Joy Division began in Salford in 1976. Guitarist Bernard Sumner (also known by the surnames Albrecht and Dicken) and bass player Peter Hook formed the band after attending one of the Sex Pistols gigs at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall in 1976. The day following the gig, Hook borrowed £35 from his mother and bought a bass guitar from Mazel Radio on London Road, Manchester. Sumner already had a guitar. The pair rehearsed in Sumner’s grandparents’ house in Salford, their instruments wired into a gramophone instead of an amplifier. Sumner and Hook formed their first band with schoolfriend Terry Mason on drums. They tried to persuade another schoolfriend, Martin Gresty, to join as vocalist. When he declined, the band placed an advert for a singer in the Manchester branch of Virgin Records. Ian Curtis responded to the advert and was hired without an audition. Sumner, Hook and Mason knew Curtis from attending gigs in Manchester and got on well with him. The band was billed as Stiff Kittens on flyers for their first gig at the Electric Circus in Collyhurst, Manchester. The band was supporting Buzzcocks, and guitarist Pete Shelley and Buzzcocks manager Richard Boon suggested the name. The band changed the name to Warsaw shortly before the gig on 29 May 1977. This was a reference to the David Bowie song ‘Warszawa’ on his album Low. Two days before the gig, Tony Tabac joined Warsaw as drummer, with Terry Mason taking on the role of band manager. A month later, Steve Brotherdale replaced Tabac as drummer. Brotherdale also played in the punk band The Panik. Warsaw recorded five demo tracks at Pennine Sound Studios in Oldham, Lancashire in July 1977. Soon after the sessions, the band fired Brotherdale as drummer. The following month, Warsaw placed an advert for a drummer in Jones’ music shop in Macclesfield. Stephen Morris responded and met up with Curtis at his home. Curtis played Morris the demo tracks and the pair talked about their musical interests and the punk scene in Manchester. Morris joined Warsaw at a rehearsal at the Abraham Moss community centre in Crumpsall, Manchester the following week. Warsaw recorded tracks for a debut EP, An Ideal for Living, at Pennine Sound Studios in December 1977. They played the Swinging Apple in Liverpool on New Year’s Eve 1977, their last gig as Warsaw. A London punk band already had the name Warsaw Pakt and so, to avoid confusion, Warsaw renamed themselves Joy Division. The name came from the novel House of Dolls. Their first gig under the Joy Division name was at Pip’s Disco, Manchester, on 25 January 1978. In March 1978, RCA Records approached Joy Division to record a new wave cover version of a Northern Soul classic, ‘Keep on Keepin’ On’, for a compilation album. In April 1978, Joy Division met TV news reporter and broadcaster Tony Wilson and band manager Rob Gretton at a band contest, the Stiff/Chiswick Challenge, held at Rafters nightclub, Manchester. Gretton was also the house DJ at the nightclub. He was impressed by the band’s performance and offered to be their manager. Wilson was also impressed and, after being challenged by Curtis about why he had not yet put Joy Division onto his music show ‘So It Goes’, promised that they would be the next band he would showcase. Joy Division did not record the cover version for RCA Records. Instead the band recorded an album for RCA at Arrow Studios, Manchester in May 1978. They were not happy with the final mix and asked to be released from the RCA contract. Their debut record was the self-released EP ‘An Ideal for Living’, in June 1978. Tony Wilson’s late night music programme ‘So It Goes’ was cancelled before Joy Division was able to perform on it. In September 1978, the band made its television debut performing ‘Shadowplay’ on ‘What’s On’, Wilson’s music segment in the evening news magazine programme Granada Reports. In October 1978, Joy Division recorded two tracks for the Factory Records double 7-inch EP ‘A Factory Sample’. The band recorded with producer Martin Hannett at Cargo Recording Studios, Rochdale, Lancashire. They contributed two tracks, ‘Digital’ and ‘Glass’, to the EP. Joy Division then joined Factory's roster, with Gretton becoming a partner in the label to represent Joy Division’s interests. On 27 December, during the drive home from a gig in London, Curtis suffered his first recognised severe epileptic seizure and was hospitalised. He recovered in time to record a session for BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel in January 1979. In April 1979, Joy Division recorded their debut album ‘Unknown Pleasures’ at Strawberry Studios, Stockport, with Hannett again on production. Factory Records released the album in June 1979. The band performed on ‘What’s On’ the following month and made their only national TV appearance on BBC 2’s ‘Something Else’ in September 1979. From October 1979, they joined Buzzcocks on their UK tour. This allowed the band members to quit their regular jobs and become full time musicians. Joy Division is known for not releasing album tracks as singles. The band’s debut single was the track ‘Transmission’, released in November 1979. In January 1980, Joy Division toured Europe. The gig at Kant Kino in Berlin inspired the track ‘Komakino’, which Factory later gave away as a 7-inch flexi-disk in June 1980. Before that, in March 1980 Joy Division recorded their second album, ‘Closer’, at Pink Floyd’s Britannia Row studio in London. Hannett was the record’s producer. The same month they released two tracks recorded as part of the ‘Closer’ sessions, ‘Atmosphere’ and ‘Dead Souls’, as an art package called ‘Licht und Blindheit’ through the independent French record label Sordide Sentimental. Curtis’s health deteriorated during the recording of ‘Closer’. Depressed about the restrictions his epilepsy placed on his ability to perform live, he made his first suicide attempt in April 1980. The band was due to tour the USA in May 1980, to promote ‘Closer’. Curtis’s death by suicide the evening before the band was due to fly over to the USA prevented the tour taking place. In June 1980, Factory Records released Joy Division’s final single, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. The following month, the label released ‘Closer’. Following Curtis’s death, the remaining members of Joy Division re-formed as New Order.

