In celebration of my completion of over 100 stories for this Blog I thought I would indulge myself one more time and return to one of my favourite subjects; Manchester City Football Club.
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| Panel on the outside wall of the Etihad Stadium, 2022 |
The club now known as Manchester City first played matches under that name in the 1894-5 season.
The club had joined the Football League in the inaugural season of the Second Division, 1892-3, under the name of Ardwick.
Playing as Ardwick for two seasons against teams such as Middlesbrough Ironopolis, Bootle and Burton Swifts the club failed to make progress on or off the pitch and indeed by the end of its second season was facing a financial crisis and was desperately short of players.
At this point of the club’s fortunes, they were indebted to the intervention of their charismatic secretary, Joshua Parlby. He somehow managed to convince the Football League that Ardwick were a viable club and so they maintained their league status. The club promptly changed its name to Manchester City, the hope being that, that would widen the club’s fan base to the whole of Manchester. It was a further nine years before Newton Heath became the second “Manchester “club. (1)
Joshua Parlby was born, during the March quarter of 1855, in Hope, Hanley, Staffordshire in what is now Stoke-on-Trent. He was the first child of his parents Joshua and Elizabeth (née Smith) His father was a farm bailiff from West Wratting, Cambridgeshire, where his father, also a Joshua was, “a farmer of 300 acres employing 17 labourers”, according to the 1851 census return.
The Parlby family appears to be absent from the 1861 census for some reason (2) but in the 1871 census they are included. Joshua and Elizabeth and their four younger children Thomas, 13, Ellen, 12, William, 9, and Marshall, 2, at 96, Market Street. Joshua is shown as a farm bailiff, “Out of Employ”, while Elizabeth’s occupation is recorded as a “Manufacturer of Silk Lawns”. Joshua their eldest son aged just 16 was living away from home, lodging with Mrs. Mary E. Giles, a 74-year-old widow, and working as a clerk at 5, Albert Road West, Kingston on Thames, Surrey.
Ten years later young Joshua had returned to Hanley and was back living with his mother and three youngest siblings at 96, Market Street and working as a bookkeeper. Joshua’s father was absent on the night the census was taken. (3) The following year, 1882, young Joshua married Emily Elizabeth Critchley, the daughter of, the recently deceased, Henry Critchley, a Didsbury-born Publican, who herself was born in Hulme, Manchester, in the December quarter of 1864. The ceremony was held at Trinity Church in Northwood, Hanley, Staffordshire on the 31st August. Shortly after this wedding the groom himself became a publican. The comprehensively named “Newcastle Guardian and Silverdale, Chesterton, and Audley Chronicle” dated 26th February, 1887 reported that he was the landlord of the Royal Oak Inn on Stafford Street, Hanley involved in an incident there on the 12th January, 1887. After leaving the Royal Oak in January 1889, as reported by the same newspaper on the 12th of that month, Joshua later became the licensee of the “Roebuck” beerhouse also on Stafford Street, Hanley which according to “The Staffordshire Sentinel” obituary of Joshua on the 20th May, 1916 was “then a well-known football and sporting hou
At this time Joshua was a popular publican with a growing importance in the town of Hanley being elected in July, 1889 its representative on the committee which ran Stoke Football Club (one of the 12 original members of The Football League) and in November, 1891 as a councilor on the Town Council. He played as a full-back for Stoke Amateurs and was an accomplished cricketer, appearing for Staffordshire club and ground.
It is perhaps a little surprising then that less than a year after being elected to the town council he chose to move to Manchester, (4) in September, 1892, to become the first paid secretary of Ardwick Football club as it entered, the recently expanded, Football League.
Although he was instrumental in maintaining Ardwick’s league status (5) and the club’s subsequent name change to Manchester City, Mr. Parlby did not continue as its secretary after he had restored the club’s financial stability and oversaw its inaugural season as Manchester City. With Manchester City safely established in the football league and having been a prime mover in the signing of Billy Meredith the club’s first “Star” Joshua returned to the pub trade. He did, however retain an interest in the club, remaining a director and serving on its “team committee".
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| The Wellington Hotel, Stockport Road |
When he died on the 19th May, 1916, he had moved back to Bolton and was managing the Railway Hotel at 2-4, St. Helen’s Road, Daubhill, Bolton.
Joshua and Emily had 13 children, though only 10 survived to adulthood. The first son named after father and grandfather had a distinguished academic career, qualified with a B.Sc. from Manchester University and furthered his studies to achieve an M.Sc. at Trinity College, Cambridge. During the First World War, he served as a military accountant in Mesopotamia for which he was given an O.B.E. in George V’s 1919 new year’s honours list. He later held prestigious posts in both Iraq and India. On leaving his post, in Baghdad as the “comptroller and auditor general of accounts” he was awarded an insignia of The Order of Al Rafidain by King Ghazi of Iraq. He later was made a Companion of the Indian Empire (C.I.E.) in George VI’s birthday honours list of 1942 for services as the Military Accountant General. After the war he retired to Paignton, Devon with his wife Elizabeth Scott (née Stuart) who he had married, while on leave from Iraq, on the 8th September, 1926 at The Union Baptist Chapel, Oxford Road, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester.
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| The Union Baptist’s Chapel, Oxford Road |
Following Joshua Parlby’s death in 1916 his widow briefly managed The Royal Hotel on Vernon Street, Bolton before retiring and moving, with her 5 youngest children, to “Laurel Bank”, 7, Kenwood Road, Longford, Stretford, where she passed away on the 18th October, 1929. By the time of her death of her 10 children, as well as Joshua pursuing his career in the Middle East and Douglas dying in Greece, two other sons had emigrated to British Columbia, Canada; also, three of her daughters had died in quick succession during the 1920s. (Emily Elizabeth in August, 1924, Elsie in August, 1926, and Lucy in February, 1928)
Pictures; panel on the outside wall of the Etihad Stadium, The Wellington Hotel (m39847 – H. Milligan) and Union Baptist’s Chapel (m71849 – unknown) Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Archives, and Information. Manchester City Council. http://manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
Notes: -
1) They remained a “Manchester” Club although after only 8 years as Manchester United they moved to Old Trafford which is, of course, outside the City of Manchester.
2) Joshua’s obituary in the Staffordshire Sentinel did state that he attended Christ’s Hospital School in London (The Bluecoat School) during the 1860s.
3) Joshua Parlby Senior was made a bankrupt in October 1864 and thereafter seems to have fallen on hard times with periods of unemployment and estrangement from his family. In September, 1869, his wife, Elizabeth, was forced to obtain an order of protection of the income from her lawn manufacturing due to her husband’s “dissipated habits”. (ex “The Staffordshire Sentinel and Commercial & General Advertiser” of Saturday 11th September, 1869) When he died on the 21st February, 1891, he was apart from the family home of 96, Market Street, at 40, Charles Street, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire as shown by the Government Probate Death Index.
4) According to an 1894 rate book the Parlby’s home on moving North was at 31, Halsbury Street, Longsight then in the Gorton Township.
5) The fact that he also served on the Football League’s management committee (1893-99) no doubt aided this endeavour.
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