A little bit of the Swinging Sixties waiting to arrive …..

We are on Denmark Road in 1967 with one of those street scenes which perfectly captures the bridge between what had been and the bright new dawn of the Beatles, Twiggy, Biba, and Harry Sherman.

This was the year when Adrian Henry wrote of 

"Beautiful boys with bright red guitars in the spaces between the stars". *

And like all young teenagers I yearned to be part of that new world, but a terraced house in southeast London, with limited spending power determined that I would be on the edge of it all.

And so, in a way was Selene’s the place that delivered "Hair Styling, Tinting, Dyeing and the Marcel Wave".

The unkind me might mutter that it was clinging on, desperately trying to up its game, in the same way that two years later I would marvel at Carol Ardern’s business in All Saints on Oxford Road which proclaimed “Carol Ardern Stylist to the Stars”.

At the time  this stretch of Oxford Road corridor was waiting for something to happen.  Chorlton Upon Medlock Town Hall just across the road was still open but had yet to have centuries of soot cleaned from its wall, and many of the buildings surrounding it were old and tired.

Which brings me back to Selene’s on Denmark Road which has the same tired look, but then it must have been doing something right, given that it occupied two plots.

But things were a foot which look to have sealed its fate.  In the collection of images that this is part of we have two very official looking people, one of whom carried a large map.

They appear in other images linked to area about to cleared and redeveloped, and I suspect the same is on the cards for Selene.

I have yet to identify the exact location but given that Denmark Road has been swept clear of its nineteenth and early twentieth century shops and houses I guess these two were the harbingers of bad news for Selene.

But maybe someone will remember the business and put me right.

Location; Denmark Road

Pictures; Denmark Road, 1967, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, sadly I cannot find a reference number.

*Mrs Albion You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter, Adrian Henri

A little bit of our history down at the Co-op

2d token issued by the R.A.C.S., date unknown

It’s so easy to lose so much of our history.

Now the big things like the homes of the great and good, as well as the not so good but still very powerful and rich usually survive, as do their possessions.

In the same way those important papers of State, the letters and records of government from Roman tax records to Magana Carta and much else have come down to us.

Although I do have to concede sometimes it is a dam close thing and often it is down to accident rather than design that these things are still around to tell us something of the past.

Of course in the great sweep of history more rather than less has gone forever.

1£ Co-op book of stamps circa 1970

And amongst all that lost material are the overwhelming majority of everyday objects each with their own unique story.

I could have picked almost anything to explore these vanished objects but in the end choose the humble trading token and its modern equivalent the trading stamp.

It began with a sheet of those Green Shield Stamps posted on facebook which if you are of a certain age will bring back vivid memories of collecting them, then sticking them in books and eventually exchanging shed loads of them for a range of goods.

Co-op stamps, circa 1970

And into the game came the Co-op which had been operating its own reward system since its inception.

This was the dividend which gave every member a share of the stores profits.  All you needed to do was quote your “divi number” and the amount you spent would be recorded.

Talk to many people and they can instantly remember their family number and even quote it back.

Sadly I was never one of them and so for me the introduction of the divi stamp was to be welcomed.  So instead of holding up a line of shoppers down at the Well Hall Co-op opposite the Pleasaunce I could now vanish with the groceries secure in the knowledge that all was well with our divi reward.

Atoken issued by  Bolden Industrial Co-op, date uknown

“Dividend Stamps were introduced in 1965. 

It was an alternative to the traditional methods of paying the 'divi', and as a response to the adoption of trading stamps by other food retailers like Tesco who adopted the Green Shield stamps scheme. 

Some individual Co-operative societies operated their own stamp schemes but the CWS National scheme was in use from 1969.”*

Running alongside the number and then later the stamps were the old tokens, made of very thin metal.

"Coop members would go into their local society shops to buy the tokens for bread, milk, coal etc. The amount they spent would then be registered for their dividend payments.  The members would then give the token to the milkman, bread man or coal roundsman etc in return for the items they wanted."**

Co-op stamps, circa 1970

In our house some at least never made it back to the Co-op and instead were used as toys and even took the place of playing cards.


So for those who remember them and a lot more who are totally baffled by them here is a selection taken from my friend Lawrence’s blog* and the Bolden History site.*

They were an important part of many peoples' way of budgeting and marked a commitment to a co-operative way of life which I still think is the way forward.

Pictures; Co-op trading stamps, courtesy of Lawrence Beedle, and trading tokens from Boldon History

*Hardy Lane Scrapbook, http://hardylane.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/co-op-stamps.html

**Boldon History, http://www.boldonhistory.co.uk/Boldon-Colliery-ID11/The%20Co-op-IDI141

Hot August Nights in Paris ………….

 We were young, single and adrift in the City of Lights.

I say young, but I was 32, and I was with my sister for a long weekend.

