In Didsbury in search of Miss Leete of Poplar Grove

The year is 1845 and I am looking for Miss Leete of Poplar Grove.  

And apart from her address I know very little about her, except that she was a member of the Ladies Committee of the Anti Corn Law League Bazaar.

Now the Anti Corn Law League had been formed to campaign for the repeal of the Corn Laws which banned the import of cheap foreign cereal till the price of home grown corn rose to 80 shillings a quarter.

It was introduced in 1815 as a way of protecting British agriculture and was unpopular with the working class and sections of the manufacturing interests.

In the May of 1845 the Ladies Committee had organised an event at Covent Garden which raised £25,000 for an out lay of £5,713 and did much to publicise the Anti Corn Law League.

Some of both the success and impact of the event can be gauged from the sheer size of the event.   They shipped goods from all over England and these included fabrics and even machine tools.  There were twenty-seven stalls, a daily newspaper and between eight to nine thousand people had to be accommodated each day from noon to 10 p.m.

And my Miss Leete was one of the 1,150 committee members who acted as a link with their community asking for funds and articles and utilising the social network which owed much to their “district-visiting experience and leisure.”

No doubt as well as visiting her contacts she would have had them in her own home at Poplar Grove which looks to have been an impressive place set in extensive grounds east of the parish Church along what is now Wilmslow Road.

The house was set well back from the road and visitors would have travelled south along a path through the grounds with clear views in both directions to the rows of trees which boarded the estate and shut it off from the neighbouring fields.  At the end of this long path was the house surrounded by an orchard.

But she has proved elusive. I know she was living at Poplar Grove in 1845 but had gone by 1851 when the house was occupied by Thomas Phillips and his family.  Nor can I find here in Didsbury in 1841.

Not that I have given up.  There are still the directories which list householders and the Rate Books which record all the houses in Didsbury detailing the owner, the tenant, the rateable value and whether the property was rented. But, and there is always a but, the directories only list the householder and just possibly his occupation or status and the Rate Books only start at 1847, but I might strike lucky.  In the meantime she might just have been mentioned in a newspaper and in any documents linked to the Ladies Committee.

So I travel in hope.  

Pictures; Poplar Grove from the OS map of Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/and front page of the Ladies Committee of the Anti-Corn Law League Bazaar from the collection of June Pound