Pub Sign Study – The Abel Heywood Manchester City Centre

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With pubs closing everywhere seeing a new bar spring up that seems instantly traditional and historic is very impressive. The Abel Heywood has an unusual and distinctive sign, in the form of a three dimensional bust of its namesake, Abel Heywood. Abel (1810-93) was one of Manchester’s most radical and important figures, dedicated to promoting cheap press books and newspapers accessible to the working man. The government imposed a harsh stamp duty tax to crush mass printing of politically motivated leaflets and radical protest booklets. Abel refused to pay the duty, and even served four months in prison for it. He had a highly successful cheap book-selling business in Oldham Street, close to the pub’s location. In the 1840’s Abel faced blasphemy charges over one of his publications and though found guilty, he was let off without sentencing. It later emerged that he had made a treacherous deal with the courts by revealing plans for a radical Chartist uprising in Bolton which the authorities successfully suppressed. This skin-saving betrayal was despite Abel being a Chartist himself. Abel later nevertheless published much Chartist and Liberal literature and used his growing profits from his publishing business and shop to fund defence funds for many Chartists facing legal proceedings. Abel was active in the campaign to get Manchester its own local corporation government and this helped get him an elected place as a Liberal on the recognized Corporation in 1843. He was to become the city Mayor in 1862-3 and later again in 1876-7. His greatest achievement was his passionate support for getting our fantastic Town Hall built. As a publisher, his greatest innovation was the production of cheap penny travel guides to Manchester and its surrounding areas of beauty, history and social interest, including Buxton and Southport, and these guides were sold on the new railway stations being built across Manchester. The pub is not his only monument, as the Bell in the Town Hall, Manchester’s nearest equivalent to London’s Big Ben is called The Great Abel in his honour. So, quite a radical, though not averse to betraying friends to saving himself, his overall legacy to the city is immense. Arthur Chappell