Manchester Music Trail: Albert Hall

About

With the introduction of the weekend by William Marsden in 1843, the working class had time, for the first time, to socialise. As a result the city's music which had previously catered solely for ‘esteemed gentlemen’ became open to all as it spread up Peter Street and Oxford Road. The Halle Orchestra at the Free Trade Hall, now found itself cheek by jowl with raucous music halls. This wave of often quite bawdy entertainment was countered by the introduction of Temperance concerts; alcohol-free music events located in purpose-built temples that were designed to look like theatres or concert halls in the hope of converting Mancunians to tee-totalism. The Albert Hall is the most striking example of this, and when the former Wesleyan chapel reopened as a music venue in 2013, it hit the ground running -