The Manchester of 1894

I have spent part of the afternoon looking through a wonderful collection of pictures of Manchester from the late 19th century.

They come from a three volume collection published in 1894 under the title Manchester Old and New.  It was written by William Arthur Shaw and the 300 illustrations ranging from small pictures set into the text to full page paintings were by Henry Tidmarsh.

These for me are the real attraction of the books.  True, some might be dismissed as chocolate box illustrations with a romantic hue, but many were of the less prestigious streets and highways while others like the Rochdale coke and gas works vividly bring to life an industrial scene long gone.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; from Manchester Old and New published in three volumes in 1894 by Cassell, text by William Arthur Shaw, illustrations by Henry Tidmarsh

Mrs Keal and the mystery of 419 Barlow Moor Road

Leon's, 2015

It has taken sometime but I am closer to solving the mystery behind the date on the wall of  419 Barlow Moor Road.

Most people will know the place as Leon’s the fabric shop but I have long wondered why the building carries the date 1885 when it was built around 1915.

The Leon family began trading there in the 1990s and before that it had been the Addressal  Print Works which is listed in the directories by 1921 and for an even shorter time between 1915-17 it was the Chorlton Laundry owned by Mrs Keal.

Not that this helps with the date of 1885 which appears above the door along with the word Established.

Addressall Printing Works, 1959

Now it is just possible that the date refers to either establishment of the laundry or the printing company but there is no reference to Addressal in any of the directories in the late 19th century and any way the stone lettering looks like it was done when the building went up.

So I rather think we must be with Mrs Keal who was running a laundry business on Beech Road in 1894.

That said there is no evidence that she was trading before that date and in 1881 Mr and Mrs Keal were living in Croydon.

But by 1889 they had settled in Chorlton and were running a business from nu 30 Wilbraham Road.
Mr Keal described himself variously as a brick layer or builder and I suppose it is just possible that the date 1885 refers to the start up of his business.

Either way in1915 Mrs Keal was in that building on Barlow Moor Road operating the Chorlton Laundry.

Now I can’t be exactly sure when she moved in but in the April of that year Mr Keal of “Brookbank Bridge Barlow Moor-road died at Chorlton Laundry Brookbank Bridge.”

London Gazette, February 1917

And just over a year later the business went bankrupt.*

According to Mrs Keal at the bankruptcy hearing in the February of 1917 “the main cause of her coming into court was the shortness of loose working capital when she removed to her new premises in Barlow Moor Road after having carried on a similar business on less extensive lines for many years in Beech Road, Chorlton.

Mrs Keal further stated that after she had expended over £900 on new machinery so that she might undertake the laundry work of the military hospitals in Manchester a large proportion of the work was undertaken from her.”

But the “military authorities had established laundries under their own control.  Difficulties in the way of getting sufficient labour had it impossible for her to get the work done as promptly as the hospitals required [and] she could not overcome these difficulties by paying higher wages.”

She went on to say that “she had taken steps to strengthen the weak point in her business affairs which had been pointed out by her accountant.”

But it seems that was it and she finished up the business and moved to St Annes-on-Sea where she died in 1935 leaving £2625.

It is just possible that the date refers not to Mrs Keal's Laundry but to the building business of her husband which may well date from 1885.

And it t maybe the Leon family can help who could have the deeds to the building which will offer up its history.

Peter painted the picture of the building and while there he spotted the story of the Leon family which is displayed inside the shop.

It is a fascinating account of one family business stretching back across the last century and so by the time I get round to writing their story they may well be able to offer up a missing document.

Well we shall see.

Additional research from Tony Goulding

Picture; Addressall Printing Works (originally built for laundry), House adjoining used as office for printers, RE Stanley, m17530 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Painting; Leon's Barlow Moor Road, © 2015 Peter Topping,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

*First Meetings and Public Examinations, The London Gazette, February 16, 1917

**Laundry Proprieters Ill-luck. Failed with a surplus of over £3000, Manchester Evening News March 6 1917

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 16 ........... the plays wot mum wrote

This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

Well Hall Road, 2014

For as long as I can remember our mum wrote plays, short stories and worked on a novel about life in south east London.

She had begun writing in the RAF during the last war when as a typist she had all that a writer could need ........ spare time, a typewriter, and paper.

All of which were the building blocks to give full vent to her vivid imagination.

On those long quiet moments on an RAF station in Lincolnshire she wrote about what she experienced including the loss of life and the fears and triumphs of the air crews and supporting teams.

Mum and friend circa 1942

Later as we were growing up she tried her hand at writing plays discovering there was a market for the three act play which was aimed specifically at women’s groups.

The basic requirement was that most of the parts had to be for women, and while the plot could be anything from a comedy to a murder there had to be opportunities for women of all ages.

