A history of Chorlton in just 20 objects number 9 ....... a legal agreement 1767

A short series featuring objects which tell a story of Chorlton in just a paragrah and a challenge for people to suggest some that are personal to their stories. 

It is one of the most revealing documents in the Bailey family collection and sets out the tenancy agreement between James Renshaw and Samuel Egerton who owned much of Chorlton.   By the contract James Renshaw was to rent “several fields, Closes or Parcels of land, ..... containing four acres,” as well “All that Messuage or Cottages and tenement.”  It laid out the timetable for paying the rent and the Egerton’s rights to any minerals found under the ground as well as all “Timber Trees Woods and Underwoods.”   It was an agreement which lasted into the 20th century with the family continuing to farm the land and live in the same farm house into the first decade of the 20th century. And at the centre of it all was the home which was only demolished in the 1970s.

Picture; from the Bailey family collection

With Elizabeth Jane Hunt and three children in a two roomed house in Eltham in 1911

This is the White Hart on a summer’s day in 1909, and it was going to be the subject of the story.

Mrs Ann Nunn who ran the five roomed pub was 59 years old had been born in Suffolk and was a widow.

During the twenty or so years before 1909 she had run another pub on King Arthur Street a few minutes’ walk from New Cross Road.  Back then it was a densely packed part of south east London close to an iron works and in the shadow of the viaduct of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway.

Now I don’t yet know when her husband died but I think it may have been in 1897.  Either way she was still in King Arthur Street in 1901 and will have moved into the White Hart sometime aftter the January of 1908 and had gone by 1918.  Now I know this because she does not show up on either the street directories for 1908 and 1918 but is there on the sign above the door of the pub in 1909 and fills in her census return two years later.

But as things do I was drawn away from Mrs Nunn and instead wandered a little further up the street, stopping first at Harry Harvey’s fruit and greengrocer’s shop next door.

It is one of those remarkable examples of just how many people can be squeezed into a small property.

Here in the two rooms above the shop lived Mr and Mrs Harvey their two young children and the 18 years old assistant Frederick Walter Saunders.

Nor were the Harvey’s the only family to juggle overcrowded conditions, for around the corner in another two properties with just two rooms each lived the Chapman family of four and Mrs Hunt and her three children.

And it is Elizabeth Jane Hunt’s story that draws you in.  Her three children were aged, 10, 8 and 6, and for her the juggling began with having to have her daughter in her bedroom leaving the two boys to share the downstairs room beside the scullery.

She had been married for eleven years and worked a charwoman, which was not an easy job.

The date of her husband’s death has eluded me so far but I know he was called Charles and worked as a “Steel and Grass Borer in the Gas Works", and in the April of 1901 Elizabeth and Charles were living on the Broadway in Bexleyheath not far from Gravel Hill.  There is a record of a Charles Hunt who died in 1907 which puts their youngest child at just two years old.

His death may have occasioned the move to 4A the High Street and those two rooms hard by the White Hart.

I don’t have a picture of the properties but they look to have been built with one room above the other and a lean to scullery or kitchen attached.

Alternatively they may have been part of number 4 which was the shop run by the Harvey's/  If so this makes that property a much larger one with six rooms which will have been subdivided.

Either way neither Elizabeth Jane or Mr amd Mrs Chapman appear on those street directories which either means the rooms were vacant or that they were not deemed important enough to be listed at number 4.

I am hoping that someone will have a picture, but in the meantime I am forced back to that of the White Hart.

Pictures; the White Hart in 1909, 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

Learning to drive a corporation tram and other stories ….. Sidney Kirven

Sidney Kirven worked for Manchester City Council from 1925 till he retired forty-one years later.

Starting out, 1925

In that time, he saw the last days of the old corporation trams, the transition to a fully motorised fleet of buses and just missed the end of the city’s transport department.

Free from Accidents, 1962

Three years after his retirement Manchester’s fleet of buses joined those of the other ten municipalities in Greater Manchester to become a single transport authority, covering southeast Lancashire and northeast Cheshire going under the title of SELNEC.

For a while the various bus fleets retained their original colours of the old eleven municipalities but slowly were repainted in the new corporate orange and white livery of SELNEC.

I don’t know what Mr. Kirven thought of the change, and even if I did that would be a different story because today I want to focus and box full of items from his career with Manchester Corporation Tramways and its successor, Manchester City Council Transport Department.

