Strikes ….memories ….. and Miss Dannimac ….. more from the Manchester Jewish Museum

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single visit to a museum is never enough and must be followed by a second, third and fourth.

Window, 2026

Now, this is particularly true of the Manchester Jewish Museum which celebrates and records the history and culture of the Jewish community here and abroad.*

The Museum, 2025

I first discovered the museum soon after it opened in 1984 and followed that first visit with becoming a “Friend”, and have written extensively about it.**

But as so often happens other things get in the way, and I hadn’t been back for a very long time.

So, with a morning free I took the tram to Victoria and wandered up Cheetham Hill Road and was not disappointed.

I guess I was there for a couple of hours, learned a lot from the displays and enjoyed a series of conversations with some of the guides.

Of all the fascinating exhibits the one that drew me back was a page from The Waterproofer which was the official newspaper of the Waterproof Garment Worker’s Trade Union for July 1935 which recorded the end of 1934-5 strike.

The strike which was a response to the lowering piecework rates lasted nine months with the newspaper recording that the union would “not rest until every unscrupulous employer is dealt with and sweating abolished in the trade”. 

The Waterproofer, 1935

It is a story I was not over familiar with but it’s one I intend to follow up, and in that I may be helped by the memory maps of Jewish Manchester which are “a new digital resource where you can explore former sites of Jewish memory in the Cheetham Hill, Strangeways and Hightown areas of Manchester. Here you will find audio interviews, photographs, and information about more than 40 sites (we hope to include more in future) that consistently appear in people's recollections of these areas”.***

And then there is Miss Dannimac the “canvas Rain Coat … You’ve got to like Fashion to wear it”.  

Miss Dannimac. 2026

It was created by Ralph Levy who had “a vision of making rainwear not just practical but fashionable [and] new manufacturing techniques allowed Ralph to produce coats in lighter fabrics which were featured in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar and modelled by fashion icons including Twiggy”.

And that I think is all for now, because while there is a great deal more in the museum, I think that should be for a visit.

Pictures; Thursday at the museum, 2026 & 2025 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Manchester Jewish Museum, https://www.manchesterjewishmuseum.com/

**Manchester Jewish Museum, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Manchester%20Jewish%20Museum

***Waterproof Garment Workers Trade Union, A Memory Map of Jewish Manchester, https://jewishmanchestermemorymap.org/?feature_type=point&id=320

523 Barlow Moor Road, captured in a moment in time in 1960

Now I am back at 523 Barlow Moor Road where my friend Ann Love lived during the 1950s and 60s.

It is still there today but has undergone conversion into flats.

Over the last few months Ann has been sharing her memories of growing up in the house providing a vivid account of everything from the kitchen range to her bedroom along with some wonderful sketches of both the inside and exterior of the house.

And now along with more stories her husband has produced a series of detailed models of the property which perfectly create a large Chorlton house in 1960.

"The basement, or cellar as we used to call it, was reached by a door and steps from the kitchen.

It was always cool, and an ideal place for storage.

Half way down the steps was a wide shelf, where cold meats were kept, on a large platter, then continuing down, there were five rooms.

Firstly there was the coal cellar, this could also be reached by a door on the side of the house next to the workshop.

Once or twice a year the coal cart would arrive, with sacks of coal, the cart would stop in the drive, and the coal man would lift the sacks of coal from the cart and empty them down through the doorway into the cellar.

 We would have to count the sacks s they were emptied, because once the coal was in the cellar, it was just a big heap. The coal men were covered in soot from carrying sacks of coal all day.

All through the winter coal would have to be carried up from the cellar in buckets to keep the range in the kitchen alight.

Under the Dining room was a storage area for food – there was a meat safe, with wire mesh to keep out the flies, and jars and big earthenware bowls with preserves, and preserved eggs in isinglass.

The small room under the hall was full of shelves of tinned goods, corned beef and salmon, and pickles.

Under the lounge were coffins, standing on end, which Dad had made during quiet periods, in case of flu epidemics, and bad weather in winter. 

They were in a variety of different sizes, and good places to play when my cousins came over to play hide and seek!

Under the kitchen was where the planks of wood were stored, before being carried down the garden to be made into coffins. When the house was on fire, this could have been a real problem if it had caught fire."

© Ann Love

Models; Howard Love 2014

Walking out on Oxford Street ............ 1966

I won’t be alone in remembering these buildings.

We are at the top of Oxford Street where it joins St Peter’s Square, and of the four buildings captured by the photographer on a drab day in 1966, all have gone.

Some went a long time ago, others more recently.

So, while the grimy looking one, home to Boots and which faced across the Cenotaph to Central Ref, was still there in 1969.

I remember gazing across it from the steps of the library but can’t quite remember when it was demolished for Elisabeth House which in turn was torn down for One St Peter’s Square.

More recently its neigbour, on the corner of Mosley Street and the square which many admired has been lost for that stark, and very bright building which is Two St Peter’s Square.

On the opposite side of Mosley Street, the properties on the left of the picture went became the peace Gardens and are now part of the space which includes platforms for the Metro and the reallocated cenotaph.

All of which just leaves me with the picture itself with its ghostly like figures caught in mid stride, and that sign for the restaurant “The Egg and I” which I never visited but which will be remembered by some.
Location; Oxford Street, Manchester

Picture; Oxford Street, 1966, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,  https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

St Barnabus and its journey from Woolwich

Now I have passed St Barnabus Church countless times and never knew it was originally sited in Woolwich.

It was one of those Eltham churches I have already written about but couldn’t resist doing so again when I came across this picture.

It appears in a new book on Woolwich and the history of the building is always worth repeating.

“Designed by Sir George Scott, the Naval Dockyard church was built between 1857 and 1859 in Woolwich Dockyard becoming redundant after the latter’s closure in 1869.  

