Book excerpt: By the time of Queen Victoria's death Cawnpore was a great industrial city, the 'Manchester of the East'. Yet only fifty years earlier the devastation of the Indian Mutiny had swept away both its pioneering families and their achievements. This second volume of Zoe Yalland's history traces the rapid development of the city in the latter part of the nineteenth century, concentrating on its non-official inhabitants. The author draws on previously unpublished letters, diaries and industrial records to create an understanding of the hardships and triumphs that went into the creation of the towering mill chimneys of Cawnpore.