The lost houses of Princess Street begin to reveal their secrets

Now you won’t find these two properties.

Brook Street as was

Once and for a very long time  they stood with a collection of similar buildings just down from Charles Street on Princess Street.

They vanished sometime between May 2011 and September 2012 and all that remains is the outline of the roof on the neighbouring building and a fine view across the vacant space to the skyline of Oxford Road.

They were so much a part of the landscape that like many I took them for granted and gave little thought about their history.

If pushed I suppose I did wonder about the people who might have lived in them.

The rear of Brook Street

But at a time when access to rate books, census returns and old maps was more difficult the chances of personalising these properties was beyond me but all things change and today it  is much easier  explore a street or a house and so it is with these.

They will postdate 1819 and were well established when the surveyors of the Manchester and Salford OS map completed their task in 1849.

Two years later Slater’s directory recorded the residents of the row and Mr Adshead featured them on his colour map.

All of which means  I can confirm that along the stretch there were a motley collection of businesses and householders, from James Carruthers beer retailer and Lydia Dodson, tobacconist to Edward Hooper of the Medlock Inn.

In total there were twelve buildings running down to the Brook Street Bridge from Charles Street which neatly brings me to the fact that back in 1851 the bridge and our houses stood on Brook Street rather than Princess Street.

Brook Street, 1851

At which point I could have gone off and explored the rate books where the details of Mr Carruthers beer shop are listed but instead I will just reflect on just how much easier it is today to research properties like these.

Starting with the maps and then the directories it is possible to locate an individual householder, and armed with a name find them on the rate books and census returns.

The rate books will tell you not only the rateable value and the annual rent but whether the householder was a tenant or the owner along with what the building was used for.

And the name will also offer up the possibilities of finding them on the census return which will reveal their occupation, date of birth and their family.

That said the census return for Mr Carruthers has been badly damaged, but I travel in hope that some of the others on the stretch will come to light.

The rear after the demolition, 2014

We shall see.

For now I have Ray Ogden to to thank for finding the two images and Mike Peel who gave permission to use what are two of his photographs.

And in\turn a thank you to Nick Rusthon who took this picture of the rear of the two houses after they had been demolished.

I like the detail of the original stone work with the brick of the two houses above.

Detail of the rear wall

I am guessing that the stonework will predate the properties.

The small aperture in the brickwork might suggest that the building had cellars which were common enough but now I am not sure given the height from the stonework to the street level.

But then I am no experts so I shall leave it to others to make a judgement.

And instead finish with another image of the site.  

This time from my old chum Andy Robertson, who has created a huge collection of pictures which record the transformation of the twin cities of Manchester and Salford, and across Greater Manchester.

This was was taken earlier this month and captures the space which was our houses.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Princess Street, date unknown, courtesy of Mike Peel,  (http://www.mikepeel.net/)    under CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)  rear of the properties from the collection of Nick Rushton, 2014, the space, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson,  and map of the area, from Adhead's map of Manchester 1851, courtesy of Digital Archives Association,  http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

The first Christmas card of November

Now if like me you are old enough to remember those letters to the Times on hearing the first cuckoo of spring, here is another.

In this case it’s the first greetings card for Christmas.

A first in that  we are still only in November and also because it is the earliest David has shown me from his collection.

It dates from December 1916 and although I know he has much older ones this is still a first for me.

Somewhere in the collection I have some Victorian ones and perhaps it’s time for them to see the light of day.

David tells me this one was also a a Valentine's mailing novelty card so a double first.

And that is it.

I shall   leave you with this one, and no I don’t feel that I have brought Christmas in too early given our local supermarket has had advent calendars for a month and the first TV advert for the season aired sometime ago.

All I will say is that David continues to amaze me with the extent of his collection of memorabilia from the two world wars along with that of postal history.

Still that’s it for now.

Picture; Christmas card 1916, from the collection of David Harrop 

Clearing the lot .............. Manchester .... 1967

We are in east Manchester, with two pictures that perfectly sum up the extent of the house clearance programmes of  the middle decades of the last century.

Windcroft Street, 1967

It is easy to take a hard line against the policy that swept away whole communities, along with their streets, homes and identities.

Friends point to the destruction of properties which with a bit of tender care might have lasted for another fifty or sixty years, pointing out that in many cases what replaced the rows of terraced houses were themselves poorly built and badly planned, with the result that they too have vanished.

