Oswald Field, five cottages, a slice of rural Chorlton, and a bit of a mystery part 3

I think this will be the last of the stories on Oswald Field.

Over the last few days I have walked its field boundary, explored the five cottages and tried to discover something of the people who lived there.

But I am content to end with the man who owned the five cottages and just over three acres of land, most of it at Oswald Field but a little on the Row* close to the blacksmith just before the road ran into the green.

And here is the mystery that I have alluded to for despite owning property which qualified him to vote in parliamentary elections he appears not to have owned his own house living instead as a lodger in several homes and variously described himself as a cordwainer [shoemaker], and retired gardener while on his will he is called a labourer and left effects of under £200.

He was born in Great Warford in Cheshire in 1783.  There were Bracegirdle’s in Great Warford in the 1840s and 50s.  One was a farmer, another a book seller and another was a weaver.  Now the place was small enough for him to be related but at present it is an avenue of research I shall leave to someone else.

More promising is his connection with Methodism.  He was at one point superintendant at the Sunday school and some at least of the people he lodged with were Methodists as were two of the men who proved his will.

And it may be that this also gives a clue to when he arrived here in the township.  He is not mentioned as part of the early Wesleyan congregation during the 1820s and the first documented mention of him is 1840 but we may just be able to push that date back.  John Hall who had owned the five cottages on Oswald Field died in 1838 and like Charles was a Methodist.  If the properties passed to Charles on John Hall’s death then either he was already here or settled here around that time.

The income from all the properties and land amounted to £54 a year which is not a substantial amount and will explain why he worked variously as a cordwainer, gardener and labourer.

I doubt that we will ever know his prime occupation and it maybe that some were seasonal or dictated by circumstances.  In the June of 1841 he had been lodging with Joseph Brundrett who was a shoemaker and a decade later he gave his occupation as the same while in 1861 when he was living at Clough Farm he described himself as a retired gardener.

And yet as a man with a vote he was one of a small and significant section of the community.  There were only 27 of them entitled to vote in 1840 out of a total adult population of 341 and given that only men could vote this marked him out as one of only 18% eligible to participate in Parliamentary elections.

And as a Methodist he made up a large proportion of those who could vote in all the elections from 1832 through to 1854. In 1835 just over a quarter of the electorate were Methodists.

They were a close knit group who married into each other’s families lived close together and no doubt discussed the issues of the day.

Sadly nothing that Charles said or thought has survived, but we do have his likeness.  It was published in the Wesleyan Church Souvenir Bazaar Handbook for 1908.

It shows a man with a mass of white hair, but even this presents a mystery.  The name below the picture is of a James Bracegirdle, which I take to be Charles.  Again I might be wrong, but there is no record of a James in the township either in this period, or for the rest of the 19th century.  So I guess this must be he, or it may just be another mystery to add to the rest.

Picture; Charles Bracegirdle & the Wesleyan Chapel from Wesleyan Church Souvenir Bazaar Handbook for 1908, courtesy of Philip Lloyd 

*The Row is now Beech Road and his acre of pasture land is today the site of the gated poperties