Outside Chorlton's Royal Oak with Thomas Kelsey

This is another of those pictures of the old Royal Oak in Chorlton I have never seen before, and it features Thomas Kelsey whose family ran the pub from 1895.

It was sent to me yesterday by Kelsey Broome, who added, "Hi Andrew, I have just come across your post on the Chorlton Facebook group with the photo of Thomas Kelsey outside the Royal Oak.* 

I hope you don't mind me getting in touch. Thomas Kelsey was my great Grandfather, and this is how I came to be named Kelsey.

Thomas Kelsey had two daughters Mamie (my grandmother) and Freda (my Great Aunty). My Great Aunty Freda is still alive and has just turned 90. We have photos of the Royal Oak when it was owned by George Henry Kelsey. Hope this photo that I have enclosed is of interest."

And of course, it is not only “of interest” but quite exciting and very unique, because there are only a handful of pictures of the old pub, and most of those only show a detail of the building.

The Royal Oak was originally a beer shop which dated back to the early part of the 19th century and consisted of little more than four rooms.

But the OS maps for 1894 and 1907 show that it had been enlarged and the 1911 census return records that there were eight rooms. All of which may have the work of George Kelsey, who was the landlord by 1895

Nor is that all because George Kelsey appears to have been more than just a publican because a sign in another picture from 1902, announces that he was also in the business of “CABS, HANSOMS” and offered a LIVERY STATION.”

And before that was working in the Glass House on Regent Road by 1881 when he was 18 years old while his parents had run a beer shop just off Regent Road.

Our picture shows his son Thomas, staring out from the car.

Thomas was born in 1893 in Salford and his parents ran the Duke of York pub at 186 Regent Road, before moving in 1895 to the Royal Oak here in Chorlton.

In an earlier picture dating from 1902, Thomas was photographed standing outside the pub, so this is a nice companion to that earlier image.

And Kelsey’s picture has much to offer.

It starts with the building to the right, which was a block of apartments, originally owned by the Renshaw family and predates 1832.  It was demolished to make way for the present Royal Oak, possibly in the 1930s.

And in front of that building is the large billboard for the Pavilion, which was our own music hall and cinema, and was located on the corner of Wilbraham Road now occupied by the Morrison’s petrol station.

The Pavilion, which also was known as The Chorlton Theatre and Winter Gardens, dates from 1904 and closed by 1924, all of which fixes our image sometime between those two dates.**

And there is more, because behind the car there is sometime detail of the pub, with that poster which includes the word closed, which in turn might just provide us with a date for the closure of the old pub and might just push the date of the new one back into the 1920s.

So yes, Kelsey’s picture is a wonderful addition to out knowledge of Chorlton’s past.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture, the Royal Oak, and Thomas Kelsey, date unknown, from the collection of Kelsey Broome

*That lost picture of the Royal Oak in 1902 with young Thomas Kelsey, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2019/09/that-lost-picture-of-royal-oak-in-1902.html

**The Chorlton Theatre and Winter Gardens, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Chorlton%20Theatre%20and%20Winter%20Gardens

Looking for the lost ...... one street over time in Ancoats ..... no 5 “debris and desolation”

The story of one street in Ancoats, and the people who lived and worked there.*

Ancoats residents, 1920

Now I am a little closer to being able to date the end of Homer Street.

It went in the big slum clearance push in the 1930s when a large chunk of the area around St Andrew’s Church in Ancoats went in matter of a few years.

Homer Street dated from 1837 and so just missed its hundredth birthday

And while some may have mourned its passing I doubt that there were many.

According to the Corporation there were 1,045 properties in the area around St Andrew’s Church of which “990 were occupied dwellings and 47 business premises leaving eight properties either derelict or unoccupied.”**

They were in the words of the Manchester Medical Officer of Health both unfit and “dangerous or injurious to health [and in his opinion were] a clearance area.”

Homer Street, 1894

He added that “in general the dwelling houses were of a similar type throughout the area, all fronting directly on to the streets, which generally speaking were somewhat narrow.  

These were conditions one generally found in the area of this type of small houses; narrow passages and high back yard walls. 

Of the houses 872 fronted into streets 39 feet or less in width, 469 on to streets of 24 feet or less.  The yards in the majority of cases were small and the property in the majority of cases was old.

