Mornings at Manchester Jewish Museum …..

The Manchester Jewish Museum* is one of my favourite places and has been since it opened in 1984 and is a place I regularly write about.**

Almost soon after that opening I signed up to be a “Friend” and while the scheme has changed its name, I remain happy to support its work which as it says is “a registered charity (charity no. 1154353) and accredited museum (no. 179). 

We connect Jewish stories to the world and to our society, in order to explore both our differences and similarities, and to celebrate that which makes people unique and that which connects us all.

As well as preserving and presenting the history of Jewish Manchester, our programme helps us bring communities together to understand and share experiences. 

Delivering meaningful and sustainable engagement projects with our diverse communities. [which it does through] “schools activities educating future generations about Jewish history and traditions”.

All of which is done in the “Grade II* Listed Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, which holds a fascinating collection documenting Manchester’s rich and diverse Jewish heritage.

And that is how I first came across the Museum in the 1980s when I was researching and delivering history courses on Jewish Manchester to school students.

Back then the museum was very helpful in lending material I could use.

More recently following a £6 million redevelopment the museum now has a new purpose built gallery to display our collection, which is presented  in three themes, Journeys, Communities and Identities.

All the stories told on gallery are Jewish but by framing them within these universal themes they hopefully feel relevant to all of our audiences, Jewish and non-Jewish.

Our Journeys Gallery tells the story of the different motivations that brought Jewish people to Manchester: looking for opportunity, escaping hardship, poverty or persecution, and ‘landsleit’ – the move to join existing communities that reflect your own identity. 

From 18th Century pedlars to 20th Century refugees and Holocaust Survivors, the collection reflects each wave of Jewish migration into Manchester.

Our Journeys Gallery also includes a newly commissioned 4-screen immersive film produced by Heritage Interactive and directed by Dan Lusby. Heritage Interactive produced all the digital creative content in our gallery including this film, our sliding digital panels on our organisations wall, and the Jewish identity tablets in our Identities Gallery”. 

The museum hosts a whole variety of events from cultural to comic, along special exhibitions and has an interesting policy towards those who live in the area which encourages local residents to become “one of our Museum M8s and get free admission to the museum all year round for you and your family”.

I took a trip up from Chorlton last week and was not disappointed.

Location; Manchester Jewish Museum, Cheetham Hill Road

Pictures; Thursday at the museum, 2026 & 2025 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Manchester Jewish Museum, https://www.manchesterjewishmuseum.com/

**Manchester Jewish Museum, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Manchester%20Jewish%20Museum

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ................ nu 53 Silver Street, a bus station and some nasty history

Now this is Chorlton Street Bus Station in the 1960s and the image presents a bit of mystery, but more of that later.

Chorlton Street Bus Station, 1964

For now it is that gap between the office block and the ramp to the right of the picture and Chorlton Street which gave its name to the bus station which interests me.

That gap was the continuation of Silver Street.

You can still walk down Silver Street from Aytoun Street which ran on to David Street but my bit has vanished.

Back in the 1850s Silver Street and its neighbours were a warren of small closed courts leading off narrow alleys and filled with small back to back houses.

They were not perhaps the worst the city had to offer but they were neither the best.  In his case notes during the cholera outbreak of 1832, Dr Gaultier offers up a a vivid picture of the area. Chorlton Street he wrote “was tolerably clean and open but the vicinity crowded and populous.”*

Silver Street, 1849

But the home of the Bullock family was dire.

Mr and Mrs Bullock lived in one room with their two children and Mr Bullock’s mother.

The room was on the upper storey of a “filthy and crowded house” and was equally as “filthy.”

Even before they contracted cholera none were seen to be in good health and baby Martha aged eight months was “ricketty, and emaciated.”

In the course of just one week all of them died of cholera.

A month later our doctor was back in Silver Street attending Jane White who lived in a cellar and who died just days after contracting the disease.

Today Chorlton Street and Silver Street look far removed from the mass of courts, alleys and crowded houses of 1832 and that stretch of Silver Street occupied by Jane White is now underneath Chorlton Street Bus Station.

And here is the puzzle with that first picture, because read the histories of the bus station and they all agree that it was opened in 1950, redesigned in 1967 with the addition of the multi story car park and went through a major rebuild in 2002.

Major Street and the lost Silver Street, 1963

Now all of that is fine, but the caption on the picture offers up a date of 1964 which means that somebody is wrong.

I am confident someone will offer an explanation for the date of the rebuilt bus station and while I wait I suggest that those wishing to walk the past can just step back into the past can get a stab at it, because that vanished bit of Silver Street is now the entrance to a small car park between the back of Yates’ and the car park ramp, while the small road that runs along the bus station is the continuation of Major Street, but that is for another time.

Silver Street, 2016

But that is not quite all, because soon after I posted the story Andy Roberston sent me this picture of the corner of Silver Street where it joins Princess Street.

In may haste to complete the story I had failed to go looking for any more of Silver Street.  So the intrepid seeker after lost streets of Manchester can walk along another bit of my street, although it does end in a car park.

Location; Manchester

*The Origin and Progress of the Malignant Cholera in Manchester, Henry Gaulter M.D., 1833case notes no 5-8, page 162 and nu 71, page 178

Pictures; Chorlton Street Bus Station,  W. Higham, 1964, m56893, the ramp under construction 1963, W. Higham, m56982, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  Silver Street from Andy Robertson  2016, and detail of Silver Street 1849 from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1849, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Down at the Savoy Cinema in 1937 on Manchester Road watching Road to Glory

Now back in the summer of 1937 I could have had three cinemas to choose from here in Chorlton and of these the most impressive was the Savoy on Manchester Road which had opened in 1920 as the Picture House before being renamed the Savoy when it was leased to the Savoy Cinemas and later became the Gaumont.

