A ghost sign and a Didsbury family

The Spann family whose ghost sign still adorns this building were part of Didsbury’s history from the early part of the last century.*

The Didsbury ghost sign, 2022

Thomas Spann described himself variously as a “cabinet maker", “joiner" and finally a “master builder”, who occupied 35 & 37 Wilmslow Road from at least 1907 and possibly from the year before when this fine building was constructed.

By the late 1920s the business was listed as specialising in “House Furnishings” and no doubt Mr. Spann made some of the products sold in the shop assisted by his wife Laura who described her occupation as a “Curtain Specialist”.  

All of which was proudly advertised on the gable end of the building, which originally read “TEL, 234 DIDSBURY, SPANN'S, BLINDS, REMOVING, CARPET LINOLEUM & BEDDING WAREHOUSE”.

Added to this they also owned property in the area which they rented out.

So, they were a notable Didsbury family who are also remembered in other ways.

"BLINDS, REMOVING, CARPET LINOLEUM & BEDDING WAREHOUSE” 2022

Mrs Spann, volunteered as a Red Cross nurse in the December of 1914, just months after the outbreak of the Great War and worked at Lawnhurst on Wilmslow Road.

The building was owned by the Simon family and was turned over to the Red Cross as an auxiliary hospital for wounded soldiers. **

The work of the Red Cross volunteers was varied as well as vital, and while some were nurses, others worked in the kitchens, performed clerical and cleaning duties, and many also raised donations across the community providing extra comforts for the recovering servicemen.

And in the case of Mrs. Spann we also know that in the September of 1914 she was one of the “Didsbury Ladies” raising money for the Relief Funds.

The Didsbury Ladies, 1914

The Manchester Courier carried the story under the caption “Didsbury Ladies are making a special two days’ efforts to raise money for the Relief Fund.  

The photo shows Mrs. Braithwaite, Mrs. Spann, Mrs. McWilliam, and Mrs. W. Merrill, with their organ”, outside Didsbury Railway Station.

A National Relief Fund had been launched a month earlier and within a week had received a £1 million in donations, which by the end of the war would total over £7 million.

Here in Manchester just a week after the launch contributions amounted to £7,854 ranging from Rylands and Sons Ltd who had given £5000 down to Mr. Thomas Parker who donated £10.***

These were matched by sums coming from factories and other workplaces, leading the secretary of the Manchester Relief Fund to record his thanks to the workers in Didsbury, West Didsbury and Withington for their kindness in assisting in raising locally the “magnificent sum” of £162 2s. 5d.****

Lawnhurst, 2022

By 1939 Mr. and Mrs. Spann had moved to Cheadle and appear to have been still active in the business. Their eldest son had followed them into the furniture trade but is best remembered as Tommy Spann who was a motorcyclist racer during the 1920s and 30s, notably competing in the TT Races on the Isle of Mann and part of AJS racing team.

Another son was a respected academic who worked first at Manchester University, and later in the USA before settling in Australia.

And at 81, Laura Spann sailed first class to Australia in the October of 1957.  

She had recently become a widow and it would seem she chose to make Australia her home, where she lived until her death in 1960.

In the next few decades her children had settled outside the city, and now I doubt there is any permanent record in Didsbury of the family’s life here and their contribution to the community other than the ghost sign.

So, it is perhaps fitting that the Didsbury Civic Society has been active in the preservation of the sign.

Location; Didsbury

Pictures; Manchester Courier, September 1914, courtesy of Sally Dervan, the ghost sign, 2022, and Lawnhurst, 2022 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Ghost signs are the names of companies or products most of which no longer exist.  In a simpler age they were painted or picked out in coloured brick on the sides of buildings and date back well into the past.

**100 Halls Around Manchester Part 69: Lawnhurst, Didsbury, https://100hallsaroundmanchester.wordpress.com/2021/10/22/100-halls-around-manchester-part-69-lawnhurst-didsbury/

*** Manchester Donations, Manchester Guardian, August 13, 1914

**** Mr. H H Bowden, Correspondence, Manchester Guardian, October 8, 1914

Research on the family, and their business by Carol Wilkinson