A little bit of our history down at the Co-op

2d token issued by the R.A.C.S., date unknown

It’s so easy to lose so much of our history.

Now the big things like the homes of the great and good, as well as the not so good but still very powerful and rich usually survive, as do their possessions.

In the same way those important papers of State, the letters and records of government from Roman tax records to Magana Carta and much else have come down to us.

Although I do have to concede sometimes it is a dam close thing and often it is down to accident rather than design that these things are still around to tell us something of the past.

Of course in the great sweep of history more rather than less has gone forever.

1£ Co-op book of stamps circa 1970

And amongst all that lost material are the overwhelming majority of everyday objects each with their own unique story.

I could have picked almost anything to explore these vanished objects but in the end choose the humble trading token and its modern equivalent the trading stamp.

It began with a sheet of those Green Shield Stamps posted on facebook which if you are of a certain age will bring back vivid memories of collecting them, then sticking them in books and eventually exchanging shed loads of them for a range of goods.

Co-op stamps, circa 1970

And into the game came the Co-op which had been operating its own reward system since its inception.

This was the dividend which gave every member a share of the stores profits.  All you needed to do was quote your “divi number” and the amount you spent would be recorded.

Talk to many people and they can instantly remember their family number and even quote it back.

Sadly I was never one of them and so for me the introduction of the divi stamp was to be welcomed.  So instead of holding up a line of shoppers down at the Well Hall Co-op opposite the Pleasaunce I could now vanish with the groceries secure in the knowledge that all was well with our divi reward.

A token issued by  Bolden Industrial Co-op, date uknown

“Dividend Stamps were introduced in 1965. 

It was an alternative to the traditional methods of paying the 'divi', and as a response to the adoption of trading stamps by other food retailers like Tesco who adopted the Green Shield stamps scheme. 

Some individual Co-operative societies operated their own stamp schemes but the CWS National scheme was in use from 1969.”*

Running alongside the number and then later the stamps were the old tokens, made of very thin metal.

"Coop members would go into their local society shops to buy the tokens for bread, milk, coal etc. The amount they spent would then be registered for their dividend payments.  The members would then give the token to the milkman, bread man or coal roundsman etc in return for the items they wanted."**

Co-op stamps, circa 1970

In our house some at least never made it back to the Co-op and instead were used as toys and even took the place of playing cards.


So for those who remember them and a lot more who are totally baffled by them here is a selection taken from my friend Lawrence’s blog* and the Bolden History site.*

They were an important part of many peoples' way of budgeting and marked a commitment to a co-operative way of life which I still think is the way forward.

Pictures; Co-op trading stamps, courtesy of Lawrence Beedle, and trading tokens from Boldon History

*Hardy Lane Scrapbook, http://hardylane.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/co-op-stamps.html

**Boldon History, http://www.boldonhistory.co.uk/Boldon-Colliery-ID11/The%20Co-op-IDI141

Help us restore a bit of Chorlton’s lost story …...

Many of you will be familiar with the large “History Wall” which for over a year fronted the building site on what had been Chorlton Swimming Baths on Manchester Road.

It was a special commission and told the story of the Baths and the surrounding area, describing the transition from fields and farms to the rows of shops and houses we know today.

They were produced by the historian Andrew Simpson and artist Peter Topping.

There were three panels super imposed on to a painting of the Baths by Peter.

Each panel described part of the area’s history.  

So, panel one focused on the opening of the Baths in 1929 and its changing role from a place just to swim and enjoy the pleasures of a Turkish Bath to its years as a Leisure Centre offering a range of sporting activities.

The remaining two panels explored the wider story of this bit of Chorlton, and in particular described the field network, and the coming of that other municipal enterprise which was Chorlton Library.

My favourite of the three is the second with those wonderful field names of Horse Field, Hulme Marsh, Oswald Field and Gilbury Marsh.

And now with the redevelopment almost compete and the first residents preparing to move in, the History Wall is seeking a new home.

That home is close by on the wall of another block of apartments placed at right angles to Manchester Road commanding a prime location opposite Unicorn the food co-op. 

Sadly, one of the panels was damaged during its removal from the construction site.

And so, we are now seeking funding to replace the lost panel, enabling all three to go back on display and providing plenty more people the opportunity to read the “History Wall” and learn about a bit of our lost history.

It is estimated the cost of replacing the damaged including delivery and fitting will be £359.

For further information contact events@chorltonarts.org

Location; Manchester Road

Pictures; Three panels ... The History Wall, and the site of the History Wall

Walking along the High Street in 1908, calling in for a pint and a packet of sweets

Walking down the south side of the High Street in 1909

So this is a walk down the southern side of the High Street in 1908 or 1909.

Now even I have to concede this might not be the most zippy story but at least this is a chance to put names to the buildings as we pass down from Court Yard to Elizabeth Terrace.

On the corner of the High Street where it meets Court Yard was Whistler & Worge who were builders.

They were relatively new comers having occupied the premise for just a few years.

