Searching the picture ….. London Road 1895

This is a photograph of London Road where it joins Store Street and we are in 1895.

London Road, 1895

There is nothing very remarkable about the picture and might well be described as eight people, two pasters for Bell Vue and one antique shop.

But there is of course more and it is the more that has drawn me in.

Above brick pillar is the approach to London Road Railway Station and that antique shop is still there.  I remember it as a tobacconist and also as a betting shop and is is now empty and boarded up.

London Road, 2019

Just whether it will ever see better days again is debatable.

It is after all on that very busy stretch of London Road which most pedestrians shun and is given over to speeding traffic and passing trams.

All of which means it’s footfall is limited.

But not so back in 1895 when a Mr. H Entwhistle captured that group of four boys and four men staring into the camera in front of Mr. William Butterworth Wharton’s shop. He described himself as a “dealer in works of art”, and I can track his presence there from 1888 to 1911.

Earlier he is listed during the late 1870s and early 1880s on Half Street by the Cathedral and was living at Oak Bank Cheetham Hill Road.  Now that begs the question of whether the move to London Road was a step up or a slide down.

He died in 1915 leaving the sum of £1150.

Sadly, so far there is little of him in the official records.  He is missing from the census returns but I know I know he married in 1880, that his wife Maria died in 1912 and he had at least two sons. They along with his wife are buried in the same plot in Manchester General Cemetery.

And as they say …. Watch this spot because a Sarah Ellen Makin, a Joeph Shevlin and a Betty Mckeown share the plot.  These last three may have no family connection with the Wharton family but it will be fun to explore the chances that they were.

Our man, 1895

At which point I have to confess our dealer in art was not how I was drawn into the picture, that prize goes to one of the eight staring back at me.  He is the one with the hat and by chance his face is the one most clearly visible.

He leans against the poster stand looking back at the camera with what could be a mix of curiosity, or disdain challenging the photographer to  discover what he is thinking.  

And what ever he is thinking I am convinced that he will never offer up any details of his life or his secrets.  

By contrast the others are a blank canvas and could be any one of the thousands of passers by confronted with the new technology.

To their right are two posters advertising an event at Bell Vue featuring the Storming of Port Arthur during the short Russo Japanese War of the year before.

The caption refers to the “crack in the abutment” which 130 years later is still there.

Leaving me just to ponder on what the man on the left has in that basket and just what the neatly dressed  boy with cap and posh looking overcoat was doing on London Road .

But I doubt we will ever know, as for what our man in the hat was thinking .... that is just utter conjecture which has no place amongst the facts other than as a piece of tosh.

Location; London Road, London Road, 1895, m63006, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Mr. Wharton’s shop, 2019, courtesy of Google Maps

Buying your meat from Mr Unsworth of 2 Chorlton Green in 1909 .... Chorlton's corner shop nu 10

The caption on the picture just says “James Unsworth’s butcher shop on the corner of the Green Albermarle Road.  This shop later became and still is a barbers shop. Private photograph, origin unknown.”

Now I remember it as a barber’s shop, regularly visiting it during the 70s and 80s and even taking my eldest.

Bob who had the business when I went there had been born in Chorlton and had plenty of stories about the place.

I can date the picture from sometime after 1903 and before 1911.

This I can be certain of because back in 1903 the terrace of three shops and houses had yet to be built and from at least 1911 this butcher’s shop was run by Mr Mark Glazerbrook who was recorded in the directories from the start of 1911 at no 2 Chorlton Green.

A decade earlier he had been helping his father run the family butcher’s shop in Railway Street in Ardwick, and in 1910 he married Lillian Carr.

So just perhaps this was their first married home.

That said within another ten years he was trading in Reddish all of which points to the high turnover of some of these small family businesses.

Mr Unsworth was at number 2 in 1909 when his neighbours were Ernest Bugler, cycle maker at number 4 and Stanley Moss, grocer at number 6.

Two years later both James and Mr Moss had moved on.

I don’t suppose we should be surprised for back in the early 20th century there were plenty of butchers, grocers and green grocers in close proximity in Chorlton and competition must have been fierce.

Just opposite was Whittaker’s the grocers and up along Beech Road there were more grocery and butchers shops with even more across the green and behind.

And that is about it except to say I got through the story without commenting on the meat on display in the open air, the sand on the shop floor or  Mr Unsworth’s long knife.

On the other hand, here is the shop in 1979, when those of us who wanted a haircut and a good natter would call in at Bob's.

And that really is it.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; of Mr Unsworths' shop circa 1909 from the Lloyd collection and Bobs's in 1979 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The history of Eltham in just 20 objects ........Nu 4, a royal palace and another book

The challenge is to write a history of Eltham in just 20 objects which are in no particular order, and have been selected purely at random.

Anyone who wants to nominate their own is free to do so, just add a description in no more than 200 words and send it to me.

Now I don’t intend to write about the history of our royal palace, which is so much part of Eltham’s past other than to acknowledge its importance to the area.

Instead I want to highlight a book written all about it by Roy Brook and published in 1960.

It is now out of print but copies can be picked up relatively cheaply which is how I got my copy.

It is more than just the story of the Palace provinding information and maps on Eltham's development.

Picture; cover of the book

Scholes Square ….. fifty-one of its residents …. and a bit of Manchester’s past

 You won’t find Scholes Square today.

Scholes Square, 1908

I only came across it by accident when looking for pictures of London Road on Manchester’s digital archive.

It was a tiny court off Scholes Street which in turn was off Store Street.

The square survived into the last century, but only just and now the site is covered by a modern warehouse which itself is empty and looking for an occupant.

