“See you at 2pm this afternoon” …. stories from postcards

Now long before test messages Face book, WhatsApp and Twitter, there was the picture postcard.

For a small price our great grandparents, could write home to family and friends reporting on a holiday, passing on birthday wishes or just arranging to meet up.

And because they included a picture on the front the cards have become the stock of local historians to illustrate “how we lived”

All of which brings me to the new book, “Urmston, Flixton and Davyhulme: A Postcard Heritage”, by Michael Billington.

The press release says“The Golden Age of postcard collecting, known as deltiology, was between the years 1902 and 1914, an era when collecting became hugely popular.

With regular and efficient collections and deliveries it was common to see messages such as “See you at 2pm this afternoon”; the text message of yesteryear? 

Also “Here's another for your collection” and “one more for your album”.

This book looks at the development of the publication of postcards in the Urmston, Flixton and Davyhulme area. E. Mather of Flixton Post Office and J. Wride, who had a stationer's in Urmston, photographed the streets of the area as well as landmarks such as the pubs, churches, grand houses, parks, hospitals, railways, cenotaphs, canals and bridges.

"A Byeway, Flixton", date unknown

All are here in this book contrasted with more recent photographs taken by the author.

Michael Billington is an Urmstonian and this is his third book about the area”.

The official launch will be on Thursday October 27th at  7.30pm in Urmston Library and will be il-lustrated by a powerpoint presentation by Mike featuring highlights of the book.

Mike adds, “the guest of honour, who will say a few words, will be Joanne Harding, Labour councillor with responsibility for culture, leisure and strategic partnerships in the Urmston Ward. She also has responsibility for Trafford Poverty Strategy and Domestic Abuse.”

"You may expect me tomorrow", 1910

Free glass of wine and admission free but booking required at the Eventbrite link below.

Urmston, Flixton and Davyhulme: A Postcard Heritage Tickets, Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 7:30 PM | Eventbrite

And that is it.

Location; Urmston, Flixton, Davyhulme

Pictures; from the collection of Michael Billington

When you are never far from a bit of Salford water …….

Well, I know some will murmur “all I can see is a row of houses and a busy road” but there is a lot of water across Salford, and earlier this week Andy set out to explore it.

River Irwell from Cromwell Bridge, 2022

It was an adventure borne out of necessity as he says “on Tuesday I took my car to Higher Broughton for service and MOT. Whilst waiting I did an eleven-mile wander around Salford”.

And while keeping to the stretch around Cromwell Road he came up with some smashing pictures of Salford water.

So, for those who like me delight in all things Salford, here are some of Andy’s pictures from Cromwell Bridge and beyond.

Later I will go back and look at the history of these spots Andy walked along but for now it’s just the pictures.

River Irwell from other side of Cromwell Bridge, 2022

That said someone will respond with some historical observations.

River Irwell from path just off Cromwell Road, 2022

Location; Salford

Pictures; Salford water, 2022, from the collection of Andy Robertson

A key ring .......a war memorial ........ and memories of a father in law

Now I must have seen this key ring countless times and never given it much thought.

But then as it was constantly in use by Simone I dare say the details missed me by.

One side carries an image of an angel over a field of crosses with the dates 1915-1918, and the other the words “SACRARRIO DEI CADUTI DI REDIPUGLIA”.

My Wikipedia tell me that "The military shrine of Redipuglia is a monumental military cemetery located in Friuli-Venezia Giulia , in Redi Puglia , in the province of Gorizia . Built in the Fascist era and inaugurated in the presence of Benito Mussolini on 18 September 1938 , it contains the remains of over 100,000 Italian soldiers who died during the First World War . 

It is the centrepiece of a commemorative park of over 100 hectares which includes a part of the Gorizia - Monfalconese Karst (theatre during the Great War of the hard battles of the Isonzo ) with the enormous dimensions of the area involved which make it the largest military shrine in Italy and one of the largest in the world".*

Not that Simone was a supporter of Fascism or Mussolini, quite the reverse, but the link is that Simone did his military service in Redipuglia in the late 1950s and must have picked up the key ring around then.

Its worn and chipped state is testimony to the fact that it was in constant use for over 60 years.

Talking to Simone years ago, he reflected that Redi Puglia which is high up on the northeast of Italy was a shock for a young 18-year-old who had been born and grew up in Naples.

It was where he first encountered snow, an experience he never forgot.

Location; Redipuglia

Pictures, Simone’s key ring, circa 1956

*Military memorial of Redipuglia, https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrario_militare_di_Redipuglia

Making history of the future...

