Under pressure: Manchester's hydraulic power network

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Hidden around Manchester are the abandoned remnants of a vast Victorian energy project: a 35-mile hydraulic power network, which used the power of water to drive thousands of machines around the city.

Between 1894 and 1972, businesses across Manchester powered machinery using high-pressure water supplied by a network of pipes hidden beneath the streets. The water lifted elevators in grand hotels, wound the clock and powered the vacuum cleaners in the Town Hall, drove cranes in warehouses, and ran hydraulic presses to squeeze cotton cloth into tight bundles for shipping around the world. But how did Manchester, a city renowned for its steam engines and smoky chimneys, turn to this cleaner energy source, and what happened to this vast engineering project?

Map of a Hydraulic Power Network in Manchester c.1900 — Map of part of the hydraulic power network c.1900. On the left is Liverpool Road Station, now the Science and Industry Museum. Liverpool Road generated its own hydraulic power at the time, but joined the network in the 1920s.

Warehouse City

Tobacco boxes at a Manchester goods depot, 1934 — Trucks being loaded at Liverpool Road Station in 1934, in the building now known as the Power Hall, part of the Science and Industry Museum. A crane, probably hydraulic, can be seen in the background.

In the 1880s, Manchester was booming. Across the city centre, warehouses stored, packed and shipped all manner of goods. Offloading these cargos with cranes and hoisting goods around warehouses needed power. Long before electricity supplies, much of this power was supplied by small steam or gas engines, either directly or by pumping water to power hydraulic machines. But running your own engine to power a hoist was inconvenient. Wouldn't it be so much easier to get power from a tap?

The supply of hydraulic power would create a large number of small industries. They placed in the hands of the people a power which it was the easiest thing in the world to use, for it might be applied by the simple turning of a tap.

Alderman Harwood, quoted in Bradford Daily Telegraph (4 January 1894)

Sensing the rich profits to be made from Manchester's demand for power, investors proposed building a hydraulic power network, like those built in Hull (1877) and London (1882). However, Manchester's leaders objected to these proposals as an interference in the powers and prerogatives of Manchester City Council, which was already building new water supply networks and sewer systems. If Manchester was to have a hydraulic power network, then Manchester would build its own.

In 1891 an Act of Parliament allowed Manchester Corporation to build a hydraulic power network. Thick iron pipes were laid beneath the streets and a pumping station was built at Gloucester Street. In February 1894, the hydraulic power was switched on for the first customers, a hotel and business on Piccadilly. By the end of 1894 there were 10 miles of hydraulic mains connected to 270 machines. Manchester's hydraulic network had arrived.

Hydraulic power stations

Black and white photo of an early 20th century hydraulic power pumping station — Water Street Hydraulic Power Station, early 1970s. By this time, Water Street was the last of Manchester’s hydraulic power stations.

As demand for hydraulic power grew, Gloucester Street was joined by two new power stations, at Pott Street (1899) and Water Street (1909).

Each hydraulic power station had a set of pumping engines, which were connected to hydraulic accumulators that fed the hydraulic network. Each accumulator was basically a large cylinder—a piston—with an enormous weight on top. By pumping water into the piston, the weight could be raised to the top of the accumulator. This great weight pressing down kept the water in the network pressurised to 1,000lbs per square inch and ready to use.

Cross section of a cast iron pipe on display in a museum — Manchester Corporation hydraulic supply pipe. The thick walls of the pipe were necessary to contain the enormous pressure of the water.

Miles of thick pipes connected the power stations to customers. Users simply had to turn a tap to let high pressure water flow from the network to drive their machinery. As customers drew hydraulic power from the network, the giant weights in the power station accumulator fell, and more water had to be pumped in to maintain the pressure.

The pumping engines were steam powered at first, but converted to electricity in the 1920s. The water for the system was pumped from boreholes drilled hundreds of feet below each power station and stored in giant tanks until it was needed. Some staff used the tanks as a swimming pool in summer and the tank at Water Street was stocked with fish.

Black and white photo of pumping engines in a pumping station — Water Street Power Station's hydraulic pumping engines, early 1970s. These engines supplied high-pressure water to Manchester's hydraulic network.

What could you do with hydraulic power?

A cast iron hydraulic hoist from the late 1800s on display in a museum — Asquith Hydraulic Hoist, originally mounted on the wall of a Manchester textile warehouse.

The high-pressure water from the hydraulic mains drove a surprising range of machines. This included over a thousand hoists, jiggers and cranes connected for moving goods. A thousand hydraulic presses were on the mains, most for compressing bales of cotton cloth.

In this era of limited safety measures, accidents with hydraulic machinery were not uncommon. People could become entangled with ropes and pulled in by hydraulic capstans, or crushed by hydraulic machinery. A weak bolt, fatigue or a casting flaw in the metal of a pressurised machine could cause a crack or burst, with disastrous consequences for people nearby, as high pressure water jets or even pieces of metal flew around.

The hydraulic mains pipes under the roads also occasionally burst, leaving craters in streets, flooding the cellars of nearby buildings, and bringing hydraulic machinery to a standstill. In December 1929, for instance, a burst on Great Bridgewater Street sent a jet of water 100 feet into the air, lifted pavement slabs, and left a 6-foot hole in the road. Dozens of workers in a nearby warehouse had to sweep the water towards a pit with brooms, whilst their colleagues rescued a valuable shipment of silk fancy goods from the flood.

