As other saw us …… Mr. Greenwood and his superior map of Eltham, Woolwich and much else

Now this is one of my favourite maps of where we live.

Eltham, 1829-34

It comes from Greenwood’s "Atlas of the Counties of England, from Actual Surveys made from the Years 1817-1833".

Charles Greenwood was born in 1786 in Gisburn in Yorkshire, trained to become a surveyor and set up a practice in Dewsbury in 1815.

In the following year he began a survey of the county of Yorkshire, which was published in 1817, and a year later moved to London, with the intention of producing maps of the remaining counties of England.

These were to be produced at a scale of one inch to the mile for England and three quarters of an inch to one mile for Wales.

His intention was produce a set of forty two maps to be sold for 135 guineas.

But with stiff competition from other private map makers he reproduced the maps at a reduced scale and these sold in parts from 1829-1834.

Location; Eltham, from Greenwood’s Atlas

Picture; Eltham, from Greenwood’s Atlas, 1829-1834, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Voting in the General Election at Eltham in the November of 1837

In the November of 1837 the electorate of Eltham went to the polls.  

Well Hall in 1844 with Well Hall House a

All 67 of them, which if my sums are correct represented just over 13% of the adult male population and 6% of the entire adults in Eltham.

This did not compare well with some other places.  In the smaller rural township of Chorlton-cum-Hardy just 4 miles from Manchester the figures were 16% and 9% respectively which was better than the national average which in 1833 stood at just 7% of the adult population.

Worse still only 35 of the 67 lived in Eltham and those who didn’t passed most of the year in places like Chorley in Lancashire, Corbridge in Northumberland and Swinthrop in Yorkshire and even where their residences were in the south they were across the Thames on the other side of London.

And stating these figures is important given that only men had the vote and the qualification to vote was tied to property.  Some of our Eltham electors were tenants and this compounded potential inequality.

In an age when voting was still conducted in the open there was always the possibility of intimidation.  A tenant would cast his vote under the watchful eye of his landlord and the tradesmen would share his political choice with all his customers.

In General Elections the powerful made it known who their favoured candidates were and it took great courage for electors to ignore that stated preference.

Eltham Street now the High Street, 1844, Samuel Jeffyres lived near 309

The 1832 Reform Act may have been greeted by some as an attack on privilege and out moded electoral practices and it did abolish some of the more indefensible ways of electing MPs, widen the electorate to some of the middle class and give the great northern towns of manufacture a representation in Parliament.

But is also deprived some working people of the vote, continued to ignore women  and “if there was less rioting and less bribery at an election, there was still much bribery and more intimidation and election day was still a carnival which usually ended in a fight.” *

So just two years earlier in 1835 in South Lancashire the Tories claimed the Whigs owed a “very great proportion of their votes to the direct interference of the [Whig] Earls of Derby, Sefton and Sheffield “and “200 votes were given to Lord Molyenux and Mr Wood at Ormskirk because Lord Derby had expressed his sincere good wishes in their favour” **

This may well have been the case but pales in comparison with the actions of the Tory landowners to their tenants.  According to the Manchester Times & Gazette, *** Thomas Joseph Trafford of Trafford Park instructed his tenants to vote for Lord Frank Egerton & Wilbraham while Lord Wilton followed the same practice, instructing his tenants to vote for Lord Egerton and use their second vote for the candidate of their choice.

 In Stretford all but one of Trafford’s tenants voted the Tory party line. The level of potential intimidation was all too clear from the one tenant who refused to follow the line.  He expected “in the spirit of the olden times, to hear of Tory vengeance.” 

Now much research has to be done on the Eltham result of 1837 because our 67 electors did not march with the general swing of things in the great big constituency of West Kent.

Election result for West Kent, 1835

Five years earlier the Whigs had swept to power on the back of the Reform Act but a combination of Tory fight back and a slowdown of the pace of reform made the Whigs look tired and over confident.

And so the Tory Party made gains in both the 1835 and ’37 General Elections.

In West Kent the two seat constituency elected a Whig and a Tory, but in Eltham the vote went overwhelmingly to the Tory candidates.

Election result for the Eltham Division of West Knet, 1837

Now this we know because the choices the 67 made were recorded in the poll books.

Our old friend Samuel Jeffryes used both his votes for the Tories as he did again in 1847.

So matching the electorate to their landlords and charting the political preferences of these great landowners will be revealing.

But one should be careful. Intimidation is more likely to work on the small tenant farmer or shop keeper and men like Samuel Jeffryes who styled himself “gentleman” and eventually retired to Westminster to live may just have voted as his conscience dictated.

We shall see.

