One camera…...two pictures ……two brothers .... and Chorlton as it was in 1961

This is the view into Chorlton in 1961, and it is one of those rare photographs from the middle decades of the last century of where we live.

I say rare because while we have heaps of images taken between the late 1880s into the 1940s, similar scenes in the post war period are much harder to come across.

There will be plenty of reasons for this.  Chief amongst these is the demise of the commercial photographers who recorded iconic local landmarks and sold them on to picture postcard companies, while also doing a nice trade in selling pictures of individual streets and houses to residents.

To this can be added the arrival of the cheap camera, designed to take snaps.  But the snaps don’t often make it out into the public domain, and most have now been lost.

In some cases, they have been consigned to a photo album which with the passage of half a century or more is forgotten, or worse become the contents of bin liners consigned to the tip.

And today the practice of photographing “the moment” with you phone means that moment never gets beyond the mobile and rarely makes it to the “cloud”.  Either they are dependent on the technology not being updated or the owner deleting it forever.

All of which takes me back to this 1961 picture which John Anthony tells me was taken “by my brother Keith from Brantingham Road bridge looking towards Manchester Road. 

The second was taken by me and in my picture and is also from Brantingham Road. In mine there is some camera shake, but I like the detail of the telephone exchange yard. 

The fence (right) which was several steel wires on concrete posts with intermediate braces. Chorlton Baths in on the left. The light patch was the telephone exchange yard”.

In 1961 Chorlton Railway Station was still open offering a quick train service into Central Railway Station or out into Derbyshire and beyond, via Didsbury.

It is a scene which has yet to fade from living memory, but it would be nice to have more pictures of Chorlton in the 1950s into the 21st century which could compliment those on Manchester Library’s Digital Local Collection.*

The Library's collection of Chorlton images is large, but they are regularly plundered and posted on social network, but sadly are not accompanied by a date, a credit or an explanation of their significance.

Leaving me just to thank Tony who regular comments on the Chorlton stories and on occasion corrects my mistakes as well adding details of places and events.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; the railway line in Chorlton, 1961, from the pictures of Keith and Tony Hewitt.

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

A sightseeing trip to Woolwich and those old wooden prison hulks with their chained convicts

Now I had completely forgotten about those old 18th century prison hulks moored at Woolwich and also of the excellent little book by Mr Reg Rigden*

The Floating Prisons of Woolwich and Deptford, describes in detail those three festering and rotting former warships.  I long ago lost my copy and so was over the moon when my friend Jean sent me her copy.

They were one of those short term measures used to solve the prison crisis in between sending convicts to America and later Australia.

And as so often happens they became tourist attractions with enterprising businessmen offering up river tours which provided glimpses of the chained men in the hulks or at work on the nearby shore.

So numerous did these excursions become that eventually they had to be ordered to stop.

I suppose it is easy to see why so many found such river trips a fascinating part of any visit to London.

“By 1777 there were over 220 felons at work in Woolwich, each chained by the leg.”*

Nor did the resumption of transporting convicted criminals across the world in 1787 spell the end of our prison hulks.

They had become part of the prison system and would continue well into the middle of the 19th century with the last Woolwich ship being burned in 1857.

There had been three such ships moored at Woolwich.

These were the Warrior, Jusitia and Defence which originally under "contract to a private individual, Duncan Campbell who looked after the convicts and was paid by the Government”* who in the 1780s had paid £32 a year for each convict which was later reduced to £26.

All of which promises more stories focusing on the awful conditions on board and some tales of desperate escapes.

So more later, alternatively you could just read Mr Rigden’s excellent book

Picture; cover from The Floating Prisons of Woolwich and Deptford

*The Floating Prisons of Woolwich and Deptford, Reg Rigden, 1976 London Borough of Greenwich

Looking for the lost ...... one street over time in Ancoats ..... no 7 St Andrew’s Church

The story of one street in Ancoats, and the people who lived and worked there.*

One hundred years of St Andrew's

Homer Street nearly made its 100 birthday but the passage of time and a grand slum clearance plan did for it sometime just before 1938.

Its parish church which was St Andrew’s survived for another three decades before it too was demolished.

The church had opened in 1831, and according to one account had been built in “the midst of fields [when] the waters of the River Medlock which are close by ran pure and sweet and were the home of beautiful trout.” **

At the time “the congregation of St Andrew’s was in its early years a fairly comfortable middle-class body, [with] most of the pews in the church being privately rented by people of substance. But by the middle of the century it was surrounded by rising Lancashire industry and black slums filled the parish."***

Inside St Andrew's, date unknown

Surprisingly within just thirty years after it was built and not long after the creation of those “black slums”, the population of the area was in decline.

But it would be Corporation’s slum clearance programme which finally depopulated the area.

So much so that he vicar of St Andrew’s described the area in 1939 as one of “debris and desolation.”

And yet so loyal was the former congregation that many who had been moved out to estates in the north of the city and Wythenshawe in the south returned to attend services, including the popular Sunday School.

St Andrew's date unknown

In 1931 the church had produced a commemorative booklet, which makes fascinating reading.

What I didn’t know was the church also issued a set of souvenir porcelain to mark the event.

And for the picture of these I have Kath Kelly Hughes to thank who saw an earlier story about Homer Street and posted the picture on social media along with two of the church before its demolition.

She added “ I attended St Andrews Sunday school it's a part of my childhood”.

Sadly the site of the church is now an overgrown bit of discarded land, which for a while was home to industrial units.

I think the spot deserves better.

All of which is just a start I hope of a whole set of new stories.

To which I can add that having approached the city Councillors for the area moves were in hand to improve the area.



Pictures; commemorative porcelain, and pictures of St Andrew’s courtesy of Kath Kelly Hughes


*Homer Street,  https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Homer%20Street

**Commemorative Booklet, St Andrews Church Ancoats, 1831-1931

***A Centenary in Ancoats, St Andrew’s School, Manchester Guardian, June 13 1936

The bits of Withington you don’t normally see…….

Never one to pick the obvious, here for no other reason than I can are a selection of pictures I took while wandering around Withington on a wet grim Monday.

No history, other than The Red Lion was a regular haunt in the 1980s and I was pleased I accepted the invitation of Cate and Elizabeth to take tea and cake in St Paul’s church which led to some fascinating stories.

Location; Withington

Pictures; The Red Lion and St Paul’s Withington, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

“I lost my garter …… while going to buy this card”

Now, losing a garter and telling the world is a pretty public thing to do.

Just how the sender lost the garter, or what happened afterwards is not included.

All I know is that the card was sent to an address in New Brighton, in the evening of August 2nd, 1917.

And that the sender might have lived in Ancoats.

The card was produced by the Corona Publishing Company of Blackpool, and according to one source produced a mix of Saucy cards with more conventional “view cards”*

Their Blackpool address was 48 Coronation Street, which is one of those roads behind the Tower, and a search revealed that in 2019 this was The Treasure Shop, established in 1943 and selling jewelry.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Bring the sugar, 1917, from the collection of David Harrop

*The Corona Publishing Company of London and Blackpool; http://www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk/data/projects/FS/Publishers/Corona.htm

Looking for the lost ...... one street over time in Ancoats ..... no 10 the school photograph

The story of one street in Ancoats, and the people who lived and worked there.*

There is something fascinating about school photographs.

I suppose it is partly that it stirs the that pot of curiosity, leading me  to wonder who each of the children were, what their lives had been and what was to come.

We have shed loads and looking at the class of ’95 or those of our other children I sometimes catch myself asking the kids what happened to Clare, or John, and sharing the picture with their friends who in many cases still resemble that young 11 year old gazing out with a mixture of adventure and expectation for the years ahead.

Of course it is all that much more difficult when the photograph is almost a century old, and there is no one to ask the obvious questions of who they all were.

I am drawn to that lad on the back row beside the teacher with the big smile and wonder which street he lived in and what he went on to do, and also the girl in the second row on the right.

Unlike most of her class mates she is not smiling and instead looks back at me with a pensive expression.

These are the class of 1928 from St Andrew's, Homer Street School in Ancoats.

Homer Street disappeared in the Corporation’s slum clearance programme a decade later and I guess the group were dispersed across the city with some ending up in Wythenshawe and others in the north.

So far I haven’t been able to track down the admissions book for the school which might offer up some names and addresses, not that I would be able to match name to a face.

