Mrs Crump of Chorlton-cum-Hardy and a piece of broadcasting history

Now this is another of those stories which has much more to offer.

Back on January 1 1947 Mrs Elsie May Crump appeared on Woman’s Hour which had first aired three months earlier in October 1946.

According to the synopsis of that day’s edition which was described as
“a daily programme of information, entertainment, and music for the woman at home “  and sandwiched between  James Laver on ' Why do men dress like that'; Ruth Drew , Jeanne Heal , and Guilfoyle Williams on ' Answering Your Household Problems'; there was” Mrs. Elsie May Crump on What I think of Woman's Hour after three months ' “

And of course the participation of Mrs Elise Crump was something that just had to be followed up.

She described herself as a working woman who worked in her husband’s butcher’s shop.

Now that shop was nu 24 Oswald Road on the corner with Nicholas and according to the directories the business is listed under her name from 1935 to 1969.

The shop is no longer a butcher’s shop but was still selling meat in 1980 under the name of Arnold's, and that of course is an invite to anyone who knows more about Mrs Crump and that shop to send in their memories and perhaps even a picture.

I do have one picture of her taken during the January programme but copyright prevents me from publishing it until I have asked the BBC so for now all I can offer up is an entry in the 1946 telephone directory.and one of Andy Robertson's pictures.who when I asked if he had a photograph of the place went out an hour ago and took this one in the rain.

Now that is a pretty good example of updating a story.

So there you have it a bit of Chorlton’s history along with a big bit of broadcasting history.

Picture; extract from telephone directory, 1946, courtesy of ancestry.co.uk, and the shop from the collection of Andy Robertson, 2014

Additional research by Andy Robertson

Hay making in Chorlton ............ or almost

Now here is an image which could have been so easily taken in Chorlton.

Hay Making in Furness Vale, date unknown

The picture is labelled on the reverse "Haymaking, Furness Vale" but the date and location are not recorded although the buildings in the background look familiar.

Now it is a scene which could so easily have been taken here in Chorlton,.

And given that 56% of the land here was pasture and meadowland and that some of the 40% of arable land was used for growing barley I rather think these men and boys could have so equally stepped off one of our own fields.

Man with pipe and rake

What I like about this picture is the way that George Tomlinson has isolated sections of the image  and  explains the sorts of detail most of us would pass over.

So  "the man in the centre carries a large wooden handled rake. Behind him can be seen the ownership plate on the cart. The name is Charles Saxby of Disley.  Saxby was owner of Furness Vale Printworks".

All of which puts the picture into a context and demonstrates the power of local knowledge to unlock a photograph

But as I often say it is not for me to lift another’s research so to see all of George’s comments you will have to visit the site at http://furnesshistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/haymaking.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+FurnessValeLocalHistorySociety+(FURNESS+VALE+LOCAL+HISTORY+SOCIETY)

And for those in Chorlton who wondered where we are in Furness Vale, David Easton who kindly gave me permission to use the image, says, "The location is probably Lodge Farm in Furness Vale which was owned at the time by Mr. Saxby".

Location; Furnes Vale

Picture; courtesy of the Furness Vale Local History Society

Annie Morris, Ram Alley and more stories of Eltham in the 19th century

Annie and her son William in 1877

I  am back with Annie Morris whose life in Eltham pretty much covered the period when the place shifted from a rural backwater to a suburb of London.

She was born Annie Rice Foster in Pound Place in 1848 and her grandfather and father were blacksmiths on the High Street.

She would have known and gone to school with many children whose parents still made a living from the land, either as farmers, agricultural labourers or trades associated with the rural economy.

Her husband John was a carpenter and joiner, and his father variously described himself as a labourer, groom, gamekeeper and gardener.

John had been born in Yorkshire and his father was from Wales, and during the years before 1851 the family moved back to Wales before settling in Eltham which rather contradicts that old school’s history idea that people seldom travelled.

Judging by the census records the lanes of Eltham would have been full of different accents.  Annie’s grandfather had been born in the North West, her father in law in Wales and her mother in law in Yorkshire.

And looking at the at the servants employed in the grand houses around Eltham they also were drawn from across the country which shouldn’t surprise us given that few of these wealthy families would choose to employ local girls.

In the same way Annie and John moved around a bit, having started their married life in Plumstead in 1875, they were back in Eltham by 1880 and lived in a succession of cottages.

Ram Alley in 1909

Of these I am drawn to their time in Ram Alley which consisted of four cottages by the High Street.

