Manchester and the greater area were expanded in the context of the buoyant textile industry in 19th Century. A number of important institutions were founded, such as the Manchester Athenaeum, Belle Vue Zoo and the Corn Exchange. There were developments in the fields of science and education as well. The Mechanics Institute, later UMIST, was established in 1824, with John Dalton, the father of atomic theory, among its founders. The textile merchant John Owens also founded Owens College, which later became the Victoria University of Manchester, and a royal charter was conferred upon it in 1880. In 1838, Manchester was incorporated as a borough, which covered the present-day areas of Beswick, Chorlton, Ardwick and Cheetham, and in 1853 it was incorporated as a city. The city’s diocese of the Church of England was established as well.

Manchester had always been a haven for political radicals. Social philosopher Friedrich Engels lived in the city, and in the 1840s completed his famous Condition of the Working Class in England, the bible of the working class. He also met with Karl Marx in Chetham’s Library. Robert Angus Smith, the chemist and environmentalist, who coined the term ‘acid rain’, started working at the Royal Manchester Institution in 1841.

The American Civil War resulted in a cotton famine, which led to the city’s economic decline toward the end of the century because Manchester relied on the port of Liverpool for its cotton shipments. In 1894, construction of the Manchester Ship Canal was completed, giving the city direct access to the sea and allowing it to directly export products. As a result, it became the third busiest port in Britain, even at 64 kilometres inland.

In 1885, Manchester expanded into Bradford, Harpurhey and Rusholme. In the years that followed, it continued to expand into neighboring areas until the early 20th Century, including the annexed territories of Heaton Park, West Gorton, Clayton, Newton Heath and Blackley.