But there is no doubting that large numbers of the city’s housing stock was past saving, and what we forget is that the policy of clearance and rebuild had been going since the beginning of the 20th century, with the creation of places like Wythenshawe which  pre-dated the last world war.

Ashford Street, 1967

What I never fully understood was the extent to which the rebuilding plans totally obliterated not only the houses, but patterns of streets which had in many cases existed from the early years of the 19th century.

And for a historian that can be frustrating, because having found a location in the historic record it can prove difficult to even come close to finding it, added to which some of the remaining streets had their names changed.

Still it is a small niggle, when set against the destruction of old and tired housing stock, much of which sat in the shadow of factories, iron works, and circumvented by dirty rivers and neglected canals.

And here I have to own up  to getting confused about the location of some of streets, which Paul Forrest kindly pointed out, "Actually it was Bradford/Lower Openshaw and not Beswick although part of the Beswick Electoral Ward. 

When the planners cleared the area in the mid 60s and later built the concrete monstrosity nicknamed Fort Beswick (now also demolished) the planners mistakenly extended the borders of Beswick as far as Grey Mare Lane. I grew up amongst those same streets shown in the photos".

In my defence they wouldn't let me do Geography O level and as a result I fell back on old street directories.  So thank you Paul.  And I shall close with more from Paul.

Windcroft Street, 1967, well a bit of it

"The districts were all quite close together in this part of Manchester; hence I think the reason for the confusion. Beswick extended from Ancoats (Every St) up Ashton New Road as far as Rowsley St and Ardwick extended up Ashton Old Road as far as Blackthorn St where I was born although even my father recorded my place of birth as Beswick! 

I was baptised at St Jerome Ardwick near Rylance Street which was three streets away. Bradford began after Blackthorn St on Blackrock St and from Rowsley St and went up to the border of Clayton on Ashton New Road, and Lower Openshaw on Wellington St off Ashton Old Road where I remember there was a boundary marker sign between the two districts. 

People probably will think I am a bit of a pedant on this matter but I think it important from a historical perspective and old maps show the districts quite clearly. Ashford St may have been in Beswick as I don’t recognise the name after 50+ years, but Windcroft St was in Bradford.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Clearing the lot, 1967,  "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

The Art of the Window ……. Chorlton …. 2021

 I like that old fashioned practice of advertising products on shop windows.

Seen recently on Manchester Road at the Unicorn Grocery.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; The Art of the Window, Unicorn Grocery, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Don't perform with children ... animals ... and snow

 So the weather forecast on Friday promised sun on Sunday afternoon, which would have been perfect for the history walk to introduce the new book  "nothing to do in Chorlton*.*

Twenty or so people signed up and then it snowed, and didn't stop.

Not that we were deterred and having arrived at the Lych Gate to receive  the audience we were met with 8 hardy souls determined to walk the walk in driving snow.

And drive the snow did. 

All was well while we huddled under the shelter of the Lych Gate, but started with a full fury as we moved off and stood in the footprint of the old St Clement's Church.

And having retreated to the gate, it stopped only to begin again as we stood by the Narnia Lamp Post on the village green.

At which point one of the group murmured that all we needed was a discarded wardrobe and the scene would be complete.

After all the village Christmas tree was already in place.

Now the observant will have clocked that none of the snow pictures actually were taken yesterday.

And that might lead some to question the historical accuracy of the story, but I challenge any one to start taking pictures when the snow is coming down in clumps.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Beech Road, 2021, courtesy of Balzano, Beech Road Boxing Day, 2011, the parish graveyard and the meadows circa early 1980s  from the collection of Andrew Simpson

**“nothing to do in chorlton” by Andrew Simpson & Peter Topping, is available from www.pubbooks.co.uk and Chorlton bookshop

Looking for the story of Graeme House and that Chorlton Shopping Precinct

Graeme House and Safeway, 1971

We don’t do recent history very well.

I guess it is simply because we take it for granted and don’t even see it as history.

Added to which it is sometimes quite difficult to track down the story.

So when I washed up in Chorlton in the mid 1970s the shopping precinct, Graeme House and that car park were a done deal, but only just.

They had replaced a set of houses and cut Manchester Road in two leaving just two properties as witness to what had once been.

