And you can see why of course. There is nothing here at first glance which anyone would recognise so there is no point in trying to match it with the present.
Nor do we know who any of the four are and given that the photograph is over a hundred years old I doubt that we ever will.
So most of us would pass over the image and if pressed would label it “four men outside a brick hut, possibly industrial, date unknown.”
And with that small piece of detail the photograph begins to make sense and I think starts being interesting.
Look closely and to the left there is a carriage no doubt waiting for someone off the train, while directly in front of the hut is the Public Weighing Machine and to the right the offices of the coal merchants.
In 1911 there were five of them working from the yard by the railway line along with J. Duckett & Sons, building merchants, and J. A. Bruce Alexander, nurseryman.
We may even be able to date more accurately when the picture was taken because according to the 1911 directory one of the firms working in the yard was a Frank Tinker and it is his name which appears above and on the office to our immediate right.
And so to the four. I still don’t know who they are, but one is wearing a railwayman’s cap with the letters CLC, for the Cheshire Lines Committee which will take me down the route of searching out their staffing records.
So the brick hut will be connected to the Public Weighing machine, these are employees of the railway and we are down by the station in what is now the car park of the supermarket.
And looking back at the directories for the years before 1911 there is evidence that the number of coal merchants has grown reflecting I suspect how populous Chorlton was becoming and how successful had been the railway in the 20 or so years since it was opened.
And not long after this was posted I got one of those helpful comments from John Anthony Hewitt "Not really a public weighing machine Andrew Simpson, although it could have been used for that purpose as well as railway duties.
It was most likely used for sale of coal and other materials, by weight, to local merchants.
They would weigh-in empty wagons, weigh-out the same wagons laden with coal, etc., and calculate the bill.
The person holding the papers could be one of the merchants judging by the non-railway style of hat being worn.
He is also looking slightly bemused [at the bill], whereas the railway clerk has a broad smile on his face."
Location; Chorlton
Chorlton was a CLC station, as was the line as far as Chorlton Junction. From there the line to Didsbury was Midland, and that to Fallowfield was Great Central. The CLC was a joint line, these two plus the Great Northern, which had running powers both ways.
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