Angel Street, 1901 |
I came across the description on a Radio 4 programme about Marseilles, and it perfectly describes those places where the poor and destitute might pay for the chance to sleep under a roof for the night.
They are of course a part of history , and can be found in Ancient Rome, Medieval London and pretty much everywhere.
And it took me back to a story I had written earlier about 44 Angel Street as I wandered down the street in the company of Samuel L Coulthurst who took a series of pictures of the people and their homes including one rare shot of the inside of number 44.
And today I am back having spent my time crawling over the census return for the same street in 1901.
The pictures reveal a row of late 18th and early 19th century houses similar to those which were going up across the city in the boom years as Manchester quickly became “the shock city of the Industrial Revolution”*
Angel Street, May 1898 |
What makes Coulthurst’s pictures all the remarkable is that having identified the houses it is possible to discover who was living in them just a few years later.
On Angel Street in 1898
Now I would love to be able to record who exactly was living at number 44 when in the May of 1897 Samuel took his pictures, but I can’t.
The best I can do is identify who was there on the night of March 31st 1901 when the census was taken.
There were thirty two of them all male ranging from William Paxton aged 22 from Wigan who described himself as a street hawker to Thomas Reed from Ireland who at 74 was still working as a labourer.
All them earned their living from manual work or the slightly more precarious occupation of selling on the streets.
Outside 44 Angel Street, May, 1897 |
I try not to be sentimental but you cannot help feeling a degree of sadness that so many of these men well past middle age were living crammed together in a common lodging house with nothing but a few possessions and the knowledge that with old age, sickness or just bad luck the future might be the Workhouse.
History of course has been unkind to them and most will have few records to stand as witness to their lives and so during the course of the next few weeks I want to track some of them and discover what their lives had been like.
In the process I think we will uncover something of that shifting population at the bottom of the income pile and the extent to which they went from one overcrowded property to another.
Sadly the identities of those staring back at us are lost and so who they were and what happened to them cannot be revealed.
Patrick Corner |
If this is him he seems to have had a varied life. Born in Manchester sometime around 1850 he was variously a dyer, a joiner and in 1911 was both listed a step ladder maker and a clothes agent.
He never strayed far from Angel Street and can be found on Mount Street which runs into Angel Street and on Rochdale Road close by.
As for the others they are unknown and I doubt would still have been living at number 44 by 1901.
The very nature of these lodging houses meant that the residents were short term stay but we shall see.
Inside no. 44 Angel Street, 1897 |
It will indeed be a fascinating exploration of this part of the city.
Now that should be the end but there is just one last discovery, for I have tracked Mr Samuel L Coulhurst.***
He was a book buyer from Salford, born in 1868 and living at number 4 Tootal Road Pendelton and in the fullness of time I think he also deserves a closer look.
Location, Angel Meadow, Manchester
Pictures; Angel Street, 1900, m85543 44 Angel Street, 1897, m08360, 44 Angel Street 1898, m00195, and Angel Street common lodging house, 1897, m08365, S.L.Coulthurst, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
*Asa Briggs, Victorian Cities, 1963
**The south east side of Angel Street are missing from Laurent’s map of Manchester in 1793 but are there the following year on Green’s map while the side photographed by Coulthurst show up on Johnson’s map of 1819.
***Angel Street, Manchester artist and photographers, Manchester housing conditions, Manchester in the 1900s, Rochdale Road, Samuel L Coulthurst
Trawling through the 1881 Census for Angel Meadow I decided to write down the 'occupations' of it's inhabitants. So far I have 300 ranging from 'Rag Sorter' to Doctor and everything else in between. My past relatives were Lodging House Keepers in Angel St. and St. Michaels Sq.
ReplyDeleteWow a powerful piece of research The Organist
ReplyDeleteThank you. This is a very interesting article. I have my family history on Ancestry and I have relatives who lived in this area.
ReplyDeleteAngel Meadows is a very interesting read.
The pharase "Sellers of Sleep" caught my interest immediately, Andrew. I did not know what to expect when I read this article. Indeed, it opened my awareness to a piece of history to which I never knew. You have come to know me as a sentamentalist, and I must say this is only one more story you have researched and presented that has evoked this in me. I had a brother-in-law who became homeless for several years in Winnipeg, Manitoba here in Canada and I know there were many times he slept in a men's shelter, despite having family who loved him and cared about him. Not quite a parallel experience as the men of whom you wrote, but one with some similarities in life. Thanks for this! Susan Hillman Brazeau
ReplyDeleteThe pharase "Sellers of Sleep" caught my interest immediately, Andrew. I did not know what to expect when I read this article. Indeed, it opened my awareness to a piece of history to which I never knew. You have come to know me as a sentamentalist, and I must say this is only one more story you have researched and presented that has evoked this in me. I had a brother-in-law who became homeless for several years in Winnipeg, Manitoba here in Canada and I know there were many times he slept in a men's shelter, despite having family who loved him and cared about him. Not quite a parallel experience as the men of whom you wrote, but one with some similarities in life. Thanks for this! Susan Hillman Brazeau
ReplyDelete