Shops to let, 1971

You can find a few people who remember those houses and one of my friends attended a private school on that lost stretch of Manchester Road, but the memories are fading.

And to date I have found just a handful of photographs recording the demolished houses which ran along Wilbraham Road, Manchester Road, and Barlow Moor Road.

Part of the problem is that such developments don’t warrant being recorded in history books, so Mr Lloyd’s two books skip over the building of the precinct and the book written by Cliff Hayes has just a picture.*

From the Guardian, 1973

Of course the planning applications along with the deliberations of the Planning Committee should still be available but having crawled over the documents relating to the development of Hough End Hall a little earlier this can be long tedious and sometimes unrewarding.

All of which just leaves the local newspapers which will have recorded the events.

Graeme House and car park, 1973

And that has so far thrown up an advert for the remaining offices to still to be let in 1971 and a few photographs of Graeme House and the precinct.

Sadly I am no nearer to knowing why it was called Graeme House.

Intriguingly I did come across Graeme Shankand who was a planning consultant and architect who worked on projects in the North West.

It is a tenuous link but in the process did introduce me to a very interesting architect, who played an important part in founding the William Morris Society.

The precinct, 1973

But that as they say is for another time.

So for now I shall close with the memory of shopping in Safeway not long after it had opened in the precinct.

It was bright, busy and at the time the biggest supermarket in Chorlton, and for a while continued to operate after its bigger store had opened by the old railway station.

Now that should have been the end but to reaffirm that simple observation that history is messy, only hours after I posted the story Ste Passant suggested that the office block may have been named after Henry John Greame Lloyd who cropped up on a legal document.

Now I rather think that he was part of the Lloyd family that owned a large part of Chorlton coming from the same area and leaving £151,021 10s on his death in 1919.

All of which just leaves me to go off and search the records.

Pictures; the Shopping Precinct and Graeme House, H.Milligan, 1971, m17408, m19763, m17832, m17405 and Graeme House, The Guardian, October 22, 1973, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*The Township of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1972,  Looking Back at Chorlton-cum-Hardy, John M Lloyd, 1985, CHORLTON-CUM-HARDY, Cliff Hayes, 1999

** Graeme Shankand, John Kay, http://www.morrissociety.org/publications/JWMS/W84-85.6.2.Kay.pdf

*** Buldoze and be damned, Terence Bendixson, the Guardian January 8 1969

The walk today ....... which proves just how much there is to do in Chorlton

 Now it is not to late to join Peter and I as we celebrate our new publication, “nothing to do in chorlton”*, and walk the book with us today.

Starting at the lych gate opposite Chorlton Green we will touch on the history of the meadows and Chorltonville, before exploring some dark stories in the old parish church yard, and then by degree take in some silly tales on the village green including the Narnia lamp post, the origins of the Horse and Jockey, finishing by Scotch Hill.

So, without giving too much away, you can join in the speculation of what happened to the missing skull in the graveyard, the reason for the popular practice of “lifting” at Easter, and a missing stream.

The walk will cost £5, and for all those that buy a copy, the book will act as a free ticket to the walk.

It starts at 2 pm on Sunday November 28th and will last for an hour …… or maybe a bit more …. after all there is lots to be revealed.

And yes the walk is a piece of outrageous self promotion but is also another in that acclaimed and popular series of events where we bring the the past out for you to enjoy.

Painting; me and Peter doing nothing on the village Green by the Narnia Lamp, 2021, Peter Topping 

*“nothing to do in chorlton” by Andrew Simpson & Peter Topping, is available from www.pubbooks.co.uk and Chorlton bookshop

Discovering the Medlock at Mayfield …….

I am back at Mayfield, watching the continued work to transform a shabby and neglected part of the city into something interesting and exciting.*

Opening up the Medlock, 2021

And in the process open up a forgotten stretch of the River Medlock.

Mayfield lies south of Piccadilly Railway Station and I guess would once have been a pleasant place of fields, intersected by the meandering River Medlock, but by the early 1790s it was already being developed.

So, by 1793, the first streets were beginning to nibble at the open land, and in the following year there were dye works on either side of the river. 

And within a quarter of a century rows of terraced houses competed with a variety of industrial buildings transforming the area into a place of smoky chimneys and residential sprawl.

