Fast food for the workers on our Victorian streets

The morning routine here begins at 6 with the first espresso moves on pretty quickly to those who want breakfast and by 8 it’s just me and the washing up.

And because I am soft for as long as I can remember it has been breakfast in bed, and yes even in this age of central heating and the internet there are hot water bottles before bedtime.

We take for granted that breakfast was and still is for many something you have at home but this has not always been the case.  Throughout history people and it does tend to be the poor have eaten out, often from fast food vendors and not I suspect always out of choice.

You can pick any one of a number of reasons, which usually come down to the early start of their day or the simple fact that the means to cook much in a shared room was limited.

The extent to which people ate on the move is revealed in The Victorian City, Everyday Life in Dickens’ London by Judith Flanders*

I got it for Christmas and it perfectly complements my own interest in the Chorlton of the first half of the 19^th century.  We were a small rural community with strong links to Manchester and so her book is a good contrast to our own life here in the countryside and by extension an introduction to what was going on just 4½ miles away in the big city.

So while today eating out can be expensive and a life choice, back in the early 19^th century it was pretty much of a necessity.  Most of the working class lived in rooms not houses with just a fire place for rudimentary cooking extending to boiling a kettle or a pot of something, and anyway lighting a fire was a costly affair which would then continue to burn long after everyone had left for work.  Likewise water was not always readily available and might only be available from a street pump and then not all the time.

On the way to work there were the coffee stalls which had the added bonus that in cold weather the mugs would warm the hands as well.

Some stalls were just simply a board laid over a pair of sawhorses and a can of coffee kept warm by a charcoal burner and others elaborate tent like structures.  A cup of coffee and “two thin” – two pieces of bread and butter might cost half a penny.

And there is much more but then having become an author I am outrageously in favour of people buying the book so I shall say no more other than it is a fascinating read.

*Flanders, Judith, The Victorian City Everyday Life in Dickens’ London, Atlantic Books, 2012

Picture;  Hot food on sale on the streets, the pictures date from the 1890s which takes them a little out of the time frame of the book, The Infirmary Corner at the top of Market Street, The Rovers Return, Shudehill, and Angel Meadow,  by H.E. Tidmarsh from the book Manchester Old & New , Arthur William Shaw 1894

The lost Chorlton Bowling Green ..... Joseph Miller and the Lloyd Terrace ........Whitelow Road gives up its secrets ……….

It was a chance conversation outside the Horse Jockey.

Lloyd Street, 1854 marked in red

I was talking about the history of the pub when l was drawn into a conversation about Whitelow Road.

To be exact the question ran What do l know about Whitelow Road?

The short answer was not a lot other than part of it was once called Lloyd Street.*

This was in 1854 and instantly challenges that tired and well rehersed observation that "there are no streets in Chorlton".

Now, Lloyd owned a big chunk of Chorlton cum Hardy having bought into the township in the 18th century.

Back then Lloyd Street was a far more modest stretch terminating just beyond the Beech Inn where it ran into the 2 acre field called Row Acre which was owned by the Lloyd estate and farmed by Mary White.  In total she rented 77 acres stretched out across Chorlton and she lived at the southern end of Chorlton Green.

Whitelow Road, 2022

So back to the question because my new friend lives in one of the houses directly opposite the Beech and to stamp a bit more authenticity into the story high up in the wall is one of those stone inscription which usually offers up the name of the terrace and sometimes even a date.

Alas there is no date but the name Lloyd Terrace which is a nice connection to Mr. Lloyd.

In1891 my friend's house was occupied by a Joseph Miller who was 23 married to Emma and shared the house with three children, two brothers and a lodger.  

He was from Didsbury, she was from West Gorton and their eldest son, aged 5 had been born in Cheadle.  Within the year after he was born they moved to Chorlton and took up residence in the property by 1889.

Lloyd Terrace, 2022

Mr. Miller gave his as “coach man and domestic groom”  as were his brothers and the lodger.  At which point it is easy to speculate on who they worked for and whether all were employed by the same family. 

What is striking is the variety of birth places.  Along with Didsbury, West Gorton, and Cheadle, we can add three different parts of Shropshire as well as Chorlton.

I haven’t as yet got a date for when the terrace was built but a Frederick Fuller occupied another one of the houses in 1886 and by 1893 Whitelow Road extended all the  way to Wilbraham Road and all the buildings we now know and a few more had all been constructed.