And added to the difficulty of locating it comes the name change which saw Scholes Street become Stand Street.

All a tad confusing.

To which I can add that as, yet I am unclear when it was built.

It doesn’t appear on Johnson’s map of Manchester for 1818 but is shown on the OS for 1844, and judging by the maps and the picture it didn’t have much going for it.

It backed on to a smithy and was totally enclosed on three sides.

You entered from Store Street by a flight of stairs and were confronted by eight one up one down properties, which just seven years later had been reduced to six.

Scholes Square, 1851

In 1851 the court was home to fifty-one people with most of the residents working for the railways or in the cotton factories. 

And the textile jobs ranged from piecers, to power loom weavers and interestingly one who gave her occupation as “Silk weaver by hand”.

This left a blacksmith, a joiner a servant and charwoman.

All of which made sense for this part of Manchester which was dominated by London Road Railway Station, accompanying railway warehouses and a series of cotton mills.

Nor am I surprised that in 1851 of the fifty-one inhabitants, 37% had been born in Ireland, 47 % from Manchester and the rest from Salford, Wigan and other parts of the northwest.

And there is evidence of serious over crowding with two families living at no. 2 and two at no.6.  

At no. 2 Mr. and Mrs Dowling shared with Hannah Wild who sublet her space to two lodgers, while Daniel and Sarah Finn and there two children shared with the Cass family which consisted of two adults and five children.

In time I will go looking for how the lives of some of these residents panned out, but for now it is enough to know that the picture I found by chance opens up a bit of Manchester’s story.

Location; Scholes Square

Pictures; Stand Street, off Store Street, 1908, m04569, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, and Scholes Square in 1851, 1851 from Adshead’s map of Manchester, Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Standing on Chorlton Green ....... remembering the Oven Door

Now there is enough detail in the picture to anchor it in a time long before, but well within living memory.

We are of course on the old village which for a big chunk of the 19th century had been the Wilton family garden.

Directly ahead is the Horse and Jockey, but clearly not the one of today and off there to the right is the Oven Door which at one time was a competitor to that other bakery further up Beech Road.

And there will be some who remember when the Oven Door, was two shops of which the first was a pet shop.

Not that anyone will now know that the first of the two which stands next to the Beech was itself a pub called the Traveller’s Rest.

Although strictly speaking the Traveller’s Rest was actually a beer shop which had opened in the mid 1830s and for many years was run by the Nixon family who also ran that pub over the water.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; Chorlton Green, circa 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The history of Eltham in just 20 objects ........Nu 3 the Rock Band and the Welcome Inn from Paula

The challenge is to write a history of Eltham in just 20 objects which are in no particular order, and have been selected purely at random.

Here is Paula's choice

ROCK legends Status Quo were filled with nostalgia after they were honoured with a plaque commemorating their first gig.

The Music Heritage Plaque from the Performing Rights Society was unveiled at the former site of the Welcome Inn in Well Hall Road, Eltham, where the band first performed in 1967.

The pub, at the junction of Westmount Road, burnt down in 2006 and is now a block of flats.

Location' Eltham

Contributed by Paula Nottle

Picture; supplied by Paula Nottle

Speakeasies .... Tea for Two .... New York 1929

We all have a vision of the Roaring Twenties.  

It's a decade popularly regrded as hedonist, where "anything goes", sandwiched between the Great War and the Great Depression.

The Chrysler Building, 2008 begun in 1929

And New York seems to be one of those places that is the personification of flappers, speakeasies and gangsters.

All of which means I tuned into BBC Radio 4's Artworks New York 1925 Episode 1 Winter.  And I was not disappointed.

It is one of four episodes, and I do hope we see a little of that other New York, because for every flapper, speakeasy and flashy celebrity there was a poor tenement, a dark workshop and a family on the borderline of poverty.

We shall see

"In 1925 New York became the biggest, most populous city in the world, overtaking London, and was the launchpad for an extraordinary range of writing, music, culture and politics which still resonate 100 years later - from the publication of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and the launch of The New Yorker, to the rise of the Harlem Renaissance and the first success for the composer Richard Rodgers.

This is the story of that momentous year, season by season, told over four episodes, with contributors including novelist Jay McInerney, the academic Margo Jefferson and the editor of the New Yorker David Remnick. The series is presented by the saxophonist and broadcaster Soweto Kinch, with an original sound track played by the composer and clarinettist Giacomo Smith and his band.

Episode 1: Winter

At the start of the year a new kind of celebrity politician, Senator Jimmy Walker, had set his sights on becoming mayor of New York. He was a fast-drinking, fast-talking dandy. We follow his fortunes throughout the series, culminating in the election in November.

In February 1925 the New Yorker magazine was launched, and in March a special edition of the sociological magazine, Survey Graphic, was devoted entirely to Harlem. Whilst the New Yorker flopped, the special Survey Graphic was a runaway success.

In the winter months we also find out how F Scott Fitzgerald was preparing for the publication of The Great Gatsby in April, and how aspiring composer Richard Rodgers was struggling to create a hit song.

Presenter Soweto Kinch

Producer Katy Hickman

Band: Giacomo Smith - clarinet; Laura Jurd - trumpet; Daniel Higham - trombone; Alexander Boulton - banjo; Joe Webb - piano; Corrie Dick - drums; Soweto Kinch - saxophone"

*Artworks New York 1925, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002flhl

Location; BBC Radio 4

Picture;The Chrysler Building in New York City illuminated at night, August 2008, David Shankbone Licensing I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following licenses:, w:en:Creative Commons, attribution share alike. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.