Miss. Mary Jane Weeks ……… domestic servant and shareholder in the Chorlton-cum-Hardy Conservative Club

Now history is messy and doesn’t always conform to rigid rules of historical development.

The Conservative Club and Public Hall, 1908

And nowhere is this more the case than in the individuals who came forward to buy shares in the new Conservative Club which opened for business, in 1892.

This was after all the party of class which represented the people of plenty.

But as we all know amongst their ranks no less than their loyal voters were people drawn from all classes.

And here it is easy to be dismissive and sniffy about those who consistently voted Tory despite coming from humble beginnings.

My father was a working class Tory.  He drove coaches all his life, and yet he voted for the party which on the surface was least likely to look after him.  That said mother was Labour and she always maintained that her vote cancelled out Dad’s which was a start on the way to a Labour Government.

The political side, 1980s

Here in Chorlton throughout the late 19th century and into the first two decades of the next the Liberals and Conservatives fought it out, and at a local level this often resulted in the electorate returning candidates from both parties on alternative years  to the Town Hall.

But like elsewhere after the last world war, the Liberals were eclipsed and the Tories came out on top, dominating local elections until 1986 and continuing to return an MP until Keith Bradley’s victory in 1987.

And I have long been fascinated by what makes people from the working class vote Conservative.  There will be many explanations and the idea that they were all just class traitors is not good enough.

So that has led me to the big book of subscribers for the Chorlton-cum-Hardy Conservative Club.  The land had been handed over by the Egerton’s in 1891, and the subscription fund opened that year.

As you would expect here can be found the very wealthy, including Samuel Gratrix of West Point in Whalley Range who bought £200 worth of shares, and a collection of our farmers, merchants and businessmen.

The club up for sale, 2013

Here too was Charles Ireland who owned a string of photographic shops, as well as estate agents, civil engineers down to shop keepers and warehousemen.

Some may have been drawn by the politics, while others by the social attractions of the club

And along with all these was Miss. Mary Jane Weeks, who held shares amounting to £2.

What makes her interesting is that she was domestic servant, working for the Adams family from at least 1891 through to 1911 and possibly beyond.

She had been born in 1849, in the small market town of Hathereigh in Devon, and was working as a servant by 1871.

I would like to know more about Miss. Mary Jane, but so far there are only the census returns to go on, but something more will turn up.

 And in the same way in the fullness of time, all the subscribers will be plotted and their lives revealed.

All of which will help get a better understanding of who voted Conservative in Chorlton  in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as offering up an insight into Chorlton-cum-Hardy, just as the township was evolving from an agricultural community into a suburb of Manchester.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; The Conservative Club, 1908, from the Lloyd Collection,  in 1980, from the collection of Tony Walker, and in 2013 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Register of Members Chorlton-cum-Hardy Conservative Club Limited 1892-96