Looking for the story of that building on Deansgate

Now I don’t suppose either Andy or I are alone in wondering about the history of the Santander building on Deansgate.

Down on Deansgate in 2015

I had always thought it had once been a pub or perhaps one of those mission halls which gave out food and comfort to the poor of the city and I had always promised myself I would go and find out.

Not that I ever did and it was left to Andy’s daughter to track something of its story.

In 1971 it was a branch of the National Westminster Bank and stood on the corner of Severn Street which was another of those long roads which ran up from Lower Byrom Street to join Deansgate.

And back on Deansgate in 1971

And there the fun begins.

Back in 1911 the site was occupied by the Dog and Partridge which and I am not quite sure when the building was either demolished for the bank or just changed its use from offering pints to cashing cheques.

What I do know is that I should have remembered the bank and the redevelopment of the area which saw the disappearance of Severn Street along with the buildings beside it and in their place a huge block of offices.

And again in 1988

But the facade of the building was retained and incorporated into the present development.

So the mystery has been solved but perhaps not quite because it does raise questions about the history of the bank and who decided to preserve the facade.

Pictures; Deansgate and the Santander Building 2015 from the collection of Andy Robertson, and The National Westminster Bank in 1971, B Garth, m56507 and the back of the facade in 1988, m01553, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Saying farewell to the Post Office bike .......... a little bit of Chorlton's vanished history

One ex Royal Mail post bike, 2015

Now a little bit of postal history slipped past me last year.

For many it will seem a tad trivial but after 120 years the Royal Mail finished off the Post Office bike.

Since 1895 it has been one of those small bits of our daily life which is so commonplace it has gone unnoticed and now it has gone.

This I know because my old friend David Harrop recently bought one from a chap here in Chorlton and was so pleased with the deal that he rode it back to Heaton Moor.

Nor will he have been alone in picking up a surplus bike.

According to the Guardian the Royal Mail had got rid of 14,000 between 2010 and 2014  which left just 4,000 to be disposed of last year.*

Lots of Post Office bikes, circa 1914-18

And of course behind the decision lurks a whole lot of history.

There had been some bizarre and fanciful attempts at inventing and marketing push bikes stretching back into the 19th century but by the 1890s what we would recognise was zipping along our streets and country lanes.

They offered a cheap alternative to public transport, could go almost anywhere and quickly became a craze with the establishment of hundreds of cycle clubs.

And when you added all of that with politics you got the Clarion Clubs, the first of which was started in Birmingham in 1890 by a group of young socialists who combined the bike, friendship and the desire to advance the message.

Barnet Post women circa 1914-18

But more than all of these the bike was the way you got to work.  Look at any picture or news film from the mid 20th century showing people leaving Trafford Park and what strikes you is the sheer number of men and women on bikes.

So it was just sensible for the Post Office to equip its workforce with a means to make delivering our mail a little easier and lot quicker particularly as rounds were very long and as a consequence the load postman carried was very heavy

The standard bike I don’t think changed much over that century and a bit but the details I will leave to David who has a fine collection of Post Office memorabilia some of which can be seen in the Remembrance Lodge at Southern Cemetery along with exhibitions telling the story of those who lived through the two world wars.

Picture; David’s post office bike and Barnet Post women circa 1914-18, courtesy of David Harrop

*Royal Mail to phase out post bikes completely in 2014, Laura Laker, The Guardian, December 9 2013,
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2013/dec/09/royal-mail-post-bikes?commentpage=2

**The Clarion Cyclist Club, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Clarion%20Cyclist%20Club

Watching Eltham change ................ nu 3 looking across at the old co-op on the High street with the promise of things to come

Now this will always be the co-op  for me, but then I left Eltham in 1973 when we still had that bookshop near Boots the Chemist, Willcox’s beside Burton’s was still selling newspapers, paperbacks and much else and our railway station was called Well Hall.

Of course nothing stays the same and I am grateful to Jean, Chrissy and Larissa for regularly sending me pictures of the bits that have changed.

And that brings me back to Poundland, which was the site of the old RACS and will in the fullness of time become the site of our new cinema.

As someone who remembers the three picture houses we had with great fondness it is good to know that the plans are in place for a new one.

This is the first of Larissa’s pictures which will form part of a project to record the arrival of the new cinema and sits beside her growing set of pictures of that development at the other end of the High Street.

All too often we fail to clock the changes and within a few years have forgotten what was once there so I look forward to seeing how the project develops and only wish I had photographed our old cinema on the corner of the High Street and Westmount Road.

It was opened in 1913 and demolished in 1968 which means I must have seen it countless times on my way to school at Crown Woods but even now it does not register with me.

Picture; Eltham High Street, September 2015, courtesy of Larissa Hemment

From Temperance snooker hall to a Wetherspoon's pub

It’s another one of those then and now stories.  

But because I like to reflect on some of the more recent changes to Chorlton I have turned again to the photographs of Tom McGrath.

Tom took a series of pictures in 1985 and revisited the same spot earlier this year and they are as revealing of what we used to be like as any contrast between pictures of the last century and today.

