Dr Dean Kirby
©Lindsay Kirby
Dr Dean Kirby is an author, historian, multi-award-winning former national newspaper journalist and creator of the Manchester History Club Substack.
Website: deankirby.co.uk
Substack: The Manchester History Club
Biography
Dr Dean Kirby is a multi-award-winning former national newspaper journalist, shortlisted in 2023 for an Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain's Social Evils. After completing a PhD in urban history in 2023, he left journalism to follow his passion for writing about the street-level, working-class history of Manchester – his home city.
Dean runs a professional genealogy business to help people from around the world to discover their Mancunian ancestors. He leads historic walking tours of Angel Meadow, based on his first book.
Dean has won or has been shortlisted for more than 20 awards including nominations for Scoop of the Year at the British Journalism Awards and the Paul Foot Award, and in 2018 he was shortlisted for Northern Writer of the Year at the Northern Soul Awards.
Dean writes the popular Manchester History Club Substack, named twice in 2025 as one of the Top 20 fastest growing history newsletters on the platform.
Books
THE SCUTTLERS: THE TRUE STORY OF MANCHESTER’S MOST FEARED GANGS will be published by HarperNorth in May 2027 and is available to pre-order now. The Scuttlers plunges readers into the dark street corners of Victorian Manchester, where gangs of ruthless street fighters - known as scuttlers - ruled with fear and violence in the late Victorian era. But these gang members did not fight for money. Brutalised by the industrialisation and urbanisation of the first modern city, the scuttlers found protection in the gangs, they fought for pride, to assert dominance against rivals, to defend their territories, and ultimately, to survive. Acclaimed author Dean Kirby tells the stories of the key scuttlers, and the desperate conditions that made them.
Dean’s first book, ANGEL MEADOW: VICTORIAN BRITAIN’S MOST SAVAGE SLUM was published by Pen & Sword in 2016.
