A synagogue ......Mr. & Mrs. Solomon ....... and Manchester's Corporation Street

So long before the construction of motorways and airports wiped out some of our favourite buildings  there was Corporation Street. 

The synagogue on Halliwell Street, 1849

It runs from Cross Street and was cut in the late 1840s, and like all such major developments resulted in the demolition of buildings and the loss of smaller streets.

One of those buildings was the synagogue on Halliwell Street which had opened in 1825.

The inaugural stone had been laid the year before at a ceremony which had started with prayers at the “temporary place of worship on Long Millgate  …. [after which] the reader and congregation walked in procession to Halliwell Street to perform the laying of the first stone of the intended new synagogue when very appropriate and impressive prayers, composed for the occasion were said by the reader, after which thirty persons sat down, at the Wilton Arms to an excellent dinner”.*

Just over a year later in the September the Manchester Guardian reported on the consecration of the new synagogue which it wrote “is in every respect suitable for the performance of divine worship”. *****

It was according to one observer an unpretenious red brick building which replaced a temporary place of worship which had been in Ainsworth Court off Long Millgate.

Access to the Court was through a narrow passage.

Sadly the Manchester Guardian didn’t comment on its closure or demolition but did give a detailed account of the new synagogue on Park Street Cheetham Hill Road on March 25th 1858.**

Halliwell Street on which the early synagogue was built was swept away with the coming of Corporation Street, but the 1851 census provides us with a very clear picture of its inhabitants, including Soloman Philips who was the appointed overseer for the synagogue, along with a Miss Levy who described herself as a Professor of Hebrew.

In all there were seventy four residents living on the street, twenty-one of whom were children under the age of 14. The seventy four had  birth places which ranged from Manchester and Salford to Liverpool, Warsaw and Hamburg. 

Their occupations were varied but erred on the side of skilled artisan, including watchmaker and milliner to a professor of Music and a veterinary surgeon alongside the more humble jobs of launderess, matchmaker and traveller along with the delightful “Ender and Mender”.

Mr. Philips had come from Warsaw, and his wife Sarah from Koosemer in Poland  No pictures have survived of their home on Halliwell Street but it commanded an annual rent of £18  which translated into a weekly rent of six shillings which was above that of properties in the surrounding streets.

And it does appear that their house survived the destruction of the synagogue and part of the road it stood on because in 1861 Philip and Sarah are still here at number 9, which sometime during the decade before had been renumbered as no. 4.

Now that remanent is part of Balloon Street which has also been much truncated, but as Balloon Street it is a reminder of that 18th century pioneer of all things ballons.  

This was James Sadler who according to my Annals of Manchester "ascended in his balloon on May 12th 1785 from a garden behind the Manchester Arms Inn Long Millgate, which was then a private house”***. 

And not content with that seven days later “made his second balloon ascent, but on alighting was obliged to let it drive in the wind”.

Indigo Hotel, Todd Street, 2025

Leaving me just to say that there is a plaque commemorating the synagogue on the wall of the Indigo Hotel on Todd Street, close to where the synagogue stood. The text says, "Manchester's First Synagogue, 1825-1858 stood near this site until its demolition in the construction of Corporation Street".

Location; Shudehill

 Picture; the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1844-49, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and Indigo Hotel, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Manchester Guardian, August 14th, 1824

** The Manchester Guardian, September 10th, 1825

***The Manchester Guardian, March 26th, 1858

****Axon, William, The Annals of Manchester, 1885

***** Davies, Ethan, Manchester's first synagogue recognised with plaque in special ceremony, Manchester Evening News, July 13th, 2022, https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/manchesters-first-synagogue-recognised-plaque-24477558

Never be surprised at what you find on Wilbraham Road ............. nurses and Red a Cross Hospital

Now this is just the start of that story of a Red Cross hospital on Wilbraham Road and at this stage I have no idea where it will lead.

Until recently I knew that during the Great War the Red Cross ran two hospitals in Chorlton, one in the Sunday school of the Baptist Church on Edge Lane and the other in the Sunday School on Manchester Road.

The first opened in 1914 and the second must date from sometime in 1916 or 1917.

But given the demand for hospital beds I have always wondered if there were not more.

Just down the road in Whalley Range and south into Didsbury a number of private homes were given over to the Red Cross so it seemed logical that Chorlton must have had its own share of smaller Red Cross establishments.

That said none have turned up in the records of which the best is a book by the Red Cross on their work in east Lancashire which offers up a wealth of detail about the hospitals they ran.

But the book was published in 1916 and concentrates on those hospitals which had been set up between 1914-15 and so while the hospital on Edge Lane is included the one on Manchester Road is absent.

So I was intrigued when Pawel Lech Michalczyk told me that “the house next to the Chorlton Conservative Club is listed as a hospital in 1917.  It was Wycombe, and described as an auxiliary military hospital in the 1917 Slater's street directory.”

