Once, a long time ago the hand cart was the all-purpose form of transporting goods for people of meagre earnings.
They remain for many immortalized in stories of midnight flits, when for a variety of reasons, it was necessary to leave without paying the rent having loaded up the family possessions on a borrowed cart.
They were favoured by jobbing tradesmen and barrow boys, and could still be seen in great numbers around the city centre well into the last decades of the last century.
I have no idea where these three were, but given we have the name of J.H. ATKIN, it should be possible to locate them using the directory for 1969.
Although part of the sign is missing which means I will have to be a bit inventive in the search.
But I do have the additional information that the firm advertised as “Marine Store & Metal Brookers” which might narrow things down.
And that pretty much is that.
Or it was. My attempts to find the location, faltered, but John Anthony, he of the recent excellent Gibraltar story* went delving and came up with this.
"The firm was established in 1898, so I had look at the 1939 Register, but only limited success - three mentions J H Atkinson in Failsworth, Salford and Eccles.
However, Kelly's 1933 Directory has a listing for J H Atkinson, Marine Dealer, 32 Rosamond Street East. Further information records that Rosamond Street East ran between 16 Upper Brook Street and 179 Oxford Road.
The line of the road still exists, but is now reduced to the status of footpath / shared space alongside the Manchester Aquatics Centre, which is a nice irony.
Trying to remember the location of the block of flats seen In the background at the right edge of the photo, I think it is / was near Downing Street / Grosvenor Street".
Now that's detective work!
Location; Manchester
Picture; three handcarts, 1969, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY,
*Looking for Gibraltar in Manchester ........... a story by John Anthony Hewitt, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/02/looking-for-gibraltar-in-manchester.html
They remain for many immortalized in stories of midnight flits, when for a variety of reasons, it was necessary to leave without paying the rent having loaded up the family possessions on a borrowed cart.
I have no idea where these three were, but given we have the name of J.H. ATKIN, it should be possible to locate them using the directory for 1969.
Although part of the sign is missing which means I will have to be a bit inventive in the search.
But I do have the additional information that the firm advertised as “Marine Store & Metal Brookers” which might narrow things down.
And that pretty much is that.
"The firm was established in 1898, so I had look at the 1939 Register, but only limited success - three mentions J H Atkinson in Failsworth, Salford and Eccles.
The line of the road still exists, but is now reduced to the status of footpath / shared space alongside the Manchester Aquatics Centre, which is a nice irony.
Trying to remember the location of the block of flats seen In the background at the right edge of the photo, I think it is / was near Downing Street / Grosvenor Street".
Now that's detective work!
Location; Manchester
Picture; three handcarts, 1969, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY,
*Looking for Gibraltar in Manchester ........... a story by John Anthony Hewitt, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/02/looking-for-gibraltar-in-manchester.html
I remember the ‘ the barrir boys’ and their carts especially around Shudehill !
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