Of Revolution and rates .... a walk along The Row in 1848*

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!” **   

In 1848 revolutions were shaking the ground of the ruling class in a way that had not happened since 1789.  The fall of the monarchy in France and the proclamation of a second republic were matched across Europe by uprisings and demands for change.  Here in England the Government and the establishment braced themselves for the delivery of the third and largest petition demanding the vote for working men.  And all across the north the army was deployed to face unrest at best and revolution at worst.

Here in Chorlton the ratepayers voted to refuse to collect outstanding rates.

So as the final post before the walk tonight I thought it would be appropriate to give you a sense of what was going on in that year.

But enough of politics, yesterday I shared the homes of the Holt and Sutton family with you and today it will be the house of Daniel Sharpe, the man of independent means whose property is still standing at the bottom of Beech Road, if a bit knocked about and neglected.

And on our way down we’ll pass the fields of what is now the Rec.  Back then they echoed the old strip farming of the Middle Ages, with different tenant farmers working the strips.

William Bailey was one, he lived where Ivy Court is today, and James Higginbotham who lived on the green was another.


Pictures; Maerzrevolution 19. Marz  1848 Berlin, 113 Beech Road from the collection of Andrew Simpson, detail of the Tithe map courtesy of Philip Lloyd

*a walk down Beech Road tonight at 7.30 meeting at the junction of Beech and Barlow Moor Roads

**William Wordsworth, The French Revolution 1805