There were 154 houses over 100 years old, 109 over 90, and 723 over 60 years old.  The density was 79 houses to the acre on net area and 52 to the acre on the gross area.”

Now like many I lived in a small two up two down terraced house in the 1970s and such properties can still be found across the country are still doing the business of keeping people warm, and comfortable and will still have a long life ahead of them.

But these were built at the end of the 19th century and by and large had been well maintained.

Those like the one my grandparents occupied in Hope Street, dated back to the beginning of the 19th century and were past their sell by date by the 1930s, but lingered on into the 60s.

Not so Homer Street or it neighbours, Andrew’s Square, Gees Place, Dryden Street and Marsden Square, all of which had all gone by 1938. The Corporation judged that many were worth less than £50 and “719 in the area were verminous.”

Of course there were objections, ranging from the landlords of some of the properties to those who thought that the replacement homes in Smedley were not suitable, leading one witness to at the inquiry on the clearance plans to describe them as “barracks” adding it was not acceptable to “make the British workman, after he has done his work climb six flights of stairs.”

Back of the demolished school, 1966

Some also questioned the policy of not rebuilding new homes in the area, pointing out that for some the cost of travelling from the new estates in places like Wythenshawe was very expensive.

But the Corporation “had zoned the whole of the area for light industrial purposes” and this was pretty much how it turned out.

The old school on the corner of Homer Street which had been opened in 1836 went, and the site became a sheet metal works while the rest of Homer Street was left as open land finally becoming a bus depot in the 1960s.

That industrial development was slow to come and in the August of 1939 the Reverend A. R. Denn of St Andrew’s wrote to the Manchester Guardian that the cleared area as “a scene of debris and desolation” with “the remains of houses in various stages of demolition.  Some buildings remain standing with broken windows and derelict doors.  

All around one may see the foundations of houses and the remains of door steps and yards, brick bats and odd pieces of stone are strewn about on all sides, whist here and there nature tries to cover up this hideousness with weary looking grass.”***

Adding that it “reminds one of the pictures of Flanders during the last war, and resembles nothing so much as the after-effects of an air raid.”

And while his observations may well have been accurate and echoed many who felt “it was not a square deal for those who have to live and work amid it”, it is worth pausing to reflect on what the Corporation was trying to do.

According to Alderman Jackson that was nothing less than a programme “to tackle about 30,000 houses in Manchester” at a time when the City was still recovering in many ways from the Depression.

There is nothing now to see of Homer Street.

For a while the plan of the streets continues to appear on maps but by 1960 even these have gone.

But nature and commerce abhor a vacuum and the site had undergone new development with the empty and derelict bus depot replaced by a large modern food warehouse.

Location; Ancoats

Pictures; Mothers' Outing, St Andrew’s Church,1920,  m70137, and Sheffield Street back of St Andrew's Church,  Revill and Son Ltd, 1966 Brooks T, m12041 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Homer Street, 1894, from the OS South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Homer Street, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Homer%20Street

**Ancoats Clearance Order, Manchester Guardian, September 26, 1934

***Debris and Desolation, A.R. Denn, letter to the Manchester Guardian, August 4, 1939

****Amato Food Products, http://www.amatoproducts.co.uk/

On Shooters Hill with Mrs Craven and George Field in the June of 1841

I have decided to head north of Well Hall to Shooters Hill in search of a story. 

Back in the 1830s and 40s, it was a mixed bunch of those deriving an income from the land and the well off.

So of our forty two people in gainful employment in the June of 1841 the largest group were those who described themselves as agricultural labourers, farm servants or gardeners.

These were followed by those of “Independent means” along with one solicitor, a governess, a tea broker and a publican.

They lived fairly close together on the southern side of Shooters Hill on a stretch facing the Bull Inn.

And I guess quite a few of our band of workers would have spent time in the company of George Field who along with his wife Mary ran the Bull Inn.

Not that I would expect the Bull was ever frequented by Louisa Crewe who rented 21 acres  from the Crown and lived in Hazelwood House which was a big enough pile for it to be marked and named on the tithe map of 1844.

She had not long become a widow.

But of her, her employees and the others in Shooters Hill more next time.
Location, Shooters Hill , London

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

Looking to our future ……. in 1954

Now I am back with that favourite observation of the future, written by Thomas Hobbs in 1650, who wrote “No man can have in his mind a conception of the future for the future is not yet.  But of conceptions of the past, we make a future.”*

And when you look at these pictures from Adventures of the World, Mr. Hobbs is spot on.