So here we are at the old Temperance Hall.  It had been opened as non drinking snooker venue which is pretty much what it still was in 1985 and of course irony of ironies is now a pub.  But I have to say the owners have done well to save a place which might otherwise have been demolished.

Pictures; by Tom McGrath

Who should remember Roger Hall sent to Canada in 1914? ............ British Home Child Day September 28

Leaving Manchester for Canada 1897 on the Town Hall steps

Anniversaries according to one of my friends “are to be avoided at all costs ......... they are mean things which tempt you down half forgotten paths and are piled high with nostalgia which when you look more closely hide some pretty shabby goings on.”

Now I know what she means and sometimes when applied to the great events of the past they can trivialise the event and the experiences of those who were there.

But they also offer up an opportunity to reflect on what happened and in some cases even raise awareness.

And I think that is the importance of the activities surrounding Ontario’s British Home Child Day on September 28.

It is not the most zippy of titles but it does the business which is to both remember and raise awareness of the 100,000 or so British children migrated to Canada from 1870 to 1930 and by extension those others sent to all bits of the British Empire which in the case of Australia was still going on in the 1970s.

In Canada, 1907

Some were from orphanages, others were in the care of charities or the Poor Law authorities and some were even rescued off the streets.

The policy can be seen as either a well meaning desire to relocate young people to a new world where they could have a fresh start or a cynical move to shift a real social problem as far away from Britain as possible.

It is a subject I often write about because like about ten percent of the Canadian population I am descended from a British Home Child although strictly speaking he was my great uncle and not one of my grandparents.

I knew nothing about his story until I came across a letter from his sister describing how he had been migrated to Canada by the Poor Law Guardians in 1914.

And that chance discovery is often how most of us discover the connection which makes it all the more important that events which focus on that policy of migration and resettlement are brought out to a wider audience.

And yet over here in Britain I doubt that many are aware of what went on.  If pushed they may be aware of how our young people were still being sent to Australia just forty years ago and the uphill battle at first to get anyone to admit to the extent of the migration.*

But in the case of Canada that policy stopped over eighty years ago and sadly few of those who were sent are still alive while the children sent to other parts of the British Empire have by and large not been documented in any detail.

The farmhouse 2010 almost a century after Roger Hall lived there

Nor have there been that many books published in Britain and while  the story of British Home Children is becoming a serious area of study in Canada that is not so over here.

So I hope the day goes well in Ontario along with the others which will be rolled out during the year and more than a little bit of me will be thinking and writing about it again on the 28th, after all a big chunk of our family lives in Ontario.***

Not that they are from my great uncle, he was lost to us sometime around 1925.  Instead these are the children and greatgrand children of his sister who he helped go across to Canada on an “Empire assisted scheme” but that is another story for another time.

Pictures; outside Manchester Town Hall with a party of young people bound for Canada, 1897 and young people on a farm in Canada, 1907 courtesy of the Together Trust and one of the farmhouses where my great uncle worked and lived, 2010 from the collection of Andrew Simpson


*British Home Children, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/British%20Home%20Children

* A story of British Home Children in just 20 objects nu 16 .......... Australia and other parts of the Commonwealth, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/a-story-of-british-home-children-in_5.html 

***Events this weekend, Film Forgotten- Saturday September 26 8.30 pm Rainbow Cinema Market Square Movie Theatre, 80 Front Street E, Toronto www.commffest,com & Sunday Seept 27 Black Creek Pioneer Village all day event, www,blabcreek.ca

Looking for John Cowen of Woolwich amongst the labourers at Crossness and the voting records of Mid Kent

John Cowen with hat in hand, 1864

This is John Cowen.

He was born in 1824 and sometime in the midsummer of 1864 he posed for this picture at the Crossness Pumping Station.

Now the photograph is remarkable because someone has gone to the bother of recording the names of the men who stare back at us.

And that is unusual because while photographs of mid Victorian workmen are quite common it is rare to have their names listed and with a name it should be possible to track an individual and in time reveal something of his life.

I know from the caption that these were a “group of workmen [of the] Local Board taken at Crossness during progress of the main drainage works, about midsummer 1864” which places the picture just a little under a year before the project was finished

Work on the Crossness Pumping Station had begun in 1859 under the supervision of Sir Joseph Baselgette and was completed in 1865.

I doubt we will ever know exactly why our picture was taken or what bit of work had been finished but I have made a start on exploring the lives of those thirty one men standing in front of us.

I could have chosen any one of them and there was no particular reason for settling on John Cowen other than he was easier than most to indentify on the photograph.

That said what has so far come to light is slim pickings.

In the April of 1864 he had been admitted to the Greenwich Workhouse and was treated in the hospital.  He gave his age as 40 and described himself as a labourer all of which is a little difficult to square with the fact a John Cowen of 1 Belmont-place, Nightingale Vale, Woolwich, voted in the 1865 General Election.

This I know because that John Cowen was recorded in the Poll Book for the Western Division of Kent as voting for the Viscount Holmesdale and William Hart Dyke the two Conservative candidates both of whom were elected.

And that is as far as it goes.

The census records have yet to reveal anything about his life before or after 1864 and as yet I can’t find any reference to his birth, death or a marriage.