I can’t now remember how many she produced but I know it was a fair few, although sadly none of the published plays have survived and as yet I can’t find any reference to them anywhere.

But we do have the manuscript of the book she was writing on along with some short stories.

Looking back we never thought it was unusual and yet here was a woman whose formal education had ended at 14, and who had spoken only German until she was three years old.

She began work in a local silk factory and went onto have a succession of jobs until the war swept her up and deposited her in “bomber county.”

Later after moving to London she began writing again, using at first a battered old typewriter before acquiring a slick “Oliveti” model.

And as someone who uses a computer all the time I marvel at those who wrote using a typewriter which doesn’t allow the instant use of the delete button, the facility to cut and paste, or either a word or spell check.

Mum in 1949

On the other hand it has left me with a collection of paper copies of her literary output.

The manuscripts maybe on flimsy paper, now are over laden with a musty smell and tinged with yellow but they offer up a link to mum, more powerful than an electronic text.

That said the computer and social media have offered up a huge opportunity for people to record and share  their memories, and publish both photographs and paintings which might otherwise never have seen the light of day.

All of which demonstrates the amount of talent there is out there and by extension just how much of that talent in the past never saw the light of day.

By contrast on facebook and other sites people regularly post fine photographs which are as good as any “art work” and write in the most vivid and direct way about growing up and the places that mean so much too them.

And yes I am sure that if mum were still writing today she would have embraced them all.

Location; Well Hall

Pictures; 294, courtesy of Chrissy Rose, 2015, and mum from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall

Lost along the River … somewhere beyond Ballast Quay .........

Fifty-five years ago, I regularly walked along the River from the food factory I worked at to the Cutty Sark pub.

The silos, a dog and that walk, 1979

It was an after-shift stroll to finish off a day in the local food factory turning powdered milk into granules. 

Looking at those silos from the River, 1979

It wasn’t the worst job I have had, but on hot Thames days the dust in the air caked your boiler suit in a mix of crusted dried milk, and after eight hours the walk to the pub was a welcome relief.

Four years later on an equally hot day I retraced my steps talking pictures of the wharfs, landing stages and river traffic.

The negatives stayed for over 40 years in our cellar and only recently came out of the shadows.

Some stretches I can identify, but this one eludes me, despite wandering up and down Olympian Way all I can be certain of is that it is possibly somewhere between Enderby’s Wharf and Morden Wharf.

They say you should never go back, more so when we are counting the time in decades and pretty much all the landmarks I knew have gone.

And I have no idea when Glenville’s Food factory by Tunnel Avenue went or the silos in the picture, and the whole complex that was Tunnel Refineries.

But as you do, I turned to that excellent book, The Greenwich Riverside by Mary Mills.*

Walking towards Ballast Quay and the Cutty Sark, 1979

It is my go-to reference book whenever I want to follow up memories of home by the River, and there was a chapter on Tunnel Refineries and what I think must be my silos.

Now, I won’t lift the stories of the company other than to say she references the smell which I can still vividly remember.

It remains with me to this day, long after the dried encrusted boiler suit, the noise and dust from the powder in the air when the milk plant was at full tilt are but anecdotes to bore my kids and grandchildren with.

Looking back at pictures of that walk and of others I took of the waterfront is to be reminded of just how the area has changed and with it have gone so much that I knew and regarded as permanent.

The Cutty Sark, 1979

But at least the Cutty Sark at Ballast Quay continues to do its job of offering up beer and cheer.

Leaving me just to hope that Gary and a few other chums and acquittances will be able to place that dog, the silos and me more precisely along the waterfront.

Location, my London

Pictures; walking the River, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* The Greenwich Riverside. Upper Watergate to Angerstein, Mary Mills, 2021

Cleaning the brass and making the beds in Chorlton ........ with Miss Edith Ashworth

 I wonder what Edith Ashworth made of Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

She had been born in Northenden in 1880, and lived with her father and mother and four siblings in a small cottage off Mill Lane.  Her father described himself as a labourer, while her eldest sister was employed as a milliner.

Just opposite their home was the river and the mill, while just a few minutes’ walk to the east beyond Palatine Road were open fields stretching all the way to Sale.

By contrast Chorlton-cum-Hardy was undergoing one of those revolutions which would see large parts of the township transformed into rows of modest properties, catering for the “middling people”, many of whom worked in the city but wanted to live on the edge of the countryside.

Some were professionals, while others were managers and yet more worked as clerks, and secretaries.  They rented their homes, but many still found money to employ a servant, which was always a mark of distinction.

And in the April of 1901 Edith  was working  as a general servant for Mrs. Eliza Jones, at 7 Maple Avenue.

Mrs. Jones employed only the one servant, who and these were often known as “maids of all work” because they pretty much did everything from the cooking and cleaning to turning down the beds and much more, which in the case of Maple Avenue involved looking after nine rooms along with the needs of Mrs. Jones and her two grown up children.

