This interactive map was created for Henry Irving with sources collected as part of his PhD research into the political and academic reaction to economic controls in the decade after the Second World War. The map has been used in an attempt to recreate the spatial environment of the Victoria University of Manchester’s Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences as at c.1950. It does so to offer a visual insight into the department’s working conditions and to demonstrate how its relative isolation led to a collegiate, interdisciplinary, approach that combined economics, sociology and political science. Such an insight has been integral in better understanding the virulently anti-controls sentiments held by this important group of contemporary specialists and, in particular, the overlooked work of the Manchester economist Ely Devons.
The 1950s photographs are available as part of the Manchester Local Images Collection (copyright is held by the Manchester Library Services). The contemporary images are free to be used under this Creative Commons licence.
