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