Angel Meadow and the plight of destitute children

It is I suppose the way of things that what was once a notorious slum is fast becoming a genteel area with those blocks of modern inner city flats which are home to  young professionals and students.  

But in 1849 the London journalist Angus Reach wrote of the place

“The lowest, most filthy, most unhealthy and most wicked locality in Manchester is called, singularly enough, ‘Angel-meadow.”

Many of the grave stones in the church yard were unmarked and had their fill of paupers, too poor to warrant even being remembered.  Here were the one ups and one downs and the cellar dwellings, a place which had its fair share of concentrated misery and unfulfilled promises.

And so it is not surprising that it was here that the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuge opened a shelter for destitute young boys.  It was just one room above a coffee shop and so gained the title of The Boys’ Rest and Coffee Room.  “Most nights,”  according to archivist Liz Sykes “every one of the 18 beds was used, accounting for around 54 a month.”

And if you want to know more you will have to read her blog at http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/lending-helping-hand-in-angel-meadow.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+TogetherTrustArchive-GettingDownAndDusty+(Together+Trust+Archive+-+getting+down+and+dusty!)

Angel Meadow is still there.  You just walk from Miller Street down Dantzic Street, turn right into St Michael’s Square and there you are.  But the notorious houses have gone, and so too have the grave stones and the open land which has undergone a number of refurbishments in the last few decades has been grassed and landscaped and the wrought iron gates announce that this is St Michaels Flags and Angel Meadow.

Picture; The Old Victory on Charter Street and from 1881 The Boys’ Rest and Coffee Room, courtesy of the Together Trust