On Oldham Road in 1916 looking for secrets

I like the way that photographs can reveal their history and in the process the little stories which often just get lost or forgotten.

So today I am on the corner of Oldham Road and Thompson Street running along towards Bennett Street in the summer of 1916.

Now I say that with some confidence because the photographer recorded the date of July 1st 1916 on the picture and also because of the large advert for the John Bull magazine which is partly obscured by the cart.

John Bull was a fiercely patriotic and populist journal which during the Great War poured out its bile on the Kaiser, and ran a particularly nasty campaign calling for naturalised Germans to wear a distinctive badge.

And like all such publications it was quick to roll out conspiracies as explanations for events. So when Lord Kitchener the Secretary of State for War, drowned after his ship hit a German mine on route to Russia in June 1916 John Bull led with the Kitchener Plot Unmasked.

Now out of interest and in the absence of the particular edition I briefly trawled for stories of the plot and then as now found the usual rag bag of speculation, convoluted logic and the inevitable mix of anti-Semitism and claims of establishment cover up.

Nothing new then. After all there are those who still believe the Jewish plan for global domination, bought into the idea that all human advance was at the courtesy of aliens and that there must be more to two men landing on the moon, or a terrible car accident in a Paris road tunnel. *

All of which has taken us away from Oldham Road in 1916.

I am intrigued by the residents in these rather ramshackle set of properties. A few years earlier they had been the home and business premise of the butcher George Spurr who lived on the corner and to Mrs Mary Harrey confectioner and Frederick Proctor, veterinary surgeon.

The presence of a veterinary surgeon is a reminder of the large number of animals that would have shared the city and in particular horses which were in 1916 still an important part of the transport network.

Mrs Harrey and Mr Proctor can both be tracked across the city but at present George Spurr has left no trace but that usually means I need to look more closely.

 Back in 1901 there was a Thomas Spurr, master butcher at the address. And this presents a mystery. For the properties were occupied in April 1901, and continued to be so until the beginning of 1911, but none are recorded on the census of 1911 in the April.

All of which can I suspect only be solved by a closer look at the directories for the years after 1911 and the rate books which should show who lived there and in the case of the small cottages running down the side of Thompson street just how much rent was being asked for these one up one down jewels in the property portfolio of some landlord.

But the buildings are no more. Exactly when they went is still unclear. By 1961 the whole stretch from Thompson Street to Bennett Street was a garage and petrol station, which in turn has been replaced by in industrial unit selling locks.

And nor is that all. Bennett Street has been renamed Bendix Street and the close packed mix of houses, shops workshops and schools have all gone. 

In their place there are a few undistinguished buildings and of course lots of car parks.

Now car parks are sometimes the result of slum clearance and just occasionally a lingering reminder of the damage to our cities during the last war.

 Just a little to the north of our row of properties was the Oldham Street Goods Station and further south the commercial centre of the city while in between there were all sorts of chemical works, timber yards, cotton mills and the canal as well as a small power station and engineering works.

But the bomb maps** show that our little row survived, despite heavy damage to surrounding streets and the loss of half of the Oldham Street Goods Station.

So in the meantime having led you down a crooked path I have to admit that there are some secrets which photographs can’t reveal. Sadly this includes the identity of the two young girls standing on the corner on what judging by the puddles had been a wet July day.


 *The Protocols of the Elders of Zion published in 1903 described a Jewish plan for global domination and is widely regarded as a piece of misinformation possibly written by a member of the Russian secret service.

Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past written by Erich von Däniken argued that the technologies and religions of many ancient civilizations were given to them by ancient astronauts who were welcomed as gods.

 The moon landings and the death of Princess Diana remain fertile grounds for anyone with a powerful imagination and a willingness to construct elaborate theories purely on the basis that a simple explanation is too obvious.

**http://enriqueta.man.ac.uk/luna/servlet/detail/maps2~1~1~342609~123257:Manchester-bomb-damage?sort=Reference_Number%2CPage%2CCurrent_Repository

 Pictures; numbers 63-61 Oldham Road on the corner with Thompson Street, July 1916, J Jackson, m36556, and the same spot in 1961, T Brooks, m36675, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council