Spatial studies of British Victorian cities have been historically limited either in scope or specificity due to the unwieldiness of census data. However, over the last decade, the digitization of historical source material has created new possibilities for the exploration of geodemographic patterns. For the case of Manchester, the ‘shock city’ of the British industrial revolution, these advancements are especially pertinent in order to settle long-standing debates as to the extent of segregation in the city. This article presents a method for the highly granular georeferencing of census data for the Manchester township for the second half of the nineteenth century by drawing on historical material including geographic and commercial surveys. Linking households to specific buildings presents increased possibilities for studies of heterogeneity and neighbourhood patterns at a micro-scale. This approach ultimately lays the groundwork for future revisitations of nineteenth-century cities and the traditional claims which have been made around their urban dynamics.
Chung Emily (Wed,) studied this question.