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

The class of '68 part 5 teachers and possibilities

Poundswick High School Lower School, 1982

Now most of us can look back on teachers who were very special. 

They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, from the larger than life and eccentric ones who sweep you along to the quiet and thoughtful who radiate calm confidence and bring that out in you. 

And then there are all the variations in between.  True as the critics of state education delight in shouting there are a few who were unsuitable, some who had no idea how to communicate and one I met who was a downright bully.  But they were the real exceptions.  In thirty-five years of teaching in inner city schools and of course those years when I was on the receiving end all but a handful of the people who chose to stand in front of a class were all that you could want from a teacher.

Some of the Class of '68, 1968

I remember Norman Parry, who left elementary school, spent years in the Direct Works Department of Manchester Corporation before becoming a metal worker teacher at Oldwood Secondary School.  He was much loved by generations of students and by us younger teachers who marvelled at the way he drove his motorbike up and down the corridors of the school with little regard for authority.

Many of his generation who made such an impact on me as I began teaching were men and women who had seen active service in the last world war and were determined that they were going make a difference in the post world war. Men like Austen who had flown fighter bombers off aircraft carriers, ran a very successful part time optician’s business but made his main job that of teaching maths in Wythenshawe.

And a generation later we the class of ’68 were fortunate in having so many at Crown Woods.  My  three history teachers, all of my English ones and many others who came my way were excellent communicators, and caring individuals who unlocked the doors to new worlds and above all gave me a love of learning that I have never lost.

I remained in awe of Mrs Hussein whose rapid delivery of events of the 18^th and early 19^th century left us tired and desperate fearing not to look out of a window lest we lose fifty years of European history.  All of which was in direct contrast the slow delivery of Mr Levine who would sit and throw out the “big idea” about Gladstone or Disraeli and then seek to weave subtle arguments which while they were entertaining were also powerful examples of how to develop A level history essays. And in amongst all this was the equally powerful presence of Mr Naismith who managed to mix style and delivery with a deep knowledge which always ended with a flourish as he tore up his teaching notes at the end, as if to say “here another original and fresh lecture” which would not be brought out for another trip next year.

Michael Marland

And then there was Michael Marland Head of English and later Director of Studies. His was a dominant presence in my years at the school.  His quiet manner was as effective in one of those last classes with a bottom set Year 9 group on a Friday afternoon as when exploring the comic side of Shakespeare’s Henry IV with his lower sixth on a Tuesday before lunch.

Looking back what I treasure most was his sense that all of us were important and that however ungainly we expressed ourselves and “got it wrong” there was merit in what we said and his job was to take us forward and bring out our talents.

It was a quality which on more than one occasion led him to persuade me in to doing something “dramatic” that at best I was uneasy with and at worst just didn’t want to do.  Like the performance of Pinter’s “The Last to Go” which he and I did at one the evenings of prose and poetry hosted by the English Department.  Now being asked to do the five minute conversation between a barman and newspaper seller in front of an audience was daunting enough, but to actually have to do it with Mr Marland made you feel very special.

Some of the Class of '68, 1965

And when you had been chosen to be part of one these events there was a real sense that there was no way of getting out of it.  I well remember another such evening, which was to be a collection of 18^th century readings and music performed at Ranger’s House on Blackheath to  invited audiences.

There was the causal enquiry about  becoming involved, followed by an invitation to his office high up in the school.  The part was outlined to me which I politely declined using a variety of excuses all more desperate than the one before. These were listened to and quietly but carefully put aside with a mixture of humour and a little flattery, before I realised that this was truly what I wanted to do, and I left with script in hand, only to see that there on page one already printed out along with the rest of the cast was my name beside the piece Clever Tom Clinch by Jonathan Swift.

It was something I thoroughly enjoyed and one that I will always be grateful that he pushed that raw 17 year old to do.

But the degree of his standing in my profession only became apparent once I began teaching.  His book “The Craft of the Classroom: a survival guide to classroom management in the secondary school” published in 1975, offered me and many other young teachers the practical side to the job.  I was arrogant enough to think that I had as he said that mix of "a spirit compounded of the salesman, the music-hall performer, the parent, the clown, the intellectual, the lover” but it was the “organiser" that I was lacking.  Simple things like keeping a register and how to start and end a lesson were taken as read by my older colleagues but never imparted to me when I started in the September of 1973.

