David Chadwick

David Chadwick photographed children in Hulme in 1976, only a few years after the Crescents had been completed. These were among the first generation of families to live in the estate: Mancunians rehoused from clearance areas, alongside Irish, Jamaican and Asian families who helped make Hulme one of Manchester’s most mixed inner-city communities.

The photographs show children playing on the streets, walkways and open spaces of a development built as a vision of the future. Seen now, the images carry a deeper weight. The children photographed here were growing up in a place that was supposed to represent progress, yet within less than twenty years much of the Crescents would be demolished.

Chadwick’s photographs record that early moment before Hulme became fixed in public memory as a symbol of urban decline. They show a lived-in neighbourhood, full of young families and ordinary daily life.

This gallery forms part of David Chadwick’s represented work with BCA.