Now I doubt that these properties were ever that wonderful to live in.

Three of the four had just two rooms while the fourth consisted of three. In 1895 they were all condemned as unfit to live in but in the way of these things they were not demolished for another forty-three years.

Annie and John were there in Ram Alley by 1891 bringing up six children in just two rooms.

And it is easy to brush over that simple fact but eight people is difficult enough especially given that the four boys ranged in age from sixteen down to four and there was a daughter under two.

That said Court Yard where they were living a decade later was only marginally less of a squeeze for while it had five rooms there were still eight of them and young Mabel was now 11.

But such was the lot of many working class families in both rural and urban areas and throughout the 19th century commentators reported on the ingenious ways families coped with such overcrowding, ranging from the simple blanket hung across the upstairs room to sharing out children with neighbours or grandparents.

I suppose there was always that simple observation that soon enough the children would move on.  By 1911 Annie and John were sharing Court Yard with just two of their children while up at Ram Alley, three of the four properties were occupied by just one person and the fourth with its three rooms was the home of George Meakin and his lodger Elizabeth Lumley.

Detail of Annie and William

Annie was to record her memories of growing up in Eltham to a local newspaper in 1931 and in the fullness of time I will revisit the stories she had to tell.

But I shall close with another look at the photograph of Annie as a proud mother in 1877.

She is sitting with her eldest son William and the picture was taken in Woolwich.

Now this must have amounted to quite a financial outlay for a working family and I rather think there will not be that many from this period or from their class.

And it is the detail that draws you in.

William is dressed in his finest baby wear but it is Annie who makes the lasting impression with that carefully prepared hair and the striking dress.

She would have been 29.

Location; Eltham, London


Pictures; Annie Morris with her eldest son William courtesy of Jean Gammons, and Ram Alley from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

I have seen the future and it works* …….. shopping in 1961

I like this picture because it offers up a range of shop fronts, from the traditional to the brand new.

And there is no doubting that when Shelia Montgomery and the Electricity Board opted for their bold and striking  fronts they were staking a claim to being modern and at the cutting age of the new Britain.

Back in the late 1950s and early 60s I was too young to appreciate  just how much of a break with tradition they were, and by the time I was in my teens they were so commonplace that I took them for granted.

But in 1961 they stood out as very different from the fashion shop of S. Pickles, which will noy have changed over much since the row of houses with their shops were built.

And walking back along the parade, Rushtons, Sprent and the supermarket had also chosen modernity over tradition.

A full sixty or so years later I rather think all five look dated in comparison to number 111, which modern shop fitters might seek to imitate.

I had thought we were on Princes Road and certainly some of the other pictures in the collection suggest so, but pinning down these shops has so far proved inconclusive.

And happily Michael Wood, came back with this, "Looking at the shop fronts I just got an inkling this was Alexandra Road, and sure enough in the Local Image Collection there is Sheila Montgomery on m30313, next door to Rushtons just before they too had gone for a makeover with the trendy brash new signboard seen in your photo!  

My mum used to occasionally go shopping along here in the 60s as it offered some cheaper alternatives to the Chorlton shops, and I used to pass along here whenever I got the bus into town.  

It was always bustling, with so much dense housing nearby.  There is also m30349 in 1972 both Sheila and Sprent beyond Rushtons have disappeared and the place looks a bit jaded!  Interesting series of photos".

And as ever Michael's correction shows how the blog is always a collaborative project.

 Location; Manchester

 Picture; shop fronts, 1961, 1961-3476.4, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*"I have seen the future, and it works", Lincoln Austin Steffens, 1919, after visiting the Soviet Union

Sunlight House “a modern building with the best of old standards maintained"

Sunlight House, © 2013 Peter Topping

Last month I was on Quay Street with Sunlight House which when it was completed in 1932 was seen as a building which combined “modern conceptions of architecture in its sleekness and in the vertical lines, yet [retained] the best of the old standards of design.”*

It was designed and built by Joseph Sunlight as the headquarters for his business and was a lavish and modern building as befitted a man who claimed to have created more than one million pounds worth of property in the  first fourteen years as an independent architect.

Not that that he had it all his own way.

Just a few years after the building was opened his application for a license to serve alcohol was turned down.

And in 1949 he failed to get planning permission to “build a 35 storey extension to Sunlight House and a new 14-storey building between Peter Street and Jackson’s Row [because] the premises would dominate existing and proposed civic buildings, exceed the appropriate density of the area, injure the amenities of near-by buildings, and prejudice possible development plans.”**

So, even the mighty, wealthy and influential do not always get their way.