It is a reputation that went deep and so during a meeting with English teachers in the late ‘80s the fact that he taught me was met with a mix of envy and a series of questions about him.  I have to say I was less than modest and let slip he had once told me I featured in the preface to one of his books. 

Now for me that still ranks as something.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson and  Anne Davey.  The photograph of Michael Marland courtesy of CATHERINE SHAKESPEARE LANE   PHOTOGRAPHER, http://www.csl-art.co.uk/index2.htm

When steam ran the roads ........

Now I venture into the world of steam powered vehicles with some trepidation, fearing that those who embrace the subject will have a vast reservoir of knowledge and enthusiasm to knock the socks off me.

They will talk with authority about “5 ton vertical-boiler wagons which feature a 2 cylinder undertype engine and chain drive” and that leaves me in total awe.

So, well aware that whatever I say will either be wrong or so superficial it will result in a tirade of scorn from them that no better I shall confine myself to showing the pictures from a steam cavalcade sometime in the
early 1980s which trundled through Manchester.

They were a common enough sight on our streets from the beginning of the 20th century and some steam road vehicles were still being built as late as 1950.

But they were heavy and legislation during the 1930s forced companies to make lighter steam vehicles which in the end couldn’t compete with the petrol powered alternatives.

And that brings me to the Sentinel lorries which were produced by the Sentinel Wagon Works and after 1947 Sentinel (Shrewsbury) Ltd.

There will be someone who can tell me when both of the lorries were built and will also throw in some informative comments about that other steam vehicle which leaves me to end with a description of the day.

I can't remember exactly when the cavalcade made its way through the city.

But it will have been sometime in the early 1980s and I think it went down Princess Street and maybe rolled on to All Saints.

But the details are now lost in time.

That said I do remember it was warm and sunny and there was a carnival feel to the day.

Back then I was more interested in the  line of vintages buses and cars which squeezed between the big and smelly steam vehicles, including a fine collection of Manchester Corporation and London Transport buses.

Of course there is actually nothing smelly about steam which for many of my generation remains magic.

That mix of warm oil and steam take me right back to railway locomotives and the start of another adventure which is a good enough point to stop.

Location; Manchester,

Pictures; steam vehicles in Manchester, 1980s from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The 1906 steam road vehicle produced by Alley & MacLeean, Sentinel Works, Jessie Street, Glasgow.

Three handcarts ...... and a mystery location

Once, a long time ago the hand cart was the all-purpose form of transporting goods for people of meagre earnings.

They remain for many immortalized in stories of midnight flits, when for a variety of reasons, it was necessary to leave without paying the rent having loaded up the family possessions on a borrowed cart.

They were favoured by jobbing tradesmen and barrow boys, and could still be seen in great numbers around the city centre well into the last decades of the last century.

I have no idea where these three were, but given we have the name of J.H. ATKIN, it should be possible to locate them using the directory for 1969.

Although part of the sign is missing which means I will have to be a bit inventive in the search.

But I do have the additional information that the firm advertised as “Marine Store & Metal Brookers” which might narrow things down.

And that pretty much is that.

Or it was.  My attempts to find the location, faltered, but John Anthony, he of the recent excellent Gibraltar story* went delving and came up with this.

"The firm was established in 1898, so I had look at the 1939 Register, but only limited success - three mentions J H Atkinson in Failsworth, Salford and Eccles. 

However, Kelly's 1933 Directory has a listing for J H Atkinson, Marine Dealer, 32 Rosamond Street East. Further information records that Rosamond Street East ran between 16 Upper Brook Street and 179 Oxford Road. 

The line of the road still exists, but is now reduced to the status of footpath / shared space alongside the Manchester Aquatics Centre, which is a nice irony. 

Trying to remember the location of the block of flats seen In the background at the right edge of the photo, I think it is / was near Downing Street / Grosvenor Street".

Now that's detective work!

Location; Manchester

Picture; three handcarts, 1969, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY,

*Looking for Gibraltar in Manchester ........... a story by John Anthony Hewitt, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/02/looking-for-gibraltar-in-manchester.html

So, who did pay for the Chorlton Conservative Club back in 1891? ……… And why it matters

Now there will be some who dismiss the question either because they hold no time for the Conservative Party and others who can’t see the relevance given that the club was sold off around 2013 and was converted it into residential use.

The end of the story, the Conservative Club, 2013

But for over 120 years it was one of our biggest buildings, and with its clocktower was a local landmark.

Added to which, plenty of people will have attended all sorts of dos in what was the Public Hall, along with quite a few well-known actors who performed in repertory companies on the stage of that Public Hall.