And it was hot.  Nothing quite prepares you for how hot cities like Paris can be, and while holidays on the Greek islands and Calabria can be hotter, it’s the tall buildings and busy streets which seem to trap the heat.

Of course, those Parisian who can leave for their holidays, so we rubbed shoulders with other tourist, who like us wanted to catch the sights, and absorb the culture.

It being August meant that some of the places of interest were crowded and in the case of the steps up to Sacre Coeur reeked of urine and discarded scraps of food.

Still, that is what holidays are about.

And at night we took to the streets which seemed busier and more chaotic than during the day, and if anything, just as hot.

I could at this point list the sights we visited, and those we didn’t, but one person’s holiday stories are someone else’s yawn, so I won’t.

Instead, I will just fill the post with pictures of hot nights following the crowds and dodging the traffic.

And given that it was now nearly 44 years ago it is sort of history, which is of course what the blog is all about.

Location; Paris

Pictures; hot August nights in Paris, 1981, from the collection of Andrew Simpson 

A day in Chorlton …… sometime between 1979 and 83

There is nothing very remarkable about these three images of Chorlton on a winter’s day.

I can’t even be sure just exactly which year I took them added to which the scenes they show are not so different from today.

Bus experts will offer up details of the vehicles, from the make, and the dates they joined the fleet, while someone will chime in with a piece on SELNEC, the company which preceded Greater Manchester Transport.

I can’t ever remember using the 262 but the 82 was the one we occasionally used to go up to Oldham which terminated at Werneth to visit Lois.

It was a long journey but had the advantage of being almost door to door.

All of that said there will be little things in each of the three which will jog memories and may also be a revelation to those who didn’t know Chorlton back then.

Leaving me just to say I will resist all those usual observations, that there “were fewer cars back then” “less litter”, “better shops” or even “there were shops back then”.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Barlow Moor Road and Wilbraham Road, 1979-83 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

On the Trafalgar Road in 1968 …….. Austen’s ….. that record shop and a slew of ancient memories

This is Trafalgar Road in the spring of 1968.

It was taken by John King, and I am grateful that he has given me permission to use it, because it has set the memories going.

Two years earlier I knew this stretch well because I worked at Austen’s camping shop, which was a job at which  I didn’t crown myself with glory.

But then I was only 16, had big issues with adding up, dispensing the correct change and could never remember which tent was best for a back packing couple.

Even now the smell of canvas, and assorted plastic macs brings back the shop and the summer of 1966 on Trafalgar Road.

The shop has gone, and I think judging by the geography of this bit of the road, it is now an Iceland, but then the building that was the cinema no longer shows films and the old record shop just on from the church offers up all things plumbing instead of all things vinyl.

Not that I suspected any of these haunts of my youth would still exist.

It is after all 60 years since I spent my dinner hours in that record shop, but I still remember the collection of early Bob Dylan LPs I bought there, which are still in the collection.

And when I bring them out flashes of the Woolwich and Trafalgar Roads jump back.

All of which will bore some readers, provoke others to bring out their own memories, and yet more to take a wander down the two roads to do their own "then and now" comparisons.

I cant remember when the hospital was opened, but vaguely think it was being built in that summer I sold camping knives, and in turn bought the record Bob Dylan.

Incidentally that LP had been issued four years earlier, cost me £2.99 and retails now on some sites for £50.

So, all in all nostalgia was a lot cheaper then than now.

Leaving me just to add John’s comment to his picture, “People complain about traffic, but just remember if you are stuck in traffic you are part of the problem.

Ah the golden days of the 60s when traffic jams had not been invented. Think again, Woolwich Road, Greenwich seen in 1968. 

Something had happened in the Blackwall Tunnel, although the second tunnel opened a year earlier the approach road had not been completed.

The vehicles of a couple of old SE London firms can be seen. RACS and soft drinks firm Macintosh.

May 1968”.

To which I will add that L.P. Hartley quote  “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there,” from his 1953 novel “The Go-Between.”

And as John’s picture shows we did transport, and lorries very differently.

As we did cinemas, and here is the postscript, just a few hours after the original story was published.  Both John and I spent a bit of the morning pondering on that cinema.

I thought it was an ABC but john correctly identified it from an old map as the Granada, which led me to that wonderful site for cinema history which is cinema Treasures, and the entry for the Granada Greenwich at 234 Trafalgar Road.

"It was was opened by film star Gracie Fields on 30th September 1937 with Sabu in 'Elephant Boy' and Brian Donlevy in “Midnight Taxi”. Designed by noted American theatre architect C. Howard Crane, with interior decoration by Theodore Komisarjevsky. 

It had 1,924 seats in stalls and balcony and a rather plain auditorium, quite unlike the style of the opulent Woolwich / Tooting / Clapham Junction Granada Theatre’s. 

It was equipped with a Wurlitzer 3Manual/8Ranks organ which was opened by organist Donald Thorne. The Granada Theatre also had a fully equipped stage".

