Crime City: Manchester's Victorian Underworld

'A rollicking tale packed with characters and incident.'

IRISH POST

'Fascinating.'

FAMILY HISTORY MONTHLY

'A thought-provoking history and sociology punctuated by passages that would grace a well-written thriller.'

YOUR FAMILY TREE

'A a great collection of stories and fascinating social history.'

ANCESTORS MAGAZINE

'A masterly survey.'

Product Description

Victorian Manchester was once described as a 'city of two classes', a rogue's paradise where vast wealth sat beside grinding poverty. It was unique, and so was its underworld.

Historian Joseph O'Neill recreates the sights, sounds and smells of a lost milieu in all their fascinating detail. He chronicles the era's crooks, cracksmen, pimps, prostitutes, conmen, garrotters and bareknuckle fighters, and the gin palaces, dance halls and cheap brothels that were as much a part of Manchester as giant cotton mills. . 

Here are legendary detective Jerome Caminada, the super-criminal Charlie Peace, street gangs like the Bengal Tigers, and myriad other characters like One-Armed Dick, the infamous fence, all denizens of a time when brutality was commonplace and death lurked down every alley.