Working women ......... stories for International Women's Day

Taking a break from The Queen and Pasley 1910

It is just one of those things.

The passage of time has made it certain that I will never know who this group of young people were.

The photograph dates from 1910 and the caption suggests that some of them worked for the Queen and Pasley Laundry on Crescent Road.

And it got me thinking about how their lives would pan out.

Of course the outbreak of the Great War would sweep all of them along and the young man in shirt sleeves would in all probability have volunteered or been called up.

But on International Women’s Day I was drawn to the group of young women.

They would all be in their late thirties or even older when they were able to cast a vote in a parliamentary election.

Their working lives might just stretch to something in town just 4 miles away but otherwise theirs was the laundry or perhaps domestic service.

For their mothers and grandmothers job opportunities were even more limited.

Before the 1850s many would have spent sometime in the fields, either working full time alongside other family members or during key moments in the year like sowing or harvesting.

Of course there was always domestic service which was the second largest source of employment in the township. Like the country as a whole it was mainly an occupation for single working class women. So in the township in 1851 there were 53 female servants, ranging from governesses to housekeepers cooks, maids and nurses.

Domestic service counted for 27% of the labour force of which 68% were woman and of these 81% were unmarried. By comparison just 22% of single women were engaged as washerwomen and laundresses.

But it was not much of an opportunity for local women. Only ten of the fifty three working as servants were born here and just another eleven were from neighbourhoods less than 5 miles away. Sarah Bayley was one of these.

She had worked for the Higginbothams’ at Yew Tree Farm in Withington during 1841 and later moved to work for Daniel Sharp on the Row. Those households with servants would have heard a mix of northern accents including those of Yorkshire and punctuated by voices from Derbyshire and far away Ireland.

Part of the reason for this was a concern that locally employed servants might be tempted to divulge family secrets which could fan out around the township and haunt the household’s reputation for generations.

It followed that anyone wishing to find employment was often forced to look outside the township. In some cases news of vacancies came from family members who were already employed in a household and in other cases from the help of local gentry or clergy who might know of vacancies or were prepared to actively search amongst their friends who might need a servant.

There were also the hiring fairs and newspaper adverts and the workhouse. But the hiring fairs may not have played much of a part in our local economy. Either way our servants came from far and wide.

Cleaning another’s home was not limited to domestic servants. Mary Hesketh made a living as a char woman, which was paid by the week and required her to visit on a daily basis. It was a job which allowed those who were widowed or single a means of providing for themselves.

Taking a break from The Queen and Pasley 1964

So for Mary who was 60 and living alone, charring was an important source of income. Ten years later none of the char woman at the end of March 1851 were married. Most were single in their twenties and living at home.

For many married working women the alternative here in the township was to wash other peoples’ clothes, either by attending at the customer’s house or washing them at home.

There were 23 of them and most were married with some of the younger ones working alongside their mothers. They were by and large concentrated along the Row, up by Lane End and in a cluster by the Royal Oak in Renshaws Buildings.

Adapted in part from The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2011/11/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy.html 

Picture; by the parish graveyard, 1910 from the Lloyd collection, remaining pictures from the collection of Tony Walker

The class of ’68 part 6 a beginning

The class of '68

We were the class of ’68.

Twelve young people from south east London about to leave school for the last time.

It would have been in late June or early July 1968 outside Crown Woods School in Eltham, our exams were finished and we were all preparing for that long hot summer which would end with exam results and the beginning of a new phase in our lives.

And now fifty-seven years later I guess we have all entered another phase which is pretty much about retirement, watching as the grandchildren come along and reflecting a little on the bitter sweet passage of time.

The PYE FBIC Consule retailing at £85, 1951

Not that this will be some nostalgic drivel.  It isn’t that the past was better, the summers hotter or the Waggon Wheels bigger it is just that it was different.

Nor have the changes we have encountered been any less dramatic than previous generations.

My uncle was born in the closing years of the 19th century, lived through the 20th and into the 21st.

During his lifetime he saw and managed a revolution in technology from how we communicated, travelled and saw the world.

