The fascinating digital trip down memory lane across Manchester

'Our main interest is people enjoying these images and exploring them - learning things they didn't know and enjoying the city's past'

Thousands of fascinating snapshots of Manchester through the ages have gone on show for the first time - thanks in part to town hall photographers of their day.

The local image website for Manchester Libraries has been revamped after new funding and now boasts a treasure trove of more than 90,000 images. The new Manchester Image Archive - a digital trip down memory lane - includes as many as 30,000 photographs taken by Manchester Council's photography department of the eras.

Incredibly the council currently has around 265,000 negatives in storage from the department in total.

Photographers attached to different council departments - highways, parks and leisure - were dispatched to locations to take images of issues that needed reporting, like potholes or fallen trees. But what their cameras clicked resulted in images defining communities and their people, places and practices.

Put together, the archive images offer an unprecedented and nostalgic glimpse of bygone times in Manchester we can all now enjoy for free.

Achieves manager Alison Gill said photos from the town hall's photographers of the day account for around 20 to 30 per cent of the local images collection.

Photos from the Manchester Amateur Photographers Society, which operated roughly between 1890 and 1950, also feature.

"The town hall photographers were sent out to capture physical problems around the infrastructure of the city," said Alison. "The images they took would go back to the corporation to decide whose responsibility it was to put it right.

"Negatives and prints were organised into different departments of the council. But as time went on, they started to photograph VIP occasions and civic events.

"It really is an amazing collection. It is almost a step-by-step history of Manchester. I would say almost every street in Manchester is captured, warts and all.

"The purpose of the photographers was to have an accurate picture of the work that needed doing, but we end up getting some beautiful images among the potholes and the fallen trees. They are meant to be functional, but many are quite beautiful.

"The photographs appeal to people on so many levels. It is a functional collection, but beneath there are everyday images of cars and clothes, signs and roads."

The end result is a rich photographic record of the city, captured in time and now preserved for posterity.

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Manchester City FC's former Maine Road stadium is captured below a stunning sunset during its demolition.

A man plays lawn bowls in Platt Fields Park, Fallowfield, and there are images of Manchester's Mardi Gra in the 1980s and 90s on Sackville Street in the Village. Even USSR cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's famous trip to Manchester in 1961 is shown - three months after he completed an orbit of Earth to become the first human in Space.

But it is the Mancunian faces and places that will perhaps provoke the most interest.

Kennet House - the 1930s Art Deco-inspired estate in north Manchester - is captured in all its sleek white lines, and there's a council workman with a lawnmower pictured in Blackley, complete with waistcoat and cigarette in mouth - circa 1960.

A man is pictured bent double painting between stone cobbles outside his house in an image captured between 1960 and 1970. A hand written note on the back of the photo - now digitised - reads: "Many tenants try to personalise their surroundings by re-leading their doorsteps and cobbles - a custom surviving from the old by-law streets."

Some 40,000 are from the Manchester Amateur Photographers Society, with many of the images, donations, gifts or deposits.

Manchester City Council's local images website has been running since around 2004, with digitisation taking place over time. Rooms emptied as part of the renovation of Manchester Town Hall saw images and negatives unearthed and brought over to the council's archives department for keeping in strong rooms.

Over time, images were scanned, catalogued and uploaded in bulk to the website.

"We want to free up access to the collection for all to use," said Alison. "We are not a commercial organisation. It is free to the public - our main interest is having people enjoy these images and exploring them - learning things that they did not know and enjoying the city's past.

"Whether it is schools using them or community groups or families enjoying them - that's the idea."

Manchester Libraries has been able to develop the new Manchester Image Archive and to hire a project manager to oversee it thanks to a £100,000 funding award from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

An additional 12,000 images catalogued by volunteers have been added through partnership work with The Museum Platform. The improved system makes it easier than ever to search and discover images of local landmarks, people and events.

Advanced search tools and high-quality image downloads are available, together with interactive features to allow users to create their own library of images.

Councillor John Hacking, the council's executive member for skills, employment and leisure said: "We have been developing this new collection since May last year and have partnered with a great team at The Museum Platform to help us build this new resource.

"We are thrilled to be able to offer a bigger and better website for all to use and thanks to the hard work of the volunteers and the support of the National Lottery funding we have been able to create a resource that will benefit generations to come."

Explore the Manchester Image Archive website here.