So that just leaves a search of the rate books to push back to the moment when our terrace was built.  

All the evidence would suggest a date after 1881, when the land upon which the terraced is situated is shown up as Bowling Green.  

This must be the lost Bowling Green which had been connected to the Horse and Jockey where according to the historian Thomas Ellwood was “a number of gentlemen used to play bowls on the green then adjoining the Horse and Jockey.  For exclusive use of the green was reserved one afternoon in each week, in return for a small annual subscription, and the players generally partook of tea afterwards, and spent the evening together over a friendly game of cards."***

The lost bowling green 1881

In the 1840s the plot was owned by John Brundrett who rented it out to Thomas Cookson.

It was two acres in size which is roughly the same as the Rec on Beech Road. to and listed as "Garden"

The gentleman later decamped to Edge Lane where they formed a much grander club which limped on till 1950.

This may have precipitated the bowling green's change of use into residential because by 1885  Frederick Fuller was renting from the Brundrett estate in Lloyd Terrace.

As for those with a wider interest in Whitelow Road, it would appear that the stretch from High Lane had also not been cut by 1881, instead much of it is marked as a wooded area held by the Methodists.

So, from being a mystery road, Whitelow has started to give up its secrets.

Picture; map showing Lloyd Street from the OS map of Lancashire 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives,  http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ Whitelow Road, 2022, courtesy of Google Mapsthe  map of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Withington Health Board, 1881, courtesy of Trafford Local Studies

* It was still Lloyd Street in 1871

**Ellwood, Thomas Bowling Greens, History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, number 26, South Manchester Gazette, May 15, 1886

Travelling by tram round the Well Hall Circus

Now I have no idea when this picture was taken. 

I do know that it will date from after 1931 when the roundabout was built which according to Eltham and Woolwich Tramways was constructed as part of the Westhorne Avenue extension.*

And if I wanted to be more specific I guess it can be no earlier than 1938 a date which cinema buffs will confirm.

The Odeon was opened in 1936 and of the two films showing that week The Dark Horse was made in 1932 and I’ll give a million six years later.

I can’t say either would have got me walking down from our house.

The Dark Horse was a political comedy starring Bette Davies and turned on the efforts of Ms Davies and others to find a candidate for Governor at the Progressive Party convention and ran through a series of improbable plot lines.

Not to be out done its running mate that week centred around Warner Baxter who played a millionaire saving a tramp from suicide, and then taking the tramps clothes and disappearing with a rumour that he would give a million dollars to anyone who is kind to a tramp.

But perhaps I am being unfair.  I can sit through endless episodes of Coronation Street, have bought at least two DVDs of Downton Abbey and can pretty much quote James T Kirk word for word in all his Star Trek films and plenty of the TV shows.

And having demonstrated my unnerving attention to detail I can offer up the names of all those who occupied the shops stretching down from the cinema to the Pleasaunce when Ms Davies was at the Odeon.**

But I am on firmer ground with the second which dates from December 29 1948 and I have to say it doesn’t look so different from when I walked up Well Hall Road in the mid 1960s.

From memory the path across the roundabout had gone, along with the tram poles although I suspect under the tarmac still lurked the tramlines.

And for all I know they may still be there.

Like all good stories I learnt something knew because back in the 1940s our roundabout was, according to the London Transport timetable known as Well Hall Circus.

So that is all I shall say, except to thank Middleton Press for giving me permission to reproduce the pictures from their book Eltham and Woolwich Tramways and promise you more later.

Oh and a thank you to Tricia Leslie who first came across the pictures and posted them and then introduced me to the tram book.

Pictures; Arriving at the Well Odeon,  circa 1938, A J Watkins, and Well hall Circus, 1948, H B Priestley reproduced from Eltham and Woolwich Tramways

* Eltham and Woolwich Tramways, R J Harley Middleton Press, 1996, https://www.middletonpress.co.uk/

** A car, a row of shops and a little bit more is revealed about the history of Well Hall Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/a-car-row-of-shops-and-liitle-bit-more.html

When the trail goes cold ……. Miss Nellie Allen of Chorlton and Whalley Range

 Yesterday I was drawn into the life of Nellie Allen who was living on Barlow Moor Road in 1911 and on the census for that year refused to complete the form and instead wrote across it, “Until Women are recognised as citizens, I refuse to do a citizen’s duty” "No Vote No Census Nellie Allen”.*

Miss Nellie Allen, 1911

It was quite a find and prompted me to go looking for Miss Nellie Allen, who according to the enumerator was living at number 58 with her brother and a domestic servant in what was an eight roomed house.

