The Story of Oxford Road Corridor

The Story of Oxford Road Corridor is one of innovation and culture, from Rutherford splitting the atom and Alan Turing inventing the modern computer to the discovery of Graphene. The former Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy and poet and playwright Lemn Sissay hold leading roles at our universities, and the area is steeped in literature and political history, immortalised in prose, poem and song: from Fredrich Engels’ sombre description of working-class life, John Cooper Clarke’s ‘Queen of the Ritz’ in Salome Maloney and Morrissey’s peak through the roof of the Holy Name Church, in Vicar in a Tutu.

Mark Tattersall
1752 Staff at Manchester Royal Infirmary discharge their very first patient on 23 October 1752. From starting with just 12 beds, the MRI now has 770 and treats around 750,000 patients each year.
1814 Jordan’s School of Anatomy opens and eventually becomes Victoria University of Manchester.
1824 The Manchester Mechanics Institution opens as part of a national movement for the education of working men, eventually becoming The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST).
1830 Peveril Of The Peak is registered as a public house and remains Manchester’s most iconic pub nearly 200 years later.
1835 Elizabeth Gaskell’s house is built. In recent years there has been £2.5M in project funding to allow visitors to experience the house as it was in the 1860’s when Elizabeth occupied the home (pictured).
1838 Manchester School of Design opens for the first time in the basement of Manchester Art Gallery.
1845 Engels publishes, ‘The condition of the Working Class in England’; which references the slums of Oxford Street. A statue of Engels can now be found outside HOME (pictured).
1845 Karl Marx outlines his earliest communist theory in his tract Das Kapital, in Engels’ apartment on Cecil Street just off Oxford Road.
1858 The Hallé Orchestra is founded with their first concert in the city’s Free Trade Hall. Sir Charles Hallé later founded the Royal Manchester College of Music which merged with the Northern School of Music to become the RNCM.
1872 The Holy Name Church was designed and erected by Gothic Revival architect Joseph Aloysius Hansom. The original design featured a never completed 73-metre steeple, in its place is the distinctive octagonal top to the tower that we know today.
1887 The Alfred Waterhouse designed Beyer Building opens at The University of Manchester, taking its name from celebrated German-born locomotive designer and co-founder of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Charles Beyer.
1889 Whitworth Art Gallery (pictured), originally known as the Whitworth Institute and Park opened as a gallery for people of all social classes.
1890 Manchester Museum opened to the public.
1891 The Palace Theatre, originally known as the Grand Old Lady of Oxford Street opened for the first time.
1895 The Alfred Waterhouse designed Refuge Assurance Company building opens. One of Manchester’s most famous buildings, it is now the Kimpton Clocktower Hotel.
1903 Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and on Friday 14 December 2018, a new statue of the iconic Mancunian suffragette was unveiled in St Peter’s Square following a march down Oxford Road (pictured).
1904 A plan to move Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust to Oxford Road is agreed. The hospital later opens in 1908.
1904 Fredrick Henry Royce built the first ever Rolls Royce from a factory in Hulme.
history and heritage
1906 Joseph John Thomson was awarded the first Nobel Prize for Manchester in Physics.
1908 Ernest Rutherford was awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and went on to split the atom in 1917 (pictured).
1927 The Ritz is built.
1934 Central Library opens.
1935 All Saints park opens as a children’s playground.
1946 Manchester Metropolitan University opens as The Manchester Library School.
1948 University of Manchester Professors, Tom Kilburn & Fred Williams developed the words first electronic stored-program computer; ‘The Manchester Baby’ (pictured). A working replica can be viewed at the Science and Industry Museum.
1955 Johnny Roadhouse Music opens on Oxford Road and establishes itself as an instrument shop to the stars with famous customers including Paul McCartney and Noel Gallagher.
1972 Pioneering vegetarian shop and cafe, The 8th Day moves to Oxford Road for the first time.
1973 The Northern School of Music merged with the Royal Manchester College of Music to form the Royal Northern College of Music and moved into a purpose-built home on Oxford Road.
1973 David Bowie performs at the Lesser Free Trade Hall.
1975 The BBC’s North West headquarters on Oxford Road opens for the first time before being demolished in 2012. This is now home to the Circle Square development.
The artful reporter, April 1984. Castlefield Gallery at 40.
Castlefield Gallery in The Artful Reporter, April 1984
1976 Sex Pistols play Lesser Free Trade Hall gig with Morrissey, Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner, The Buzzcocks, Anthony Wilson & Mark E Smith in attendance.
