A Didsbury picture ……. an 1885 sales catalogue ….. and the story of Johnson, Clapham & Morris .... makers of all things galvanized iron

Now, I remain fascinated at the route which took me from a framed page of a sales catalogue on a wall in a house in Didsbury via a shop in Pembrokeshire back a century and more to Johnson, Clapham & Morris, makers of all things galvanized iron.

The framed Lamp Belge from the sales catalogue, 1889

The framed sales catalogue was a present to a friend , who having admired it in the said shop got it as a Christmas present.

And in turn when Barbarella posted the picture to me I knew there was a story, although just where it would take me was unclear.

As ever the starting point was the name of the firm and its location on Lever Street in town.  There is no property number on the catalogue, but the directories placed the firm at 24/26 Lever Street, which is between Stevenson Square and Bunsen Street.

They were here by 1886, and it will be easy to track back to when they left their premise at 27 Dale Street.  I know that they were on Dale Street in 1876, and that they had a warehouse in Liverpool and offices on Winchester Street in London, with their works in Newton Heath.

According to that excellent source, Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History, the company was founded sometime around 1814, and they specialized in “reinforced brickwork and the clothing of steel-framed and reinforced concrete buildings”, which rather skates over the detail, which was pretty much everything involving metal. *

Johnson, Clapham and Morris, Lever Street, 1886

Their 1876 poster announced  that they were “Iron, Tin Plate, Wire and Metal Merchants, manufacturers of Galvanized Wire Netting, and Sheep Fencing,  Strong Wove Wire for Malt Kiln Floors, Smutt Machines and Mining Purposes”, along with Miner’s Safety Lamps and Lightning Conductors”.

So, I am not surprised that thirteen years later their catalogue included The Lamp Belge, which I am guessing were copied from the original designs which were made in Belgium.

The company was still in business in 1961 when they were “Engaged as metal, electrical and hardware manufacturers and factors, [with] 560 employees.”**

I took a virtual wander down Dale Street and Lever Street, and both sites are still occupied by what look to be late 19th or early 20th century buildings, but I am  not sure if either were connected to Johnson, Clapham & Morris.

Goad’s Fire Insurance maps of 1884 show the firm’s office and warehouse taking up all of the space between Stevenson Square and Bunsen Street, and suggests they were one building, whereas today number 26 is different in design and size from number 24.

The choice of lamps, 1886

All of which leaves me to go off and compare the 1884 map with later ones.

And there I thought the story had ended but not so, because Grace’s Guide offered up one little and very personal surprise, which was that Mr. Richard Johnson died at his home in Chislehurst in Kent, a place I knew well, and one where my girlfriend of the time lived.

I followed her north in 1969, which was not the best way to choose a degree course, especially as she returned home three months later.

I stayed and have yet to find way back.  But that is a story for another time.

Location; Didsbury, Manchester

Pictures; The Lamp Belge, from the 1889 sales catalogue of Johnson, Clapham & Morris, courtesy of Barbarella Bonvento, the warehouse of Johnson, Clapham & Morris, from Goad’s Fire Insurance Maps, Lever Street, 1886, courtesy of Digital Archives Association,  http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

* Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Richard_Johnson,_Clapham_and_Morris?fbclid=IwAR06SdLJWpL2hEwB1-6Dqo1Opshx6DLaQ7sSWSFY9J_yRL7E9fu_WXT30JA

**ibid Grace’s

What did you find in the cellar of Hough End Hall in the summer of 1965?

If you are of a certain age you will probably remember playing in Hough End Hall.

Of course we are talking about the 1960s when the place had long been abandoned as a family home and was yet to become a restaurant.

Back then it was an adventure playground for many of the children roundabout and bit by bit their memories are surfacing of what the Hall was like and what they did there.

Now everyone has their own stories and Ian who would have been about 11 remembered the cellar and what seemed “to be a gigantic set of leather and wooden bellows along with two stone fire places one of which was propped up against the wall and the other resting on the floor.

We tried to get the bellows to work and when that failed wrapped a rope around the tall fireplace and swung from side to side.

There were also big bags of what looked like salt.

And when we tired of the cellar we went on to play in the valleys of the roof.”

Ian is the first to admit that given that it was a long time ago, “my take on what I remember may be different to others, and perhaps the bellows could have been smaller or even larger.”

Either way it is a fascinating glimpse into a period in the Hall’s history which has sat in the shadows for too long.

But more of those memories are now coming to the surface and in time I hope for more.

Location, Hough End Hall, Chorlton, Manchester

Pictures; the Hall in the mid 1960s from the collection of Roger Shelley, https://www.flickr.com/photos/photoroger/

Trolleybus 698 Woolwich-Bexleyheath ….. now that’s a zippy title

Now I have my old friend Richard Woods to thank for igniting memories of trolley buses.

 Tolleybus no. 1768, 2014

He sent over a link to a trip from Woolwich to Bexleyheath in 1959 on Trolleybus 698, which followed on from an equally fascinating home movie about the old, old Woolwich ferry as it crossed the River in 1961.*

Of the two the Ferry will always be more special to me.

Not so the trolley bus which seemed calculated to make me feel very wretched.  

I think it was the mix of heat, that faint smell of disinfectant and the slight whirring noise, which guaranteed to make me feel sick before the end of any journey.

So, I approached TROLLEYBUS 698 Woolwich-Bexleyheath with a bit of trepidation, but was won over by the scenes as it made its almost silent smooth way from the cinema facing the River.

A Manchester rival, 1955

It is a spot I remember well, because a decade later I stood at the same place waiting for a bus to work, and remember that even on summer’s day it could be a miserable place at 6 in the morning, made worse in winter when the rain came off the water and penetrated each layer of clothing.

My Wikipedia tells me that “Trolleybuses served the London Passenger Transport Area from 1931 until 1962. For much of its existence, the London system was the largest in the world. It peaked at 68 routes, with a maximum fleet of 1,811 trolleybuses”.** 

So that is it.  

For some the attraction of the home movie will be the trolley bus, for others the scenery and for anyone born after 1962 perhaps it will the novelty of seeing this thing that looked like a bus with echoes of the tram.

One of my nieces did recently ask me what was a trolley bus?  To which this film does the bit. 

Location; on the trolley bus from Woolwich

Picture; Preserved London Transport Q1 class trolleybus no. 1768, on display at the Regent Street Bus Cavalcade held as part of the Year of the Bus. No. 1768 ran on services in West London between 1948 and 1961. Following its withdrawal, it was retained for preservation. As of 2014, it was owned by the London Transport Museum. June 2014. Author; Bahnfrend. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Manchester Corporation Trolley Bus, 1955, m48371, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  

*TROLLEYBUS 698 Woolwich-Bexleyheath London 1959, YouTube, by Alan Snowdon Archive, https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=old+woolwich+ferry+engine+videos&&view=detail&mid=3DACF91326BDA4A52B813DACF91326BDA4A52B81&rvsmid=37FDE2E288F635F8664937FDE2E288F635F86649&FORM=VDQVAP

**Trolleybuses in London, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybuses_in_London

The lives behind the doors ….. numbers 2-14 St Andrew’s Square

Now, it has become quite popular to take a house and tell its story over time.

St Andrew's Square, 1849

Long before a certain television series did just that with a property in Liverpool, I had done the same for our house in Chorlton, along with the two I grew up in, in south east London, and the home of our Josh and Polly who live in Leicester.

And over the years I have dipped into the history of heaps of houses, including Homer Street and Coronation Square, both of which were in Ancoats and which were developed in the late 1830s.

Back then the area was just beginning to change from what one account described as a place “of fields [where] the waters of the River Medlock which are close by ran pure and sweet and were the home of beautiful trout.” *

Within a generation the fields had been covered with mills, factories, foundries and dye works along with mean terraced housing and the Medlock began its long association with filth and pollution.

The area, 1819

And so to the challenge laid down by Bob and Del Amato to find out about what was there on the site of what is now their business. **

The warehouse of Amato Food Products stands on what was once a row of fourteen terraced houses which faced St Andrew’s Church. 

I can’t be exactly sure when the square was developed, but the church was opened in 1831 but by 1839 the properties show up in the rate books.

Eighteen years earlier according to Johnson’s map of 1819 the area up from the river to the canal was still open land although already it was edged with buildings.

St Andrew's Square, no 2 at the bottom, 2021

But the 14 properties along the southern side of the square were a cut above their neighbours .

The houses consisted of five rooms and they commanded a weekly rent of just over 5 shillings, which is higher than the surrounding streets.

And many of the residents were drawn from the skilled working class, including a railway clerk, a tailor, a dressmaker and a bookkeeper, along with a salesmen, painter and book keeper.

Their origins were as varied as their occupations with a fair few having come from Scotland, Yorkshire and the Lakes, with others from Cheshire as well as Salford.