That said according to the 1947 Kinematic Yearbook it had by that year increased its number of seats to 2,772 seats.

But if you want more you will have to go to the site and find out for yourself, because I make it a policy of not lifting other people's research.

The added bonus is a picture of the cinema, pretty much as I remember it.

Location; Greenwich

Picture; Trafalgar Road, 1968, from the collection of John King

*cinema Treasures http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/3781

What was lost is found …………. the buried object from Withington Workhouse

A little bit of Withington Workhouse came my way recently.

It is a round metal disk, measuring just over 2 cm, and bears the name Chorlton Union Workhouse on one side and has a small ring fastener on the back.

It was found by Frances Farrow on her allotment just off Nell Lane and was about 80 centimetres below the surface.*

There is no date on the disc, but it will date from between 1837, when the Chorlton Union was established, and 1930, when the workhouses were abolished.

And I think we can narrow that timeline, because from 1837 the Union’s workhouse was situated in Hulme, until it was replaced by the new one on Nell Lane in 1855.

Of course it might have originated in Hulme, and was dropped on the site of the future allotment, or might even have found its way there in a consignment of night soil, but given that the new Workhouse was very close to where it was found I rather think we have a window of time from 1855 onwards.

I thought that at first it might be a token, which could be redeemed for poor relief.

Such tokens were widely in use in the early years of the 19th when there was a shortage of currency, but had become illegal after 1814.

It might just have been customized with the ring on the back so that it could be worn on a bracelet or necklace, but I doubt anyone would want to be reminded of the Workhouse.

All of which just leaves me to think it might have belonged to an inmate or an official out on business. And it might be a button given its size from a workhouse uniform.

Those with a gruesome turn of mind will immediately point out that the burial ground of the old workhouse was close to where the disc was found …… but not close enough.

That burial ground was situated on the north eastern side of Nell Lane at the junction of what was Princess Parkway, and part of it was taken over when the road was widened, while the allotments are further north along Nell Lane.

So, it is a bit of a mystery, but one that someone will have an answer too.

I contacted Mr. Peter Higginbotham, who is one of the leading authorities on the Poor Law and Workhouses, and I can confirm that it is a button which he replied "do turn up sometimes".  So mystery solved and I can now just fall back on the disc itself and ponder what secrets it might hold.**

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; the Workhouse disc, 2020, found by Frances  Farrow, and the old burial ground, 1950, from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1956

*Plot  40A, Southern Allotments, Nell Lane, Frances Farrow and Akram Dadafarid

**The Workhouse; http://www.workhouses.org.uk/

A little bit about Samuel L Coulthurst and those amazing pictures of Manchester street life

Rochdale Road and Swan Street 1900

This is another of those images of Manchester street life by Samuel Lawrence Coulthurst.

It was taken in 1900 at the corner of Rochdale Road and Swan Street.

Now at this point I would normally go off and look for a story behind the image but today I am more
interested in Mr Coulthurst.

There are 171 of his photographs in the digital collection of Manchester Libraries, covering everything from those street scenes to buildings and portraits and taken between 1890 and 1920.*

There is also a book of his pictures which sadly is out of print. **

For a long time Mr Coulthurst was just a name I saw in the credit to the photograph I was studying but as more of his images turned up I became interested in him.

He was born in Blackley, described himself variously as a “book buyer” and “stationary buyer" and lived in various parts of Manchester and Salford.   He married Annie Higson in June 1900 and he died in Helsby in 1939.

Samuel Lawrence Coulthurst, 1890

And despite a series of wonderful photographs of the twin cities, I have only been able to turn up a poor quality photograph of the man himself.

But I have high hopes that something better will turn up.

After all he appears to have been well known during the late 19th century, exhibiting at the Royal Photographic Society in 1897 and was a member of the Manchester Amateur Photographic Society which under took the first photographic survey of Manchester and Salford between 1892-1901.

In 1901 232 platinotype prints were handed to the Manchester and Salford Reference Libraries.

A third copy was retained by the Society but over the years a number have gone missing. The photographs are mounted on sheets of card, either singly or groups of 2 or 4 photographs per sheet. Manuscript details are written in ink beneath each image giving a brief description, a number and the photographer’s name. ***

Now there is a lot more I want to know about Mr Coulthurst and I have contacted both Manchester Amateur Photographic Society and the Friends of Salford Museum’s Association.

In the meantime I will leave you with this small piece of his personal life.

In the March of 1922 Samuel and Annie took a cruise to Lisbon, Madeira and the Canary Islands.  I would just love to see any photographs of that trip, but I fear they have been lost forever, which brings me back to those of the digital archive which I will be going back to over the next few months.

Pictures; Rochdale Road and Swan Street, Samuel L Coulthurst, 1900, m41073 and Samuel L Coulthurst, 1890,  m72750, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Manchester Local Image Collection, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php

**The Samuel L Coulthurst Photographs: Victorian Salford and Manchester, 1995, Friends of Salford Museum’s Association

***National Archives, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/A2A/records.aspx?cat=124-2373&cid=0#0

Helen Entwistle’s Photograph … another story from Tony Goulding

 This intriguing image of London Road station approach created by Helen Entwistle in November 1895 has already featured on this blog in a story by Andrew Simpson. 

 London Road Approach 

However, it is such a startling picture that I felt it was well worth another visit.

Two parts of the photograph caught my eye and led to some investigation and in one instance an unhistorical conjecture.

This advert for Pears Soap would have been one of thousands of this and similar signs around the country.  A. F Pears and Co. were one of the first to realize the value of mass advertising. 

Wikipedia states that this was the brainchild of Thomas James Barrat, the company’s chairman; later dubbed “the father of modern advertising”. 

The most celebrated campaign made use of “Bubbles” the painting by John Everett Millais. It now hangs in The Lady Lever Gallery in Port Sunlight following its purchase by the Pears Company in August 1890. 

Port Sunlight is the base of Unilever who now manufacture the soap continuing the brands 218-year history. 

Not all the campaigns would be seen acceptable today, in fact several were overtly racist in nature (documented on Wikipedia).

“Bubbles” by John Everett Millais

The other part of the photograph which piqued my interest was the curious individual on the corner. I began considering who he might be and where he had appeared from. 

My first thought was pure conjecture – that he was a railway man and had just visited the railway staff club whose entrance was on Store Street.

 After, some research I concluded that this was unlikely. The British Railways Staff Association was only established by the British Railways Board in 1952 although it is possible the club under Piccadilly / London Road already existed prior to that. 

The club no longer exists being a victim of the privatization of the railways in the early 1990s and the consequent withdrawal of funding; though it was still open at the end of the previous decade when I visited as a member on one of my trips home from London. The decline in the number of rail workers may have also impacted on its viability. 

It is more likely that he was a worker (railway or other) who had possibly just descended the steps which gave access to the station from store street which I vaguely recall using myself on occasion.

 

Store Street  entrance

Finaly as a tribute to Helen Entwistle whose work this is and is one of over 360 in the Local Image Collection of Manchester Archives, (1) here is what I could find of her story. 

It’s not totally definitive but I believe she was the Helen Entwistle recorded in the 1901 census as an “Art student (painting)” born in  Levenshulme in 1872, a visitor of an oil importer and refiner Walter Taylor and his wife Sarah, at 3, Daisy Bank Road, Victoria Park, Manchester. Helen was actually born in Levenshulme during the September quarter of 1869 to Samuel Entwistle and his wife Hannah (née Jackson). 

The family was solidly middle class; Samuel was a cashier for a stockbroker while her younger brother, William Herbert was a bank clerk. (2) Helen became a schoolteacher as recorded in the census of 1891.

Together with her photography Helen later became a noted miniature portrait artist and is mentioned in the Manchester Courier of 18th September 1906 for an “excellent miniature contribution” to the annual autumn exhibition of local artists at the Manchester Art Gallery. More recently in March / April 2024 one of her miniatures was a lot in an auction in Sale. It was of the renowned Scottish-born Baptist minister who was for 45 years the Pastor of The Union Chapel on Oxford Road, Manchester. 

 Helen married Miles Blundell, a baker of Southport, Lancashire in St. Peter’s, the Parish Church of Fairfield, Derbyshire. The couple most likely met while Helen was visiting again Walter and Sarah Taylor who had moved to the town where they owned a wholesale stationery business.  The 1911 census return confirms her visiting the Taylor’s revealingly it also records Helen’s occupation as none.

Helen died during the June quarter of 1917 in the Abercromby district of Liverpool.

Leo Grindon

Pictures: - London Road Approach and entrance including details (m 63006 and m 63012) plus Leo Grindon (m73273) by Helen Entwistle courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information, and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, “Bubbles” by John Everett Millais http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bubblesmillais.jpg (uploaded by Paul Barlow), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5139

Notes: -

1) One of Helen’s early photographs was this study of Leo Grindon, the celebrated Manchester educator and botanist who incidentally has also featured in a recent story on this blog. A precursor of her later prowess as a portrait artist.

 2) William Herbert became a bank manager with The Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank in Hyde, Cheshire (at 38, Market Street). His probate record states that he died on 17th February 1947 while residing in Hinton House, Christchurch, Hampshire leaving an estate valued at £30,707 - 7s – 7d. (= £1,040,842 today)

Bringing to account William Benson, Richard Whitelaw and the other 99 of the Manchester Yeomanry on August 16th 1819

Now no matter how many horrific stories come out of Ukraine and other places, nothing still prepares you for the violence of Peterloo.

According to one source, a quarter of the known recorded causalities were women, even though they comprised just 12% of those present on the day. *

And when you delve deeper into each one, the horror is all the greater.

Margaret Downes was “dreadfully cut in the breast; secreted clandestinely and not heard of, believed dead”, Mary Hays, “knocked down, trampled by cavalry, foot stripped of flesh & nails, pregnant, died 17 December 1819”, Sarah Jones, “severely beaten on the head, and much bruised by constables’ truncheons, suspected dead”, and Martha Partington, “thrown into a cellar on Bridge Street and was killed, died 16 Aug 1819.”**

Added to these, there was William Fildes aged just two, who was the “child of Ann,and was  rode over by cavalry, died 16 August 1819, and is buried Swedenborgian Chapel, Salford”.

In the case of four of the five, we know where they lived, and while their houses will have vanished long ago, using maps and street directories it is possible to revisit both their homes and the surrounding area as it would have been in the early 19th century.

And those maps, directories along with other official records allow us to zoom in on those who perpetuated the crimes, most of which were at the hands of the Manchester Yeomanry, who we might think of as a volunteer military defence force, first raised during the early years of the wars with Revolutionary France, but were also used to quell civil unrest.

The Manchester Yeomanry was raised in 1817, in the aftermath of the March of the Blanketeers, when a group of mainly Lancashire weavers intended to march to London and present a petition over the dire state of the Lancashire textile industry and the recent suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. ****

Following its suppression, the authorities set about establishing a local yeomanry, which was drawn not only from the “people of plenty” but also included, both skilled and unskilled workers and a range of shopkeepers, publicans and others.

Leaving aside the question of how some of the men could afford to provide a horse, they were indeed a cross section of the population, and we know the names of 101 of them who were at Peterloo, and despite my dislike for their actions I am curious about them.

At which point it would be easy to dismiss them all as bunch of “class traitors”, vicious thugs who participated with glee in the suppression of the “Manchester Meeting”, and while that might be accurate of some if not most of them, it doesn’t go deeper enough in offering up an explanation.

I doubt that there exists a detailed collection of the thoughts and sayings of the 101, but it is possible to track many of them, not only through their occupations but to where in the city they lived.

Moreover, their devotion to the social order can be tracked back across the late 18th century through a series of “loyalist” activities during the 1790s, including the Church and King movement, the attack on the home of the radical Thomas Walker in South Parade, and the burning of effigies of Thomas Pain, of which the one that occurred at the top of Deansgate in December 1792 was recorded in detail.

And similar loyalist activities happened during the Jacobite rising in 1745, and back into the 17th century.  Further evidence is there in the split over the abolition of the Slave Trade.

So while I take pride in reading that 10,000 Mancunians signed a petition to Parliament in 1788 calling for the abolition of the trade, there was a counter petition of 4,000, which must have been well organized.

And that same organization can be seen in the way that the spontaneous outbursts of loyalty were worked on, both in the opposition to granting greater freedom to non-Anglicans to hold official posts and the reaction to the French Revolution.

The impetus clearly comes from those in the establishment who felt they had most to lose, but according to an excellent short piece by Frank O’Gorman, “Members of the highest classes tended to fill ornamental roles, the practical functions of loyalism being the work of men from the middling orders”, who were “principally from the ranks of the trading, manufacturing and official elements, some of whom were from quite humble backgrounds”.*****

All of which might explain why amongst the ranks who charged into the crowd on St Peter’s Fields we can count, William Benson , the landlord of the Fox on Jackson’s Row, Mr. Richard Whitelaw, an Attorney, living on King Street, and Robert Thorpe, a surgeon living at 21 Oldham Street.

Along with Samuel Green who had a printing business on New Garrett, and a host of shop keepers, and skilled and non skilled workers, with just “two gentleman”, a Professor of Dance and even a quack doctor.

Nor were they drawn exclusively from Manchester, for the same pattern of occupations can be replicated by those from Salford, including Edward Hulme of the Blue Cap on Greengate, the tobacconist, James Hardman, the businessman, John Bowker and the “hackney writer”, James Hamnett.

And for those who want to stray into Stretford, the township offered up a collection of butchers, a saddler, that quack doctor and even a labourer.

None of which might help explain the glee at which the Yeomanry went about their task, but might just throw a bit of light on who they were, leaving a heap more research to be done and a lot more detailed investigation of those who pulled the loyalist strings.

Location; Manchester

Picture; "To Henry Hunt, Esqr. as chairman of the meeting assembled on St. Peter's Field, Manchester on the 16th. of August, 1819", Peterloo, Manchester, print published by Richard Carlile, m01563, and Manchester Heroes", Peterloo, print from etching by unknown artist, published by S W Fores, 1819, m07587
courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Morgan, Alison, Starving mothers and murdered children in cultural representations of Peterloo, Return to Peterloo Manchester Regional History Review volume 23 2012

**Records of the Manchester Peterloo Witnesses and casualties, 1819, findmypast, www.findmypast.co.uk

***Sarah Jones, 96 Silk Street, off George Leigh Street, Mary Hayes, Rawlinson Buildings Oxford Road, Chorlton Row, Mary Partington, King Street Eccles, William Fildes, 23 Kennedy Street

****The march was violently broken up and its leaders imprisoned. Bamford, Samuel, Bamford’s Life of a Radical, Vol 2, 1905 page 32

*****O’Gorman, Frank, Manchester Loyalism in the 1770s, Return to Peterloo Manchester Regional History Review volume 23 2012

Letters from the Western Front

Mr and Mrs Davison and their son, date unknown

I am rereading the letters of George Davison.*

It has been a moving experience and one that has taken me from his first letters and postcards to his death on the Western Front just five months before the end of that war.

And taken me to Woolwich, Ireland and finally France.

But the collection is bigger than even this because it starts with his school records, includes the letters he sent to his future wife and finishes with the terse official correspondence from the War Office and along with all these is a series of further documents taking us into the 1950s.

They cover his enlistment in Manchester, his time in Woolwich and Ireland before his arrival in France and also reveal the changing addresses of his family.

I have yet to read them in detail but as I move to scan the last letters of May and early June I know that I will soon record his last letter because he was killed on June 17 1918.

And nothing quite prepares you for the knowledge that soon there will be no more letters from George and that the link with his wife of seven years will be severed.

His final letters talk of the irritations of moving around the Front including the loss of personal equipment and the varying quality of the accommodation and on June 15 wrote

The last letter from George to his wife, June 15, 1918

“You would be surprised to see some of our living places – at present we have an excellent dug out about 20 feet below the surface. 

It has however two drawbacks – poor ventilation and only artificial (candle) light.  

Compared to some it is a Palace.”

And this was where he died on June 17 when the dugout received a direct.  All three men in the dug out were “killed instantly” and according to the Royal Engineers who inspected the position “it was not considered safe to recover the bodies.

The dug out was then filled in and is marked as the resting place of your brother in law and his comrade. ”**

Now I have read and reread those last few letters and they still have the power to move me.

I was prepared for the fact that he was killed but you can never quite shake off either the manner of the death or that the description in the letter of July 6.

And that I think is all that needs to be said.

Picture; of George and Nellie Davison and additional material courtesy of David Harrop

*George Davison, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/George%20Davison

*extract of the letter sent to Bdn W.F.Evans, R.A.F, July 6 1918

Mr. Renshaw, the buried bowl and tales of classroom cruelty ………

I am back on the trail of James Renshaw, who was a Chorlton schoolteacher and not someone who would easily survive in the profession today.

But back in the early 19th century things were a tad different.

He remains a shadowy figure and apart from appearing in the census returns for 1841 and 51, along with references in the trade directories, all we know about him comes from anecdotal comments recorded by our local historian in 1885, a full half century after he died.

From these we can gather Mr. Renshaw was not to be trifled with in the classroom, because his discipline ran from “strict to severity, especially with scholars not in his favour” * 

They remembered how he who would strike the boys on the head with his cane and then apply cobwebs to stop the bleeding, and in the case of William Rhodes nearly cut off one of the lad’s fingers.  This had been done with an open pen knife which he threw at the young Rhodes who had put his hand on the desk while standing during a lesson.  

Despite this, Renshaw was much respected amongst the villagers and was known simply as ‘The Village Schoolmaster’ being consulted on many subjects ranging from the law and medicine to science.  

The school master held an interesting position in the rural hierarchy in that he would be respected for his learning which set him apart from most in the village but was less grand than the vicar or curate and certainly more accessible than those who styled themselves ‘gentry’.

Not that Renshaw by all accounts could always play the dignified pillar of village society.   

Despite his formidable personality which was much helped by his only having one leg he could still be bested by his students.  In a story still told thirty or so years after his death James Renshaw was the butt of more than one schoolboy prank.  

There was the story of the lost porridge bowl or I suppose more accurately the tale that started as a conspiracy and ended in a student revolt.  Each morning one of the schoolboys had the task of collecting Renshaw’s breakfast from his home and bringing it to the school.  

His home was a little further up the Row and on this morning the conspirators had elected Charles Brundrett to bury the spoon and throw the bowl into the pond opposite the school.  This stretch of water was known as Blomley’s Fish Pond and extended along the opposite side of the Row up to Sutton’s Cottages and across the centre of this water was a bridge leading into the fields.  **  

While young Charles Brundrett was engaged on this enterprise, one of the class ‘split’ to Renshaw who rushed out to prevent the deed happening.  Not only did he fail but on returning was refused admittance without the promise of a holiday, a tactic repeated by the boys on other occasions and supplemented by hiding his pipe and tobacco.  

Charles Brundrett suffered no long term effects from his prank and grew up to run Oak Farm.  Not that anything as dramatic might have occurred in that other private school run by Mary Taylor at Clough Farm at Martledge.  ***

James Renshaw was a Methodist, and is attributed to being the first in the village **** and so his school attracting children from Methodist backgrounds continued after the establishment of the first National or Church school on the green.  

In 1834 he was listed in a local directory as running a school in Chorlton and in 1841described himself as school master. But by 1851 aged 79 he had retired and by 1852 was buried in the grounds of the Wesleyan chapel.  *****  

Sadly no records of the school fees of Renshaw’s establishment have survived, but over in Stretford in the early decades of the 19th century, Mr Johnson charged “3d to 8d per week with 1d [ 1½p to 3p and ½p] extra for fire money in the winter.   

The scholars were allowed one quill a week and had to pay ½d each for any more.” ****** Johnson like our own Renshaw was “a perfect Squeers, inventing all kinds of queer punishments, and in one case made a lad eat a bad exercise he had written.”*******   Given the harshness of the times many parents may not have deemed such behaviour as excessive especially if the means delivered an educated child.  And Johnson’s fees were not cheap.  They were beyond the means of farm labourers and the services provided by James Renshaw and Mr Johnson was limited to the children of farmers and tradesmen.

There was also the Sunday school.  The first was set up by the Methodists in the August of 1805 and was held in the chapel later it moved to a building across the road which had been built from subscriptions raised by the Methodists.  When this building was lost the Sunday school returned to the chapel.********

Alas no pictures of the man have come down to us, and there is little more, other than that he was born in Chorlton-cum Hardy, never married, and was a member of the Renshaw family who had farmed in the township since the 1760s.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 

Pictures; Sutton’s Cottage circa 1892, photograph from the Wesleyan Souvenir Handbook of 1895, and Pigot's Directory Lancashire  1828-29, Stretford Chorlton Page 282, Chorlton Row now Beech Road in 1845

* Ellwood, Thomas, A History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Chapter 24, Shops, schools, April 24th 1886, South Manchester Gazette

** The water ran from where Acres Road joins Beech Road up to just before Wilton Road.  Ellwood Chapter 24. Elizabeth Blomley, gentlewoman was living in Chorlton in the mid to late 1820s

*** Pigot’s Directory Page 68, Historicacl Directories Page

*****  Pigott 1834 Page 68 Historical Directories Page 337, 8141 census, Enu 8 Page 5, 1851 census Enu 1 Page 11

***** Ellwood Chapter 18, March 6 1886.  He died on June 22 1852 and was buried in the Wesleyan chapel on the Row.Owen MSS Vol 42, Edge Geoffrey a claim Ellwood also made for James Baguley

****** Leech, Sir Bosdin, Old Stretford, 1910, Manchester City News Co Ltd Manchester page 38

******* Ibid Leech, page 38

******** The loss of the building is unclear.  The Methodist historian Ellwood writing in 1886 wrote that the Wesleyans had failed to convey it to trustees and that the building was sold to Thomas Taylor who charged them rent until 1827, when they were given notice to leave and the building converted into cottages.  The land was retained by the Lloyd estate 

The film ….. a train journey ….. and a birthday ... or ….. Spartacus … London Bridge and being 10

Spartacus remains a film I return to if only for that scene at the end where a dozen or so men stand up and proclaim, “I am Spartacus”.

Roman soldier, circa 1975

It is one of those bits which has become much parodied over the years but always takes me back to the film.

In my case the first time will have been 1960 at the Metropole Cinema on Victoria Street which was followed by a journey in the cab of a train from London Bridge home to Peckham.

And it is one of those things that I have no memory of the film, the cinema or even the journey up to town.

The premiere had been on December 7th and regular showings followed which means it was less a birthday present and more a treat after the event as I was 10 in the October.

I don’t think mum told me what was happening and even now I can’t be sure it was London Bridge Railway Station.  Waterloo would have been closer but we may have got the Underground or perhaps even the bus.

But what has stayed with me was the trip home.

Mother with that impetuous side to her character, asked the train driver if I could sit in the cab for the trip back to Queens Road Railway Station.

It must have broken every rule in the book, and I can’t even be sure she stayed with me, which today would be unheard of.

Lightening the dark, 1981

Now the journey from London Bridge to Queens Road is a short one … just about eight minutes with one intervening stop. All of which is a blur other than the speed, the lights and the oncoming trains.

A full 66 years later that is what I remember about the evening.

The baker Terentius Neo with his wife circa 79 AD

I was quite oblivious to the fact that the story behind the film was equally as challenging as the subject matter of a slave army taking on the Roman Republic.

Kirk Douglas who played Spartacus and produced the film hired Dalton Trumbo, who had been blacklisted as one of the "Hollywood 10".  And because of his non status, Mr. Trumbo was paid using his pseudonym "Sam Jackson". 

Douglas insisted that Trumbo be given screen credit for his work, which helped to break the blacklist.Trumbo had been jailed for contempt of Congress in 1950, after which he had survived by writing screenplays under assumed names. Douglas publicly announced that Trumbo was the screenwriter of Spartacus.[25] Further, President John F. Kennedy publicly ignored a demonstration organized by the American Legion and went to see the film.*

As for the Metropole Cinema on Victoria Street, my cinema TREASURES tells me “The Metropole Kinema was the first large cinema in the Victoria district of central London and opened on 27th December 1929 with Stanley Holloway in 'The Co-Optimists' and Jameson Thomas in 'Hate Ship', plus Jack Hylton’s band on stage”.**

Romans against Spartacus, 1975

And like many of our picture houses its ending was slow but inevitable. It became a “Laser Theatre” in 1977, and then a concert hall before finishing as a restaurant, having undergone the indignity of losing its auditorium to the demolishers and finally being knocked down in 2013.

So best that most of those memories are lost and instead I can be happy with that short train journey through the night on a birthday treat.

Leaving me just to reflect that like so many recollections the images that instantly spring to mind can not be reproduced.  

Stuff from Spartacus remains copyright, and there is no time to ask cinema TREASURES for permission to use their picture of the Metropole.

Added to which one agent is advertising Spartacis posters at a cool £200 a piece which prompt that thought .... what price my nostagia? To which there is the cost of that journey, which in 1960 would have cost one shilling, or 5p and now would set me back £4.68.

Best stay with the memory.

Location; London 1960

Pictures; Airfix models of a Roman solddier, circa 1975,the baker Terentius Neo with his wife. Italian National Archaeological Museum of Naples (cat. no. 9058 ) and Lightening the dark, 1981

*Spartacus (film), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus_(film)

** Metropole Cinema, 160 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 5LB, cinema TREASURES https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/3770

The grim side to some of our Manchester pubs

Now I am back with Peterloo and the dastardly actions of the Manchester Yeomanry who on August 16th, 1819, charged a peaceful crowd in St Peter’s Fields, leaving many dead and wounded.

The Manchester Yeomanry in action, 1819

And over the last few days I have been exploring* the background of the 101 men listed in the Northern Star as participating in the outrage.**

We can track the occupations of 87 of them, and they represent a cross section of the population, with over a third drawn from the “people of plenty”, another 29% who made their living as publicans and shopkeepers, which left the rest as a mix of skilled, and manual workers, with the odd surprises which include a “Professor of Dance” and a quack doctor.

But today I am interested in the nine publicans.  They were William Bowker of the King's Head at 4 Old Shambles, John Beeston who ran the Windsor Castle in Salford, and later took over the George at 47 Deansgate, and William Benson of the Fox at 1 Jackson’s Row.

The Briton's Protection, 2016 as seen in the book

To these three we can add Mr. Burgess of the Hen & Chicken on 163 Deansgate, Parker Horsefield of the Briton’s Protection on Waterloo Street by Great Bridgewater Street, Edward Hall of the Blue Cap at 80 Greengate, Jacob Chadderton who offered up beer and cheer at the Wool Pack in Pendleton, John Reid of the Globe, Gartside Street and Samuel Lees of the Crown and Thistle, 9 Half Street, Manchester.

Of these I am pretty sure that only one of the nine pubs still in business is the Briton’s Protection, but some will have lasted longer than others.

So, while the Blue Cap on Greengate had vanished by 1850, the Windsor Castle on New Windsor in Salford was still there thirty-one years after Peterloo.

The Windsor Castle Salford, 1850

Had I come across this bit of information back in 2016, it might well have been included in our book on city centre Manchester Pubs, that said as the book is only about ones you can visit today that would have limited the inclusion of the Manchester Yeomanry landlords to just the Briton’s Protection.

That said, I see no reason why I shouldn’t pursue the remaining eight, starting with the Fox on the corner of Deansgate and Jackson’s Row which was still selling happiness or sadness in 1844, but now sits under Onward Building.

So in the fullness of time we  shall see just what can be found out about the two Salford pubs and their landlords, followed up by the more  Manchester landlords and their pubs.

The Fox, Jacksons Row, 1844

Location; Manchester and Salford

Pictures; "Manchester Heroes", Peterloo, print from etching by unknown artist, published by S W Fores, 1819, m07587, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, New Windsor, Salter’s Street Directory, 1850,  The Fox Inn, Jackson’s Row, 1844, from the OS for Manchester & Salford, 1844, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/


*The Manchester Yeomanry, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2019/08/exploring-butchers-of-peterloo-101-men.html

**The Northern Star, Chartist newspaper, August 20th 1842

*** Manchester Pubs- The Stories Behind the Doors, Centre Centre along with  our two companion volumes,  Manchester Pubs- The Stories Behind the Doors, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, and  Manchester Pubs- The Stories Behind the Doors are available from www.pubbooks.co.uk and Chorlton Books