Now the murder of PC Cock in 1876, and the subsequent arrest and conviction of one of the Habron brothers is well known and was recently the subject of a new book.*
And more so because of the timely confession of the real murderer who was a criminal with a long track record of burglaries and violence.
PC Cock was interred in the churchyard by Chorlton Green where there is still a memorial to him, the real murderer was hung and Mr Habron after his release fell out of history.
What intrigued me and set me off on one, was a request from Brian Robertson who runs an excellent facebook site. **
Brian was interested in Francis Deakin who employed Frank and William Habron.
The Deakin family were well known to me.
They had been market gardeners way back into the 19th century and in the middle decades they lived in Martledge which was one of the three hamlets of Chorlton –cum-Hardy.
In the 1840s they farmed 3½ acres when Mr Deakin’s father was murdered in a beer shop in Chorlton in 1847. ***
The family received much sympathy and financial help not least because Mrs Habron was left with a large family of young children.
The family appear to have survived the tragedy and prospered. By 1881 Francis Deakin was farming 36 acres and employing 16 men and 3 boys and lived at Brookfield which still survives and is the house in Chorlton Park opposite Hough End Hall. ****
In that same year Mr Deakin farmed land near Hough End hall and so I suspect it might well be that the land was around Brookfield House in what is now the park.
But in 1876 at the time of PC Cook’s murder the rate books have him down as farming near the old Church which must be somewhere near Chorlton Green close to the Bowling Green pub on what was Lloyd land and also on High Lane just past Stockton Road and maybe all that was left of Row Acre which was a sizable plot of land which was farmed by various Egerton tenants and originally stretched from roughly Cross Road down to Acres Road between Beech Road and High Lane.
The OS for 1894 shows that it had shrunk to a stretch from what is now Chequers Road to Cross Road.
Interestingly there is a reference to Francis speculating in building plots in the 1880s and the rate books show that he owned at least one property in Chorlton.
For me what makes the story just that bit more interesting is that it revealed more about the Deakin family, provided me with another resident for Brookfield House and offered a possible place for where the Habron brother’s worked.
That said Brian added that “there seems to be some confusion over where the land that the Deakin’s worked was though. One newspaper report clearly suggests that access to it was from a triangular piece of land opposite the spot where PC Cook was murdered.”
This might put it over the border and alas at present I don’t have access to the rate books covering that area.
But it is entirely consistent with land holdings in Chorlton during the 19th century, with many farmers and market gardeners renting plots over the whole township and beyond into Withington and Stretford.
So there you have it.
Pictures; Brookfield House circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection, and in 2015 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the area around the house in 1854 from 1854 OS for Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk
* The Murder of Chorlton’s ‘Little Bobby’ ………… Who killed Constable Cock? by Angela Buckley* https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/the-murder-of-chorltons-little-bobby.html
** Greater Manchester History, Architecture, Faces and Places
***The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012
****Looking for the story of Brookfield House on the edge of Chorlton Park, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/looking-for-story-of-brookfield-house.html
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| Brookfield House, Chorlton, circa 1900, home to the Deakin family in 1881 |
PC Cock was interred in the churchyard by Chorlton Green where there is still a memorial to him, the real murderer was hung and Mr Habron after his release fell out of history.
What intrigued me and set me off on one, was a request from Brian Robertson who runs an excellent facebook site. **
Brian was interested in Francis Deakin who employed Frank and William Habron.
 |
| Brookfield House, 2015 |
They had been market gardeners way back into the 19th century and in the middle decades they lived in Martledge which was one of the three hamlets of Chorlton –cum-Hardy.
In the 1840s they farmed 3½ acres when Mr Deakin’s father was murdered in a beer shop in Chorlton in 1847. ***
The family received much sympathy and financial help not least because Mrs Habron was left with a large family of young children.
The family appear to have survived the tragedy and prospered. By 1881 Francis Deakin was farming 36 acres and employing 16 men and 3 boys and lived at Brookfield which still survives and is the house in Chorlton Park opposite Hough End Hall. ****
In that same year Mr Deakin farmed land near Hough End hall and so I suspect it might well be that the land was around Brookfield House in what is now the park.
 |
| The land around Brookfield House, 1854 |
The OS for 1894 shows that it had shrunk to a stretch from what is now Chequers Road to Cross Road.
Interestingly there is a reference to Francis speculating in building plots in the 1880s and the rate books show that he owned at least one property in Chorlton.
 |
| Brookfield House, 2014 |
That said Brian added that “there seems to be some confusion over where the land that the Deakin’s worked was though. One newspaper report clearly suggests that access to it was from a triangular piece of land opposite the spot where PC Cook was murdered.”
This might put it over the border and alas at present I don’t have access to the rate books covering that area.
But it is entirely consistent with land holdings in Chorlton during the 19th century, with many farmers and market gardeners renting plots over the whole township and beyond into Withington and Stretford.
So there you have it.
Pictures; Brookfield House circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection, and in 2015 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the area around the house in 1854 from 1854 OS for Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk
* The Murder of Chorlton’s ‘Little Bobby’ ………… Who killed Constable Cock? by Angela Buckley* https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/the-murder-of-chorltons-little-bobby.html
** Greater Manchester History, Architecture, Faces and Places
***The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012
****Looking for the story of Brookfield House on the edge of Chorlton Park, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/looking-for-story-of-brookfield-house.html
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