Fallowfield’s (stopped) Clocks another story from Tony Goulding

My tour of the public clocks of South Manchester has arrived in Fallowfield, where the Church of the Holy innocents has not one but three. 

Unfortunately, they are not, at present, functioning and haven’t been for at least 7 years. Oddly though, while one face shows the time 1-29 the other two indicate 8-31.  Meaning that in this case “even a stopped clock is right 4 times a day”!

Although the church was opened to the public on Wednesday the 5th March, 1872, the tower of some 150 feet had not at that time been built and was added later. It was another 20 years before enough funds were raised to fit the clocks to the completed tower. The contract for providing these timepieces was placed in the spring of 1892 with Messrs. Joyce and Son of Whitchurch. The clock would strike the hours and consist of “three skeleton dials filled with white opal glass for illumination”

The Land on which the Church and later a school and rectory were built was provided by Lord Egerton who around the same time gifted the land on which the “New” St. Clement’s Church was built in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. 

Thus, was provided a substantial church for the growing communities at both ends of the new road, Wilbraham Road, which he had recently laid down between Edge Lane on the borders of Stretford and the main route out of the Manchester to Didsbury.

Holy Innocents Church Fallowfield

The design of the church was by Price and Linklater a short-lived partnership of Architects based at Imperial Chambers, 1, Market Place, Manchester. Both were Dubliners who specialised in designing church buildings. 

The partnership was dissolved in 1875 when the younger of the two men, Mortimer Henry Linklater left to train for the ministry in the Church of England at the Chichester Theological College, Chichester, Sussex. Construction of the day and Sunday school began in May, 1882 and the new building was formally opened on the 30th December, 1882. Both these buildings are now Grade 11 listed.

Holy Innocents: Sunday and Day School Building

The Architect of the schools building was Francis Haslem Oldham of John Dalton Street, Manchester who was also the architect responsible for The English Martyrs, Roman Catholic Church on Alexandra Road South, Whalley Range, Manchester.

The first rector of the new Church was Rev. John James Twist who was translated from the curacy of the neighbouring parish of St. James in Birch, Rusholme, Manchester. 

He was the first-born son of John Brown Twist, an attorney, and his wife Georgina Maria (née Bult) born in January, 1838 in Coventry, Warwickshire and baptised  in the Church of St. John the Baptist in that city on the 13th January.   

English Martyrs Church Alexandra Road South

John James was only 6-years-old, when his mother, aged just 32, died, on the 27th October, 1844. (1)  On the 5th April, 1861 he graduated a B.A. later enhanced to an M.A. degree from Magdalene College, Cambridge and was appointed to the curacy of St. James’s on Sunday 2nd February, 1862 on being ordained as a deacon. He was further ordained as a priest by the Bishop of Manchester, The Right Reverend James Prince Lee (2) at St. Thomas’s Church, Ardwick, Manchester on the 1st March, 1863

Rev. Twist married Katherine Dewes, the eldest daughter of Thomas Dewes, a solicitor, on the 21st April, 1863 at St. Michael’s Church, Coventry, Warwickshire. The couple were blessed with four children two sons and two daughters before, just prior to his appointment to Fallowfield, Katherine died on the 8th February 1871, at the tragically young age of just thirty-one, giving birth to a third son, John who also did not survive.         

Having served as the rector of the Holy Innocents for two decades, the strain of working in such a large urban parish resulted in a breakdown of his physical and mental health leading to his resignation in September, 1892. 

After spending some time recuperating in Italy, he accepted the appointment as the Vicar of the small rural parish of Castle Hedingham, Nr. Halstead, Essex. He was assisted in his new post by his youngest son George Cecil who became his curate. (3) His household included his two daughters, Frances Mary and Margaret Agnes, together with his sister-in-law, Sophia Dewes and three servants.  His two daughters also took an active rôle in church affairs. 

Sadly, Rev. Twist’s health did not show significant improvement and his depression deepened. He consulted his doctor and travelled to the spa at Matlock, Derbyshire where he remained for five months “taking the waters”, however on his return on a visit to Jex’s farm at Hopton near Lowestoft, Suffolk he hung himself in the farm’s barn on Monday, the 4th July, 1898. At the inquest the following day the jury returned a verdict of “Suicide while temporarily insane”.

Following the death of their father both daughters remained in the Castle Hedingham parish, assisting their brother, Rev. George Cecil, who had succeeded to the living. Frances Mary died on the 15th June, 1909; her 43rd birthday. Margaret Agnes continued assisting in Castle Hedingham parish, although following her brother’s marriage to Edith Mary Bromley on the 7th November, 1911 she now longer lived at the vicarage. She did however, briefly relocate to Chelmsford, Essex when her brother gained an appointment there. After only 2 years in Chelmsford, she returned to Castle Hedingham to take care of her elderly aunts, Sophia and Emily Maud. (4) Finally, she moved on to Dorking where her older brother, James Frederick served as a curate for 35 years. She died there on the 11th September, 1958. She left an estate of £23,979-2s.-7d. (today’s equivalent =£435,271) One of her executors was Kathleen Margaret Twist, an artist, who was Margaret Agnes’s adopted daughter. A year after receiving her legacy she emigrated to California where she died, aged 90, in Sierra Madre on Friday the 19th November, 2004.

Pictures: - Clock Tower and Old School Buildings (now a bar) from the collection of Tony Goulding. Holy Innocents Church courtesy of Andrea Martinez and The English Martyrs Roman Catholic Church, Alexandra Road South, Whalley Range, Manchester m69336 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information, and Archives, Manchester City Council. http://manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Notes: - 

1) Georgina Maria died probably from complications arising from the birth of John James’s youngest brother, George Francis. Two of George Francis’s grandsons are noteworthy. Francis Cecil Orr Twist died on the 30th July, 1916 while serving as a 2nd Lieutenant with the 18th battalion Manchester regiment at Guillemont, during the battle of the Somme. He was the school captain at Rugby School and had just won a classical scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford. He has no known grave and is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial. Derek Norman Twist was a screenwriter, editor and director of British films from the 1930s through to the 1950s.  As an editor he worked on Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 version of “The 39 Steps” starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll. He also served in the R.A.F. Film Production Unit with the rank of Wing Commander. He used this experience to good effect in co-writing and producing the popular war film of 1952 “Angels One Five” starring Jack Hawkins, Dulcie Gray, Michael Denison and John Gregson.

2) The Right Reverend James Prince Lee was the first Bishop of Manchester. He was appointed on the 23rd October, 1847; the diocese having been founded by an Act of Parliament on the 1st September, 1847.

3) Another of Rev. John James’s sons, James Frederick, was also an Anglican priest who at the time of his father’s death was the senior curate at Chislehurst, Kent. 

4) Both aunts lived very long lives. Sophia died on the 23rd November 1939 aged 98, while her sister, Emily Maude had only reached her 87th year when she died on the 10th April, 1940. Longevity ran in the family, as their mother had also lived to be 91 when she died in Castle Hedingham on the 4th February, 1907.

Acknowledgements:  Find My Past's Newspaper Archive and Architects of Greater Manchester  https://www.manchestervictorianarchitects.org.uk