All of which means I shall just have to try harder.

Picture; group of workmen [of the] Local Board taken at Crossness during progress of the main drainage works, about midsummer 1864”, courtesy of Chris Mansfield, first posted by Tricia Lesley

Another lost cinema ........... down in Gately

The Tatton Cinema at Gatley was not a picture house I ever went in but then Gately was off our beaten track.

All of which is a shame because Andy‘s picture of the Tatton makes me think I would have liked to sit in one of its plush seats surrounded by its 30s decor.

According to Cinema Treasures it opened in 1937 as the Tatton Kinema and included “an 18 foot stage, six dressing rooms, and a restaurant.
In 1971, the restaurant was converted to a 111 seat cinema known as Tatton Minor – the original cinema became Tatton Major. 

In November 1975, the Major closed and was twined with the larger stalls area becoming the 647 seat Tatton Major, the former circle the 247 seat Tatton Minor, and the restaurant cinema the Tatton Mini” closing in 2000.*

Since then it has picked up a twitter page been the focus for lots of public debate and generated memories of the place when it still offered up a night of films.

And that is all I am going to say about the Tatton, but watch this space because Andy was out in Gately and recording much of the place.

Picture; a cinema in Gatley, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Apollo Cinema, Gatley Road, Gatley, SK8 4AB, Cinema Treasure, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/2536

On Hardy Lane on June 7 1977

Hardy Lane, June 7 1977

Now I can be absolutely certain of the date because this was one of the many street parties held to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of the present Queen.

Back in Ashton where I had been living the local artist David Vaughan* painted a huge mural on the gable end of a shop and here on Beech Road and across Chorlton there were parties.

So here is a picture of the event on Hardy Lane which perfectly captures the day.

The weather remained good and judging by the spread on the tables it proved a great success.

Picture; from the collection of Caroline Standish

*David Vaughan, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/David%20Vaughan

The Bazley Brothers leave their mark in Ancoats

Now as Ron said here is “a different kind of 'ghost sign' of a more substantial nature. It was taken in the June of this year on East Pollard Street. Manchester and knowing your 'nose' for bygone companies, the pictures are yours if you want them” which of  course I did.

Most of the time when we think of ghost signs what comes to mind are those faded and peeling hand painted adverts on the sides of buildings but for me there are also those stones inscriptions above factory doors and those picked out in coloured brick on mill chimneys.

And as soon as Ron showed me these pictures of the old Wellington Mill on East Pollard Street I was hooked.

Bazley Brothers were cotton spinners and they were occupying this site by 1883 and maybe even earlier.

I know that Henry Bazley & Company “spinners of lace muslin and thread yarns” were operating from
Chapel Street Mill Ancoats in 1876  so it shouldn’t be too difficult to track down the move to the Wellington Mill.

And according to one source they were still trading from the building in 1928, but when they moved out has yet to be discovered.

There is a record of a Bazley Brothers winding up their business in 1940 but this may not be them because the head office was outside Manchester.

As for the mill it has more recently had multi occupancy and there were plans back in 2009 to convert it into residential accommodation but as Ron’s pictures show this has not yet happened.

Now I am not an expert on the history of Manchester Mills and have fallen back on Grace's Guide to British Industrial History which records a fatal accident at the mill in 1865 and an advert for the sale of the mill as a going concern thirty years later..**

All of which is a little confusing.

So the next step will be to set a firm date for their move out of the mill and look around at the census returns to see if the family can be tracked across Greater Manchester while crawling over newspaper records.

But in the meantime at least we still have Ron’s building with its name which is a spur to greater research.

Pictures; Bazley Brothers , Wellington Mill, East Pollard Street, June 2014, courtesy of Ron Stubley

*A Manchester View, http://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/tours/tour12/wellington.html

***Grace's Guide to British Industrial History, http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Wellington_Mill,_Ancoats

Walking again in Nunhead Cemetery

Now we are entering that time of year when more than 55 year ago I wandered into the cemetery in search of conkers.

It’s a story I have told before and it is a moment shrouded in shame.

So I shall say no more of the event but given that many more have and will continue to follow my footsteps I think it is time for a few more of those evocative photographs by Sue Simpson taken in the summer.

Picture; walking in Nunhead Cemetery, July 2015, from the collection of Sue Simpson

Changing Chorlton ............... down at McFadyen’s Memorial Congregational Church

Now one of the popular posts recently has been a series on McFadyen’s Memorial Congregational Church by Tong Goulding.

It is a familiar landmark which has just undergone a big renovation and I have featured plenty of pictures of how it used to look and at least one when the work was underway but none of the finished building.

So here courtesy of Steve Raw is one of the new entrance with its stunning big window.

It was taken just a few days ago.

And I think it will reappear to adorn more stories from Tony and perhaps the odd reflective piece about our churches over the last century and a cit.

But for now given that lots of people like contrasts, here are two from a time before now.

The first is a favourite of mine, taken I think sometime at the beginning of the last century and reappearing on countless picture postcards

And just to finish one of Andy's Robertson's from the middle of the reconstruction..

