When prejudice stalks Chorlton and ignores the historical reality

It is that time of year when yet again someone posts a question about Chorlton, which the prejudiced and ill-informed leap on.

From the 1851 census of Chorlton-cum-Hardy

So, the post was about Chorlton and culture, and sure enough we got a heap of answers, some of which repeated that old idea that today the area is full of people who were not born here. 

I suppose some were attempts at being funny and at best displayed a degree of ignorance, and at worst slide into prejudice.

The easy response is either to say nothing or to reply with “so what”.

But, it comes up so often that it is worth exploring the assertion, and pointing out that Chorlton has always seen a lot of people from elsewhere coming to live here.

In 1851, the census records that there were 760 people here in the township.  Discounting ten whose places of birth are undecipherable, 346 were born in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, and 404 from elsewhere.

Now the elsewhere did contain some pretty local places, like Withington, Didsbury and Stretford, and a bit further away in Hulme, Manchester and Salford.

But there were a fair few from Yorkshire, Cheshire, Warwickshire, the Home Counties and Scotland.

The Chorlton Brass Band, 1893, 

All of which meant that walking the lanes of the village and surrounding hamlets, there would have been a mix of accents.

The answer partly lies in the practice of employing servants from outside Chorlton, there by reducing the possibility that the secrets of “the family” would become known in the homes of the locals.

Thirty years later and the housing boom of the 1880s, which lasted into the next century, brought a range of people from all over Britain, whose occupations were far removed from farming.

And there are plenty of examples.

The Chorlton Brass band dated back to the 1820s, but by 1893, the majority were either born elsewhere, or first generation.

Joe Scott who built many of the smaller houses in Chorlton during the early decades of the 20th century may have been born here, but his father who was a plasterer moved up from London to benefit from that housing boom.

And in the 1830s, the Holt’s escaped city centre Manchester to settle in their fine house on the corner of Barlow Moor Road, and what is now Beech Road, and after their death, their place by one of their children.

All very different from the assertion that “Chorlton culture is real people who left and outsiders who moved here because of trends and the beegees then claimed it as their own” or that "Original Chorlton people were great it’s all the new people that have turned into what it is now, old Chorlton was great”.

Added to which for almost a century we referred to the Old Chorlton and New Chorlton, or the Old and New Village, to distinguish those who lived in the old rural centre around the village green and Beech Road, and those in the new developments which occupied the area around Barlow Moor Road and Wilbraham Road.

To which I would just point out that in the early 19th century original Chorlton people engaged in bull baiting, dog and badger fights, and the public humiliation of residents whose partner had left them, and others who the moral populace thought had offended the common good.

Still, why let history get in the way of a good rant?

And if any one wants further evidence, there is the book The Story of Chorlon-cum-Hardy, which is a study of the township in the first half of the 19th century, or if that is too much like a conspiracy theory why not go back to the census returns and read what the residents of Chorlton themselves said.

Pictures; Chorlton Brass Band, 1893, from the Lloyd Collection

*The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012