Location,; Well Hall, Eltham, London

Pictures; Well Hall and Eltham Street in 1844 from the Tithe map for Eltham courtesy of Kent History and Library Centre, Maidstone, http://www.kent.gov.uk/leisure_and_culture/kent_history/kent_history__library_centre.aspx

*Young G.M., Portrait of an Age Oxford University Press 1953 Page 28
** The Hull Packet January 30 1835
*** Manchester Times & Gazette January 3 1835
****Thomas Joseph Trafford 1778-1852, owned Trafford Hall and land in Trafford and Stretford

Looking for a ball of wool, a lb. of apples and much more on Wilbraham Road

I doubt that any one born before 1980 would ever think that the stretch of Wilbraham Road from Albany down to Manchester Road would be populated by a string of fast food outlets, bars and charity shops or that Quarmby’s, Dewhurst’s and Meadow’s would have vanished like snow under a winter sun.

It’s not an original idea I know, but in the space of two decades much traditional retailing has gone.

I miss it, but I recognize that that way of shopping has pretty much gone, and the arrival of the bar culture has at least kept the shops from staying closed.

What follows are two pictures taken some time in the 1950s into the 1960s, of the businesses on Wilbraham Road and Barlow Moor Road.

I could write more, having explored the history of some of the shops, and made comment on the road signs and bus stops, but I won’t.  

However, the challenge is there for anyone what can to trawl their memory and offer up some memories of the shops, or better still some pictures.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Wilbraham and Barlow Moor Road’s, circa 1950s/60s. from the collection of Dave King

The lost Hulme and Moss Side

Now I have been a great fan of Roger Shelley’s photographs for over a decade, ever since he shared a collection of pictures he took of a group of young lads playing in the near ruin of Hough End Hall nearly 60 years ago.

The attention to detail and his ability to capture the moment are skills I wish I had.

And so, I was very pleased when he posted another group of images he took during the house clearances in Hulme and Moss Side.

The pictures are a mix of street scenes, and the people he encountered, including kids at play, men and women at work and the ever present piles of rubble as the grand plan advanced and centuries old houses disappeared under the impact of the wrecking ball.

Like the work of Shirley Baker* his pictures don’t dwell on sentimentality and don’t make judgments of the wholesale clearances of communities.

They just record what he saw.

I don't have exact locations for the images, but some can be traced through the odd street name or feature.

And with his permission I will be working my way through the portfolio, fastening on images which tell their own stories.

Location; Hulme and Moss Side in the 1960s and 70s

Pictures;  from the collection of Roger Shelley, https://www.flickr.com/photos/photoroger/

*Baker, Shirley, Without a Trace, Manchester and Salford in the 1960s, 2018

Standing on the lost Prichard Street in the summer of 1971 ……… with no thoughts of the future

There will still be some people who remember the close network of streets and houses that stretched back from Oxford Road to the Medlock, and from Charles Street down to Great Street.

Pritchard Street on the cusp of change, 1971

In all there were fourteen streets and countless houses which were all swept away so that the BBC could have a new broadcasting centre here in Manchester.

The lost streets included Pritchard Street, Hesketh, Leigh and Saville Streets and along with the houses there had been a school and a pub.

Planning permission had been granted in 1968 and after a hiccup building began in 1971 was finished in 1975 and the place was home to the BBC until 2011.

And for those wanting to impress a companion, about 800 staff worked there and with the opening of the second studio in 1981 the BBC closed Broadcasting House in Piccadilly which had been there for 52 years.

And now Broadcasting House has gone replaced by Circle Square.

Pritchard Street, 1894

In the meantime, I wonder how many memories of those that lived in that small area can be shared.

After all the buildings only began to be cleared in 1968.

Broadcasting House, 2011

All of which has been prompted by that picture at the top of the page, which must have been taken in the summer of 1971.

We were on Prichard Street with Charles Street and the Lass O’Gowrie in the distance, surrounded by the remains of a warehouse to our right and what had once been a row of back-to-back house.

At the time I doubt we had any idea what the developers had planned, and more than likely we were on our way down to The Eighth Day or to meet up with friends at the Art College on All Saints.

The picture and the memories of that day have lain hidden for over half a century but offer up a little insight into the area off Oxford Road on the cusp of its development.

Lost and forgotten warehouses, 1971

I did wander down during the demolition of the old BBC Broadcasting House, and waited patiently for the site to be redeveloped.

But it seemed an age before the ground was broken and the development began to rise, pretty much eclipsing the surrounding buildings.

Now I don't pretend to be Methuselah, but in the space of that time from the summer of 1971 I have seen the rise of Broadcasting House, its demise and the subsequent rise of Circle Square. 

I guess it is presumptuous to suppose I will be around for the next development/

Well we shall see.