Builders, sweet shops and of course the pub

Next to them was John Robert Howe, dairyman followed by Miss Annie Wise, confectioner and at 86 the Greyhound Public House run by Henry Elms who described himself variously as publican, licensed victualler and fruit grower.

Mr Elms had been born in 1844, and moved around Kent before settling in the Greyhound sometime before 1891.

In the yard at the rear of the pub was Thomas Tilling Ltd, jobmaster and at 88 Mellin & Co chemist, just leaving William Narbeth the draper at 92.

I could go on up the High Street or probe deeper behind the doors but I think I shall pretty much leave it there.

Miss Annie had only recently taken over from her widowed mother, and Mr Elms would die in 1910.

Picture; courtesy of Kristina Bedford.

*Eltham Through Time, Amberley, Publishing,  2013

Henry Hunt ………. “and the Manchester Monument to Perpetuate His Memory”

I am back with Henry “Orator” Hunt who the Chartist newspaper described as the “one of the most bold, most strenuous , most disinterested and most able advocates of LABOUR’S CAUSE, that the cause ever had to boast of”.*

He was scheduled to speak at the “Manchester Reform Meeting” in St Peter’s Fields in the August of 1819, which was broken up by the authorities, with much loss of life, hundreds of casualties and which was for ever afterwards known as Peterloo.

What I hadn’t known was that years later a monument was erected in the grounds of Every Street Chapel in Ancoats.

It is a story  I have written about already, but until today had never come across an image of the actual monument which was demolished in 1888, and so I was more than pleased when Jon Silver, reproduced this one, which according to the Northern Star, “represents a monument, now in the course of erection Manchester, in the burial ground of the Chapel, belonging to the Rev. Mr. Schofield, in Every Street …..raised by means  of a subscription amongst the working people of England, to perpetuate the name and fame” of Mr. Henry Hunt.**

Jon found the image on another blog site, which referenced the Northern Star, and so as you do I went back to the collection of Northern Star editions, and came across the one for August 20th 1842, which not only carried the story of the monument but a detailed report on the events of Peterloo, including the names of the Manchester Yeomanry who brutally attacked the peaceful demonstrators.

Some of the Yeomanry, 1819

The list complements that of those who are recorded as casualties on the day long with those who were charged into the crowd.***

Most are from Manchester and Salford, with a few drawn from Stretford, Pendleton and Eccles with two are listed as “Foreigners”.

And while there are a smattering of the “gentry” and the professions, most were shop keepers, small businessmen and labourers, including Savage who is described as a quack doctor”.

All of which points to that simple truth that those who cut and sabered were little different in their class origins and occupations than the majority of the demonstrators who were their victim.

Now I am well aware that all the published names will have been trawled over by the eminent and the interested long before I got to see them, but that won’t stop me spending hours doing the same.

Leaving me just to highlight the link to online collection of the Northern Star, which makes fascinating reading.****

Such is research and the fun of history.

Location; Manchester, 1819, and 1842

Pictures; the engraving of the Henry Hunt memorial, the Yeomanry list and the front page of the Northern Star, from the edition of the Northern Star, August 20th, 1842

*Henry Hunt and the Manchester Monument to Perpetuate His Memory
Henry Hunt, The Northern Star, August 20th, 1842

**Henry Hunt, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=henry+Hunt


***What did you do at Peterloo? https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2019/08/what-did-you-do-at-peterloo.html

****The Northern Star, https://ncse.ac.uk/index.html

A history of Chorlton in just 20 objects number 11 ....... the Lych Gate and Jubilee 1887

 A short series featuring objects which tell a story of Chorlton in just a paragraph and  a challenge for people to suggest some that are personal to their stories. They are in no particular order, and have been selected purely at random.

The Lych Gate on the green at the entrance to the old parish graveyard is an iconic image of Chorlton but dates only from the old Queen’s Jubilee in 1887.  It was paid for by the banker Cunliffe Brooks and is a very visible if now forgotten quarrel between those who favoured the new church on the corner of St Clements and Edge Lane, and the traditionalists who still worshipped on the site where the first chapel had been built in 1512.  I could have chosen anyone of a number of images of the gate but have chosen this one by Peter Topping, whose work is on display around Chorlton and can also be seen at https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

Pictures; © Peter Topping 2012

See here the villains of the piece …….. trolley buses and motor buses kill off the tram

Now I have no love for the trolley bus ……… and remember too many journeys where I felt ill soon after we boarded.

I think it was a combination of the quiet purr, the smell of disinfectant and seat fabric, topped off by the heat.

All of which makes me feel no compunction about citing them along with the motor bus as complicit in the killing off of the Corporation trams which for more than a half century dominated the way we travelled, in Manchester and London as well as Leeds, Newcastle and Liverpool and heaps of other places.

Here in Manchester as early as the 1920s plans were hatched to do away with the tram, and that plan took a pace during the 1930s, only slowed down by the Second World War.

