Scottish
Anecdotal evidence exists for Scottish migration to Manchester well before 1745, when Charles Edward Stuart's Jacobites marched through the city. Many of Manchester's machine making firms had their roots in emigrant Scottish engineers, from McConnel and Kennedy in the eighteenth century to Galloway and Bowman in the nineteenth.
Statistical data from the census tells us that the proportion of Scots-born people in the city of Manchester rises from 4000 (or 1.3%) in 1841 to a peak of 1.9% in 1871 and back down to 1.3% by 1911. The occupations of Scots-born adult males in 1851 were varied (largest first): drapers, labourers, engineers, gardeners, weavers, tailors, joiners, and tea dealers.
The following books and articles are held in the Manchester Room@City Library:
- Ian Whyte, 'Invisible Immigrants: The migration of Scots to Manchester in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries', Manchester Genealogist (Anglo-Scottish FHS) Vol 27 No. 4 (1991) (929.2 MA74)
- John H. Smith, 'The North-West: Magnet for Migrants 1750-1914' Manchester Genealogist (Anglo-Scottish FHS) Vol 28 No. 1 (Jan 1992)
- Dan Muir, 'Scots in England & Wales in 1851 Occupations', Manchester Genealogist (Anglo-Scottish FHS) Vol 36 No. 3 (2000)
- Scottish Genealogy: a digest of library sources, compiled by Margaret Mason, Anglo-Scottish Family History, 1988 (016 929341 Sc1)
In addition the Greater Manchester County Record Office (with Manchester Archives) holds:
- Manchester Presbytery and its Constituent Churches (ref GB127.M641), 1801-1972: Presbyterian church records for Manchester and the surrounding area, including school and orphanage records.
The web site of the Anglo-Scottish Family History Society is also useful.