Had he lived just a little longer than his 102 years I have no doubt he would have mastered the computer and the internet in the way he had the telephone, the wireless and the TV.

My sons will no doubt grapple with even faster change.

But the class of '68 were no less adept at coping with the new.  We grew up just as the television was beginning and moved into adulthood with the transition from one black and white channel to three, and entered middle age with digital channels.

Mr Therm, 1949

The hand held communicator much loved of science fiction has become the mobile phone and the postcard replaced by the email.

The paths that the 12 of us went down were quite different but what we all have in common is that we are part of what some have called the favoured generation and others “the baby boomers.”

And there is no doubt that we were born in to a world our parents were determined would be better and different.

It was one of rising prosperity, of a welfare system which confidently planned to care for us from “cradle to grave” and as we entered adult hood there was promise of full time employment and the opportunity of a university course which for some of us would be totally free.

There was a dark side to all this. The Korean War had begun just as most of us were coming up to our first birthday, and the ever present threat of nuclear war hovered in the distance, and as if to round off our child hood by the summer of 1968 there was the awful tragedy of the Vietnam War.

All of which is still in stark contrast to the experiences of my parents and grandparents who lived through two world wars and a major trade depression or the uncertain future of my children.

But, and there always is a but I do tire of the shallow analysis and cheap jibes offered up by the unthinking commentators on the baby boomer generation, most of which lacks historical validity and often is a smoke screen to hide the failings of our market economy.

The class of '68 in the summer of 1965

The class of ’68 did not create the present economic situation, and if we are sitting on inflated house values this was not our doing.

Indeed for any one starting out buying a house in the 1970s and ‘80s the constant rise in  inflation made balancing the household budget and meeting the spiralling mortgage costs a real problem.

And I suspect all of us baby boomers now creak a lot and despite those favoured years of full employment we are coping with failing hearing, stronger spectacles and in my case a distinct recurrence of back pain.

Added to which there is that sure fire knowledge that there are fewer years ahead of us than behind.

But if there is a consolation it is that while we may not be any fitter than previous generations the quality of our lives and those of our children are better.  The old killer diseases are held at bay and so are many of the less serious but no less debilitating complaints.

Which brings me back to the beginning and just as 1968 marked an ending, so for the class of '68 the next decade will be full of new beginnings and with it some wry reflections on what has been and what maybe to come.

Pictures; from the collection of Anne Davey and Andrew Simpson

Gasholders I have known and loved ........... no 2 Liverpool Street Salford

Now I knew when I launched the new series on Gasholders I was pretty confident it would make a stir.

And sure enough my friend Andy couldn't resist offering up three of his pictures of the gasometer on Liverpool Street.

All of which I am confident is just the start.

Location; Salford



Picture;Liverpool Street, Salford, 2017, from the collection of Andy Robertson


*Gasholders, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Gasholders

It’s the little bits of Chorlton’s history that can be fascinating ……… the other billiard hall

I bet I won’t be the only one who has passed 446 Wilbraham Road and not given it a second glance.

Two shops hiding a secret, 2021

Today 466 is the Admiral Casino and its neighbour the Royal Cod, and slip back a few years and the two properties were occupied by Quick Silver and a Touch of Class.

Beyond that I must confess I can’t remember …. but someone will know.

They may even be able to offer up a detailed history of the building which always struck me as out of keeping with that stretch of the road, especially as the present east side of the closed Precinct had been a row of five Victorian houses.

Years ago I had gone looking for the story, but pretty much had given up after discovering the plot had been a vacant slot of land as late as 1907, and built on by 1933.

The unromantic side of that former billiard hall, 2024

And then as so often happens in the middle of doing some research I came across the information that in 1929 it was a billiard hall owned by W.R. Bridgens & Co Ltd and was fronted by Malley and Adamson, opticians and Simon Beattie, tobacconist.

There does appear to have been a third shop front which shows up on the 1952 OS map but this may have been a later subdivision of the other two.

I have Anthony Petrie to thank for the update as he was trawling his collection of street directories for me and came up with the names associated to the building.