Anthony Howard Wilson, also known as Tony Wilson, was born at Hope Hospital, Salford, on 20 February 1950. He was the only child of Sydney Wilson (1917–1997), tobacconist, and his wife, Doris Emily, née Knupfer (1904–1975). His parents ran a chain of tobacconist shops, including the original shop in Salford, and moved to live in Marple, Cheshire, in 1955. Wilson attended De La Salle Catholic boys’ grammar school in Salford from 1961 to 1968. He read English at Jesus College, Cambridge, from 1968 to 1971. At Cambridge he was involved in student journalism and left-wing politics, including becoming the editor of Varsity, and participating in the Cambridge Union Society and in the Cambridge Sit Ins of 1968. On graduating from Jesus College, Wilson joined Independent Television News (ITN) as a trainee journalist. He left ITN in 1978 to join Granada Television in Manchester, where he became a reporter for the early evening magazine programme, Granada Reports. He worked for Granada Reports until the mid-1980s, returning for a second stint as a presenter in the early-2000s before being dismissed for swearing on air. On Granada Reports, Wilson was known for his active reports into activities including hang-gliding, abseiling and parachuting but, more significantly for his second career as a music entrepreneur, also for his presentation of a 10-minute arts and entertainment slot at the end of the Friday edition of Granada Reports. The popularity of the slot, What’s On, led to a 30-minute late night programme, So It Goes, in July 1976. The first series of So It Goes featured the Sex Pistols performing Anarchy in the UK in their television debut. Wilson had seen the band perform live at one of two gigs at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in June 1976 and had pushed for them to be on the show. The second series of So It Goes included performances by the Clash, the Jam, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. The performance by Iggy Pop during the third series of So It Goes caused it to be cancelled by Granada Television. Wilson continued to work as a presenter on Granada Reports, and went on to front other programmes for Granada, including The Other Side of Midnight, Flying Start, Fast Forward and Job Watch. Furthering his television career, in 1987, Wilson joined Channel 4 as the presenter of the late night discussion programme After Dark. Wilson was known up until this point as Tony Wilson, but the critical acclaim garnered by After Dark and its national profile encouraged him to adopt the name Anthony H Wilson professionally. Around the time that So It Goes was cancelled at the end of the 1970s, Wilson’s friend, the actor Alan Erasmus, suggested that Wilson joined him in co-managing a new band led by the guitarist Vini Reilly. The band eventually became known as Durutti Column. For Wilson, this was an opportunity to become more involved in the punk-inspired creative scene that was developing in Manchester. In April 1978, Wilson and Erasmus attended a battle of the bands style contest at the Manchester night club Rafters on Oxford Road. Here they encountered Joy Division and their manager Rob Gretton. It is widely acknowledged that Wilson’s support for Joy Division helped them to become the defining band of the post-punk era. From May to June 1978, Wilson and Erasmus hired a social club in Hulme, Manchester, known variously as The Russell Club and the Public Service Vehicle Club. Here they put on four gigs under the name The Factory, featuring bands they were either managing or interested in supporting. Around the time of the first gig, graphic design student Peter Saville approached Wilson about designing a poster for the gig. Wilson, Erasmus and Saville eventually became the first directors of Factory Records, later joined by Joy Division manager Rob Gretton and music producer Martin Hannett. Factory Records was established to enable the bands that Wilson was working with to release records without needing to sign to a major label. The first release, A Factory Sample, released in January 1979, featured four artists who had performed at The Factory: Cabaret Voltaire, the comedian John Dowie, Durutti Column, and Joy Division. Wilson paid for the pressing of the double 7 inch EP using money he inherited from his mother. Wilson’s position as a local news reported and television presenter, as well as his financial stability, set his position within Factory as the strategist and publicist. Erasmus carried out day-to-day management of the company from his flat on 86 Palatine Road (the original business address of Factory Records), and Saville developed the modernist aesthetic for the company. Wilson saw Factory as the basis for the creative regeneration of post-industrial Manchester. In 