On St Johns Street with a story that crosses continents

Now the way a story comes to light can be as fascinating and revealing as the actual story. 

St John Street showing the home of the Painter family, 2008

So it was when Julie picked up on a post about St Johns Street with the comment that “My great grandfather was David Arthur Keneally. I think it was actually 19 he lived at.” 

And that was how it began.

St John Street dates back to the late 18th century and remains a street of elegant houses which by the late 19th century had become the consulting rooms of fashionable doctors, surgeons and eye specialists.

A few were residents but most lived elsewhere.

Their rooms were on the ground floor and the remaining parts of the houses were let out to a mix of tenants who made their living from a range of occupations from service industries to clerical and industrial enterprises and quite a few working for the nearby railway companies.

There was even a blacksmith and a policeman, which is where our story begins.

Police Constable, Kenally, date unknown

This is Mr Keneally.

I don’t have a date for the picture but given that he joined the Manchester Police Force in the October of 1895 and he has two stripes I would have put the date sometime into the early 20th century.

Those service records also show that he was born in Cape Town in 1868 and had been in the Cheshire Regiment.

And that is a good starting point because although I can’t find any reference to him before 1891 I do know that in the April of that year he was in Salford Barracks on Regent Road.

The army seems to have been a natural career choice given that he was born in King William’s Town and that his father was in the 99th Foot Regiment which served in South Africa from 1865 till 1868 and again in 1878.

All of which explains why he appears to be missing from the records.

Looking down St Johns Street, circa 1900

But those records do throw up a few odd hiccups.  So while his birth was registered as 1866 his police records have him born in 1868 and those same police records describe him as single, when he had married the year before.

The marriage took place in St John’s Church on January 24 and the parish record  is a revealing document.

Mr Keneally was living at number 19 St Johns Street and gave his occupation as "musician" and that of his father as a clerk, while his bride was living two doors down the road at number 23.

She was Mary Ann Cross who was from Ireland and her father is given as James Painter and that of course puzzled me.  But according to Julie Mary Ann’s mother had remarried on the death of her father. “Sarah Myles married William Cross (he was in the Kerry Militia) and they had Marianne (Mary Anne / Marion?).  

Mary Ann Painter gets a present, 1885

William Cross died and Sarah married James Painter who was in the British Army and she came back to England with him.”

And that made the connection with St Johns Street because in 1891 Mr Painter was the caretaker in the Royal Eye Hospital which was situated at number 24, and there too was Mary Ann described as "house keeper.”

Mary Ann appears to have adopted her step father's surname by 1885 when she received a gift from her work colleagues, but gave her name at the wedding as Cross.

Now that will help in the search for her story.

In the meantime the romantic in me likes the idea of David and Mary Ann seeing each other regularly on the street and discovering that they were attracted to each other.

After their marriage they stayed on St Johns Street where they still were in 1901 living at number 23.  By then they had a son and employed young Minnie Day as a servant.

A decade later and they had swapped the imposing house on St Johns Street for the more modest 41 Carleton Street in Rusholme which was a a 4 roomed property close to Claremont Road.

Mr and Mrs Painter with John and Percy circa 1907

And what I like is that both homes are still standing.

There will be lots more research to do.

I know that Mr Keneally died in 1921 and Mrs Keneally in 1937 and  both were buried together in Southern Cemetery, but for now that is enough.

And this was pretty much the end of the story but then having discovered that Mr and Mrs Keneally were buried in Southern Cemetery I asked my friend David to visit the rave and take a picture.

Headstone of Mr and Mrs Keanlly

They were interred block U and it is fitting I think to close the story with his picture of their headstone.

Location; Manchester

Additional research Julie Smith



Pictures; St John Street in 2008 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, St John Street circa 1900, m04502, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  the headstone of Mr and Mrs Keneally 2016 from the collection of David Harrop, and family images from the collection of Julie Smith

Sunrise Greenwich, 1904

The second of four picture postcards of Greenwich.

Sunrise, Greenwich by Professor Van Hier

Picture, Sunrise, Greenwich, in the series, On the Thames, issued by Tuck & Sons, 1904, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 36 Newgate ..... less a street and more a court

Now I didn’t expect to find Newgate on the directories, even when this picture was taken in the 1890s the inhabitants of this closed court were part of that unseen Manchester.

