One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ... part 132 ….. 1921 and a revelation

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

The Rec and the house on the corner of Beech and Beaumont Roads, 1930s

Now, just when you think you have got to know someone, up pops an entirely random fact about them.

And so, it is with Joe Scott who I had always thought was the man who built a big chunk of the more modest houses across Chorlton, including the one he moved into in 1915, and which is now ours.

Across the census returns, the directories and people’s memories, Joe was a builder, who built for rent, and moved from sound two up two down properties into more prestigious semidetached houses in the 1930s.

So in 1910 he described himself as a “plasterer”, and 30 years later as a “Master Builder” and in the intervening years he advertised across Chorlton in parish magazines that his  houses came complete with electricity and an option on a garage.

Joe does electricity and garages, 1928

All of which marks him out as a builder with a keen eye to where the future lay.  

So having seen the appeal of electricity and the growing potential of the motor car, which he incorporated into the houses he built, he had a telephone installed in the mid 1920s, and a TV three decades on.

Both of which will have been ahead of most residents on Beech Road

But then in 1921 he gave his occupation as “Insurance Agent” working for the Royal London Insurance Company at 85 Manchester Road.  

It does seem a career blip to which I can only suppose this was a temporary change of job brought on by the war resulting in a cessation of construction work.

85 Manchester road, 1958

The street directories for the period my tell us when he commenced the insurance job and when he finished, if of course they were being produced.

I do know that this seems to have been a short break from the business of building because by the mid-1920s he is advertising in parish magazines with the catching headline “Brick Garages to be Let” and “Houses to sell for £500”.**

And in the years after the Second World War, he does begin to sell off some of his rented housing stock, while maintaining an office behind his house and a yard near Chorlton Green.

In the great sweep of the house’s history it may seem pretty small beer, but it does suggest ways that the Great War interrupted the lives of people, and is yet another bonus for historians from the publication of the 1921 census which came online earlier in the month.

I was reluctant at first to access it, given that even if you have a subscription to the genealogical platform, you still have to pay each time you download a search.

But that decision lasted just a day, and having explored both sides of my immediate family I was drawn to Joe and Mary Ann.

The Rec and the terrace Joe built, circa 1920s/30s

This early period in the story of the house and of their tenure is fragmentary, and so any information must be grabbed with both hands, and I rather like the idea that I can read the 1921 census entry at the same time as I look at one of the first photographs of the house, taken from the Rec in the 1920s or 30s.

The romantic in me can picture Joe and Mary Ann going about their lives around the time these children were playing in the Rec.  

But the historian in me reflects that this is not good history and moreover their house and ours can only just be made out at the end of the terrace.

Joe and Mary Ann's house at the far end of the terrace, circa 1920s/30s

I doubt I will ever actually get to know exactly why Joe was working for the insurance company, and the row of houses on Manchester Road of which 85 was part of was demolished a long time ago.

So that is that.  I know I will be back trawling that 1921 census especially as there is a gap between this one and 1951, with just the 1939 Register as an insight into the lives of people during the decades between and during the last world war.***

 Location; Chorlton

Picture, aerial photograph of Beech Road , circa 1930s-1940s,courtesy of  Britain from Above, EPW 017620, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass advert for Joe Scott from the St Clements Church Bazaar for 1928, 85 Manchester Road, The Rec and the terrace built by Joe Scott, circa 1920s-30s, from the Lloyd Collection

*The Story of a House, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

** St Clements Church Bazaar for 1928, courtesy of Ida Bradshaw

*** The 1931 census was destroyed during the last world war and the 1941 census was never undertaken, leaving just the 1939 Register for historians to study.  The Register took place in the September of 1939 and was used to create the database for wartime Identity Cards. It lists the names, ages and occupations of residents, street by street, and in some cases has additional information on war time activities, including Civil Defence and the Home Guard. It also became the basis for National Health Insurance numbers.