Not all the uses were industrial. Some of the grand buildings around Manchester, such as the Midland Hotel, ran vacuum cleaners off the hydraulic mains. Around 200 passenger elevators in the city used hydraulic power to raise lifts. To descend, a valve was opened to let water down the drain and the lift dropped. At the Palace Theatre on Oxford Road, a hydraulic hoist lifted the safety curtain, and in the Town Hall the clock was wound hydraulically.

The great increase in the height of buildings has rendered hydraulic lifts a prime necessity of the age. Gentlemen of bulky proportions naturally object to climbing hundreds of stairs.

Manchester Times (12 January 1894)

Water Pageants at The Hippodrome

'"The Sands of Dee" at the Manchester Hippodrome is one of the most sensational real water episodes ever produced. The waves are tremendous.'

— Leigh Chronicle, 22 January 1909

One of the most unusual users of hydraulic power was the Hippodrome on Oxford Road. Opened in 1904, the Hippodrome was one of Manchester's grandest theatres and seated 3,000 people. In front of the stage was an enormous circular arena with a false floor. This could be lowered by a hydraulic ram into a tank of water containing 70,000 gallons of water.

The tank was used to stage spectacular water shows featuring floods, waves and brightly lit fountains. Taxis were kept waiting outside to ferry guests home at the management's expense if they got soaked, which they often did.

A large warehouse could use a million gallons of water a month, but for customers, hydraulic power was convenient and cheap because they no longer had to run their own engines. This reduced smoke pollution, albeit not that much—Manchester's air quality remained terrible.

The hydraulic network grew as customer numbers increased, to 25 miles by 1913 and 33 miles in 1925. It continued to grow even after customer numbers had peaked, reaching about 35 miles by 1948.

On the map below you can find out more about what some of these customers used hydraulic power for.

The presence of a large market for hydraulic machinery was probably a boost for local engineering companies too. Several Manchester firms developed expertise in making hydraulic engines, such as Mather & Platt, who developed innovative types of pump, and John Shaw & Sons of Salford, whose hydraulic presses were exported around the world.

Liverpool Road Goods Station

An original sign from the 1830 Warehouse that warns of hydraulic equipment being used — Hydraulic notice on 1830 Warehouse at the Science and Industry Museum

'We used to load the wagons and the guy would get in the wagon, you'd bring it round slowly and he'd start to swing the case which was probably 5-ton and then he'd shout "lower" and then I'd push the handle forward and it would drop into the wagon... before they went to Albert Dock or Edge Hill to go on ships.'

— Hydraulic crane operator Edward Partington

Liverpool Road Goods Station, now the Science and Industry Museum site, was a major hydraulic power user. Hydraulic hoists replaced steam-driven cranes from the 1860s. At first the station generated its own hydraulic power, but joined the hydraulic network in 1925. There were around fifty hydraulic machines here, mostly cranes and jiggers to move cargo arriving and leaving the warehouses, and capstans used to help people move railway wagons by hand.

A bell-shaped item of early 20th century industrial machinery — Hydraulic capstan from Liverpool Road Station. Railway workers used ropes wrapped around the capstans to shunt railway wagons around the station.

Turning the taps off

Black and white photo of hydraulic machinery being dismantled — Water Street Power Station hydraulic pump being dismantled, 1970s.

At its peak, in the late 1920s, the system had nearly 600 customers with almost 3,000 hydraulic machines, drawing over 350 million gallons of water a year—enough to fill over 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools. However, the effects of the Great Depression caused many customers to disconnect in the following years and never come back.

Competition from electricity was also increasing and, as demand for water dropped, Pott Street power station was decommissioned in 1939. Customers dwindled further as Manchester's industries declined after the Second World War: 330 customers in 1952, to 240 in 1962, to 76 customers in 1972. Finally in December of 1972, the Chairman of the Waterworks Committee ceremonially stopped the pumps at Water Street, the last working power station, and the water stopped.

Early 20th century industrial machinery on display at a museum. — One of the hydraulic pumping engines from Water Street Power Station reassembled at the museum, 2017.

Today, little remains of this vast work of engineering, but you can still spot remnants, if you know where to look. Here at the Science and Industry Museum, you can still see safety notices for hydraulic capstans, as well as old hydraulic hoists in the rafters of our other buildings. Our collection includes an original power station pumping engine, sections of thick hydraulic mains pipe and several hydraulic machines. These are mostly in the Power Hall, which is currently closed for renovations. When it reopens in 2025, visitors will not only be able to see hydraulic power artefacts, but a working example of a modern energy system that also relies on water, albeit in a rather different way. As part of our sector-leading decarbonisation project, Power Hall will be heated by water source heat pumps, drawing water from boreholes drilled into the same aquifer that once fed Manchester's hydraulic network.

Elsewhere in the city, the former Water Street Hydraulic Power Station is now the People's History Museum. Northern Quarter bars display hydraulic machines as curios in their trendy interiors. Most intriguingly, around the city centre, on apartments and offices converted from old warehouses, you can still spot disused hydraulic cranes, waiting to unload cargos that will never arrive.