I first thought they were living at the properties currently being redeveloped by Armistead Properties which once housed a mix of flats and commercial businesses including “The One Stop Party Shop”.

But now I am not so sure and think it maybe one of the houses closer to the junction with Cranbourne Road.

That was a disappointment which was made no better by the almost total absence of any mention in the official records.

So far, a search has revealed little before or after 1911 while the burial records of Southern Cemetery offer up five Nellie Allen’s buried there between 1914 and 1971.

Given her stance on votes for women I hoped there might be a reference in the newspapers of the period but that  has also drawn a blank.

Occupiers List, 1912-13

But she does appear in the street directory for 1911 and is listed as a “Dairyman” at 252 Upper Chorlton Road and 63 Barlow Moor Road.

Both shops are still there and the property on Upper Chorlton Road was still a Creamery in 1960.  The Chorlton business was in what is now a solicitor’s in therow which also contains the estate agent Emma Hatton and two hair stylists.

Barlow Moor Road, 2025

All of which just leaves a series of listings in the Occupiers List of the City of Manchester for 1911 through to 1914 which the document announces contains “Persons entitled to be enrolled in respect of Occupation aforesaid as Citizens, but not as Parliamentary Electors”.

And Nellie is there at 58 Barlow Moor Road but the property is shown as a shop which is confusing given that the row of semidetached houses appear always to have been residential, and at the beginning of 1911 was home to a Mr. Wiliam Henry Keenan.

I can only assume that as the directories were compiled before the start of the year and the 1911 census took place on April 2nd, this might explain the change of names.

But there is still the reference to 58 as a shop and as yet a total absence of any more records.

All a bit annoying.

Location; Chorlton & Whalley Range

Pictures; detail from the 1911 census for Miss Nellie Allen, and Occupiers List, 1912-13

*“No Vote No Census” ……. stories from Barlow Moor Road, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2025/05/no-vote-no-census-stories-from-barlow.html

So what is the story behind the tram on Well Hall Road, one sunny spring day?

Now there is a fine line between nostalgia and remembering the past.

The first pretty much takes you nowhere and often distorts the past by making it seem somehow better than it was.

On the other hand remembering the past can trigger not only a series of memories but leads to wanting to find out more.

It often starts with that simplest of questions was this really how it was? And then takes you off into serious history which involves talking to others, cross checking their memories against research and beginning to record it for others to read.

And that often leads to community projects where memories and memorabilia come out of the cupboards, are dusted down and shared which not only adds to what we know but brings an area together, allowing the not so young to recreate the past for those too young to know what it had been like.

So here we are with one of those classic old pictures of Well Hall from a book on trams.*

There is no date on the picture, and the caption just says “early days on Well Hall Road [showing] that the local children had plenty of space to play.  All they had to do was get out of the way of the trams which plied the route every ten minutes. The ride from Woolwich to Eltham would have cost two pence.”

All of which draws you in and makes the picture worth investigating.

Judging by the trees and the children’s clothes I think we must be somewhere in the 1920s or 30s and taking into account the shadows it will be early afternoon.

Now it could be a Sunday which would explain the lack of traffic or we really are at a point in time when Well Hall Road was far less busy.

What I also find interesting is that the children by and large are ignoring the photographer.

Earlier in the century and certainly in the last decade of the 19th century the appearance of a man with a camera would have attracted the curious, the vain and those with nothing better to do.

You see them on the old pictures staring back at the camera, intrigued, mystified and just nosey.  But not here, which means we are either dealing with some very sophisticated young people or the world has moved on and street photographers were taken for granted.

And that just leaves me that little personal observation that however fascinating this picture is it just leaves off our house for the photographer has positioned himself just a tad further north, missing out 294 by a couple of blocks.

That said if I have got this right I have to satisfy myself with knowing that the corner house with its ever so fashionable lace curtains was the home of Mr and Mrs Burton in 1925.

