When history is just a series of adventures

Now I do take history seriously, both in the research and in the writing but as someone once said “always have a bit of fun everyday”

Sir Robert Peel and friends, 2016

And today in the company of Peter Topping I am off on some historical adventures, collecting the pictures to support  our new tram book.

This will be the fourth in the series, The History of Greater Manchester By Tram.  It is a unique, perhaps quirky way to tell the history of Greater Manchester by using all 99 stops on the eight routes of the tram network.*

The Milk Maid, 1906

I write about the history of each of the stops and the surrounding area, and Peter produces a collection of original painting of significant places and buildings.

And together they make up a history or the region.

So today we are off to Piccadilly Gardens, the Railway Station and New Islington, pausing to make the pictures which fit the stories.

They include the memorials, the old BBC building, with a look at the new Mayfield Gardens and that nightmare for motorists which is Stoney Brew.

We will even take the train from the Railway Station to the first stop on any of the lines, just to come back and check just how much the skyline behind Piccadilly has changed when I regularly made the journey half a century ago. 

And for those in the know I want to find the exact location of the Milk Maid on Parker Street while Peter wants to stand where students once painted a trail of footsteps from Queen Victoria’s statute to the site of the public lavatories..

So silly adventures in a good cause.

The books are available at £4.99 from Chorlton Bookshop, the shop at Central Ref, St Peter's Square, or from us at  www.pubbooks.co.uk

Location; Piccadilly Gardens, the Railway Station and New Islington

Pictures; Sir Robert Peel and friends, Piccadilly, 2016, and The Milk Maid, from a 1906 picture postcard from Tuck and Son, courtesy of Tuckdb, http://tuckdb.org/about 

*A new book on the History Of Greater Manchester By Tram, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20History%20of%20Greater%20Manchester%20by%20Tram

A house with a story

Now we all have favourite buildings but this is not one of mine.

And yet there is a remarkable story here which takes us back to the early years of commercial photography and the Ireland Photographic Studios which began up in Newton Heath as a side line and became an important family business in the centre of Manchester.*

The Ireland family prospered as commercial photographers and eventually settled here in this house.

The business was taken over by Charles Ireland whose father began the studios and he briefly lived in the house which is now the Buddhist Centre on High Lane but was once the Art School of Tom Mostyn.

So there you have it.

*It started with a picture, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Charles%20Ireland

Picture; from the collection of Andy Robertson

Wishing you were here ........... Eltham in the past nu 3 the old vicarage 1833

The caption says "The Old Vicarage as seen from what is now Sherrard Road.  In the distance the Church. 

On the right the old Chequers Inn. 

Date 1833.  The shops on the immediate right are still in existence.”

And that is pretty much all you will get today, except to say that “today” was 1909 and back in 1833 Sherrard Road where it joins Eltham Hill was the start of Well Hall Lane, but that is another story, for another time.

Picture; the old vicarage, from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

The bridges of Salford and Manchester ........... nu 3 how things change

I recently included much the same view along the river in the 1850s by the artist C W Clennell.

And then I was back in 2016.

Location Salford











Picture; the river and the bridge, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

University Green …….the place I discovered this week

University Green is that space off Oxford Road which on a warm sunny day is the perfect place to take in a drink with a friend or just watch people.

Meeting up, 2025

All of which I did this week as the heat wave continued to make many of us seek a bit of shelter and something to sip.

And while I was there, I pondered on why I had never sat here before which of course I had.

Bright, colorful and light, 2025

It’s just that the Green looked very different and was really just an open space with an ascending walkway which gave access to the red brick building which   was occupied by a bank, a café and some shops with the covered in bridge crossing Oxford Road.

It always struck me as a bit of a sad place, with few people and precious few customers in the shops. It was really just a place to sit waiting to meet someone, although we did once book a Greek Holiday in Delta Travel and I can remember eating something greasy in the café.

And then that red brick building was redeveloped with new interesting places offering real beer, supermarket stuff and much more.