Mayfield, 1819

All of which was pretty much how it stayed until the middle of the last century, when the decline in the industrial base of the city and the  bombs of the Luftwaffe during the last war, left great swathes of it empty land, filled by car parks and small industrial units.

But developers and city planners like nature abhor a vacuum, and the plans to a create a “new urban neighbourhood” are well under way.  

It is a “transformational mixed-use city centre regeneration project reviving a former industrial heartland into a modern innovation quarter.  

Mayfield is a 24-acre brownfield site packed with heritage and the River Medlock flowing through its core. The site has an industrial history of innovation spanning back to the 1700’s with previous lives as a parcel depot, relief railway station and textile mill. The site was left derelict for over 30 years before the next phase of its revival began. 

The river, 2021

The Mayfield Partnership – comprised of U+I, Manchester City Council, Transport for Greater Manchester and LCR – formed in 2016 with a shared vision to deliver a modern neighbourhood at the heart of Manchester. 

Overall, the brownfield site will provide over 2.3m sq ft GIA office space facilitating 16,000 new jobs, 1,500 homes, 56,000 sq ft of retail and leisure, a new 300-bed hotel and 13-acres of public realm, including Mayfield Park – the city’s first new park in over 100 years”**.

And my old friend Andy Robertson has made it one of his projects to record that transformation.

Diggers and trenches, 2021

Leaving me just to add some of his pictures showing the ongoing work

Pictures; developments at Mayfield, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and Mayfield, 1819, from Johnson’s map of Manchester, 1819, courtesy of Digital Archives Association,  http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Mayfield,  https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Mayfield

**Mayfield Manchester, https://www.uandiplc.com/our-places/mayfield  

Posters from the Past ........... no 18 ......... Rome The Eternal City

Now the project is simple, take an image of a building we all love and turn it into the style of poster which was popular in the middle decades of the last century.*

And today  we are in Rome, one of my favourite cities, wondering how the Tourist Office might have marketed the Eternal City.

Location; Rome

Painting; Rome, © 2018 Peter Topping,  Paintings from Pictures, from a photograph by Andrew Simpson, 2008

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk 

*Posters from the Past, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Posters%20from%20the%20Past

Looking down at the River Medlock..... and thinking of lost streets

 Now, I thought this was one of those straightforward stories.

The Medlock from Brancaster Road, 2021

Andy’s picture of the River Medlock, offered up another river story.  

It was taken from Brancaster Road, which connects Oxford Road with Princess Road.

But that was before I got lost in tracking Brancaster Road back into the past and coming to the conclusion that the road doesn’t have a past.

It looks to have been cut sometime between March and May 2017 during the redevelopment of the old BBC building which occupied the site between Oxford Road and Princess Street.

The BBC opened their flagship building in 1975, and its construction led to the elimination of a network of streets which had been home to rows of terraced houses, a school and church and a number of factories and warehouses including the Medlock Works which made rubber footwear.

The area in 1844

These survived the Blitz, were still there in 1950, but following a compulsory purchase order, in 1967 and following clearance of the site, building began in 1971.

By then most of these lost streets were nearing their 150th birthday.

Charles Street which is on the edge of the site looks to have been cut in 1822, and with a bit more research in the Rate Books we should be able to date the collection of streets which were cleared away.

By the 1850s Charles Street could boast five beer shops, one pub called the George IV, and 27 properties which were home to a varied group of people, from shop keepers to craftsmen and a screw manufacturer, and an engraver to a firm of calico printers.

Who did what on Charles Street, 1851

And yes by 1844, the Lass ‘ Gowrie was trading under its name.

In time I will go looking for the rest of the streets and search out the occupations of the residents.

Which leads me back to Andy’s picture. 

Had he stood on the same spot back in 2015 he would have been in the car park of the BBC, 65 years earlier and it would have that rubber footwear factory, and stretching back a century the site was a timber yard.

The Medlock goes dark, 2021

Which just leaves another picture of the Medlock as it disappears into the dark, thereby fulfilling my promise of a river story.

Location; Chorlton-upon-Medlock

Pictures; by the River Medlock in Chorlton-Upon- Medlock, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and the same spot in 1844, from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, courtesy of Digital Archives Association,  http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

When in Rome part 2

Now when in Rome I do the ruins, like any tourist, after all if you have had a love affair with Roman history since you were seven it is obligatory.