The documents were passed over to me by a family member and include his training record card while learning to drive a tram, several trade union cards, along with a copy of the 1931 Highway Code, a number of his driving licences, a Safety Award and a letter commemorating his retirement in December 1966.

Uniform Clothing Coupons, 1941-1944

To those historians dealing with the great sweep of history they may appear small fry, but for me they are a wonderful insight into how we lived.

For me the training record card is fascinating giving as it does the route of the of the old trams across the city, while the two receipts for uniform clothing coupons is a reminder that during the war rationing extended to the uniforms of bus and transport drivers.

Of course, a lot more research needs to be done to transform these bits of memorabilia into a detailed story of Mr. Kirven and how they fit into the history of Manchester’s public transport.  Otherwise, they will just have a novelty value.

But today I am just pleased to be able to share them.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; from the collection of Rob and Doreen Lizar

The Balloon Man … and heaps of other stories about Greater Manchester ….. tonight … at Chorlton Library

It’s the story behind the books featuring that bestselling series … The History of Greater Manchester By Tram.

The Stories By the Stops, 2026

So come along and hear the story of how Andrew Simpson and Peter Topping came up with the idea of a collection of books which share the history of Greater Manchester based on the idea that each of the 99 tram stops on the eight routes all have stories which when put together make our collective past.

Chorlton Civic Society Free Public Meeting together with a history talk based around the tram stops books... The perfect antidote to staying in ... Tuesday  July 14th  7.30 till 8.30. Chorlton Library Community Room.

With those masters of history and art, 2026

When the Balloon Man came to Manchester and they named a street after the event, 1785

Stories from synagogues, the Manchester Jewish Museums, 2026

That's All Folks ... come and join us

Sun … that pervading smell of burning …. and a worsening air quality

Today, on another hot day across the city and beyond we are still experiencing the fall out from the moors fire above Oldham. 

The Manchester Evening News tells me that “The huge moor fires near Dovestone Reservoir in Oldham and on Tintwistle Moor near Glossop are continuing to send huge plumes of smoke across our region and beyond”*.

And inevitably the air quality has taken a nose dive, with  Stockport, udged as unhealthy.

While other areas in Greater Manchester, including  Withington, Hulme and Chorlton have been classified as 'moderate', and yet other areas being good according to the Air Quality Index.**

Over the last few days, the degree of intrusion has varied and this morning at six the air was fresh but by midday it was poor and there was a distinct haze across the Rec.

Happily, by midafternoon the effects of the fire were less visible here in Chorlton but on a day when it would be pleasant to have the windows slightly open they have remained closed.

Location; Greater Manchester

Picture; The Rec, Beech Road, Chorlton, 2026, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*New Greater Manchester air quality map shows devastating moors fires impact with one borough hardest hit by smoke, Charlotte Fisher, Reporter, Manchester Evening News, July 14th, 2026, https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/new-greater-manchester-air-quality-34286797

**Air quality in Manchester, https://www.iqair.com/gb/air-quality/uk/england/manchester

Route 356 …. if you ever plan to travel east ……

Well, if you ever plan to travel east, take my way, it's the highway that's the best and get your kicks on route 356.

Route 356, 2025

It runs from Oldham, up to Denshaw, down to Delph and all the way to Ashton.

The Angel Hotel, Ashton, 2022

Taking in stunning landscapes, and heaps of places from Dobcross, to Diggle, to Upper Mill, Greenfield, Grasscroft, Miclehurst, Mossley, always heading south, until it twists west from Stalybridge to end 80 minutes later after 14 major stops at Ashton Under-Lyne.

Now, I think there is a book to be written which tells the story of this part of Greater Manchester by bus, with tales from all 14 stops, with pictures, maps and some original paintings by Peter Topping.

So, I am throwing down the challenge. “Peter meet me in Oldham on a day and time of your choosing and we’ll motor south, stopping off as we choose and like Toad of Toad Hall discover adventures along the way”.

The White House, Ashton, 2022

Market Place and Town Hall, 1950s

And because we can we will do it for free, courtesy of that nifty little concessionary bus pass.  

Other bus tickets are available, but none will cost more that £3.

Leaving me just to say that other seats will be vacant but we will have nabbed two at the front on the top deck.