And for anyone interested in our history, knowing who helped pay for its construction will help offer up a better understanding of who voted Conservative in Chorlton  in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as providing an insight into Chorlton-cum-Hardy, just as the township was evolving from an agricultural community into a suburb of Manchester.

I have long been intrigued by those who took a risk and subscribed in the new Conservative Club which opened in Chorlton in 1892 and have written about them. *

The share book opened on February 20th, 1891, and between that date and November 7th of the same year, 118 signed on the dotted line handing over a minimum of £1, with some putting down a lot more.

Mary Jane Weeks takes a punt, 1891

So far, I have only analysed the first 50 and they are an interesting cross section.

As you would expect there were a few individuals who bought between £100 and £250 in one purchase, while sliding down the scale there were quite a few buying just one share.  Of those that splashed out, one was the MP, John William McLaren of Whalley Range, another was a merchant and another two described themselves as engineers.

At the other end over a third bought shares worth between £10 down to £1, and as you would expect their occupations were also more modest, with a collection of clerks, shop keepers and craftsmen.

The Register, 1891

The largest single group of subscribers were professionals, including John William McLaren MP, a doctor and architect, three engineer’s and our own Charles Ireland who described himself a “Photo Artist” with a chain of Photographic Studios in Manchester and across the Northwest.

Occupations of the first 50 subscribers, 1891

But there were also plenty of businessmen, some who still made a living from the land, and commercial and traveling salesmen and one who was employed in a warehouse.

And with a few notable exceptions, most of our subscribers lived in properties on roads which were cut between 1880 and 1890.

These were the homes of the middling people who rented or bought properties on Albany, Chequers, and Stockton Roads as well as Oak Avenue and Whitelow Road. There's were the substantial tall semi detached houses, home to many who worked in the city but like the "country feel" of Chorlton, which still had plenty of open land.

Most of the 82 I have so far looked at were men, but there were a few women, and one in particular who gave her occupation as domestic servant.

She was Mary Jane Weeks who held shares amounting to £2. She had been born in 1849, in the small market town of Hathereigh in Devon, and was working as a servant by 1871.

Two decades later she was employed by the Adams family in their house on Chequers Road. Her employer, Mrs. Elizabeth de Worth Adams, had also taken out a subscription for £20 and both ceased membership in February 1900.

It may be that Ms. Weeks followed her boss in to subscribing on the basis that this was a venture worth investing in.

Of course, we will never know.  She died in January 1917 and was buried in Southern Cemetery.

The next task will be to research each of those early subscribers and in particular to dig deeper into their occupations because it has always been easy to categories some of them.

Share holdings of the first 50 subscriber, 1891

So I can be pretty sure Mr. Arnold Bryce Smith was one of our more wealthy inhabitants, for while he described himself as a “Calico Printer” he lived in the fabulously big house called Rye Bank which was on Edge Lane. *

But the jury is out on Mr. William Chester Thompson, of Manchester who listed his occupation as brewer, although as he subscribed £25 I think he was not from the factory floor.

It really all will be down to the detail.  That said some are easier to identify, like Mathew Henry Holland of the Horse and Jockey, Mr. and Mrs. Lomax who farmed the land around Hough End Hall or the prestigious Samuel Gratrix of West Point on the border with Whalley Range.

The New Conservative Club, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1892

Leaving lots of the “middling people” who were clerks, shop keepers and salesmen.

All in all, the register will gives us a fascinating insight into the Chorlton of the 1890s.  Not all the subscribers will have voted Conservative, and some may just have fancied an investment while others may even have just wanted to join a club.

We shall see.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; The Conservative Club in 2013 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, in 1892 from the Manchester Courier, April 30th, 1892. and the cover and a page from the Chorlton-cum-Hardy Conservative Club, Limited, Register of Members, 1891

*Chorlton Conservative Club Financing, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Chorlton%20Conservative%20Club%20Finances

**Register of Members Chorlton-cum-Hardy Conservative Club Limited 1892-96

***Rye Bank, Edge Lane, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Rye%20Bank

"Think therefore on revenge and cease to weep."* ...... Margaret Beaufort ... today on the wireless

Perhaps a controversial  way to sum up Margaret Beaufort the mother of Henry Tudor but then Shakespeare always has the best words.