Left to myself I can get lost at the Forum, and despite the crowds will still find something personal when standing at the Colosseum or gazing over the expanse of the Circus Maximus.

But there is that other Rome where tourists and sunlight rarely penetrate. Here in the back streets you can still come across hidden little churches, the odd pile of ancient masonry and around the corner a piazza.

It always amazes me how in these working parts of the city businesses cling to every available space, like the bar and restaurant whose tables and chairs spilled out from the small entrance or the even smaller shop which was really no more than a hole in the wall.

Location Rome











Pictures; Rome, 2010, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Tracking the river along the canyon …… Manchester

Now laying aside the politics of the redevelopment of the city, and the race by said developers to create a Manhattan skyline across Manchester, I had hoped that those stretches of the Medlock and Irwell would have fared better.

During the 19th century they were closed off by tall warehouses, and mills whose walls rose up from the water line mimicking giant cliffs.

And with the clearance of these buildings I naively thought that us ordinary citizens might be able to get close to the rivers to dip out toes in the water.

But not so, as Andy’s pictures of the area behind Own Street show. 

The river continues to flow through a canyon of brick and stone.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; looking down on the river, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Catherine Murnane: - Victim of German bombing 1/6/1941 ... another story from Tony Goulding

To mark remembrance month, I was going to complete the story of the Firewatchers who died as a result of the German Luftwaffe bombing of Manchester on the night of 1st June, 1941.

I decided to shelve this to a later date, however, and tell the story of just one victim of that night. 

In this way wishing to highlight the fact that each of the over a million names on the Commonwealth War Graves was an individual person.

Catherine was born in Stockport, Cheshire on the 19th March, 1902 the first child of Robert John Garside, a machine fitter at a printer’s and his wife, Catherine (née Dunne). 

Memorial to Manchester’s Civilian War Dead; Piccadilly

In 1911, the census records her as the eldest of five children, with 4 younger siblings, 3 sisters (Mary, 7, Eileen, 4, and 10-month-old baby, Florence) and 1 brother Robert who was 3. 

The family were then living at 19, Wally Street, Broughton, Salford. Catherine was joined by another brother, Joseph on the 20th February, 1912 and a fourth sister, Winifred, on the 11th may, 1913.

She married Matthew Murnane in Salford during the September quarter of 1929 and in 1939 the National Register recorded the couple at 15, Eskrigge Street, Salford with Catherine described as a “Mantle costume baister” Matthew was a "General labourer (heavy worker)”.

Catherine was a Senior Air Raid Warden and was killed at Hacking Street in the Salford part of Cheetham Hill on on the 2nd June,1941.

Pictures; From the collection of Tony Goulding.

Clocking a new view of Oxford Road ……….

It won’t take long before this view looking towards Oxford Road is accepted as the norm, but of course it is no more than a handful of months old.

Before that this was the former BBC building which opened in 1975 and replaced a network of streets and houses that stretched back from Oxford Road to the River Medlock and from Charles Street down to Great Street. In all there were fourteen streets including Pritchard Street, Hesketh, Leigh and Saville Streets and along with the houses there had been a school and a pub.

Location; Manchester

Pictures, the view to Oxford Road, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Stories from the margins of British history ........on the wireless today

Now this is one I shall be listening to.  

It was released in September of this year but I missed it. 

Arrival of Jewish refugees to London, February 1939

It will be broadcast at 11.30 this morning, but will be available for a year.

"Anita Anand uncovers an extraordinary personal story from the margins of British history which challenges our perspective of the past we thought we knew. At a crucial moment in the rethinking of whose histories we should be telling, History on the Edge challenges some of the conventional assumptions about our past.

It’s 1940 and, amid the chaos of the Second World War, a 19-year-old refugee from Hitler’s Germany, Konrad Eisig, finds himself caught up in a British policy which, just when he thought he was safe, sends him on a hazardous sea journey to Australia in conditions little better than those of the slave ships of a century-and-a-half before. 

With the help of Eisig’s first-hand testimony from the astonishing diary he left behind, Anita is on an investigation to unravel his story and understand how this apparently cruel train of events came about, and what it was really like for those who lived it.

With contributions from Nick Ross, Aditi Anand, Laura Walker, Claudia Cotton, Dr Rachel Pistol and Dr Seumas Spark. Extracts from Konrad Eisig’s Diary are read by Gunnar Cauthery.

