Stanley Houghton is largely remembered as the leading member of the Manchester school of playwrights that flourished in the years before World War I. His name is also connected with one play in particular: Hindle Wakes (1912). His greatest success during his brief lifetime, Hindle Wakes is his best play, but it is by no means the only one of merit.

William Stanley Houghton was born and brought up in the Manchester area, where most of his plays are set. His place of birth was Ashton-upon-Mersey, in Cheshire, and he was educated at several schools in the Manchester area: Bowdon College, Stockport Grammar School, Wilmslow Grammar School, and Manchester Grammar School. His education terminated before he reached sixteen, when he went to work in his father's cotton business in 1897. It was here, engaged in the selling of "grey cloth," that he spent almost all of his remaining years; and...