Over the last 25 years, Manchester and the surrounding region has moved away from the traditional core products of manufacturing and engineering into the service sector and creative industries. The Making of MOSI exhibition offers a fascinating glimpse into this change and shows just how much the city has developed in the recent past.
Visitors can trace the story of the last three decades through an array of key artefacts – many of them pieces which have been behind the scenes in the museum's stores for years. These include a Jacquard loom which once wove fibreglass used in Concorde and a replica electric chair used by an illusionist at Manchester's Belle Vue amusement park.
The exhibition traces a line from the mine and printworks closures of the 1980s, through the final demise of the textiles and engineering industries to the rise of Manchester as a culture and leisure capital. Visitors can also explore the rise of the ‘Madchester’ music scene in the 1990s.
For instance, on display are the original Haçienda loading bay doors through which some of Manchester’s most famous bands once loaded their kit before performing in the famous nightclub.
The story of the development of the museum itself and its collection is told through photographs and further artefacts from the MOSI collection. Items on show include the newly acquired scientific equipment from the pioneering Daresbury Laboratory and the museum’s most expensive purchase - a 1909 Crossley limousine car that cost £55,000.
But apart from its collections, the MOSI building is very much part of this story - the museum is based in original railway buildings which are part of Manchester’s industrial past.
MOSI first opened at its current site, the former Liverpool Road Station, on September 15 1983. The station was built in 1830 as part of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway and is the oldest surviving passenger railway station in the world.
Yet the idea for a museum dates back much earlier. In 1965, a funding partnership was set up between University of Manchester, UMIST and Manchester City Council to create a museum of science and industry. The Manchester Museum of Science and Technology first opened in 1969 at the former Oddfellows Hall on Grosvenor Street, Chorlton on Medlock, near the city centre.
After Liverpool Road Station closed in 1975, plans began to move the museum to this location. After significant investment from Greater Manchester Council, the Greater Manchester Museum of Science and Industry opened on the Liverpool Road site in 1983. Later this became The Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, and in 2007 the museum changed its name to MOSI.
The exhibition is a fascinating glimpse into the story of Manchester’s most-visited museum and the changes that have taken place in the city around it.