Now that set me off looking and back in 1911 Wycombe was home to Mr and Mrs Barnes, their four children and Miss Mary Jane Williams who was 27 and employed as a domestic servant.

Mr Williams described himself a “Merchant” and is listed in the 1911 directory as the “Managing Directory of James Barnes Ltd.”

Now Wycombe is a big house which was described as having 12 rooms making it large enough to have been run as a small auxiliary hospital.

And that is where the story stops, but I rather think it will only be a pause.

Picture;  picture postcard possibly Willow Bank Red Cross Hospital, circa 1914 courtesy of David Harrop,

The class of ‘68 part 1 an ending

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.

Of the twelve sitting on the car I can easily name seven of the young people staring back at me. I’m there fifth from the left, beside me was my girl friend Ann, and on my right was Anne Davey, David Hatch, and Mike Robinson while perched on the car at the edge of the picture was Crispin Rooney and behind us Karen and Richard Woods. I rather think the chap on the end was Keith Bradbury while my dear friend Anne Davey  has informed me that behind us was Jenny Turner and Ian Curle.

We have become that favoured generation, “the baby boomers”. Not for us world wars or bitter trade depressions.

 We were born in to a world our parents were determined would be better and different.

And we grew up against a backdrop of rising prosperity, looked after by a welfare system which confidently planned to care for us from “cradle to grave” and entered adult hood with the promise of full time employment and the opportunity of a university course which for some of us would be totally free.

Now 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.

But that summer was a good one, and I have to say truly it seemed the sun shone all the way through.

 Now I was the late comer to the group along with my friend Bernard, we had washed up at Crown Woods Comprehensive in the September of 1966. Me, from a Secondary Modern School and Bernard from a grammar school.

And Crown Woods was  mixed, which pitched both of us into a series of wonderful new experiences and opened up new friendships that have survived the space of over 54 years.

Of course the intervening years have offered up both triumphs and dismal dog days and along the way some of those twelve have disappeared while we have all had to cope with a mix of disappointments as well successes.

Most stayed in the south with only me washing up in the north and never going back. We did the full range of post school careers, with some of us heading off to pursue a degree and others getting down to it directly in offices and factories.

And now most of us are on the cusp of retiring or have done so with all that that will bring. And as I stare back at the class of 68 I ponder on the stories that we made and the people we touched.

Pictures; from the collection of Anne Davey

Tomorrow, part 2, one of the class of '68 and a secondary modern school

Never throw away the negatives ....... part 4 ....the school ..... Derby Street

Of the collection of pictures I rediscovered of the streets off Cheetham Hill Road, this proved the most elusive to identify.

I remember our guide saying it had been a school and over the years I took it to be one of the Municipal Board Schools.

I had no name and wasn’t even sure whether it was on Derby Street, Bent Street or Empire Street.

To be fair the trip had been over thirty years ago, and I lost the notes and the original prints a long time ago.

But then in response to the Talmud Torah story, Michael identified it as a school on Derby Street because his mum had gone there.

From that, it was a skip and a jump to the directories where the school was listed in 1911, as the Jews School. The previous year it had space for 2,029 students and the average attendance was 668 boys, 625 girls and 581 infants.

According to the Local History Library the school was established on Derby Street “in 1869 and known as the Manchester Jews’ School [having] started off as Manchester Hebrew Association founded for religious classes in 1838 and by 1842 was established as a  school at Halliwell St., Cheetham, moving to Cheetham Hill Road in Spring 1851. 

From 1941to 1959 it shared a building with the Infants and Junior Departments of Waterloo Road, Cheetham. The school moved to Crumpsall and opened as King David High School, Crumpsall in 1959”.

The library holds a large number of records from the school including  admission registers, log books, stock books and teacher record books along with information on refugees, 1940-44, staff registers and visitors books, some of which are also available from Findmypast.

And for those who want more, Anthea Darling has posted, "Building designed by Edward Salomons, architect of what is now the Jewish Museum. Opened 1869 for 700 children, replacing earlier building in Halliwell Street. For more info go to Manchester Jews School Derby Street Cheetham.** Forgot to say it was demolished in 2012".

Location; Derby  Street, Manchester

Picture; The Jews School, 1986, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* Records of the Manchester Jewish Community, 2015, Manchester Central Library,www.manchester.gov.uk/download/.../id/.../jewish_community_archives_guide.pdf

**Manchester Jews School Derby Street, Cheetham, https://www.manchestervictorianarchitects.org.uk/buildings/manchester-jews-school-derby-street-cheetham?fbclid=IwAR2h6y5XyS-Ysi1olWUbf7qj8pXO2dH9A3YwRH16cP1jhNfgVgvkN10cCss

Eltham High Street in the summer of 1915 and again sometime in the 1960s

At first glance it looks familiar enough.  

We are looking at the parish church  on a warm summer’s morning sometime in 1915.

