Giving a context

I don’t have a date or place for this picture.

It comes from the collection of the Together Trust who were the Manchester and Salford Boys and Girls Refuge.  They were founded in 1870 to provide temporary shelter for homeless children and quickly developed in to other areas of child protection and welfare.

I came across the picture on their most recent blog post http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/were-all-going-on-summer-holiday.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+TogetherTrustArchive-GettingDownAndDusty+(Together+Trust+Archive+-+getting+down+and+dusty!)

Sometimes no matter how many details of overcrowding from the census returns, and official descriptions of housing conditions it is the simplest of images which fully convey the way many people lived in our big cities.

My own great grandmother grew up in a similar court in Derby and I have written about the courts off Artillery and Camp Street in the Deansgate area http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Spam%20Court 

But this one is worth a closer look.  I guess it is the end of the 19th century or just possibly the opening years of the last.  Like all courts the public area is small and narrow and in an effort to lighten what would otherwise have been a gloomy spot the walls have been whitewashed.  I well remember my own father using white wash on our yard wall.

You bought it in powdered form and just added water and it covers even the most uneven of surfaces although it does takes a few days for the paint to fully harden.  It was very cheap and had the added bonus of having antimicrobial properties which kill or inhibits the growth of  bacteria and fungi which was an important consideration in properties which were old unsanitary and where there could be much overcrowding.

It’s hard to tell whether these were back to back properties in which case they wouldhave been one up one downs.  The city had since the middle of the 19th century been working at eliminating such houses but there were still plenty around.

I count fourteen people in the picture and no doubt there were more living in the court but there is one lavatory and what I take might be a wash house to service the needs of all of the inhabitants.
There are no cellars and it is more than likely threat the ground floors were resting on bare earth with just flags, tiles or bricks as a surface.  And these over time would have become cracked, uneven and worn giving rise to damp.

Nor should be underestimate the constant threat from infestation of in insects.  As late as the 1960s friends living off Ashton New Road would still as a precaution turn on a bedroom light before going into the room to give the more unpleasant insects time to disappear.

I could write more but perhaps this is enough for present.

Picture; courtesy of the Together Trust   www.togethertrust.org.uk