The Manchester Herald: How the city’s first radical newspaper was silenced, shut down and smashed to pieces
The Manchester Herald was a publication so inflammatory that it was shut down and had its offices smashed up within a year of its first issue - with its editors fleeing into voluntary exile.
When The Manchester Observerfinally ceased publication in 1821, the ruling elite must have breathed a sigh of relief.
The local northern newspaper had been a thorn in the side of the authorities sinceits formation three years prior – its pages littered with incendiary pieces aimed at rousing the public into forcing political change.
But governing figures began to change their minds about the Observer in 1819. Initially, they’d considered the paper a nuisance. By summer, they’d revised that view: regarding it actively dangerous.
In August, Observer editor James Wroe invited the loquacious Henry Hunt to Manchester to speak at a mass rally at St Peter’s Fields – where a crowd had gathered to ask for political representation at a time when only wealthy landowners could vote.
The animated but peaceful protest was invaded by troops who took a shockingly violent approach to the occasion – killing 18 people and injuring hundreds more.
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The Observer exposed the murderous behaviour of the cavalry in grisly detail anddubbed the event ThePeterloo Massacre – a name which has stuck to this day.
The Peterloo Massacre / Image: Wikipedia
In the aftermath, anyone associated with the Observer was targeted, prosecuted or even imprisoned by officials, and the paper was eventually closed.
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But the lingering sense of public anger (and fear) meant there was still demand for press that dared to rail against the establishment; and more progressive newspapers were born throughout the course of the century – beginning with The Manchester Guardian (which remains in print 200 years later, now based in London).
TheObserver is often hailed as Manchester’s first radical newspaper – the publication that paved the way for more robust local press.
But around thirty years prior to Peterloo there was The Manchester Herald: A publication considered so inflammatory that it was shut down and smashed up within a year of its first issue – with its publishers fleeing into voluntary exile.
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One half of the Herald founding team – Thomas Walker / Image: Wikipedia
By the end of the 18th century, there was growing demand for parliamentary reform in England, with calls emerging for changes at national and local level.
Two of the most passionate reformers in Manchester were barrister Thomas Cooper and local cotton merchant Thomas Walker.
The pair launched the Manchester Constitutional Society in 1790 and asked the city’s local newspapers – The Manchester Mercury and The Manchester Chronicle – to print the group’s notices about meetings and petitions.
Over time, however, both papers became increasingly reluctant to publish material discussing the controversial topic of parliamentary reform, so Cooper and Walker decided to set up their own newspaper instead.
They called it The Manchester Herald – and convinced local stationer Matthew Falkner (and his business partner William Birch) to print it.
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The publication was the self-proclaimed ‘paper of the people’ and released its first edition on 31 March 1792.
Around 50 issues of the Herald were created overall – the last of which was published on 23 March 1793.
Despite its fleeting existence, the Herald was described as operating with “a degree of spirit and reputation that will not soon be forgotten in [the] neighbourhood”; packed with radical writing including abolitionist articles and “positive” pieces about the French Revolution.
The paper’s progressive stance made it some powerful enemies in the process.
In December 1792, an angry pack of Loyalists – described by writer John Bugg as a “drunken church-and-king mob” – raided the Herald’s offices on Market Place, before attempting to attack the paper’s founder Walker at his home.
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The editor scared them away by firing his gun above their heads.
The other half of the Herald founding team – Thomas Cooper / Image: Wikipedia
The Herald was repeatedly targeted in the subsequent months, and by spring the government initiated legal action to ensure the newspaper was shut down.
The publication’s critics revelled inits demise and quickly danced on its grave – smashing up the Herald premises and hurling printing equipment into the street.
The Herald’s printer’s – Falkner and Birch – fled to America, “preferring a voluntary exile to imprisonment”.
Falkner returned home several years later but never retrieved his stationery business, printing house or property, and passed away in Burnley in 1824.
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One of Falkner’s friends bemoaned the unfairness of the situation, claiming Falkner had been “seduced into political opposition” and was “deserted” by his former allies in the adversity surrounding the Herald‘s closure.
Falkner’s obituary read: “One of the kindest-hearted of mankind was driven from his country, and his fortunes, till then prosperous, entirely ruined.”
Herald co-founder Walker was placed on trial for treason in 1794 – accused of attempting to mobilise his own army (the incident in which he fired a gun at invaders was raised in court).
But the prosecution leaned heavily on a testimony from an informer who proved to be drunk and unreliable, and eventually Walker was acquitted.
He dabbled on and off in local politics in his later years, and died in 1817.
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Fellow Herald founder Cooper, meanwhile, moved to the States in 1794, developing a reputation as an academic leader who was, according to President Thomas Jefferson, “one of the ablest men in America”.
He passed away in Columbia in 1839.
Feature
Taemin at AO Arena: Take the K-pop world’s ‘Advice’ – you need to watch him live
Thomas Melia
This time last month, South Korean star, SHINee and SuperM boyband member, Taemin showed Manchester the real meaning of ‘The Rizzness’. It was our first K-pop gig and won’t be our last.
Normally, if you ask me what I’m getting up to on a Tuesday night, I’d respond with the usual: “Nothing.” Ask me this random but eye-opening night back in March 2025, and I’d say, “Watching the ‘Ephemeral Glaze’ tour”.
Opening with a song labelled ‘Déjà vu’, ironically, felt from the truth, as the minute the performer stepped onto the stage, the whole crowd was watching what felt like an all-new spectacle come to life – even for some of the already inducted K-pop fans inside the AO Arena.
Following up with ‘Guilty’, I’d be lying if I told you we didn’t love this performance. It wasn’t overshadowed by that unbelievable grand opening either – if anything, it was even better.
