Looking for Mrs Elizabeth Cunliffe ………

History has not been kind to Elizabeth Cunliffe. 

The Soho Foundry Tavern, 1851, Great Ancoats Street

So far, she features in just one historical record, from the 1851 census after which there is nothing.

For a brief while I thought I had found her ten years earlier and again for the last three decades of the 19th century, which would have made an interesting story as it tracked a young farm servant to a woman “living on her own means” aged 93.

But on closer inspection the young farm worker is not the elderly woman with money behind her.

Sadly, they were neither born in the same year or in the same place, and so what could have a fascinating story charting a remarkable journey turns out to be nothing more than a shared name.

Nor is the young Elizabeth aged 16 and living on a farm close to Liverpool the 26 years old woman who had married a James Cunliffe and described herself as a “Publican” on the 1851 census.

But there is enough left in that one record to pursue Mrs Cunliffe.

They were living at 251 Great Ancoats Street, close to where the Ashton Canal runs under the road at New Islington.*

Great Ancoats Street, 1962

Mr Cunliffe was a “Boiler Maker employing six men” and while he appears on the Street Directory at 251 Great Ancoats Street he is not listed amongst the eight men of that name in the alphabetical section of the same directory.  

Those eight included a bricklayer, provision dealer, tanner, and mechanic, along with a beer retailer, crate maker, dyer and weaver.

Nor can I find any listing for Elizabeth in the directories despite the reference to her as a publican. 

Now that is intriguing because there was the Soho Foundry Tavern on Great Ancoats Street which is recorded on the Rate Books as a pub at 251 in 1854 and 1855, and its occupant was her husband.

So if this was their pub, they must have taken it over sometime during 1851 because at the start of the year the Soho Foundry Tavern was run by an Ann Goff and by 1863 by Joseph Abrahams.

Moreover I know that in 1847 they were in Newton Le Willows and by 1849 were here in Manchester, because Thomas their eldest had been born outside the city while the birth place of their daughter May was here in Manchester.

All of which looks more than a bit confusing and messy.  But it was not uncommon for families to have more than one occupation, and well into the 20th century some pubs were run as a secondary business.  

I thought at first that perhaps Mrs Cunliffe was actually a beer retailer, which was an occupation made possible by the 1830 Beer Act which allowed anyone who could afford to pay two guineas for a license to brew and sell their own beer from their home.  Often the beer was dispensed from one room of the family home, and some beer shops morphed into pubs.

Looking towards Great Ancoats Street, 2022 from New Islington

But the Soho Foundry Tavern was not a beer house/beer shop.  It is listed a public house, took up a large footprint on the maps and commanded a higher rateable value than the surrounding premises all of which suggests it was a going concern.

And that pretty much is that other than to record that a James Cunliffe was running a beer house in the 1880s at 347 Great Ancoats Street which commanded a rate of just £20 compared to the £50 paid for the Soho Foundry Tavern thirty years earlier.

I say that is it, but the mystery thickens slightly because the Elizabeth Cunliffe who appears in the census records for 1891 and 1901 may not share the same birthplace or date of birth as our Elizabeth from Great Ancoats Street, but she was living in Newton Le Willows which was also the birthplace of her husband James Cunliffe and their son Thomas.

So lots more research to do.

To which John Anthony Hewitt has added, "Hi Andrew, I have a marriage for a James Cunliffe, full age, Boiler Maker, Eccles Street, Liverpool, to Elizabeth Welsh, minor, Eccles Street, Liverpool, at St Nicholas Church, Liverpool, 30 March 1845. His father, John, was a Contractor, and her father, Thomas, a Shoemaker. Source: (https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/collections/2197/images/englb5617_283-nic-3-31_m_00034?treeid=&personid=&rc=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=wBg19&_phstart=successSource&pId=1703824) 

This would fit with the 1851 Census ages, 31 & 26, giving years of birth as ca. 1820 & ca 1825. 

Also, I noticed the 1851 Census recorded James Cunliffe as born in Ashton-le-Willows, which was another name for Ashton-in-Makerfield; old maps (NLS) also record 2 names for Newton-le-Willows, the alternative being Newton-in-Makerfield. Source for Ashton-le-Willows: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol4/pp142-148 "

And also fits with the 1841 census entry which shows the two of them living and working on a farm.

Location; Great Ancoats Street

Pictures; walking New Islington, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and in 1851 from Adshead’s map of Manchester, Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and Goolden's Buildings, T Brooks,1962,m11279,courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*New Islington, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=New+islington