In one sense projecting the present and past into the future is obvious, more so because we ask science to extend our knowledge and technology into the realm of what might be, on the assumption that we will just make better what we already have.

So, in 1954, James Fisher drew on atomic power stations helicopters high rise apartments and transport in the sky to offer up  a vision of what would be.

And because he wasn’t stepping too far ahead, much of what he presented is now part of how we live.

The book is part history, and part science fiction and aims to show that “Man learns to work hand in hand with Nature, respecting and husbanding her resources to ensure his own welfare and happiness”.

In retrospect, we might retreat from the optimism  underpinning that confident assertion in the face of Global warming, our continued inability to feed large sections of the world’s population or lift them from grinding poverty, poor medical facilities and basic schooling.

Added to which pursuit of a “fast buck” has done no favours to “Nature”.

But that said the book does offer up a fascinating glimpse of how we thought the world would be, along with the assumptions upon which that confident futuristic view was based.

Pictures; Adventure of the World, 1954


*Hobbs, Thomas, The Elements of Law, Natural and Politics, 1650
**Fisher, James, Adventure of the World, 1954

Under the gas lamp on High Lane in the summer of 1905

I can see why Cissie decided to send this postcard to her young brother in the August of 1905.

He was staying at the delightfully named Gas Works cottage, Ambleside in Westmoreland and it is more than likely that some of the children staring back at us were known to him.

On the other hand Cissie mentions her uncle so it is just possible the she was just staying in Chorlton at Richmond Road* and choose a picture which she thought would appeal to him.

And there is a lot here which I think would appeal to anyone looking at the postcard today.

We are at the point where St Clements Road, and Manchester Road join High Lane and Edge Lane and the children are gathered underneath one of original gas lamp posts which had been set up in 1875 by the Urban Sanitary Authority which within a year would become the Withington Board of Health with its own administrative headquarters on Lapwing Lane.

And for those really interested, our first domestic gas had been provided by the Stretford Gas Company in 1862 who piped their supplies along Edge Lane, while the following year Manchester Corporation extended its main from Seymour Grove.

All of which is more than a piece of historical trivia because on the promise of cheaper gas supplies from Manchester in 1904 turned the vote for our incorporation into the City.

This was part of “an attractive package” which the Withington Amalgamation League set up in 1902 argued would mean a fall in the rates, bring “libraries, baths, reduction in water and gas rates, lower cemetery charges, music in recreation grounds better fire and police protection more deliveries of letters, technical classes, shares in tramway and electricity profits and the prospect of Ship Canal and School Board rates decreasing.”**

This was for many an offer to good to refuse and one that was shared by the City Council.  At their October meeting in 1903, much was made of the assets that Withington would hand over to the Corporation, including the newly built “hospital to which attracted 20-30 acres of land, ....[and] beyond that land for a smallpox hospital, a field for the extension of the tram services and the sewage farm, 80 acres in extent.”

And as Fletcher Moss pointed out amalgamation would bring Alexandra Park “that large park into the hands of the Council” and furthermore “the Corporation was the largest ratepayer in the Withington district and by far the largest owner of freehold estate with the possible exception of Earl Egerton” which meant they would be no longer paying out rates to Withington UDC.

And it seemed only to get better.  Under the terms of amalgamation all existing staff of the Withington UDC were taken on by the Corporation and “the price and conditions of supply of gas, water and electricity to the inhabitants of Withington shall be the same as those of the citizens of Manchester.  That all future tramways in the district of Withington shall be laid as double lines along carriage ways not less than 32 feet wide between curbs.  That two free libraries and two swimming baths to be established in different parts of Withington within five years..... that for a period of twenty years the rate shall not exceed 4s in the £.”

This was a set of promises which proved enough to clinch the vote for incorporation by 4,086 to 805.

So in the summer of 1905 our children had been residents of the city for just under a year.

Now whether they were out from school at dinner time or a weekend gathering is a bit difficult to say, but the picture looks to have been taken in the morning so maybe it was just that usual gathering of children drawn by the magic of a camera.

But not everyone is that bothered at the presence of the photographer.  To our right the work of loading the carriage outside Stockton Range goes on unabated. I would like to know if the carriage belonged to the residents of number 2.  The property did have both a coach house and a stable, so it is possible that Mr Charles Edwards who lived there may have been planning a journey.

