Douglas Farnie was an author and pre-eminent historian of the Lancashire cotton industry, working in the History Department at the University of Manchester for over 30 years. Farnie was born in Salford and was the son of a tailor, Arthur Farnie, and Ethel Farnie. Douglas Farnie attended Salford Grammar School before joining the Intelligence Corps and serving overseas during the Second World War. After the war, he studied history at the University of Manchester and went on to study the textiles industry in Lancashire. His MA thesis research drew upon the files of over a thousand textile firms. This work became a crucial source for historians after the Public Record Office destroyed many of these original records in a bid to save space. In 1953 Farnie moved to South Africa, where he taught at the University of Natal in Durban. The Suez Crisis of 1956 prompted him to explore the history of the canal, publishing his work in his book 'East and West of Suez: the Suez Canal in history, 1854 to 1956.' The 1960s saw Farnie return to Manchester and research on the cotton industry as he took up the post of Lecturer at the University of Manchester. He built on his MA thesis to produce the book 'The English Cotton Industry and the World Market, 1815 to 1896' (1979), which explored the connections between Lancashire's textile towns and international markets such as India and China. Farnie's interests also included transport and wider industrial history, which led to his work on the history of the Manchester Ship Canal and the publication of another work, 'The Manchester Ship Canal and the Rise of the Port of Manchester, 1894-1975' in 1980. During this period Farnie was promoted firstly to Senior Lecturer and then Reader in History. Douglas Farnie retired in 1991, but remained professionally active. He involved himself in Manchester Metropolitan University's then new Centre for Business History, becoming a Visiting Professor in 1997 and fostering connections with American and Japanese researchers, amongst other international work. He embraced collaborative work and was known for the support he gave to his postgraduate students and fellow researchers around the world. Douglas Farnie died in 2008. His contributions and legacy were honoured with the publication of 'King cotton: a tribute to Douglas A. Farnie' in 2010.

Manchester University was the popular name used for the Victoria University of Manchester, constituted in 1904. Manchester University emerged from the federal Victoria University, which included colleges in Liverpool and Leeds alongside Owens College in Manchester. In 1900 the colleges of the Victoria University separated and in 1904 Owens College was reconstituted as the Victoria University of Manchester, though it was often known simply known as Manchester University, or Owens. In 2004 Manchester University, under its formal name the Victoria University of Manchester, combined with the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) to become known as The University of Manchester.