Manchester's Radical Mayor: Abel Heywood, The Man Who Built the Town Hall

Known in his day as the man who built the Town Hall, Abel Heywood was a leading Manchester publisher who entertained royalty at his home and twice became Mayor of Manchester. Yet before he found success his life was one of poverty and hardship, marked by a prison term in his pursuit of a free press. A campaigner for votes for all and social reform, Heywood attempted to enter Parliament twice, but his working-class origins and radical ideas proved an insurmountable obstacle. As councillor, a...