Mrs. Mary Frances Kelsall ……… an election …. and the search for her story

I doubt I will ever turn up a picture of Mary Frances Kelsall.

Chorlton election material, 1980

She was born in 1889 and died just short of her hundredth birthday.

And until this week she was just a name in a story of a Chorlton local election held in the November of 1945.*

She was one of the two Labour candidates who stood in that election and to my shame only had a walk on part in a post which focused on the other candidate who was a Mr. Brightman.

To be fair the story had been occasioned by a discussion with a relative of Mr. Brightman who supplied some of the background information on the man and the election.

But I closed with the promise that I would go looking for Mrs. Kelsall who been Labour’s other candidate.

Of course, I got distracted and never did, until Monday when I received an email from a fellow researcher who wrote, “I know of Mrs. Kelsall. I did quite a bit of family history work for a lady in Wisconsin – on a quid pro quo basis, as she did lots for me in the USA. 

As our research progressed, parallels grew. It ended up with finding that my mother had travelled daily into town with a distant relative of [the Wisconsin lady] – the said Mrs. Kelsall. This was immediately post-WW2. 

The Kelsalls lived on the Barlow Hall estate, at no.16 Floyd Avenue, +/-2. My mother said that Mrs. K. was extremely left-wing and pushy, whereas Mr. K. was laid back to the point of horizontal and totally apolitical. Personally, I have no recollection of the family at all”.**

And that was enough to spur me on and fulfil the promise.

I have found Mrs. Kelsall on the 1939 Register at 18 Floyd Avenue.

She was Mary Frances nee Wade, born in 1889, married in 1913, with two children, and died in 1985.

In 1921 the family were at 10 Bland Street Moss Side, and she worked as a shirt machinist for Central Shirt Co, at 19 East Street, which employed 739 people.

The firm is listed in the 1911 directory in a building it shared with various companies, including a merchant, embroider hat manufacturer shipping merchants and Milling engineers.  The large building was at the end of East Street as it ran into Bale Street and stood opposite the famous Tommy Ducks pub.

And according to the minutes of the Chorlton Labour Party she was one of six members who were invited to attend a selection meeting “for the final choice of candidates”. ***

Looking through the record of the Party for the 1940s I can at present find only one other reference to her, which was in June 1945 when she is listed as a sub agent in the forthcoming General Election.

At that particular meeting the group had discussed the “broad principles of the campaign”, along with “general arrangements for meetings, committee rooms, clerical work, literature and canvassing”.

In the footsetps of Mrs. Kelsall, 1986

Mr. Brightman had been appointed agent and the sub agents were Mr. Luly for Withington, Mr. Ball for Chorlton and Mrs. Kelsall for East Didsbury.

And that is about it.

Despite the huge landslide victory for the Labour Party at the General Election in the July of 1945, the Municipal Elections in the November proved disappointing for both Labour’s Chorlton candidates.

The Conservative candidates, each gained 66.9% of the vote with Mrs. Kelsall achieving 33.1% and Mr. Brightman 31.4% .

But then Labour had never won a seat in Chorlton.  

In the early 20th century, the electors had returned either Tory or Liberal councillors, and after 1945 would continue to elect Conservative candidates until the historic breakthrough in 1986.

Looking back at the local campaign, the election agent commented that “Chorlton ward had polled well, in spite of the lack of many prominent workers, who were fighting in other wards”, which traditionally was the fate of local elections in Chorlton until the 1970s.***

I doubt Mr. Brightman looked upon the result as poor, given that he and Mrs. Kelsall each polled nearly a third of the vote in what was then a traditional Conservative seat.

They had campaigned on welfare issues and the need for post war reconstruction, and looked to Labour gaining a “majority of all other parties” and thereby by playing its part in supporting the “enactments of the people’s Parliament”.*****

And that is it, although I will now trawl the local Manchester papers for more references to Mrs. Kelsall and hold out the hope that someone remembers her.

We shall see.

Chorlton Labour Party, circa 1980s

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Election material from 1980, Chorlton Labour Party badge circa 1980, and campaigning in the 1986 local elections from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* Mr. Brightman ….. Chorlton-cum-Hardy……… and the election of 1945, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/11/mr-brightman-chorlton-cum-hardy-and.html

**Trevor James, November 21st 2022

***Minutes of the E.C. meeting, Chorlton Ward, Thursday September 13th, 1945.

**** Minutes of the Chorlton Labour Party, November 6th, 1945

***** Election Address, November 1st, 1945