SOCIETY FOR CONSTITUTIONAL INFORMATION: Matthew Falkner Esq of Manchester proposed 6.6.1788 by Richard Sharp 2nded John Lodge Batley
There appear to have been two or three Manchester tradesmen called Matthew Falkner, the SCI memeber was certainly the bookseller of 6 Market Place from 1773, but in that year there was also a timber merchant of Brasen Nose St and a check & silk manufacturer of High St. One of them may have been the Matthew Falkner who married Ann Harrop 24.(9?).1764 at Manchester, both of Manchester by lic.The bookseller & stationer was active 27.12.1787 in the Manchester Society for the abolition of the Slave Trade. He subscribed 1790 to Ogden's poem Revolution. He published the Manchester Herald 31.3.1792 to 23.3.1793 (Thomas Walker, A Review &c 1794). In 1793 along with his partner William Birch he was prosecuted for libel for publishing the second part of Thomas Paine's Works (Nat Arch Ts 11/668 & Lancs Arch QSP/2318/1). They were declared bankrupt in 1793. So far I haven't found his subsequent career. Samuel Solomon's Guide to Health 1796 mentioned a Mr Matthew Falkner, of Styall nr Altringham Cheshire who was cured of an asthma by the Cordial Balm of Gilead. I'm currently unable to access British Book Trades Index (bbti.bham.ac.uk) which may have more information
Matthew Falkner
He died at Burnley, Lacashire 8 March 1824. For that date and an account of the 1794 destruction of his establishment by a Manchester church and king mob, see John Harland, Collectanea relating to Manchester (1867) 2:111. Sources say that Falkner then went into exile, but do not say where, alas.