Certain changes were effected.  The school, no longer able to pay the high rent required by the Royal Institution, was removed to its present site in Brown Street, placed under the management of Mr. Hammersley, who had previously been a successful teacher at Nottingham, and freed from the meddling of incompetent authorities.  And now pupils anxiously crowd to receive instruction, and annually display practical evidence of the advantages they are enjoying.

The Manchester Mechanics’ Institution was one of the pioneers in the movement which led to the Great Exhibition.  In 1831, was held its first Polytechnic Exhibition for the purpose of showing the connexion between natural productions, science, and manufactures.  Subsequent Exhibitions were carried out with great effect as a means of instruction and education, and with such success as to pay off a heavy debt which had previously cramped the usefulness of the Institution.

There are also several other institutions of the same class, amongst others Salford, Ancoats, and Miles Platting Auxiliary Mechanics’ Institutes.

The Athenaeum constitutes a kind of literary club for the middle classes, who are provided with a good library and reading-room in a very handsome building.

The Manchester Library contains 10,000 volumes, the Manchester Subscription Library, established 1765, has the most extensive collection of books in the city.

A Concert Hall in Peter Street, exclusively used for the purposes indicated by its name, is supported by 600 subscribers at five guineas each.

The Chetham Society has been founded for the purpose of publishing ancient MSS. and scarce works connected with the history of Lancashire.

The Exchange has upwards of two thousand subscribers.

By way of helping the body as well as the mind, in 1846 the inhabitants of Manchester formed by subscription three public parks, called Queen’s Park, Peel’s Park, and Philip’s Park, in three different parts of the suburbs.

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The free grammar school was founded by Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter, in the early part of the sixteenth century.  It was originally founded for the purpose of furnishing simple and elementary instruction to the poor.  This design is sufficiently proved by the language of the foundation deed, which describes those sought to be benefited as persons who had been long in ignorance “on account of the poverty of their parents.”  The present income of the school is upwards of 5000 pounds a-year, leaving a considerable income over its expenditure, notwithstanding that the operations of the school have been extended by a decree of the Court of Chancery.  In the year 1833 the Court authorised the erection of a new building to include a residence for the master.  There are two schools, called the Higher and Lower.  The instructions given embrace the Greek and Latin, and the French, German, and other modern languages;