Newgate, 1890

To get to Newgate you had to turn off Long Millgate and go through an entry in a building which then led off to other smaller courts.

But even here it ranked as an insignificant address for while Pearsons Court which was the neighbouring court got a listing as a direction point in the directories for Long Millage, Newgate didn’t even warrant that.

So to all intents and purposes it might as well not have existed.

But the maps show it there and show at least eleven properties and in time with a bit of digging I will find it on the census and that in turn will offer up the names of the residents, their ages occupations and families.

Newgate, 1849

For now the best that I can offer the curious is to direct them along Corporation Street heading north and just beyond Hanover Street under that very big white building will be Newgate and Pearson’s Court.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Newgates, 1908, m8316, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass Manchester City Council, Newgate in 1849, from the OS for Manchester & Salford, 1843-49 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

The Chorlton cinema story that went elsewhere ……

This was our first purpose-built cinema which was opened in 1914, in what had once been part of the large garden owned by the Holt family.

The Palais De Luxe cinema, circa 1928

The image was taken by the local photographer Charles Ireland in 1928 for the Lion Foundry Company.

Mr Ireland had studios in Manchester, lived briefly on High Lane in what is now the Buddhist Centre before removing to a large mansion on the corner of Edge Lane and Kingshill Road.

And the cinema, along with Mr. Ireland and the Holt’s often feature on the blog and yesterday I followed Charles Ireland and snapped a series of pictures of the former cinema being demolished and posted onto social media with the caption “Goodbye, cinema, repair shop and supermarket ... you served us well”.

It followed on from an earlier blog story, Goodbye Hanbury’s …. the Palais de Luxe .... and .... 408 Barlow Moor Road .... heaps of Chorlton change.*

Shopping at Hanburys, circa 1988

I expected memories of the Palaise de Luxe, Radio Rentals and the supermarket Hanbury’s which occupied the Picture House after the cinema went dark.  

I reasoned there might even have been the odd memory from those who remembered it when it was a Tesco.

What tumbled from the comments was a series of observations about the proposed new development.  Some were speculation about what might be built with others perhaps having done their homework becoming quite irate about more apartments in Chorlton.**

Now as someone who washed up here in 1976, I have no problem with “newcomers”, after all, historically Chorlton has always been a go to place since the early 19th century through to the great building boom of the 1880s into the 1900s, and again in the 1970s onwards.

Goodbye, cinema, repair shop and supermarket, 2023

Like many I question the quality and density of the new build and to my mind how pedestrian and ugly they look.  

Added to which despite the environmental issues most do not offer sufficient car park spaces which inevitably will mean a squeeze on street parking.

One development I recall argued in its planning application that because this was Chorlton the new residents would relinquish the car for the bike and public transport.  

All of which reads well and ticks the box of environmental concerns but is not always realistic.

So there you are, stories don’t always go as planned, and a fresh debate on housing provision has burst forth

Location Barlow Moor Road

Pictures; the Palais De Luxe cinema, circa 1928, Charles Ireland, GD10-07-04-6-13-01 courtesy of East Dunbartonshire Archives, Hanburys shopping bag, courtesy of Catherine Brownhill, “Goodbye, cinema, repair shop and supermarket ... you served us well”, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Goodbye Hanbury’s …. the Palais de Luxe .... and .... 408 Barlow Moor Road .... heaps of Chorlton change, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2023/08/goodbye-hanburys-palais-de-luxe-and-408.html

**097667/FO/2011/S1, Erection of a part 3/part four storey building to form a commercial use on the ground floor and 13 self-contained flats above, with associated car parking (5 spaces) and cycle storage, following demolition of existing property, Manchester City Council Planning Portal,  https://pa.manchester.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=LTKO3CBC06N00&activeTab=summary

Moonlight, Greenwich, 1904

The last of four picture postcards of Greenwich.

Moonlight, Greenwich by Professor Van Hier

Picture, Sunset, Greenwich, in the series, On the Thames, issued by Tuck & Sons, 1904, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

One out of two ain’t bad …. travels through a bit of history

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single cook in search of something new must have failures.*

So, there I was having successfully returned to making pesto when I went a pesto too far.

