Scuttlers were members of neighbourhood-based youth gangs (known as scuttling gangs) formed in working class areas of Manchester, Salford, and the surrounding townships during the late 19th century. It is possible to draw parallels with the London street gangs of the 1890s, whose behaviour was labelled hooliganism. The social commentator Alexander Devine attributed the gang culture to lack of parental control, lack of discipline in schools, "base literature" and the monotony of life in Manchester's slums.

Gangs were formed throughout the slums of central Manchester, in the townships of Bradford, Gorton and Openshaw to the east and in Salford, to the west of the city. Gang conflicts erupted in Manchester in the early 1870s and went on sporadically for 30 years, declining in frequency and severity by the late 1890s.