Meanwhile in the distance sitting in the sun in front of the church are a mix of what I take to be a mother, grandmother assorted children and babies in prams.  It is a detail I might have missed if it were not that one of the prams looks remarkably familiar and is very similar to the one that just under 90 years later we would use for our own children.

And all that form Cissie’s postcard.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; from the Lloyd collection and Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, Withington Town Hall, October 16th 1906 m52133, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Richmond Road ran from Manchester Road to Oswald Road
**http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/heres-offer-you-cant-refuse.html

Hidden away, living in a court in 1908

We are in New gates which was a closed court off Corporation Street close to the junction with Withy Grove and the year is 1908.

There were still enough of these dismal and dark places around in the city and the height of these houses should not blind us to the fact that they contained just three rooms.  So what you see in the picture was what you got.

Well almost for in fact only three of the houses in the court had three rooms, most of the rest consisted of just two.  Into these thirteen properties lived fifty-six people.

The majority made a living at the bottom end of the job market and so here were labourers, cleaners, and charwomen along with a street hawker and umbrella makers.

Living conditions were pretty basic.  The water pump in the corner of the picture and the white painted building which was the shared lavatory served the whole court. Clothes were washed in the big wooden tubs close to the pump and hung out on lines across the yard. 

And this narrow yard was the communal area where along with the washing, the children played and people met and talked.

Here there was little in the way of privacy and judging by the repairs being done to cobbles and the  poor brick work there was much that made the place an uncomfortable one.  Add to this the lack of sunlight and ventilation and it is easy to see why such courts were places of necessity not choice.

Now I have written about other such courts in the city and it is easy to pass over the image and the conditions but I suspect many people looking at the photograph will have family who lived in such places.  

My own great grandmother did and some of these courts were still around as late as the mid 1960s.

Here in New gates in 1908  it may just be possible  to identify some some of the people in the picture.  This is not so fanciful.  True many inhabitants of such courts did not stay long, but others did. The parents of my great grandmother lived in Whiteman’s Yard for at least two decades.

Just seven years before this photograph was taken Sarah Cooper was living at number 4.  She was a widow who earned a living as a charwoman at that may just be her sitting on the doorstep.  But as I said we are bordering on the realms of speculation, better to wait till I have visited the rate books which will not only give the names of the tenants but also the rents they paid and the duration of their stay.

Picture; New gates, 1908, m8316, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Looking for Mr. Henry Charles Digby of Eltham ……… you go looking for one …. and you find two

I am the first to say that history is messy and just when you think you have got a story from the past just right, the past throws you a wobbler.

And that is what happened today when I decided to follow up a post from yesterday.

I first came across a picture of the Old King’s Head in the catalogue of Greenwich Heritage Centre, wrote a story on the pub and moved on, fully intending to go back and write some more.

Of course, I never did, but after reposting the story  yesterday, I was drawn back by the name of the postcard publisher, who was a C.H. Digby of Eltham.

Finding Henry Charles Digby proved relatively easy.  He was born in Walworth in 1854, and was living in Camberwell in 1891, working as a clerk.

A full ten years later he was married with a daughter and lived in Beckenham where he worked as a “Printer’s manager”

By 1910 he was on Eltham High Street at no. 31 and from at least 1918 was at no. 6 Glenlea Road where he died in 1936.

All text book research, and the connection with printing, made the story of the postcard publisher.

Except that also in Eltham, at the same time was another Henry Charles Digby.  Both appear on the electoral rolls from the 1919 onwards with the second Mr. Digby living at Footscray Road and later Southwood Road.

What distinguishes them is that my first Henry Charles was married to Rachael, while the second was married to Beatrice Deborah, but both were living in Eltham with their respective wives from 1919

At first I missed the glaring fact that there were two wives, and two different addresses, and only spotted that something was not quite right, when one Henry Charles died in 1936 and the other was still alive two years later.

So, there remains a mystery, but it will be one that someone will help solve, perhaps coming up with more picture postcards, marketed by one of our Mr. Digbys, and locating both on the 1911 census which I have failed to do.

