Although Manchester was a small and not very populous market town at the beginning of the 18th century, it experienced a large increase in population both in the 19th and 20th centuries thanks to the growth of the cotton industry attracting labour from the countryside. With the urbanisation brought about by the Industrial Revolution, Manchester achieved to become the centre and the first industrialised city of the world in the First Globalisation Era, which was the late 19th century. However, following the Great Depression of the 1930s and with an increase in foreign competition, textile industry was in decline and thus there was an outmigration of labour from Manchester causing a continuous decline in population as well. Therefore, it can be argued that Manchester lost its centred role in the 20th century. In order to improve the economic situation, Manchester’s economy started to diversify into some other industries such as engineering, chemicals and electronics as well as services. However, it could not catch the requirements of the new era shaped by the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Revolution. Meanwhile, the Silicon Valley of the United States emerged as an important centre in the Second Globalisation Era, which was the 1990s. Although having lost its centred role in the second globalisation era, with the 21st century, Manchester has been re-emerging as an important point in the “Northern Powerhouse” as it has both the necessary infrastructure for Research and Development (R&D) and the innovative potential. The aim of this paper is to study the changing role of the Manchester city as an economic centre in the last three centuries, with an emphasis on the major changes taking place in the First and the Second Globalisation Eras. Since it is underlined that “Manchester’s history is more than just the story of a town, it is a contribution to the history of the modern world” (Kidd, 2006), it should be well understood in order to comprehend the present stage that the humankind, industrialisation and the capitalism reached at.