On Quay Street in 1911

Nor was his Parliamentary career a long one.  He was elected as the Liberal MP for Shrewsbury in the 1923 General Election only to lose the following year in the subsequent General Election.***

It is one of those interesting little asides of history that had he retained his seat he might well have seen his Brick Bill for the making of bigger bricks pass into law.

It was a private members bill which had survived its reading by one vote but fell by the wayside with the dissolution of Parliament in 1924.
All of which is a long way from Sunlight House and from the properties it replaced.

Now the Manchester Guardian had reported in 1931 that before Sunlight House “was erected the site contained some of Manchester’s worst slums.”

Twenty years earlier these had consisted of a mix of shops and lodging houses and judging from photographs may well have had their time.

*Sunlight House, the Manchester Guardian, May 12, 1931

And some of those who lived on Quay Street

**No extension to Sunlight House, the Manchester Guardian, July 2, 1949

***December 6 1923, October 29, 1924

Maps & pictures, detail of Quay Street from the 1888-93 OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/,  and street directory from Slater’s Manchester, Salford and Suburban Directory, 1911

Painting; Sunlight House, © 2013 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook:  Paintings from Pictures

Unpicking the clues of a postcard, .... Piccadilly sometime in the early 20th

This is one of those photographs I keep coming back to because there is so much going on.

We are in Piccadilly and Queen Victoria dominates the picture.  And according the Judge catalogue the image was added to the collection in 1913.
 

It was one of seven in a series on Manchester and included Albert Square, the Town Hall, Market Street, the Cathedral and the University and yes you guessed there is study group who may be able to date the series.*

But leaving aside the date it is the sheer amount of detail which makes the card such a treasure.  Sitting on the steps of the Queen’s statute are two boy scouts.  Now I can’t be certain but it looks like they may just have some cleaning implements at their feet which could link them to Good Turn Day which was introduced in 1914 and morphed into Bob a Job Week in 1949.

All of which takes me back to a date.

But there is so much more to see.  There is the man who is casually leaning against the lamp post and the pile of discarded rubbish in the litter bin.  Like others in the picture he is wearing one of the straw hats which seems to remain in fashion into the 1920s.

We must be sometime in the summer given the presence of women in blouses and our scouts without their coats.

The long line of trams reminds us that this was a busy part of the town with most of them destined to head down Market Street which  would also be thronged with pedestrians on route down to St Mary's Gate or visiting the many shops and offices which ran its length.

And judging by the number of passengers on the upper decks of the open trams plenty of people have chosen to take in the fine weather on this summers day.

My own favourite detail is the horse drawn cab, number 382.  As it waits for a fare the horse is feeding from its feed bag.

Now I doubt it will  be possible to check out the name of the cab driver which as they say would be a whole new story to tell.

Picture; from the collection of Alan Brown

* JUDGES POSTCARD STUDY GROUP  

A story behind the picture, ............ ploughing on Beech Road in 1890

Ploughing Row Acre, circa 1894

It’s a familiar enough picture and takes you back to that moment when Chorlton had almost lost its rural character.

It was taken around 1890 on Beech Road and may have been one of the last times the land was ploughed before becoming the Recreation ground.

But like so many photographs there is much more.

The picture belonged to William Higginbotham who may be the man behind the plough. His family had lived on the green since the 1840s and most of the land they farmed was on either side of the Brook stretching up towards the Mersey. But they also worked a small strip of land between the Row* and High Lane.

Chorlton Row and Row Acre 1853

In the 1840s this was almost entirely Egerton land and was rented out in strips to a number of farmers. Along with James Higginbotham, there was William Bailey, George Whitelegg and Thomas White.

This pattern of land tenure was not so different from the old medieval strip farming where each peasant had a share of the land in different places.

This was repeated across the township and so while the bigger farmers had most of their land concentrated near the farmhouse, the land of smaller farmers and market gardeners were distributed across the area.

The Higginbotham’s farmed a mix of meadow and pasture land close to the Mersey and arable along the Row.

This arable farming along the Row continued well into the 19th century so as late as 1893, there was open farm land and orchards running from Cross Road down to what was to become Wilton Road and stretching back to High Lane.

Pictures; ploughing on Beech Road, circa 1890, courtesy of Mr Higginbotham, from the Lloyd collection, and detail from the 1841 OS map for Lancashire by kind permission of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*The Row or Chorlton Row is now Beech Road