This is one of those stories, inspired by an artefact donated at Oxfam’s shop on Wilbraham Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, which throws light on Manchester’s industrial past. Manchester’s industries were more varied than is sometimes assumed.
This “torpedo” bottle once contained mineral water, ginger beer or another aerated beverage manufactured by Jewsbury and Brown.
Their Manchester factory was located at 7, Ardwick Green North.
In 1914, they also had a factory on Fishergate Hill, Preston, Lancashire and had acquired the Stretton Mills Mineral Water Company of Church Stretton, Shropshire.
The head office of the concern was at 113, Market Street, Manchester.
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| Tanzaro House -1900 |
The business was established in 1825 originally under the name of Jewsbury and Whitlow, which first traded as a chemist’s shop from the Market Street in what was then known as “The Egyptian Buildings” (1)
With his first partner Henry also kept two taverns in Manchester – in Fountain Street and York Street. This partnership was dissolved on the 1st January, 1835; George Whitlow left to go to Liverpool and died shortly thereafter. (His widow re-marrying at St. Philip’s Church, Liverpool on Tuesday the 4th October, 1836) For a number of years Henry was a sole trader although plagued with ill-health he became increasingly reliant on his assistant, William Scott Brown, whom he eventually made his partner. The company commenced trading under its new name of Jewsbury and Brown in February, 1845.
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| Jewsbury and Brown Chemists - 1880 |
The building, Tanzaro House, on Ardwick Green was a local landmark being 7 storeys high, with Jewsbury and Brown’s 300 employees occupying the upper floors. On the 21st August, 1953 a major fire, the biggest seen in Manchester since the Christmas Blitz of 1940 destroyed much of the top of the building and some of the weakened walls also had to be demolished. The blaze was tackled by 25 fire engines with the damage estimated at £150,000 (equivalent to more than £4 million today).
Henry Jewsbury was born on the 7th May, 1803 in Measham, Derbyshire, to Thomas Jewsbury (2) and Martha (née Smith). One of seven children he had two sisters and four brothers. In 1819, his mother died giving birth to her seventh child and Henry’s elder sister, Maria Jane, took over running the house. He married Martha Whitlow (3) in Manchester’s Collegiate Church (now the Cathedral) on the 3rd November, 1830. The couple had 4 surviving children; 3 daughters and 1 son. From at least 1851 the family residence was at Willow Bank, Moss Lane, Greenheys, Moss Side. The youngest daughter, Martha, married Thomas Butcher of Leek, Staffordshire at Christ’s Church, Lloyd Street, Moss Side on the 27th May, 1862, the other two daughters, Sarah Jane and Mary Maria, remained unwed. The wedding of his son, Thomas Smith, to Margaret Wamsley took place on the 30th March, 1865 at the parish church of Leek, Staffordshire.
Henry Jewsbury died at his home in Greenheys on the 8th September, 1873 and was buried in Brooklands Cemetery, Brooklands, Sale, Cheshire.
Henry Jewsbury’s two sisters were both accomplished authors, although Maria Jane’s ambitions in that field were somewhat thwarted by her mother’s early death leaving her to take on the care of her father and her younger siblings. She did, however, publish a number of collections of poetry and contributed to the Manchester Gazette. She died of cholera tragically young, not quite 33-years-old, in Poonah, India where she had travelled to with her newly married husband Rev. William Kew Fletcher, (4) who had been appointed as a chaplain to the East India Company.
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| Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury |
Her sister, Geraldine, on the other hand, was quite prolific writing novels in her own right and many 100s of book reviews. She had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances in the literary world of 19th century England. It is possible that Henry’s daughter, Mary Maria met Elizabeth Gaskell in this way or Mrs. Gaskell may have been a customer in her father’s shop. Either way, when she died, aged 95, on the 4th October, 1929 at 280, Dickenson Road, Longsight, Manchester her death notice in The Lancashire Evening Post on the 8th October stated “----she was the author of two books, ‘Essays on Life and Literature’ and ‘Letters to the Young’-------.” and “She was a friend of Mrs. Gaskell.” The paper then added her connection through her father to the firm of Jewsbury and Brown.
The partnership of Henry Jewsbury and William Scott Brown was dissolved on the 11th February, 1855 (5) with the second party taking over sole operation of the firm. The two men remained on good terms, however, as when William died on the 25th May, 1890 at his home, “Northwood”, Seymor Grove, Old Trafford he left bequests in his will to “the children of his late partner” After further legacies paid to friends and relatives and some sizeable contributions to local hospitals, dispensaries, and other worthy institutions the residue of his estate (valued at £94, 317-4s - £12,250,000 at today’s prices) went to his nephew, William Stones, who had for some time been the proprietor of the company, “Jewsbury and Brown”.
Pictures; Green Bottle from the collection of Tony Goulding, 2021, Tanzaro House, 1900 and Jewsbury and Brown’s Chemist Shop, 1880 (m59519 and m59517 respectively) courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury in Public Domain. By Unknown author - http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org/cgi/content-nw/full/33/1/lt-18580118-JWC-TC-01/FIG10, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37918452
Notes: -
1) The pair very quickly branched out into producing popular “Pop” as this part of John Stanley Gregson’s poem “The Races, 1823” (1833) indicates.
“To thirsty souls the name be ever dear;
of Jewsbury’s ‘celebrated ginger beer’;
And let the meed of cool-tongu'd praise be paid
to Whitelow’s ‘effervescing lemonade’ “
2) Henry’s grandfather, also named Thomas, was a renowned civil engineer, of roads and particularly canals.
3) Martha was the older sister of Henry’s first partner. He appears as a witness of her wedding in the Cathedral’s register.
4) Rev. Fletcher remarried, his second wife being Elizabeth Catherine Carr, the eldest daughter of the first bishop of Bombay.
5) William Scott Brown was a former apprentice of, and one time lodger with (in Newton Street, Manchester; 1841 census) Henry Jewsbury. According to a history of Market Street, Manchester. by T. Swindells, published in the Manchester Evening News in July, 1906 the cause of Mr. Jewsbury giving over control of the business to his partner was a spinal injury which confined him to a wheelchair. During the 1840s, Henry was also in a partnership, (dissolved on the 11th June 1849) with a draper, Thomas Knutton, with a hosiery shop at 83, Market Street, and one in the Moravian Arcade at 78, Deansgate in which the notice of dissolvement in “Perry’s Bankrupt Gazette – London" of the 16th June, 1849 they are described as “Lacemen”
One final item, I include only because of a connection with Chorlton-cum-Hardy. When George Whitlow’s daughter, Henrietta, married Charles Henry Wood of Higher Broughton at Manchester Cathedral on the 8th March, 1853 the officiating minister was non-other than the Rev. J.E. Booth M.A., who was then the incumbent of St. Stephen’s, Salford but who later served for more than three decades as the rector of St. Clement’s, Chorlton-cum-Hardy.
Acknowledgements: -
As well as making use of Find My Past’s British Newspaper Archive collection I have also found some useful entries on the Jewsbury family on WikiTree.com a free to use collaborative genealogical website.
John Stanley Gregson’s poem and some background information on Henry Jewsbury and Partners’ businesses I sauced from “Hardy Lane Scrapbook” a Blog which I have only very recently discovered, despite having lived on the road for more than ten years. It’s well worth looking into especially for the history of the Co-operative movement. Finally, I am indebted to Mr. Anthony Burton of the Gaskell Society whose knowledge of Mrs. Gaskell and the Manchester shops she mentioned in her correspondence shed some light on the relationship between her and Henry Jewsbury’s daughter, Mary Maria.
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