It is a picture I have grown to like and given that I have just bought the postcard I am quite pleased with myself.

Now I say bought, but in fact I have ordered it up and if it hasn’t been sold I shall soon be the proud owner of a little bit of old Eltham.*

So back to the picture which has enough detail to mark it off as an image from almost a century ago.

The tram is about to leave travelling along Well Hall Road which was cut just over a decade before and on the eastern side of the road there are none of the familiar shops while just out of the picture on the extreme right was Eltham’s third Congregational Church.

It was built in 1868 “in a strong Gothic Style with a tall spire and was demolished in 1936.”**

And while I don’t usually do then and now pictures I couldn’t resist adding the second photograph which I guess is from the 1960s.

This is the Eltham I remember.

They say you should never go back and I have to admit the first time I returned after Burton’s had gone, along with the newsagent/bookshop it was rather like a little of my childhood had been consigned to the rubbish bin..

But all of that smacks of nostalgic tosh, and no doubt any youngster who had stood beside the photographer in the summer of 1915 may well have muttered something similar when Burtons opened its grand new shop on the corner of Well Hall Road and the High Street in 1937.

Now I have to confess the shop with its great Ionic columns and pilasters at first floor level still dominates the corner even if the sleek 1960s Italian suits, jackets and ties have been replaced by fast food and soft drinks.

And while I bought my first suit from the shop it will always be the memory of the crowds turning out from the dance hall above the shop on a Saturday night that I remember along with the newsagents which occupied part of the Well Hall side of the building.

It was there that I would buy my Penguin Classics many of which still sit on the bookshelves here in Chorlton.

But again I am in danger of sliding into nostalgia so it’s best to leave these two pictures in the past, until my post card arrives from Mr Flynn which no doubt will set me off again.

And in the meantime I would welcome any images of Eltham which will provide the material for more stories.

Pictures;  Eltham in 1915, courtesy currently of Mr Flynn and Eltham in the 1960s

*MARK FLYNN POSTCARDS http://www.markfynn.com/index.html

**Spurgeon Darrell, Discover Eltham, 2000

A conversation …. the Saturday boy … and heaps of vegetables …. at Muriel and Richard’s on Beech Road

Now Muriel and Richard’s will always have be a special place for me.

Their fruit and veg was always the best, and at Christmas Muriel always did that Nativity scene where local kids were encouraged to make figures for the display.

But above that they were always very kind to me, and during a time when I was juggling work, bringing up three kids and only shopping on Beech Road they could be relied to help out.

In particular Muriel acted as my bank, advancing me cash and letting me run up a tab.

To the consternation of some I would choose the fruit and veg, Muriel would ask if I needed any money and I would leave with assorted apples, pears, potatoes and more, with cash in hand.  To which some muttered that this was not how it was done.

Shops were not supposed to hand out produce and money and wave goodbye to the customer.  But this was Muriel’s and every Saturday the tab was settled.

I shopped there regularly through the 1970s into the 1990s and beyond.

I will have to ask Muriel just when they took over the shop, because I know in 1969 it was a confectioner’s run by a F. Lyth and now it is a letting agency.

Back then at the end of the 60s their shop was flanked by Joan Newman’s hairdressers and Mr. Morgan’s off license.

And a couple of decades later, the cutting of hair would be replaced briefly by a shop selling pianos before it settled on its long and continuing relationship with serving food and alcohol, while after a time as a vacant premises Mr. Morgan’s place became the Italian deli.

And that is about it.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; Muriel and Richard’s, 1979, & 2002, and Muriel, 2004, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

When plastic bowls and a picture of San Francisco were a must ........ back at “Kingy”

Now I make no apology at returning to Kingspot.

If you are of a certain age and that pretty much covers everyone in Chorlton, you will remember Kingspot.

And for those who moved in after the shop closed here are two more pictures of what was an institution.

I wrote about it yesterday reflecting that “it was just one of those places we took for granted and long before Pound Shops it was somewhere you could get a bargain.

Here could be found everything from washing pegs, to happy colourful toys and that fabulous print of the San Francisco Bridge at sunset.

Much of what was on offer was plastic and sometimes I wondered whether they had their own plastic factory somewhere east of Hong Kong.

So it was no surprise that Kingspot was always full and getting round the shop could be a challenge which often involved avoiding the buggies, and shopping trollies as you worked you way down the two isles looking for a washing up bowl and ending up instead with two plastic imitation Flying Ducks to hang above the plastic water fountain.

Our kids always seemed to be in their usually when the latest craze for BB guns hit Chorlton which I suspect followed a few days after a new consignment of cheap toys had arrived from China."

And no sooner had I posted the story than  Bernard sent over two of his own pictures adding that "here are a couple of photos of Kingspot I took, I think it was Marhch1998,from data on photo. Maybe you could add them to your Kingspot blog."

Which of course I could and did.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Kingspot, 1998, from the collection of Bernard Leach