The picture belongs to Kath Kelly Hughes who has come across others from the same period and in many of them there appears that teacher on the right of the group.  Unlike his colleague he doesn’t smile instead affects a slightly detached almost weary stare.

But I suppose he will have posed in many such photographs, and still had many more to come.

So I shall leave the class of ’28 but reserve the right to return.

But there may be more.  Only today Angela got in touch to say that "in a couple of days I will be putting an old photo of the school on a photo website called Alamy. 

I acquired the photo on ebay in January of this year,form someone in Cheshire- sadly no details except what is written on the back (no names of pupils) 

These are infant children in the hall. Hope this helps. " 

Pictures; the class of 1928, form lll Homer Street School, 1928, courtesy of Kath Kelly Hughes

*Homer Street, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Homer%20Street

Woolwich in 1915, a Manchester soldier and a love letter from Chorlton

The Great War is now over a century ago.

Royal Artilery Barracks, Woolwich

During the four years of war  Eltham like the rest of the country saw its men go off and fight and learned to cope with the adjustments to everyday life which followed.

But nothing I suppose could ease the loss of those who never returned.  Some of those who appear on our war memorial are being honoured all over again as work is done to research their lives.

So with that in mind I thought I would rerun some stories of the experiences of those who lived through the conflict, starting with George Davison who passed through Woolwich in 1915 and wrote to his wife,

Arrived safely today. No settled address at present.  Best wishes George.”

Now at first glance there isn’t anything special about George’s message to his wife Nellie even given that it was sent from Woolwich to 146 Bedford Street, Hulme in Manchester.

A post card home  from Woolwich to Manchester, 1915

Thousands of young men every year leave the family home in search of work and until things are settled will not have a permanent address.

But what makes the card just a little more interesting is the date and time for George sent it on October 25th 1915 just in time for the late evening collection.

He was in the Royal Artillery and over the course of the next three years was to serve in Ireland and on the Western Front where he was killed in the June of 1918.

I can’t yet establish when he enlisted but Woolwich may have been one of the first posting after he left Manchester.

And just four days after our post card he sent another to Nellie with the request not “to send any letters to Woolwich until further notice.  Expect leaving this weekend for unknown destination.”

During those few days be bought a number of cards depicting Woolwich but never sent them and they now form part of the George Davison collection.

In all there must be a hundred postcards, letters and official documents from 1915 till 1955.  Many are from George to Nellie and after his death there is correspondence from the War Office, the pensions department and his commanding officer.

In uniform in Wolowich, 1915

There are also his school reports, details of his first job along with the social club he joined and his membership of the Independent Labour Party.

And if that was not enough there is a series of charming letters he wrote to young Nellie before they were married.

The first dates from 1904 when she was just 16 and talks of his recent proposal of marriage and his wish to meet her parents on the following day.

Others follow during the course of the next two years and are the usual love letters sent in the age before the telephone.

But it would be a full four years before they married and another three years before the birth of their son.

This is a wonderful collection of material spanning the last decades of the 19th century and well into the next.

And for me there is a very personal connection which links me to George.

During the years before he was married he lived just a few minute’s walk away at Barway House on Edge Lane here in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, the first marital home was close by in Hulme and we shared a similar political outlook.

All of which then just leaves Woolwich.  He was stationed there briefly in 1915 and I grew up close by separated by just forty years which in the great sweep of things is not much.

I suspect that the Woolwich he knew was still the one I was familiar with in the 1960s and which has now pretty much vanished.

The Royal Herbert

I doubt that he would recognise Beresford Square or Wellington Street any more than I can today, and I am sure would be equally hard pressed to make sense of the area around the Arsenal or for that matter the water front.

Odd that two people separated by those four decades should still have more in common than I would have thought.

But then that is sometimes how history pans out, which is less by grand design and more by a series of hiccups.


Pictures; from the collection of David Harrop

Picking my way through a bit of Withington’s history …….

Today I am renewing an old association with Withington.

St Paul's, Withington, 2023

It is a place I have a fond spot for, given that it was where I first washed up as a student in 1969.

And over the next three years I spent time in a tiny bed sit overlooking Wellington Road, a bit longer in a slightly bigger bedsit facing the Old House at Home and finished with two years in Miss Finn’s house in Rippingham Road, with the Recreational ground as a sort of companion.

