The Booth family .............. a new family for a New Chorlton

I have been trying to clear up a few little mysteries about the Booth family who lived here on Manchester Road during the time when the township went through its most dramatic transformation.

This was when we leapt from being a small rural community into a suburb of Manchester and those tall rows of terraced and semi detached properties in long roads went up catering for the middling people who worked in the city but still wanted to live on the edge of the countryside. The Booth family saw all of that and despite still being here in the early 1940s I lose them after The Great War.

I came across Aaron Booth some years ago when I added four of his photographs to the collection.  They were taken in the summer and winter of 1882 of Martledge which was that part of the township from the four banks down to the Library.

And that was pretty much it.  I knew he and his family lived at Sedge Lynn which was an impressive Victorian house on Manchester Road and that he was businessman.

Then as you do I became more curious.  They were one of those new families with money behind them and business interests in the city who had made their home here just as the housing boom of the 1880s was about to take off.

We can track the family across the city from 1861 and during the next twenty years they lived in a succession of comfortable addresses on the edges of the city finally moving to Sedge Lynn in the November of 1881.
Before that date the evidence trail is a little vague but I am fairly confident that Aaron married Emma in 1853 and their first child was born two years later followed by another ten children.

These were the years when the family firm prospered.  In 1861 his packing company employed four men and seven boys and over the next few decades his work force increased as did the number of premises.  So while in 1863 he was located on the corner of South Street* and Albert Square by the 1890s he was listed at “3 & 6 Hall street, 20 Oxford st, St Peter’s, 12 St Peter’s square and 1 & 47 Lower Mosley Street.”

And by 1911 at the whole corner of Oxford Street and Lower Mosley Street as well as Hall Street and Chepstow Street.  On his death in 1912 he left £1,827 in personal effects.

All of which suggests that they were a comfortably well of Victorian family.  Sedge Lane was a detached house which in 1881 stood in splendid isolation in what was pretty much open land.  To the rear were the Isles a mix of ponds, tiny streams and fields which stretched up to Longford Hall, and to the west and east they were bordered by farms. It had had eleven rooms as well as a bathroom and kitchen and commanded an annual rent of £28.

And I have no doubt that they participated in the life of the community.  Aaron was an amateur photographer and it is reasonable to suppose that the rest of the family filled their leisure time with all sorts.  The 1911 Kemp’s Almanac for Chorlton boasted a host of cultural organisations from operatic and drama societies to a range of sporting ones and the city with its theatres was less than 15 minutes away on the train.

The children either followed their father into the family business or took up that increasingly suitable occupation for young women of teaching.  All of the girls lived at home and so is tantalizing to speculate on whether they taught in the local school or one of the new academies or crammers which were opening up across Chorlton to cater for the young middle class.

In a grimmer way they were also typical of the period.  Emma was just 49 when she died, and two of the children died even younger at 21 and 22.  In all ten of the family are in Southern Cemetery.  They were buried there between 1881 and 1942 in two plots close to Nell Lane.

But two of the children are not there and so far have eluded me as has the identity of the Miss Booth who originally made available the four 1882 photographs.  And then there is the mystery of where they lived after the Great War.  Aaron died in 1912 but there is evidence that they were still there at Sedge Lynn a little later, but by 1919 or 1920 they had gone.  This much I can be confident of because by 1920 the new impressive Savoy cinema had opened on the site of Sedge Lynn.

In the way of things some of the mysteries will be solved.  Out there in a parish magazine or in the local press will be a reference to them and when I next get into Central Library there will be the electoral registers which may place all of the children in the years after 1928, so still a lot to go on then.  And on the next fine day I will take myself off to the cemetery.

Which just leaves one last loose end.  In May 1969 the company Shepley Booth & Associates Ltd was wound up in Birmingham.  I have no way of knowing the connection but I am sure there is one, as each of the male sons of Aaron and Emma were given Shepley as a second name, so one more mystery.

And here is an addition which has only just occurred to me and changes the date of when I thought this picture was taken. As late as 1894 what we now call Nicolas Road was a thin strip of land with trees, running back from where the old bit of Manchester Road joined Barlow Moor Road ad onto open land.  At this stage Oswald Road stopped just beyond Vincent Avenue.

By 1907 it is shown as a path and possibly an unmade road with houses roughly where the Health Centre is.

All of which changes the date of the picture which I had always assumed was 1882 which is the date on a similar print but there in the distance is what I think is Oswald Road School which was completed in 1908.  Just goes to show!

