Now, the thing about researching the past, is that you can never be quite sure where you will end up.
So, the story of the man from Didsbury, sentenced to six years hard labour in 1940, for contravening the Official Secrets Act, led to a Jewish refugee, fleeing Nazi persecution and by degree led me to Liverpool and a family of Russian emigres.
Of course, the journey was not as undirected as it seems, because you make choices in the course of the research.
I could have chosen to follow up on the young woman who arrived in Britain in March 1939, and tried to track her early years living in Nuremberg where she was born.
But instead I chose to follow Mrs. Cashdown of 10 Ducie Street, in Liverpool who gave the young woman a job as a domestic servant in the October of that year.
Just how long she stayed with Mrs. Cashdown is unclear but by the March of 1940 she was working for a new couple who lived in Queens Court in Didsbury, and as these things sometimes go, fell in love with her employer, who later would be tried and found guilty of breaking the Official Secrets Act.
He left his wife, and they set up home in a house in Old Trafford, and her failure to inform the Police of her change of address, led to her arrest and the discovery that her partner who as an “aircraft examiner” had made copies of classified material.
And there the story goes cold, she may have been interned because of that failure to give notice that she had moved. If so this in itself was a personal tragedy given that in the October of 1939, a tribunal had judged she shouldn’t be interned because it was decided she was “a refugee, fleeing Nazi persecution”.
With time I might find out more, but I doubt it.
As for the man, he too pretty much vanishes from history, although there are a few possible candidates in the records who might be him.
All of which led me out of curiosity to Mrs. Cashdan. She and her husband were from Russia, and arrived in Britain sometime between 1905 and 1908. In 1911, they were living at 73 Great Newton Street, and he is described in the local directory as a “Poulter”, adding a few months later on the census that he was a "Shocket (Jewish Butcher)” who slaughtered animals in conformity with Jewish religious practices.
As such he was an important member of the community, and his sons followed his occupation with one of them describing himself as “a Minister of Religion and a Slaughterman”.
Sadly, nether of the two houses they lived in have survived. 73 Great Newton Street is now underneath one of the buildings belonging to Liverpool University, while Ducie Street was demolished sometime between 2009 and 2012. Looking at pictures predating the demolition, no 10 looks to have been a fine town house.
And back in 1911, the street could boast a “foreign correspondent," a ship owner, a merchant, and a manager, along with a “glass and china merchant”, two “dental manufactures", a brewer, a solicitor and a "coffee merchant”.
Leaving me to reflect that in a short few hours of research I entered the world of the first half of the last century, touching on the war, Nazi persecution, and the lives of a Russian émigré family.
Pictures; headlines from Manchester Guardian, 1940, and Queen's Court, 2020, from the collection of Barbarella Bonvento
Sources; Manchester Guardian, March- July 1949, census records for 1911, the 1939 Register and Internment Tribunal, 1939
 |
| Manchester Guardian, 1940 |
Of course, the journey was not as undirected as it seems, because you make choices in the course of the research.
I could have chosen to follow up on the young woman who arrived in Britain in March 1939, and tried to track her early years living in Nuremberg where she was born.
 |
| Queens Court, Didsbury, 2020 |
Just how long she stayed with Mrs. Cashdown is unclear but by the March of 1940 she was working for a new couple who lived in Queens Court in Didsbury, and as these things sometimes go, fell in love with her employer, who later would be tried and found guilty of breaking the Official Secrets Act.
He left his wife, and they set up home in a house in Old Trafford, and her failure to inform the Police of her change of address, led to her arrest and the discovery that her partner who as an “aircraft examiner” had made copies of classified material.
With time I might find out more, but I doubt it.
As for the man, he too pretty much vanishes from history, although there are a few possible candidates in the records who might be him.
All of which led me out of curiosity to Mrs. Cashdan. She and her husband were from Russia, and arrived in Britain sometime between 1905 and 1908. In 1911, they were living at 73 Great Newton Street, and he is described in the local directory as a “Poulter”, adding a few months later on the census that he was a "Shocket (Jewish Butcher)” who slaughtered animals in conformity with Jewish religious practices.
 |
| Manchester Guardian, 1940 |
Sadly, nether of the two houses they lived in have survived. 73 Great Newton Street is now underneath one of the buildings belonging to Liverpool University, while Ducie Street was demolished sometime between 2009 and 2012. Looking at pictures predating the demolition, no 10 looks to have been a fine town house.
And back in 1911, the street could boast a “foreign correspondent," a ship owner, a merchant, and a manager, along with a “glass and china merchant”, two “dental manufactures", a brewer, a solicitor and a "coffee merchant”.
Leaving me to reflect that in a short few hours of research I entered the world of the first half of the last century, touching on the war, Nazi persecution, and the lives of a Russian émigré family.
Pictures; headlines from Manchester Guardian, 1940, and Queen's Court, 2020, from the collection of Barbarella Bonvento
Sources; Manchester Guardian, March- July 1949, census records for 1911, the 1939 Register and Internment Tribunal, 1939
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