H. S. Jones is Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Manchester

• Introduction: Higher Learning and Civic Cultures of Knowledge: Manchester 1824–2024 – H. S. Jones‘Not in the college but city’: Networks of Higher Learning in Manchester before 1824 – Heather EllisAftershocks of Peterloo: Manchester Mechanics’ Institution and Mutual Improvement – Rachel JohnsonThe Owens College Extension of 1870–3: Rethinking the Origins of the Civic University Tradition in England – H. S. JonesLancashire Trade, University Work: The University of Manchester and the Regional Economy, c. 1930–39 – Chris GoddenServicing the State: Municipality and the Military Industrial Complex – Richard BrookForging the future with the white heat of the past? Legacies of ‘the Tech’, and the making of the Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, 1966–74 – Erin Beeston