Looking for the lost parents ............. and the work of a children's charity

Now as an idea the project to search out the parents of children admitted to a children’s charity in 1870 seemed a good one.

Poverty caused by the Cotton famine, 1862

After all if you want to get a better understanding why young people went into care looking at their parents seemed to have merit.

These parents would have been born in the 1840’s and 50’s when Manchester was still a city being transformed into what one historian has called the “shock city of the Industrial Revolution.”

So it followed that just possibly by tracking the lives of the parents we might get an insight into how those changes affected them and what if any was the impact on how they brought up their children.

The impact of the Cotton famine, in 1862

It was of course always a project on the edge and on reflection I should have been prepared for the fact that there would be many dead ends.

But the first few case studies proved encouraging.

In one case I was able to track one set of parents back to Ireland in the 1820s, follow them to Liverpool and then onto Manchester.

In another case the search led to number 8 Back Richard Street which was a closed court and entered through a narrow passage from Richard Street which was off Cupid's Alley.

Back Richard Street just east of Richard Street, 1849

Here in 1861 the family of four shared the house with the Lindsay family which consisted of Mr and Mrs Lindsay and their four children and another four boarders, making in total fourteen people in the one house.

Next door was almost as equally crowded with ten people, while the surrounding properties ranged from four down to one occupant.

I can’t yet ascertain the size of number 8 which may have been larger than its neighbours but this was still overcrowding.

And the area was densely packed with over 100 properties and 11 courts in a small area bounded by Cupid’s Alley to the north and part of Little Quay Street to the south.

Added to which on the opposite side of Cupid’s Alley stood a Soda Works, Hat factory and Silk Finishing Works.

Not I think an environment which offered much hope for its inhabitants, and in the case of our family at number 8 things were only going to get worse.

In 1870 when our boy was admitted to the charity his mother had deserted the family leaving her disabled husband to look after the two children.

McConnel and Co Mill, 1820

By which time they were living in Wrighton Street which it would appear was so mean that it didn’t warrant an inclusion on the street directory.

But the trail which I hoped would take me back in time to learn more about the mother and father went nowhere.

And not for the first time I had that feeling that the poor do not willingly share their secrets.

Of course the reality is that it is seldom a deliberate decision and more that history has stubbornly ignored not only their secrets put pretty much everything else about them.

Some never made it on to the census records and for those living as sub tenants or boarders they would never be included in the rate books.  Some never married and others may not even have been registered at birth, making the search very difficult.

At home during the Cotton Famine, 1862

A search for the parents of the first twenty to be admitted to the charity in 1870 was pretty much a failure, and where there was an evidence trail it petered out in most cases somewhere between 1861 and the 1850s.

That said there were a few which proved fruitful and at least two boys who we can track into the early years of the twentieth century.

And with patience and by widening the number of boys I look at I think we will get somewhere, and that will help the book which is the story of that charity which began in 1870, was known as the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuge and is now the together Trust.

The book covers the full 150 years of its existence and was published in 2020

Location; Manchester

Pictures; suffering amongst cotton workers in 1862, from the Illustrated London News, m10038, McConnel-And-Co's-Mill, 1820, Ancoats, m52533, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
  and Back Richard Street, Richard Street, 1849, from the Manchester & Salford OS, 1849, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*A new book on the Together Trust, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20Together%20Trust

A Chorlton secret ……. the demolished cinema …….. and Mr. Shaw’s superior garage

 Unless you were in the know I doubt you would ever have realized that behind the shops on Barlow Moor Road between the former Co-op and Coriander there is a large building which specialises in MOT’s and car repairs.

A garage revealed, 2024

But then you would either have to be a customer or wandered down the alley from the main road and found the place.

Shaw's Motor Garage, 1959

Today it is clearly visible from Barlow Moor Road but for a century and more the garage was obscured by that Co-op store, which was once our first purpose, built cinema which opened as The Palais de Luxe de Luxe in 1914.

That relic of the picture age, and the store which once traded as a Tesco, Hanbury’s and Co-op was recently demolished and the open space reveals the line of the garage.

Back in the second decade of the last century it was Shaw’s Motor Garage which had  the first kerb side petrol pump in Chorlton.

The garage was still there in 1959 when Mr. A H Downs took a picture of the building which pretty much matches an earlier one from 1912 which shows Mr. Shaw and a large crowd admiring the petrol pump for the photographer.

Mr. Shaw and his garage, 1912

And not to be out done some time in the 1980s I clocked the same spot when part of the original signage was briefly on show.

The ghost sign, 1984

Mr. Shaw was one of those enterprising men who seized the “motor car moment” at the start of the 20tth century and may even have rented out space to the company which built the Chorlton cars.

All of which I have written about.*

At some point the open space of the former Palais de Luxe de Luxe will be filled with new build, leaving me just to pin down just when the front part of the garage became shops and renew my search for Mr. Shaw.

Location; Barlow Moor Road

Pictures; the space wot was the cinema revealing the garage, 2024, row of shops and ghost sign, circa 1984, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Shaw’s garage in 1959, A.H. Downes, m17515, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and in 1912, from the Lloyd collection

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

The not so different bits of where we live, part 2 ............. Greenwich

Now I am always intrigued at those more recent photographs of where we live.

So while pictures from the late 19th and early 20th centuries are fascinating often everything is so different that it is almost looking at a different landscape.

But those from say the 1960s onwards are often almost the same but not quite, and with this in mind here over the next few days are some from the camera of Jean Gammons all taken in the late 1970s.

And that is all I shall say,

Picture; looking down Greenwich, 1977 from the collection of Jean Gammons

Highfield …. another story by Tony Goulding

My last story was something of a marathon, this on the other hand should be more of a sprint.

“Highfield” 1935 A.H. Clarke 

“Highfield” refers to that row of shops, now mostly take-away food outlets which lies opposite the Post Office on Wilbraham Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy. 

I have been curious about this terrace for some time and have always planned on writing a story on it. 

It was this intriguing feature observed recently while waiting at the bus stop opposite that provided the catalyst.

My initial thought was that it was the remains of an old shop sign but looking along the row, there appeared evidence that each property had at one time had an identical feature. 

This is confirmed by A.H. Clarke’s 1935 photograph.

From the area’s rate books Highfield was built in 1883/4 by a local farmer, William Mee of Hobson Hall (1), and was originally a row of residential properties as evidenced by their entries in the 1901 census. However, Slater’s directory of 1910 indicates that they had been converted for commercial use.

This row of shops on Wilbraham Road on the other side of the junction with Barlow Moor Road were also originally residential properties built at the same time as Highfield as Chorlton-cum-Hardy expanded rapidly following the opening of its station in 1880.

Wilbraham Road 1959

Comparing the two rows I think that it is possible that Highfield originally had bay windows on the upper floor too and that these were removed when the conversion to shops was undertaken.  Such work could explain the intriguing feature  

It would be great if there was a photograph of “Highfield” from pre-1900.

Pictures; Wilbraham Road (1935) by A.H. Clarke and (8/3/1959) by A.E. Landers – m18231 and m18266 respectively, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information, and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass "Intriguing feature" from the collection of Tony Goulding.

Notes: -

1) Hobson Hall now serves as the pavilion for South-West Manchester Cricket Club, Ellesmere Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Walking in our historic graveyard ……. and news from the Friends

It’s been a few weeks since I have been in the graveyard beside the green, and so I am not quite sure when the tree came down.

It is a sad sight and given the degree of rot at the base of the trunk I think it can’t be saved.

But then I am not an expert and so quick as a blink I contacted Mathew Benham one of our city councillors and a Friend of Chorlton Graveyard asking who I should tell.

And Mathew did one better by contacting the neighbourhood team on the same day and just two days later came back with “It’s with the ground maintenance team. I’ll chase if it’s not removed.”

Now you can’t do better than that.

Which is a good outcome for the newly formed Friends of Chorlton Graveyard which has  a Facebook Friends site.*

And you can read more of the work of the Friends by following the link.** 

Location; Chorlton Graveyard

Picture; fallen tree, Chorlton Graveyard, 2024 from the  collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Friends of Chorlton Graveyard, www.facebook.com/groups/chorltongraveyard

**Friends of Chorlton Graveyard, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Friends%20of%20Chorlton%20Graveyard

Stories from a demonstration ....... the waiting

Now, there is a lot of waiting about during a demonstration.

It’s the bit you usually forget, in favour of the noise, the good humour, the big crowds and that sense that you are doing something with a purpose.

And yes, even the most serious of demonstrations have their lighter moments.

Sometimes it will be a witty slogan shouted out by someone which is picked up and ripples back through the long line of protesters.

Or the loud chant which doesn’t get a response leaving everyone to burst out laughing.

Then there is the banter between paper sellers all trying to offload their group’s newspaper onto the crowd, but often ending up buying each other’s.

All of which long ago led to the theory that rather than increase their revenue, all the groups did was redistribute their wealth between them.

Of course some marches and demonstrations can be confrontational, and turn ugly and unpleasant, with a lot of nasty name calling, some arrests and people getting hurt.

But amongst all of that, there is that simple fact that you stand about a lot.

It can take ages for a march to set off and then there are the stops at road junctions which can seem to go on forever.

So here for all those who have suffered are two pictures of the waiting side of demos.  I can’t be sure when they were taken, but it will be between 1984 and about ’85.

We are in Manchester and the clue to the march is there in the last picture, where far away at the back of the line there is placard with the slogan "Victory to the Miners".

I have no memory of the march or from where we set off or our final destination.

But someone will, and I hope will add a comment or even share a picture.

Location; Manchester





Pictures; a demonstration, circa 1983-86, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Adventures out of Peckham ........ the park, General Wolf and a song by Mr Como

The sun is shining and while it might not yet be hot enough to crack the paving stones, there is a promise of a fine day ahead of us.

Greenwich Park, 2017

And on days like this when you are ten, adventures just happen.

We had met up mid way between all our houses and immediately fell out about what to do.

None of us had much in the way of money so Red Rovers which offered unlimited travel across London for 2/6d was not going to happen and it became a matter of where we hadn’t been and how far it would take to get there.

All of us agreed that whatever we did it had to be out of Peckham and so for the second time in a week we headed off to Greenwich Park.

River, 2017

This was not entirely such a good idea as all three of us had been in the dog house for our last adventure which had involved us exploring the beach by the foot tunnel.

We could have chosen that sandy strip in front of the Naval College but instead opted for a spot down river by three beached barges, and that led to disaster as each of us sank up to our ankles in oozy, oily Thames mud.

That was terrifying enough, but having been rescued by a bargee who pulled all of us free, there was the long walk home caked in that mud and a series of almost identical interrogations about what had happened. To my eternal shame I blamed John and Jimmy.

But undaunted by such an ordeal we went back, although this time we kept to the park.

That long walk, 2017

Once through the gates, and having made the long walk past the water fountain to General Wolf, and faced with that steep slope we rolled down it.

Now that was fun but daft, given that the grass was newly cut and stuck to us, and then took ages to fall off while we played amongst the trees and explored the courtyard of the Royal Observatory.

Then, as the sun climbed higher in the sky we sat on the bench by General Wolf and like him we gazed out across park and the river to that other place, north of the water.

From General Wolf, 1978

Back then the river was still a working river and the tall blocks of flats and offices had yet to be built leaving a vague memory that we could see the Monument but sixty years separate me from that adventure and I dare say I have got that bit wrong.

But never underestimate the power of a sunny day and cut grass to throw you back into your childhood.  Or the delights of warm lemonade from a glass bottle that we shared.

We were the master of all we surveyed and to the bafflement of passersby recited a rhyme which contrived to name all the TV Westerns in a story.  I can no longer remember the details suffice to say,  that Rawhide, Bonanza, Laramie, Cheyanne and perhaps Have Gun Will Travel were all featured.

Looking up towards General Wolf

I guess it was inspired by the 1959 Perry Como song, Delaware, which had lines like, “What did Del-a-ware boy, what did Delaware, She wore a brand New Jersey”, going on to mention another 13 US States.

The challenge of both Mr Como’s song and our rhyme was to remember each line perfectly, a task I failed to do then and still can’t today.

Perhaps out there someone will remember the TV rhyme and offer it to me.

We shall see.

Location; Peckham and Greenwich

Pictures; Greenwich Park and the River, 2017 from the collection of Jillian Goldsmith, and looking out from General Wolf, and looking up to him, 1978 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The towers of Manchester rise like the trees of the forest

Not the most original title I know, but for anyone who remembers the skyline of the city at the close of the last century it is perhaps apt.

I make no judgement other than that when the height of buildings become such that the individual passer by is reduced to an insignificant presence something of the scale and beauty of the architecture is lost.

And yes, I know the economics of the practice, and its place in the history of the last two centuries of building design but it ain’t for me.

In the past going high was a statement of humanities relationship to a god, the need for protection against an enemy or just a political statement on the part of the owner, and was always limited by technology, but not now.

All of which was occasioned by my old friend Andy Robertson’s latest set of “pictures” which he sent over today.

Andy has been chronicling the transformation of the twin cities, and pretty much the rest of Greater Manchester for three decades and his collection is a remarkable history of the changes.  

More so because he will visit and record a derelict building and go back recording its demolition and the subsequent rise of the new development.

And yesterday on Deansgate he set about recoding just one tall tower from different angles, and then as afterthought threw in another.

Of course, for all those who look appalled there will be those who applaud the new towers as the representation of the age, and a statement of the degree to which the city remains economically vibrant.

I might add that slip back to the first half of the 19th century and much the same opinions can be found amongst those mourning the loss of so many 17th and 18th century properties which were being replaced by dark overpowering textile mills, gigantic warehouses, and the new railway viaducts.

But as someone once remarked ....... if you want to check out the economic prosperity of a place, "just count the number of cranes", which I know is not exactly the same as the level of prosperity or well being of the residents but that disparity has always been there.

So, choose your development and make your point.

Location; Deansgate

Pictures, “Yesterday at Deansgate”, 2024, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Gentrification …… Beech Road ….. and those posh people who lived here

So, I see Beech Road is back in the news with heaps of people on social media comparing it with Burton Road that other interesting row of shops and things.

Chorlton Row, circa 1880s

And in the debate came that old easy assertion of gentrification, which I am never sure whether it is  a] an insult b] a lazy definition or c] something else.

My dictionary describes gentrification “as the process whereby the character of a poor urban area is changed by wealthier people moving in, improving housing, and attracting new businesses, often displacing current inhabitants in the process”.

Now if you moved on to Beech Road in the 1970s or grew up in the surrounding streets it is just possible to have some sympathy with that assertion.

Charles Clarke our blacsmith from the 1860s

What was an indifferent but nice shopping area offering the range of retail opportunities from food, booze, hardware, and a TV shop has morphed into a row of bars, restaurants and gift places.  Added to which the small rows of two up two down houses, many of which were built for rent by Joe Scott at the start of the 20th century are now desirable and sought after modernised homes, commanding high prices which are beyond the range of our children who were born and grew up on Beech Road.

But all of that is to be a little unhistorical.

Even in that so called pre gentrification Beech Road which I am guessing is meant to be sometime before 1960 stretching back into the beginning of the last century there were a lot of well healed, comfortably off families living here.

That is attested not only by the census records and street directories but by the big houses along Cross Road, and Chequers, Stockton and St Clements Road.

And look again at the shops themselves and there was a mix of basic and slightly up market shops from when Beech Road was developed during the late 1870s onwards.

Go back another thirty years when we were a small agricultural community and Beech Road was called Chorlton Row, and between the blacksmith, a beer shop and some wattle and daub cottages there were several wealthy households.  They included the Holt family in their huge house and garden on the corner of Beech and Barlow Moor Road, and several very comfortable families, one of whom lived beside the smithy. To which can be added the Blomey’s who had the pond on the corner of Acres Road named after them.

Chorlton Row, 1854

The reality is that Beech Road has always been a mixed area, and the expansion of smaller houses on Provis, Neale and Higson was a response to the changing demographics which saw the occupation of the residents defined by clerical and professional occupations and away from the land.

To conclude it is a moot point what came first in the late 1970s and 80s.  Was it gentrification or the collapse of the traditional shopping patterns which saw more and more shops close with no apparent hint at what would replace them?  

Our own brief amusement arcade came and went in the 1980s, and the first restaurants and bars were opening up along with the Italian Delia by the end of that decade.

Bar de Tapas, 2023

And the trend by professionals to buy up and modernise those small two up two downs was only just beginning during this period.

On the cusp of change Beech Road circa 1980s

Go back to the beginning of the 20th century and we find the Manchester Evening News reporting that large parts of Chorlton including the roads off Beech Road were being transformed from open farm land to comfortably off modern properties home to the middling people.

All that seems to have have happened is that a century later the process continues.

And with that comes that other rather blunt observation which is the residents of Beech Road when I moved in in 1976 might well be offended by being told they lived in a "poor urban area". 

Beech Road Cafe Society, circa 2008

Looking at the historical records their occupations ranged from manual, through to clerical, retail and professional and Chorlton -cum-Hardy  was always perceived as a comfortable if not affluent suburb of the city.

I assume the gentrification jibe refers to the shops and restaurants, and here the question is "if not them what?"

Retail shopping has changed and small independent food shops rarely survive, and that has pretty much been the case since the 1980s.  

Leaving aside the deli we do have one grocers shop which competes with the Co-op and Etchells and that I think is all that Beech Road can sustain.

Beech Road, circa 1900

Remember, when there were a multitude of food shops all along Beech Road, and around the Green and off both Crossland and Ivy Green in the early decades of the last century people didn't have either a freezer or a fridge, and were forced to shop daily. 

It is less that Beech Road has gentrified and more that few people  now shop as they did a century ago.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; Chorlton Row circa 1880s, , Beech Road circa 1900, from the Lloyd Collection, picture of Charles Clark, 1913 Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, picture of Charles Clark, DPA 328.18, Courtesy of Greater Manchester Archives, Chorlton Row, 1854, from the OS map of Lancashure, 1854, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/, Beech Road in the 1980s, from the collection of Tony Walker, 1980s, Cafe Society on Beech Road, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 30 ............... Butter Lane, Pork Lane & New Shambles

Butter Lane, 2016

Now you won’t find New Shambles or Pork Lane, they disappeared along with the meat markets which ran from Deansgate back to Butter Lane during the 19th century.

They were the Bridge Street Market which fronted Deansgate down to New Shambles and then the delightfully named, Pork and Carcase Market which stretched from New Shambles to Butter Lane.

And even before the markets vanished Pork Lane had became Pork Street.

But with redevelopment the street vanished for ever under a series of buildings and befitting the areas new character New Shambles became a continuation of Southgate.

Those with an eye for geography will be quick to spot that these are two very different streets, and don’t even align. The original part of Southgate is wider and even today a tad more up market boasting as it does the back of the House of Fraser.

New Shambles & Butter Lane, 1849

Still, Butter Lane  has survived and offers up a Korean restaurant at one end and a  curry house at the other.

But he real fascination for me of plunging down Butter Lane is that it comes out on to Back Bridge Street which is even narrower and by degree leads up to the Wagon and Horses on the corner of Southgate and opens up on to Motor Street Square which technically is not a square and as far as I know has no official name.

New Bridge Street, 2016

Once this was just a collection of properties bounded by Albert Place to the east, Back Bridge Street to the south and Albert Street and Lower King Street to the north and dominated by the Manchester Gas Works.

All of which might make those of a sensitive disposition in 1849 order up a shed load of perfume, or just move.

Of course none of any of that remains, although we do still have a few items of furniture from when that Korean restaurant was an antique market but that would take me back to 1972, and anyway is another story.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Butter Lane, and Back Bridge Street, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the Shambles in 1849 from the OS for Manchester & Salford, 1849, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Walking the River ......... more men at work

A short series taken from one day when I walked along the River.

Back then the Thames was still a place to to earn a wage and watch  ships, and barges as they plied their way on the water.*

Location; the Thames




Picture; the River in 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The lost Eltham and Woolwich pictures, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20lost%20Eltham%20and%20Woolwich%20pictures

Mrs. Mary Frances Kelsall ……… an election …. and the search for her story

I doubt I will ever turn up a picture of Mary Frances Kelsall.

Chorlton election material, 1980

She was born in 1889 and died just short of her hundredth birthday.

And until this week she was just a name in a story of a Chorlton local election held in the November of 1945.*

She was one of the two Labour candidates who stood in that election and to my shame only had a walk on part in a post which focused on the other candidate who was a Mr. Brightman.

To be fair the story had been occasioned by a discussion with a relative of Mr. Brightman who supplied some of the background information on the man and the election.

But I closed with the promise that I would go looking for Mrs. Kelsall who been Labour’s other candidate.

Of course, I got distracted and never did, until Monday when I received an email from a fellow researcher who wrote, “I know of Mrs. Kelsall. I did quite a bit of family history work for a lady in Wisconsin – on a quid pro quo basis, as she did lots for me in the USA. 

As our research progressed, parallels grew. It ended up with finding that my mother had travelled daily into town with a distant relative of [the Wisconsin lady] – the said Mrs. Kelsall. This was immediately post-WW2. 

The Kelsalls lived on the Barlow Hall estate, at no.16 Floyd Avenue, +/-2. My mother said that Mrs. K. was extremely left-wing and pushy, whereas Mr. K. was laid back to the point of horizontal and totally apolitical. Personally, I have no recollection of the family at all”.**

And that was enough to spur me on and fulfil the promise.

I have found Mrs. Kelsall on the 1939 Register at 18 Floyd Avenue.

She was Mary Frances nee Wade, born in 1889, married in 1913, with two children, and died in 1985.

In 1921 the family were at 10 Bland Street Moss Side, and she worked as a shirt machinist for Central Shirt Co, at 19 East Street, which employed 739 people.

The firm is listed in the 1911 directory in a building it shared with various companies, including a merchant, embroider hat manufacturer shipping merchants and Milling engineers.  The large building was at the end of East Street as it ran into Bale Street and stood opposite the famous Tommy Ducks pub.

And according to the minutes of the Chorlton Labour Party she was one of six members who were invited to attend a selection meeting “for the final choice of candidates”. ***

Looking through the record of the Party for the 1940s I can at present find only one other reference to her, which was in June 1945 when she is listed as a sub agent in the forthcoming General Election.

At that particular meeting the group had discussed the “broad principles of the campaign”, along with “general arrangements for meetings, committee rooms, clerical work, literature and canvassing”.

In the footsetps of Mrs. Kelsall, 1986

Mr. Brightman had been appointed agent and the sub agents were Mr. Luly for Withington, Mr. Ball for Chorlton and Mrs. Kelsall for East Didsbury.

And that is about it.

Despite the huge landslide victory for the Labour Party at the General Election in the July of 1945, the Municipal Elections in the November proved disappointing for both Labour’s Chorlton candidates.

The Conservative candidates, each gained 66.9% of the vote with Mrs. Kelsall achieving 33.1% and Mr. Brightman 31.4% .

But then Labour had never won a seat in Chorlton.  

In the early 20th century, the electors had returned either Tory or Liberal councillors, and after 1945 would continue to elect Conservative candidates until the historic breakthrough in 1986.

Looking back at the local campaign, the election agent commented that “Chorlton ward had polled well, in spite of the lack of many prominent workers, who were fighting in other wards”, which traditionally was the fate of local elections in Chorlton until the 1970s.***

I doubt Mr. Brightman looked upon the result as poor, given that he and Mrs. Kelsall each polled nearly a third of the vote in what was then a traditional Conservative seat.

They had campaigned on welfare issues and the need for post war reconstruction, and looked to Labour gaining a “majority of all other parties” and thereby by playing its part in supporting the “enactments of the people’s Parliament”.*****

And that is it, although I will now trawl the local Manchester papers for more references to Mrs. Kelsall and hold out the hope that someone remembers her.

We shall see.

Chorlton Labour Party, circa 1980s

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Election material from 1980, Chorlton Labour Party badge circa 1980, and campaigning in the 1986 local elections from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* Mr. Brightman ….. Chorlton-cum-Hardy……… and the election of 1945, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/11/mr-brightman-chorlton-cum-hardy-and.html

**Trevor James, November 21st 2022

***Minutes of the E.C. meeting, Chorlton Ward, Thursday September 13th, 1945.

**** Minutes of the Chorlton Labour Party, November 6th, 1945

***** Election Address, November 1st, 1945

The poo bum willy version of history

How we tell history comes in many shapes and sizes from the very serious and scholarly to the light hearted.

And in that latter style comes the BBC programme Your Dead to Me, which is a “Radio 4 comedy that takes history seriously” by bringing “together the best names in comedy and history to learn and laugh about the past”.*

It is a nice informative way of bursting a few pompous bubbles about past events and making you smile along the way.

But somehow this week’s edition on the Queen of Sheba didn’t work.  

I have no doubt that the comedian who flaunted her humorous take on the legendary woman of the past has more talent than I ever will but her preoccupation with male genitalia, their size in the past and the possible attraction of Sheba to Solomon became tedious and got in the way.

It wasn’t quite a Mary Whitehouse moment, but it echoed that debatable point about when is lavatory humour appropriate?**

And here I confess to having laughed and laughed again at all those innuendos that pepper British humour from “Biggus Dickus” in that Carry on film, down through Max Miller, George Formby and heaps of seaside picture postcards.

But in the case of the Queen of Sheba it was as relentless, as it was unfunny but I leave you to decide by following the link.

I revisited it today and like yesterday gave up just past the comedian's unfunny reaction to that great erotic poem The Song of Solomon, and reflected I would have had a better time in conversation with one of our grandsons who at 4 and a bit finds  "poo bum willy face" the height of humour.

Picture; “Rusty granddad”, Arlo, 2023

*Queen of Sheba, Your Dead to Me, BBC Radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001wr11

**Constance Mary Whitehouse was an English Christian morality activist who opposed social liberalism and the 'permissive society'. In particular, via the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, she campaigned against television programmes the pressure group found objectionable on 'taste and decency' grounds. Mary Whitehouse https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mary_Whitehouse

Mrs. Rosa Grindon ..... another story by Tony Goulding

In continuation of my recent theme of celebrating the lives of prominent women of Manchester during the first half of the twentieth century this is the story of Mrs. Rosa Leo Grindon. 

Mrs. Rosa Leo Grindon, 2024

This bronze plaque, the work of the Manchester-based sculptor John Cassidy (1) is currently located in the vestibule of Manchester’s central library where it faces the large stained-glass Shakespeare window funded by her bequest of £1000.

The Shakespeare Window, 2024

Rosa was born Rosa Elverson during the June quarter of 1848 in Newhall, Burton-on-Trent, Derbyshire. Her parents were William Elverson and his wife Jane (née Haynes). Her father had an interesting career. 

When Rosa was born, he was working as an agricultural labourer but by the time the 1861 census was taken, he had become a grocer and draper. Harrod’s directory of 1870 shows him as a “private resident” of The Laurels, Stapenhill, Derbyshire and both a farmer and a brick, tile, and drainpipe manufacturer. Ten years later he is recorded in the 1881 census as a “brick manufacturer and farmer – employing 12 men and 6 boys” 

He died on 23rd October 1890 in Southport, Lancashire leaving an estate valued at £798-13s-6d (equivalent to £85,000 today); both Rosa and her unmarried older sister Mary were two of the executors of his will. Rosa’s mother, Jane, died in a tragic traffic accident in High Street, Burton-on-Trent on Monday 28th January 1884 when the horse of the trap she was driving unexpectedly bolted and in the resultant collision Jane was pitched out and struck her head on the wheel of another vehicle.

Besides Mary, Rosa had an older brother, William Henry, and two younger sisters, Alice and Clara. William Henry’s life story is an absorbing one. He started work as a brickmaker, presumably with his father, before marrying Maria Adkin, the daughter of George Adkin a blacksmith, in Tamworth, Staffordshire on 12th March 1866. The 1871 census records the couple at 13, Parliament Street, Sheffield, Yorkshire with William Henry employed as a brickmaker. By the time of the following census in 1881 the couple had split up and were living apart. The Burton Chronicle of 3rd October 1878 carried a notification by Maria that she had obtained a legal separation from her husband and could no longer be held responsible for any future debts he incurred. He left England for the United States in April 1884 accompanied by Sarah Anne Elks and her son Leonard (born in Nottingham on 10th September 1881) and remained there until his death in Eddystone, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on 3rd August 1915

Rosa’s two younger sisters both got work as governesses, Alice for a solicitor John Vallance in Kensington, London (2) and Clara for John Anderson, a landscape painter and headmaster of an art school, his wife Elizabeth Hoskin and eight children in Middlesborough Street, Coventry, Warwickshire. Rosa, also, worked as a housekeeper / lady companion in various households. In 1871 she was a “companion” to Isabella Leighton Morgan, an 88-yaer-old widow living on income derived from dividends, at 6, The Mount, Stafford, Staffordshire. In 1881 the census record shows Rosa working as a housekeeper for a law student of the Inner Temple, John Emmot Barlow, (3) at Torkington Lodge, Hazel Grove Stockport. The next census in 1891 records Rosa as a “Lady Housekeeper” for John Gilbert, a widowed brewery manager living at 5, Beacon Street, Lichfield, Staffordshire. While residing in Lichfield Rosa acted as the city’s Lady Mayoress in 1892-3 during the term of her employer. She also made acquaintance with a friend of her father, Leopold Grindon, who was soon to become her husband. (Lichfield Mercury – 2nd December 1904)

Leo and Rosa Grindon in 1898

As a woman in the middle of the 19th century, Rosa was not permitted to attend university. (4) Nevertheless, she did become a very learned person especially knowledgeable in the fields of Botany and English Literature (particularly Shakespeare’s Plays). With opportunities to gain a degree still being very limited Rosa, like many other women of the period, availed herself of alternative option offered by St. Andrew’s University, Scotland – the Lady Literate in Arts or L.L.A.

The L.L.A. was established in 1877 and in 1888 Rosa gained this qualification in Botany, Political Economy, and Physiology. The Bristol Mercury of 6th August 1888 listed all the successful candidates for the award by place the exam was taken. Rosa is included in the list for Cheltenham, which has led to a misconception that she attended the famous Ladies College in the town (which many of the other entrants at Cheltenham had).

On 8th August 1893, Rosa married Mr. Leopold Hartley Grindon at Christ Church, Lloyd Street North, Moss Side, Manchester. She was his second wife; his first wife, Elizabeth née Wright who had married at St. James Church, Birch in Rusholme, Lancashire, almost 50 years to the day previous, on 8th August 1843, had but recently died during the September quarter of 1892. Rosa was 45 years old and her husband 30 years her senior at 75.

 Leo H. Grindon was born in Bristol on 28th March 1818, the son of Joseph Baker Grindon, a solicitor and long-term Coroner of Bristol, but came to Manchester as a young man in October 1838. He became a confirmed “Mancunian” and provided great service to his adopted city. Initially working in the city’s cotton industry, first in a warehouse and then as a cashier, he later developed his love of nature and science, especially botany, into an academic and teaching career. One of the many posts he held during his long life was as a lecturer in botany at The Manchester Royal School of Medicine. He amassed a large collection of plant specimens, which now form a significant part of the Botanical exhibits in Manchester Museum and was a prolific writer on a wide variety of subjects. 

  Frontispiece (designer unknown) of The Manchester Flora    

A largely self-taught man himself he was keen to support the growth of adult education and especially to pass on his love and knowledge of the area’s flora. To this end he held lectures at the Mechanics Institute and Manchester’s Athenaeum Club as well as being the leading light and Honorary Secretary of The Manchester Field Naturalists and Archaeologists’ Society.

The esteem and affection with which he was regarded by the citizens of his adopted city is shown by the lavish party thrown in his honour at Manchester’s Town Hall to celebrate his 80th birthday on Monday, 28th March 1898. The Manchester Evening Chronicle of the following day reported the event in detail. Mr. Grindon received a cheque for £500, £100 of it being a government grant with the remaining £400 comprising of contributions of nearly 300 subscribers. 

Following her husband’s death, on 20th November 1904, Rosa dedicatedly championed his legacy. She wrote frequently to the Manchester Press and held many lectures promoting proposals for clean air and advocating that the council should invest in parks and gardens. 

 

The Garden Gate, 2024

Rosa was also a great lover of Shakespeare’s plays of which she was a recognised authority; a major work “Shakespeare’s Plays from a Woman’s Point of View was published posthumously in 1930. 

She was pivotal in celebrating the tercentenary of The Bard’s death, a particularly difficult task as the anniversary occurred dead in the middle of the First World War in 1916. 

A combination of Rosa’s two great loves, a centrepiece of the celebration was the creation of a ”Shakespeare Garden” in Platt Fields Park, Manchester which would only include plants and flowers mentioned in Shakespeare’s works.

A committed suffragette, as an alternative to refusing to complete it at all which was the policy of many suffragists, she chose to complete the 1911 census and, in the section requesting details of occupation she entered “Lecturer & Suffragette”.   

The Shakespeare Garden - Platt Fields, 2024

Among Rosa’s other accomplishments was the formation of the Manchester Ladies Chess Club at a meeting in 78, King Street, Manchester on 25th September 1900. Rosa served as its first president. She had previously, in April 1896, been elected the inaugural president of the Manchester Ladies Literary Club.

 A frequent correspondent with newspapers on a variety of topics, she is also known to have penned a biography of her father under the title “Home Memories of William Elverson of Stapenhill”. Rosa also corresponded with the remarkable Helen Keller the blind and deaf social reformer in the United States.

 On 6th May 1923, Rosa died in Cecil Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, a home she had shared with her husband and in which she had hosted numerous meetings and garden parties. She left a total of £3,980-12s-1d. (almost £200,000 in today’s value) of which £1,000 was bequeathed to Manchester City Council for the Shakespeare Window (5) 

Rosa &  Leo's grave,2004

After a few small bequests she wished the residue to be used to publish her lectures. Her large collection Shakespearean memorabilia was donated to Manchester Libraries. A “Mrs. Leo Grindon Prize at the Royal Manchester College of Music". (Staffordshire Sentinel-20th July 1948) was founded in her honour.

Rosa was buried alongside her husband in this grave, B 899 in the consecrated (Church of England) section of Southern Cemetery, Manchester.

Pictures: - Leo and Rosa Grindon (1898) by Warwick Brookes m 73274 Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Frontispiece (designer unknown) of The Manchester Flora https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19948672

Others from the collection of Tony Goulding.

Notes: -

  1) John Cassidy was an Irish born Sculptor best known for his large bronze statue of Edward VII in Whitworth Park on Oxford Road, Manchester.

  2) Alice later married John Vallance’s eldest son, John Daniel. The family’s wealth can be measured by John Daniel’s estate when he died in 1939 which was assessed at a total of £63,586- (equivalent to £3,420,372)

  3) John Emmot Barlow became the Liberal M.P. for Frome in Somerset and was later knighted and created a Baronet.

  4) After obtaining a supplement to its Charter, The University of London became the first institution in the U.K. to allow women to take degrees.

  5) Rosa’s will was contested, and this in part led to a delay in the construction of Manchester’s Central Library.

While writing this piece I have found a number of others have posted parts of her story on the web. I have endeavoured to avoid being tempted to copy directly from that source wherever possible I looked for the original source. This is for two reasons; one is such copying is unethical, the other is the risk that any errors in such would be thus perpetuated.