Pictures; the Church on a sunny September day, 2015 from the collection of Steve Raw, the Church circa 1900, from the Lloyd collection, and the church during its renovation, 2015 courtesy of Andy Robertson

Exploring Hirst's Yard in Leeds ........ discovering a future ghost sign and pondering on one lost long ago

Hirst's Yard 2014

Now I would like to know more about Hirst's Yard in Leeds.

It is a small alley between Call Lane and Lower Briggate and I guess if you weren’t in the know it’s somewhere you are never likely to visit.

According to one source  “Hirst's Yard was named after William Hirst. 

He was born near Huddersfield and came to Leeds in 1795, where he set up in business as a cloth dresser.”* 

Mr Hirst intrigues me and so in time I will go looking for him but in the meantime its’s down this little cut that has pulled me in and for that I have Ron Stubley to thank.

Ron shares my fascination for ghost signs and sent this one across adding "a bit modern this one Andrew, just came across it while looking at pictures taken from January of last year taken in Leeds. 

Any good for your collection?

Hirst's Yard 1973

And of course it is more than OK,  because these days you don’t see so many hand painted signs advertising products.

Like Ron I think the sign is relatively new and probably dates from around the time that the pub Hirst's Yard opened its doors.

One guide describes it as a "traditional pub with outdoor seats on a cobbled street, hosting regular weekend live music sessions” and it runs from 11 to 15 Hirsts Yard."** 

All very different from when this earlier picture of the Yard was taken in 1973 which can be seen at Discovering Leeds.*

There are those I know who bemoan the rise of the bar culture but it is hard to see how some of these relics of our industrial past would ever get a second chance and would remain run down and forgotten.

All of which leaves me to ponder on how long our sign will survive.

That advert

And then there is that other sign from 1973 on the same gable end, which had long since been lost.

It might just have been a white washed wall but I suspect it was once a full blown advert and so the hunt is on to uncover its story.

That may prove difficult bit we will see after all there may well be a whole shedful of people in Leeds who share our love of ghost signs.











Pictures; Hirst's Yard in 2014 from the collection of Ron Stubley and back in 1973 reproduced from Discovering Leeds, Leeds City Council, http://www.leodis.net/discovery/default.asp

*Discovering Leeds, http://www.leodis.net/discovery/discovery.asp?page=2003218_676159084&topic=2003218_696346462&subsection=2003416_217083157

** Hirst's Yard, http://www.hirstsyard.co.uk/

Down on New Cross Road with a ghost sign

Now what surprises me more than anything about ghosts signs is that so many of them have survived for so long.

For those who don’t know they are adverts for businesses and products which have long ago vanished.

Most will have been painted on the sides of buildings up to a century ago but despite no one looking after them they are still there.

Many have lost their original bright colour and are fading fast while others are quietly without fuss peeling away.

And so it is with this one captured by Adrian on the side of 102 New Cross Road.

I haven’t been able to date it but I am making a start.  Back in 1910 this was the premises of Edis Bertarm, tobacconist which gives me a century and a bit to play with.

And as you do I went looking for Mr Bertram who has proved elusive and instead I found John Cole Tyler and his wife Louisa Susanah who in the spring of 1911 were renting three rooms at 102.  He made a living from laying paving stones and they had been married for four years.

The census return offered no clue as to whether Mr Bertram was still there or if the shop had become a grocers.

Of course he may have lived elsewhere which is even more frustrating given that at 100 I know John Henry Clarke was still carrying on his boot making business.

But there was quite a bit of turnover in both occupants and traders between the end of 1909 and the middle of 1911 so I shouldn’t be surprised at my failure to find him.

It will just mean a painstaking search of the directories which at some point will turn up a grocery shop with a date for when it opened its doors till it closed.

That may take some time but then the ghost sign is still there.

Picture; ghost sign, 102 New Cross Road 2015, from the collection of Adam Burgess

The ghost sign in Northwich which I lost and Ron found

Now I know we are in Witton Street in Northwich not far from the impressive Penny Black which was the town’s Post Office and is now a Wetherspoons.

I have to say that the company has managed to save plenty of old and interesting buildings and while a few purists might disagree I think that is no bad thing.

I wonder however the fate of the ghost sign which Ron tells me he passed “when returning from The Penny Black on Witton Street.”

I went looking for it this afternoon armed only with street Google from 2009 but failed to find it which led me to speculate on whether it has now vanished or maybe I am just looking in the wrong part of the street, all of which is a tad embarrassing given I haven’t even had a drink.

But Ron put me straight.

It is still  there just past the pub and on to Meadow Street.

Picture; ghost sign in Witton Street, Northwich 2015 courtesy of Ron Stubley

Down in Lewisham with an old telephone kiosk, Lewisham Micro Library and reflections on all those private lending libraries

Now I like the way you start a story and it takes off in a direction all of its own.

We were talking about those old iconic red telephone kiosks and what would we do with one of those that are up for sale.

The mobile revolution has pretty much done for them which is a shame because if you are of a certain age they were as much a part of the street furniture as the pillar box or Belisha Beacon.

There was that brief spat of competition between Mercury and BT in the 1980s which seemed to lead to shedloads of telephone boxes appearing all over the place but now it is increasingly difficult to find one at all.