“No man can have in his mind a conception of the future for the future is not yet.  But of conceptions of the past, we make a future.”*

I often come back to what Thomas Hobbs said whenever I indulge my interest in science fiction because most of it is rooted in the present no matter how fantastical it might appear which makes the science fiction of the past a wonderful way of looking at the period it was produced.

It starts with the technology.  Look at any science fiction film from the 1950s and while the rockets are there the mechanisms to control them are more often than not switches and dials.

And even when the writer makes that leap of imagination like the hand held communicator it is less a bold flight of fancy and more just a logical next step.

So to with the futurestic transport networks which whizzed people above the streets in slim slender tubes of plastic and glass.

Leave out tubes of plastic and glass and substitute steel and iron viaducts and you have New York’s elevated railway which opened in 1868 using cable power and later steam locomotives transporting New Yorkers on tracks which ran almost three stories above the city streets.

In much the same way the stories often reflect the issues of the day.  In The Shape of Things to Come written in 1933 H.G. Wells projected the horror and destruction of the Great War into a future conflict between two unnamed countries which lasts a decade leading  to a major economic crisis,  global chaos, and the collapse of most governments and a devastating  plague which almost eliminates humanity.

The situation is saved by a benevolent dictatorship which in turn after a century of reconstruction is overthrown in a bloodless coup leading eventually to a withering away of the state and a society which has the material means to provide for all enabling the population  to concentrate on bettering itself.

It is a story that brings together so much of the political and social history of the 19th and 20th centuries as does another favourite of mine which is Star Trek.

The orginial  was a television series running in the late 60s it caught for me something of the excitement and optimism of the period.

Now I am the first to admit that  the period was not all good. The bright new decade full of promise has to be set against the Cold War, some pretty nasty conflicts around the world and that nagging thought that the millions spent on the “space race” could have been devoted to solving the issues of world hunger, drought and poverty.

But in its way the continuing story of Star Trek has done something to challenge the darker side of the mid 20th century.

It was set three hundred years into the future and like Well's future  all the material needs of humanity had been met and individuals were free to pursue their interests “in a quest to better themselves.”

So the Starship Enterprise was a vessel of exploration whose five year mission was about “exploring strange new worlds” meeting new races and contributing to the sum total of knowledge.

And in that respect the very fact that the space craft’s were referred to as ships and the crew took on a naval character underlined the theme of exploration.

But like all science fiction Star Trek was as much a comment on the 1960s as it was a vision of the future.

And so the themes of the television series featured racial intolerance, the conflicts between super powers and that still very relevant conundrum of non interference with other peoples and cultures.

All of which could lead to real controversy like the moment Captain Kirk kissed Lieutenant Uhura cited as the first interracial kiss on US television which also led to the episode being withdrawn by networks in the southern states.

But even so the programme never quite broke from the fact that it was a US production and when the Cold War was still very dangerous.

So depsite the Prime Directive of Non Interference there were plenty of times when the principle  was broken.

Often this happened with   the appearance of the other galactic super power in the form of the Klingons which resulted in a necessary battle to save a planet from being conquered by the totalitarian and militaristic Klingon Empire.

And it had all been done before by Dan Dare Pilot of the Future in the Eagle Comic.**

He is someone I have written about already, and in the pages of the Eagle you can see much of Britain’s post war history reproduced.  Space Fleet’s Uniforms are those of the RAF, the United Nations is the sovereign global authority and aliens are by and large friendly.

A few of course pose problems.  The Treens from Venus with their belief in pure science and their ruthless dictator are committed to planetary domination, but they are defeated and beaten fairly and squarely with Dan and his pals always playing the straight bat and never resorting to under hand methods.

It is a world I can still recognise from my childhood and one I can still relate to. So in that respect I guess I continue to live my childhood and a bit of my past as I boldly go where many have gone before me.

Pictures; from the Eagle Comic collection of Andrew Simpson

*Hobbs, Thomas, The Elements of Law, Natural and Politics, 1650

**Dan Dare,
 http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Dan%20Dare

Chorlton shapes ………….. 2020

Down an alley

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Chorlton shapes, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Mrs. Ercolina Montabone … an Italian restaurant and unfinished story

Now this is 181 Oxford Road and is as close as I will ever get to Mrs. Ercolina Montabone who ran the Frascati Café Restaurant.

Frascati now a pub, 181, Oxford Road, 1956

I can trace the business back to at least 1901 when it was run by her husband, Vittorio Emmanuele Montabone.

It is one of those stories which came about because of a request from a friend interested in another Italian restauranter who 3 decades later was running his own restaurant also on Oxford Road.

But being Italian he was detained as an enemy alien in 1940 and died when the ship he was on was torpedoed in the same year by a German U Boat.