Producer: Anna de Wolff Evans

Executive Producer: Simon Elmes

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4" 

Picture; Arrival of Jewish refugees to London, February 1939, German Federal Archives, from Jewish refugees from German-occupied Europe in the United Kingdom, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_refugees_from_German-occupied_Europe_in_the_United_Kingdom

*History on the Edge, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00101kt

A medal .... the bombardment of Scarborough ..... and a newspaper

 Now most of us will equate medals with acts of bravery in the field, and if pushed will acknowledge that many were issued in recognition of wartime service and in particular indicated theatres of war.

But medals were struck for all sorts of service, including work and notable achievements in a whole range of activities.

And that brings me to this medal, which has just been acquired by my old chum David Harrop, who told me that “It's very rare, I've never seen one with the ribbon”.

It dates from 1914 and commemorates the “Bombardment of Scarborough & Non Combatant’s by the German Fleet”.

All of which made sense, given that the shelling of Scarborough,  Hartlepool, West Hartlepool and Whitby, shocked the nation.   

This was only months after the Great War had begun and long before the awful casualties which would stack up during the great battles on the Western Front and elsewhere.

“The German ships fired 1,150 shells into Hartlepool, striking targets including the steelworks, gasworks, railways, seven churches and 300 houses. 

People fled the town by road and attempted to do so by train; 86 civilians were killed and 424 injured, 122 killed and 443 wounded according to Arthur Marder in 1965

Seven soldiers were killed and 14 injured. The death of Private Theophilus Jones of the Durham Light Infantry, age 29, was the first death of a British soldier from enemy action on British soil for 200 years. Eight German sailors were killed and 12 wounded”.*

So, not unsurprisingly it was the focus for many newspaper stories and picture postcards.

But what makes our medal a littler different, is that according to David it was produced by the Mercury newspaper, and was sold as a commemorative souvenir.

Which some might reflect was an interesting take on patriotism and manipulating the event to enhance propaganda.  

But plenty of people also bought into miniature porcelain figures of tanks, battleships, and ambulances, and many more into special editions of newspapers and magazines focusing on aspects of the war.

Location; Scarborough

Picture; the Scarborough medal, 1914, courtesy of David Harrop

* Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_Scarborough,_Hartlepool_and_Whitby

A lost pub on Fairfield Street

This is the Bridge Inn on Fairfield Street as it was in 1970.

And it is a pub I will have passed countless times on the bus on the journey to Grey Mare Lane and Ashton.

But despite living for a chunk of time in east Manchester and beyond in the 1970s, I can’t say I ever noticed the pub and certainly never went in it, and that is a shame.

I can track a pub with that name to this spot back to 1840, when it was surrounded by a mix of industrial and residential properties.

According to the 1911 census, the landlord was a Fred Lord, who with his wife Elizabeth managed the pub, assisted by Arthur Dixon who was the waiter and Ethel Jackson who was described as a domestic servant.

And along with these were the Lord’s daughter, young Vera Patricia, aged 3, and Mr. Lord’s widowed mother.

The same census offers both a   glimpse into the pub, and into its occupants.

It had eight rooms, and may already have been familiar to Elizabeth who had been born in Ardwick and to Elizabeth’s mother in law who was born just up the road in Bradford.

What strikes you are the little details.  Ethel Jackson was just sixteen, Mrs. Lord senior was already a widow at 52, and the Lord’s had moved around the city, having been in Gorton in 1908.

And for an official document Fred Lord was less than conscientious about completing the form accurately having, failed to ascertain exactly where his 22 years old waiter had been born, so while I know it was WR, which may have been Whalley Range, the county is shown just as an ?.

Of course, it may also be that Arthur Dixon didn’t know his exact birth place.

Someone I know will be able to supply a date for when it closed, but for now, that is it, other than to say there remain some stories of the surrounding buildings which we will return to.

Location; Fairfield Street

Pictures; the Bridge Inn, 1970, A. Dawson, m49287, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and in 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ........ nu 40 Chapel Street

Now I know Chapel Street is nether lost nor forgotten but over the next few days here are a few photographs that were taken on a June day two years ago.

And like all good pictures and stories I leave the rest to you.

Other than to say the lighting was iffy.