So I was fascinated by this one sent up to me by Adam who came across it in Lewisham along with the advert that announced that this was The Lewisham Micro Library, a free service for everyone and predicated on that simple and appealing idea that “when you take a book to read replace it with an unwanted book of your own” the service is open 24 hours a day and is a neat idea.

Of course it will never take the place of public libraries but as they are increasingly under threat from budget cuts it reaffirms that important idea that not every service has to be profit making.

And follows in that strong tradition ranging from the free libraries set up by wealthy benefactors in the 19th century, to those offered up by Mr Carnegie in the 20th as well as the Worker’s Institutes all of which sat beside or were part of the drive by local councils to provide a place of learning and enlightenment in every district.

True there were also those private lending libraries which were situated in bookshops and newsagents which for a small charge offered up a host of books.

I can still remember the one opposite New Cross Library and have come across plenty more.

Despite the smallness of many of the shops this was a big business with the Allied Library here in Manchester hiring out 362, 000 books through 1,489 bookshop at its peak in March 1962.

Now I have never quite understood why business disappeared and really disappeared in less than a decade but I suppose the cheap paperback had something to do with it.

So perhaps there is something of an irony in that it will mainly be paperbacks which stock the old telephone kiosk of Lewisham Micro Library, and there is nothing wrong in that.


Pictures; Lewisham Micro Library, Lewisham, 2015, from the collection of Adam Burgess

Looking for photographs of New Cross, Peckham and pretty much any where in south east London

Now when you no longer live in an area you write about sourcing images can be a problem.

After all we left Lausanne Road in the spring of 1964 when I was just 14 for Eltham and five years later I went looking for a degree in Manchester and never went back to south East London except for flying visits.

But in the last few months I been drawn back to Peckham and New Cross and sitting here in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, south of the city the memories and the stories have been tumbling out but matching these with images has not been easy.

Ever mindful of copyright and other peoples’ property does restrict what you can use so it is always nice to receive photographs which work their way into stories.

Now in the past I have thanked quite a few new friends who have gone out of their way to photograph a building or a street and a few days ago it was Adam who delivered not only a picture of the Asylum Tavern but followed it up with a contact number.*

All of which just leaves me to renew the appeal with just one qualification that its your picture and not taken from the internet.

That said they can be anything from a parade of shops, an old building or even a family snap which can be sent via facebook or twitter.

In return I will include them in stories, crediting the photographer and posting a draft of the story for approval.

Now I make no claims to be the official historian of Peckham, New Cross, Camberwell or Deptford ........... just someone who now lives over 200 miles north of Queens Road and just fancies writing about the place where he grew up.

Picture; the Asylum Tavern, Adam Burgess, 2015-09-12

*The Asylum Tavern, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/the-asylum-tavern.html

More stories of MACFADYEN MEMORIAL CHURCH from Tony Goulding

Rev. Alfred Allan Lee

A great tragedy occurred whilst this man was serving as the minister at McFadyen’s Memorial Congregational Church standing on the corner of Barlow Moor Road and (then) Holland Road.

On the afternoon of July 5th 1916 David Alan Dunlop Lee, the 4 year old son of the Rev. Alfred and Marian T Lee, fell out of the upper-floor bedroom window of the family home at 6,Egerton Road.

He was found in an unconscious state and died shortly afterwards. Young David is buried in plot G 2411 of Southern cemetery's Non-Conformist section.

Rev. Lee continued within the congregational church rising to the position of Moderator of its Eastern Province. Less than a year into his tenure of this office he died aged, just, 60 on 16th January 1941 at Westcliffe-on-Sea, Essex.

The account of his death in “The Chelmsford Chronicle "records how he passed away suddenly at Chelmsford station whilst waiting for a bus home, having just visited his son who was a doctor at "Runwell" the recently opened, innovative mental hospital nearby.

Many newspapers carried obituaries including "The Melbourne Argos" of Victoria, Australia. Rev. Lee had been a popular visiting preacher at the Collins Street Independent church in that city for several months in 1938. Declining an offer to remain in Australia he chose to return to his work in England as pastor of Crowstone Church, Westcliffe-on -Sea where he had been since 1928.

The son of a Methodist minister Rev.Lee was born in Liverpool and educated at both the collegiate school and the university there, with the original intention of perusing a career in medicine. Previous to his arrival in Chorlton-cum-Hardy he had been a pastor to a number of congregations in his native area and also held a post in St. James, Newcastle prior to his moving on to Essex.

REV. JOHN ALLISON MAFADYEN AND FAMILY
The above scroll commemorates the tragic loss, just two years later, of another young life associated with "Macfadyen's Church". This soldier was the grandson of Rev. John Allison Macfadyen to honour whose memory this church was named

John Allison Macfadyen was born in Greenock, Scotland on 22cnd January, 1837 the son of a tobacconist Dougall (aka Dugald) Macfadyen and his wife Joanna (nee. Allison). Following Doug all’s early death, the family moved in with the maternal grandfather William Allison, a weaver.