And he also identified that in 1962 the three shops fronts were occupied by a “ladies hairdresser, estate agent and optician”

And like so much research it just begs heaps of further questions.  

Can we push the date of the billiard hall back?  When did it close?  Was it a rival to the Temperance Billiard Hall on Manchester Road?  What more is there to find out about W.R. Bridgens & Co Ltd, and is there any one out there who used the hall more recently.

Hall and shops in the distance, 1959

So many questions.

Location; Wilbraham Road

Pictures, The shop fronts of the former Billiard Hall, 2021, courtesy of Google maps, and down the side of the hall, 2024 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the hall in 1959 by A.H. Downes, m17486, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

On going to Crown Woods and attending a Conference at Eltham Green

The class of '68 outside Crown Woods

I went to Crown Woods.

I started there in the September of 1966 as a sixth former having come from a secondary modern school in New Cross.

It was at the time and remains one of the most exciting periods of my life.

Even leaving Eltham for Manchester three years later to do a degree never offered up the same mix of magic, discovery and sheer fun as those few years I spent at the school and so it is something I keep returning to.*

Take one fairly ordinary working class lad with a love of history, provide him with some excellent teachers in a stimulating environment, throw in a mix of fascinating friends and the result is something very special.

This was what learning was all about, and like all good learning it led off in all sorts of directions, from Shakespeare to Marlow and John Donne and onto the machinations of 18th century politics and the grand duels between Disraeli and Gladstone.

Later I was of course to learn that history is more than a few famous individuals, as one of my teachers at the time scrawled on an essay on Italian unification, “forget Verdi and think Marx.”

That said the rest including my love of 17th and 18th century literature, and that understanding that you can’t separate culture, history and economics came from those years at Crown Woods.

All of which says something about both the value of good state education and in particular comprehensive schools which some today would deny ever delivered the goods.

Well I can tell you they did and I am grateful for that.

Nor did it stop at Crown Woods.  Every year Eltham Green that other school just down the road hosted a Sixth Form Conference.  It attracted schools from across London had some pretty impressive speakers.

The year I went there was Arnold Wesker, A. L. Lloyd and Margret Drabble.

There were set piece lectures followed by group discussions and time just to meet other young people some of whom came from the other side of the river.

Of course after 47 years much has now become a blur, but I remember the debate about the role of culture the theme music played throughout the two days.

This was Sgt Pepper by the Beatles which had been released earlier in the month and which by coincidence was the name of the teacher from Eltham Green who organised the event.

I made new friends, sadly none of which lasted the end of the summer, gained in self confidence and felt very special.

Now almost half a century later I look back and I have to say it was a good few years.  I learned a lot, discovered a love of literature and am proud of what these comprehensive schools achieved.
Location; Eltham, London

Pictures; the class of '68, 1968, from the collection of Anne Davey  and the badge of Eltham Green, date unknown courtest of Ryan Ginn

*Crown Woods School Eltham, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Crown%20Woods%20School%20Eltham

Gasholders I have known and loved

Now I grant you they may not seem the most compelling things to write about or indeed to asdmire.

But if you are of a certain age and lived close to a city or town centre they will have been part of the landscape.

I grew up near one and lived close to another when we occupied a flat in east Manchester.

Most of us will have taken them for granted and yet in their way they were a marvel of the 19th century and as much an symbol of that period as the steam engine or the dark satanic mills.

Until recently I have no idea there had been one on King Street West near the House of Fraser although I do have a fine picture of the coking room of the one on Rochdale Road.

Once the manufacture and storage of “town gas” was an essential part of each town and city and were just taken for granted.

So here in a new series are two pictures of the one in east Manchester from the camera of John Casey dating from the 1980s.

Be warned ............ more will follow.

Location; East Manchester

Pictures; the gasholder in east Manchester, 1980s from the collection of John Casey

*Gasholders, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Gasholders

Losing Fleming Hall in Chorlton

How easy it is to lose a building.  

1961

In this case it was Fleming Hall which in the 1950s and 1960s was used by various organizations but has long since all but passed out of living memory.

