The Manchester Regiment was a Jacobite unit raised during the 1745 Rebellion and the only significant number of English recruits willing to fight for Charles Edward Stuart in his attempt to regain the British throne for his father.

Manchester proved the exception; one suggestion was its lack of borough status or equivalent civic structure, which hampered the ability of government institutions to respond.

A member of the non-juring church, Deacon was also a Jacobite sympathiser, who wrote the final speeches for John Hall and William Paul, executed after the 1715 Rising.

One reason was the relatively low status of the captains, normally responsible for recruiting; social standing was needed to attract men, then money to equip and pay them in advance.

[11] O'Sullivan and others attributed the lack of enthusiasm to the absence of French regulars; while this undoubtedly played a part, it also reflected the post-1715 decline in English Jacobite support.

[12] Although some Scots and English observers dismissed the rank and file as "men of desperate fortunes", "common fellows" and "200 vagabonds", they represented a fairly typical cross-section of tradesmen, agricultural workers and those employed in the weaving industry.

[14] According to a witness, the regimental colours had the words "Liberty" and "Property" on one side, "Church" and "Country" on the other, and may have incorporated the St George's Cross, while recruits were initially given blue and white ribbons as an identifying badge.

[25] On 31 July 1746, Towneley was executed at Kennington Common, in South London, along with Blood, Dawson, Fletcher, Morgan, Syddall, Berwick, Chadwick, and Thomas Theodorus Deacon.

[30] Others were transported or pardoned in return for enlisting in the British Army; a few escaped, among them John Holker, who later used his knowledge of Manchester industrial technology to establish a business in France.