The Salutation gives up some of its secrets

The Salutation, 2014

Now I came very late to the Salutation.

In fact despite knowing about it for a full four decades I went there for the first time just three years ago.

I was in the company of my old friend Joe and having done an exhibition at the Art College we fell into the pub and spent an enjoyable afternoon.

Unlike me it has been one of Joe’s haunts from when he was a student at the College and its mix of good beer, interesting characters and historic setting regularly drew him back.

But I have to confess I knew nothing of its history and so after looking at Peter’s painting I resolved to do the business.

The lazy side of me started with an MEN article that “170-year-old Hulme pub gets £235k makeover,”*which takes you back to 1844.

But not content with that I dug deeper and came up with Elizabeth Beverley who was running the place in 1840s and seems to have been there from 1833, and a full eight years earlier it was run by Thomas Beverley.

Elizabeth stayed in the Chorlton on Medlock area until her death in 1866, but seems to have given up the Salutation sometime between 1844 and 1849.

The Salutation, 1849, surrounded by houses timber yards and mills

Thomas remains a shadowy figure who appears in the rate records living in different parts of the city and may have had various jobs before becoming a publican.
Elizabeth was his second wife and they married in 1820 just five years after his first marriage.

All of which is a long way from the Salutation but in the course of wandering through the story of the Beverley’s we have at least pushed the date of the pub back a full twenty years.

It is there listed in the directories for 1828 but not for 1825.

There may be references to it in the licensing records but that will have to wait.

But I remain intrigued by Elizabeth Beverley and I am off to see what the rest of her life reveals.

Painting; The Salutation,© 2014 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
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Picture; detail from the Manchester & Salford OS 1844-49, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Joy as 170-year-old Hulme pub gets £235k makeover, March 2014