The Burton’s were there by 1919 which means that Mr Christopher Dove Burton may have been an Arsenal worker, and just as an aside, I know that they were married in 1920 in Lambeth, and that Beatrice’s maiden name was Briant and it was as Miss Beatrice Briant that she shows up on the electoral roll in 1919 sharing the house with Mr Burton.

Now there is a story to follow up.

Pictures; Well Hall Road, date unknown, from the collection of G.L. Gundy, reproduced from Eltham and Woolwich Tramways

*Eltham and Woolwich Tramways, Robert J Harley, Middleton Press, 1996, https://www.middletonpress.co.uk/

On Chorlton Green with Derrick A Lea in 1957

We are on the green sometime between 1955 and 1958 outside the Horse and Jockey.

Now I know this because the artist who drew the scene completed a series of pictures of Chorlton during this period.

He was Derrick A Lea and he is one of those local artist who has slipped out of our history.

He lived here during the 1950s through to the ‘70s, and that is about it.  So for now it is his pictures that will have to speak for him.

And today it is this one of the pub on the green.

It is a picture which I like partly because the style reminds me of so many that I grew up with in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Often they were the sort which appeared as adverts in magazines or in prints that were displayed in railway carriages on the trains of the Southern Region.

Most were of the countryside and most showed southern England in full summer.

So this one is somewhat different and what draws me in is not just the wintry scene but the way Mr Lea captures the brisk movement of the couple on the right.  It’s partly their stride as they follow the dog but also the way the woman’s coat spills out covering as it would an equally expansive dress underneath.

This was that period when in direct contrast to the fashions of the war everything was bigger and more showy, as if to say “we are done with rationing and making do.”

And the historian in me is fascinated by the picture of the pub itself which is almost the one we know today but not quite.

In the 1950s it had not extended into the building to right of the entrance below the sign.

This was still a private residence and so had not yet been given the wooden beam effect.  Nor had the top floor of what had once been Miss Wilton’s home been taken down.

But not all in the picture is completely accurate for what looks like a pond in front of the trees is  an invention of Mr Lea’s imagination.

There were village ponds but sadly not here.  There was one further to the south by the Bowling Green Hotel and another on Beech Road stretching from Acres Road up to Chequers Road but not outside the Horse and Jockey.

Not that I am over bothered by the deliberate error.

It remains a pretty neat picture of a moment in the mid 1950s which will be one most of us never knew, and I do like his depiction of the pub and the green on a wintery snowy night.

So it just remains to close by repeating  the image he drew.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester








Picture; the Horse and Jockey, Chorlton Green, by Derrick A Lea taken from a greetings card in the possession of my old friend Margaret.

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 52 ............ the one beside the Police Station

Now you would be forgiven for thinking this was nothing more than the entrance to a lock up, but not so.

Maps from the late 19th and early 20th centuries show it as a road running into Salford Approach.

But it does seem to predate the Police Station and Salford Approach which were built and cut in the early 1880s and seems the start of what in 1849 was Harding’s Buildings, a shi

short stretch of which has survived as Harding Street

Location; Salford

Pictures; Chapel Street 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the area in 1900, from Gould’s Fire Insurance Maps, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

“No Vote No Census” ……. stories from Barlow Moor Road

This is 517 Barlow Moor Road, and along with the remaining houses in the block was home to “Celebration The One Stop Party Shop”, a barber’s, and various other commercial enterprises as well as a collection of tenants.

2025

At some point two additional wings were added, and now the City Council’s planning portal indicates that there is an application in to convert the block  into 12 self-contained apartments. *

And given that the row may soon look very different  I took a series of pictures this week and began delving into its history.

It’s very early days, and I may not have matched the census returns to the right properties, but in 1911 we have a pick of stories from a German who was naturalised as a British citizen in 1907, a cotton merchant and an accountant and Miss Nellie Allen.

2023

What marks Miss Allen out is that she wrote across her 1911 census return “Until Women are recognised as citizens I refuse to do a citizen’s duty” "No Vote No Census Nellie Allen”

To which the enumerator has added “I understand Miss Allen has a brother and a domestic servant living with her”.

There is much more to find out, from who Miss Allen was, and of course to the date of the houses which looks to have been built by 1894.

All of which is the next task.

Location; Barlow Moor Road

Picture; the house wating for something to happen, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the row in 2023, courtesy of Google Maps

*CDN/25/0277, Manchester City Council Planning Portal, https://pa.manchester.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=STMV1FBCKZH00&activeTab=summary

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ........... nu 35 walking along Greengate in the winter of 1849

Greengate in 1849

Now I don’t think there will be many pictures of Greengate in the winter of 1849.

All of which leaves me with a map and a street directory.

The map is self explanatory but street directories may need a bit of an explanation.

They were as they suggest a list of the people and businesses to be found on  the streets of Manchester and Salford.

They came out every year which means that you can track someone more closely than the census which was issued every ten years.

The downside is they only listed the householder missed out those who were deemed unimportant and by extension left out the small and mean back streets.

Greengate from 1 to 35, 1850

That said armed with the names of those householders, it is possible to go looking for them in the census returns from 1841 through to 1921 along with the 1939 Register and once found with a bit deft trawling it is possible to find the missing people and the missing streets.

All of which means that I think we may soon have a new series taking the story of lost and forgotten streets of Salford into the very homes of those who lived on Greengate and Chapel Street, and of course the neighbouring ones.

Greengate from 6 to 34, 1850

So for now I shall be a tad lazy and leave you with the map from 1849 and the first group of residents from the following year.

Now given that the list for 1850 will have been compiled in the winter of 1849 I think we can be confident that in our walk along Greengate we would have been able to meet George Hooley, hairdresser living at number 9 and Thomas Tower who served the pints at the Polytechnic Tavern opposite.

Picture; Greengate 1849, from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1844-49 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Ordering that pint in the Horse and Jockey ……. back in 1793

The Inn on the Green looks the part, its low ceilings, small windows and half-timbered exterior could fool anyone into thinking this was a pub half as old as time.

It offered up its first pints some time in 1793 and is part of a building which dates back to the early 16th century.  

So, for those of a romantic but a tad less historical mind, the building was already into its second decade when Henry V111 walked up the aisle with Ann Boleyn, while two centuries on  some of its customers might well have shared horror stories about the Reign of Terror across the Channel which was consuming French aristocrats as well as Revolutionaries and heaps of innocent people.

It is a pub I often come back to,* partly because I like it but also because it features in much of our history, from being the place in 1848 where Samuel Warburton was arrested for participating in an illegal prize fight to a series of public inquests which shocked the Township and the subject of popular film,** as well as of course the home of many happy memories.

That said the half-timbered effect was only added at the start of the 20th century and for almost its entire existence the pub was confined to just the two rooms either side of the front door and the two above.

But on a fine summer’s day with its view across the green, I doubt many will be over bothered about it’s past ……….. even the fact that it was here that my first book, The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy was launched, accompanied by a large group of friends, interested historians and a folk group.***

Not that I shall elaborate, as that might be construed as outrageous self promotion.

Location; Chorlton Green

Pictures; the Horse & Jockey on an August morning, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

 

*The Horse & Jockey, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Horse%20and%20Jockey

**Bella’s Birthday, Frank Randle, 1949, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=Bella%27s+Birthday 

***The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20new%20book%20for%20Chorlton

One hundred and a bit years of the railway that served Eltham

For two and bit years I travelled on Southern Region from Well Hall Station up to New Cross.

I have few memories of those journeys other than the last stretch on the way home to Eltham when the train took that slow bend and you got a glimpse of Shooters Hill and the woods.

But in all that time and since I have given little thought to why the railway was built, the people behind it and its construction.

It was built in 1895, quite late in the history of the railways by “landowners wanting to enhance the value of their agricultural land for house building.”* 

Amongst the shareholders was Thomas Jackson of Eltham Park, Charles Beadle a coal and corn merchant and George Mence Smith who owned seventy oil shops in the area.

The story of the planning, construction and first 100 years of the railway are told in The Bexleyheath Railway at Eltham 1895-1995, by Gus White and published by The Eltham Society.

Eltham Park 1895

It is a fascinating account and demonstrates yet again that some of the best history is not written by professionals but local people with local knowledge and a desire to share it with their neighbours.

Much of the book concentrates on the early 20^th century but there are descriptions of the opening of the new station in 1985, the Well Hall train crash thirteen years earlier and the reference to those double decker trains which ran from 1949 to ’71.

I have to confess I had begun to doubt that they existed or that I travelled on them given that I was always met with disbelief from friends when I described them.

Eltham Park 1985 eight months after its closure

There are also some fine pictures many of which cover the period before and after I left Eltham, and in between a few of the station and bus station that I remember.