Location Eltham

Picture; the Old Kings Head, High Street Eltham, GRW 276, http://boroughphotos.org/greenwich/
courtesy of Greenwich Heritage Centre, http://www.greenwichheritage.org/site/index.php

Sources; Census records, Enu 11 15 Camberwell, Cambewell, London, Enu 16 51, Beckenham, Kent, Electoral Rolls for Woolwich, 1910-38, Burial Register St John's Eltham, 1936, Directory 1925, Probate, 1936

*At the Kings Arms waiting for Fred Wisdom to pull a pint, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/05/at-kings-arms-waiting-for-fred-wisdom.html?spref=fb&fbclid=IwAR3GYAPWiZaK8PRGUZ0kbHOnpuKKzx3mmp9r52SxI6-alog4zdsJrZeKzHU

That unseen picture of Beech Road ……. playing on the Rec and heaps more

This is a picture postcard of the Rec which I haven’t seen before and comes courtesy of Bob Jones who posted it recently on social media.

The Rec, undated

It was taken when the recreation ground was still quite new, and I guess dates from sometime between 1896 and 1903.

Now this I know because the Rec was opened in 1896, while Wilton Road which runs along its western side was cut no later than 1903.

The Manchester Guardian was on hand to report the opening in the May of 1896, which was attended by Lord Egerton accompanied by a selection of civic worthies.

They had already presided over a similar ceremony in Withington, and with these two events done, the official party drove “past Chorlton green, the land of which has also been given by Lord Egerton and laid out by the Council [before] the chief visitors took leave of the party and drove to the Stretford station on their way to Knutsford”.*

Playing on the Rec, date unknown

All of which may have been distant history to the children playing on the apparatus, but for those of us of a certain age will be instantly recognizably as potential bone shakers, where the person on the one end made a sudden and swift movement resulting in his companion bouncing into the air and coming down with a thud.

The shelter, Claremount House and those seats

And for those who are devotees of sheds and shelters this one of the earliest images of our own place to sit when the rain came down or just while away the time away from parental observation.

What the postcard also reveals is that lamp post directly in front of the building and what looks to be a set of ascending seats.  Just what they were for is unclear, but perhaps were erected for an event.  

It is even possible that they were built for the opening ceremony on May 18th 1896, and if so we could be dealing with the aftermath, when the guests had gone leaving a group of children to to be photographed by the man with the camera.

That said the leaves on the trees seem to suggest a moment later in the year. 

Beyond are the rounded windows with their pointed tops of Claremont House and Heath Bank, which were numbers 5 and 7 High Lane.

I can’t be exactly sure when they were built but they show up on a map dating to 1881 and I can track them through the Rate books back to 1892 when number 7 was owned by a James and William Botham who were “Grey cloth agents”.**

Almost the identical spot, 2023 

Location; the Rec

Picture; Recreation Grounds, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, undated, courtesy of Bob Jones and in 2023 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Public Recreation Grounds at Withington, Manchester Guardian, May 18th, 1896

**Grey goods “are loom state woven fabrics, or unprocessed knitted fabrics. Greige goods undergo many subsequent processes, for instance, dyeing, printing, bleaching, and finishing, prior to further converting to finished goods such as clothing, or other textile products. Greige goods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greige_goods

On Blackfriars Street in 1894

We are on Blackfriars Street sometime at the beginning of April 1894.

Now I can be pretty certain of that because our old friend Samuel L Coulthurst wrote the location on the picture and the dates on the adverts place it just before April 7.

It is that classic image most of us have of a northern city.

One of the women wears a shawl; another is in one of those long dresses with a white apron while the men all wear the distinctive hats of the period or the equally characteristic flat cap.

It is a period when the young still dressed like their elders and so in the centre is a youngster who looks just like a cut down version of the men around him.

And it is all in the detail, from the enamel jug held by one woman to the slightly dirty hands of one the men.

I would love to know what is going on, for while the woman in the shawl looks directly at Mr Coulthurst, the attention of the rest has been caught by something we cannot see.

The clue may be the half obscured man facing us who at pinch might be singing or addressing the crowd.

It may be a fancy on my part but there is just a hint that the woman with the shawl and jug looks a tad apprehensive, but I might be wrong.

The original notes accompanying the photograph may help but sadly I don’t have access to them.

They appear to have been quite detailed including a description, catalogue number and the photographer’s name.

And the image formed part of a wider collection which had been commissioned by the Manchester Amateur Photographic Society which under took the first photographic survey of Manchester and Salford between 1892-1901.