And in carrying out the preliminary search I came across Mr. and Mrs. Montabone and given we have an Italian side to the family I was hooked.

In all there are just ten documents which tell their story, ranging from one reference to the Masons, one court document, two census returns, a newspaper story along with their death certificates,  listings in two directories and their probate .

Not much I know for two lives lived out at the beginning of the last century, but there is enough to challenge those Brexiteers who are uncomfortable with anyone wanting to make a new start in this country.

And they were immigrants, with Vittorio Emmanuel coming from Italy and Ercolino from Switzerland.

I was hoping to find a reference to their naturalization as British citizens, but while this hasn’t come to light,  Ercolina did at some point gain that status which she duly recorded on the 1921 census.

The same census shows that the Montabone’s employed staff who were born in Italy and in Switzerland, a practice which stretched back over 20 years.

They lived above the business, and were still there when Ercolina died in 1923.  Her husband had preceded her fifteen years earlier and both were buried in Southern Cemetery.

An Italian thank you, 1918

Of the remaining documents, there are three that caught my interest.  The first was an entry in the book of Masons which shows that Vittorio joined the Manchester lodge in 1899, and a court document for 1908 showing that he was called as a witness and was paid 5s to cover his return rail fare from Manchester to Liverpool.

Both of which point to just how far he had integrated himself into British society.

But it is the last of the three that offers an insight into their origins, and it comes in the form of a newspaper article recording that Ercolina had been thanked by the “Royal Italian Consulate" for contributing £6 17s from collections she had raised which went towards the fund "for Refugees from the Invaded Provinces of Ventia”*

And that is it. 

There is a listing for the Frascati Hotel in 1961, but no indication of the owners or the manager.

But the building has now vanished under what became part of a retail unit which also included the University Chaplancy.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Frascati now a pub, 181 Oxford Road, H.W. Beaumont, 1956, m03860,  courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

The short Chorlton History Walk that’s got the lot ……. this Sunday

So the challenge is simple ….. how much of Chorlton’s history can you pack into a short walk from Benito on Wilbraham Road to the Lloyds on the corner of Manchester Road?

Kemp's Corner opposite Sunwick, Wilbraham Road, circa 1900

Well, it has got to take in the transformation from small rural community to suburb of Manchester, along with a few murky crimes including the murder of Francis Deacon in 1847, a bit of entrapment and the gang of poachers down from Hulme.

And for those who mourn the loss of the Four Banks, there is that even older popular name of Kemp’s Corner which for a half a century was where people arranged to meet up.

Nor could we leave out the day that Wilbraham Road came to Chorlton, the dastardly theft of a chunk of Manchester Road and why in the event of a house fire you had to knock on the door of the Lloyd’s Hotel.

Woolworths, which became B&M before Benito, 2017

All these with a mix of other silly and serious stories will accompany me and all who turn up at 2.30.pm outside Benito during the great Chorlton Get Together this Sunday.*

Any one in doubt as to who they should approach outside Benito, I am the man with the expanding waistline, a south east London accent and tons of tales of how we used to live in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, before the bars arrived.

Location; Wilbraham Road at 2.30pm on Sunday September 25th

Doing the biz back in 2010

Pictures; Looking down Wilbraham Road, circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection, and Woolworths, which became B&M before Benito, 2017, and Doing the biz back in 2010

*Chorlton Get Together; https://chorlton.coop/chorlton-get-together-sep-22

The Lodge Family Grave …. another story from Tony Goulding

The inscription on this gravestone situated in the old St. Clement’s Churchyard, Chorlton-cum-Hardy is now very weather-worn and is becoming increasingly difficult to de-cypher. 

Indeed, I have been unable to make out the lowest portion and I issue a challenge to anyone to come up with the wording.

It marks the final resting place of two young daughters of Robert Lodge and his wife Mary (née Watkins). 7-years-old Grace Helen who was interred there on the 3rd January, 1856 having died the previous 30th December at her home on Dudley Road, Whalley Range and Winifred Beavan who was only 14 days old when she was buried on the 7th January, 1860. Grace Helen was baptised on the 15th January, 1849 in the parish church of Ashton-on-Mersey, Cheshire. 

In the baptismal register her father’s status is recorded as a “Gentleman” of Sale (Cheshire).  The census of 1851 records the family at School Lane, Sale, with the father’s occupation being given as “merchant (oil)”. (1) By this time a second daughter, Elizabeth, had been born in, 1850. Winifred Beavan was christened at St. Mary’s Church, Hulme on Christmas Eve, 1859, a sister, Isabella, had been christened in the same church on the 31st May of the year before.

St. Mary's Church, Hulme.

Robert Lodge, who was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, in 1817, married Mary, the daughter of William Watkins (2) of Ardwick, Manchester, in Manchester’s Collegiate Church (now Manchester Cathedral) on the 5th August, 1847.

Following the tragic loss of his two daughters Robert and his remaining family relocated to North Meols on the West Lancashire coast. His still young, at just 38-years-old, wife died there soon after their arrival. Her body was returned to Manchester, and interred, on the 22nd November, 1860, in the same grave in Chorlton-cum-Hardy as her two children. The 1861 census shows that as well as Elizabeth and Isabella mentioned above Robert was left with three other children, all born in Whalley Range, Caroline Ann, 9, Alice, 7, and John William, 5. Completing the household at 166, Lord Street, North Meols were Robert’s unmarried sister, Alice and three servants.

In 1871, the Lodges were still in Lancashire at 11, Queens Road, Southport, however by then a further tragedy had hit the family as Caroline Ann, at only 14 years of age, had passed away in the June quarter of 1866. The household consisted of Robert Lodge, three of his children, Elizabeth, John William, and Isabella, and four servants. His daughter, Alice, was away from home at a boarding school for young ladies.

Upper Bishopdale

In retirement, Robert returned to his birth county becoming a “country gentleman” in Bishopdale, Yorkshire (North Riding). His house, “The Rookery” which he inherited in July, 1873 from his uncle Ralph, remained the family home for more than 30 years. (3)  He died there on the 12th September, 1888 leaving an estate of £12, 215-4s-7d. (£1.1 million at today’s value). 

Finally, the verse: -

 “He shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom” 

is from King James’s Bible, Old Testament -Isaiah 40:11

Pictures: - Lodge family grave, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, from the collection of Tony Goulding.

St. Mary's Church, Hulme by H. Milligan m70933 

Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Archives and Information, Manchester City Council http://manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass 

 Upper Bishopdale by Chris Heaton, CC BY-SA 2.0,

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3099436 

Alderman William Benjamin Watkins by George Patten (1801-1865) – (photo by Manchester Town Hall) Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (CC BY-NC-ND). From Art U K website https://artuk.org

Notes: -

1)   Subsequent records describe Robert Lodge as a “Drysalter”

2)   Alderman William Benjamin Watkins J.P.;

Alderman William Benjamin Watkins

Alderman William Benjamin Watkins

Served as the 5th Mayor of Manchester 1845-1846. He was born in 1789 in Hereford, Herefordshire and married (Mary Lodge’s mother) Caroline Beavan in Herefordshire before coming to Manchester and setting up in business as a drysalter. Alderman Watkins resigned from office on the grounds of ill-health in August, 1862 and died during the June quarter of 1864. His widow survived him for over three years dying at their home Legh House, Legh Place, Ardwick, Lancashire on the 30th June, 1867.

3)    Robert’s son, John William, died at “The Rookery” on the 23rd August, 1917. He was “called to the Bar” of the Inner Temple on the 26th January, 1883.  Three days later, the 29th, January, 1883, after having previously graduated with a B.A. from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, the same college conferred an M.A. degree on him. While still at Cambridge he joined the British Army, being gazetted into the 3rd (volunteer) battalion of The Princess of Wales Own Yorkshire Regiment on the24th June, 1874. He remained an officer with this regiment for almost 40 years, including service in South Africa during the 2nd Boer War, before retiring, in 1912, as the Colonel in command of its 3rd Battalion.  At the outbreak of the First World War, he volunteered for war service and when he died was commanding the 2nd (Garrison) Battalion of The Yorkshire Regiment. He was a county magistrate and served on both the North Riding and District councils and an enthusiastic follower of “country sports”.

The estate passed to his sister, Elizabeth, the widow of Matthew Liddon, and following her subsequent death, on the 20th July, 1920, to her son, Major Matthew Robert Liddon. Major Liddon sold up the property the following year and its long association with the Lodge family came to an end.

Acknowledgements: - Find my Past’s Newspaper Archive and Thoralby through time https://www.thoralbythroughtime.net  which was a good source of data on the Lodge family and the “Rookery”. 

Unpicking the clues of a postcard, .... Piccadilly sometime in the early 20th

This is one of those photographs I keep coming back to because there is so much going on.

We are in Piccadilly and Queen Victoria dominates the picture.  And according the Judge catalogue the image was added to the collection in 1913.
 

It was one of seven in a series on Manchester and included Albert Square, the Town Hall, Market Street, the Cathedral and the University and yes you guessed there is study group who may be able to date the series.*

But leaving aside the date it is the sheer amount of detail which makes the card such a treasure.  Sitting on the steps of the Queen’s statute are two boy scouts.  Now I can’t be certain but it looks like they may just have some cleaning implements at their feet which could link them to Good Turn Day which was introduced in 1914 and morphed into Bob a Job Week in 1949.

All of which takes me back to a date.

But there is so much more to see.  There is the man who is casually leaning against the lamp post and the pile of discarded rubbish in the litter bin.  Like others in the picture he is wearing one of the straw hats which seems to remain in fashion into the 1920s.

We must be sometime in the summer given the presence of women in blouses and our scouts without their coats.

The long line of trams reminds us that this was a busy part of the town with most of them destined to head down Market Street which  would also be thronged with pedestrians on route down to St Mary's Gate or visiting the many shops and offices which ran its length.

And judging by the number of passengers on the upper decks of the open trams plenty of people have chosen to take in the fine weather on this summers day.

My own favourite detail is the horse drawn cab, number 382.  As it waits for a fare the horse is feeding from its feed bag.

Now I doubt it will  be possible to check out the name of the cab driver which as they say would be a whole new story to tell.

Picture; from the collection of Alan Brown

* JUDGES POSTCARD STUDY GROUP  

So farewell Chorlton and thanks for the fish ……….

It may be more than a bit of vanity but this week I am reflecting on the decade that my Chorlton history stories fell on to door mats across Chorlton and later Didsbury as well.

From the summer of 2012 until last month along with a variety of other writers I was a regular contributor, to Open Up and before that when it was called Community Index.

But things change and its successor has an editorial policy of concentrating on offering up details of local businesses, and space could not be guaranteed for tales of how we lived in the past here in Chorlton.

I suppose the clue was that the publication is a directory which as everyone knows is predicated on lists of things.

So, for those who each month read that decade and a bit of stories, and often got in touch to provide comments or follow up material, a big thank you.

But fear not, there is always Chorlton History Blog which comes out every day and is posted across social media.*

Along with the twelve books I written, nine in collaboration with Peter Topping and three just by me, which range from the history of Chorlton-cum-Hardy in the first half of the 19th century, the book on Manchester and the Great War and the story of 150 years of a Manchester children’s charity.

Which means there is plenty out there to read about all sorts of different history, and here I couldn’t miss out Peter’s book Smile Dammit, Smile!!! Chorlton, which is an irreverent take on the place we live.

Together they are available from us or Chorlton Book shop.

Leaving me just to say that So farewell Chorlton and thanks for the fish ………. is of course a steal from the title of Douglas Adam’s book "So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish" which is one of his series of radio programmes and books dedicated to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. 

All of which are required reading.

Location; Chorlton, Didsbury and later great chunks of South Manchester

Pictures; cover of the August 2018 edition of Open Up

*Chorlton History Blog, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/

**Our books, www.pubbooks.co.uk

Remembering those who crossed the Atlantic as British Home Children .... September 28th

Now for all of us who can count a British Home Child as part of our family, September 28th is a special day.

It is that moment in the year which has been recognised in Canada as British Home Child Day, and judging by the events recognising the thousands of young people sent from Britain to Canada, this year will be a very significant one. 

There will be illuminations, proclamations and exhibits as well as other “happenings” mounted by communities across the country.

As yet we lag along way behind, but I know there are people like Trish Leslie and others beavering away at increasing the awareness that it was British institutions which migrated children across the Atlantic from the 1870s into the early decades of the next century.

Our web site has been steadily growing, attracting interested people keen to know more, or prepared to share their knowledge and skills at tracking down British Home Children.*

Last year, one person persuaded a local authority to illuminate the Town Hall, while others were giving talks.

All of which leaves me to publicise the latest newsletter from Home Children Canada.*

Amongst a heap of interesting articles there is a full list of the events celebrating BHC Day.

And when you have read the newsletter I suggest you dig into the home site Home Children Canada which is a vast resource for those wanting to know about BHC.***

*British Home Children …. The story from Britain, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1624406061006317

**Home Children Canada, September 2022 Newsletter, https://www.britishhomechildren.com/_files/ugd/186d15_460bd16d3e374e12b6e4a6804ac22e40.pdf?utm_campaign=01a18020-3d51-483e-8bf8-2840d8183c5f&utm_source=so&utm_medium=mail&cid=5bcec5e8-1b55-40b1-8dc0-5dc5575b9217

***Home Children Canada, https://canadianbritishhomechildren.weebly.com/

Looking for the story behind the farm buildings on St Werburgh’s Road .......

Now even the most humble of buildings will have a story if you know where to look.

Those farm buildings circa 1970s

Of course in the great sweep of history most of us will plump for a Tatton Hall or ruined medieval castle.

But even the most mundane workaday building will offer up something.

So here I am on St Werburg’s Road with one of the farm buildings of Park Brow Farm.

Somewhere in the collection I have a set of pictures from my old friend Oliver Bailey whose family farmed there from the beginning of the last century and before that were on Chorlton Row from the 1760s.*

The farm and buildings in 1844

The building has been converted into residential use and like most people I have given little thought to the place.

But it is there on the OS map for 1844 and I rather think it also shows up on Greenwood’s map of 1818.

So there is history here and given time and a bit of research I want to explore the archaeology of the building.  In particular the brick stairway up to the first floor and when and why the large entrance on the eastern side was bricked in.

For now I will just close with the thought that it would have been on Mary Moore’s route to Dog House Farm.

Mary lived on the Green and as brutally murdered in the June of 1838, but that as they say is another story.*

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; the farm buildings circa 1970s from the Lloyd Collection, and detail from the OS map for Lancashire showing Park Brow Farm, 1844, courtesy of Digital archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Chorlton Row is now Beech Road

**The murder of Mary Moore from Chorlton out in Whalley Range and an inquest in Withington, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-murder-of-mary-moore-from-chorlton.html

The tram ......a King's visit ..... and a freebie ..........

 There will be someone who can date the picture postcard, and by extension name which King was visiting Manchester and set off this display of civic loyalty.

It could be Edward Vll, or his son, George V or  just possibly either Edward Vlll, or George Vl.

And quick as a flash, David Harrop pointed to the cypher on the front of tram car and offered up the explanation that this was a visit from Edward Vlll.

For me, what is more intriguing is the printed information on the reverse of the car, which carries the information, “This beautiful Series of Fine Art Post Cards is supplied free exclusively by Brett’s Publications, comprising ‘My Pocket Novels’, ‘Keepsake Novels’ and Something to Read’”.

A first trawl revealed no company called Brett’s Publications or the three series for 1911 in the Manchester Directories, and I suspect I won’t turn them up in earlier directories.

They could of course be based in London or any other part of the country.

But they offer up an insight into advertising and retail long before a soap company offered free plastic flowers with each sale, or various companies gave away novelty toys in their packets of breakfast cereals.

But like the date of the picture postcard, someone will have an opinion on Brett’s Publications and will have done the serious research.

Well I hope so.

Location; Manchester

Picture; The King’s Visit to Manchester, date unknown from the collection of David Harrop.

Behind the door of 44 Angel Street revealing stories of the "common lodging houses"

Angel Street in 1901

I am back on Angel Street between 1897 and 1901.

Recently  I wandered down the street in the company of Samuel L Coulthurst who took a series of pictures of the people and their homes including one rare shot of the inside of number 44.

And today I am back having spent my time crawling over the census return for the same street in 1901.

The pictures reveal a row of late 18th and early 19th century houses similar to those which were going up across the city in the boom years as Manchester quickly became “the shock city of the Industrial Revolution”*

The south eastern side from what is now Rochdale Road up to St Michaels’s Fields had been built in 1794 and those we can see in the pictures were there by 1819**

What makes Coulthurst’s pictures all the remarkable is that having identified the houses it is possible to discover who was living in them just a few years later.

On Angel Street in 1898

Now I would love to be able to record who exactly was living at number 44 when in the May of 1897 Samuel took his pictures, but I can’t.

 The best I can do is identify who was there on the night of March 31st 1901 when the census was taken.

There were thirty two of them all male ranging from William Paxton aged 22 from Wigan who described himself as a street hawker to Thomas Reed from Ireland who at 74 was still working as a labourer.

All  them earned their living from manual work or the slightly more precarious occupation of selling on the streets.

Most were single although a few were widowers and while the largest single group had been born here there were those from the rest of Lancashire, as well as Ireland Scotland and even London.

I try not to be sentimental but you cannot help feeling a degree of sadness that so many of these men well past middle age were living crammed together in a common lodging house with nothing but a few possessions and the knowledge that with old age, sickness or just bad luck the future might be the Workhouse.

History of course has been unkind to them and most will have few records to stand as witness to their lives and so during the course of the next few weeks I want to track some of them and discover what their lives had been like.

Outside 44 Angel Street in  May of 1897

In the process I think we will uncover something of that shifting population at the bottom of the income pile and the extent to which they went from one overcrowded property to another.

Sadly the identities of those staring back at us are lost and so who they were and what happened to them cannot be revealed.

But that is not completely the case, because I think standing outside number 44 with his flat cap and parcel under his arm might just be Patrick Comer whose name appears above the door and who fourteen years later is still registered at the address on the street directory.