After attending Glasgow University for 5 years, gaining a B.A. in 1856 and an M.A. a year later,* John Macfadyen came south to train for the ministry at Lancashire Independent College in Whalley Range. He first became a minister in St. Helens in 1860 where he stayed until he was installed as the first pastor of the Chorlton Road Congregational Church in 1863. He remained in this position for the rest of his life, dying on 21st November, 1889. (*a D.D. was added in 1882)

At this time the Congregationalists of Chorlton-cum-Hardy worshipped at the Chorlton Road Church ; a considerable journey especially for the young and elderly ,or in inclement weather  With  encouragement and no little input from Rev. Macfadyen a solution was sought  first in  obtaining the use of Masonic premises on High Lane and later in  purpose built school and church buildings, culminating  in the opening of  the Macfadyen Memorial Church on 25th October 1894.

At his first parsonage in College Street St. Helens the 1861 census records that his sister .Catherine was acting as his housekeeper. Not long after his move to Manchester , however Rev. Macfadyen married Elizabeth Anderson, the daughter of a Greenock wholesale grocer and sugar broker, in that town on 13th April 1864.(interestingly the groom describes himself on the marriage certificate as "Minister of the Gospel")

Alongside his career as a popular congregational minister, including at least one trip to New York, Rev. John and his wife raised 5 sons and 2 daughters all of whom were educated to a high standard; the elder boys at Manchester Grammar School - the two girls at Milton Mount College, a boarding school in Gravesend, Kent dedicated to the education of the daughters of the congregational clergy.

An enquiry into the future lives of these children brought up in the family home of Landers ton House, Marlborough Place, Withington Road, Moss Side is very revealing.

WILLIAM ALLISON b. 1865 --- After graduating from Oxford he emigrated to South Africa where he became eminent in the legal profession. Holding a prominent position at the University College of the Transvaal, Pretoria.

DUGALD b.25/12/18687--- followed his father into congregational church, being at one time secretary of the London Missionary Society. After obtaining his degree from Merton College, Oxford (gaining a First in Theology) and a visit to Germany he worked in St.Ives Huntingdonshire, Hanley, Staffordshire and Highgate, before settling in Letchworth, Hertfordshire. A prominent member of the Liberal Party he stood, unsuccessfully, several times for Parliament. He wrote widely on church history and structure and was a great champion of an extension of further education and the "Garden City" Movement. Dugald died in 1936 His son Lt. John Dennis Gouty Macfadyen having died in the carnage on the Western Front in 1918

NORMAN b.21/5/1877   Qualified as a doctor at St.Bartholomew's Hospital, London in 1904 and a year later added the Diploma in Public Health from Cambridge.  He then became the first G P. (and later Medical Officer) in the embryonic Letchworth Garden City community which would soon also include not only his brother Dugald as a minister but also his second wife Edith as the librarian.

ALFRED NEWTH* b. 1870  After leaving Manchester Grammar School he won an exhibition at Wadham College ,Oxford at which he obtained a first class degree . Alfred took up a post at St. Andrews University in 1892. Interestingly in 1897 he published a translation of Pius XI auto-biography "How I became Pope".
Later he joined the colonial service in Cape Town where he was secretary to the Prime Minister there and volunteered to serve as a captain in the "Cape Highlanders" during the 2nd Boer War
       
After a civil ceremony at St. Ives he was married in London by his brother Rev.Dugald to Irene Mary Ashby. His new wife was a very active campaigner (both in London and the Southern U.S.A.) for women's suffrage, fertility control and against child labour which, radicalism; she kept up when the couple finally settled in South Africa. Alfred combined his colonial service with authoring several books RE: the laws and statutes of the Transkei. (* named after Alfred Newth his father's Hebrew and Philosophy professor at the Lancashire Independent College)

ERIC b.9/12/1879   Educated privately in Oxford, where the family re-located to on the father's death, subsequently gaining scholarships to both Clifton College, Bristol and Wadham College, Oxford. At Oxford Eric served as president of the "Union" 1902 and took a first class degree in "Greats".

His time at university was interrupted by the Boer War in which he served as a volunteer trooper in the Imperial Yeomanry.  After suffering a serious eye injury in an accident (which necessitated the wearing of a monocle for the remainder of his life) he was awarded the Queens South Africa Medal and invalided home.

This injury did not, however, inhibit Eric's and he volunteering (initially with the Malay Staes Volunteer Rifles) further service in France in World War 1, in which he reached the rank of lieutenant in the Royal Horse Artillery. In the 2nd World War he served as a captain in the Home Guard.

As first a civil servant in Malaya he was largely responsible for and wrote extensively about the development of Rubber plantations. Returning to England he was briefly Liberal M.P. for Devises, Wiltshire 1923-4. In later years he travelled widely and occupied positions of prominence with  respect to Town Planning indicatives (especially. echoing the family  connection, as a onetime chairman of First  Garden City Ltd. the company set up to develop Letchworth).

Eric was knighted, in 1943, for his work in the field of tropical agriculture and as a member of the governing body of the Imperial School of Tropical Agriculture, Trinidad. Sir Eric died 13th July 1966 at his home in Hildeborough nr. Tonbridge, Kent.