Green pesto is simple enough, just basil leaves, cheese, nuts and some olive oil to which I may or may not add a bit of garlic, depending on whom I am meeting.

Pretty much always a success.

And so emboldened by this minor culinary win, I went on to revisit my red pesto, which requires the addition of sundried or roasted tomatoes.

I went for roasted rather than sun dried simply because I didn’t fancy the walk to the shops and anyway, I had heaps of tomatoes.

All went well, the roasted tomatoes roasted well but having added them to the other ingredients it was less a red colour and more green.

Undaunted I roasted more tomatoes, threw them into the mix, whizzed again and created something which was no longer pesto but something else.

The grainy appearance from the leaves and tomatoes had become smooth, and the taste was sweeter with a hint of smoke.

All of which I guess was the fallout from using roasted tomatoes and over whizzing.

All of which in the story of cooking from home is just one of those things.

But again, it got me thinking of how dishes can become frozen in time and you have to follow the recipe to the letter when all through history what turns out on the table is a combination of seasonal availability, regional variation, cost and the whim of the cook.

So maybe no longer pesto but pleasant enough as an accompaniment to a bit of pasta and peas.

Would I have it again?  Possibly, but the chances that I could replicate it are slim.

So, one to put down to experience.

Location; Our kitchen

Pictures; Pesto Day, 2026 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Apologies to Jane Austen

Living beside the Medlock in the shadow of those tall railway viaducts ……… Victoria Terrace and Coronation Square

 I doubt I would ever have known about a row of terraced houses beside the River Medlock in the heart of the city and certainly would not have begun looking at them in detail if Andy Robertson hadn’t sent over a series of pictures of the Bridge Inn on Fairfield Street.

The pub was doing the business by 1840, and continued into the 20th century, although it is now closed.

But what really caught my interest was Andy’s pictures of the River Medlock which briefly comes out into the daylight as it crosses under Fairfield Street before descending back into a tunnel.

And as you do I went looking for the story of this patch of land between the river and the pub, and was not disappointed.  

In 1848, there were twenty-four properties of which 14 appear to have been back to back houses along with another ten.

Some faced directly onto the river , and the rest were grouped around Coronation Square, which I suspect offers up a possible date for their construction which I am guessing must have been around 1837.  And this I think will be confirmed by the fact that the fourteen back to backs were called Victoria Terrace.

I will  go looking into the Rate Books to see how far back I can trace the houses, but for that I need the names of some of the residents, and sadly back in the middle decades of the 19th century, no one deemed them worth enough to be included in the directories.

And that in turn has made it difficult to unearth the relevant census returns for the period.

However by dint of a tedious trawl of the 1891 census for the Central Enumeration district for 1891 I struck lucky, and found all twenty four.

They were a mix of four, three and two roomed properties, and were home to 71 people.  There was evidence of overcrowding, with the eight members of the Younger family squeezed into four rooms, and Mr. Thomas Nagle sharing his three rooms with his cousin and three lodgers.

Most of the occupants were unskilled workers, ranging from labourers to  street peddlars, although amongst them there were also a tailoress, a shoemaker  an Assistant Mathematical Instrument Maker.

But most were engaged in precarious and heavy work with more than a few heading towards their sixties.  

One of these was Thomas Nagle who at 56, described himself as a Bricklayer’s labourer, although in his case he appears to have left the building trade behind, because in 1895 he is listed as a greengrocer trading from Coronation Square.

There is much more to do, including examining the ages of the residents and working out the balance of adults to children as well as where the 71 came from.

Some at least of the properties were being demolished by the early 20th century and there are two pictures from the Local Image Collection showing some of the houses.

All of which promises to offer up more of the lives of those who lived beside the Medlock in the shadow of those tall railway viaducts, just a step away from Fairfield Street

Location; Manchester

Pictures, detail of Victoria Terrace and Coronation Square, 1851, from Adshead’s map of Manchester, 1851, courtesy of courtesy of Digital Archives Association http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ , some of the properties in 1903, A. Bradburn, m11495, and in 1904, m11492, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass Victoria Terrace and Coronation Square, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson