Manchester has been described as the "cradle of the industrial revolution" and as the powerhouse of the cotton industry. As the cotton industry boomed so did the population. Nestled in amongst the mills, tanneries, gas works, and other industries, overcrowding was rife. What was once an upper class suburban settlement, had fallen so deeply into a state of disrepair that it no longer reflected the peacefulness conveyed by its name.
By the mid 1840's several slums had developed but none were more horrible than Angel Meadow. The slum itself formed around St Michael's Church and was bounded by Rochdale Rd, Miller St, Cheetham Hill Rd and Gould St. This brought the entire area of the 30,000 person slum to a mere 33 acres - that is equivalent to approximately 43.5 ft^2 (or 4 m^2) per person.
During the Victorian era, slums were often described as having two classes of people, and Angle Meadow was no exception. Of all the accounts given, Mercle held back the least when describing these classes of residents when he said:
"There
were two distinct classes of people living in this overcrowded hell hole. There
were old established trustworthy families who were regarded as the salt of the
parish. Then there were the drunken migrant settlers of the industrial
revolution, dreaming of work in the big city of Manchester, but left brawling,
fighting, drinking and indulging in 'unrestrained licentious womanizing's' in the
grinding poverty of the slum trap zone".
Mercle has also been quoted for describing the slum as a "Serbian bog in sore need of drainage". This description of the flooded streets accurately describes the poor quality of the housing and absence of sanitation. The majority of homes in Angel Meadow were constructed as back-to-backs which meant that each home lacked a yard, access to a privy, and a receptacle for refuse. Consequently the narrow and unpaved streets had sewage and refuse added to the existing mud and stagnant water. Of all the homes in the region, the cellars were by the far the most unsanitary. Being below ground level, they had low ceilings, were damp, poorly ventilated, and were constantly flooding with the contents of the street. The later of these problems was by far the most concerning as it led to widespread disease.
As a result of the overcrowding and poor living conditions within Angel Meadow, it had the highest death rate of any district in all of England. Between 1888 and 1890, the slum boasted an astounding 50.9 deaths for every 1000 people per year - this was in stark contrast to the national average of 19 deaths per 1000 people per year. At the heart of the slum, the graves of St Michael's church quickly filled up, eventually reaching an estimated 40,000 bodies. The graveyard got so full that it was not uncommon to find children searching for skulls that had surfaced so they could use them as footballs. Remains continued to surface in this graveyard until it was sealed over with flagstones, thus leading to the nickname 'St Michael's Flags' or simply 'The Flags".
The area of Manchester that Freidrich Engels once described as "the
lowest, most filthy, most unhealthy, and most wicked locality in Manchester. […]
It is full of cellars and inhabited by prostitutes, their bullies, thieves,
cadgers, vagrants, tramps and, in the very worst sties of filth and darkness,
by those unhappy wretches the 'low Irish'" has few reminders of its dark past. Many of the original slum dwellings were torn down during the slum clearances, and as of the late 1990's it began to undergo gentrification. St Michael's graveyard was no exception to the improvements that the area has seen. In addition to being sealed over with flagstones, a park has been added to commemorate the suffering that once plagued the surrounding area.
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