The picture …. the municipal venture ….. and half a mystery solved

Here is a picture I keep coming back to.

At the Electricity showrooms, undated

It is a popular one which keeps cropping up on social media and was recently reposted by my Facebook chum, Christopher Roman.

Alas I have never been able to track a date or a source for the image, but the design of the building and the fashions on display would suggest the 1930s.

This was still the height of municipal socialism which saw local authorities continue to advance their responsibilities in a range of activities.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in the absence of much from central government it was local politicians who were making their towns and cities better places to live.  As Sidney Webb said the “municipalities have done most to socialize our industrial life.” *

And so a resident of Manchester, Birmingham or Glasgow could benefit from municipal supplies of water, gas and electricity, travel on municipally owned trams and buses walk through a municipally maintained park while knowing his children were being educated in municipally run schools.

Electricity Supply Box, 1915

“Glasgow builds and maintains seven public ‘common lodging houses’; Liverpool provides science lectures; Manchester builds and stocks an art gallery; Birmingham runs schools of design; Leeds creates extensive cattle markets; and Bradford supplies water below cost price. 

There are nearly one hundred free libraries and reading rooms. The minor services now performed by public bodies are innumerable.”*

And chief amongst those was the growing push to provide affordable gas and electrical fires, cookers and a range or household appliances which were promoted through local authority showrooms and supported by municipally run classes on how to cook with gas and electricity.

But the "City of Leicester Electricity Service" remained elusive ….. until last night when Tina turned up the story in a matter of minutes eclipsing my long practised historical skills.

It was all there in an article entitled City Hall, from the Story of Leicester.**

I have no intention of lifting other people’s research and so instead if you want to know the history of the service just follow the link.

Electricity Joan? 1938

Not that I am any closer to finding the date or the source, but I think it will be sometime after 1935 when the newly opened "Municipal Offices housed the Leicester Corporation Electricity Department (later the East Midland Electricity Board) and were specially furnished with a model kitchen for 'housewives who are interested in the modern uses of electricity in the home'. 

Exhibition Model Of All-Electric Kitchen, 1935

A special theatre also presented weekly cookery demonstrations and a Service Centre displayed, sold and hired out electrical appliances".**

Added to which I guess the picture comes from promotional material issued by the City Council.

Shopping for the new, date unknown

Now that is almost the end of the story but not quite, because after an appeal on the Leicester Old and New site and before Tina’s discovery a heap of people suggested the location for the offices as Charles Street.***

And that placed it almost opposite the air b&b we stayed at in January on one of our visits to see our Josh and Polly.

So as they say ….. it really is a very small world and armed with my newly acquired knowledge I will go and stand outside City Hall next time we are in Leicester.

Pictures; City of Leicester Electricity Service, source, and date unknown Manchester Corporation Electricity Works Supply box, circa 1915, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, advert from Manchester Electric Supply and picture of an all-electric kitchen 1935, Manchester Corporation

*Webb, Sidney, from Historic, Fabian Essays in Socialism 1889

**City Hall, Story of Leicester, https://www.storyofleicester.info/civic-affairs/city-hall/

***Leciester Old and New, https://www.facebook.com/groups/483822492579736/?multi_permalinks=855570792071569&notif_id=1691096569147245&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic&ref=notif

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 24 Barton Square .......... all in a name change or two

Barton Square, 2016

Barton Square is that narrow little street that runs from Exchange Street round to St Ann Street and is dominated by Barton Arcade that 19th century shopping mall more glass than wall.

I use it quite a lot and I always let my imagination wander as I follow its twisty route but until recently I had never given much thought to its name.

Barton is obvious given the arcade, but square seemed a little odd, after all this is a street. 

I supposed there might be a connection with St Ann's Square but that seemed remote and the more I thought about it even Barton threw up a puzzle given that the arcade was built in 1870 and the street is there a century before.

So as you do I went looking at the old maps of the area and the story is as complicated as you could expect.

In the 1840s and 50s that first stretch leading to the arcade was Red Lion Street which extended  under what is now the arcade just stopping short of Deansgate with four little side streets around a small square called Barton’s Buildings.  These were accessed via an entry.

Red Lion Street & Back Square, 1851

And that almost offered up the answer, but not quite, because the rest of what we now know as Barton Square had undergone a number of name changes, from Back Square in the first half of the 19th century to Back St Ann’s Square in 1793.

So mystery solved, and with a bit more digging it should be possible using the directories to pinpoint the date it all became Barton Square which it was by 1900.

Leaving me only to record that in 1851 Red Lion was occupied by mix of professional occupation including an accountant, commission agent, stockbroker and consulting engineer while Back Square was full of small manufacturing businesses.

As for Barton's buildings these belonged to a Mr Barton and consisted of four warehouses and an office with a joint annual rental income of £305 which were occupied by George and Edward Wood who dealt in cotton and cotton waste and and Tobler Anschelf & Co listed as merchants.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Barton Square, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and in 1851, from Adshead’s map of Manchester, and in 1900 from Goad's Fire Insurance maps, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

The postcard to Eltham ….. the search for Miss Williams ….. and a house on Arsenal Road

I doubt that Auntie Edith would ever have thought that her picture postcard sent from Looe in Cornwall in July 1933 would be the subject of a search through the historical records 90 years later.

The card was addressed to a Miss Williams of Arsenal Road and that set me off.  For the house was one of those built for the Royal Arsenal workers and is part of the estate that I grew up on.

So, not only Eltham, but Well Hall and the Progress Estate.  

The comment on the back picks up on the message that holiday makers in Looe will not have to spend much money, with “we should come home with all our money.  I don’t think.”

Miss Williams is still lurking in the shadows.  I know that she was there in the house in 1933, but six years later it is vacant.  

And back in 1921 the property was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Lavin. William Earl  was 57 years old, from Northamptonshire  and described his occupation as a “Collector” for Saye Machine Co Ltd, while May Jane was a year older and was born in Birmingham. 

The closest definition in the Ministry of Labour’s 1921 dictionary for a “Collector salesman” was   a canvasser who also collects weekly or monthly payments for goods sold on installment system.

The firm appears to have employed four others but here it gets tricky because while each suggests that they were related to sewing machines, their listed employer has a different name.

And so far, that is where the trail peters out.  There are other William Lavin’s but none which fit the profile.

But something will turn up it always does, sadly not today.

All of which takes me back to that house on Arsenal Road and what it might tell us about the early history of the estate.  I have always wondered at what point those houses ceased to be homes for Royal Arsenal workers.  The huge run down of employment at the factory in the immediate post wars years will have meant that new tenants were drawn from other occupations.

In time I will go looking for the electoral registers for Arsenal Road to see if we can track the residents of the property, but for now I am left with that picture postcard.

Location’ Arsenal Road, Eltham, London and Looe in Cornwall

Pictures; You Went Get Stung, 1933, from the collection of David Harrop

Lost images of Whalley Range part 5 the cinema and a mystery

Now here is a mystery I haven’t been able to solve.

I am looking at what I thought was an old cinema, long since converted into other uses.

It was on that stretch of Upper Chorlton Road, just before the Whalley Hotel and has gone now but back in 1960 it was the home of Ferodo Ltd and thirteen years later Advance Motor Supplies Ltd.

The building resembles the sort of picture house which began to go up  in the early decades of the last century, and might also have doubled as a variety theatre.

All of which made me assume that was what we had here in an earlier story.

But it is not mentioned in Derek J. Southall’s book on the cinema’s of Manchester* and the local historian Philip Lloyd has no memory of there being a cinema there.

So that is the mystery.

I suspect when I can get access to the street directories for the middle decades of the 20th century I might be to track down its earlier history and get a date for its construction which was sometime after 1911.

So in the meantime if anyone has anything to add I would like to hear from you. And pretty much righy away Chris Geliher, posted "1933 directory has it as Brooks's Bar Billiard Hall Co. Ltd. Andrew".

*The Golden Years of Manchester Picture Houses: Memories of the Silver Screen 1900-1970 by Derek J. Southall and

Pictures; Whalley Range, Upper Chorlton Road, north east side, 1960, A.H.Downes, m40806 and again in 1973, photographer unknown, m40728, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Digging in the past: the arable farmer who's an archaeologist .... on the wireless now

It's not the zippiest of titles but it does the biz, because this is the story of one farmer in the Vale of Yorkshire who has uncovered some remarkable archaeological finds in his farm*.

Roman coin, Claudius, 43-54 AD

It comes from BBC Radio 4's On Your Farm which goes out every day at 6.30 am.  under the collective title of Farming Today and "gets to the heart of country life with a look at individual farming endeavours".

Its got the lot, covering heaps of different stories all related to farming,  So I have listened to "The Art of Asparagus", "A Cumbrian Farm", "Meet Syrian bee expert", "Marino Wool for Surfers", "Carbon Counting", and today's "Digging in the past".

 "Arable and archaeology are the two passions in Nick Wilson's life. 

He farms in the Vale of York but the discovery of a Roman burial site in one of his fields turbo-charged his interest in the past. 

That was nearly 10 years ago, since then he has studied for a PhD in archaeology and excavated acres of farmland. 

Reverse of the Claudian coin

As well as the Roman tomb, he's unearthed Bronze-age cooking pots, quern stones for grinding corn, jewellery and a hob-nail boot from Roman times"*.

Produced and presented by Rebecca Rooney".

Location; The Vale of York

Pictures; a Roman coin from the era of the Emperor Claudius, [I think], 1975,from the collection of Andrew Simpson 

*Digging in the past: the arable farmer who's an archaeologist,On Your Farm, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002xdbd

**On Your Farm, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006s571

The invitation from the Northern Quarter ....... and a mystery

There are still a few of those odd little passages and open doors in the Northern Quarter which beckon you in with the promise of something different and a bit edgy.

Tib Street, 2023

And so, it is with the passage which leads off from Tib Street, down a narrow way opening out onto a small court.

With a degree of imagination and with the light fading fast you could conjure up one of those places beloved of Dickens where few ventured who were not local.

Once there were plenty of them and anyone who was a stranger might well regret letting their curiosity get to them and walk through.

In the 1870s the Manchester Guardian reported on heaps of these places, many of which were off Deansgate and whose reputation for criminality and low life was such that the Police seldom ventured there alone.*

I doubt that our passageway is that dangerous flanked as it is by a florist and a café .

Today it it leads to  the rear of the Freemount pub which fronts Oldham Street.

But what is interesting is that it shows up on Adshead’s map of Manchester dated 1851.

Tib Street, and The King Inn, 1850

And then as now it led to a pub which back then was the King Inn whose landlord was George Todman.

Now I have become interested in Mr. Todman, because he like me was from Eltham in what was then Kent.  

He was 69, married to Mary who was 55 and  was born in Nottingham.  

They shared the property with eight others, three of whom were their children along with a grandchild, a servant, a lodger and on the night of the census a visitor and a “child”

The visitor was Rebecca Stevens from Derby who gave her age as 22, while the child, George Smith was just 8 years old and was from Manchester.

Just how young George got to be living with the Todman’s is unclear but intrigues me, and of course provides that bit of mystery which deserves more research.

As for the pub it commanded an annual estimated rental value of £120 which marks it off as a going concern and was owned by a “Hobson”.

Thomas Street, 2023

And that just leaves that other “invitation to the Norther Quarter which is on Thomas Street and amounts to an entrance to a gym in the cellar of the building.

Location; the Northern Quarter

Pictures; that mysterious passageway, 58 Tib Street, 2023 and total sports, Thomas Street, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and in 1851 from Adshead’s map of Manchester, Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

*Walking the streets of Manchester in 1870, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Walking%20Manchester%20in%201870

** 75 Oldham Street, 1851 census, Enu 1r 19 Market Street and 75, Oldham Street Manchester Rate Books, 1852

So ……… who stole Well Hall’s Tudor mansion?

Now I know there will be lots of people who know the story of Well Hall Pleasaunce, and the checkered history of the Tudor Barn which was once part of the estate of the Roper family.

The Barn in 2013

And there will also be those who know that the fine mansion which the Roper’s called home was connected to the high politics of Tudor England, because William Roper was the son in law of Sir Thomas More who fell out with Henry V111 and paid the ultimate price with his head.

The romantic in me wonders whether William Roper composed part of his biography of Sir Thomas in the gardens of the house in Well Hall, and as a kid I too would wander through the Pleasuance trying to  step back to that very turbulent time when Margaret Roper feared for the fate of her father.

The Barn in 1909

Of course, it helps to have a physical “thing” like the Tudor barn which helps anchor that imaginary trip, and just touching the walls adds to that sense of history, which with just a further leap of fancy allows you to conjure up images of Sir Thomas More in happier times visiting his family and perhaps even discussing the merits of the old barn.

But look as you may you won’t find the Roper’s fine home, because although the property stayed in the family till  the early 18th century it was eventually sold in 1733 to “Sir Gregory Page who pulled down the C16 Well Hall, built within a moated area, and replaced it with a new residence also known as Well Hall. This lay to the east of the site, between Well Hall Road and the moat. 

The property, which included the Hall and adjoining farm buildings, continued in the ownership of the Page family, but was largely rented out. Tenants included, from 1899 to 1922, the journalist Hubert Bland (founder of the Fabian Society) and his wife, the children's author Edith Nesbit”. 

All of which I knew but must confess the details of which had faded from my memory.

Well Hall, 1909

So it was Sir Gregory Page who stole our Tudor mansion and built what I still think was an ugly replacement, as the 1909 photograph testifies.

And while it conforms to the design elegance of the 18th century it doesn’t do much for me.

But it too has gone, torn down in the early 20th century, when the Pleasaunce was created pretty much as we know it today.

All of which just leaves me to include pictures of the barn, from now and then with the pile that Sir Gregory Page called home, although I doubt he actually ever lived there.

I have written about https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Well%20Hall%20in%20the%201840s.*

Well Hall from the rear, 1909

And for good measure there is an informative piece on , https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Well%20Hall%20in%20the%201840s.**

Location; Well Hall

Pictures; Pictures; the Tudor Barn 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 and the same scene from the collection of Jean Gammons, September 2013

*Well Hall in the 1840s, and Sir Gregory Page, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Well%20Hall%20in%20the%201840s

**Well Hall, Historic England, https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1000850