics and Sir John Sulston, who won a Nobel Prize for his genomics work is also a Professor in Manchester.

John Dalton, who was responsible for the development of atomic theory and the discovery of colour blindness carried out his life’s work in Manchester. Indeed one of the main streets of the city is named in his honour.

ManchesterBaby
The Manchester “baby”

In the 20th century, Manchester was host to what was known as the “Nuclear Family”, consisting of scientists such as  J. J. ThomsonErnest RutherfordNiels BohrHans GeigerErnest MarsdenJohn Cockcroft and James Chadwick.

The first stored-program computer in the world was developed in Manchester.  It was known as the Manchester baby.

Most recently, in 2010, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, physicists at the University of Manchester won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on graphene.