The transition began around 2016 and was dramatic enough for me to have forgotten there was that older place.

All of which is how on Wednesday afternoon I came to take a series of pictures on a warm sunny day with heaps of people taking in a drink with a friend or just watching people.

And the history?  

The Precinct 1971

Inside the Precinct, waiting for the shops to arrive, 1972

That is the continuing evolution of this bit of Oxford Road, and like many I can remember the clearing of the old 19th century properties, the building of the big red precinct its transformation and the new University Green. 

I may of course be unfair on the Precinct, after all it was all that the dawning 1970s thought was modern and utilitarian, but now has vanished like so many of those brave new bits of public building.

On the Green, 2025

At which point l won't mention that dark half dismal  pub called the Phoenix  which occupied a ground floor spot on the the other side of the red brick building.

ut others will.

The Phoenix, 1973

Location; University Green

Pictures; taking in the sun, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, The Precint from Oxford Road, 1971, M04135, Inside the Precinct, 1972, M04155, and the Phoenix, M50221, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Taking in the sun, 2025

At the vicar's jubilee in Eltham with Peter Wakeman in the field by the vicarage in the September of 1833

“in many of the homes of Eltham ..... so impressive were the demonstrations that took place [to commemorate his fifty years in office in 1833] that the children and grandchildren of those who witnessed them find to this day, a congenial theme for conversational purposes.”*

I still find it quite amazing that an event that took place in the September of 1833 could still be remembered so vividly over seventy years after it happened.

Of course it may well be that this has been exaggerated in the retelling, but I have no doubt that R.R.C Gregory who commented on the impact of the celebrations to mark the jubilee of the Reverend John Kenward Shaw Brooke’s tenure as vicar were accurate.

Mr Gregory was an excellent historian whose meticulous account of the history of Eltham is well researched and not apt to linger on the might have been.

John Kenward Shaw Brooke was vicar of St John’s in Eltham from the age of 24 in 1783 till his death in 1840.

Now that was indeed some record and that combined with his reputation resulted in John Fry’s newly built row of cottages taking on the name of Jubilee Cottages, a name they retained till their demolition in 1957.

And so to the celebrations which was held on the field by the vicarage behind the High Street.  Much of what we know of the event comes from a hand bill and a ticket of invitation which had sat behind a framed engraving of the vicar for seventy-five years.

One side was printed “1833. Eltham Jubilee, in commemoration of the 50th year the Rev. J.K. Shaw Brooke has resided within the parish as Vicar, universally beloved and respected” and invited “Peter Wakemean ... to partake on Thursday , the 5th day of September, of a dinner provided by public subscription in token of the respect and regard entertained the Vicar of the Parish Of Eltham, 1833
N.B. You are quested to wear this card with the other side in front, in a conspicuous manner, to attend on the day in the Court Yard and to bring with you a knife and fork.”

And that was what Peter Wakeman did for according to Mr Gregory “around the card are the needle marks to shew that it had been carefully sewn upon some conspicuous part of his attire.”

Along with the meal there was to be a host of activities including Gingling Matches, Scrambling for Penny Pieces, Eating Rolls and Treacle, with Dipping for Marbles, Dipping for Oranges, Climbing the Pole and Jumping in Sacks as well as  Hurdle Stakes and Flogging the Ball out of the Hole.

All of which was pretty straight forward apart from Gingling Matches which I discovered was  “an old English game in which blindfolded players try to catch one player not blindfolded who keeps jingling a bell”

And then as now the day was finished off with “A grand display of Fireworks.”

I suppose it might seem very tame but this was rural England at play, and these were the ways we would have entertained ourselves in the early 19th century.

Nor is this all, for the observant of you will have picked up on the fact that Peter had to provide his own knife and fork and that the meal had been provided by a subscription.

But in other ways our event looks forward for each guest had to bring proof of identity and wear it as both a way in to the event and as a means of securing their continued presence.

Our card may not be a smart device but it was nevertheless the way you proved who you were on the that September day.

