So …. where in Chorlton-cum-Hardy was Victor Stapleton Ashby in 1921? ……..

Now as questions go this is not as daft as it reads, nor is it a candidate for The Twilight Zone.*

Barlow Moor Road, circa 1920s

Victor Stapleton Ashby made motor cars and briefly from 1921 till later in the decade he made them on Barlow Moor Road in Chorlton.

Just where is still unclear but made them he did, and such was my surprise that we were the automobile centre of south Manchester that a few days ago I wrote about Mr. Ashby, his father and the Ashby motor cars.**

To be accurate they were “a two-seater light car powered by a 970 cc 8 hp engine, three-speed gearbox or four-ratio friction drive, continued until 1924”.***

The family were based in Towcester in Northamptonshire and look to have made the transition from traditional coach building in to cycle and motor engineers by the beginning of the last century.

In 1901 they patented an experimental motor car, applied for an international patent, and went into a partnership with Short Brothers the aircraft manufacturers in 1919, employed six Ashby staff members, and the car was known as the Short-Ashby in 1921.

But owing to poor sales Short Brothers withdrew their support in 1922 and the Ashby’s then moved to Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Barlow Moor Road, date unknown

And here comes the mystery because Victor’s father and mother remain in Towcester, but he does not show up on the 1921 census, so it is reasonable to suppose he moved with the business.

That said I can find no reference to him or his wife and daughter.  They married in 1915, and by the following year he was serving in the London Motor Boat Section as a “motor engineer” until he was demobbed in 1919.

Twenty years later they are living back in Towcester but so far for those missing few years in the early 1920s there is nothing.

All of which means it will be one of those old fashioned searches involving the street directories and electoral rolls for the period which are on microfilm in the Central Ref in town and the slow laborious hunt for a name and an address.

Looking for Victor

In the meantime someone might have an idea where they lived in Chorlton.

We shall see.

Location; somewhere in Chorlton

Pictures; Barlow Moor Road circa 1920s from the collection of Allan Brown and Barlow Moor Road, date unknown, from the Lloyd Collection

* The Twilight Zone (marketed as Twilight Zone for its final two seasons) is an American science fiction horror anthology television series created and presented by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from October 2, 1959, to June 19, 1964. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twilight_Zone_(1959_TV_series)

**When Chorlton made cars ………..https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2023/01/when-chorlton-made-cars.html

*** ***Graces Guide to British Industrial History, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Victor_Ashby_and_Son