Lady Margaret Beaufort, 1510

So I shall listen with rapt attention to BBC Radio Four's In Our Time to see how his judgement plays out against the opinion of three experts.*

"Misha Glenny and guests discuss the woman who, as a child bride, became mother to the boy who would eventually become the first king in the Tudor dynasty. Lady Margaret Beaufort (c1443-1509) was twelve when she married Edmund Tudor, half his age, and gave birth to their son Henry when she was thirteen and Edmund was already dead from the plague. 

Margaret Beaufort made it her life's work to protect Henry during the Wars of the Roses, which had begun soon before his birth and, as many more obvious successors to the crown died or were killed in the wars, she pivoted to supporting Henry when he became the strongest contender against Richard III. 

She was to survive Richard III declaring her a traitor and went on to see Henry become Henry VII the first Tudor king and herself become the King's Mother. Outliving her son by a few months, she was then to help her grandson Henry VIII succeed and the Tudor dynasty continue.

With, Joanna Laynesmith, Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Reading, Katherine Lewis, Honorary Professor of Medieval History at the University of Lincoln and Research Associate at the University of York and David Grummitt, Staff Tutor in History at the Open University

Producer: Simon Tillotson"

Location; In Our Time BBC Radio 4

Picture; English: Portrait of Lady Margaret Beaufort by Meynart Weywyck circa 1510 after restoration work in 2023

*Henry VI, Part II, 4.4, William Shakespeare

**Margaret Beaufort, In Our Time, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002s3dq

The class of '68 part 4 widening horizons and lots of fun

Few of us get the chance to leave a past life with all its associations and disappointments behind and start out a fresh.

This is pretty much what I did in the September of 1966 when I walked into Crown Woods School.  I left behind an indifferent five years in all boys’ secondary modern school and one real friend.

And in its place embarked on a two year spree of new friends amazing academic challenges and a new confidence about who I was and where I was going.

But enough of the indulgent personal stuff suffice to say that when I sat down in that room on the second floor with a dozen or so complete strangers I took control of who I wanted to be.  There was no one to judge me against the untidy, loud 11 year old afraid of his own shadow of five years earlier.

Here I could be a new me, and it started with walking to school with a rolled umbrella.  A piece of sheer affectation, silly in retrospect but it made me feel different.

So here in this new place everything was possible.  The school had a confidence about itself and you came across it at almost every turn.

The year before the timetable had been collapsed for certain year groups and various departments collaborated on a drama production “The Price of Coal.”

Set in the 19th century it examined the conditions in which children worked in the coal mines...  And so while the History department set to research the story the English and music departments worked on the production and Art created the backdrop.

Nor was the school alone in sending out a message that comprehensives were just as good at offering exciting and innovative experiences.  Just down the road at Eltham Green School their staff and 6th Form hosted major conferences each year where 16-18 year olds could take part in workshops, listen to leading writers, historians, and scientists, meet and debate with each other and just have a good time.

I can’t remember the theme for the summer of 1967, but Sgt Pepper had just been released and by one of those rare coincidences the organiser was a Mr Pepper, and so much of the two days was filled with the sounds of that LP.  What I do remember was listening to Arnold Wesker discuss with others the cost of the Arts.

Back at Crown Woods there was a regular slot where well known writers were invited to come, meet and talk to us.  I am not sure what Margaret Drabble thought of the meal with four Sixth Formers in the Domestic Science rooms or the level of our discussion but for me this was something totally beyond what might have been possible just a few years earlier.

And that was the point.  At that critical moment in growing up I had the opportunity to discover a whole new set of experiences.  So within a year into being there as a few passed their driving tests and were trusted with the family car we were off along the country lanes of Kent hunting out old pubs or just going the three miles to sit beside the Thames on late warm summer nights listening as the tide on the river banged the barges together.

Then there were the theatres, concert halls and art galleries.  For a pretentious 16 year old in love with himself as well as half the girls in the 6th form I just couldn’t get enough of all that was there to see and hear.

It might be the Old Vic with Lawrence Oliver, Joan Littlewood’s theatre at Stratford East, or one of countless small rep companies performing across the capital.

We hoovered them up as if there was no tomorrow.  Most were fun a few were dire and some still resonance today, like the visit to see King Lear at Stratford.  Three of us had travelled in Crispin’s car and while he settled into a bed and breakfast Mike and I camped for the night by the Avon within walking distance of the theatre.  How we got away with that I don’t know but we did and that is about as far as you get from a small secondary modern school in Brockley to all that followed at Crown Woods.

Pictures; from the collection of Anne Davey, Wikipedia Common