The family had moved into the house when it was built in 1895, and over the next century kept a unique photographic record of the house and the surrounding streets, allowing us to place Edith in the very rooms she cleaned and kept tidy.

Nor was she the only servant in the avenue.  In total there were four servants working in four of the seven occupied houses.  All were “maids of all the work”, and some catered for families much larger than at 7 Maple Avenue.

And like a century earlier when we were still a rural community, none of the four servants were local, three came from Cheshire and a fourth from Stretford.  Some people might be surprised at this, but it was that simple rule, that if servants were local they might well take stories of the household home, and those stories might well become the gossip of the township.

Only in one respect was Edith different from her fellow servants and that was her age.  She was 21, while Mary Ann Jones at number 15 was 18 years old and the remaining two were just 15.

Sadly, there is little more that I can find out about Edith, for like so many of her class, history has not been kind, and so far I have found only one other reference, but it is a tantalizing one, because on March 10th 1904 she sailed from Liverpool to Halifax in Canada on board the Tunisian.  She shared the journey with her 17-year-old sister Florence, and while I know they arrived, the rest as they say awaits further research.

As for 7 Maple Avenue, it stayed in the possession of the family until 1997, and I am indebted to Ray Jones, who is one of the descendants, for permission to reproduce photographs of the house.

Loation; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; 7 Maple Avenue, date unknown, courtesy of Ray Jones

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 10........... from bread and dripping to Museli

This is the continuing story  of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

Now I suspect pretty much every generation thinks that there’s was the one which has seen the most profound change and I am the first to accept that mine has no monopoly on the new inventions, mould breaking fashions and seminal music.

But there is no doubt that those of us born just after the last war, who started school in the early 1950s and are just beginning to enter retirement have experienced a bewildering revolution in what we eat and how we prepare that food.

I will have been four when rationing was finally abandoned, and in the succeeding decades came to take for granted a huge range of new foods sourced from all over the world and delivered within hours of being harvested.

And of course with all that came a deluge of specialist utensils, ever larger cookers and the microwave.

All of which makes me think back to our tiny kitchen at 294, which was just large enough to take an old battered Cannon gas cooker, and small fridge which nestled either side of the sink.

In their wisdom the architects had provided a largish store cupboard under the stairs and here went the bulk of our dried and tinned food.

And what couldn’t be found the cupboard or the fridge was still bought fresh and eaten on the same day.

But the fridge is the key to the change.

In the 1950s the growing reliance on frozen food would lift some of the drudgery out of preparing food.

Now I still like washing carrots, peeling potatoes and shelling peas but for sheer speed nothing beats opening the packet of frozen peas.

And sixty years ago the adverts for frozen foods focused on that simple message that they were quick to use and because of the way they had been frozen on the day they were harvested were bound to be fresher than the peas and carrots which had made their way from the field via the market to the small greengrocer, whose turn over dictated that the produce might sit for days before it was bought.

Of course few people in 1956 had a fridge let along a freezer which was why the bags of frozen vegetables came in small sizes which were bought and used on the same day.

And in much the same way out went the old fashioned breakfast of porridge, eggs, bacon and toast in favour of the breakfast cereal.

Now these had been around since the 1930s, and there are ads in the collection for Corn Flakes and Rice Crispies, but the 50s offered up a new and exciting range, often marketed with a toy or other novelty and clearly aimed at the young.

Mother was quick off the mark to try the "new TV dinners  for one" which came out in the late 50s but equally died a death in our house as too expensive and not that nice.

Instead we reverted to simpler home cooked food but there was no going back on the changes that had happened.

As each of us left to set up our own homes the variety and the quantity of what we bought and ate just kept on growing.

But Dad preferred his tins, and on one memorable evening after I had cooked a pasta dish he smiled and said quietly that "it was good but  didn't really like  food messed about."

Location;Well Hall, Eltham, London


Pictures;  adverts for Birds Eye Foods and Sugar Puffs, from Woman’s Own, January 12 1956

*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall

The night watchman............ out on the streets of Manchester in 1896

Once the night watchman would have been a familiar sight sitting beside his hut keeping warm at the brazier and maintaining a solitary vigil over the road works or building site.

They feature in much literature during the last two centuries and only disappeared sometime in the 1960s.

Back in 1896 Henry Tidmarsh recorded this one somewhere in the centre of Manchester.

In all he produced over 300 illustrations for the book Manchester Old and New which  was published in 1894 by Cassell with a text by William Arthur Shaw.

In three big volumes it told the history of the city but the real value of the book was in Tidmarsh's vivid depictions of Manchester, with streets and buildings animated with people.

Pictures; The night watchman, 1896, Henry Tidmarsh, from Manchester Old and New, William Arthur Shaw, 1896