I say almost passed out of living memory but not quite, because my old friend Wendy emailed me yesterday with, “Fleming Hall was on Wilbraham Road and I thought it was where the Post Office now is but the Chorlton Townswomen's Guild held their last meeting in the Hall on the 15 October 1963 according to their Minutes,  but on page 159 of your book, "The Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy" there  is a photograph of ‘The New Post Office 1961’.  

1961

It could have been where Sue Ryder's charity shop is, but it would have covered more land”.

And that set me going, because this spot was the home of the old Chorlton Post Office which was damaged when neighbouring houses were destroyed during the Manchester Blitz in the December of 1940.

Looking at photographs from the period it is possible that Fleming Hall was located in what had been that bit of the Post Office that survived the bombing.

I asked Oliver Bailey for help and it remembered “Fleming Hall on Wilbraham Road, on the left hand side heading towards Barlow Moor Road junction maybe forty metres past where Corkland Rd comes in, almost opposite where Stevensons the hairdressers were, and H T Burt/ Brown Brothers, right next to where the parade of shops started that continues to the traffic lights.

My recollection is that it was used a lot by the Conservatives for various get- togethers, dances, young conservatives, whist drives and so on. 

1959

It might even have been owned by them as I remember on several occasions moving stuff, including chairs and tables from there to one of the fields off Wilbraham Road in the stretch past St Werburghs, beyond Morville Road. 

On one occasion we even had to move an upright piano down the steps of the Fleming Hall and get it into the back of my father's land rover as there was going to be some dancing at one of the Fetes and offload it. All done by muscle power. But young conservatives generally responded well to the whip.

Internal layout; at the end away from Wilbraham road there was a stage for jollifications and speechifying, then the body of the hall and nearest Wilbraham Road a kitchen of sorts, but only for brewing tea and coffee and cutting up cakes. I think there might have been offices above the kitchen and loos, but memory is hazy on that”.

1907

All of which chimes in with the two images from 1959 and 1961, which clearly show the sign announcing the Conservative Party Committee Rooms and an election poster on the side of the building.

And for those with a keen eye for detail, the front of the building matches that of the old post office.
But, and there always is a but, Oliver added, “I don't remember it looking like the old Post Office though clearly someone kept the entrance structure for a while”.

So, there is still more to find out, including who actually took over the bomb-damaged Post Office, converted it into the Fleming Hall, and who was Fleming? Wendy remembers a prominent Chorlton individual named Fleming and I think we can rule out Sir Alexander Fleming.

Finally, I don’t yet have a date for its demolition, although I know it will be before 1969, because in that year the site is listed as the Maypole Grocers, which later became Lipton’s and is now Sue Ryder.

And after 1963 when the Chorlton Townswomen Guild met there.

So that is that, ………… I now just await someone with a story or a picture of the place.

And not long after the post went live, Lawrence commented that "Saw your post on Fleming Hall and in case you didn’t know……

Named after Edward Fleming 1891 - 1950. He was the Tory MP for Withington Constituency 1945 - 1950. He then stood for Moss Side when the boundaries were redrawn and Chorlton was put in that Constituency.

It’s the 1950 General Election and sadly Mr.Fleming died on the 17th February during the campaign. I have got somemore details I can dig out. I think he took a turn for the worse at his sister’s house on High Lane. Anyway polling was immediately suspended by all the local parties. The Tories went on to win the General with Winston Churchill.

Moss Side Constituency voted two weeks later and elected Florence Horsborough. She’d lost in Midlothian and Peebles but got another crack at obtaining a seat. Manchester’s first woman MP, first woman in a Conservative cabinet".

And this I didn't know.

And Anne, responded almost immediately with "Fleming Hall used to be where the Sue Rider shop is, I remember going there for Christmas and Birthday parties in the 1960s" with Margaret adding, "I remember going to a dance there when I was at Whalley Range High School. Probably a barn dance as we had a club after school of country dancing to which boys from Chorlton Grammar attended. That would be about 1955/6/7".

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Former Post Office, Wilbraham Road, 1959, A.E.Landers, m18242, and in 1961, m18511, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and the Post Office in 1907 from the Lloyd Collection