In St Peter's Square on an August Sunday in 1937, reflecting on what was and what was to come

We are in St Peter’s Square on a Sunday.  

Now I can be certain of that because the picture is dated August 8th 1937 which was a Sunday.

And like many of the pictures in the collection there is much that you can peel back from what on the surface is just a photograph of a tram.

So starting with the obvious this is car 575 on its way to Burton Road and in the absence of a crew and passengers appears parked up.

Behind it is one of those buildings which were everywhere in the city centre, a mix of offices and shops, fronted in stone which had over half a century become grey and grimy, but with some nice arched windows on the upper storeys.

It was a solid sound building, most of which is out of view or hidden by the trams. But we can just glimpse the premises of Isaac’s Wallpapers who were at number 8.

They were an enterprising business and were quick to take advantage of the the coronation of King George V1 which had taken place in the May of that year, and so just four months after the event they were advertising as a “Coronation Offer Pure Oil Paint at 1/11d.”

David Isaacs had been trading from the shop since 1911 and I rather think there is a story here, as there will be in following up the entry from the directories for the Association Football Players Union which was at number 14 and whose secretary was Alfred S Owen.

The building has gone now, although I do remember standing on the steps of Central Ref gazing over at it on Saturday mornings as I took a break from some dusty article on the Anti Corn Law League.

By then it was a drab tired looking sort of place ready for its end waiting only to be replaced by something new and exciting.

This was to be Elisabeth House all glass and concrete walls which seem to have had few friends.  A building so misunderstood and disliked that no one can quite agree on when it went up.

Various sources suggest a date in the 1960s which does not quite fit with my memories of gazing across at it in 1970.

But recollections of events, places and buildings can so easily be wrong and I was prepared to accept that this was just one of those times when I was mistaken.

But not so. According to A Manchester View run by David Boardman,* Elisabeth House was built in 1971, which I am pleased to say means that my long term memory is fine, even if I can forget to put the wash on, turn off the lights.

I do have to say I am becoming a fan of his site offering as it does some interesting walks around buildings that have now vanished, and he has done an excellent job on chronicling the rise and demise of Elisabeth House which it is true had by the turn of this century become as tired looking as its predecessor and  it has to be said in perhaps half the time.

Now I do not have the same hard opinion of Elisabeth House as some but I will let you decide, for here is a 1924 picture of the old building taken from the Midland.

By the end it had become a sad sight, abandoned by both the Pancake and Italian restaurants and by the camera shop I occasionally visited.

One of its last episodes was to be used by a television crime series, and I rather envied the cast their view across the square to the Town Hall Extension.

All of which was a long way into the future on that August day in 1937.

But had I been there in the Square I would have felt at home on the steps of the Ref which was opened in 1934 and no doubt would have admired the Town Hall Extension which was almost finished and would be ready for its municipal staff and the public the following year.

Now us historians are always looking for continuity in the events of the past and so it is nice to reflect that just over forty years after the old majestic trams of Manchester Corporation vanished from our streets, they are back.

And that large white insurance building has also vanished although it survived until quite recently.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; St Peter’s Square in 1937 from the collection of Alan Brown, Elisabeth House, 1988,m04395,the premises of David Isaacs from the Midland Hotel, July 1924, City Engineers Department m04465 and the Town Hall Extension February 1937, m74925, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council
*http://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/tours/tour6/area6page61.html