Museum of Science and Industry

With its new industrial status, Manchester became a magnet for immigration in the late eighteenth century. Barometer makers from northern Italy arrived to set up Manchester's first scientific instrument businesses. They included Dominic Bolongaro, Vittore Zanetti and Giovanni Ronchetti.

Arriving in 1841, John Benjamin Dancer was Manchester's most inventive instrument maker. He made a wide range of 'mathematical and philosophical instruments', as they were then known. James Joule was one of Dancer's customers. Joseph Casartelli bought the Ronchetti business in 1851, expanding its products to include all kinds of high-quality optical, surveying and engineering instruments. Other makers, including Flatters & Garnett and G. Cussons Ltd, specialised as educational suppliers.

In the mid-twentieth century, electrical and electronic instruments began to supersede manual instruments. Metropolitan-Vickers of Trafford Park made electron microscopes and mass spectrometers. Fielden Electronics, based in Wythenshawe, sold electronic process control instruments worldwide. Fielden alarms were even fitted to the famous Cunard liner, the QE2!