And in the summer of 1937 for three days I could have gone and seen Road to Glory made the year before by Howard Hawks which told the story of trench life during the Great War through the lives of a French regiment and included as you would expect a tangled “love interest” between a nurse and two officers.

I am not sure it would have appealed but at least I know what was on offer and that is thanks to Peter McLoughlin who shared this film bill with me.

I doubt that there are many of these still knocking around.  After all they are the sort of thing which you pick and then discard but this one has survived it is a wonderful insight into a night at the “flicks.”

The obvious starting point are the films themselves and in time I will look them all up and in the process get something of an idea of what the cinema going public were being offered back then.

For modern audiences the frequency of the shows will also be a revelation.  

When I was growing up in the 1950s you got I think a week of the same show, but two decades earlier and programmes changed more regularly which I guess is both a recognition of the number of films being churned out but also that people went to the pictures more than once a week.

Not that this should be much of a surprise.  In an age before the telly the pictures offered a nights entertainment which included the film and a newsreel and was all done with style.

The old flea pits still existed but the big purpose built cinemas of the 1920s and more especially the 30’s gave you a sense of luxury which started with the uniformed doorman and continued with that plush auditorium which was light and bright and had a distinctive smell which I guess was a mix of those thick carpets and the floor polish and much later there was the smell of the hot dogs slowly cooking in a corner beyond the box office.

And the picture houses were warm which on a cold winter’s night was another attraction and on one of those dark nights they would be one of the only buildings which were lit up and acted a beacon as well as a promise of a good night ahead.

All of which brings me back to that film bill and the simple observation that you should always be careful about what you are going to throw away.

Pictures; film bill for the Savoy ABC, 1937 courtesy of Peter McLoughlin, and the Picture House later the Savoy, 1922, from the Lloyd Collection.

Walking Woolwich and Eltham in 1948 … no 3

Now I back with my copy of the Official Guide to Woolwich which was published by the council.

It includes Eltham and Plumstead, and was the “Fifth Edition”.

I have no idea when it was issued but looking at the images and some of the listings we must be sometime between 1948 and the early years of the next decade.

And today's offering come from the drive for better and affordable housing for all.

So that is it, and I shall continue till I run out of pictures.

Location; The Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich, circa 1948

Pictures; Woolwich and Mottingham from The Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich, circa 1948

Your Arts Festival wants you ……

To be more accurate you will want to be part of this year’s Chorlton Arts Festival.

It runs from May 8 to May 21st encompasses all the arts and is live across Chorlton in our church’s, bars, cafes, pubs, and community venues.

And because it is so good the team were out today in Chorlton, handing out programmes, and talking to people.

Added to which there was live music from local bands.

All very good on a day when the sun shone.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures;  out with  Chorlton Arts Festival, 2026 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Chorlton Arts Festival https://chorltonartsfestival.org/

**Chorlton Arts Festival stories, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Chorlton%20Arts%20Festival

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester .......... nu 6 Bootle Alley

Now you could be forgiven for missing Bootle Alley which was always a very poor second to Bootle Street which twists up from Deansgate to Mount Street directly opposite the back of Central Ref. 

Onward Buildings,  with the alley just to the north, 2014

Its main claim to fame is that it is home to the pub, Sir Ralph Abercromby and of course a police station.

Walk along it today and you will be plunged into one of those narrow thoroughfares which with just a little bit of imagination takes you back to the early 19th century.

And once running parallel was Bottle Alley which gave access to the dark and dismal courts of Munday Square and Royle’s Court which between the two accounted for nineteen back to back cottages.

Its northern side faced onto the old Quaker Burial ground and its southern side was occupied by nine properties one of which gave access to a closed court which didn’t even merit a name.

And for those emboldened by an evening in the Sir Ralp Abercromby there is just a hint of that long vanished alley in the space between 201 Deansgate and the neighbouring restaurant.  It advances no more than a few paces before an iron gate bars the way.

Bootle Alley, 1849

So insignificant is the alley today that I have never got round to taking its picture.

Which means you will have to be content with a picture of the southern end of Onward Buildings which is the bit at the corner with Bootle Street.

Looking at the maps the lane still existed in 1900, although by then the courts had vanished.

On the burial plot stood the warehouse and offices of Leech Brothers and Manchester Corporation’s Joiner’s Shops, while directly opposite all those buildings running from the alley to Bootle Street had been cleared in preparation for Onward Buildings.

And now it is being transformed again with those huge developments.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Onward Buildings 2014, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and detail of Bootle Alley, 1849 from the OS of Manchester & Salford, 1849, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

When we had a post office on Beech Road

Now I am never surprised at what turns up on eBay, especially when my old friend David Harrop is involved.

At Beech Road post office, 1914

So here with a little bit of our postal history is a reminder that once we had a post office on Beech Road.

During the 19^th century it moved around a bit but by the end of that century was at number 109 Beech Road.

And on October 17 1914 one parcel passed through the post office.

Post woman, circa 1916

I would love to know where it was going and for that matter that was to receive it, but all we have is this section of the parcel.

In time I will check out who the sub-post master was on that day, but I think it could have been Mr Robert Chorley who was doing the business of selling stamps and all things posty three years earlier in 1911. 

The shop was also a stationers and this was clearly the primary business as on both the census for 1911 and the in the street directory he describes himself as a “Stationer and Sub-Post Master” and he was no doubt helped by his wife, Hannah Elizabeth. 

The couple had been married for eight years and had taken over the post office sometime after 1901.

And that is about it for now.

Location Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; parcel post markings, 1914, and post woman, circa 1916, courtesy of David Harrop