76, High Lane – Part 2 ... another story from Tony Goulding

For those readers who were waiting for the second instalment of the history of 76, High Lane, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, your wait is over – here it is!

Head and Wrightson & Co. Offices 1959

My friend Joyce, who prompted the story, will be pleased that the house’s use as a music school has been reached. The 1948 street directory shows it to be occupied by Ronald George Mortimer and described as “a school of music”.  He apparently ran this with his wife Edith (otherwise “Edythe) née Fairhurst. The couple married in South Manchester during the September quarter of 1935. 

    Mr. Mortimer was born Ronald George Mautterer in the Islington area of London on 11th May 1914. His parents were George Barnes Mautterer and his wife Ivy May (née Butcher). Soon after his birth Ronald George’s father, who was in 1911 a publisher's assistant living with his widowed aunt and four cousins in the Hoxton area of Shoreditch, London, moved to 92, Copenhagen Street, Barnsbury, London where he had a grocery shop. On September 25th, 1916, he was admitted to the British Army’s Honourable Artillery Company and later served in the Highland Light Infantry. The electoral rolls show the family remained in London until at least 1924, an electoral roll of that year lists George Barnes and Ivy May at 19, Moor Lane Chambers in the polling district of “Cripplegate Without”, City of London. The family had settled in Manchester, possibly via Sheffield, Yorkshire about 1930 as they are recorded in both the rate books and electoral roll of 1931 living at 218, School Grove, Withington, Manchester. By this time, they had started using “Mortimer” as their surname although Ronald George retained “Mautterer” as a third initial name. The 1933 Kelly’s Directory of Lancashire, Manchester, Salford & Suburbs shows them still at the address in Withington, however by 1939 they were in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. George Barnes, a commercial traveler, and Ivy May were living with Ivy May’s widowed mother, Anne Butcher at 5, Napier Road. Ronald George Mautterer Mortimer and Edith were at 4, Cavendish Road. (1) Ronald George’s occupation was recorded as the Chief Stores Clerk for an electrical engineering company while “Edythe” was a music mistress (pianoforte).  The Mortimers ran their music school on High Lane from at least 1948 until the middle of the next decade. (2)  

After its use as a music school ended 76, High Lane became design offices of Head, Wrightson & Co Steel Foundries and Geneal Engineers, (3) The Manchester Evening News during the month September 1956 carried extensive wanted ads for design and layout draughtsmen to work in the firm’s “new offices opening shortly in Chorlton-cum-Hardy". This company vacated the premises around 1964; it then became the headquarters of The United Road Transport Union for the next 4 decades.

The World Peace Cafe - November 2024

In 2008 the building became home to a Manchester-based Buddhist Meditation Group, Vairochana, with the World Peace Cafe first opening its doors in 2012 at which time also the group became an official Kadampa Meditation Centre.

 The building in 2016

Pictures: Head Wrightson & Co. Offices, 1959 by A.E. Landers m17897 Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Archives, and Information, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=passMeditation Centre and World Peace Cafe – November 2016 from the collection of Tony Goulding

Notes: - 

1) Cavendish Road is now Corkland Road. Both the Mortimers' house and the adjacent No 2, the home of a local dentist Stephen Laurence Wilson were destroyed during the Manchester Blitz of Christmas 1940.

2) They were still recorded at the address in Kelly’s 1954 Directory of Lancashire, Manchester, Salford, and Stretford.

3) With origins dating back to the 1840s, this company began trading under the name of Messrs. Head Wrightson since 1867. They were an iron foundry and heavy engineering company manufacturing a wide range of products for the railway, coal mining and latterly electricity production industries as well as the ironwork for individual civil engineering projects including two combined rail and foot bridges crossing the River Thames in London, at Fulham and Barnes as well as several high-profile bridges for Indian Railways.