In 1813, when John and Margaret Richardson arrived in Manchester, it was the world's first great industrial city. To contemporaries it was an almost frightening spectacle that attracted visitors from every nation on earth. As the years passed, the Richardsons' descendants became part of Disraeli's "two nations," the super rich and the working class, their lives marked by stoic endeavours, love affairs, grudges, feuds, tragedies and melodramas. Here we meet thrusting entrepreneurs, black sheep, clowns and heroines, hard-won prosperity and sudden misfortune. Author Alan Richardson qualified as a veterinary surgeon in 1963 and pursued a career in veterinary research. He has also taken a serious interest in certain aspects of Roman archaeology and has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers on Roman roads, military camps, forts, surveys and field systems. In 1985 he was awarded the Reginald Taylor Prize by the British Archaeological Association for his work on the Roman penetration of East Cheshire.