Location; Oxford Road, 1971-2022

Pictures; Prichard Street, 1971,  tall buildings and stairs, Circle Square, Manchester, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpsonand map of the area in 1894, from the OS of South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ BBC New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, 2011, from the collection of Andy Robertson

One Circle Square, 2022

*Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ......... nu 56 the vanished fourteen and the story of the BBC, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2016/10/lost-and-forgotten-streets-of_5.html

Of letters, and postmasters in the Eltham of the 19th century

Eltham in the 1830s

I am back with the post office in Eltham and in particular two men who straddle the history of letters, parcels and other odd things sent by the postal service.

James Pike and James Lawrence were the postal service in Eltham for a big part of the 19th century and their stories have been unearthed by Jean Gammons and so I shall hand over to her.

“James Pike was Eltham’s postmaster for perhaps forty years.  He was a clockmaker and his house was in the High Street.  

Very little is known of him and the earliest reference is a record of the death of his first wife in the parish records in 1798.  I could find no record of his birth or his marriage to Elizabeth so he may not have been an Eltham man.

He remarried in 1809 when he was 49 to a young woman from Eltham called Ruth Patterson.*

She was some twenty years younger than him and the records show they ran the post office together.

This was on the High Street just up from the old Chequers inn.  They would have conducted the business of the postal service from a room in their house and people waited outside in the street to be served through a window.”

Burial entry of James Pike, June 1837

James died in the June of 1837, and was buried in the parish churchyard.  

His wife Ruth survived him by twenty years, but the business was taken over by James Lawrence whom the Pike’s had taken on as their apprentice in their clock making business.2

He had been born in Eltham in 1819 and we can follow him from the 1841 census when he was listed as watch maker through the next four decades.  By 1871 while he may still have had a connection with the clock business he lists himself simply as postmaster.

This was an important time in the development of the Post Office.

Looking towards the parish church

The year before “the post office had taken over the private telegraph companies and James Lawrence must have been very proud when his eldest son, then a lad of just 13 became one of the Post Office’s first Telegraph messengers.  

In 1876 Eltham’s little post office was upgraded to a Head Post Office and Lawrence was placed in charge of all the smaller post offices in the Eltham district with an overnight salary rise from £31 to £60 a year.

But his office was still at no 54 High Street in the old shop where it had been since the 18th century, roughly where the milkman’s cart is seen in the picture."

The Post Office is roughly where the milkman's cart stands

All of which takes us into a new and bold period in the history of Eltham and its postmasters.

Pictures, of the High Street in the 1830s, and in 1909 courtesy of Jean Gammons and Mr Pike’s burial entry from St John’s parish records, courtesy of ancestry.co.uk, and the City of London Corporation Libraries, Archives and Guildhall Art Gallery Department

*Another Eltham life brought out of the shadows, the story of Ruth Pike, nee Patterson, 1782-1857

Hough End Hall in the 1950s

Now the thing about very old buildings is that usually we focus on that very old bit.

So it is with Hough End Hall built in 1596 and for a big chunk of its history the family home of the Mosley family.

Most of the accounts of the place concentrate on its Elizabethan design and the Mosley family and ignore the last two hundred years when it was a farm house and later still an office and restaurant.

But I am more interested in its time as the home of tenant farmers during the 19th century and then its uncertain time from the 1920s when it was under threat of demolition by road widening plans.

Today there is nothing much left and so I have decided to call on the memory of Oliver Bailey whose father took possession of the Hall and surrounding land at the beginning of the Second World War and worked it in conjunction with his farm at Park Brow.

Here and over the next few weeks are short accounts of what was once three and which I hope will set off more memories from other people.

"Looking at the front of the hall on the right hand side I remember a man called John Hallsworth had a blacksmith shop in the 1950s. 

He had been an iron worker with British Road Services and rented the smithy at Hough End from my father after he retired from BRS.

There was a wooden staircase up the wall of the hall inside the smithy itself. He he made a couple of gates for Park Brow Farm. 

Sam & Jack Priday, who were farriers with a smithy in Withington,  came round and used the forge to shoe my father’s Suffolk Punch horse. 

I remember walking beside him as he used a horse drawn single furrow plough in the field next to Mauldeth Roadd, probably late 1940s. 

At the rear right hand end there were various add-on outbuildings at the back, probably nineteenth century. 

One was a cottage and another a store of some sort that had fallen into disrepair .

The left wing of the Hall suffered severe structural damage which was perhaps caused by subsidence and had to be rebuilt in the 1950s by the Egerton Estate and I remember they used artificial stone lintels and cills for the mullioned windows. 

On the upper floor there was an old mangle that was basically a large box full of cobbles that rolled back and forth on rollers on the wooden base when it was worked by turning the handle.

 I think that ended up in Ordsall Hall, definitely went to Salford as Manchester had no interest."

© Oliver Bailey, June 2014

Pictures; Hough End Hall, 1952, m47850,the hall from the south east, 1952 m 47856 and the hall and duck pond, 1952, all by T Baddeley, m47859, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Next, a plan a riding school and the man who kept rabbits