My own favourites must be of Well Hall Station in the 1920s, the approach to the station taken in 1985 along with another from1955 showing the station master's house and with out doubt that of a tram travelling south under Well Hall railway bridge.

So there you have it, 100 years of Eltham’s railway history all for just £2 if you are a member of the Eltham Society and £3 plus post and packaging from the Eltham Society, 

http://www.theelthamsociety.org.uk/publications.php

Picture; of Eltham Park, DISUSED STATIONS, by courtesy of Nick Catford from http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/e/eltham_park/index.shtml

*White, Gus, The Bexley heath Railway at Eltham 1895-1995, The Eltham Society, 1996

Edge Lane ….. and the great pavement theft …

 To be honest it was less a pavement theft and more a road widening scheme.

And for the story and the pictures I have my old Facebook chum Bill Sumner to thank.

Walking past Longford Park on Edge Lane I have often wondered why there was no pavement running along that stretch of the road.

And Bill supplied the answer which was that “Edge Lane had a pavement until the road was widened, and Longford Park came right up to the wall topped by a hedge. 

This is why the high-level walkway made later had trees both sides of the path”.

And that is that, so thanks again Bill and I leave you with that simple observation that we all gain when we all share our own knowledge.

Location; Edge Lane

Pictures; Edge Lane, undated from the collection of Bill Sumner

Walking Well Hall Lane in 1843, all fields and not a lot else

I am back in Well Hall, or to be more accurate just north of what was Well Hall House and heading north through what is now the Progress Estate.

What is now Well Hall Pleasaunce is down at the bottom of the map, and our journey up along Well Hall Lane to Shooters Hill would have been a pleasant enough stroll past open fields.

Now what makes this such a fascinating stroll is that courtesy of this tithe map and the accompanying notes, we know who owned this land, who rented it and what it was used for.

All of which makes such a stroll a journey deep into the Eltham of the 1840s.  We can even find out who lived in the cottages in that year and comparing these with census returns, and rate books get an idea of just how long people stayed put in one place.

Location; Well Hall, Eltham, London













Picture; detail of the land to the north of 1843 from the Tithe map for Eltham courtesy of Kent History and Library Centre, Maidstone, 
http://www.kent.gov.uk/leisure_and_culture/kent_history/kent_history__library_centre.aspx

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ....... nu 37 Francis Street and that children's charity

Now Francis Street which is off Great Ducie Street is hardly likely to lift the heart of the casual tourist or I suspect anyone.

In the back yard off Francis Street, 1873

True there is a hotel on the corner but the rest stretching out to Charter Street and down to New Bridge Street to the south  is a car park.

And the rest is rather unpromising.

Walk along Francis Street as I did a couple of years ago and you come to a dead end having passed what was more open land and a warehouse which was up for sale.

Of course things may have changed and it is on my to do list to visit with a camera which neatly takes me to this photograph.

Part of the Refuges, circa 1882

It was taken in 1873 from the back yard of a children’s charity.

The charity was the  Manchester & Salford Boys’ & Girls’ Refuges which had been established in 1870 to provide a bed and a meal for destitute boys.

The charity quickly extended its work to include girls as well as boys,and  provide more permanent homes offering training for future careers along with holiday homes.

It also campaigned against some of the worst cases of child exploitation taking negligent parents to court and arguing against the practise of employing young children to sell matches on the streets of the twin cities.

And like other children’s charities it became involved in the migration of young people to Canada.

The organisation is now called the Together Trust, and it is still engaged in the primary role of helping young people.

So given how vital their work was then as now I thought I would offer up the detailed plans of their buildings on Francis Street.

The complex was part home and part industrial school but also included a gymnasium and classrooms given over to training for those who were migrated to Canada.

From 1870 till 1939 many organizations engaged in caring for young people migrated some to Canada and later Australia as well as other parts of the old British Empire.

More of the Refuges, circa 1882

The practice has come in for some criticism and also had its critics at the time and the Manchester & Salford charity stopped earlier than most.

That said there were success stories and these are contained in letters and reports held in the Trust’s archives some of which are regularly featured in their blog.*

Added to which the organization is engaged in some exciting work with local schools aimed at extending our understanding of their work both in the past and today.

This also includes help offered to those who may have had relatives in the care of the Trust and want to trace their story.

All of which brings me back to Francis Street where their main building was situated.

Location; Salford

Picture; the yard of the Manchester & Salford Refuges, 1873, courtesy of the Together Trust,  http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-together-trust.html and details of the buildings from Goads Fire Insurance maps, 1882-1901, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Getting down and dusty, the Together Trust, http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/

Three handcarts ...... and a mystery location

Once, a long time ago the hand cart was the all-purpose form of transporting goods for people of meagre earnings.

They remain for many immortalized in stories of midnight flits, when for a variety of reasons, it was necessary to leave without paying the rent having loaded up the family possessions on a borrowed cart.

They were favoured by jobbing tradesmen and barrow boys, and could still be seen in great numbers around the city centre well into the last decades of the last century.

I have no idea where these three were, but given we have the name of J.H. ATKIN, it should be possible to locate them using the directory for 1969.

Although part of the sign is missing which means I will have to be a bit inventive in the search.

But I do have the additional information that the firm advertised as “Marine Store & Metal Brookers” which might narrow things down.

And that pretty much is that.

Or it was.  My attempts to find the location, faltered, but John Anthony, he of the recent excellent Gibraltar story* went delving and came up with this.

"The firm was established in 1898, so I had look at the 1939 Register, but only limited success - three mentions J H Atkinson in Failsworth, Salford and Eccles. 

However, Kelly's 1933 Directory has a listing for J H Atkinson, Marine Dealer, 32 Rosamond Street East. Further information records that Rosamond Street East ran between 16 Upper Brook Street and 179 Oxford Road. 

The line of the road still exists, but is now reduced to the status of footpath / shared space alongside the Manchester Aquatics Centre, which is a nice irony. 

Trying to remember the location of the block of flats seen In the background at the right edge of the photo, I think it is / was near Downing Street / Grosvenor Street".

Now that's detective work!

Location; Manchester

Picture; three handcarts, 1969, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY,

*Looking for Gibraltar in Manchester ........... a story by John Anthony Hewitt, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/02/looking-for-gibraltar-in-manchester.html

Miss Ada Bidgood of 11 Holland Road, Chorlton-cum- Hardy steps out of the shadows

Here is another of our Red Cross nurses who served here in Chorlton in the Great War.

Miss Bidgood's shift

She was Miss Ada Bidgood, and I doubt I would have ever come to have known about her work as a Red Cross nurse, were it not for postcard with her duty rota for Saturday August 19th starting at 1.30.

The card is undated, but on the reverse carried Miss Bidwood’s address which was 11 Holland Road.

On the surface it isn’t much to go on, but it was enough.

There were three Red Cross hospitals in Chorlton.

Two were situated in the Sunday School buildings of The McLaren Baptist Memorial Church on Edge Lane, and the Methodist Church on Manchester Road, and the last was in a private house beside the old Conservative Club.

A search of the Red Cross data base revealed that Ada was at the Baptist Church and had started in the April of 1916, continuing through till the April of 1918, working part time, and engaged in “ward and dispensary duties”.

She lived with her parents and three siblings, and the family moved around, having lived in Yorkshire, Durham and Warwickshire, which may in part be because her father, described himself as a Publisher District Manager, although by 1939 he recorded his status as a “retired art dealer”.

At present I know little more about Ada, other than that she was born in 1885 and died in 1975 in Stockport and never married.

Her address

But it is a start and offers up a name and a few brief biographical details of one our nurses.

The McLaren Baptist Church was the first to offer their Sunday School as a convalescent hospital.

The story of its first was written up by the East Lancashire Branch of the British Red Cross as part of “An Illustrated Account of the Work of the Branch During the First Year of the War.” *

And its presence represented a massive commitment on the part of the 16,000 Chorlton people.

The number of voluntary nurses and orderlies ran to 89 and another 70 worked at some point in the kitchen.

There were also regular fund-raising activities, loans of equipment and twice weekly ward concerts.

 More than anything it shows the level to which the war effort was supported and funded by voluntary actions.

 Like many churches of the period it had a large Sunday school and it was this which was converted into the hospital in November 1914.

Soldiers outside the MCLaren Baptist Church, date unknown

Like many churches of the period it had a large Sunday school and it was this which was converted into the hospital in November 1914.

 “a ward of 31 beds, kitchens, mess room, bath room, dispensary, pack stores, linen rooms, matrons’ room and office” all of which were on the ground floor.

