MARCH 19TH, 2010
By ADMIN
Approximate Population: 143,096
Reading is a town in England, located at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, midway between London and Swindon off the M4 motorway. It is one of the contenders for the title of the largest town in England, and is the largest settlement in the Home Counties in terms of population. For ceremonial purposes it is in the county of Berkshire and has served as the county town since 1867. It is also home to one of England’s biggest music festivals.
Reading was an important national centre in the medieval period, as the site of an important monastery with strong royal connections, but suffered economic damage during the 17th century from which it took a long time to recover.
Today it is again an important commercial centre, with strong links to information technology and insurance. It is also a university town, with two universities and a large student population. Citizens of Reading are known as Redingensians.
Gas Suppliers Reading Berkshire
MARCH 19TH, 2010
By ADMIN
Approximate Population: 72,750
With increased competition from the towns of Bolton and Oldham, Salford’s cotton spinning industries faltered, and so its economy turned increasingly to other textiles and to the finishing trades, including rexine and silk dyeing, and fulling and bleaching, at a string of works in Salford. For centuries in Salford, textiles and related trades were the main source of employment.
Both Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels spent time in Salford, studying the plight of the British working class. In The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, Engels described Salford as “really one large working-class quarter …[a] very unhealthy, dirty and dilapidated district which, while other industries were almost always textile related is situated opposite the ‘Old Church’ of Manchester”.
Salford developed several civic institutions; in 1806, Chapel Street became the first street in the world to be lit by gas (supplied by Phillips and Lee’s cotton mill). In 1850, under the terms of the Museums Act 1845, the municipal borough council established the The Royal Museum & Public Library, said to have been the first unconditional free public library in England, preceding the Public Libraries Act 1850.
The effect on Salford of the Industrial Revolution has been described as “phenomenal”. The area expanded from a small market town into a major industrial metropolis; factories replaced cottage industries, and the population of rose from 12,000 in 1812 to 70,244 within 30 years. By the end of the 19th century it had increased to 220,000. Large-scale building of low quality Victorian terraced housing did not stop overcrowding, which itself lead to chronic social deprivation. The density of housing was as high as 80 homes per acre.