Back then I was less interested in the history of the township focusing more on the dive bar of the White Lion, the occasional visit to the Scala, along with the weekly attendance at the Launderette.

If there was a feature essential to my life it was possibly the telephone box beside the bank on the corner of Egerton Crescent, which in a pre mobile age, was the link with home, usually on a Sunday when time weighed heavy.

But enough of such nostalgia and instead a story of Withington Civic Society, and in particular their range of excellent books on the history of the place.*

I long ago acquired a copy of “A walk through the history of Withington” which looks to have been updated, and now courtesy of David Rydeheard  I have two more, which are "Wartime Withington”, and “A legacy of love”.

Wartime Withington rather says what it is but is written around a collection of memories from those who lived through the period, while A legacy of love is the story of the Harrison organ at St Chad’s Church in Ladybarn.

There are more in the pipeline and I look forward to reading these when they are published.

At which point I could delve into the three and write stories of pubs, churches, war time bombs and musical instruments, but that would be to steal the thunder of the society and the individual authors so I won’t.

Instead I suggest you follow the link and acquire your own copies.**

Pictures; St Paul’s, Withington, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and covers from Withington Civic Society’s publications.  

*Withington Civic Society,  withingtoncivicsociety.org.uk

**Buying the books at, contact@withingtoncivicsociety.org.uk

Leaving Salford part 3 ................... a new life and looking back

This will be the last of the stories on the Hampson family who left Salford for Canada and a new life sometime after 1849 and is part catch up on how their lives turned out and a reflection on what is left of the Salford they knew.

Railway posted, date unknown

James Hampson was born in 1816 and married Sarah Tildesley in December 1838 at the Parish Church of Eccles.  In 1841 he described himself as a cotton dyer and in that year was living in Pendleton.  Sarah’s father was an engineer and both James and his father were cotton dyers.

Before the 1850s the process still relied on natural dyes using the flowers, berries, leaves, barks and roots of plants and herbs.  As such the work would not have been as dangerous as it was to become with the introduction of chemical dyes.

But it must still have been very uncomfortable.  James would have constantly been exposed to hot and cold water and dyes which left his hands stained different colours.

The family lived on Ashton Street within a few minute’s walk from cotton mills, a dye works and a coal mine with the newly built railway and the slightly older canal close by.

Looking out from their home the Hampson’s would have been faced with a row of one up one down back to back houses which backed on to Miners Row.

Aston Street, Pendleton, 1848

Theirs might have been a slightly bigger house but the detailed 1848 OS map shows that their nearest water pump was some distance away.

Now bits of their new life in Ontario are still vague but their son Henry who had been born in 1839 worked on the railways, as did his son William.

William married Agness Beetham whose family were farmers from Albion which was just outside of Toronto.  Her family had settled in Canada in the early 19th century.

Which just leaves me to ponder on what is left of where they lived. 

Just a short 40 years after they left, their street had gone, replaced by a whole set of small terraced houses, and while by 1894 there were still textile factories close by I can’t say which he may have worked in or whether it still survived.

Pendleton, 1894

The railway is still there but he would be hard pressed to recognise the old Manchester and Bury Canal which ran alongside the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.

He may of course not given that much thought to Salford.  

Certainly my great aunt who left Britain in 1925 and married into the family pretty much left the old country behind. 

She returned only once in 1968.  

Her brother who had been migrated as a British Home Child nine years earlier came back only one on his way via a training camp to the Western Front in 1916.

Fastest to Canada, date unknown

But that is not quite the end.  Just as I finished the story my friend Neil Simpson sent over these wonderful railway posters which were produced by the Canadian Railway company and distributed across Britain.  

They will post date the Hampson’s journey but are similar to those being produced by steamship lines in the 1850s. 

Neil came across them during a week touring Ontario while taking the train from Toronto to Vancouver and spotted them on a railway station in Jasper.

So there you have it.  The Hampson’s never returned to Salford but there is lots of evidence that some at least who went out to Canada, Australia and New Zealand in the middle decades of the 19th century made the journey more than once.

Pictures; 1848 OS map for Lancashire, Salford, 1894 from the OS South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and railway posters from the collection of Neil Simpson

Looking for the lost ...... one street over time in Ancoats ..... no 9 what is and was

The story of one street in Ancoats, and the people who lived and worked there.

Where Homer Street was, 2017

Now this is Homer Street today.

I say Homer Street but to be accurate it is where Homer Street was until sometime around 1938.

There were sixteen houses which had been built in 1837 and we are looking east along the line of where they had been.

They went in the Corporation’s slum clearance programme which pretty much wiped away all the housing directly around the church of St Andrew’s between 1934-38

2 Helmet Street in red and Phobe and Homer Street, 1894

The site was designated an area for light industry, although for a couple of decades Homer Street was left undeveloped.

By the 1960s it had been a sorting office, a bus depot and is now the warehouse of Amato Food Products.

There are no pictures of the houses and apart from the census returns and rate book entries little has survived to tell us much about the properties or the people who lived.

For most of the last two centuries they do not even feature in the street directories and when they do it tends only to be the businesses that are recorded like Mrs Elizabeth Beaver who in 1895 is recorded as “shop keeper” at number 3 Homer Street on the corner with Phobe Street.

2 Helmet Street looking towards Newton Square, 1897

But there are some photographs of properties

which will have been very similar to those of Homer Street.

This one is of number 2 Helmet Street in 1897, and we are looking north.

The street beside the lamp post is Newton Square and the house on the corner was the shop of John Summersgil while across Newton Square and hidden from view was the pub/beer house of James Berry.

And had you wanted to visit Homer Street from our house the most direct route would have been to turn right up Helmet Street past the Recreation Ground and then left on to Phobe Street which led to both Homer Street and the school.

Location; Ancoats

Pictures; inside the Amato warehouse, 2017, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, back of number 2 Helmet Street 1897, H Entwistle, m11681, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Helmet Street in 1894, from the OS for South Lancashire, 1894 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Leaving Salford for Canada part 2 ............... the long journey

Now the Hampson family are not strictly family.  

Pendleton, 1848

They belong to my cousins from Ontario, but theirs is a fascinating story which is part of the story of both countries.

James Hampson was born in 1816 and married Sarah Tildesley in December 1838 at the Parish Church of Eccles.  In 1841 he described himself as a cotton dyer and in that year was living in Pendleton.  Sometime after 1849, James, Sarah and their children left for Canada which was a popular destination for emigrants.

Now I can be fairly certain of this because their last child was born in  England in 1849 and the Canadian census of 1851 records them as there.

Thousands of people, many of them from Ireland left these shores in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Most hoped that a new country would mean a fresh start with new opportunities and a better life.

The 1840s were a hard time for all but the rich and there were schemes to resettle working families across the Empire. This was a policy that was actively pursued by the Poor Law Commissioners with parochial aid or assistance from local landlords.

The Commissioners reported that over 2, 000 had gone to Canada in 1841 which was an increase on the year before, and that assistance was also being given to move to Australia and New Zealand.

The main sea port for their departure was Liverpool.  In the hundred years from 1830 to 1930 over nine million emigrants sailed from to the US, Canada and Australia.

I don’t think we will ever know exactly why the Hampson's left and there is no record of when they went but they were part of a steadily rising number of people which  reached a high point in 1849.

Even today the decision to emigrate cannot be an easy one to take, but a hundred and sixty seven years ago the cost, the problems and the very real dangers must have weighed heavily.

A ticket for just one person travelling on the cheapest passage might be three to five times James’s weekly wage, and of course there were four of them.**

Then there were the ever present threats from unscrupulous dealers, ship owners and the crew who might cheat the passengers at every turn of the journey.

Lastly there was the sea passage itself, a trip of a month in a sailing ship at the mercy of an unpredictable weather on the open sea, crammed together with people some of whom were ill with disease.

So, taking that decision was as much an act of faith as it was a rational choice with a secure conclusion.
The ships might hold up wards of four hundred passengers although some like the Isaac Wright could carry 900 people.

The Hampson's could expect a fairly basic diet on the journey.  Each passenger was given a weekly ration of bread, rice, tea, sugar as well as oatmeal flour, molasses and vinegar and one pound of pork.   Passengers could however supplement this with their own provisions but there was an upper limit.

There are contemporary stories of passengers being cheated of their rightful ration either because it was delivered late or just not at all.

