[6] The area may have fitted this description at the time of the Scandinavian invasion and settlement as it is surrounded by water on three sides by the rivers Irwell, Medlock and Corn Brook.

[11] Until the 18th century the area remained agricultural, and pictures from the time show an idyllic scene of crops, sunshine and country life.

The Industrial Revolution brought development to the area, and jobs to the poor, carrying coal from the 'starvationers' (very narrow canal boats), to be carted off along Deansgate.

[citation needed] In the Irish Poor Report of 1836 the Deputy Constable of the Township of Manchester, Joseph Sadler Thomas, found that the Irish were so fiercely neighbourly in Little Ireland (located on the other side of the River Medlock, just north of Hulme Ward) and the larger Irish area of Angel Meadow (north-east of Victoria Station, on the other side of central Manchester from Hulme) that: "if a legal execution of any kind is to be made, either for rent or debt, or for taxes, the officer who serves the process almost always applies to me for assistance to protect him; and, in affording that protection, my officers are often maltreated by brickbats and other missiles".

He made Little Ireland infamous throughout the world as a disastrous slum despite it being relatively short-lived (a little over 30 years) and other areas of Manchester having worse housing, poverty and disease.

"The cottages are old, dirty and of the smallest sort, the streets uneven, fallen into ruts and in part without drains or pavement; masses of refuse, offal and sickening filth lie among standing pools in all directions; the atmosphere is poisoned by the effluvia from these, and laden and darkened by the smoke of a dozen tall factory chimneys.

[17] Hulme was also described by Engels: "the more thickly built-up regions chiefly bad and approaching ruin, the less populous of more modern structure, but generally sunk in filth.

Municipal buildings were developed on Stretford Road, including the Town Hall, baths and public library, and Chorlton Union Workhouse on Leaf Street.

Among the 80,000 inhabitants, for example, of Hulme, the poorest and most neglected district of the city, is to be found only a tiny minority of persons of much education and refinement, these being with rare exceptions doctors, or ministers of the various religious denominations, and their wives"[23] In the early 20th century transport in Hulme was improved when the existing horse bus services were replaced by electric trams.

The Playhouse was later used as a BBC studio for 30 years (1955-1986) and for a short time opened as the Nia Centre (1991-1997) but closed due to financial problems.

[27] Recent research in the BBC written files archives has shown Hulme Hippodrome was hired as a venue in 1950-1955 on Sunday afternoons to record around 20 radio show titles, including Morecambe & Wise's first series, You're Only Young Once.

[26] Hulme had been heavily bombed during World War II and the majority of its housing was privately owned Victorian terraces, most of which were declared unfit and demolished during a rapid slum clearance policy, in Hulme there was resistance to building tower blocks and this led to the building of the mid-rise deck access flats of a "modular" living design.

[28] The modernist and brutalist architectural style of the period, as well as practicalities of speed and cost of construction led to building what became known as the "cities in the sky".

This consisted of curved rows of low-rise flats with deck access far above the streets, known as the Hulme Crescents, designed to house 13,000.

Design flaws and unreliable 'system build' construction methods, as well as the 1970s oil crisis meant that heating the poorly insulated homes became too expensive for their low income residents, and the crescents soon became notorious for being cold, damp and riddled with cockroaches and other vermin.

Crime and drug abuse became significant problems in Hulme, as police did not patrol the long, often dark decks, due to the fact that they were not officially considered streets.

The decks made muggings and burglary relatively easy, as any crime could be carried out in almost total privacy, with no hope for quick assistance from police below.

[29] The crescents became troublesome very shortly after their construction—within a decade, they were declared 'unfit for purpose', and several plans were drawn up that suggested various differing types of renovation and renewal for the blocks, including splitting the buildings into smaller, more manageable structures by removing sections.

[30][31] During the late 1980s Viraj Mendis, an asylum seeker from Sri Lanka, sought the right of sanctuary in the Church of the Ascension in Hulme and remained there until arrested in January 1989.

(For further information, see below, Religion; Church of England) The decision was made in the early 1990s to demolish Hulme's crescent blocks and replace them with low-rise flats and houses.

The total amount of public and private money spent on improving Hulme and neighbouring Moss Side between 1990 and 2002 has exceeded £400 million.

The counterculture that the area fostered toward the 1990s survived the redevelopment[39] and is evident in, for example, Hulme Community Garden Centre, a not-for-profit organisation underpinned by organic principles promoting, among other things, sustainability and urban gardening and food production,[40] and Work for Change, a large complex of cooperatives containing artists, theatre, and a variety of NGOs.

Hulme emerged in the Middle Ages as a township and chapelry, in the ecclesiastical parish of Manchester in the Salford Hundred in the historic county of Lancashire.

The total cost of building St Georges was £20,000 of which sum Parliament, through the Church Commissioners paid nearly £15000 the rest was found by private donors and charitable bodies.

The chemical works of Roberts, Dale & Co. in Cornbrook was wrecked on 22 June 1887 by a large explosion which began in a stove drying prussic acid.

In 1904, Royce and Charles Stewart Rolls created a business partnership after meeting at Manchester's Midland Hotel and started to build their own motor car (a relatively new invention).

The Rolls-Royce V-8 was designed in Hulme in 1905 to compete with the popular electric town cars which were quiet, easy to start and free of smells, smoke and vibration.

The Royce public house, and occasional venue for music and stand-up comedy had a distinctive ceramic historical 'mural' but was razed for the creation of modern flats, in the 1990s regeneration of Hulme.

In August 2007, "Temple 2000", a sculpture based on a Rolls-Royce radiator grille by George Wyllie RSA MBE was unveiled in Hulme Park on the site of the old Royce factory at Cooke Street off Stretford Road.

Poet and BBC Radio 4 presenter Lemn Sissay spent the first 17 years of his life in care, in Hulme and its surrounding areas.