The building was large enough to accommodate


The Sunday School to the left, converted into a hospital
The original plan had been for 25 beds but in May 1915 an extra six beds were added.

What is astounding is that the cost of equipping the hospital which came to £140 was met by public subscription after an appeal for funds from the local Red Cross, and that this was “in addition to the liberal amount of hospital appurtenances so freely furnished on loan by the public.”

Nor did the generosity stop there. For while the War Office allowance for each man per day was 2 shillings [10p], the average cost for the upkeep per bed was 25 shillings [£1.25p] which again was met by the public through “subscriptions, donations and the proceeds of entertainments.”

During that first year of the war 159 volunteers worked at the hospital and all but four came from the township.

There are many familiar names, some whose families had been in the township for generations.

Ann Higginbotham aged 22 was the daughter of Alfred and Emily whose family had farmed by the green since the 1840’s.

There were also newer names like H. F. Dawson and A. H. Dawson or the Kemps. Miss Kemp worked in the kitchen while Harry her father was on the committee.

He had two chemists’ shops and would be remembered for over half a century by Kemp’s Corner.

And to these we can add Miss Ada Bidgood, who I now also know was due to start her shift on August 19th, 1917

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Miss Ada Bidgood’s postcard, date unknown, courtesy of David Harrop, and The McLaren Baptist Memorial Church, date unknown from the collection of Chris Griffiths


*Chorlton-cum-Hardy Red Cross Hospital, East Lancashire Branch of the British Red Cross Society Sherratt & Hughes, 1916

Eltham from the pen of Llwyd Roberts ....... nu 1 the old parish church circa 1840

Now I am a great fan of the work of Mr Llwyd Roberts.

He was born in Borth in Cardiganshire in 1875 and was articled to a Derby architect later spending  seven years as a draughtsman in Burton Upon Trent before working for a series of Welsh newspapers.

After war service and a period in the British army of occupation he settled in Eltham at Bloxham-gardens working as a topographical artist and concentrating on drawings of the ancient buildings of Kent.

And it will be during this time that he produced the drawings in the book.

Now I have to say that they fascinate me.  Some are quite clearly drawn from his direct observation of the buildings while others may be from earlier pictures and a few are a careful attempt to reconstruct a scene from an earlier period.

All of which may mean that some at least may not be an entirely accurate depiction of the past, but that said I suspect they are as close as we going to get.

Many were published in the Kentish Times in 1930 and as you do I went looking for copyright permission but given that the Kentish Times has now ceased to publish and the pictures are over 85 years old I think I should be OK.

I featured some of my favourite deawings earlier in the year and over the next few days I shall show so more.

According to Mt Roberts this "was the old parish Church.and the Kings' Arms as they might have loked between 1840-1860."

Location; Eltham

Picture; Eltham Parish Church; drawn circa 1930, Llwyd Roberts

Four million years of plastic rubbish ………. and a story ......

It could be a daft or at worse misleading title but I think not because Radio 4's Start the Week today, explored the impact of what has been left behind by our ancestors, what the objects tell us about the past and morphs into a discussion on the promotion and uses of plastic and its long term effect on the environment.

I tuned in by accident and was hooked, so much so that later today I will revisit the broadcast

"In front of an audience at the Hay Literary Festival Tom Sutcliffe talks to The archaeologist and presenter of the hit TV show, The Great British Dig, Chloë Duckworth, who explains how every object tells a story. She reveals how even the rubbish our ancestors threw away can offer a window on the past and forge a connection with the present day.

Business journalist Saabira Chaudhuri's new book Consumed, examines how companies have harnessed single-use plastics to turbocharge their profits over the last seventy years. Consumer goods makers have poured billions of dollars into convincing us we need disposable cups, bags, bottles, sachets and plastic-packaged ultra-processed foods. Taking in marketing, commercial strategy and psychology, she explains just how we got here.

The paleobiologist Sarah Gabbott is more interested in looking at how what we throw away today becomes the fossils of tomorrow. Discarded (co-authored with Jan Zalasiewicz) highlights the cutting-edge science that is emerging to reveal the far-future human footprint on Earth.

Producer: Katy Hickman"

Location Radio 4

Picture; a bit of plastic from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Hay Festival: exposing the secrets of rubbish, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002cpqq