So our Blackfriars picture is one of these.

But even given the absence of those notes there is much that the photograph offers up.

On the wall there are countless adverts which take us back into Manchester and Salford of the 1890s.

Alderman Dickins who features on the Sale of Works ad for April 6 & 7 was a prominent Conservative politician on the city council who in 1894 was in his mid 50s and described himself as a cotton merchant.

Croxton Park Races was an annual event which drew large crowds.

They were held near the village of Waltham of the Wolds which is in Leicestershire and is another example of the degree to which Victorian past times had long since extended beyond local boundaries.

It appears to have begun in 1821 and lasted till 1914.*

That said I doubt that any of our crowd would have made that journey.
And for now I will leave them watching the event captured by Mr Coulthurst.

There is more here, like the location of the grand house at OLD TRAFFORD,   SOLD FOR AUCTION and what looks to be the announcement of an election.

But they will wait for another time.









Picture; Blackfriars Street, 1894, Samuel L Coulthurst, m 80496, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Croxton Races: pre 1881, Waltham on the Wold, http://local-history.org.uk/waltham/croxton-races-pre-1881/

Charlton House ........ the one I always find by accident

Now I found Charlton House by accident not long after we moved to Well Hall and I had taken myself off on “an adventure.”

And over half a century later I came across this picture of the Hall and a description written in 1847.

Both come from a wonderful book called The Land We Live In.*

And it just so happens it too was an accidental discovery.

I was looking for Vol 1 which has some fine pictures of Manchester in the 1840s by the artist C W Clennell.

That volume remains elusive but instead I did find the third volume which I have to say is equally fascinating.

Amongst the chapters which cover the West Country, the Midlands and Ireland there is a section on “the Baronial Halls of Kent.”

And there was an entry on Charlton.

“At the accession of James 1. the manor was the property of the crown.  

The needy train of courtiers who followed the monarch to the rich south were clamorous for provision, and James was nothing loath to supply the necessities of his loving countrymen. Charlton he assigned, the year after his accession to the Earl of Mar.  

The nobleman sold it in 1606 to one of his countrymen, Sir James Erskine for £2,000.  Sir James, in like manner, parted with his bargain the following year for £4,500 to Sir Adam Newton, another northern knight.”

All of which smacks of the sort of deal that might just happen today for a small one bed apartment in the area.

Location; Charlton

Pictures; Charlton House and frontispiece from The Land We Live In

*The Land We Live In A Pictorial Literary Sketch Book in the British Empire 1847 Vol 3
*Ibid, page 23

When Chorlton’s history bumped into a heap of poetry and a book launch

There is nothing quite as good as listening to live poetry and that was what Chorlton Library offered up yesterday.

Peter Topping, 2025

So, in the company of the poets Saira Anwar, Steve Smythe and Ann Delargy an appreciative audience came together to celebrate the launch of Peter Topping’s new book “Musical Poems and Pictures of Chorlton-cum-Hardy”.

The book breaks new ground, mixing his poems set to music and designed to "appeal to the visually impaired and hard of hearing as well as the young and old".*

By including a Navilens QR code on the front and back cover the text is accessible to everyone.

I had heard Steve Smythe on several occasions, but the work of Saira Anwar and Ann Delargy were new to me.

And of course there was Mr. Topping who took us through the writing, distribution and sponsorship of his new book along with his career as an artist.

All of which was peppered with Chorlton’s history, covering that old agricultural community, the coming of New Chorlton, Chorlton Park, and Chorltonville, to which there were the darker stories of the Great Chorlton Burial Scandal, the equally great Chorlton Church schism and the archaeological dig by the village green which turned up the bodies no one thought were there.

The appreciative audience, 2025

Anne Delargy, 2025

Steve Smythe, 2025

Saira Anwar, 2025

So, a good day.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Saturday September 13th in the Library, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and "Musical Poems and Pictures of Chorlton-cum-Hardy" with other books by Peter, are available from Chorlton Bookshop, Peter Topping, 2025

*Peter Topping, 2025, his books can be found in Chorlton Bookshop or direct from him at www.pubbooks.co.uk

Listening, 2025

"Sellers of Sleep" .............

Angel Street, 1901

Sometimes a phrase captures your imagination, and so it is with "Sellers of Sleep", which is a French, term for the owners of those properties which offer up a bed and little else.