Pictures; Sedge Lynn the Lloyd collection, the work place of the Booth family on the corner of Oxford Street and Lower Mosley Street, circa 1900 from Goads Fire Insurance Maps, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and 47 Lower Mosley Street where the Booths were also listed in 1895, photograph by H W Beaumont 1964, Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council m02925

*now Southmill Street

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no.27 building boats beside the river

Now someone will put me right on this, and point out that it was a repair yard not a boat building yard, and may even dispute my use of "boat", but I don't care.

When I was growing up in Well Hall and wandering down to Woolwich I was always fascinated by the yard.

It comes from the collection of pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Location; Woolwich












Picture; Woolwich circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Adventures out of Peckham ........ the park, General Wolf and a song by Mr Como

The sun is shining and while it might not yet be hot enough to crack the paving stones, there is a promise of a fine day ahead of us.

Greenwich Park, 2017

And on days like this when you are ten, adventures just happen.

We had met up mid way between all our houses and immediately fell out about what to do.

None of us had much in the way of money so Red Rovers which offered unlimited travel across London for 2/6d was not going to happen and it became a matter of where we hadn’t been and how far it would take to get there.

All of us agreed that whatever we did it had to be out of Peckham and so for the second time in a week we headed off to Greenwich Park.

River, 2017

This was not entirely such a good idea as all three of us had been in the dog house for our last adventure which had involved us exploring the beach by the foot tunnel.

We could have chosen that sandy strip in front of the Naval College but instead opted for a spot down river by three beached barges, and that led to disaster as each of us sank up to our ankles in oozy, oily Thames mud.

That was terrifying enough, but having been rescued by a bargee who pulled all of us free, there was the long walk home caked in that mud and a series of almost identical interrogations about what had happened. To my eternal shame I blamed John and Jimmy.

But undaunted by such an ordeal we went back, although this time we kept to the park.

That long walk, 2017

Once through the gates, and having made the long walk past the water fountain to General Wolf, and faced with that steep slope we rolled down it.

Now that was fun but daft, given that the grass was newly cut and stuck to us, and then took ages to fall off while we played amongst the trees and explored the courtyard of the Royal Observatory.

Then, as the sun climbed higher in the sky we sat on the bench by General Wolf and like him we gazed out across park and the river to that other place, north of the water.

From General Wolf, 1978

Back then the river was still a working river and the tall blocks of flats and offices had yet to be built leaving a vague memory that we could see the Monument but sixty years separate me from that adventure and I dare say I have got that bit wrong.

But never underestimate the power of a sunny day and cut grass to throw you back into your childhood.  Or the delights of warm lemonade from a glass bottle that we shared.

We were the master of all we surveyed and to the bafflement of passersby recited a rhyme which contrived to name all the TV Westerns in a story.  I can no longer remember the details suffice to say,  that Rawhide, Bonanza, Laramie, Cheyanne and perhaps Have Gun Will Travel were all featured.

Looking up towards General Wolf

I guess it was inspired by the 1959 Perry Como song, Delaware, which had lines like, “What did Del-a-ware boy, what did Delaware, She wore a brand New Jersey”, going on to mention another 13 US States.

The challenge of both Mr Como’s song and our rhyme was to remember each line perfectly, a task I failed to do then and still can’t today.

Perhaps out there someone will remember the TV rhyme and offer it to me.

We shall see.

Location; Peckham and Greenwich

Pictures; Greenwich Park and the River, 2017 from the collection of Jillian Goldsmith, and looking out from General Wolf, and looking up to him, 1978 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A park bench, a Radio Station and a reggae singer ............. Piccadilly Gardens sometime in the 1970s

Now as soon as you post a picture of Piccadilly Gardens you can be confident there will be a deluge of comments.

Most favour the old layout and I have to say I am one of them.  In my case it is a mix of nostalgia and a preference for a more formal set of displays.

All of which I know in these cash strapped times is hard to maintain but the present expanse of grass flanked by the concrete slab does little for me.

We will all our own vivid memories.

One of my most vivid ones is walking through the gardens on a summer’s morning.

A few people had taken up a bench but they were there for just a few minutes before going on to work.  The air was still fresh, and the cool morning air had the promise of a hot day to follow.

Fast forward a few hours and the place would have been full of lunchtime visitors, grabbing an hour in the sun with a set of sandwiches and catching up on the gossip with friends.

All of that is old hat so instead I shall finish with the message on the back which was sent to John Dees at Piccadilly Radio.

It was one of two that he received from our sender who left no name but again was writing about John Holt the reggae singer.

Now I know from an earlier picture postcard that he was her favourite artist.

There is no date or postmark on the reverse of the car, but I think it will have been taken earlier perhaps in the 1960s.

Location; Piccadilly Gardens


Picture; Piccadilly Gardens, circa 1960s, from the collection of David Harrop

Faces with stories ………..

