Mrs. Spann does her bit for the Didsbury war effort …… September 1914

Now, I have yet to discover much about Mrs. Spann who posed for the camera in the September of 1914 and was one of the “Didsbury Ladies” raising money for the Relief Funds.

Raising Funds, 1914

The Manchester Courier printed the picture with the caption “Didsbury Ladies are making a special two days’ efforts to raise money for the Relief Fund.  The photo shows Mrs. Braithwaite, Mrs. Spann, Mrs. McWilliam, and Mrs. W. Merrill, with their organ”, outside Didsbury Railway Station.

A National Relief Fund had been launched a month earlier and within a week had received a £1 million in donations, which by the end of the war would total over £7 million.

Here in Manchester just a week after the launch contributions amounted to £7,854 ranging from Rylands and Sons Ltd who had given £5000 down to Mr. Thomas Parker who donated £10.*

These were matched by sums coming from factories and other workplaces, leading the secretary of the Manchester Relief Fund to record his thanks to the workers in Didsbury, West Didsbury and Withington for their kindness in assisting in raising locally the “magnificent sum” of £162 2s. 5d.**

And with more diligence I might turn up Mrs. Spann, listed as one of the individual contributors.

But so far, she has remained a tad elusive, and I have had to fall back on looking any reference to the Spann family in Didsbury, of which there are a few.

The ghost sign for Spann, 2013

In 1911 there is an Ann Jayne Spann who was living at 35 Chapel Road, Didsbury, along with three Thomas Spann’s, one at 5-7 Oak Street who was a joiner and builder, another at 114 Burton Road who described himself as a house furnisher, and lastly a cabinet maker listed at 35-37 Wilmslow Road.

As yet no Thomas Spann appears on a Didsbury census return which would offer up a link to a Mrs. Spann, but I will broaden the search.

But for me there is an intriguing link which is the ghost sign on the gable end of 683 Wilmslow Road, which is now home to Costa Coffee, but in 1909 was number 35 and 37, and the premise of Thomas Spann whose name is still there and who appeared in an earlier story.***

Thomas and his wife Laura occupied number 37, and I rather think this maybe our Mrs Spann.

There are still the other “Didsbury Ladies” to find, and somewhere more references to the Didsbury Relief Fund, and who knows there may be family of Mrs. Spann in Didsbury.

And it turns out that there was a Thomas Spann who owned a  car and motorcycle shop at the Didsbury end of Barlow Moor and whose son was a TT racer.  Their home was in Cheadle which has set me off looking once more.

Location; Didsbury

Pictures; Manchester Courier, September 1914, courtesy of Sally Dervan, and the ghost sign, 2013 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

 * Manchester Donations, Manchester Guardian, August 13, 1914

** Mr. H H Bowden, Correspondence, Manchester Guardian, October 8, 1914

***A ghost sign in Didsbury, a cabinet maker and the disappearing coal yard, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2015/11/a-ghost-sign-in-didsbury-cabinet-maker.html