I came across the description on a Radio 4 programme about Marseilles, and it perfectly describes those places where the poor and destitute might pay for the chance to sleep under a roof for the night.

They are of course a part of history , and can be found in Ancient Rome, Medieval London and pretty much everywhere.

And it took me back to a story I had written earlier about 44 Angel Street as I wandered down the street in the company of Samuel L Coulthurst who took a series of pictures of the people and their homes including one rare shot of the inside of number 44.

And today I am back having spent my time crawling over the census return for the same street in 1901.

The pictures reveal a row of late 18th and early 19th century houses similar to those which were going up across the city in the boom years as Manchester quickly became “the shock city of the Industrial Revolution”*

Angel Street, May 1898

The south eastern side from what is now Rochdale Road up to St Michaels’s Fields had been built in 1794 and those we can see in the pictures were there by 1819**

What makes Coulthurst’s pictures all the remarkable is that having identified the houses it is possible to discover who was living in them just a few years later.


On Angel Street in 1898
Now I would love to be able to record who exactly was living at number 44 when in the May of 1897 Samuel took his pictures, but I can’t.

The best I can do is identify who was there on the night of March 31st 1901 when the census was taken.

There were thirty two of them all male ranging from William Paxton aged 22 from Wigan who described himself as a street hawker to Thomas Reed from Ireland who at 74 was still working as a labourer.

All  them earned their living from manual work or the slightly more precarious occupation of selling on the streets.

Outside 44 Angel Street, May, 1897

Most were single although a few were widowers and while the largest single group had been born here there were those from the rest of Lancashire, as well as Ireland Scotland and even London.

I try not to be sentimental but you cannot help feeling a degree of sadness that so many of these men well past middle age were living crammed together in a common lodging house with nothing but a few possessions and the knowledge that with old age, sickness or just bad luck the future might be the Workhouse.

History of course has been unkind to them and most will have few records to stand as witness to their lives and so during the course of the next few weeks I want to track some of them and discover what their lives had been like.

In the process I think we will uncover something of that shifting population at the bottom of the income pile and the extent to which they went from one overcrowded property to another.

Sadly the identities of those staring back at us are lost and so who they were and what happened to them cannot be revealed.

Patrick Corner

But that is not completely the case, because I think standing outside number 44 with his flat cap and parcel under his arm might just be Patrick Comer whose name appears above the door and who fourteen years later is still registered at the address on the street directory.

If this is him he seems to have had a varied life.  Born in Manchester sometime around 1850 he was variously a dyer, a joiner and in 1911 was both listed a step ladder maker and a clothes agent.

He never strayed far from Angel Street and can be found on Mount Street which runs into Angel Street and on Rochdale Road close by.

As for the others they are unknown and I doubt would still have been living at number 44 by 1901.

The very nature of these lodging houses meant that the residents were short term stay but we shall see.

Most of Angel Street also consisted of lodging houses and as I trawl the census return they reveal a rich cross section of those at the margins of late 19th century Manchester life.

Inside no. 44 Angel Street, 1897

And they point to number 44 being a tad unusual in that it was entirely male orientated.  The other lodging houses had more of a mix of men and women, married as well as single and some unmarried women with young children who defiantly refused to describe themselves as either married or widowed.

It will indeed be a fascinating exploration of this part of the city.

Now that should be the end but there is just one last discovery, for I have tracked Mr Samuel L Coulhurst.***

He was a book buyer from Salford, born in 1868 and living at number 4 Tootal Road Pendelton and in the fullness of time I think he also deserves a closer look.

Location, Angel Meadow, Manchester

Pictures; Angel Street, 1900, m85543 44 Angel Street, 1897, m08360, 44 Angel Street 1898, m00195, and Angel Street common lodging house, 1897, m08365, S.L.Coulthurst, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Asa Briggs, Victorian Cities, 1963

**The south east side of Angel Street are missing from Laurent’s map of Manchester in 1793 but are there the following year on Green’s map while the side photographed by Coulthurst show up on Johnson’s map of 1819.

 ***Angel Street, Manchester artist and photographers, Manchester housing conditions, Manchester in the 1900s, Rochdale Road, Samuel L Coulthurst

As others saw us ........... Eltham in 1858 according to the Melville & Co's Directory

Front cover of the Directory

“Eltham is a small ancient but pleasant town and suburb of London adjoing Lee, eight miles S.E.from London, in the lathe of Sutton-at-Hone, Blackheath hundred, union of Lewisham, West Kent. 