I am looking at the face of a young woman, and what makes the image very remarkable is that it sat at the bottom of the sea for nearly 160 years amongst the wreckage of S.S. Central America which sank in 1857 off the coast of South Carolina.

But not the Mona Lisa of the Deep, 2023

Now the story of the picture, the ship and the mystery woman are there on the internet, and  as ever I will not presume to lift other people’s research and writing*

Other than to say that the image is an example of a daguerreotype “which was made on a silver-plated copper plate, polished to a mirror finish, then sensitized by exposing the plate to the fumes of iodine or bromine. 

After being exposed to light through a lens, the image was developed by exposing the plate to the fumes of mercury until the direct positive image appeared, then fixed in a bath of sodium thiosulfate or ordinary salt”.**

In all 100 images were recovered but many were too degraded to offer up a face, but there are ten which are very clear.

And of the 10 this one has captured the imagination of many and has gained the name of the “Mona Lisa of the Deep”.  It was found a pile of coal on the sea bed.

Just who she was remains a mystery but my old school friend Richard Woods who sent over the image thinks “there is a possible resemblance to Ellen Lewis Herndon, who was the daughter of the captain of the SS Central America, although the image I have come across was taken at an older age”.

Astarte Syriaca, 1877

Who ever she was there is no escaping the vividness of the image, and that set me thinking of the heaps of photographs and paintings I have come across over the years, and the stories that sit behind the faces staring back at us.

And that in turn prompted me to think about a series of Pre Raphaelite paintings many of which are in the collection of Manchester City Art Gallery.

Of these the paintings Astarte Syriaca** and the Bower Meadow are two of my favourites. 

Both were painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and feature Jane Morris.  She was the wife of William Morris, the socialist and leading figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement.

William Morris remains one of those 19th century figures I am drawn to.  His book News from Nowhere, and his designs have long been part of our house.

But if I am honest I have always also been captivated by images of Jane Morris which might be a bit questionable given that she was born in 1839 and died just 35 years before I was born.

Not that being married stopped her from a romantic entanglement with Rossetti or later with the poet and political activist, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, who despite standing as a Tory and then a Liberal Parliamentary candidate was an anti-Imperialist, who campaigned for Irish independence, and challenged the motives of those who supported the Empire. 

Proserpina, 1876

Now I knew nothing of Jane’s romantic attachments when I first came across her in the City Art Gallery.  Nor that she had been born in what used to be called “humble circumstances”  or that her mother was illiterate and according to one source her own education had been limited, which “probably was destined to go into domestic service like her mother…… [but after her engagement to William Morris] …… she was privately educated to become a gentleman's wife. Her keen intelligence allowed her to recreate herself. 

She was a voracious reader who became proficient in French and Italian, and she became an accomplished pianist with a strong background in classical music. Her manners and speech became refined to an extent that contemporaries referred to her as ‘queenly.’ 

Later in life, she had no trouble moving in upper-class circles. She was the model for the heroine of the 1884 novel Miss Brown by Vernon Lee and may also have influenced George Bernard Shaw in creating the character of Eliza Doolittle in his play Pygmalion (1914) and the later film My Fair Lady (1964). She also became a skilled needlewoman, self-taught in ancient embroidery techniques, and later became renowned for her own embroideries.”**** 

The Meadow Bower, 1872

Although there is a suggestion that her work as an embroider with that of her sister never got the full recognition that it deserved when she worked in the firm of which William Morris was a partner.

And that pretty much is that, other than to say this has been one of those twisty turney stories which started off with a ship wreck and a mystery woman in a picture and by degrees led me to William Morris and heap of things about Jane Morris.

All of which confirms that observation that history is messy and can take you off in all sorts of directions, and along the way highlights the poverty and lost chances of so many in 19th century Britain and the lucky chance that allowed one young woman destined for domestic service to warp off in a totally different direction.

I would like to have included that stunning image of the young woman plucked from the sea, but as yet I do not have permission from the company who who hold the rights to the image to publish it.

Hence the substituted image Not the Mona Lisa

It is a shame but falls into that domain of copyright issues of which I am a staunch supporter.

That said there is perhaps a difference between a work produced by an individual and one acquired by a company even if they went to the cost of preserving it.

But if that permission does finally come through there may be a story about its preservation by the Paul Messier Studio.

We shall see.

And in the meantime there are plenty of images of the young woman out there posted by people who have secured permission or just don't care.

