Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ...... nu 66 Back Canal Street and Mr Thomas Griffiths

Now there are no photographs of Mr Griffiths and there is nothing surprising about that.

Home of Mr Griffiths marked in red on Little Canal Street, 1849

He was born in 1806 worked as a labourer and lived in Back Canal Street, which was a row of one up one down back to back houses facing on to the Rochdale Canal.

So unremarkable or perhaps so dire were the houses that they were swept away sometime in the 1860s to make way for a warehouse.

That said the warehouse still exists and is on Chorlton Street as is Little David Street which ran parallel to Back Canal Street.

History has been no kinder to Little David Street which is now gated off but given that it was the same width as its neighbour it will offer up an idea of what Little Canal Street was like.

Sadly so far the historical record has revealed little more about Mr Griffiths who was living at number 17 Back Canal Street with his five children who ranged in age from fifteen down too four.*

He was a widow and while I can’t yet find a reference to his marriage or the death of his wife, I am guessing that he may have been married sometime around 1826 and she might have died in childbirth giving us a date of 1837.

It’s all very vague and making a second guess of basing her name on that of either of her two daughters has proved a dead end.

Still I know that in 1841 when the Griffiths family were in Back Canal Street they were paying 9d in rent and that they were still there in 1842.  Now trying to make anything of wage rates and the cost of living is fraught with difficulties. But a labourer might be on a £1, a textile worker on a little more and rural workers on a lot less.**

Little Back Canal Street occupied half the same of the warehouse

But after that we lose them and the hunt is made more difficult by the large number of men with the name Thomas Griffiths.

That said there is a Thomas Griffiths who was living nearby in Silver Street in 1839 and another in Major Street a year later and both of these are very close to Back Canal Street.

Added to which the rents are pretty much the same so I think it would be sensible to say this is our man.

So far I can’t find him after 1842 but the census of 1851 reveals a Richard Griffiths who might have been his son.  He was the right age, used the same names for his children as Thomas's dad done and shared the family house with two of his siblings.***

Both siblings carried the same names as children at 17 Little Canal Street and were born at the same time as Thoma's children.

It might all be a little too far fetched but if historical research has taught me anything it is that such clues usually lead to the right conclusion.

Well we shall see.

Location; Manchester

*Census, Enu 10 8, London Road, Manchester 1841

**The History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012

**Census Enu 1k, 46, Ancoats, Manchester 1851

Pictures; the site of Little Canal and Little David Streets, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and streets in 1849, from the OS map of Manchester & Salford 1844-49 courtesy of Digital Archives Association,  http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

A lost Eltham Palace ........... nu 3 Eltham Palace from the north west

Now I have decided to run a few pictures of what Eltham Palace looked like in the 18th and 19th centuries.

It had long been abandoned as a home for royalty and its grand days were thing of the past.

The occasional tourist up from London called in along with an interested artist keen to capture its former splendour but that was about it.

All very different from now, and a prelude to more stories of the building and its history.*

But in the meantime here then over the next few days are the Palace as you might have seen it during the early 19th century, all taken from that wonderful book on the history of Eltham published in 1909.**

Picture; Eltham Palace from the north west from an old engraving, from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

*The Story of Eltham Palace, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-story-of-eltham-palace.html

** The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

Lamenting the loss of the fountain on Chorlton green

Odd how most of us think of Chorlton green as an open space of grass ringed by trees because this was not how it has always been.

Before the turn of the 19th century it may have been much bigger and indeed for most of that century was not even open to the people of the village, having been enclosed by Samuel Wilton and not returning to public use until the 1890s.

And then for a great stretch of time remained without grass but did have a pretty neat water fountain.

The picture dates from 1906 when the Horse and Jockey was still just a set of beer rooms on either side of the main door, Miss Wilton’s outhouse still jutted out from the building and the space between the main entrance and the sweet shop was still a private residence.

I have always liked the lamp which stands on the green, with its hint of Narnia.

And back in the May of 1986 I can remember walking past it in the early evening and coming across a string quartet playing around its base.  Today people would just take it in their stride mutter something about it being typically Chorlton, but back then it struck me as the promise of things to come.

Which later that night with the defeat of the Conservative candidate and the election of the first Labour Councilor it  indeed seem to herald something new.

But being a historian I have to own up to the fact that the following year the Conservatives were back but they were on borrowed time, and 1987 marked the final year that a Conservative would be elected from Chorlton to the Town Hall.

The year before may have been the first string quartet on the green but it has not been the last.