Location; Salford

Picture; Chapel Street, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Socialism in Suburbia …………. more stories of Chorlton, Withington and Didsbury

Socialism in Suburbia is a slim pamphlet of just fourteen pages and sadly to day is very difficult to obtain.*

Forward The Day Is Breaking, 1910

My copy comes courtesy of Jeff Bridson and is an electronic version of his photo stated pages, which look to have been copied many times.

The original was written by Rhys Davies MP, and published in 1930 by the National Co-operative Publishing Society.

It is a fascinating account of the early years of the Labour Party in the old Withington constituency which included Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Withington, and Didsbury.

Socialism in Suburbia, 1930

At the outset Mr. Davies reflected that this was “suburbia in excelsis; [which] has more rich, petty bourgeoisie within its borders than almost any other part of England”.  Added to which “there is hardly a trade union branch to be found anywhere; there are no industries of any kind within in its confines; it is a residential area throughout.  

But within this vast political province there are hundreds, if not thousands, of trade union officers by the score make their home here.  The Woodworkers Society’s head office is right in the heart of things, whilst the Typographical Association of the National Union of Distributive and Allied Workers, and the Ironfounders’ Society Headquarters are just on its boundaries”.

The story began with a meeting called by the Clarion newspaper in 1906, requesting that “Socialists of the commercialized districts, come together at a meeting at the White Lion”.

A dozen attended and later meetings were held in the home of Mr. C.W. Hunt who became a Labour representative on the local Board of Guardians, and amongst others who regularly attended were Dr. Tom Garrett and Mrs. Garrett who also sat on Chorlton Union Board as socialist Guardians.

At which point it is worth pointing out that here in Chorlton the first socialist society had been formed in 1894, and while the evidence is fragmentary, they were active throughout that decade and into the next. **

R.J. Davies, MP, date unknown

None of which detracts from Socialism in Suburbia which gives a detailed account of those early years including how campaigning was undertaken, the results of municipal and Parliamentary elections, and the difficulty of “converting Withington’s inhabitants to Labour and Socialism”, with Mr. Davies commenting that “The achievement of not losing our £150 deposit in 1929 was regarded as much a victory as winning Ardwick, Clayton Gorton Hulme or Platting would be to Labour adherent’s resident within those constituencies in Cottonopolis”.

Not that he was a stranger to political campaigning.

He was born in 1877 in Wales, began work as a farm servant, before becoming a coal miner for ten years and then a cashier “to a co-operative society in financial difficulties and began at once to organize co-operative employers into a trade union.  

After four years in co-operative service, he was offered a post in the central offices at Manchester of the old Amalgamated Union of Co-operative Employees” ***

R.J.Davies, speaking, 1945

His record in Manchester in the labour movement is impressive, having been President of the Manchester and Salford Trades Council, as well as the Manchester and Salford Labour Party, was a City Councilor for ten years, and then elected as MP for Westhoughton in 1921, a seat he held till his resignation due to ill health in 1950.

Reading his speeches, I am struck with the range of the issues he embraced, as well as his knowledge, passion and commitment.

He campaigned on worker’s rights, the cotton industry, international peace and the welfare of children as well as calling for a national homeland for Jewish people.

Nor was he afraid of criticizing senior Labour members of the wartime coalition government, as well as  voting against the Labour Government in 1947 over the introduction of National Conscription.

But he remained firmly committed to the Labour Party,  taking  great pride in the Labour landside of 1945, and was seen on the first day of the new Parliament “pushing and chuckling his way to the Chamber, calling to a friend “Heavens above.  It might be a Labour party conference’”. ****

Members of Withington CLP circa 1990s

All of which brings me back to his book, and his closing comments that “this Suburbia and home of Manchester’s intelligentsia might well be won for Labour”, which was indeed the case in 1987 when Mr. Keith Bradley took the seat from the Conservatives.

Location; Withington, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Didsbury

Pictures; Labour Party poster, 1910, front cover of Socialism in Suburbia, 1930, R.J Davies, date unknown, R.J. Davies,MP,  speaking in 1945, and members of Withington CLP, circa 1990s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson


*Davies, Rhys, Socialism in Suburbia, 1930

**Beedle, Lawrence, Chorlton’s Socialist History 1996

***The Staffordshire Sentinel, April 14th, 1925

****R.J. Davies, Manchester Guardian, November 3rd, 1954