A majestic pose from Taemin at AO Arena in Manchester, performing to a lively crowd.Credit: Audio North
This was a setlist that just keeps on giving: after this, ‘Advice’ greets our ears and fans erupt in various screams and cries, to which Taemin, 31, certainly appreciated.
It’s high energy through and through, as the next song, ‘Idea’, felt like the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle for those of us not so used to this kind of music, well and truly captivating the Manc crowd.
Closing what was merely his opening segment with this song was definitely a good ‘Idea’… (sorry).
Its title may draw from a comedic viral term used to describe someone with great flirting skills, a.k.a. ‘rizz’, but ‘The Rizzness’ is no laughing matter.
Fans caught on quickly, and as soon as the first note was pumped out into the arena, the atmosphere reached whole new heights and those familiar screams at an other-worldly pitch returned.
I never thought I’d see the day where AO Arena screamed, “You know I got the rizz, the rizzness”, but there’s a first time for everything, I guess.
Taemin and his dancers were electric at AO Arena.Credit: The Manc Group
Being from Korea, 31-year-old Taemin tried his best to communicate with the crowd throughout the night, taking breaks after back-to-back performances to gauge the audience’s reactions.
The South Korean superstar didn’t take long to warm up to the crowd and showed off his cheeky side, telling the arena, “Only 4 more songs” before finishing the sentence with “I lied”.
‘Criminal’ had me and the rest of Manchester weak in the knees; the choreography was flawless throughout, but this was a true highlight. Ending with ‘Say Less’, Taemin knew exactly what he was doing, putting a song that catchy right at the end, as this was all that replayed in my head on the train home.
Put it this way, we may still be relative newbies to the world of Korean pop music, but with another big name heading to Manchester, we’re definitely keen to find out more.
The best Manchester-based anime-style memes we’ve seen online as Ghibli craze takes over
Danny Jones
Now, the internet can be used for a lot of silly and pointless things – you might argue us sharing our favourite memes every morning is a prime example of that – but we have to admit, the second we saw a Manchester-inspired Studio Ghibli image on social media, we were hooked.
If you have absolutely no idea what we’re talking about, there is a current craze that has taken over the internet, which has seen recognisable memes and images recreated in the style of the iconic Ghibli anime films, created by legendary animator and filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki.
Once you’ve found one, you tend to start spotting them more and more frequently, and in the case of the chronically online like us, we’ve been inundated with them for weeks now.
People are using AIto create them in various different contexts, but it won’t surprise you to learn that our favourite Ghibli/anime memes are those based around Manchester. For example:
Bloody hell, the internet really is brilliant sometimes, isn't it? 😂 https://t.co/virpFx60u7
As it happens, this was the first and perhaps still the best we’ve seen to date, but it didn’t stop us from falling down an animated rabbit hole looking for others.
To be honest, we didn’t actually have to do much searching ourselves as they’re absolutely all over the algorithm at the minute, and have been for a good month or so.
‘Ghibli memes’ may be an overgeneralisation of what is a rather specific and famed art style, but this ongoing flood of anime-style cartooons is being created by users giving prompts to ChatGPT, the increasingly popular large language model (LLM) and AI tool.
Designed with OpenAI software, the artificial intelligence chatbot can do everything from write extensive study notes and flash cards to fixing blurry images, writing computer code, entire essays and quite literally countless other things.
In this instance, people are just reimagining moments from the zeitgeist and famous memes in this style by feeding the image to ChatGPT, along with an ‘in the style of Studio Ghibli’ prompt.
One for the Blues…And the Reds.All of these images have been designed using ChatGPT. (Credit: Eleventh Minute/centredevils via X)
Pretty cool, right?
You’ll find that footballer Twitter (sorry, X*), in particular, is absolutely full of fan accounts recreating iconic club scenes in the Miyazaki art style, giving their favourite players big ‘Chibi’ eyes (another unique aspect of anime) and so on.
It’s all just a bit of a laugh, after all; even we here at The Manc put ChatGPT to the test back in June 2023 and asked it to design ‘the perfect day out in Manchester’ – to varying degrees of success, we might add.
As ever with machine-learning, the more information you feed it, the better the result and although we know these are original pictures being reimagined, it still goes to show just how impressive and varied AI is becoming.
We’ve also enjoyed some that aren’t necessarily Manc but are quintessential British humour or simply more universal memes.
Exhibits E and F…
Even after all these years, we feel like we still see this in some context at least once a week – and it still makes us laugh.‘What a sad little life, Jane…’Credit: brandsynario (via Instagram)/No Context Brits (via X)
Despite these memes riding a real wave right now, the Ghibli portrait fad is just that; there are plenty of other aesthetics being toyed with, too.
Actually, it already has, as we’ve now started coming across people making action figure versions of themselves and/or famous people, full decked out with accessories inside blister packs and everything.
On the other hand, many people are understandably concerned about what this means for artists and although there is no substitute for genuine human expression, whatever form that may come in, lots of people are railing against it as the possibility of AI-based pop music has been posited.
With that in mind, maybe the best twist we’ve seen is our very own Stanley Chow subverting the trend and doing Ghibli stuff in his equally iconic style. We’ll take these geometric gems over computer-generated imitations any day.
For now, it’s just a bit of fun and we confess we’ve got some light entertainment out of it, but the increasing possibilities being thrown up by AI in terms of art do pose a lot more complex questions.
We’ll finish with one final example because let’s be honest, there’s only really one thing on our minds at the minute – at least until the summer finally rolls around…
Let us know if you’ve seen any other fun examples and what you make of the whole Ghibli meme trend down in the comments.