MARJORIE b.1873 & JOANNA b.1874 Records of the two daughters are a little sketchy, however, they do indicate that Joanna became a kindergarten teacher and died, in 1927 in Sevenoaks, Kent near to where her younger brother Eric was raising his young family. Marjorie trained as a nurse at the London Hospital, Whitechapel alongside none other than Edith Cavell, and died also unmarried in Surrey in 1957, aged 84.

Finally there is a curious tale concerning an Andrew Swan who was the son of Rev John Allison Macfadyen's sister Catherine and her husband Andrew Swan a slater and slate merchant of Greenock. It seems that as a young man Andrew sailed away from Greenock and was not heard from again for 34 years, for the last 20 of which he was presumed dead, before suddenly arriving on his uncle Dugald's doorstep in Letchworth at New Year 1931/2 An extra-ordinary “boys own “story unfolded of a wandering around the South Seas .a shipwreck, a desert island a dramatic rescue after 4 years of isolation followed by a diving career involving sunken treasure.

© Tony Goulding, 2015-09-10

Pictures; the Church circa 1900, from the Lloyd collection, the church during its renovation, 2015 courtesy of Andy Robertson and remaining images  from Tony Goulding

Railway Terrace and the changing shops of Chorlton

Now It is an awful confession but Railway Terrace on the corner of Manchester Road and Buckingham Road was until fairly recently just a stop on the bus into Chorlton from town.

I became aware of the parade of shops I suppose when Wild at Heart that organic meat shop opened.

It was also the site of a shop where Walter had worked as a boy during the 1930s.  Now I didn’t really know Walter well and wish I had spent more time talking to him about his child hood memories.

But he worked in a dairy shop in the parade, so I decided to do some research and started by looking for a date for the terrace but didn’t get far.  It was built after 1911 and I guess will have been part of the development of the area sometime in the 1920s and 30s.

Looking again at the picture I am struck at the turnover of properties in the short period from when Wild at Heart opened.

It had a relatively short life was followed by Moroccana and is now a new business and the other two shops have also undergone change.

And here is another simple lesson.  Always date your photographs.  This one will be sometime around 2011 but exactly when I took it is now lost which is not a good when you are attempting to chronicle change.

On a happier note lots of people have shared their memories if the terrace and for all of them here is Andy Robertson recalling, Railway Terrace.

I remember the shop on left as a tobacconist/sweet/paper shop. I am guessing it closed in the 90s and became a hairdressers. 

Middle shop used to have lots of 2nd hand TVs in window. The shop on the right was called Burke's Petals in the early 00's I think, a sort of hardware shop possibly specialising in lawnmowers. 

Many is the time Cathy would get the bus back from town and I would say, "shall I pick you up from Burke's Petals bus stop"

Picture; Railway Terrace, Manchester Road, circa 2011, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

When a ghost sign might just not be what it seems ......... out in Bridlington on a sunny day in September

Now here is a detective story and this one will have the lot.

It started with a holiday in Bridlington where Ron spotted and recorded two ghost signs which are the names and adverts for long gone companies and businesses.

In an age before the television commercial and way before the internet having your name and products painted on the side of a gable end was the cutting edge in advertising.

Many survived the passing of the company and its products and can still be seen although most are fading or in the case of these two have been partly obscured.

What I like about the first is that even given that the original is only just visible in places the tradition of using the side of a building has not gone out of fashion in Bridlington, because CHAMBERS, Auctioneers, Estate Agents, Valuers and Surveyors whose advert now covers the wall with their advert are still in business.

They operated from this very building which carries their painted sign from when they opened their doors in 1919 till 2014, so it is entirely possible that the faded lettering underneath the bold blue paint may be one of their earlier adverts.

Ron tells me that the best vantage point to see the sign is from Station Approach which runs up from Bridlington Railway Station to Quay Road which makes total sense.

For almost a century anyone coming up that road would catch the sign and know who to call on first if they had need of an estate agent.

Today they trade from just over the road while their old premises in the “The Community Cop Shop” sandwiched between a hairdressers and the delightfully named Flamborough Fish.

Sadly I have been less successful with Ron’s other sign which is in on the side of Needlers on the Promenade where it joins York Road.

The lettering is faded and partially hidden by an advert for the TSB, but just possibly someone with local knowledge will be able to help and maybe also suggest what stood on the actual corner which is now a car park, because if it were a building then it would have pretty much obscured our sign.

So either the sign pre dates that building or was made after it became a car park and that is where I shall leave the story.

Pictures, Bridlington 2015 from the collection of Ron Stubley

*CHAMBERS, CHARTERED SURVEYORS
AUCTIONEERS, ESTATE AGENTS COMMERCIAL and INDUSTRIAL VALUERS,
http://www.chamberssurveyors.co.uk/

Waking up to the day Chorlton was flooded .............. the Brook on an August morning

Now I know I shouldn’t have been surprised at seeing pictures of the Brook overflowing its banks earlier last month.

They were posted on social network by Michael J Thompson who wrote , “we had a substantial amount of rain overnight just before the flooding which led to the Chorlton Brook overflowing its banks into the northern part of Chorlton Park. 