And … dear reader you have been present at the dawn of another great Simpson Topping idea.

Pictures; Route 365, courtesy of Google Maps, The Angel Hotel and The White Horse, Ashton-Under-Lyne, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Market Place and Town Hall from the series Ashton-U-Lyne, issued by Tuck & Sons, courtesy of TuckDB,  http://tuckdb.org/history

Fires ….. floods and the year the sun went to sleep …

I wonder how much space in books about the summer of 2026 will be given over to the moorland fires which broke out this week.

Fires over Staleybridge, 2018

They have yet to reach the intensity or length of the one in 2018 which threatened the town of Stalybridge.

But a fire that began on Saturday continued through Sunday and is still commanding the presence of the Fire Service in the afternoon of Monday. And there are now reports of two more above Glossop.

Nor is it possible to ignore them given that since Saturday the air across Greater Manchester has been filled with the smell of burning vegetation.  It varies in its level of intrusion and brings with it a distinct lowering of visibility.

Although this may overstate the situation, and I can still see out across the Rec, it is the case that there is a noticeable haziness which I could put down to dirty windows, but they were washed last week both inside and out.

And anyway, the haze was still there when I went into the garden.

There was a brief period this morning when the quality of the air improved, but as the heat has built up during the day that pervading smell of smoke with the accompanying awful taste in your mouth has returned. 

Now I was born in the first half of the last century and so have vivid memories of those smog’s which engulfed my home city of London and pretty much all our urban centres during the winter months.

As a kid I welcomed the appearance of the swirling stuff which quickly obliterated familiar landscapes, deaden sound but were lethal invading homes and workplaces with its deadly poison.

And are reminder of how much we wrap ourselves in technology and forget that nature can come back and bite you on the bum, whether its storms, floods or fires.

When the sun went to sleep, 1816

Which is a nice link to the year when the sun went to sleep.

1816 should have been a good year, it was after all the first year of peace since Waterloo, the battle that had ended the long wars with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France which had run with only a short break since 1792.

But it was according to one writer, “the year without a summer, when weeks passed into months and the sun did not appear to ripen the produce [and] there was just torrential rain and thunderstorms.”*

Leading to harvest failures, distress and unrest across Europe and the US.

The terrible weather was connected to the “biggest volcanic eruption in recorded history, which had taken place on the other side of the world.”

According to the agricultural records** for 1816 it was a wet summer with a very poor harvest with snow lying on the ground into mid-April.

The temperature for July and August was 4-8⁰ below average and the heavy rains were accompanied by strong winds, which meant that the harvests began late with the result that in the Midlands and the North corn was still in the fields in November.

Sheep rot was prevalent, hay scarce and much livestock sold for lack of keep.

All of which is easy to gloss over until you try to fix this to people’s lives. The cost of wheat rose to 78s 6d a quarter which would have a real impact on the cost of bread which remained a staple part of the diet of most families.

Here in the Chorlton, we were dependant on agriculture. Of the 119 families, 96 were directly engaged in farming and another 16 engaged in trade, manufacture and crafts. So, a poor harvest impacted not only on those who harvested the crops, but the blacksmith, wheelwright and countless others.

Only the people of plenty might escape hardship and for them the lack of food in the community raised the spectre of unrest and trouble.

There are accounts of people walking from Wales into England begging for food, along with demobbed soldiers wandering the country looking for work.

The unrest is reflected in the resumption of Luddite activity in the North, food riots and protests in London where some carried the French revolutionary flag.

Little in the way of evidence for the township has survived although the records for Stretford show the demand for poor relief. The death rate that year was not exceptional and generally reflected what we might expect with younger people dying than any other age group and these were concentrated mostly in the summer months.

I doubt that we escaped lightly from that year without a summer but as yet the township has not revealed its secrets.

 We would have seen high levels of ash in the atmosphere which would have led to the spectacular sunsets seen in the paintings of Turner but more will be revealed through more diligent research.

And similar research will reveal the real toll of the moorland fires and the frequent intense heatwaves.

Picture; Chichester Canal, circa 1828, J.M.Turner, and fires over Stalybridge, 2018, courtesy of Peter Armistead

*Jad Adams, 1816 The Year Without A Summer, BBC Who Do you Think You Are Magazine, Issue 60 May 2012

**Agricultural Records J.M.Stratton 1969