| Summary : Radisson Edwardian Hotel Manchester, formerly the Free Trade Hall, was built in 1853-6 to the designs of Edward Walters. Located on the site of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, the building commemorates the repeal of the Corn Law in 1846. The main facade of the building to Peter Street is an elaborate and dignified essay in the Renaissance. Deeply modelled, its nine bays are comprised of a square columned arcade slightly raised above street level, surmounted by a piano nobile of framed pedimented windows set within one and a half storey arches on coupled Ionic columns. Between the arches are roundels with a band of carved garlands topped by a deep cornice and balustrade. There are numerous references to Free Trade and Anti-Corn Law Movement with allegorical carvings in the arcade and in the tympana of the first floor arches. The main facade continues for three bays into South Street where economy presides, the remainder being in a primitive Classical style. The current interiors and the stark rear elevation are the result of rebuilding between 1950-1 following World War II bombing. From 1951 it served as Manchester's principal auditorium until 1996 when the newly built Bridgewater Hall superseded it as a concert hall. Following this, four successive hotel schemes by different architects were proposed for the hall's reuse, with one of these rejected at a public inquiry in 1998. A further proposal by Roger Stephenson and the Manchester firm Stephenson Bell was (in 2001) to be implemented however. This scheme proposed to only preserve the main facade and the northern three bays of the east elevation whilst a fourteen storey tower was to be built along the south boundary. The building is currently (2010) in use as a hotel. |
More information : (SJ 83699792) Free Trade Hall (NAT). (1)
Free Trade Hall, Peter Street, Manchester, built in 1853-6; designed by Edward Walters in a Classical Italianate style. (2)
The main facade to Peter Street is an elaborate and dignified essay in the Renaissance. Deeply modelled, its nine bays are comprised of a square columned arcade slightly raised above street level, surmounted by a piano nobile of framed pedimented windows set within one and a half storey arches on coupled Ionic columns. Between the arches are roundels with a band of carved garlands topped by a deep cornice and balustrade. There are numerous references to Free Trade and Anti-Corn Law Movement with allegorical carvings in the arcade and in the tympana of the first floor arches. The main facade continues for three bays into South Street where economy presides, the remainder being in a primitive Classical style. The current interiors and the stark rear elevation are the result of rebuilding between 1950-1 following World War II bombing. (3)
Please see source for details. (4-5)
Located on the site of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, the Free Trade Hall commemorates the repeal of the Corn Law in 1846.
From 1951 it served as Manchester's principal auditorium until 1996 when the newly built Bridgewater Hall superseded it as a concert hall.
Four successive hotel schemes by different architects were the proposed for the hall's reuse, with one of these rejected at a public inquiry in 1998. A further proposal by Roger Stephenson and the Manchester firm Stephenson Bell was (in 2001) to be implemented however. This scheme proposed to only preserve the main facade and the northern three bays of the east elevation whilst a fourteen storey tower was to be built along the south boundary. (6)
Please see source for details. (7)
On 14 April 1868, Manchester National Society for Women's Suffrage (MNSWS) held their first public meeting at the Manchester Free Trade Hall. Considered by some to mark the beginning of the women's suffrage campaign, resolutions were proposed by Lydia Beckett, Agnes Pochin and Anne Robertson. It was a significant occasion since it was rare for women to speak publicly at this time.
The MNSWS had been formally refounded the previous year and joined societies in London and Edinburgh to form a federation of women's suffrage societies. Their main activity at this time was to canvass women householders in the area to encourage them to sign petitions for women's suffrage. (8)
In October 1905, Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) were arrested at a Liberal Party meeting held at the Manchester Free Trade Hall. Asking if the Liberal Party would enfranchise women, they were ignored and thrown out of the meeting before being arrested for obstruction and spitting at a police officer. This moment marked the beginning of the militant campaign within women's struggle for suffrage which was led by the WSPU. (9)
The Radisson Edwardian Hotel Manchester is the former Free Trade Hall, Manchester. (10)
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