Even the area in the park where the pond used to be filled up with water, having been bone dry the day before. 

The trams to the airport where stopped for a while due to the overnight flooding, and there was further flooding near Firswood which led to suspension of all services for a while between the Airport, Didsbury and Trafford Bar. 

I believe the Airport trams continued to run between Sale Water Park and the Airport. Most of the water had subsided by the afternoon.”

Looking at them under an Italian sun was to be reminded that we should never take our rivers and water courses for granted.

Certainly those who lived here in the 19th century maintained a healthy respect for them, for they not only offered water for drinking, cooking and irrigating the land but could flood with little warning.

In the case of the Mersey such floods could create a lake 3 miles wide across what we now call the meadows and one particularly fierce inundation swept away the weir in the bend of the river which had been built to protect the Duke’s Canal.

Even now there are plenty of winters when the Mersey comes close to topping those high banks which have been constructed over the centuries.

And there are plenty of pictures in the collection of the Brook coming close to overflowing its banks which is not surprising given that by the time it reaches Chorlton it is the sum of a number of smaller water courses of which the Gore Brook and the Red Lion are only two.

All of which brings me back to Michael’s photographs of a day when the brook offered up that reminder of how we should never take it or the other water courses for granted.

Pictures’ Chorlton Brook, August, 2015, courtesy of Michael J Thompson, Hardy Productions UK, http://hardyproductionsuk.com/

*Chorlton rivers, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%20rivers

See it before it goes ............ another bit of our industrial past soon to vanish

I maintain and I maintain most strongly that you can never get enough pictures of our industrial past especially when that bit of the past will not be with us for much longer.

Now this bit of our past is an undistinguished warehouse on Hulme Hall Road hard by the Duke’s Canal.

As far as I can tell it is not a significant example of an industrial building, can’t claim to be associated with any one famous and I guess will not be missed.

Indeed people who worked there have not been over complimentary about the place but at least its passing will not go unrecorded.

For since a fire which ripped through it in mid July Andy Robertson has taken time out to record the stages of its demolition which have not been as swift as I thought.

So that has allowed Andy to go back on a number of occasions and capture the warehouse from different angles recording more of its interior as it gets knocked down and as it won’t merit an archaeological survey this will be perhaps its testimony.

More so as I haven’t uncovered much of its history but that said I bet there will be someone who not only has a soft spot for the place but has dug deep into its past, if so I hope they will come up with the story.

In the meantime I am left with Andy’s latest pictures.

Pictures; warehouse on Hulme Hall Road, September 2015 from the collection of Andy Robertson

Back at Hulme Hall Road ........... one month on

Andy has called this his dolls house picture and you can see why.

This was the state of the warehouse on Hulme Hall Road a little over a month and a but since that fire which led to its partial demolition.

The fire ripped through the building in mid July and with that unerring determination to record how our city is changing, Andy was down there taking some of the first pictures of the place soon after the event and has been going back ever since.

These are from his latest visit on Sunday and show little progress on the demolition of what was left.

Now that surprises me, and so in the absence of any real progress on knocking it down Andy turned to get the bigger picture and here as the light was fading fast caught the surrounding area.

I did plan on researching the building but the summer got in the way.

I do know that back in 1911 it was a printing works and seventeen years earlier was shown as “Locke & Son, shoeing smiths and Williams Cartage Limited (wheelwright works).”

But despite not finding out much about the origins of the building quite a few people came forward with memories, not all of which were complimentary to the state of the place when they worked there but they do add a bit to the story.

And I hope as Andy continues to record the old warehouse there will be more.

Pictures; Hulme Hall, September 13 2015 from the collection of Andy Robertson

Watching Eltham change .............. nu 2 down at Court Yard

Now on a steamed up bus on the way to work Larissa still had time to record the developments down at Court Yard.

And for those like me who live along way from where we grew up it's good to keep up with what is going on.

And yet again allows me to bang on about the need to record how Well Hall and Eltham are changing.

After all those old black and white pictures dating back a century or more started out as some one's photographic project or just an excuse to get out on a sunny day with the Box Brownie.

Picture; the Grove Market development, August 2015, from the collection of Larissa Hemment 

Of trams and pubs and bandstands ......... down at Crich Tramway Village

Now yesterday I was at Crich Tramway Village with LCC tram number 1622 which Dad would have used from time to travel from New Cross to Westminster via the Embankment.

Mother once told me of the time they went sight seeing which ended abruptly somewhere along the route when he could no no longer stick the tram journey.

But back to the trams of Matlock.

Strictly speaking it was Andy Robertson who was there, I just picked up on the pictures he sent over and wrote a story, but the images were too good to be left out so here are a few more..

The London tram will always be close to my heart but this one of a Leeds tram will stir the interest of some.

Andy got to ride on three Leeds trams and was drawn to the Red Lion pub which came from Stoke on Trent and was in danger of being demolished but was saved by the museum who rebuilt it and it now does the business of offering up a pint to the thirsty museum visitor.

And what I discovered later is that the old bandstand from Longford Park has also found its way there.

Picture; trams at the Crich Tramway Village, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson, 

* Crich Tramway Village, http://www.tramway.co.uk/