The Salutation is one of Manchester’s most historic pubs. Whilst the invaluable knowledge of its many former landlords and custodians has likely gone undocumented, this page represents our on-going attempt to compile as much historical information about the pub as possible. We will update it as often as we can and welcome the contributions of the general public. If you have any information that you would like to share with us or disagree with anything that we have written, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

The Salutation pub (or as it was once known, The Salutation Tavern) opened on an indeterminate date the early nineteenth century. In referring to The Salutation, one source suggests that ‘licences for the public house can be traced back at least to 1828’. 

The pub is mentioned by name on an 1844 Ordnance Survey map of Hulme and is generally regarded as an eighteen-forties pub, but we can only speculate as to whether elements of the original building and business do indeed date back further to the 1820s.

The aforementioned source tells us that the pub’s current façade is not original, instead describing it as a 1904 addition. The ‘Hardy’s Crown Ales’ lettering, which is visible in an image of the pub taken in 1960, is still affixed to the front and side elevations. In photographs taken in 1972 and 1988 respectively, when the pub was ‘one of Tetley’s houses’, the lettering was concealed or removed.

Richard Davis’ 1988 photo of the pub was taken in Cavendish Halls of Residence and shows how the building and its surroundings have changed during the past thirty-five years. Where once the pub had greens to the front and rear, a patio to its left and a road (Higher Chatham Street) to its right, it now faces Cambridge Halls, with the SODA building to its right and rear, and the students’ union to its left.

Like many pubs, The Salutation has always been a convenient place for local residents to hold meetings. This was especially so during the nineteenth century. For instance, a building society is said to have been established in the pub by employees of ‘one of the district’s most influential employers’ at that time, Hugh Hornby Birley (the merchant behind Cambridge Street Cotton Mill or Cambridge New Mills, whose name has been brought into disrepute because of his actions during the Peterloo Massacre).  

A group known as ‘The Chorlton Poor Law Guardians’, who were part of the wider ‘Chorlton Poor Law Union’ in South Manchester, are said to have met in the pub in the mid-nineteenth century. The Chorlton Poor Law Union formed in 1837 after the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, which legally required parishes to take responsibility for poor people in their administrative areas and led to the building of hundreds of workhouses throughout England and Wales. The famed suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst was a member of the Board of Guardians, and the building that served as their offices is now a part of MMU’s portfolio: The Ormond Building on Cavendish Street.

In 1846, the celebrated novelist Charlotte Brontë travelled to Manchester with her father, Patrick Brontë, who was having a cataract operation in the city. She stayed at The Salutation and began writing her second novel, Jane Eyre, during her stay. Published under the pseudonym “Currer Bell” in 1847, the novel met with considerable criticism at the time, although the nineteenth century novelist William Makepeace Thackeray—to whom the second edition was dedicated—described it as 'The masterwork of a great genius'. The novel has since come to be regarded as a landmark work in British literature.

A blue plaque recognising Charlotte Brontë’s connection to The Salutation is mounted on the pub’s front elevation, to the right hand side of the front door, as one approaches it. A print of George Richmond’s 1850 portrait of Charlotte Brontë is on display in the pub.

The pub contains a number of framed images that tell the story of the pub’s surrounding area, as well as notable historical figures who were born in or associated with the area. One contains academic records from painter L. S. Lowry’s time studying at Manchester School of Art. Another contains a portrait of Len Johnson, the Clayton-born champion Middleweight boxer who was deprived of various titles due to British boxing’s colour bar in the early twentieth century. Johnson fought at Hulme Town Hall on at least one occasion, and ended his professional career in 1933, aged 30, with 96 wins from 135 fights. After his retirement and his work with the Civil Defence Rescue squad during the second world war, Johnson began engaging in humanitarian and political issues, attending the 1945 Pan African congress, which took place in Manchester.