Albert Square circa 1914, a rare picture of a Sunday in Manchester

We are on Cross Street looking into Albert Square and from the absence of traffic it must be a Sunday afternoon.

Even so the square is oddly deserted.  But I suppose at just before 3 in the afternoon there is not much going on outside the Town Hall this Sunday.

All the offices and the few shops which face onto the square are closed which means the small number of people out and about must just be passing through, which in turn leave the  motor taxis with nothing to do.

It is another of those Fred Judge postcards and like the others I have featured dates from sometime before the Great War.* And given the close proximity of the photographs I guess he may well have taken them on the same day.

So while this one was taken at just before 3, the clock on his picture of the Cathedral has the time of 3.45.  Just enough time for him to walk down Cross Street and set up opposite the statute of Oliver Cromwell.

What I like about Fred Judge’s pictures is that they are taken from odd angles and do not follow the conventional picturesque approach.

Now anyone who has ever tried to photograph the Town Hall will know getting a good shot of the building is not easy, but he manages it and nicely captures the contrasts between the size of the offices on the corner with the Town Hall and the statue of Prince Albert.

Of course some will mutter that the absence of traffic on a Sunday in 1914 made standing in Cross Street less perilous than it would be today.

 But Fred Judge repeated it again and again in this series.

And here I think there is also something of that feel of a Sunday in Albert Square which you can still experience today, although usually it has to be much earlier in the day.

Picture; from the collection of V & G Harris

*1718 Albert Square. Manchester, 1719 Market St. Manchester, 1722 Town Hall. Manchester, 1724 Piccadilly, 1725 the Royal Infirmary. Manchester, 1726 Victoria University. Manchester, 1727 Manchester Cathedral.