I could have picked any of the 14 homes but ended choosing no. 2 St Andrew’s Square for no other reason than it was the first in the row as entered the square from St Andrew’s Street.

Today it is the western end of the Amato warehouse, but in 1851 it was home to Mr. and Mrs. Cruickshank, and their five children, Elizabeth, May, Emma William and James.

Mr. Cruickshank was 43 years old, had been born in Manchester and gave his occupation as a Miller.  His wife Hannah was three years younger and was from Salford.  Three of the children were born in Chorlton on Medlock and the youngest in Oldham, and despite the fact that they ranged in age from 20 down to 13, only William who 15 is listed as working.

Looking east along the square, 2021

I doubt that any of them had attended the school at the other end of the square but certainly some of the children from the other houses will have done.  

The school appeared in an earlier blog story but deserves to be revisited.***

What is interesting is that the square does not appear in the street directories until the beginning of this century, by which time our house was occupied by Samuel Boole who was a labourer for Manchester Corporation, his wife Ethel, their five children and Ethel’s mother.  

Like many families of the period, they appear to have moved across the city, and we can track their movement by where their children were born. The eldest of the children was born in Chorlton-on Medlock and the rest in Ancoats.

In time I shall dig deeper into the stories of both the Boole family and the Cruickshank’s, as well  the occupants of the other thirteen houses.

Inside the warehouse, 2021

All of which just leaves me to ponder on what remains may lie below the warehouse.

Location; Ancoats

Pictures; St Andrew’s Square, 2021, courtesy of Angela Wallwork, and St Andrew’s Square in 1849, OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1844-49,  and the area in 1919 from Johnson's map, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Commemorative Booklet, St Andrews Church Ancoats, 1831-1931

** Amato Products Ltd, https://amatoproducts.co.uk/

***Looking for the lost ...... one street over time in Ancoats ..... no 4 the school by Homer Street https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/07/looking-for-lost-one-street-over-time_7.html

Touching home ……… two buses and heaps of Well Hall memories

Sometimes you need nothing more than a picture to create a flood of warm memories.

So here are two from my friend Chrissy Rose who like me grew up in Well Hall.

Both the 161 and the 122 passed outside our house, and all of us used them.

They were the workhorses of our childhood. 

The 161 took us south to the High Street, while the 122 whizzed us down to the Yorkshire Grey and on to Lewisham.

And both went north to Woolwich, offering up views across the Common and then down into the town.

That said it was always the return trip, passing the old Police Station on Shooters Hill and then the descent to the stop just beyond 294 which we called home for 30 years.

So thank you Chrissy, and I invite all of you to share your memories.

To which Chrissy has added "They were so special those old buses my uncle was a conductor at Catford garage , I bet he had a few stories to tell. Imagine now all that smoke on the top deck. I wonder if it's possible to date them by the registration numbers".

Location: somewhere with the 161 and 122.

Pictures; Two Eltham buses, date unknown, from the collection of Chrissy Rose

The photograph, a house on South Meade, and a mystery

I am looking at a picture of a group or workmen outside a house on South Meade and at first glance there doesn’t seem to be anything unusual about what I am looking at.

The men represent a cross section of skills, ages and experience, and may well have posed for similar photographs across Chorltonville.

But I know exactly which house this was and have already begun to discover its history which starts with the simple fact that it has been occupied by only two families in the century and a bit since it was built.

And so, while we will never know the identity of the men staring back at us, we do have the deeds, as well as a collection of documents relating to its construction, which will help tell the story of this particular house.

The first family to move in was Mr. and Mrs. Jones.  In 1939 he described himself as a “Commercial Traveller in the Gas Industry”.

Everyone will find something interesting in the picture, with some focusing on the appearance of the men, the presence of the apprentice boy, and the flat caps and pipes.

The building contractor was Thomas Whiteley and a search might turn up something about the building firm, but I doubt that will extend to a list of employees.

For now, until Laura passes over its history for me to look over, we are left with the photograph of the workmen and the image of the house.

But for now, it is exciting that we are able to pin a group of craftsmen to one house sometime in 1911.

Leaving me just to ponder on Mr. and Mrs. Jones and a mystery which might be answered by those documents.

We shall see.

Location; Chorltonville

Picture; workmen outside South Meade, 1911, courtesy of Laura Hopkins

Special thanks to Laura, who kindly showed me the picture and has promised to lend me the house documents and to Jude who lives next door, and first told me about the picture.

Looking for the lost ...... one street over time in Ancoats ..... no 5 “debris and desolation”

The story of one street in Ancoats, and the people who lived and worked there.*

Ancoats residents, 1920

Now I am a little closer to being able to date the end of Homer Street.

It went in the big slum clearance push in the 1930s when a large chunk of the area around St Andrew’s Church in Ancoats went in matter of a few years.

Homer Street dated from 1837 and so just missed its hundredth birthday

And while some may have mourned its passing I doubt that there were many.

According to the Corporation there were 1,045 properties in the area around St Andrew’s Church of which “990 were occupied dwellings and 47 business premises leaving eight properties either derelict or unoccupied.”**

They were in the words of the Manchester Medical Officer of Health both unfit and “dangerous or injurious to health [and in his opinion were] a clearance area.”

Homer Street, 1894

He added that “in general the dwelling houses were of a similar type throughout the area, all fronting directly on to the streets, which generally speaking were somewhat narrow.  

These were conditions one generally found in the area of this type of small houses; narrow passages and high back yard walls. 

Of the houses 872 fronted into streets 39 feet or less in width, 469 on to streets of 24 feet or less.  The yards in the majority of cases were small and the property in the majority of cases was old.

There were 154 houses over 100 years old, 109 over 90, and 723 over 60 years old.  The density was 79 houses to the acre on net area and 52 to the acre on the gross area.”

Now like many I lived in a small two up two down terraced house in the 1970s and such properties can still be found across the country are still doing the business of keeping people warm, and comfortable and will still have a long life ahead of them.

But these were built at the end of the 19th century and by and large had been well maintained.

Those like the one my grandparents occupied in Hope Street, dated back to the beginning of the 19th century and were past their sell by date by the 1930s, but lingered on into the 60s.

Not so Homer Street or it neighbours, Andrew’s Square, Gees Place, Dryden Street and Marsden Square, all of which had all gone by 1938. The Corporation judged that many were worth less than £50 and “719 in the area were verminous.”

Of course there were objections, ranging from the landlords of some of the properties to those who thought that the replacement homes in Smedley were not suitable, leading one witness to at the inquiry on the clearance plans to describe them as “barracks” adding it was not acceptable to “make the British workman, after he has done his work climb six flights of stairs.”

Back of the demolished school, 1966

Some also questioned the policy of not rebuilding new homes in the area, pointing out that for some the cost of travelling from the new estates in places like Wythenshawe was very expensive.

But the Corporation “had zoned the whole of the area for light industrial purposes” and this was pretty much how it turned out.

The old school on the corner of Homer Street which had been opened in 1836 went, and the site became a sheet metal works while the rest of Homer Street was left as open land finally becoming a bus depot in the 1960s.

That industrial development was slow to come and in the August of 1939 the Reverend A. R. Denn of St Andrew’s wrote to the Manchester Guardian that the cleared area as “a scene of debris and desolation” with “the remains of houses in various stages of demolition.  Some buildings remain standing with broken windows and derelict doors.  

All around one may see the foundations of houses and the remains of door steps and yards, brick bats and odd pieces of stone are strewn about on all sides, whist here and there nature tries to cover up this hideousness with weary looking grass.”***

Adding that it “reminds one of the pictures of Flanders during the last war, and resembles nothing so much as the after-effects of an air raid.”

And while his observations may well have been accurate and echoed many who felt “it was not a square deal for those who have to live and work amid it”, it is worth pausing to reflect on what the Corporation was trying to do.

According to Alderman Jackson that was nothing less than a programme “to tackle about 30,000 houses in Manchester” at a time when the City was still recovering in many ways from the Depression.

There is nothing now to see of Homer Street.

For a while the plan of the streets continues to appear on maps but by 1960 even these have gone.

But nature and commerce abhor a vacuum and the site had undergone new development with the empty and derelict bus depot replaced by a large modern food warehouse.

Location; Ancoats

Pictures; Mothers' Outing, St Andrew’s Church,1920,  m70137, and Sheffield Street back of St Andrew's Church,  Revill and Son Ltd, 1966 Brooks T, m12041 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Homer Street, 1894, from the OS South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Homer Street, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Homer%20Street

**Ancoats Clearance Order, Manchester Guardian, September 26, 1934

***Debris and Desolation, A.R. Denn, letter to the Manchester Guardian, August 4, 1939

****Amato Food Products, http://www.amatoproducts.co.uk/