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

That first cinema at the top of Eltham High Street

This is the Eltham Cinema and was on the corner of the High Street and Westmount Road.

Eltham Cinema, circa 1913

It was opened in 1913 and demolished in 1968 which means I must have seen it countless times on my way to school at Crown Woods but even now it does not register with me.

I can’t be sure but I am guessing it survived as a Picture House until the big plush cinemas further down the High Street, and in Well Hall offered a bigger and comfortable experience.

And until now that was about all I knew, but yesterday I came across The Kinematograph Year Book, Program, Diary and Directory 1914, which is packed with everything from a list of all the cinemas in 1914 with information about this new and exciting form of entertainment along with lots of adverts.

Advert

And from the book I now know that its proprietor was a Mr Robert Frederick Bean who was listed in 1913 at 4 Everest Road.  A few years earlier he was in Brockley describing himself as a manufacturer’s agent for lace.  He was 31, had been married for three years and had two children and employed a nurse and a housemaid.

I wish I knew more about them but that is about it although they do seem to have moved around a bit living in Lewisham as well as Brockley and Eltham.

In time we will learn more and perhaps also a bit more about the cinema which sadly had no listing for the number of people it could seat.

And Tricia had found out more, "it had 1 screen and seated 400  people. It was built in 1912 opened 1913 and closed 1937.

Pictures; Eltham Cinema, courtesy of Thisiseltham, and advert from The Kinematograph Year Book, 1914, page 43

*Thisiselatham, http://www.thisiseltham.co.uk/

A history of Chorlton in just 20 objects number 10 ....... bomb damage 1940-41

 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. 

Well I suppose I can be accused of cheating because here is not one object but a row of objects on either side of Claude Road.  But in a very real sense they form a whole, because they are the houses which were rebuilt after a night of air raids which also claimed the cinema on Barlow Moor Road.  Nor were they the only ones. On May 1^st 1940 a direct hit on the corner of Chatsworth and Cavendish Road destroyed two houses and killed seven people. There were also fatal hits on Brantingham, Cheltenham, Scott, Torbay, and Dartmouth and on Cavendish Road on the night of May 1^st 1941.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson