MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY …….In Queen’s Park, Harpurhey, Manchester …. another Tony Goulding story

 While researching my recent story on the Manchester Blitz victim, Thomas Horridge I had occasion to walk through Queen’s Park in Harpurhey, Manchester. 

I noticed this building and as it featured a prominent clock, I considered it might provide an addition to my “clock” series. 

My first thought was that it was a manor house which was a relic from the days before the park was opened to the public such as the one in Wythenshawe Park and John Rylands home which stood in Longford Park in Stretford. Closer inspection revealed that it was actually a former Museum and Art Gallery for the City of Manchester; clearly indicated by the lettering : - above this impressive doorway.

Investigations into this location’s past revealed several interesting historical connections.  

The current building dates from 1884 but prior to that there was a smaller hall on the site, Hendham Hall, built circa 1800 belonging to the Houghton family who owned large tracts of land around central Lancashire. 

 However, of particular interest is the identity of the resident of the hall when, following the raising of a public subscription, it was purchased at a cost of £7,250 (1) together with the surrounding land by the nascent Manchester Corporation to form Queens Park one of three public parks (2) opened on the same day 22nd August 1846. 

This final resident was none other than Mr. Jonathan Andrew Esq. who as a deputy constable of Manchester was present at the Peterloo Massacre and later gave an extremely biased report to the Home Office inquiry into the incident.

In his supposition he unbelievably stated “I never saw any person cut with a Sabre during this time.” 

 The original Hendham Hall was demolished circa 1880 and 4 years later the present building was opened in the afternoon of Saturday 5th July 1884 by Mr. A. J. Mundella M.P. (3)  

It was purpose-built as an Art Gallery and Museum to designs by Mr. John Allison the City Surveyor for Manchester. The ground floor was to be for museum exhibits whilst the upper floor, reached by a grand staircase, was illuminated by sky-lights for the display of the gallery’s collection of paintings. 

Hendham Hall

A tea-room and refreshment room were provided in the basement. It is no longer used for exhibitions but is still used by Manchester Art Gallery for storage and restoration work.

John Allison was born in Pathhead, Nr. Dalkeith, Midlothian, Scotland on the 26th February 1838. 

After training as an architect and surveyor in Edinburgh he began working in various civil engineering offices initially in Scotland before moving to Sunderland in North-East England. 

It was in this area where he first became a town surveyor when he was appointed to that post in Jarrow-on-Tyne in 1867.

Rt. Hon. A.J. Mundella M.P

He later moved to take up the same job in the larger city of Bradford, West Yorkshire until, in February, 1879 he took on the rôle in the still larger city of Manchester. 

Interior of the gallery Grand Staircase

Mr. Allison was twice married, first to Jane Boyd in Sunderland, Co. Durham during the December quarter of 1867 and then following her death, aged just 35 years, on the 29th September 1880 remarrying Catherine Daggs, 16 years his junior, on the 10th November 1886 at Ivington, Nr. Leominster, Herefordshire. 

His home on moving to Manchester was at 20. Woodlands Road, Cheetham Hill but he later moved by the time of the 1891 census to “Rosslyn”, 102, Wilbraham Road, (4) 

Chorlton-cum-Hardy, at which address he died just short of his 56th birthday on the 13th February 1894. 

Upper Floor showing sky-lights

He was buried in Manchester’s Southern Cemetery on the 16th February in grave G 435 of the Church of England section. 

He was survived by his second wife and five children. Three of these children were born to his first wife. James Young, born in South Shields, Co. Durham in the March quarter of 1869, he was followed by two daughters Agnes Ida, born in Jarrow-on-Tyne in the September quarter of 1870 and, after the move to Bradford, in the March quarter of 1879, Jeanie. 

Rosslyn

John Allison’s second wife was the mother of the two youngest children, both born in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Oswald Roy who was born on the 6th December 1887 and John William, born on the 3rd January 1889.

Rosslyn

Following the death of their husband and father the Allison family moved from their home on Wilbraham Road; in the 1901 census the widow and the two youngest children were living at 29, Egerton Road, Withington, Manchester. 

By the date of the next census, they had relocated to Stretford at 471, Stretford Road, Old Trafford where they had been joined by Jeanie. The various stories of these Allison siblings may feature in a further piece.

Once again I must acknowledge the use I have made of the excellent database "Architects of Greater Manchester 1800-1940" and as always the Newspaper Archive and other records from Find My Past.

Pictures: - Portrait of Rt. Hon. A.J. Mundella M.P. By Unknown author - Mundella family archive, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115580055 Hendham Hall m58958 W. Morton, Interior of the gallery Grand Staircase m58968 unknown artist 1978 and Upper Floor showing sky-lights m58964 L.H. Price 1968. Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Archives, and Information, Manchester City Council http://manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  Other pictures of the gallery’s exterior and “Rosslyn” from the collection of Tony Goulding.

Notes: -

1)Equal to in the region of £700,000 today.

2)The other two were Phillps Park in nearby Bradford, Manchester and Peel Park in Salford.

3)The Right Honourable Anthony John Mundella was at this time the Liberal Member of Parliament for Sheffield and serving as a minister of Education in the cabinet of William Gladstone.

4)The numbering of Wilbraham Road was altered sometime in the 1920S to accommodate additional houses thus 102 is the present-day 536.