The population, with Mottingham, in 1851 was 2,437.  The church of St John is a plain edifice, but was considerably improved and enlarged in 1819.  The living is a discharged vicarage, in the diocess of London.  

There are six alms-houses, founded by Thomas Philpot in 1680, and Foster’s Almhouses.  There are two chapels-one for Independents, and the other for Wesleyans.

Mottingham is a hamlet, partly in the parish of Eltham church, and three miles N.W. from Bromley.
POST-OFFICE-James Lawrence, Postmaster.  Money Orders are granted and paid at this office.”

And in 1858 that was pretty much all you needed to know.

Eltham Lodge in 1909

The directory listed 65 names under Gentry, and all the familiar big houses are there.  So Mrs Wood was living at Eltham Lodge, James Vicat at Southwood House, Mrs Lucy Lambert at Eagle House and Alfred Bean Esq in Castle House.

But more interesting are those listed under Trades.  Here are the people who toiled for a living, getting their hands dirty busying themselves from dawn till dusk.

And there are the usual mix of trades ranging from blacksmith, carpenter and tailor to those selling everything from food to drugs running private schools and even a collector of taxes.

As ever a significant number of those engaged in meaningful activity were the beer sellers and publicans who amounted to 17% of the trades listed.  Of these quite a few ran beer shops as opposed to inns.  They owed their existence to the 1830 Beer Act which allowed anybody to brew and sell beer for a small charge.

Often these beer shops were no more than the front room of a house and many of them did not last long.

Some at least may have been a short term strategy lasting just long enough till an alternative means of income could be found.

I rather like Melville & Cos Directory for Eltham and I rather think I will return to it, looking in more detail at the people it listed, checking them off against the census returns for 1851 and 1861 and exploring where they lived.

Pictures; front cover of Melville & Cos Directory of Kent, 1855, and Eagle House, 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

101 Beech Road ….. one shop ….. and a heap of stories …….

Now, when Ian Collier posted this picture on social media  of his family outside 101 Beech Road I knew there was a story.

101 Beech Road

Today the premises is Beech Road Pharmacy but in 1901 it was home to Mrs Elizabeth Clayton and her five children. 

Mrs. Clayton described herself as a widow, and her children were variously employed as a “dressmaker”, “Blouse machinist”, and fishmongers.

And it is the 25 year old George Clayton who may well be the tall young man staring back at us with what may be his brother Arthur.

A decade later the census returns record only George, his brother William and sister Ethel in the property, with George describing himself as “Fishmonger” along with William who was a “Fishmonger, Salesman” and Ethel who had given up her job as “Blouse machinist” in return for running the family home.

Fruit, veg and Mr. Clayton

Ian tells me that “the shop was owned by George Clayton, my grandmother's second husband as her first husband, my grandfather was tragically killed by fire shortly after the birth of my father. 

The photo shows my great-grandmother, grandmother and father as a child. I am uncertain how long they stayed in Chorlton as they moved to Bacup after George Clayton died”.

The census record show that by 1921 no. 101 was occupied by Mr. & Mrs. Degman.  He was a hairdresser but gave his work address as 13 Lever Street in town and there is no hint as to who or what the shop was selling.

But in 1929 an Arthur Collier is listed as a greengrocer at the address.

That said Arthur Clayton now aged 44 had own green grocers at 119 Beech Road, which was still trading as such but under a different name thirty years later, and indeed had morphed into a wholesale food emporium in 1979.

Fresh To Day

Leaving aside the story of the Clayton family which I am sure Ian will be able to help piece together I am intrigued by the picture.

I am fairly convinced its dates from after 1903, because in that year a William Henry Bratby is listed as a Cycle agent, next door at 103, but six years later the shop is a drapery run by Mrs. Rosa Wagstaff and there does appear to be clothes in the window of the neighbouring  shop.

All of which just leaves me to reflect on the detail in the picture, from the sign advertising a range of fish, "Fresh Today" to the heap of fruit, veg and more fish on display both inside and outside the shop.

Location; Beech Road

119 Beech Road, 1979

Pictures, 101 Beech Road, circa 1901-1921, courtesy of Ian Collier, and 119 Beech Road, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson