Off to the “flicks” in the winter of 1913 and a challenge for today

Now on a dismal Saturday afternoon in Eltham during the winter of 1913 I might well have decided to take myself off to the Picturedrome where I could have seen epics like the Battle of Waterloo, stories drawn from great novels like Zola’s Germinal or melodramas loosely based on the Old Testament along with documentaries about nature, disasters at sea and much more.

The Battle of Waterloo, 1913

The obvious choice would have been the Eltham Cinema on the corner of the High Street and Westmount Road, which was run by Mr Robert Frederick Bean and which had only been open for a few months.

But with the help of the tram I might instead of ventured off into Woolwich, Greenwich and even Plumstead.

And as much as the film might have attracted me so might the name of the cinema.

Some had names which reflected this new and exciting form of entertainment ranging from the Kinemacolor Palace to those incorporating the word “electric” of which my favourite was the Bijou Electric Theatre, while others traded on exotic places like the Trocadero, and the Alhambra Pavilion.

Germinal, 1913

Most also incorporated the title “Pictuedrome” and some went through frequent name changes.

But what they all had in common was that magic of sitting in the dark and seeing moving pictures many times life size telling stories of adventure, romance set in faraway places which for most people were just names on a map.

So with that in mind the choice was pretty wide.  I could have wandered over to Plumstead and visited the Imperial on Plumstead Road or taken a chance on the Windsor Electric Theatre on Maxey Road but equally could have been drawn to either the Globe on the Common or the Cinematograph at numbers 144-6 the High Street.

Greenwich offered up another three and Woolwich had six.

Judith, 1913

A century on I rather think it might be fun to go looking for these ten.  Sadly in the case of the Three Crowns, the New Cinema and the Premier Electric Theatre they are just listed as Woolwich, but the remaining seven have full addresses.

In Woolwich there was the Arsenal Kinema, Beresford Square, the Premier Electric Theatre, at 126 Powis Street, and the New Cinema at 93 New Road.

And that just left the Greenwich three, which were the Trafalgar Cinema, 82 Trafalgar Road, Chapman’s Pictures Bridge Street, the Greenwich Hippodrome, Stockwell Street, and the Theatre Royal, on High Street.

The Terrors of the Jungle, 1913

And there is the challenge.  Not that any will still exist, but armed with a modern map, a corresponding map for 1913 and a street directory for the same year it should be possible to do a bit of detective work.

Location; Eltham, Plumstead, Greenwich and Woolwich.







Pictures; stills from films available to watch in 1913, from  The Kinematograph Year Book*

*The Kinematograph Year Book Program Diary and Directory 1914, http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/kinematograph-year-book-program-diary-and-directory-1914-2014-09-18.pdf

The lost stories of Hatter’s Court ……..

You won’t find Hatter’s Court.

Hatter's Court, 1850

It went a long time ago and with it the stories of the people who called it home for a chunk of the middle decades of the 19th century.

It consisted of eleven houses facing into a court which was enclosed on three sides, with just an entrance on Addington Street and a dark and narrow passage which led out onto Marshall Street.

It was there by 1819 but just when an enterprising speculative builder chose to build some, or all of the houses is lost.

Five of the eleven were back-to-back and a search of the Directories has revealed the place didn’t warrant a listing.

Not that I am surprised, because Hatter’s Court and countless others were homes to the poor and as such didn’t get a mention.

Eight of the occupants are listed in the rate books for 1851, but despite having those eight names none have so far turned up on the census records for that year.

And it maybe they belong to those census records which were damaged and are now unreadable.

So, while I have the names of John Weston and Patrick Dowling both of whom were shoemakers it has been impossible find out anymore about either man or the families.

Growing old in Hatter's Court, 1841

But there are ways of delving deeper, and by a laborious process of working through the 1841 census applying a bit of imaginative searching and a heap of patience our court turned up.

There were 42 people recorded as living in ten of the properties, with some examples of overcrowding.  

Most of the households consisted of three or four people, but in one there were seven and in another eight occupants.  Added to which there is evidence of some subletting. In houses which at best consisted of 4 rooms and in the case of the back to backs just two rooms.

That said the 1841 census lacks the detail which comes on later census records.  

So, it is impossible from these entries to determine the relationship of the head of the household and the other residents. And while in some cases it is possible to infer a couple are married with young children, in other cases the names are not ranked by age making it difficult to know who was who.

Added to which the census is silent on exactly where people were born, preferring to list them as either from or not from Lancashire and providing a supplementary column to be ticked if they were born in “Scotland, Ireland or Foreign Parts”.

Of these “supplementaries” there were 15, which when combined with nine who were not from Lancashire means that in the June of 1841 our court rang out with accents which were not Mancunian and were the majority of the residents.

The census also offers up a snapshot of the jobs they did.

Working for a living, Hatter's Court, 1841

There were two weavers, five hat makers, a butcher, bookkeeper, two servants, three hawkers, along with a joiner, a porter and one seamstress.  

Of the remaining adult women, only one described herself as a “housekeeper”, although it is possible to infer that another seven might have been engaged in similar responsibilities.

What is certain is that almost half of the 42 were under the age of twenty and the eldest were  Patrick and Margaret Lannigan who were both 60.

In time I will go looking for all of our 42, tracking them as best we can back from 1841, and forward through the 19th century.

All that's left the line of the entry into the court, 2023

I doubt their stay in our court lasted long, looking at the tenure of stay in other courts I can be confident most moved on within a few years.

Nor did Hatter’s Court survive long after the 1890s, because while it is still there on the 1894 OS it looks to have disappeared sometime in the early 20th century, although even that bold statement may yet be qualified.

Location; Addington and Marshall Street, Manchester

Pictures; Pictures; the street with no name and little history, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and in 1850 from Adshead’s map of Manchester, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

A will ……. the Eltham Hutments and a soldier of the Great War

There are always stories, and some are more unexpected than others.

Well Hall Road and the hutments circa 1920

This one concerns a will, the Eltham Hutments and a soldier of the Great War.

Now as someone who had grown up in the Progress Estate I was well aware of its connection with the Royal Arsenal and the Great War, but didn’t know that there had been a whole set of “Hutments” constructed at the same time.

They were more temporary and all had gone before we settled in 294 Well Hall, so it was a revelation when I firs came across them and more so when I discovered a connection between them and George Davison, from Manchester who served in the Royal Artillery and was stationed in Woolwich.**

The Will, 1918

In the March of 1918 he made his will shortly before embarking for the Western Front.

It was witnessed by H M Drinkhall and V L Dade, and was hand written in a single sheet of note paper and is simple and the point. “This is the last will and testament of me George Gurnel Davison of Birch Vale Cottage, Romily, Cheshire.

I give devise and bequeath to my dear wife Mary Ellen all my property whatsoever and wheresoever and I appoint her sole Executor of this my will.”

By the time he made the will he had served with the Royal Artillery for four years and spent time in London and Ireland but now with the German offensive in full swing he was about to go to France, and as we know would be killed just three months later.

In one of his letters to his wife he had mentioned the Drinkhall family and how they were looking forward to her coming back to stay.

And that set me off looking for them, and in that I was helped by my friend Tricia, who located them to one of the hutments on what is now the site of the old Well Hall Odeon, which is just a few minutes walk from our old house.

That hutment will be one of those near the top of our picture, and takes me off on a number of different directions.

Detail of the hutments, circa 1920

In time Tricia and I will go looking for more on the Drinkhall’s, but for now I like the idea that someone I was writing about in connection with a book should have spent time just yards from where I lived.***

But it also points to an interesting aspect of the war, which was that Mrs. Davison visited her husband while he was stationed around the country.

As well as staying with the Drinkhall’s, she spent time in Ireland, where the one surviving photograph of the couple and their son was taken in 1916.

I have no idea if this was a common practice but given the restrictions of train travel and the cost of such journey’s it should be a fascinating area of study.

The Davison family, 1916

For now, I shall just gaze on Tricia’s picture with renewed interest.

Location; Eltham, London


Pictures, Will, 1918, of George Davison and the Davison family, 1916, from the collection of David Harrop, and picture postcard of Well Hall Road, date unknown courtesy of Tricia Leslie

* The Eltham Hutments by John Kennett, 1985 The Eltham Society, http://www.theelthamsociety.org.uk/

**George Davison, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/George%20Davison

***A new book on Manchester and the Great War, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20and%20the%20Great%20War

Discovering a little bit of Whalley Range’s history

Now here is a bit of history that I bet lots of people know but has passed me by and it concerns St Margaret’s playing fields in Whalley Range.

The land is on Brantingham Road and was gifted by the wife of one of the vicars of St Margaret’s and in in 1937 it was the destination of that years Chorlton carnival.

Back in the 1930s there were a number of carnivals across the city but Chorlton’s seemed to be the biggest according to the Manchester Guardian which reported that “the gala held in St Margaret’s playing fields, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, on Saturday [June 19th] may be said to mark the opening of the charity carnival season.“*

Now I recently wrote about the carnival but pretty much ignored the playing fields but after a few people asked where they were I went looking.**

The obvious place was beside St Margaret’s Church in Whalley Range and while I was close I wasn’t in quite the right place.

The church had been built in 1849 on land given by Samuel Brooks but the playing fields date from sometime later.

I have yet to establish when but I do know that in 1894 the land was still part of Whalley Farm and as late as 1911 Brantingham Road had yet to be developed fully.

That said I hope to talk to Mr Boulter the vicar at  St Margaret’s and perhaps even before then someone will come forward a bit more of the story.

And within minutes of posting this story,  Pawel Lech Michalczyk who pointed out that  "St Werburgh's Church owned playing fields.

These were opposite Parkgaye Farm, accessible via the short cul-de-sac off St Werburgh's Road.

It was the whole triangle between the railway line and Chorlton Brook, almost up to Mauldeth Road West.

Its now part of the Chorlton High School campus."

Location; Whalley Range

Picture; horses being paraded along Oswald Road sometime in the 1930s, courtesy of Mrs Kay, from the Lloyd collection

*Manchester Guardian June 21 1937

When Eltham did it first ..... travelling in a double-decker train

I say Eltham but strictly speaking it was the Southern Region of British Railways who came up with the idea of the double-decker train to alleviate the overcrowding during the rush hour on the Bexleyheath line into London.

Goodbye, 1971, Well Hall Railway Station

The service ran from 1949 to 1971 and was received with a mixed response.

I loved them making them my preferred train from Well Hall up to Charing Cross during the 1960s.

But some found the seats uncomfortable, ventilation of the upper deck was bad and worst of all the loading and offloading of passengers was slow. *

And I grant you having travelled on double decker trains into Milan which were quite swish, our version was a bit clunky.  

That said the appearance of our trains with their curved upper windows marked them out as very different.

I have never quite forgotten them although they have slid back in my memory along with those summer concerts at the Pleasusance, the Burton’s on the corner of the High Street and the pubs which were the haunt of my growing up.

But when the Today Programme on BBC radio ran the story that Eurostar had ordered some double deck trains, I was instantly back with the 8.30 from Well Hall nonstop to Waterloo.  The piece included references to our unique trains and rather dismissed them as having been a short experiment and raising again the issues of uncomfortable seats and poor ventilation.

Now that was a bit unfair given that they ran for twenty-two years which is quite long in the history of public transport vehicles.

And that is almost that, although there is delightful account of the design and history of the Bexleyheath double decker’s in Gus White’s book, The Bexleyheath Railway at Eltham, 1895-1995, published by the Eltham Society.

And an equally interesting article from BBC News which carries a Pathe News clip of the trains from 1949.**

So a win for all. And yes there were other double decker trains around the world, and yes I would welcome more pictures and memories from anyone who like me let the "train take the strain" between 1949 and 1971.

Location, Well Hall, 1949-1971

Picture; the double-decker on its last run at Well Hall, October 1971 from the Kentish Times and reproduced in The Bexleyheath Railway at Eltham, 1895-1995

*Gus White, The Bexleyheath Railway at Eltham, 1895-1995, The Eltham Society

**Eurostar orders first double-decker trains, Katy Austin, BB News, October 22nd 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz6n1w80z1zo

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ...... nu 66 Back Canal Street and Mr Thomas Griffiths

Now there are no photographs of Mr Griffiths and there is nothing surprising about that.

Home of Mr Griffiths marked in red on Little Canal Street, 1849

He was born in 1806 worked as a labourer and lived in Back Canal Street, which was a row of one up one down back to back houses facing on to the Rochdale Canal.

So unremarkable or perhaps so dire were the houses that they were swept away sometime in the 1860s to make way for a warehouse.

That said the warehouse still exists and is on Chorlton Street as is Little David Street which ran parallel to Back Canal Street.

History has been no kinder to Little David Street which is now gated off but given that it was the same width as its neighbour it will offer up an idea of what Little Canal Street was like.

Sadly so far the historical record has revealed little more about Mr Griffiths who was living at number 17 Back Canal Street with his five children who ranged in age from fifteen down too four.*

He was a widow and while I can’t yet find a reference to his marriage or the death of his wife, I am guessing that he may have been married sometime around 1826 and she might have died in childbirth giving us a date of 1837.

It’s all very vague and making a second guess of basing her name on that of either of her two daughters has proved a dead end.

Still I know that in 1841 when the Griffiths family were in Back Canal Street they were paying 9d in rent and that they were still there in 1842.  Now trying to make anything of wage rates and the cost of living is fraught with difficulties. But a labourer might be on a £1, a textile worker on a little more and rural workers on a lot less.**

Little Back Canal Street occupied half the same of the warehouse

But after that we lose them and the hunt is made more difficult by the large number of men with the name Thomas Griffiths.

That said there is a Thomas Griffiths who was living nearby in Silver Street in 1839 and another in Major Street a year later and both of these are very close to Back Canal Street.

Added to which the rents are pretty much the same so I think it would be sensible to say this is our man.

So far I can’t find him after 1842 but the census of 1851 reveals a Richard Griffiths who might have been his son.  He was the right age, used the same names for his children as Thomas's dad done and shared the family house with two of his siblings.***

Both siblings carried the same names as children at 17 Little Canal Street and were born at the same time as Thoma's children.

It might all be a little too far fetched but if historical research has taught me anything it is that such clues usually lead to the right conclusion.

Well we shall see.

Location; Manchester

*Census, Enu 10 8, London Road, Manchester 1841

**The History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012

**Census Enu 1k, 46, Ancoats, Manchester 1851

Pictures; the site of Little Canal and Little David Streets, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and streets in 1849, from the OS map of Manchester & Salford 1844-49 courtesy of Digital Archives Association,  http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

A 'gang' of 'teenagers' ........... just before the War outside the Horse and Jockey

Now I like the way that people continue to be generous with both their family pictures and the memories.

So I was very pleased when this one was sent to me by Yvonne.

The Horse and Jockey will always be special to me, not only because as one of our oldest pubs it featured in my first book and was the venue for its launch but also because as the “Pub on the Green” it has been at the centre of much of Chorlton's history.*

But rather than ramble on I will share Yvonne’s description of the picture.

"Hello Andrew!  I enjoy reading your post on the Chorlton Blog.  

I was born there - leaving when I was 8.  I have a photo of my mother and sister with their 'gang' from about 1936 outside the Horse and Jockey.  

It’s of a 'gang' of 'teenagers' just before the War outside the Horse and Jockey. 

My mum Dilys on the left, her sister Gwen on the right. She used to tell us all their names but the only one I can remember is Joe Rook!”

And that is a pretty good start.

Yvonne hopes it will “stir some memories up” and so do I.



All of which just leaves me to thank Yvonne.
Location; Chorlton

Picture; A 'gang' of 'teenagers' outside the Horse and Jockey circa 1936 courtesy of Yvonne Richardson

*The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy,