OBAN HOUSE …. another story from Tony Golding

Oban House, otherwise, 2, Manchester Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester is a fine building on the corner of High Lane and Manchester Road and is largely hidden from view. Hence it has always aroused a fascination in me. 

Oban House 2024 

Prompted by its inclusion in the recent story concerning its neighbouring house on High Lane I have embarked on an investigation of its history. 

The rate books show that it was built by William Mee, the farmer of Hobson Hall and is one of the properties he built across swathes of the township and beyond. William was the son of Joseph Mee of Moss House Farm, Whalley Range and became the son-in-law of John Mee who farmed Hough Farm, Withington, when he married Elizabeth, his eldest daughter, at St. John’s Church, Manchester on 12th January 1860. 

Whether this alliance provided the wherewithal to finance William’s house building activity is a matter of conjecture. What can be established though is that William became a very wealthy man. When he died at Bryncliffe Lodge, Llandudno, North Wales on 25th October 1898 he left an estate valued at £41,579- 10s-10d equivalent to £4, 541, 368 today. The first record, I have found, of William Mee owning property on Manchester Road in Chorton-cum-Hardy is in the rates book of 1886. The entries are a little confusing as there are several alterations, however they do point to William having two tenants in property he owned. Mrs. Mary Ann Hughes and James Williams. The census returns show that Mrs. Hughes, a widow who kept a boarding house, and James Williams, a cotton spinner, occupied adjacent houses further along Manchester Road; between The Liberal Club and The Lloyd’s Hotel. This means that Mr. Lachlan McLachlan, the photographer, from my recent story of 76, High Lane would have been the first tenant of “Oban House”.

Oban House 1959

Following Lachlan’s death on 16th June 1891 both his widow, Elizabeth, and his unmarried daughters, Ada and Florence continued to live in the house. Elizabeth died 23rd November 1891 after which the two sisters were able to remain in residence for the next two decades by taking in boarders. Florence died on Monday 8th January 1912 and was cremated, at the Manchester crematorium on Barlow Moor Road, the following Friday 12th January.  Shortly thereafter, Ada moved away from Manchester; she died on 17th April 1920 at Llandrillo yn Rhos, Nr. Colwyn Bay, Denbighshire, North Wales. 

    Oban House was next briefly the home of a German born “textile engineer” Waldemar Kellner and his family. Waldemar was born in Bavaria, Germany in 1869 and in 1901 was living as a lodger in the house of a fellow German, John Breland, a “Foreign Correspondent” and his family at 42, Temple Road, Sale, Cheshire. He later moved to Stretford where in the June quarter of 1910 he married Helen the former wife of ex-landlord John Breland and the following year’s census records him at 1, Botanical Gardens, Old Trafford with Helen and five school-age stepchildren. 

The outbreak of the First World War severely impacted this young family, who by then had re-located to Oban House. As Germans both Waldemar and his eldest stepchild, Herman, who was born in Hamburg, were interned in camps on the Isle of Man; Waldemar in Douglas and Herman in Knockaloe.

Knockaloe Camp, 1915-1919

With this disruption of family life (added to when her second son, Waldemar, enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps) Helen Kellner left Oban House and moved firstly to 3, Salsbury Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy before later, according to her son’s army record, living in a boarding house, 25, Bath Road, Buxton, Derbyshire. I could find little more on the Kellner / Breland family post World War One. As a response to anti-German feeling it is possible they emigrated or perhaps changed their surnames as many with German names did, taking a lead from the Royal Family altering their name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor. One child Edgar Gustave Breland, born in Sale, Cheshire in the June quarter of 1900 does appear in later records. The London Gazette of 1930 published his change of name by Deed Poll to henceforward be known by the surname Kellner. His address is included: 35, Kamitsutsui-Dori, 6 Chome, Kobe, Japan. Edgar Gustave remained in Japan for a time as the birth of a son also named Edgar was recorded in Kobe and appears in the index of consular births 1931-5. There are two further records, one indicates that the son married Greta M. Greenland in Mere, Wiltshire during the September quarter of 1951 whilst the other reveals a little more about the father. This is a Swissair air passenger manifest for a flight from Zurich to New York (via Shannon in Ireland) on 19th January 1952 which states he was an engineer headed for The Commodore Hotel, New York. 

     In September 1916, following the departure of Helen Kellner and her remaining family, Oban House became the home of Edmund William Horobin, a commercial letter press printer who was born on 3rd July 1871 in     19 G, Blackwell Street, Kidderminster, Worcestershire. His parents were William, a Grocer/ Commercial traveler and Fanny Matilda (née Midgeley) He wasn’t baptized until 23rd June 1878 in Dudley, Worcestershire where his father was then the manager of a galvanized iron works. The 1881 census reveals that the family had moved again, this time to West Yorkshire at 17, Key Street, Horton, Bradford. William had established himself as a coal merchant while Fanny Matilda opened “The Excelsior Washing Liquor Co.” drysalters and washing liquor manufacturers, initially with a partner but after 25th October 1883 on her own account.  1891, saw the family moved once again to 68, Hope Street, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire with William recorded as a “commission agent”. Finally in 1901 they had arrived in Manchester, curiously their entry in the census of that year uses Fanny Matilda’s maiden name of Midgely at 27, Albion Road, Fallowfield. Fanny Matilda died at 466, Great Cheetham Street East, Higher Broughton, Salford on 26th June 1902. In the December quarter later that year Edmund William married Bertha Harris Taylor. Edmund, like his parents, shows definite signs of wanderlust, the couple’s first child, Roger Henshaw, was born at 99, Heaton Moor Road, Heaton Norris, Stockport during the January quarter of 1905. Two daughters followed, both born in Bramhall, Cheshire, Florence Fanny in the December quarter of 1906 and Berth Phyllis, during 1908’s December quarter. A second son Frederick Duncan was born 13th July 1910 in Chorlton-cum-Hardy 14, Albermarle Road. Finally, Nancy Horton was born on 12th July 1912 also in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. Before moving into Oban House in 1916 the Horobin family lived in a succession of houses across South Manchester: 14, Davenport Avenue, Withington, 121, Burton Road, Didsbury, and lastly 15, Manchester Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy. They remained in Oban House until 1921 before vacating it on 11th October that year and being replaced, on 25th March 1922, by George Black. The Horobins later to moved to addresses in Sussex before the 1939 Register shows (a retired) Edmund William and Bertha Harris living with his married daughter Nancy Horton at 1, The Briary, Lower Erith Road, Torquay, Devon. 

George Black and his wife, Margaret (née Glenesk) can be seen in the previous year’s census living at 41, Albany Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester with their son, also named George who was born on 11th August 1906. All three were born in Scotland, father in Eastwood, and son in Cathcart, both areas of Glasgow and the mother in Bourtie, Aberdeenshire. George Black senior was working as a sales representative for the Glasgow-based biscuit manufacturers MacFarlane, Lang, & Co. The Black family left the house in the second half of 1925 as the spring electoral roll shows Arthur Howard and Elizabeth Fanny Frisby at the address. The unusual surname enabled me to easily locate them on the 1921 census and in other records. In 1921 they were living at 2, Richmond Villa, Ashton Grove, Ashton upon Mersey, Cheshire together with his daughter, Dorothy Edith Gertrude, and son-in-law, John Austin Baker. Leicester-born Arthur Howard was 49 and worked as a repairs store clerk for Ford Motor Co. In Trafford Park, Manchester. His son-in-law, born in Southport, Lancashire was the technical assistant to the rolling stock engineer of Manchester Corporation Tramways, whose later career saw him move to South Shields where he was the General Manager and Engineer of that corporation’s tramways and buses. John Austin and Dorothy Edith Gertrude were divorced at Newcastle Assizes on Friday 22nd February 1935; both remarrying by the end of that year.

   Arthur Howard Frisby’s wife Elizabeth Fanny (née Cavell), who he married at St. George’s Church in Deal, Kent on 4th April 1895, died on 15th February 1928 by which time the couple had moved to 31, Regent Road, (1) Chorlton-cum-Hardy. Arthur Howard later moved to Eccles in Salford where the 1939 Register indicates he had sadly gone blind.

Salvation Army Logo

The occupants of Oban House for the next decade and more were the Tomlinson family. The patriarch was William Henry Tomlinson, a Salvation Army Officer born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire in the December quarter of 1864. He married Nottingham-born, Lily Girling in Belfast, Antrim, Ireland during the December quarter of 1892. The couple travelled widely around the UK (2) before settling in Manchester, initially as per 1911, census at 27, Meadow Street, Moss Side then later at 46, Grange Road, Whalley Range. William Henry died shortly after moving into Oban House, most probably during the March quarter of 1931. His widow continued to live in the house together with her son, Albert Hadleigh and his wife Elsie Washbourne (née Sims) who were married during the December quarter of 1921 in the Aston area of Birmingham. Albert Hadleigh was a partner in a wholesale confectionary business “Duffy & Tomlinson” of Coupe Street, Beswick, Manchester which failed in 1931. In 1939 he was recorded as a “technical salesman/clerk” for Stretford Gas Board and an A.R.P.

Pictures: - Oban House 2024 from the collection of Tony Goulding. Oban House 1959 by A.E. Landers m18009 Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass Knockaloe Internment Camp. Painting by George Kenner. This photograph Art.IWM ART 17053 comes from the collections of the Imperial War Museums. IWM Non Commercial Licence. Salvation Army Logo. From my photograph of clothing collection bin outside Hardy Lane, Co-Op store, Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Notes: -

1) Regent Road is now Reeves Road.

2) The family’s travels are indicated by the birthplaces of the children, Arthur Henry in Nottingham in 1894, William John in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire in 1895, Albert Hadleigh, also in Nottingham on 11th June 1900 then Gilbert in Cardiff during the September quarter of 1904. In between the last two births the 1901 census shows the family living at 8, Nursery Terrace, Hadleigh Rochford, Essex, where the Salvation Army had recently purchased a farm to provide training opportunities to the destitute of the East-End of London. The 1911 census reveals that William John had died.