Patrick Comer

If this is him he seems to have had a varied life.  Born in Manchester sometime around 1850 he was variously a dyer, a joiner and in 1911 was both listed a step ladder maker and a clothes agent.

He never strayed far from Angel Street and can be found on Mount Street which runs into Angel Street and on Rochdale Road close by.

As for the others they are unknown and I doubt would still have been living at number 44 by 1901.

The very nature of these lodging houses meant that the residents were short term stay but we shall see.

Most of Angel Street also consisted of lodging houses and as I trawl the census return they reveal a rich cross section of those at the margins of late 19th century Manchester life.

And they point to number 44 being a tad unusual in that it was entirely male orientated.  The other lodging houses had more of a mix of men and women, married as well as single and some unmarried women with young children who defiantly refused to describe themselves as either married or widowed.

Inside number 44 Angel Street, 1897

It will indeed be a fascinating exploration of this part of the city.

Now that should be the end but there is just one last discovery, for I have tracked Mr Samuel L Coulhurst.

He was a book buyer from Salford, born in 1868 and living at number 4 Tootal Road Pendelton and in the fullness of time I think he also deserves a closer look.

Location, Angel Meadow, Manchester

Pictures; Angel Street, 1900, m85543 44 Angel Street, 1897, m08360, 44 Angel Street 1898, m00195, and Angel Street common lodging house, 1897, m08365, S.L.Coulthurst, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass


**Asa Briggs, Victorian Cities, 1963

**The south east side of Angel Street are missing from Laurent’s map of Manchester in 1793 but are there the following year on Green’s map while the side photographed by Coulthurst show up on Johnson’s map of 1819.

When the walking season arrives …..

Now there is never a bad time for a history walk across Chorlton.

Over the last decade and a bit I have hosted them on days when the sun cracked the paving stones, on days when the rain came down like stair rods, and on one memorable occasion when the snow tumbled from the skies.

It didn’t stop the historically curious coming in big numbers, although on that memorable snow day in November, the audience fell away …. 25 had booked, ten turned up and we lost two on route.

Prompting me to reflect ….. never perform with children, animals, or snow.

But not so yesterday, which was the 12th History Walk commissioned by the Library Service during the 18th Chorlton Book Festival when we wandered through northern Chorlton in search of the lost hamlet of Martledge, the awful story of young Francis Deacon’s murder in 1847, potato poachers from Hulme, and our Library’s connection to the Titanic.*

And not forgetting Mrs. Elise Crump, who ran the butcher’s shop on Oswald Road. In October 1946 she had appeared on the first broadcast of Woman’s Hour and three months later was invited back to reflect on how it had all gone.

So the walk had the lot and despite slight showers 24  people turned out for the walk through Chorlton’s past.

All of which just leaves me to thank Gail Mallett, Mathew Benham and Ruth Estevez.  

Gail from the Library Service coordinated the details of the walk along with the preparations for Chorlton Book Festival. 

Mathew is one of our three local Councillors and helped marshal the walk, and Gail who is a successful local author dealt with the admin on the day.

As ever we ended up at the Edge on Manchester Road for their excellent light meal.

And for those who missed the walk, I will be back, next Sunday, during the Chorlton Come Together event.

With one postscript and apology, if we didn't get round to asking you for your permission to be included in the pictures .... sorry.

Location; Martledge

Pictures; on the walk on the day, 2022, courtesy of Mathew Benham and Ruth Estevez

*Chorlton Book Festival, 2022, https://www.chorltonbookfestival.co.uk/

**The Edge, https://www.edgetheatre.co.uk/

Red Gates Farm, .......... and one of the lost farm houses

I know more about the farms here in the township during the first 60 years of the 19th century than I do about them in the second half of the last century. True there are far more photographs of the buildings but what really tells you the story of these places are the family documents, the census records and the countless bits of paper which never get kept.

And even photographs rarely capture the feel of a working farm, which is why I like this one of Red Gates Farm. It is another of the pictures kindly lent to me by Carolyn Willits and what makes it all more exciting is that one of the men staring back at us is her Uncle John who worked on the farm for the Wood family.

I guess we are looking at the farm on a Sunday in late summer. It is a quiet enough moment on a working farm. 
John and the other chap are out of their everyday working clothes into something smarter as befitting a day off. To the right of the picture are the farm’s chickens pecking away and even further to the right some farm equipment has been left propped up against the tree.

The picture is actually a postcard and reminds us that travelling photographers would record scenes like this to sell back to the residents as well to commercial postcard companies. In this case Uncle John used the past card to send to

And we can date the picture to sometime before 1906 when the postcard was sent to James and Florence Wood at 78 Manchester Road. James was the son of Thomas Wood who had been farming Red Gates since 1881.