The trolley bus required no rails which needed maintenance, and the bus had the flexibility that it could alter its routes unhindered by those rails or overhead cables.

I was born in the year that the last Manchester tram ran its last journey and while those in London lingered on a few more years I have no memory of being taken for a ride on one.

So, I can’t testify to how comfortable they were to travel in but judging by the public’s outburst of affection at their demise, and the continuing interest in these stately towers of transport I wish I had done at least one journey in one.

But perhaps I am surrendering to the same romantic tosh that is reserved for the steam railway locomotive.

I never tire of that smell of steam and warm oil but remember mother’s realistic comment about the effect of that plume of dirty smoke and hot cinders on a line of clean washing.

And there were plenty who put the blame for the awful traffic congestion in the wake of a new road scheme in 1938 at the foot of the humble Corporation tram.

The scheme which saw a one-way system around the city centre was dogged by traffic congestion, which both the Transport Committee and the Congestion Committee of the City Council put down to the tram car.

Sir William Davy, chairman of the Transport Committee argued that “The new scheme now appeared to be working fairly satisfactorily, but that there could be no doubt that matters would be considerably improved if they were in a position to dispense with the trams”.*

A position endorsed by Councillor Hugh Lee, chairman of the traffic Congestion Committee, and Mr. J Maxwell, Chief Constable, also emphasised the view "that most of the difficulties with which they were confronted could be traced to the tram cars, [which  included] the nuisance of a permanent tram track in the middle of the road and to the impracticability of establishing roundabouts in the streets where they would be useful because of the existence of the tram services.”

So, there you have it.  I am the first to acknowledge that the economic, and traffic considerations which doomed the tram were the main reasons for their demise, leaving the bus and the trolley bus as complicit in the departure of the tram from our streets.

Pictures; Manchester Corporation Trolley Bus, 1955, m48371, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Manchester Corporation Bus, 1961, Glossop, Manchester Corporation Tram, somewhere in the city, date unknown and Manchester Corporation Trolley Bus, 1961 Denton from the collection of Allan Brown

*The One-Way Route @Abolish the Trams’, the Manchester Guardian, June 15th, 1938

Turning back the hands of time ………… the ink pot

I have no idea of the age or origin of the carved bird’s head.

It has just always been part of my life, first as a child growing up in Well Hall, and then as an object which has travelled with me.

For years it sat on a bookshelf, was briefly hidden away in the cellar, and is now back on the desk in the study.

And its final resting place is where my parents intended it to be, when they gave it to me.

Just when that was I can’t remember, and a bit of me wonders if it was actually a present from my Uncle George, who would hunt out “interesting things” at jumble sales, and secondhand shops.

Wherever it came from I have to say it is indeed an “interesting thing”.

I think it is a unique piece of work, possibly owned by the person who carved it.

Nor is it just a decoration, because the head is hinged and when opened reveals a space for an ink pot, which suggests we are at a time beyond the ball point pen or the fountain pen.

And as the first mass produced fountain pens only date from the 1880s, I suspect our bird may predate that event, and come from that time when dip pens were still in use.

Of course, I have no way of knowing, and there lies the fun of it.

It may be that someone will be able to date it, and dispel my assertion that it was hand crafted, offering up the name of a firm or cottage industry which turned them out in their thousands.

We shall see.

Leaving me just to say that I did once use it for what it was intended for.

The ink came from a shop, and the dip pen from school, which would have been Samuel Pepys County Secondary Modern School, which  I attended from 1961 till 1966.

In the early 1960s, dip pens were still widely used in the school, as they had been in the Juniors I attended.

I may even have been one of the ink monitors who every morning and at the start of the afternoon, were tasked with filling the porcelain ink pots which sat in  recessed holes on each desk.

With them came blotting paper, and countless ink stains, from accidental spillages to deliberate acts of vandalism, which sometimes resulted  in inky walls, stained clothes and damaged textbooks.

Looking back, those who railed against the slow intrusion of the ball point pen, were not only attempting to hold back the future, but were condemning thousands of school children to blue fingers, the temptation of ink pellets, and a lot of grief from parents angry at the ink marks on shirts, ties and jumpers.

There was a brief moment when I thought about filling it again with some ink, but it lasted just a few seconds, and sat beside my dream of opening up the coal cellar and is as impossible as turning back the hands of time.*

And I was wrong, my Eagle ink pot is not home made but was indeed made by men of business, and this I know because David Millard told me so, but  not before he also admitted,

"I was a trusted ink monitor. Added water to powder, filled the inkwells and distributed them round the classroom in a special tray that looked as though it was meant for eggs. My god! Thanks for prompting that memory.

As for the inkwell it's Black Forest. They did bears, eagles, and a whole forest of animals. Benches, hat stands and inkwell holders were very popular. Yours is a good quality one from about 1880". 

Location; our house

Picture; the ink pot, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson


*Jimmy & David Ruffin - Turn Back the Hands of Time, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-knGjxcPms