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)