Sidney Street …… little valued …….and now forgotten

This is Sidney Street or what is left of it.

Sidney Street, 2025

Once upon a time it ran off Hardman Street, taking a sharp right and becoming Thompson Street before joining Joddrel Street.

Sidney Street, 1974

Later Thompson Street was renamed Tivoli Street and just a decade ago you could still trace the route from Sidney Street following the old street plan.I did it regularly but by then it was pretty much all open land with just the road surface and a remnant of a building to bear witness that this had been a busy place.

I say busy but you would have to go back to the 1850s to find much stirring on Thompson Street which consisted of sixteen back to back houses on the northern side facing nine larger properties which backed on to Ashely’s Silk Mill, Hampson’s Hat Factory and Thompson’s Chemical Works.

Those railings, Sidney Street, 2025

A century later these had all vanished under large warehouses, which in turn were demolished to make way for a car park and a grassed verge.

Sidney Street, 1851

And now they in turn have gone and the site is occupied by a large 21st century building.

Sidney Street, and Thompson/Tivoli Street, 2012

But compare the image of Sidney Street today with that of 1974 and tiny vestiges of it most recent past is there from the iron railings of what is now a restaurant to the tiled rear of Invicata House.

Not so of course 25 dwellings that in 1851 ran along Thompson Street.

They were home to 113 people who made their livelihood in a mix of unskilled occupations, many of whom had been born in Ireland.

Typical were the families at number at 32 which was inhabited by Mr and Mrs Howarth, Michael and Mary Byrnes their son and stepson and Mary Baxter and her son. 

James Howarth was a porter, Michael Byrnes a bricklayer’s labourer, Mary a shoe binder and their sons worked as cotton piecers, while Mary Baxter was a washerwoman and her son a brick layer.

Tvivoli Street, 1968

In time I will explore Thompson Street in 1851and its varied occupants and try to fix when the properties vanished.  They were still there in 1893, but I guess will have been swept away soon after.

Alas nether Sidney Street or Thompson Street were deemed interesting enough to have been included in the street directories for the 19th and early 20th centuries, leaving their only trace in the Raye Books and census returns.

We shall see.

Location; Spinneyfields

Pictures; Sidney Street, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and in 1974 m5022, and Tivoli Street formerley Thompson Street, M05716, 1968, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Sidney Street, Tivoli Street, 2012 courtesy of Google Maps, and Sidney Street in 1851, from Adshead’s map of Manchester, 1851, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/