I have to say I prefer the grass but lament the loss of the fountain.  First it lost its cups and then vanished sometime in the 1920s or 30s.  To my mind that was a loss.  Public fountains are wonderful places to meet people, spend time chatting and just having a drink on a hot day.

Once it would have the village pump which offered all three and which on hot summer days had the added bonus of a place the kids could play.

Now there is a lot more history to explore in the photograph but I rather think I will leave that for another time.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection, curca 1900

A Homage to Central Library …. another story from Tony Goulding

This is a snapshot, taken by my friend Joyce’s father, of Manchester’s iconic Grade II listed Central Library, while it was under construction during the early 1930s. 

Central Library, under construction early 1930s 

Its foundation stone was laid by the Prime Minister of the day, James Ramsay MacDonald on 6th May 1930, and following construction work of more than four years the completed building was opened on 17th July 1934 by King George V in a dual ceremony after he had also just laid the foundation stone for the adjacent town hall extension. (1)

Central Library is well named and was much needed as it was large enough and purposefully designed to locate both a lending library and various reference libraries in one place. 

Manchester’s library service expanded rapidly following the opening of the first public library in Campfield (an area off Deansgate at the London Road end) in 1852. 

It was officially opened on Thursday 2nd September 1852 accompanied by a great fanfare with many luminaries in attendance both literary and political. (2) 

This original building was Manchester’s main library until in 1877 it was deemed “unfit for purpose” and condemned. The following year (Friday 12th July 1878) the building collapsed burying and seriously injuring three men who were working in it at the time. 

Old Deansgate lending library

The city’s growing collection of reference works was removed to the recently vacated Town Hall on King Street; however, objections were raised towards housing a lending library in this building. 

Eventually a new city centre lending library was established on the upper floors of the new city council’s market building on Deansgate close to the site of the original library in Campfield. (3)

This “temporary” arrangement was maintained until 1912 when the value of the prime location of the King Street site became too lucrative for the council to resist.  The library was moved, again “temporarily”, to Piccadilly, occupying parts of the Manchester Royal Infirmary which had itself been relocated to its present position on Oxford Road.

It was acknowledged that housing the libraries in disparate locations and in such a piecemeal fashion was far from ideal. It was also true that although a pioneer in the provision of public libraries, Manchester had been slow to erect a dedicated edifice to both serve as the city’s main lending library and house its growing catalogue of significant reference works and its collection of  valuable first editions of books by celebrated authors especially those, like Elizabeth Gaskell, who had worked in the city.

Detail of my grandfather’s bookmark showing the main reading room

There were also more than 30 “books” from the 15th century when printing was just being developed which due to their age and fragility needed a closely controlled environment.

Central Library has provided a backdrop to my own life for over half a century now. It was where I crammed for my “A” levels (I can still vividly recall memorising the sites and uses of hydro-electric power in France for my Geography exam). 

It was not, however, just for schoolwork which I used the library for in my teenage years, for as a budding thespian, I often visited the play collection housed in a gallery on the 4th floor. Copies of plays could be borrowed enough for each cast member. 

After play-reading a few one-act plays the youth club I was undecided on one to perform in the Manchester Youth Drama Festival, 1972

It was “The Man Who Thought for Himself" by Neil Grant in which I played a rather stiff policeman; sadly, this did not propel me to West End or Hollywood fame! I did, however, once spend an enjoyable evening in the Library Theatre in the Central Library’s basement watching a Peter Nichols play: “Blue Murder”. 

Youth Drama Festiva,, 1972

Much later I spent many hours in pre-internet days exploring all the library’s various sections researching for a fiendishly difficult monthly postal quiz.

 Following the release of the 1901 census online I then used the Library’s free access to the internet to further explore my family history leading almost inexorably on to my present pursuit of local history. 

In closing I would just like to add a footnote to the story, referencing my family connection to Manchester’s Central Library. 

My grandfather, a professional photographer, produced these bookmarks depicting a scenic view of the library from St. Peter’s Square and images of the inside of the new building.

The programme for the night of our performance.

Pictures: - Cervantes Insitute by Clem Rutter, Rochester, Kent. - I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10127902.

Others from the collection of Tony Goulding. (Library under construction by courtesy of Joyce Lindley)

 Notes: -

1) The following day the king, continuing his visit to the North-West officially opened the 2.01-mile Queensway Tunnel in Liverpool; the first road tunnel under the river Mersey connecting Liverpool with Birkenhead.

2) This opening was a very significant event, in that Manchester became the first city in the United Kingdom to take the opportunity provided by the recently passed Public Libraries Act 1850 and establish a free library funded by the local rates. Hence nearly 1,000 people including many dignitaries were in attendance to witness the momentous occasion. The literary figures present included Charles Dickens, and William Makepeace Thackeray, while the politicians were headed by the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, the 2nd Earl of Wilton (of the Egerton family) and John Bright, the Radical M.P. for Manchester. Sir Edward Bulwer-Lyton could be said to have had a foot in both camps.

 3) This building which is now home to the Manchester office of The Instituto Cervantes the Spanish language school and cultural hub, was designed by two architects with Chorlton-cum-Hardy connections: George Meek and John Allison. John Allison was the City Surveyor who lived in “Rosslyn” on Wilbraham Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy where he died on Tuesday, 13th February 1894 and was buried in Manchester’s Southern Cemetery.

George Meek was Mr. Allisons assistant, the head engineer in the City Surveyor’s office he lived for a time at 19, Whitelow Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy

 

Revealing more on the story of Private Jordan .............. from Cheltenham to Cairo

This is one of those sad postscripts, but one that holds the promise of discovering more about a soldier of the Great War.

Cairo War Memorial Cemetery

Yesterday I wrote about Private H F Jordan who spent time recovering from his wounds in the St John’s Red Cross Hospital in Cheltenham.*

During his time there he left a message in the autograph book which had been started by Ms Rachel Wattis.

But apart from a record of the medals he was awarded and an entry in the UK Army Register of Soldier’s Effects I could find nothing more about him.

Today I heard from David Harrop who owns the autograph book.  He had also gone looking for Private Jordan and found his grave in Cairo where he was buried in February 1919.

“This cemetery is within the Old Cairo cemetery area, which is situated approximately 5 kilometres south east of the centre of Cairo. 

The cemetery area is on the south side of the road Salah Salem, which runs west/east from the River Nile towards the green park area approximately 2 kilometres beyond and eventually towards the Citadel.”**

And Private Jordan rests close to the Records Office.

The message from Private Jordan, December 1916

We still have no idea how he died but we now have his full name and his date of birth and armed with these it should be possible to find out a little bit more about Frederick Thomas Harry Jordan who died aged 26 in Egypt four months after the end of the Great War.

And in doing so take the story of that message in the autograph book just a little further forward.

Picture; Cairo War Memorial Cemetery, courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commissions, http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/11000/CAIRO%20WAR%20MEMORIAL%20CEMETERY and Private Jordan's message from Blighty, the autograph book of St John's Red Cross Hospital, Cheltenham from the collection of David Harrop

Image from the autograph book, © David Harrop


*Blighty ............. a unique record from the Great War part 2 looking for Private H F Jordan, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/blighty-unique-record-from-great-war.html

**CAIRO WAR MEMORIAL CEMETERY, Commonwealth War Graves Commissions, http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/11000/CAIRO%20WAR%20MEMORIAL%20CEMETERY

The confusing story of New Wakefield Street

It was the railway wot did for New Wakefield Street.

New Wakefield Street, 2002

It’s that twisty thoroughfare that runs from Oxford Road alongside the railway viaduct and ends at Great Marlborough Street.

It might have been something more than it is, but that viaduct determined that only the south side would be developed, and the development would be a collection of mucky businesses.  

So, in 1911 these included a printers, a shirt maker, as well as an engineering works, a rubber tyre maker, a packing case firm and an art metal workshop alongside a company specializing in refining oil and a drysalters’ store.

All of which meant that it was a place you went for work, or to deliver or collect stuff, or as a cut through to Great Marlborough Street. 

But I don’t want to give the impression that it was ever destined for great things because even before the viaduct arrived the area was a collection of mean houses and smelly, noisy factories some of which occupied the appalling slum known as Little Ireland, which Dr. Kay and Frederick Engels described in detail.

And the maps can’t quite agree on our dismal thoroughfare.

Wakefield Street and Railway Street, 1851

The 1841 OS map shows it as a continuous street running west to east, crossing Great Marlborough Street before ending in what was then Oxford Street.  

The western half up to Great Marlborough Street was dominated on the south side by 17 terraced houses of which 15 were back-to-back properties, facing a Whipstring Manufacturer, beyond which there were what might have been more houses on the northern side.

It was these “northern” properties which the viaduct did for, cutting a swathe from London Road Railway Station out across Chorlton-on-Medlock and on towards Cornbrook and open country. 

And oddly it would appear this stretch is not recorded on the OS Map for 1849 which shows an engineering works straddling what should have been the bit of Wakefield Street which joined Oxford Street.

New Wakefield Street, 2017, looking west

All of which becomes even more confusing just two years later when Adshead’s map of Manchester shows the road reinstated but going under the name of Railway Street, a name it has lost by 1863 when it shows up in the directories as New Wakefield Street.

In the fullness of time, I will set about trawling the Rate Books in a laborious search for just when the name changes occurred.

Leaving me just to reflect that the workshop in my picture and the open space that was opposite have undergone their own changes, but that is another story or perhaps for a walk.

Location; Manchester

Picture; New Wakefield Street, 2002, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, in 1851, from Adshead map of Manchester 1851, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and in 2017 courtesy of Andy Robertson

A wall and a sign …..

Sometimes that intriguing picture fails to deliver.

The wall, 2023

Now in the case of this wall there will be a story. 

It fronts a house which dates from sometime between 1934 and 1955 and occupies the garden of what was Rye Bank House, which may date back to the early 1860s and is one of those old Chorlton properties which pops up regularly on the blog.

The inn fill brick looks older and more weathered than the rest and it stretches down the side of the house acting as a boundary wall.

It may be all that now exists of Rye Bank House and I wonder if the builder decided to incorporate it when the new house was built.

The sign, 2023

I could of course knock on and ask the present resident, which I think I will do.

Leaving me with just the big road sign almost beside the bus stop on Edge Lane.

It is big and clearly is designed to make sure you know what is ahead.

Location; Edge Lane

Pictures; A wall and a sign, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

 *Rye Bank House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Rye%20Bank

A lost Eltham Palace nu 2 .............. The Banqueting Hall in 1782

Now I have decided to run a few pictures of what Eltham Palace looked like in the 18th and 19th centuries.

It had long been abandoned as a home for royalty and its grand days were thing of the past.

The occasional tourist up from London called in along with an interested artist keen to capture its former splendour but that was about it.

All very different from now, and a prelude to more stories of the building and its history.*

But in the meantime here then over the next few days are the Palace as you might have seen it during the early 19th century, all taken from that wonderful book on the history of Eltham published in 1909.**

Picture; the Banqueting Hall West end, from an engraving in Archeologica 1772, , from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

*The Story of Eltham Palace, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-story-of-eltham-palace.html
** The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

Claude Road and a clue to the vanished Beech House

The date on this postcard of Claude Road is 1915 but the scene must be earlier.

On the surface it seems an unremarkable image.

It would look to be a morning perhaps in the holidays and the peace is disturbed only by the children playing close to Beech Road and the appearance of the delivery man who has attracted the woman on the right who I guess has come out of her house to catch him.

It is not unlike the same scene today with of course the absence of parked cars and passing traffic. But what does make it remarkable and dates the photograph to sometime in the first decade of the 20th century is the wall and gateway at the bottom of Claude Road where it joins Beech Road.

They are part of Beech House which had stood in its own extensive grounds since at least the 1830s.

Three generations of the Holt family had lived there but the last had died in 1906, and by 1908 the house was empty and the estate was awaiting sale. By sheer chance a postcard showing the lodge has survived. 

The message records a pleasant afternoon spent in the grounds and the speculation that it was soon to disappear. “Edith and I had tea on the lawn of the big house which you see the lodge in the picture. It will soon be sold and then will probably be divided into small plots.”

By the following year part of the garden which ran the length of Barlow Moor Road as far as High Lane had been bought by Manchester Corporation who felled the trees demolished the wall and built the tram terminus on the land. 

The remaining land was developed with the cinema and a row of shops and the garage of Mr Shaw.

But we can be even more precise about the date of our photograph. Claude Road and its neighbouring Reynard had been built by 1907 and the estate wall demolished in 1909.

So that little detail of wall anchors our photograph and provides a view of Beech Road that has gone forever.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester

Picture, from the Lloyd collection circa 1907-09

The story of things …… silly history

It remains a sad fact of my life that at 74 with fewer years ahead of me than behind, I remain challenged by so many bits of technology that most people take in their stride.

Take for instance changing the time on the oven clock to accommodate the clocks going forward or backwards every half year.

It matters not that I have the manual and can call up helpful advice from You Tube and countless experts. 

The oven clock refuses to perform the way it should.

I follow the instructions …..  it refuses to accommodate me …..  I turn the thing off, repeat the process every so often over a few days, and then without warning it does what everyone tells me is so easy.

This always catches me out and despite having carefully got the correct time on each previous attempt this time I am always out by 5 minutes.  

Do I start the process again to get the right time?

Do I heck. It is enough that after fourteen attempts across Sunday through to Monday I have a time almost resembling the ones on my phone and on the clock on the wall.

By chance it is 5 minutes ahead, and that is good enough for me, as I reason thinking it is later than it is will mean none of us is late to an appointment.

All of which dodges that more profound problem that I have never grappled with the mechanics of Daylight Saving Time.  I understand the logic and the history of the idea but despite being patiently told what happens I can not visualise the process.  So I don’t put the clocks forward or backward, instead I wake up on the Sunday, and wait for the wireless announcer to tell me which hourly news broadcast I am listening to.

Of course today my smart phone and the computers have already understood what to do and adjusted their clocks accordingly, which reinforces my position on the ladder of creation as somewhere between an amoeba and a gerbil.

Location; sometime at the beginning of the 20th century

Pictures; Stubborn oven clock, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Medal Corner …. another story from Tony Goulding

The above selection of medals and badges is a portion of a larger collection which was part of a recent donation to the Oxfam Shop on Wilbraham Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy. 

They are quite an eclectic assortment and thinking that they may produce a story or two I decided to investigate them. 

To limit the length of this story I have looked first only at the two items from Ashton-under-Lyne.

The first to pique my interest was this medal commemorating the 1911 coronation of George V and Queen Mary which was presented by the then mayor of Ashton-under-Lyne, Charles Henry Waterhouse. 

Charles Henry Waterhouse was mayor of Ashton-under-Lyne; chosen initially in 1910 and serving for the next two years after which he also acted for a time as the deputy mayor. 

One remarkable feature of his first year in office was that, as he was a bachelor, his octogenarian mother, then aged 85, served as his Lady Mayoress. 

His second year in office commenced with his marrying Miss Alice Bennett, of Dane House, Audenshaw, the daughter of the reservoir keeper. 

The marriage was a very lavish affair the town being liberally decorated for some 900 guests from all around Lancashire who attended the service in St. Stephen’s Church, Audenshaw and the reception in Ashton-under-Lyne's town hall. 

The directors of The Great Central Railway even arranged for a special train to transport the happy couple with great fanfare to their honeymoon destination in the South of England.

 Charles Henry was born in his father’s shop on Stamford Street, Ashton-under-Lyne during the September quarter of 1856. 

His parents were Jabez Waterhouse and Esther Elizabeth (née Ousey) the daughter of John Ousey registrar of the district. 

Charles Henry was eldest surviving child the family, his prior born brother, Henry, having died in infancy. A younger sister, Jane Andrew, was born in the September quarter of 1859 and survived, marrying a Sheffield solicitor, William Holland Stacey, on Thursday 1st September 1887. 

Jabez, a wholesale chemist and druggist, was a new Connexion Methodist and well-known as a lecturer on behalf of the temperance movement. 

A longtime supporter of the Mechanics Institute, of which he was appointed president in 1879, he was also the treasurer of the committee formed to establish a public park in Ashton-under-Lyne; an endeavour which came to fruition when Stamford Park was opened in the town in July 1873

Charles Henry took control of the family business when his father died on Tuesday 24th June 1890 and continued in his illustrious parent’s footpath in public life also being elected to the local council and appointed an Alderman on Wednesday 9th December 1896. He also held the position of Magistrate for both Ashton-under-Lyne and the County of Lancashire.

Front cover of 1904 F.A. Cup Final programme.

Before his tenure as Mayor, Charles Henry was briefly a director of Manchester City Football Club for three years between 1901 and 1904. These were turbulent times for the club then based at Hyde Road, Manchester. 

Manchester City F.A. Cup winning team 1904
Alderman C.H. Waterhouse is second from the left on the back row

After winning The F.A. Cup in 1904, and thus, bringing to Manchester its first national football trophy, the club was soon to become embroiled in scandal involving it (and other clubs) making illegal payments to players. 

The outcome was that the club were suspended from playing any home fixtures for a month and a few of board members, including Alderman Whitehouse, the deputy chairman, were also similarly sanctioned, their suspension to run from 4th November 1904 until 1st May 1907.

Although Alderman Waterhouse never returned to the board, he still maintained strong links with the club. 

Following “City’s” successful 1909-10 season when they won promotion to Division 1 as champions of the second division, whilst he was the mayor of Ashton- under-Lyne, he hosted the dinner in The Princes Café on Monday 7th November 1910 at which the players were presented with their championship medals. (1) 

Later, on 12th October 1912, The Manchester Evening Chronicle in its account of the club’s home game at Hyde Road versus Newcastle United which was being held as joint benefit match for two Manchester City players, Bill Eadie and Tommy Kelso, it reported that a congratulatory telegram had been received from Alderman Waterhouse including a £5 (equivalent to almost £500 today) donation “richly deserved” to the two players benefit fund.

The Waterhouse family home from at least prior to the wedding of Jane Andrew Waterhouse on September 1st ,1887, was “Westfield”, Manchester Road, Ashton-Under-Lyne.  

Charles Henry died there on August 12th, 1924, (2) as had his father, Jabez, on June 24th, 1890, and his mother Esther Elizabeth on December 8th, 1912. 

On his death the late mayor Alderman Waterhouse left an estate valued at probate for £13,336 equivalent to £665,793-76p today.

The medal, an example of which was donated in 1911 to the Fitzwilliam Museum of Cambridge University by The Corporation of Ashton-under-Lyne, was made by Vaughtons of Birmingham, a specialist manufacturer of all types of badges and medals; they have even made the medals presented at F.A. Cup Finals.

This is a second medal of the collection associated with Ashton-under-Lyne. 

It doesn’t carry a date, but it must be from before the formation of The National Health Service in 1948 when The Ashton and District Infirmary was renamed the Ashton-under-Lyne General Hospital. 

According to Wikipedia, the infirmary was founded in 1861 by Samuel Oldham for “the relief and cure of the sick and indigent persons, resident, employed, or having been employed within 31/2 miles of Ashton Town Hall”

The Ashton and District Infirmary

Also, although X-rays were discovered by Wilhelm Rontgen in 1896 and their medical use was developed, at some cost to the long-term health of the pioneers, over the next decade it was not until World War 1 did the use in hospitals become more widespread. The horrendous casualties of that conflict did at least provide an impetus for a number of medical advances. Thus, there is a window of 35 years for the origin of this badge.

Wilhelm Rontgen

The first record of “X-rays” in the Ashton Infirmary I could find was in The Cotton Factory Times dated 11th November 1910 which reported on a visit by 60 workers from Messrs. Hegginbottom’s Junction Mills the previous Saturday (5th). The visitors expressed surprise on seeing the X-ray equipment. Later two articles from The Stalybridge Reporter dated 3oth May 1914 and 15th January 1915 reported on the plans for and “the public demonstration of the new installation at Ashton Infirmary X-ray Department” respectively. 

Notes:-

1) As reported in The Stalybridge Reporter of 12th November 1910.

2) The obituary the following day in the “Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer” revealed that Alderman Waterhouse had just a month prior been given the freedom of the borough. He was also said to have been a keen trout angler and had on occasion accompanied Scottish/American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in that pursuit. The Athletic News obituary of 18th August 1924 also records that as well as his association with Manchester City F.C. he had also been the President of the Manchester Amateur Football League and the Captain of Ashton Cricket Club and the teams of both Owens College and Manchester Grammar School.

3) A further extension to the infirmary's X-ray department was opened in September 1937. It was to be opened officially on 4th September by the philanthropist Sir Robert MacDougall as indicated by a report in The Manchester Evening News of Thursday 19th August 1937.

Pictures; All badges and medals from the collection of Tony Goulding. Cover of programme of 1904 F. A. Cup Final by Unknown author - Here, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91780811. 

Manchester City 1904 F. A. Cup winning team GB 127 m 06980 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information, and Archives, Manchester City Council - http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass 

Ashton and District Infirmary building by Gerald England, CC BY-SA 2.0,

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14265492

Wilhelm Rontgen by Nobel foundation - http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1901/rontgen-bio.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=122010

Continuing the search for Miss Robertson of Cheltenham ........ born in India, who tended the wounded in the Great War

Now I know I will find out more about Miss Kathleen Roberts, but I fear it won’t be yet.

And that is a shame because I have now seen the medals she was awarded by the Red Cross for her work during the Great War.

The little I do know is intriguing enough.  She was born in Coonar in Maddras which was one of the hill stations favoured by the British during the hot season in India, her maternal grandmother came from Tasmania and was the widow of an Indian army officer who brought her children up in Cheltenham.

So I wasn’t surprised that this was where I found Miss Robertson in the April of 1911 and it made sense that she should be working in a Red Cross hospital in the town.

But that pretty much is it.

There were promising leads.  I found a Kathleen Robertson on the shipping lists for India both going out and coming back in 1934 but on closer inspection this was not her.

I found three of her aunts and an uncle and am still looking for more on her grandmother, Agnes Baker but  the trail stops at 1872.

In that year  Mrs Baker was in India.  This I know because three of her children were born there between 1872 and 1877, while her final child was born in Cheltenham in 1879.

What of course is revealing is the light it shines on those families who served the Empire.  Mrs Baker had been born in Tasmania but lived part of her married life in India briefly coming back in 1873 when she gave birth to her fourth child.

Some of the records for both her and her granddaughter will be in India and so may prove more difficult to access and I have yet to find any references to Miss Robertson’s parents but in time they will tumble out of the shadows.

The real search however is for young Miss Robertson, after all now that I have seen her medals I must go on.

Pictures; the Red Cross medals of Miss Kathleen Robertson, courtesy of David Harrop 

*Red Cross Nurses, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Red%20Cross%20Nurses

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester .......... nu 94 Cotswold Street ...

It is easy to miss Cotswold Street, which is off Fairfield Street, runs under the old Altrincham and South Junction Railway and goes nowhere.

Cotswold Street, 2021

You can’t even use it to park up while waiting to meet someone off the train, anymore since it was closed off sometime around 2009.

Nor and this is the real irritant it does not show up on any street directories back into the 19th century, because long before it started its journey into obscurity its name was changed, not once but twice.

In 1894 it is listed on the OS map as Croft Street and a half century before that as Holbrook Street, neither of which place name was deemed worthy to be included  in any of the street directories.

Holbrook Street, 1849

The maps of the 1840s and 50s show Holbrook Street as a narrow road in which there 4 commercial businesses and eighteen residential properties, eight of which were back to backs, and some leading off into closed courts.

In time I will going looking for the inhabitants of those eighteen houses and might struck lucky in tracking down the people who lived in the closed courts on either side of Holbrook Street.

Cotswold Street, 2021

I suspect we will be looking at men, women and children who were drawn from a mix of skilled, and unskilled occupations, and were employed at the London Road Railway Station and the textile, dye and printing works which dominated the area.

And the key will be a name of a resident, because with that we can follow them up on the Rate Books, and census returns.

But for now, that is it.  

By 1950 what had been  Holbrook Street and was now Croft Street contained just eight buildings, seven of which backed on to an Engineering Works, while the opposite side contained just one property.

Today this short street is flanked with open spaces, but nature and the developer abhor a vacuum, and I guess with the steady development of Mayfield, there will soon be smart apartments and commercial businesses occupying this once densely packed place.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Holbrook Street, 1849, from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1844-49, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ Cotswold Street, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Blighty ............. a unique record from the Great War part 6 of doctors and nurses and airman

Some of the doctors and nurses at St John's circa 1917

Now sometime in 1917 one of the patients of the St John’s Hospital in Cheltenham put together an imaginary “meeting” of some of the doctors and nurses.

It was a bit of fun but it has handed us a clue to a few of the Red Cross staff who tended to the wounded and it reminded me of that simple lesson that you should always do your research thoroughly for had I done so I would not have made that most basic of mistakes and written something about the hospital which was wrong.

F Wilson, 10th Argyle and Sutherlands

I had assumed that we knew only two of the nurses and they have proved elusive to track down but not so for here now are the names of sixteen doctors and nurses who in the fullness of time will offer up something of their lives.

And that will put into context the book which includes their names and those of some of the men who stayed at St John’s.

It was an autograph book started by Miss Rachel Wattis who hoped that it would be a permanent reminder of the men who passed through the hospital and would still be seen

“When the leaves of this Book are yellow with age,
And the fingers are still that have wrote on this page,”

And just under a century later I am privileged to be able to turn those pages and read the poems and inscriptions along with some fine drawings and water colours.

Sgt J H DeGraves, 1917

Here is a tiny but moving piece of history recording the thoughts of men from every part of Britain and from further away for one of the entries is from a young soldier of the “47 Canadian Infantry Wounded Vimy Ridge January 1 1917.”

And he turned out to be the first whose story came to light after the article was posted on a Canadian site dedicated to British Home Children.

Having read the account of his stay in Cheltenham Susan Brazeau in Alberta went looking for his service records and we now know he enlisted in Vancouver in the July of 1915, and was 31 when he was wounded.

I have every confidence more of the lives of those named in the book will come forward.

Already with the help of one of the archivists at Cheltenham Local & Family History Library it has been possible track Miss Rachel Wattis by following the name of her brother whose name appears below her inscription.

 “The inscription at the bottom of the image says “1st (A?) Wattis , Late 15th Squadron, RFC”…

Rachael Wattis and Harry Wattis, 1916

I’ve looked him up and he was H Wattis 2nd class (or possibly 1st class) Air Mechanic in the Royal Flying Corps, number 3264. 

He saw action in France and was mobilised around 20/12/2015 earning the 15 Star but no later medals. I would assume he may have been injured early in the war as a lot of 15 Squadron were injured flying reconnaissance missions. 

Having looked on the Imperial War Museum site ‘lives of the first world war’ I note there is a Harry Hampton Wattis with the same regimental number who was in the RFC (he’s actually on there twice, also shown as H Wattis). 

The full inscription of Ms R Wattis, 1916

Having looked on the 1911 census I have found him living at 57 Fulham Road Sparkhill B'ham with his mother and sister (both called Rachel) so I think this is likely to be the family in question. 

Worth  a bit more delving maybe…”**

Now that just makes the history jump off the page and of course points to the importance of sharing and working together.

So with that said and a bit more of the lives of the some of St John’s Hospital revealed I will go off and ponder what next.

Pictures; entries from Blighty, the autograph book of St John’s Red Cross Hospital, Cheltenham, courtesy of David Harrop 

Entry from Blighty, © David Harrop

* Cheltenham Local & Family History Library, http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/archives/article/109250/Cheltenham-Local-and-Family-History-Centre

** Rebecca Sillence, Library Customer Assistant, Cheltenham Local & Family History Library

Back with the Block on Hardy Lane in the winter of 1912

Just occasionally I like to revisit a past story, more especially when there is a new photograph in the collection.

And so here is another image of the farm cottages on Hardy Lane which survived into the 1950s.

The date is 1912 and from the look of the trees it must be late winter, and we are looking up the lane towards Barlow Moor Road.

They were nicknamed the Block and appear in different photographs and post cards. They consisted of  eight and sometimes nine dwellings.

Annie Gresty was born in 1871 and grew up at number 2.

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century they stood as a lonely outpost of the community on the edge of the flood plain which led down to the Mersey.

Looking out of an upstairs window Annie would have seen a landscape dominated by meadow land, gardens and orchards. She may have played in Barlow Wood to the south east of the cottages and surely would have walked across the fields to the river.

Beyond her home there was only Hardy Farm before the river with Barlow Hall and Barlow Hall Farm some distance away.

The cricket ground and golf course which had been laid out behind the cottages were a recent development.

Before 1900 the Gresty’s and their neighbours would have had an unobstructed view from their cottages across to Barlow Woods.

But there is no getting away from the truth that here the residents of the Block were out of the way.  Apart from the farms they were very much on their own, and the walk up to Barlow Moor Road would then involve a hike to Beech Road and the village or further north to Martledge.

And in the summer this stretch of the lane took on a magical feel as the tall hedges and trees hid you off from the fields on either side.

And there will be some who mutter more romantic tosh, because by 1912 there was a cemetery on Barlow Moor Lane and with in a few years a regular tram service.

Still I like the remote and lonely idea.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

Your chance to make history ……..

It is just one of those things that we have few pictures of the Rec during the middle and late 20th century.

Football in the Rec, 1980

Go back to the 1900s and there are heaps of images taken by professional photographers which made their way into the catalogues of picture postcard companies.

But by the 1940s there are fewer of these postcards in existence, and after that the Rec is less well recorded.

So, I have an aerial photograph sometime in the 1930s, another taken during the last world war of a barrage balloon, and a third showing the recreational ground minus its railings.

After that there are two from Tony Walker of the Peace Festival in 1984, and my own collection which starts in 1979 and runs through to now.

But in total we may only be talking of 40 or so, and that is a shame.

Woman, baby, see-saw, 1910

In a conversation with Declan of the Friends of Beech Road today we concluded that there must be shedloads of “snaps” taken over the decades which sit locked away in photo albums, or carefully filed away at the back of a wardrobe.

And that brings me to the appeal.  I would love to see any pictures of the Rec.  

They can be family ones, ones which are a tad blurred or dog eared ….. the quality is less important than what they record.

There will be some who mutter “so what”, but that is to rubbish the importance of the Rec as a place to play football, meet friends, or just sit and watch. 

A place that has been doing that since 1896.

Music in the Rec, 2006

As someone who has lived opposite it for 47 years and stood on the doorstep calling in our sons at the end of the day from their football games, long after the sun has gone down, it is a special place, and will be for plenty of others.

Playing the Rec, 2020

You can leave a message in the comments box of the blog or directly through the Facebook and Twitter posts.

Vanished shelter, 1980

Location; The Rec

Making the pose, 1980

Pictures, football on the Rec, circa 1980, the long-vanished shelter, 1980, park apparatus, Beech Road Festival, 2006, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, woman, children and see saws, 1910 from the Lloyd Collection