Another not the Mona Lisa of the Deep

Location; the 19th century

Pictures; , Astarte Syriaca, 1877, and Meadow Bower, 1872,Dante Gabriel Rossetti Manchester City Art Gallery, and Proserpina, 1876, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Tate Art Gallery 

* Doomed ship of gold’s ghostly picture gallery is plucked from the seabed, Dalya Alberge, The Guardian, February 27th, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/feb/27/doomed-ship-of-golds-ghostly-picture-gallery-is-plucked-from-the-seabed and Mona Lisa of the Deep, Professional Photographers of America, Sunken treasure, Amanda Arnold • November 2022 Issue, https://www.ppa.com/ppmag/articles/mona-lisa-of-the-deep

**Stuart Williams

***Astarte Syriaca, Manchester City Art Galley, https://manchesterartgallery.org/explore/title/?mag-object-163

****Jane Morris, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Morris

Passing the bridges ………

It will have been in 1979, and I guess it was sometime in the summer and on a whim, I took a trip on the River.

Now if you were born and grew up in southeast London paying to travel the Thames was a rare event, reserved for impressing a girlfriend.

On this day I will have been home from Manchester which had already been my adopted city for a decade, so reckon that pleasure cruise would have been a way of reuniting with my city.

Or it may have just been an excuse to try out a new camera.

Either way I used up two films, and still have the negatives which sat in the cellar for 40 years before I brought them out of the shadows.

 Looking at the direction of some of the images I will have taken the trip upriver from Greenwich past the Tower and on to Westminster.

Back then I didn’t record the exact destinations or who was with me, but it was a rewarding day and I still have heaps of pictures of that grimy London, which the tourists see but never bother “snapping”.

I did and many of those warehouses have now vanished or been converted into swish riverside apartments.

The waterfront has been “cleaned up” and new properties stand where once cranes unloaded diverse cargoes from pretty much everywhere.

Added to which since I sat on the benches of that boat new bridges cross the River and stepping back from the water are shedloads of gleaming glass and steel tower blocks.

All of that said these images instantly bring back that smell of the Thames and the noise of the river traffic.

And now it’s a full 45 years since the journey which has gone in a blink.

Location; The River

Pictures; wot I saw on a trip along the Thames, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A painting of the meadows, a mystery ……….. and stories yet to be told

This is Hawthorn Lane, which is part of the Old Road, which snaked through Chorlton from Hardy Lane, skirting the parish church before heading off east across the Meadows to Stretford.

We can’t be sure when it was painted, or whether it was an attempt to recreate a much earlier scene.

But what I do know, is that it is the work of Thomas Crowhurst, who was living at no. 15 St Clements Road from 1872 till 1892.

He describes himself variously as a “Teacher of Drawing” and “Artist, teacher and landscape painter”, and he was born in Cornwall in 1835.

His wife Ellen was also a teacher and they employed a Governess who was also a “Teacher of French and German”.

I can track them from 1866 when he was living in Cheetham Hill, but lose them after 1891, although there are hints to where they lived subsequently.

The painting was acquired by a friend about 4 years ago, and is important because it is only one of two dating from the 19th century which I have come come across.

There in the distance is St Clements Church, and I suspect there will be plenty of people who spend a bit of time trying to locate exactly where Mr. Crowhurst stood when he painted the scene.

Walking the lane today, there is one possible bend which might be the one shown, but of course the view across to the church has changed beyond recognition.

In the 19th century this was still meadow land, farmed specifically for the purpose of growing “spring grass”, but during the last century the area was subject to Corporation waste tipping, followed by dramatic landscaping by the wardens of the Mersey Valley which created pretty much what we see today.

So that makes Thomas Crowhurst’s painting so important.

But never one to shy away from a bit of family prying I went looking for the man and his family and there is a story ……….. indeed quite a few.

Back in 1871 he was living with his wife Ellen in Walnut Street, in Cheetham Hill, and gave his occupation as a “Clerk in a Wholesale Drapery House” and Ellen appears not to be employed.
Walnut Street is still there and consists of modest terraced houses, which are a contrast to the property they moved to when they settled in Chorlton.

Just where they worked as teachers is yet to be discovered, but they had a full house in St Clements Road.  Along with the two of them, there was a son, two boarders, two servants and Ms Bertha Rath the Governess.

What is equally intriguing is that one of the two boarders, was their niece, and a decade later she is listed as “adopted daughter”.

She was Dora Helen Cornish and a search of the census records reveals someone of that name, of the right age, and birthplace living with her mother in the south.

All of which betokens more stories.

And in the meantime, perhaps a walk down Hawthorn Lane, armed with his paintings and the task of comparing the scene today with that of when Mr. Crowhurst put paint to canvas.

Location; Hawthorn Lane

Picture; Hawthorn Lane, Thomas Crowhurst, date unknown