1981 Music television programme The Oxford Road Show is broadcast on BBC 2 on the 16th of January. The show welcomed bands from Queen to Bronski Beat before ending 1985.
1982 After renovation, the G-Mex Centre (now known as Manchester Central) is reopened as an exhibition centre and Manchester’s largest music venue.
1983 The Smiths (pictured) race back from performing This Charming Man on TOTP to play at the Hacienda.
1984 Castlefield Gallery opens as a contemporary exhibition space and artist-focused organisation.
1984 Manchester Science Park is established.
1985 Cornerhouse opened at 70 Oxford Street and gave Manchester a venue for contemporary independent cinema and challenging exhibitions. It would become HOME in 2015 as part of a merger with The Library Theatre.
1988 The Proud Trust, then known as the Gay Youth Group moved, into Sidney Street’s purpose-built Gay Centre.
1992 Manchester Metropolitan University gains university status under the government’s Further and Higher Education Act.
1996 Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh open The Bridgewater Hall, one of the most significant concert halls in the UK and home to The Hallé Orchestra.
1999 The modern Contact theatre was reopened in 1999 as an arts venue for young people.
2000 Queen Elizabeth II opens The Manchester Aquatics Centre which was purpose-built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games.
2000 Transitive, a University of Manchester spin-out company created software that was used in approximately 25 million mac computers between 2006 & 2009.
2001 The Alan Turing Memorial (pictured) is revealed in Sackville Gardens. The life size bronze figure was created by artist Glyn Hughes.
2003 Anthony Burgess’s window, Liana, establishes the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, the largest archive of the Manchester author’s work.
2004 The University of Manchester officially opens as a redbrick university after merging with UMIST & Victoria University of Manchester.
2004 Professor Andre Geim & Kostya Novoselov isolate Graphene (pictured), the world’s first 2D material, leading to the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2010.
2005 The University of Manchester create the first 3D printer of human tissue
2008 After laying dormant for 30 years, an extensive restoration saw the former Manchester Adult Deaf and Dumb Institute reopen as the music venue The Deaf Institute.
2013 The £34M investment into Manchester Metropolitan University’s Art & Design faculty is completed, including the opening of the Benzie building (pictured).
2014 Prince plays a 2 ½ hour set at Manchester Academy for free.
2014 Citylabs 1.0 opens.
2015 The Whitworth is awarded the UK’s 2015 Museum of Year.
2015 The Cornerhouse merges with the Library Theatre Company and opens its new £25M site on First Street, HOME.
2015 The National Graphene Institute opens (pictured).
2016 The Oxford Road Corridor Enterprise Zone was formerly designated.
2016 The first UK city to be awarded the European City of Science.
2017 Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, the largest NHS trust in the United Kingdom is formed.
2017 Dutch-Style cycle lanes are introduced along Oxford Road.
2017 The Bright Building officially opens and wins a number of awards in its first year (pictured).
2018 Thousands marched down Oxford Road for the unveiling of Hazel Reeves’ Our Emmeline statue, marking the 100-year anniversary of the Representation of the People Act, in which some women first won the right to vote in Britain.​
2018 Hatch, the award winning food, drink and retail destination opens for the first time (pictured). The pop-up has since trebled in size and is now home to over 30 independent traders.
2019 The University of Manchester’s, Alliance Manchester Business School reopens. The school is ranked 2nd in the UK for research, providing education to undergraduates, postgraduates and executives from across the world.
A nghttime CGI shot of Circle Square
© Bruntwood
2021 Circle Square, a new neighbourhood on the site of the former BBC building opens to the public
Tim Etchell's neon work Everything Up In The Air spells out the words in giant neon signs above booth street east
Everything Up In The Air © Jason Lock
2021 Corridor of Light, a three-night celebration of the Oxford Road Corridor through language, light and ideas invited audiences to explore Manchester’s innovation district as its stories were revealed by encounters with visual art, installations and live entertainment.
2021 Manchester Metropolitan Uni opens two landmark buildings, SODA, their flagship School of Digital Arts and The Institute of Sport.
2022 Manchester Metropolitan Institute of Sport welcomes students to a new, world-class facility designed to champion everything that sport can do.
Manchester Museum Exterior
2023 Following a £15m redevelopment, Manchester Museum reopens with news spaces including the co-curated South Asia Gallery in partnership with the British Museum
2023 After a two-year refurbishment, Manchester Aquatics Centre reopened and will host the Para Swimming World Championships in 2024.