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Manchester Minds: A University History of Ideas has been written to mark the bicentenary of the University of Manchester: that is, of its earliest forerunners. Its aim is to evoke themes in the University’s and the wider city’s history though 20 short essays on ideas and thinkers over two centuries. There are essays on big names such as Henry Roscoe and Lewis Namier, Alan Turing and Brian Cox – while others bring to life less well-known stories, such as the work of the suffragists Esther Roper and Eva Gore-Booth at the University Settlement in Ancoats. The theme throughout is the connection between ideas and the places where they were formed.

This is a chance to get a taste of the book, and to hear more about the many ways in which the University and the city have interacted in past and present.

Speakers:

Stuart Jones (editor and contributor) is Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Manchester, where he specialises in the history of ideas in nineteenth-century Britain and beyond. He is also editor of The Simons of Manchester (2024), and has just completed a big book on the Victorian politician-polymath James Bryce (Princeton University Press, 2025).

Matthew Cobb (contributor) recently retired as Professor of Zoology at the University of Manchester. He is a specialist in animal behaviour and is particularly known for his work in communicating the history of science, with books including The Egg and Sperm Race (2007) and The Genetic Age (2022). He is also the author of well-received books on the French Resistance and Liberation.