Now it might seem bizarre that Uncle John would send a postcard from Red Gates which was just a few minutes walk from number 78 but that was how they did it then. With frequent collections and deliveries in a day people did really send a card in the morning to arrange to meet in the afternoon.

Ours was sent at 8.30 in the evening to arrive at breakfast time and the message was simple enough “ Another view for your collection taken while harvesting.” And it was to be one of the last.

Thomas Wood the farmer had died in 1902 and sometime in 1913 or ’14 the farm house was demolished to make way for the new library. It says much for the way that Chorlton had changed since Thomas Wood had taken over Red Gates. It had been one of the larger operations at this end of the township and had still employed three farm workers in 1901. But Thomas Wood was the last to farm Red Gates. Already two of his sons had chosen not to follow him. James had become a commercial clerk and John a music teacher.

Their farm house with its seven rooms went the way of many of our farm houses, so it is good that Carolyn’s picture has survived.

Location; Manchester Road at the Library

Picture; Red Gates Farm circa first decade of the 20th century from the collection of Carolyn Willits.

A chance photograph, some demolished houses, a lost Chorlton road and a lesson in always carrying a camera

It is one of those curious things that it is often the most recent history that goes unrecorded.

I must have walked down Ransfield Road loads of times in the late 70s and early 80s, but cannot remember these houses which were being demolished in Andrew’s photograph.

It was taken in the April of 1983 and like always there is a bit of story.

They date from the last decade of the 19th century and didn’t make their 100th birthday.  All of which is more puzzling given that they were six roomed properties and occupied by relatively well off working class people.  Here was a salesman a secretary, two clerks a plumber, tailor and a telegraphist.

And judging by Andrew's picture they were typical of what had been built at this end of Chorlton

Added to this the properties on the northern side of the road and those in the adjoining Claridge Road are still there. So there is a puzzle which a trawl of the clearance orders might throw up a reason or perhaps it was just a case of a developer buying the properties.

I had wandered down Ransfield Road just a few weeks earlier and couldn’t place when the new properties went up and for a while tracking the history of Ransfield was equally hazy.

Maps from 1907 showed them there but the street directories stubbornly refused to mention them.

All of which was because during the early part of 20th century Ransfield was called Richmond Road and may have been renamed because of the presence of another Richmond Road in Fallowfield, several Richmond Streets and two Richmond Groves one of which was here in Chorlton.

So in the process of exploring a line of demolished houses in the 1980s the quest turned up  another of our lost roads and in the process also points up that simple rule “never let an opportunity go by to record those moments of change."

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Robertson

The art of collecting conkers ………

There is an art to collecting conkers.

The fruit of the Horse chestnut tree, 2004

Now  my Wikipedia tells me “conkers are a traditional children's game in Great Britain and Ireland played using the seeds of horse chestnut trees—the name 'conker' is also applied to the seed and to the tree itself. 

The game is played by two players, each with a conker threaded onto a piece of string: they take turns striking each other's conker until one breaks.”*

And surprisingly it says only dates from the 1850s, although there is an account of a similar game from 1821 using snail shells or hazelnuts.

But I reckon it must be heaps older.  After all what could be so simple a game,  a game which must have occurred to children through the ages.

The trees originate in parts of southeast Europe, and there will be someone who can come up with a date for their arrival here.

And no doubt will give chapter and verse on the game and that stinky practice of hardening them first in the oven with an application of vinegar.

Early morning on the Rec, waiting for the conkers to fall, 2022

All of which is fine, but for me, today, it’s the question of how you collect them.

Some people use the bludgeon practice of throwing a big stick into the trees to dislodge the conkers, which I think is a tad dangerous and borders on cheating, while others just walk the walk collecting those that have fallen naturally to the ground.

Now if you choose your moment, usually in the early morning there are plenty lying there ready for the taking.

Rain stopped play, 2022

But then we live opposite the Rec and harvesting the conkers is just a minute’s walk across Beech Road.

And as a child living in Peckham, there was Nunhead Cemetery full of horse chestnut trees and even more conkers. 

Of course, despite how many you collect, you don’t use them all, leading to a plastic bag full of the things that ends up by degrees in the cellar, slowly going mouldy and destined to be thrown out in July, ready for the new season.

That said, with the rain coming down like stair rods this morning I am not sure how many people will be out collecting conkers using either method. 

Location; The Rec

Pictures; The fruit of the Horse chestnut tree © Andrew Dunn, Website: http://www.andrewdunnphoto.com/ I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license: w:en:Creative Commons, attribution share alike. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.  And horse chestnut trees on The Rec, 2022 from  the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Conkers, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conkers