King Fuad’s Visit to the Industrial and Educational Centres in Manchester in 1927

King Fuad paid his first state visit to Britain in 1927. Through this visit, British and Egyptian officials had high hopes to restore the friendliness between Egypt and Britain. It might lead to a general settlement of the reserved points since 1922 which prevented full harmony between Egypt and Britain after the unilateral Declaration of 28 February 1922. The visit had not only a political purpose, but also it had other intentions; the King visited a selection of Manchester educational and industrial centres, most of these industrial entities had interests in the Egyptian cotton industry.
Manchester was one of the centres of the commerce and of the manufacture of a product representing one of the important resources of Egypt, the Egyptian cotton. The study could contribute a more detailed understanding of the efforts that had been done by the British and the Egyptian Governments to conclude a treaty of friendship, and it could add an additional detail of the Egyptian foreign policy and its involvement in the economic and educational matters during the reign of King Fuad. The primary concern of this research is to investigate in detail the purpose of the royal visit to Britain in general and to Manchester in particular, to expose the visit program, the places which were visited by the King in Manchester, why these places were specifically selected for the royal visit, and what was the role of the Egyptian students in the University of Manchester during that visit.
This paper seeks to unearth data and stories specific to the visit mainly from the primary sources represented in the documents of Records of Victoria University of Manchester. These accounts are valuable as contemporary records of the event. It appears that these documents have not been previously consulted to tell the story of the Royal visit to Manchester.