I rather think I will now go off and search for Mr Wakeman for here I feel is yet another story.

Pictures;  from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

*The Story of Royal Eltham, R.R.RC. Gregory 1909

“Wally of the Whalley” Says Goodbye ......... stories of the Whalley Hotel

“Wally of the Whalley” Says Goodbye

It is one of those headlines that you just can’t miss.

“Wally of the Whalley” Says Goodbye appeared in the Manchester City News for November 16th 1951 and featured Mr and Mrs Summer who had run the Whalley Hotel for four years.

Mr Wally Summer and his wife Ethel were leaving Manchester for Anglesey, where they were to take over the Anglesey Arms.

“It's going to be a wrench leaving” he told the City News, “we’ve made hundreds of friends since we came to Brooks’ Bar.  I’ve been amazed at the number of people who have come up to wish us luck.”*

The Anglesey Arms is still there just at the edge of the Menai Bridge.

Now in the fullness of time I would like to find out more about Mr and Mrs Summer.

Painting; The Whalley Hotel,  © 2013 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook:  Paintings from Pictures
*Manchester City News November 16, 1951

The bridges of Salford and Manchester ......... nu 2 Victoria Bridge, sometime in the 1850s

Now there is not much more to say.

 It is the work of C W Clennel sometime in the 1850s.
But there is more.
And for that I am indebted to Alan who quick as a flash, added that

"Haha, I beg to differ Andrew, there is much to say, for instance the first mention of the bridge over the river Irwell was in the Lancashire Inquisitions of 1226. 

In 1368 Thomas Bothe a wealthy Yeoman of Barton on Irwell bequeathed £30 in his will to the Bridge on which he had previously built a chapel.where prayers were to be said for the soul of the founder.In 1505, the Chapel was converted to a prison.

On September 25th 1642 was the Battle of Salford Bridge between the Parliamentary forces and the Royalists. 

On July 1776 the bridge was widened by taking down the Dungeon and extending its piers and arches. 

On July 2nd 1838 the first stone on the Salford side of Victoria Bridge was laid by Mr Elkanah Armitage, the Borough Reeve of Salford and on July the 2nd the first stone on the Salford side was laid by Mr J Brown, Borough Reeve of Manchester.

On October 16th, the central arches were washed away.

On January 7th 1839 the arches of Victoria bridge were once again destroyed in a Gale. There were to be many more great floods, but the bridge appears to have escaped further damage, here ends my little hisory of Victoria Bridge...... "

And I think pretty much does justice to the old bridge.  Thank you Alan

Location; Salford

Picture, Victoria Bridge, C W Clennell, m77145 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

When a bit of the Ship Canal came to Longford Park ……

This is one of the desks which once belonged to the Manchester Ship Canal.

The desk, 2025

I like the idea that it has come home to Longford Park because one of the prime movers of the Ship Canal project was John Rylands who lived in the big house in the grounds which is now the park.

To be strictly accurate this bit of ship canal history now resides a few yards away in the home of Juliette Tomlinson who has written a fictional account of Mr. Rylands and his wife Enriqueta.

The book, Longford A Manchester Love Story came out last year and has caught the imagination of everyone who has read it.*

And so, it is fitting that the second in the trilogy is being written on that desk and explores his contribution to the Canal and of course to the relationship between John and Enriqueta.

I have to confess that standing in front of the desk this morning, I did what we all would do and “touched a bit of history”.  

Longford Hall former home of John and Enriqueta, 1914

To be very honest while Juliette was out of the room I did more than run my had over the polished surface and sitting at the desk I scribbled a note to myself and pondered on the generations of clerks who will have laboured away writing up minutes, checking receipts and composing letters to long vanished shipping companies.

The romantic in me even whiled away the minutes wondering if the man himself used the desk, but that would be unhistorical tosh, so instead I looked to see if any bored clerk had left their name carved in the wood.

Longford Park, 1914

I didn’t but I will await Juliette to do the full search and report back.

Leaving me just to say it had holes for inkwells and a bank of electric sockets which will have been installed long after the first ships sailed up the canal into the docks.

Pictures, The Ship Canal desk, 2025, courtesy of Juliette Tomlinson, the book Longford, 2024, Longford Hall, 1914 from the series Longford Park, issued by Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/, 

That desk, 2025

*Longford A Manchester Love Story, available from Chorlton Bookshop, Waterstones and The Squeeze Press, www.woodenbooks.com

Chorlton’s mysterious eight ………. and an insight into our past

Now the history of Chorlton-cum-Hardy just keeps giving.

“Bowling Green Inn and old Church C c H”

So I am back looking again at eight paintings which were loaned to me by Julie Gaskell.

Each is of a time before now and range across Chorlton, from the small hamlet of Hardy across to the southern end of the old village and back along what is now Beech Road and east toward Hough End Hall.

And they include wattle and daub cottages, the smithy, as well as the old Bowling Green pub, and Barlow Hall.

The artist is unnamed, but I think they are by J Montgomery who painted a huge number of Chorlton scenes from sometime in the 1940s through to the mid-1960s.  

He remains a bit of a mystery with no one owning up to have known him.  Manchester Libraries who hold a collection of his paintings have no biographical information on him.

“Cottage Beech Road C cum Hardy”

But with the help of Andy Robertson, I am fairly confident he lived in Chorlton, and pretty much only painted scenes of the township.

The quality of his work is erratic, but together they offer up images of what Chorlton was like in the 19th century.

Some look to be imaginative reconstruction loosely based on photographs while most seem to be a faithful reproduction taken from picture postcards.

So the painting “Ale House in 1618 at Hough End Hall before Hough End Hall was built” drifts into pure speculation and is historically inaccurate given that our Hough End Hall was built in the 1590s.

In the same way “Bowling Green Inn and old Church C c H” is quite clearly based on at least one photograph from the late 19th century. 

As is “Cottage Beech Road C cum Hardy” which is Sutton’s Cottages which stood on the present site of the Launderette bar and restaurant.  The cottage dates from sometime in the 18th century and was demolished in the early 1890s.

"Barlow Hall, view from the meadows"

Others “Hough End Hall Old Hall or Manor House of Manchester” resemble photographs I have seen to suggest they are fairly accurate.

An even “Pitts Brow Edge Lane where new church and Stockton Range now stand” for which there will be no photographic evidence might be a mix of the artist’s imagination and descriptions which appeared in T Ellwood’s History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy which appeared over 26 weeks in the South Manchester Gazette between the winter of 1885 and the spring of the following year.

So there you have it ….. eight mystery paintings most of which look to be based on old photographs, some of which have themselves been lost, and take us back to that rural Chorlton of the mid 19th century.

"Behind the Smithy, Beech Road C c H"

In some cases, it is difficult to guarantee their accuracy, but using maps, and written records I think we can be confident that we are almost back to the Chorlton cum Hardy of the 1850s.

Leaving me just to say the eight look to be reproductions of originals, have been laminated and framed.

So thank you Julie who spotted them in a shop and had to buy all eight.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures, eight paintings, by an unknown artist, courtesy of Julie Gaskell.

Down at the Castle in the High Street with a bit of historical magic

Now one of the best things about history is when you get to touch it.

And for me it doesn’t that matter much whether it’s a Roman coin or a glass medicine bottle from the beginning of the last century.

To touch the object and know that somewhere on it will be the fingerprints of the person who first made it and a story that will twist and turn in all directions is magic.

One of my greatest treasures is a Viking oyster shell which had lain in the mud of Jorvik for a thousand years before the archaeologists of the City of York brought it back into the day light.

Back in 1978 when it was uncovered there were so many that they were put in a wooden barrel and were on sale for 10p.

The other find was from the back of our shed where Dad had carefully placed thirty copper earth rods made for one of those very early wireless sets.

The batch dated from the 1920s, had sat in our garden shed in Well Hall for years and had been made in the Acnaconda Works, Salford which is just down the road.

All of which is an introduction to this 17th century trade token which Tricia shared with me.

Tokens like this were issued by traders in the absence of low value coinage, and was a practice which extended into the 18th century.

In Eltham the oldest dates from 1649 and bears the names of Nathaniel and Tasmin Mercer who were running the Castle, while another from 1667.

They were unearthed when the old Castle pub was demolished, and also found was one for William Crich of the Grocers’ Arms Deptford dated 1663.

Now imagine how over the moon I was when Tricia said  "I have been investigating the attached farthing tokens concerning The Castle for some time. 

I have been trying to find out who the initials belong to (NT & wife T) reading your post today I now know it to be Nathaniel & Tasmin Mercer. So I am handing it over to you to add to your blog seeing as you have done all the hard work.

The description is as follows. 17c farthing token issued by NM and wife T at the Castelle Taverne, Issue date 1649, denomination farthing, metal copper alloy, diameter 14mm."

And that is it.  A pretty neat bit of joint research.

Location, Eltham

Picture, the 1649 Castle trade token courtesy of Tricia Lesley

The bridges of Salford and Manchester ....... nu 1 Blackfriars Bridge sometime in the 1850s

Now of course it does really depend on which way you cross the bridge.

But I am not a pedant.

And I am not inclined to add anything more, save to say it is another by the artist Mr C W Clennell who strolled into Salford from Manchester sometime in the 1850s and this was the result.

So far I have come across four of paintings featuring Salford.

And that is al I am going to say.

Location; Salford

Picture, Blackfriars Bridge, C W Clennell, , m77146 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Summer days in Chorlton …..

 Wednesday July23rd out on Barlow Moor Road and Wilbraham Road.

Chorlton welcomes nice cyclists, 2025

A pizza a day .... there are others available, 2025

The restaraunt amongst the grafitti, 2025

A sign for the times, 2025

Location; Barlow Moor Road and Wilbraham Road

Pictures; Summer days in Chorlton, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

 

Hats off to the Smithsonian ……..

I won’t be alone in getting tired of the style of many online media stories.

Passing faces, Paris, 1981

You get hooked by the title, but then must wade through acres of text, often repeating what has already been written before you get to the bit that explains the title and fully tells the story.

Which may or may not be linked to the adverts which are embedded every so often.

Now I know that it is the adverts that sustain the economic model of online media, but just give me a couple sentences at the beginning which anchor the headline with some detail.

And that is what Mr. Thorsberg gave me. In the opening lines I got a more precise date, a clear location for the ship’s lasting resting place and who made the discovery. *

At which point I had the option to discard the article or carry on and carry on I did.

At the end of the 270-word piece, I knew all I wanted to know, with the option of following up elsewhere.

Somewhere I am sure there will be a quote by George Orwell on journalism which talks about the skill of informing the reader in clear prose and getting to the point quickly.

And here I remember an old science colleague who summed yp his approach to journalism ….. “I read the introduction and the conclusion which pretty much informs me if I want to read the rest”.**

Of course, there has to be style and elegance in the way the article is written, but there has be an attention to telling me what I am about to read.

At which point I confess I have been known to ramble on, introduce material which has only a slight connection to the main story, but I am trying to be more precise.

So hats off to the Smithsonian.

Picture; And the picture which has nothing to do with the story, Passing faces, Paris, 1981, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*In the Muddy Banks of North Carolina, Student Archaeologists May Have Discovered the Remnants of a Centuries-Old Spanish Ship, Christian Thorsberg,

Smithsonian Magazine, August 12, 2025, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/timber-from-colonial-era-spanish-ship-among-four-shipwrecks-discovered-in-north-carolina-180987139

**Denis Eboral, 1982

Getting your picture taken

There is something about that formal posed photograph which my parent’s generation and those behind them went in for.

We all have them whether in old fashioned picture frames, or shabby and much used albums and in some cases just loose in a drawer with letters by relatives we know nothing about.

They stare back at you mostly looking very serious, no doubt calculating how much the session was costing or with that faint smile which they know they shouldn’t because this is a special occasion.

And I have become fascinated by what they tell us of the period they were taken.  The most obvious thing of course is their clothes and hairstyles but this is only the start.  In many you don’t see people smiling because to do so would reveal the lack of teeth which was the product of poor diet and an income which precluded the dentist.

Then there is the correct way they stand or sit, often in an arranged way, with the woman sitting down the man standing behind or to one side, and the children in front at the feet of their parents.  It is a style of posing that goes back into the paintings of an early age.

Then there is the cigarette.  It is always there in the movies of the 1930s and 40s and transferred to the formal photograph.  So on a series of pictures taken I guess in the late 1940s there is my mother with a cigarette in hand.

But at least neither she nor my grandparents went in for the studio props which in an earlier age would have been a required addition.  The elaborate table, with its arrangement of flowers the stuffed animals or the mock country scene are missing from my family pictures.

None of which I can say I miss.  But then none of ours come with those beautiful engraved back covers offering the names of the studio in gilt lettering.  Sadly the best we can do is a postcard of grandmother in Derby in the June of 1930 which was placed on a postcard by Spotlight Photos Ltd Derby.

But these engraved back covers are themselves a wonderful source of information.  It enabled me to track the success of a local family of photographers by the list of premises they advertised.  Not I grant you earth shattering stuff but nevertheless another little part of the bigger story.

Charles Ireland took one of the best pictures of a Chorlton cinema.* He had died in 1930 aged 63, left £5,330 to his widow and was buried in Southern Cemetery.   He had been born in Newton in Manchester in 1867 and by 1891 the family were living here on St Clements Road.

This seems to have been a step up.  The family home on Oldham Road in Newton was at the heart of an industrial area.  Just to the north was the large carriage and wagon works of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway and to the south and east there were brick works cotton mills, bleach works as well a glass works.

Charles’s father Edward was in partnership as a pawnbroker although he also described himself as a photographer, and by 1891 this appears to have been his sole occupation.  There were as yet few photographers listed in the directories for Manchester in the 1880s and they are still described as artists.  By 1895 he had opened the shop on Lower Mosley Street which Charles still ran until the late 1920s.

Sometime during the early 20th century he opened studios in Edinburgh and Hanley. All of which allowed him to purchase the large house on the corner of Kingshill Road and Edge Lane and for his son to buy the large property on High Lane which had once been the art school of Tom Mostyn.

It is a remarkable story for a man who began as the partner of a pawnbroker and says a lot about the money that could be made from formal photography, which is pretty much where we came in.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/forgotten-photograph-palais-de-luxe-in.html

The remarkable Miss Olga Hertz and her work for the children of Manchester

I doubt I would ever have come across Miss Olga Hertz, had it not been for a report she wrote in 1909 which surfaced recently.

The report, 1909

What makes the report and Miss Hertz particularly interesting for me, is that she was one of the elected Guardians on the Chorlton Union which was the Poor Law authority covering my bit of Manchester and she lived almost all her adult life just round the corner.

Now I say I wouldn’t, but as the plan has always been to research this Poor Law Union, I suppose I would in time have met up with her.

The Chorlton Union covered most of south Manchester with its first work house in Hulme and its later one in Withington.  This second workhouse built in the 1850s, saw the Union out and developed into Withington Hospital only closing in 2002.

Like other Poor Law authority’s, Chorlton migrated some of their young people to Canada, and at the beginning of the century the three socialist Guardians argued against the policy, raising concerns about the degree of monitoring of children were highly critical of an economic and social system which accepted poverty and inequality as natural.

And that brings us back to Miss Hertz who in the June of 1909 sailed from Liverpool to Montreal and then across Ontario, visiting the Marchmont Home and by degree the farms and homes where Chorlton children had been placed from both Marchmont and Belleville.

It paints a positive picture of those who had been sent over, raising some concerns about the monitoring of some children given the large distances.

There will be those who wonder whether it was “too positive”, but Miss Hertz was very dedicated to the welfare of the young people in the charge of the Union and maintained close contacts with many of them long after they had grown up, even referring to them as “Miss Hertz’s grandchildren".

The offices of the Chorlton Union, 2009

So like so much to do with British Home Children there will have to be much more research, matching the assertions of the socialist Guardians with the quality and quantity of the reports sent back.

For now it is Miss Hertz who interests me.  She was born in Scotland in 1851 and moved to Manchester in 1871, settling on Palatine Road in Withington sometime after 1881 and where she died in 1946.

Her adult life was predicated on public service, and she was involved with administration of nursing in the city as well as her work with young people.

She was first elected as a Guardian to the Chorlton Union in 1892 and served until 1930, during which time she did five years as chair of the committee responsible for the Styal Cottage Homes for young people run by the Chorlton Union.

She remained a champion of such provision, arguing such small homes were preferable to the older and larger “barrack” institutions or the practice of boarding children out.

And she campaigned for feminist issues, opposing the practice of one hospital for refusing to employ women doctors, argued that at least one of the Union’s three doctors should be a woman and consistently pushed for the establishment of maternity centres across Manchester and in 1914 had been a delegate at  the Fifth International Council of Women held in Rome.

The entrance to the offices of the Chorlton Union' 2009

There is much more to find out about this remarkable women but I will close with her work for "the Girls’ Lodging House which existed to meet the needs of young homeless, inexperienced domestic workers during their off duty time and during periods of unemployment, girls brought up in the Poor Law homes having first claim”.**

It had been set up in the 19th century and while it closed in 1937, Miss Hertz had remarked that "she considers that there are still young workers to whom such a place would be a boon".

Leaving me just to reflect that while her house has gone, replaced by a car park for Christies' Hospital, there are the offices of the old Chorlton Poor Law Union and by an odd quirk some of the Canadian soldiers from the Great War were treated in the Unions' hospital in Withington Workhouse, and some who died are buried Southern Cemetery which is close by.

And if all that is a coincidence some of those Canadians were British Home Children.

Location; Manchester & Canada

Pictures; cover of Report to the Chorlton Board of Guardians, the offices of the Chorlton Union, 2009, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Research, the Manchester Guardian, 1894-1946, selected census records and street directories

*Copy of the Report to the Chorlton Board of Guardians on a Visit to Emigrated Children in Canada, by Miss O Hertz, Chairman of the Cottage Homes Committee

**Miss Olga Hertz Her 90th Birthday, Manchester Guardian November 19 1941

Days ...... Paris ... 1981

The pictures of Paris 44 years ago have suffered from sitting in the cellar for decades, but they are a day in that City of Light, before the internet, before Putin and beforereality TV

Dance the day away

Busy Cars

Hot street days

Silly days

Water days

Location; Paris

Pictures; Days .... Paris .... 1981, from the collection of Andrew Simpson 

Three Forgotten Graves .... another story from Tony Goulding

This memorial to Helen Richmond Cox is one of three situated alongside a boundary wall of the old St. Clement’s churchyard in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. 

 Memorial to Helen Richmond Cox

All three are to a greater or lesser extent obscured by vegetation. Not that any actually mark their remains nor even the site of their graves. 

All the bodies in the graveyard were exhumed in 1930 and reinterred in Southern Cemetery then in the 1980s when Manchester Council decided that graveyard was in a hazardous state and needed to be landscaped, most of the memorials were removed then either destroyed or haphazardly replaced. 

Esther Floweth’s memorial

Some were laid flat to form a pathway with others replaced as ornamental features.    

One of the other gravestones records the birth and death of another child, Esther Floweth, who died on 1st March 1868 aged just 5 years and 9 months. The third is of Anne Ormrod, who was 80 years old when she died on 9th June 1867 while visiting her daughter on that forgotten road of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Lloyd Street.