Conditions on board were not ideal.  Packed together there was the ever present threat of disease and death.

All the passengers were by law inspected by a doctor before they embarked but this did not always prevent the outbreak of illnesses.  In one month in 1847 twelve ships making landfall at Grosse Island reported a total of 198 dead passengers out of just over 3,000.

Some ships arrived safely with no deaths others like Bark Larch from Sligo lost 108 of its 440 passengers with another 150 reported ill.  The highest death rates seemed to be ships bound from Ireland escaping the effects of the famine some years earlier.***

Location; Salford, Greater Manchester

*The Eighth Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, HMSO 1842, Page 37 Google edition page 58

** In 1847 a ticket might cost between £3.10/- and £5. From a newspaper article The tide of emigration in the Illustrated London  News July 1850

***Immigrants to Canada, http://jubilation.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/thevoyage.html

Picture; detail of Pendleton from OS Lancashire 1841 courtesy of Digital Archives Association www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Walking Withington ……. on a grey indifferent June day ….. and throwing in a bit of history

I had hoped that the sun would being cracking the paving stones today.

Withington chimney's, the Red Lion, 2023

But June in Manchester can be as variable as any box of chocolates, and the hot sunny weather of last week has given over to one of those grey, grim days with just hint of rain.

That sort of rain which arrives without warning, trickles rather than falls and is never enough to warrant putting up the umbrella.

But in truth had Sammy sunshine chosen to brighten up Withington it would have been a distraction from a pleasant hour with David Rydeheard who shares with me a fascination for the history of Withington. 

David is a member of Withington Civic Society and as well as exploring a bit of the township’s story, we got an invite by Cate and Elizabeth to sample a bit of cake, at the weekly drop in at St Paul’s Church.*

St Paul's 2023, 

St Paul’s is I believe one of the only churches to have a war memorial to those who survived and came home as well as plaques recording those who died.  All three contain the names of those who left Withington to fight, and I think it shows originality of thinking to celebrate the living alongside the dead.**

Looking into the graveyard at St Paul's, 2023

At which point I could wander offer into a detailed story of the church but its web site says it much better than I could, leaving me just to offer up the link.***

And reflect that we had arrived too early to slip into the Red Lion which was a pub I frequented a lot in the 1970s and 80s and which saw the inquest in 1838 of Chorlton’s own Mary Moore who was brutally murdered on her way home from the Manchester Markets to Dog House Farm.

But that’s a story which has already featured on the blog.

Location; Withington

Pictures; wet days in Withington, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Withington shapes, 2023

*Withington Civic Society, https://sites.google.com/view/withington-civic-society

**St Paul’s Withington, https://www.stpaulswithington.org.uk/

***St Paul’s Withington Church History, https://www.stpaulswithington.org.uk/church-history/ 

The lost road names of Chorlton

Now there are a lot of lost road names in Chorlton.  

I say lost but most are just name changes.

I guess it was matter of eliminating duplicate names which appeared elsewhere in the city.

So Regent became Reeves, Crescent became Crossland and Oak Bank changed to Silverwood Avenue.

Now the most obvious moment to make the change was when we elected to join the city in 1904, but the old names persisted beyond 1911 and may have stretched into the 1960s.

It is one of these little puzzles that really can only be solved by sitting down with the street directories and working through them year by year until the changes appear.  Or waiting for someone to remember when the new road name went up.

So if there is anyone who wants to come forward please do.

In the meantime just possibly there might be an easier answer in this photograph from May 1959 of Oak Bank Avenue, which is now Silverwood Avenue.

Oak Bank may well have its got its name from a large house also called Oak Bank directly opposite on Barlow Moor Road.

It was set back from the main road and hidden in an extensive garden and orchard surrounded by meadow and arable land. Once the home of William Morton, by 1847 it was owned by the wine merchant Frederick Cope, who lived there from 1850 to 1855.

The estate ran from the junction of Wilbraham Road and Barlow Moor Road south down to Oak Avenue, then back following the line of Zetland Road to Corkland and up to what is Wilbraham Road.   

It may be that the name was changed to avoid confusion with Oak Avenue, either way the date seems to have been later than 1959 unless of course A.H.Downes who took the picture in the April of that year just read old “late road sign.”

And here is the challenge for people to collect and send  their own road name changes.  I can think of a few more but I bet there are even more.

Picture; December April 1959, A.H.Downes m17489, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Looking for the lost ...... one street over time in Ancoats ..... no 8 a Rose Queen

The story of one street in Ancoats, and the people who lived and worked there.*

Now I am learning more about this small bit of Ancoats which was bounded by St Andrew’s Church to the north, Fairfield Street in the south and sandwiched between the railway viaduct of London Road Railway Station and the Ancoats Goods Station.

Once and it had been a long time ago the area was fields and attractive enough for some fine houses to have been built bordering the river.

And as late as 1831 when St Andrew’s Church was built there was still plenty of open land through which the water of the river was "pure and sweet and the home of beautiful trout.” **

Within two decades all that had changed and the area was full of busy, industry and rows of terraced houses.

One of those streets was Homer Street which I have become interested in and at the end of the road was Homer Street school which had begun as a Sunday School in 1837 and became a day school nine years later.

I have written about the school already and in the course of researching it came across both a series of newspaper accounts and a number of photographs dating from 1910 through to the  early 1930s.

And now I have two more which Kath Kelly Hughes has kindly shared with me.

This one is 1921/22 and the first shows the St Andrew’s Church float which won first prize.

Kath told me that she "was told but cannot prove that float was part of an Empire day parade which is May 24th, around 1920/1. Just found the notebook I recorded it in."

Judging by the expressions on the faces of those staring back at us all was not well.  But then they may just have been tired.

It is a wonderful picture and as ever it is the detail that draws you in like the old woman in background.

Her pursed lips suggest she is missing some teeth and is a powerful reminder that it would be another two decades before the introduction of the National Health Service which guaranteed free medical care at the point of need.

She and many of her contemporaries would have had to put up with poor health and little in the way of medical care, save the odd patented medicine some of which were marketed as the answer to all sorts of diseases and ailments.

It is an interesting thought that on many of these old photographs you rarely see women smiling and even less with open mouths for to do so  would reveal just how bad their teeth were.

For many ill health was something to be borne stoically with the hope that serious illness or injury would
pass them.

All of which is rather grim so I shall conclude by returning to the picture.  I can’t be sure where it was taken but I am guessing it must be close to the school or the church.

Looking at the maps of the period it might just be Travis Street close to Sheffield Street but aware as I am that this may set off a debate I will close.

Location; Ancoats

Pictures; St Andrew’s Rose Queen float, 1921-22, courtesy of Kath Kelly Hughes

*Homer Street,  https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Homer%20Street

**Commemorative Booklet, St Andrews Church Ancoats, 1831-1931

A pocket watch, a Canadian war veteran and a story of the power of international research

Now I grant you the above is not the most zippiest of titles but it delivers perfectly a turn of events.

The inscribed sentiment on the back of the watch

This is the watch of Earle C Duffin, born in Canada and served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force.*

He was born in 1886, enlisted in December 1914, and sailed for Europe the following August and by the April of 1916 he was in France.

He was demobbed in August 1919, having attained the rank of L. Col and married a Miss Mabel Ryan on July 20 1921 and the Winnipeg Tribune carried a wedding picture.

And that pretty much was that.  I had tracked his story around Canada and up to his marriages although I did have to admit getting his wife’s name completely wrong.

But I wasn’t giving up and made an appeal through the British Home Children facebook sites in Canada.

And almost as soon as Canada awoke a full five to seven hours after I posted the blog lots of people went off to look.

"An interesting wedding" .......... July 20 1921, The Wnnipeg Tribune

Bobby was first followed by others and Kevin came up with a fine wedding photograph, and obituaries on both Mr Duffin and Mrs Duffin.

The wait was worth it.  After the war Mr Duffin worked for the Daily Express, and Bowaters in New York before moving to Britain 1929.

In all he made eight ocean crossings between 1919 and 1946, and died in 1948.  Mrs Duffin survived him by another twenty years and according to her obituary  she died in London in the February of 1968.

Now I know that they settled in Britain I will go looking for more of the story.

