Manchester Legends

Simply Red

Mick Hucknall, raised in Denton. Started as a punk in The Frantic Elevators. Became one of the best-selling acts in the world.

1985 - present

Take That

Manufactured on Canal Street. Split on 13 February 1996. A date etched into the memory of half of Manchester.

1990 - present

Happy Mondays

Little Hulton. Shaun Ryder, Bez, and the sound of the Hacienda at 3am. Madchester wouldn't exist without them.

1980 - present

The Verve

Wigan. Formed at Winstanley Sixth Form. "Bitter Sweet Symphony" and a royalties story that still makes people angry.

1990 - 2009

Manchester United

The Busby Babes, Munich, the Treble. From Newton Heath to the biggest club in the world.

1878 - present

Manchester City

From Maine Road to the Etihad. From relegation to the treble. The noisy neighbours won.

1880 - present

FC United of Manchester

Fans so angry about billionaires buying their club, they built their own. From scratch. That's Manchester.

2005 - present

Keely Hodgkinson

Atherton. Olympic 800m champion. The fastest British woman ever over two laps, and she's only 24.

2002 - present

Alan Turing

Father of computer science. Codebreaker. Persecuted hero.

1912 - 1954

John Dalton

The man who proved atoms exist. A Manchester original.

1766 - 1844

Ernest Rutherford

Split the atom at the University of Manchester. Father of nuclear physics. Changed everything.

1871 - 1937

J.J. Thomson

Born in Cheetham Hill. Discovered the electron. Nobel Prize. Not bad for a lad from north Manchester.

1856 - 1940

James Prescott Joule

Born in Salford. Figured out how energy works. They named the unit of energy after him. The actual unit.

1818 - 1889

Andre Geim & Konstantin Novoselov

Two physicists from the Soviet Union. A roll of Scotch tape. The thinnest material in the universe. Nobel Prize, 2010.

2004

Henry Moseley

Rutherford's student. Discovered Moseley's Law and reordered the periodic table. Killed at Gallipoli, aged 27. The world lost a Nobel Prize winner before he could collect it.

1887 - 1915

Engineering

Beatrice Shilling

Manchester engineering graduate. Invented the restrictor that stopped Spitfire engines stalling in nosedives. Helped win the war with a piece of metal in a carburettor. OBE.

1909 - 1990

Engineering

Roy Chadwick

Trained at night school in Manchester. Designed the Lancaster bomber that changed the course of the war. Killed in a plane crash while working on what became the Vulcan.

1893 - 1947

Brian Cox

Oldham lad. PhD at Manchester. Worked on the Higgs boson at CERN. Now the most famous physicist on television. Used to be in a band.

1968 - present

Culture

Emmeline Pankhurst

Born in Moss Side. Founded the WSPU in her parlour on Nelson Street. Hunger strikes. Cat and Mouse Act. Won women the vote. Her statue in St Peter's Square was the first of a woman in Manchester in over a century.

1858 - 1928

Culture

Rolls & Royce

They met at the Midland Hotel. The rest is engineering history.

1904

Culture

Vimto

Born in a herb shop on Granby Row. Now sold in over 60 countries.

1908

Sir Ian McKellen

Raised in Wigan. Gandalf, Magneto, and a tireless advocate for equality.

1939 - present

Sir Ben Kingsley

Krishna Pandit Bhanji. Manchester Grammar, De La Salle Salford, and an Oscar.

1943 - present

Christopher Eccleston

Salford. The first Doctor to sound northern. Refused to hide his accent.

1964 - present

Danny Boyle

Radcliffe. Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, and the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony. Turned down a knighthood.

1956 - present

Sarah Lancashire

Urmston. Happy Valley swept everything. Unmistakably northern.

1964 - present

Michelle Keegan

Stockport. Coronation Street to Netflix. Nation's sweetheart.

1987 - present

Holliday Grainger

Didsbury. Strike, The Capture. One of the finest of her generation.

1988 - present

Benedict Wong

Salford. Wong in the MCU. Representing Manchester on the global stage.

1971 - present

Suranne Jones

Chadderton. Karen McDonald. Doctor Foster. Gentleman Jack. Commanding every screen she's on.

1978 - present

Karl Pilkington

Sale. Round head, flat voice, reluctant world traveller. The funniest man on television, and he wasn't even trying.

1972 - present

In the Pipeline

Coming soon

These stories are being researched and written. Check back.

Buzzcocks

Formed in Bolton, 1976. Punk pioneers. Pete Shelley wrote "Ever Fallen in Love" and nothing else needed saying.

1976 - present

10cc

Stockport. Strawberry Studios. "I'm Not in Love" was nearly scrapped before it became one of the greatest records ever made.

1972 - present

The Hollies

Salford. Two lads from Ordsall who learned to sing like the Everly Brothers and became one of the greatest harmony groups Britain ever produced.

1962 - 2026

Elbow

Bury. Formed at Bury College. Mercury Prize winners. "One Day Like This" is basically Greater Manchester's national anthem.

1990 - present

M People

Born from the Hacienda. Mercury Prize winners. Two BRITs. Eleven million records. The M stands for Mike.

1990 - present

Music

Herman's Hermits

Davyhulme. Peter Noone was a teenager when they started. Massive in America. "No Milk Today" captured the end of the terraced-street era.

1964 - 1971 Coming soon