None of these three burials were of a parishioner of St. Clements. Although Ann Ormrod was residing in the parish when she died, she was a native of Bolton, Lancashire. 

Helen Richmond Cox hailed from Stretford, and Esther Floweth lived in Hulme, Manchester. This is not at all unusual, as of the 841 burials recorded in St. Clement’s burial register between 1st January 1851 and 31st December 1876 only 320 show their “abode” as Chorlton-cum-Hardy. 

This comprises just 38% of internments.  However, closer examination reveals that with the expansion of the township’s population the trend from1860 onwards was for a gradual increase in the percentage of “local” burials.

Ann Ormrod’s gravestone

While many of those buried who were not residents of St. Clement’s parish were from neighbouring  townships of Didsbury, Withington, and Stretford the majority were from further afield. Hulme and to a lesser degree Chorlton-on-Medlock were the main areas although, Ardwick, Pendleton, and Salford also featured. There was even a small number whose homes were given as much further away in places like Blackpool and Everton!

The large number of non-resident burials obviously made a substantial contribution to the pressure which forced the Home Office to close the graveyard (1) following an enquiry on 25th November 1881.

It is impossible to know the motives involved in these choices to inter a loved one in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, but it is fun to speculate. One reason could be antagonism towards their local vicar leading them to worship in St. Clement’s. 

It could be a combination of the desire, with the industrial spread of Manchester during the middle of the 19th century, for a more idyllic place to bury loved ones offered by the still rural Chorlton-cum-Hardy and the opportunity for some extra revenue for the parish the burial fees would provide. 

Finally, it has been suggested that in some instances there was either no local church or one with a very limited if any graveyard. Some also will have had relatives buried in St. Clement’s. This was the case with Maria Birley of Southport, Lancashire, the widow of Rev. William Birley who had been appointed St. Clement’s first Rector on 17th February 1843 and served in that post until December 1859. (2)     

In this category also is the burial of Frederick Cope on 26th February 1874 whose home address was by far the most distant. After a successful career as a wine merchant in Manchester, when he resided for a time at Oak Bank, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, he retired to his birth county, Warwickshire, viz, Campion Lodge, Leamington. Following his death there on 19th February 1874 his coffin was brought north, and he was interred in the same grave as his wife Elizabeth and two of his children Emily Simms and Frederick Adam (3)

To conclude, like Ann Ormrod, one of the Blackpool residents, William Hughes, was also a visitor to the area. In his case after attending a sale in Manchester he intended to call at Barlow Hall hoping to get a position there and to look-up some old friends in the area he knew from his previous work as a coachman at the Hall, for Sir William Cunliffe Brooks. 

Barlow Hall - 1910

The unfortunate man was “found drowned” that being the verdict of the inquest into the circumstances of his death held at Jackson’s Boat on 17th December 1864.

The matter was widely reported in the press as he was found in “The Moat” a pit in the garden of the home of a prominent banker Conservative M. P. and a Baronet!

Pictures, Barlow Hall – 1910 by Jenny Wylie http://www.british-history.ac.uk/image.aspx?compid=41427&filename=fig99.gif&pubid=288, others from the collection of Tony Goulding.

Notes: -

1) The order prohibited the opening of new graves and only allowed burials of those with a family plot and only if there was sufficient depth to adequately cover the coffin. The final burial was that of Thomas Caleb Butcher on 25th February 1916. (Blog story 22nd August 2020).

2) Rev. William Birley had become an inspector of schools and was the Rector of St. Stephen’s in Pendleton, Salford when he died on 27th July 1865, he was interred in his previous parish’s graveyard. Interestingly the entry in the burials register of St Clement’s shows that his abode was first entered as Chorlton-cum-Hardy before being amended to Pendleton.

3) Both of Fredericks children buried in this grave died young. His daughter, Emily Simms was just 13 years old when she died in April 1846.  Frederick Adam, his only son, died in a tragic suicide when he shot himself in the evening of Friday 1st July 1853. (Blog story 24th October 2015)