When history gets a bit more personal ......... the Croton family

Now I like the way that stories become personal, and so it is with two pieces I wrote on  Charles and Reginal Croton who were two our taxi drivers the late 19th century into the 1920s.*

Reg Croton, 1925

They were successful enough to have moved from horse and cab to motor vehicle by the 1920s and were listed in the telephone book by 1911.

And Reg posed for a series of photographs which along with a picture of the family home on Sandy Lane drew me to them and hence the stories.

The images include two of Reg and Mr. David Ball, the manager of the WH Smith bookstall on Chorlton Railway Station.

In one they are posing beside Reg’s taxi and the other in front of the bookstall.

These along with the picture of their home are in the Lloyd Collection remain the best source for pictures of Chorlton.

They were collected by John Lloyd, who wrote the popular history of where we live, and many of the photographs were lent to him by local residents.

Reg and David Ball, 1922

So it is more than likely that our pictures made their way into the collection by either a member of the Croton family or Mr. Ball.

All of which adds a personal touch to the stories, to which I can now add and even more personal link in the form of a series of conversations with the grandson of Reg's younger brother, and two more images.

And rather than paraphrase what Peter Croton said, I shall instead include the full conversation with those new pictures.

Reg and David Ball, 1925 outside Chorlton Railway Station

“I hope you don't mind me writing to you about your Chorlton blog. My family lived in Chorlton from about 1895 to 1985 and I attended Chorlton Grammar School on Sandy Lane for eight years in the 60s. I find the blog to be excellent and the detail amazing, something you can be extremely proud of.

My great grandfather, Charles Wesley Croton, had a taxi business and lived on Sandy Lane from about 1895 to 1926 when he died. 

His wife, Annie, continued to live there until the 1930s. I have noticed that the blog contains some information about Charles Croton, a surprising amount in fact. Someone has been doing their homework. 

Charles Croton, 1905, Whitelow Road

Charles Croton was born in London in  1866. His father was a coachman (not a hackney coach driver) at the Wesleyan Training College, Westminster hence Charles' middle name Wesley. He arrived in Chorlton c.1895, having been in Hulme since 1890. Of four children the eldest two, including Reginald (b. 1889) were born in Oxford, and the two youngest, including Harold John (b.1890), my grandfather, were born in Hulme. 

Charles tenanted a small holding on Sandy Lane (I understand owned by the Egerton family) and could often be found with his cab at Chorlton Station or the Lloyds Hotel. He had a flock of geese at the farm which were said to be better than any guard dog. I have attached a photograph of Charles on his hansom cab c. 1905, taken on Edge Lane. A very small point, Reg would have been thirty three at the time of the 1922 photograph.

I have frustratingly been unable to find the quote from John Fielden ref. his memory of Charles. 

Harold Croton, Twenty Five years service, 1944

I have attached an image of Harold's certificate for his 25 years’ service in the electricity supply industry. Most of this time was with Manchester Corporation prior to nationalisation after WW2. Charles, his wife Ann, Harold and his wife Ellen are all buried in the family plot in Southern Cemetery”.

I doubt this is the end of the story of the Croton family, and I will go looking for their plot in Southern Cemetery, find the exact location on Sandy Lane of their home, and look for possible adverts for the taxi firm.

For now, I will thank Peter for sharing more information on his family and reflect how the Croton’s perfectly reflect Chorlton-cum-Hardy just a century and a bit ago.

At a time when the township was filling up with new residents and exchanging its rural character for an urban one, Charles like many others moved into the township, offered a taxi service to the new professional people, and by degree embraced the equally new form of transport which was the motor car, along with a telephone.

The Croton family home, Sandy Lane, date unknown

While one of his other sons went into another of those new industry’s which were to come to be central to how we lived.

But their tenancy of a small holding rented from the Egerton’s and that flock of geese takes us back into the rural past of Chorlton.

But like all things change was in the air, and Peter tells me that "Reg became a publican in North Manchester when the land on Sandy Lane was redeveloped and it is that part of the city where his only son still lives".

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; Reg and David Ball at Chorlton Railway Station, circa 1920s, and the family home on Sandy Lane, date unknown, from the Lloyd Collection, Charles Croton with his hansom cab circa 1905, taken on Edge Lane, courtesy of Greater Manchester County Record Office, Ref DPA 782/29, AND Harold Croton’s certificate for his 25 years’ service in the electricity supply industry, 1944, from the collection of Peter Croton

*The Croton Family, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Croton%20Family

** Lloyd, John M, The Township of Chorlton cum Hardy, E.J. Morten, 1972, and Looking Back at Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Willow Publishing, 1985