Mr and Mrs Duffin had two children and there were  three grandchildren and perhaps that search will reveal how the watch made its way to eBay where it was bought by old friend David Harrop and will be part of his exhibition commemorating the Battle of The Somme on July 1 in the Remembrance Lodge of Southern Cemetery.

The watch

So a little bit more of the history of one family and a pointer to how with a bit of international cooperation a story takes a new turn.

And that is one in the eye for those who deride social media as just a vehicle to show off pictures of cats and offer up an update on which coffee shop is currently in vogue.

So thanks again to those in Canada.

We have come some way from a watch on eBay!

Location; Canada,the USA and Britain


Pictures; watch of Earl C Duffin, from the collection of David Harrop, picture from the Winnipeg Tribune researched by Kevin Laurence

*Surviving a century ........... the silver inscribed watch, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/surviving-century-silver-inscribed-watch.html

Celebrating our Municipal Town Halls part 3 .......... Woolwich Town Hall

It is all too easy to become cynical about public service and the achievements of local government.

Back in the 19th and early 20th centuries local government  more so than Westminster was at the cutting edge of improving the lives of local people.

As Sidney Webb said the “municipalities have done most to socialise our industrial life.”  And so a resident of Manchester, Birmingham or Glasgow could benefit from municipal supplies of water, gas and electricity, travel on municipally owned trams and buses, walk  through a municipally maintained park while knowing his children were being educated in municipally run schools.

“Glasgow builds and maintains seven public ‘common lodging houses’; Liverpool provides science lectures; Manchester builds and stocks an art gallery; Birmingham runs schools of design; Leeds creates extensive cattle markets; and Bradford supplies water below cost price. 

There are nearly one hundred free libraries and reading rooms. The minor services now performed by public bodies are innumerable.”*

And all of that was evidenced not only in the Corporation parks and schools and baths but in the town halls which were solid examples of both civic pride and local democracy.

So here is Woolwich Town Hall built in 1906 and opened by Will Crooks




Picture; Woolwich Town Hall, courtesy of Kristina Bedford*

*Woolwich Through Time, Kristina Bedford, 2014, Amberley Publishing,

Looking for the lost ...... one street over time in Ancoats ..... no 4 the school by Homer Street

The story of one street in Ancoats, and the people who lived and worked there.*

Homer Street was located just south of St Andrew’s Church and was bordered by the canal to the north, the river to the south and London Road Railway Station to the west.

The houses date from 1837 and just six years after the church was built.

Back in 1831 St Andrew's  Church was in “the midst of fields [when] the waters of the River Medlock which are  close by ran pure and sweet and were the home of beautiful trout.” **

At the time “the congregation of St Andrew’s was in its early years a fairly comfortable middle-class body, [with] most of the pews in the church being privately rented by people of substance. But by the middle of the century it was surrounded by rising Lancashire industry and black slums filled the parish.***

Five years later the church opened a Sunday school on the corner of Homer Street and Arundel Street which in 1846 became a day school.

The school records show that teaching there was to use that modern description “challenging.”

In 1850 there was an average attendance at the day school of about 200 and four of five hundred boys and girls attended irregularly at the Sunday school.

And in 1866 the authorities went looking for forty boys who were absent one morning  concluding  that “the parents are sadly to blame for keeping their children at home” and on another occasion observed that “130 present at a time and the teacher ill, make it rather hard work to keep things straight.”

Given all of that I can sympathise with the comment made in 1864 that the school master was “glad that the week has closed so that one might have a little rest.”

But even by the 1860s the population of St Andrew’s parish was in decline and in 1891 the school reported that "the number of children on the books was gradually diminishing owing to properties being condemned as uninhabitable", although the final clearances  only got  underway in the late 1930s.

So that by 1936 the population had fallen from 16,000 a century earlier about to 3,000 with many families having been moved out to Gorton and Clayton.

That said the school still had about 230 students on roll and their attendance was very good winning them the Entwistle Memorial Shield for the best school attendance in the city’s elementary schools which seems a nice positive point to close on.

The site is now part of the warehouse of Amato Food Products.****

Location; Ancoats

Pictures; St Andrew’s School, Homer Street, 1920, m48646, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Homer Street

**Commemorative Booklet, St Andrews Church Ancoats, 1831-1931

***A Centenary in Ancoats, St Andrew’s School, Manchester Guardian, June 13 1936