1981, Wilson began developing an idea to establish in Manchester a New York style night club. The Haçienda opened in a former yacht showroom on Whitworth Street, Manchester, on 21 May 1982. Costing almost five times the projected £70,000 conversion costs, the club operated at a loss throughout its existence, bolstered only by New Order’s commercial success. Despite this, Wilson and the Haçienda are recognised as having kick-started the regeneration of the Castlefield area of Manchester. Wilson became known as Mr Manchester during the 1980s, due to the success of New Order as the foremost act on Factory Records and Wilson’s ambitions for the cultural reinvention of Manchester. By the end of the 1980s, New Order were joined by the Happy Mondays as the biggest successes on Factory Records, ushering in Manchester’s Baggy era. Factory continued to expand its reach in Manchester with the establishment of Dry bar, co-owned with New Order, on Oldham Street, Manchester. As with his vision for the Haçienda, Wilson and Dry are credited with sparking the regeneration of what is now known as Manchester’s Northern Quarter. Wilson can be seen as being responsible for the collapse of Factory. He indulged the Happy Mondays in their excesses, allowing the recording of their fourth album to run massively over budget. He resisted, for as long as he could, the closure of the Haçienda despite its troubles with gang-related violence. He also pushed ahead with a new headquarters for Factory, located on Charles Street, Manchester, at a cost of £750,000. In November 1992, Factory declared bankruptcy with debts of £2.5 million. Wilson’s commitment to the radical policy of allowing artists on the Factory Records label to retain the intellectual property rights in their own recordings meant that potential investors in the company rapidly withdrew from negotiations. Factory only introduced formal contracts for artists in late 1988. Wilson set up a new label, Factory Too, as a subsidiary of Polygram/London Records, the label that acquired the New Order and Joy Division catalogue from Factory. This was a short-lived enterprise. Wilson was married to Lindsay Reade from 1977 to 1983, to Hilary Sherlock, with whom he had two children, Oliver and Isabel, from 1984 to 1987, and was in a long term relationship with Yvette Livesey from 1987 until his death in 2007. Wilson was diagnosed with kidney cancer in December 2006 and succumbed to the illness at the Christie Hospital, Withington, Manchester, on 10 August 2007. He was buried in the Southern cemetery, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, following a funeral service at St Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Manchester, on 20 August. His coffin was given the Factory catalogue number FAC 501.

Bernard Sumner was born in Salford in 1956. He is a singer, songwriter, musician and record producer, best known for being a founder member of the bands Joy Division and New Order. Sumner was inspired to form Joy Division with his childhood friend Peter Hook in 1976, after seeing the Sex Pistols perform at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall. Sumner was the guitarist, keyboard player and occasional vocalist with Joy Division until the death by suicide of singer Ian Curtis in May 1980. Following the end of Joy Division, Sumner and the other remaining band members Peter Hook and Stephen Morris formed the band New Order. Sumner became the singer in the band. In 1989, while New Order were on hiatus, Sumner formed the band Electronic with former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr. Sumner released three albums as a member of Electronic between 1991 and 1999. In 2009, following a second break for New Order, Sumner formed the band Bad Lieutenant with fellow New Order member and guitarist Phil Cunningham and guitarist and keyboard player Jake Evans. Sumner has recorded with other musicians including Primal Scream, The Chemical Brothers, 808 State and Sub Sub. He has produced remixes of other artists’ tracks, including A Certain Ratio and Technotronic. Sumner has also produced records for fellow Factory Records artists including Happy Mondays, 52nd Street and Section 25.

Deborah Curtis is a writer known for her autobiography "Touching from a Distance", about her marriage to Joy Division singer Ian Curtis. She was born Deborah Woodruff in 1957 and married Curtis in 1975. She was married to Curtis until his death by suicide in 1980. During the period of their marriage she was known as Debbie Curtis. Deborah Curtis also collaborated with the journalist Jon Savage on a publication that reproduced her late husband's handwritten lyrics and notebooks from the period he was in Joy Division. She now prefers to be known by her birth name Deborah Woodruff.