In 1932-33, the distinctive red brick edifice was reconstructed in Eltham.”*

When I first posted the story it led to a flood of memories from people who remembered it on fire after it had been hit during a bombing raid in  the last war.

Picture; St Barnabus Church,1858,courtesy of Kristina Bedford

*Woolwich Through Time, Kristina Bedford, 2014, Amberley Publishing,

Walking Hulme and Moss Side over half a century ago ......

Now I have been a great fan of Roger Shelley’s photographs for over a decade, ever since he shared a collection of pictures he took of a group of young lads playing in the near ruin of Hough End Hall nearly 60 years ago.

The attention to detail and his ability to capture the moment are skills I wish I had.

And so, I was very pleased when he posted another group of images he took during the house clearances in Hulme and Moss Side.

The pictures are a mix of street scenes, and the people he encountered, including kids at play, men and women at work and the ever present piles of rubble as the grand plan advanced and centuries old houses disappeared under the impact of the wrecking ball.

Like the work of Shirley Baker* his pictures don’t dwell on sentimentality and don’t make judgments of the wholesale clearances of communities.

They just record what he saw.

I don't have exact locations for the images, but some can be traced through the odd street name or feature.

And with his permission I will be working my way through the portfolio, fastening on images which tell their own stories.

Location; Hulme and Moss Side in the 1960s and 70s

Pictures;  from the collection of Roger Shelley, https://www.flickr.com/photos/photoroger/

*Baker, Shirley, Without a Trace, Manchester and Salford in the 1960s, 2018

An Eltham life that ended in a modest way..........the story of Ruth Pike, nee Patterson, 1782-1857

Mrs Pike grave, 1976

This is the grave of Ruth Pike in our parish churchyard.

It is located on the east side hard up against Well Hall Road and as graves go does not appear that remarkable.

Nor would we expect it to be so for this was one of the common plots and so resting here with Ruth were those with no family connections all of which suggests a life that ended in a modest way.

She was buried by the wall just one hundred and sixty-three years ago  and I doubt that there will be any one who now visit or tend the plot, and with the passage of time her story and her place in Eltham’s history has pretty much been forgotten.

But not quite because fellow historian Jean Gammons has brought Ruth Pike back out of the shadows and it is one of those stories well worth telling.

Her maiden name was Patterson and she married James Pike in 1809.  He was a widower and was also the postmaster for Eltham when the postal service was just beginning to take on its modern shape.

Eltham in the 1830s

His is a story Jean has already told* and so I rather think I shall stick with Mrs Pike, nee Paterson.

“Ruth was James Pike’s second wife and hers was a hard life.  

Her husband died in 1837  and towards the end of his life she practically ran Eltham post office, assisted only her friend Ann Lawrence who was the widow of an Eltham baker.

Her son had been apprenticed to the Pike’s who also ran a clock making business and when James Pike died he took over the firm along with the post office.

And sometime after this Ruth became a school teacher at the local school.”

Little enough I grant you for a life that was lived out over 75 years and its lack of detail stands yet again as testimony to how the lives of the modest and humble have gone unrecorded.

And even this would not have seen the light of day but for Jean’s work.

But history moves on and with each year new lines of enquiry open up as fresh documents are made available and so it is with Ruth.

A tax record for a Ruth patterson, 1805

Only today I found a series of tax records naming a Ruth Patterson of Eltham as paying tax for the years 1804 and 1805, which follow on from a series of other records for a Richard Patterson in the 1790s and yet more for another Richard Patterson in the mid 19th century.

Now I don’t know how common a name Patterson was in Eltham during the last decades of the 18th and into the next.  That will be a laborious task matching census returns, directories and parish records but is doable.

In the meantime it raises some intriguing questions about Ruth.  The sums she pays are not much but it is the fact that she is paying them which is important and marks out one more little detail.  She rented from a Nicholas Guilliard who also appears in the tax records from the 1790s through into the next century appears on the electoral roll in 1802 and is buried in the parish church seven years later.

The burial record of Mrs Pike, 1857

But as yet it is impossible to track where he held his Eltham land which in turn would tell us a bit more about Ruth. Still I know that he paid duties on the money he obtained for an indenture for the young apprentice Henry Roffey who he took on in 1787 and I am confident that more will emerge.

As will the details of Ruth’s life and that I think is a good point to close.

Pictures, the grave of Mrs Pike, 1978, the Eltham the Pikes would have known circa 1830, courtesy of Jean Gammons, Mrs Pike’s  death entry from St John’s parish records, courtesy of ancestry.co.uk, and the City of London Corporation Libraries, Archives and Guildhall Art Gallery Department, and the tax record of Ruth Patterson, courtesy of ancestry. co. uk, and London Land Tax Records. London, England: London Metropolitan Archives.

Original research By Jean Gammons

*It appeared in a series of short articles in the Eltham Society’s Journal.

Knocking down bits of Wilbraham Road .... in the summer of 1963

Now the next time you are in the Co-op on Wilbraham Road, spare a thought for the buildings that once stood on this spot.

They consisted of two tall residential properties, which like their neighbours stretching up towards Whitelow Road had been converted into shops with living accommodation above.

Our two were replaced by the building rising from the ground in 1963.

And for a long time I had just taken for granted that the whole modern block of shops had been built at the same time.

But not so, as the picture indicates, and taking a walk down Wilbraham Road from Brundrettes Road, it is possible to see the change in design and date.

So you learn something new, all the time.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; Wilbraham Road, 1963, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,  https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

The 42 from the Refuge Building …..a furniture shop, Wimpy Bar, and a shed load more …..1967

Now, with the passage of a full half century, it is the detail you forget.

I stood at the bus stops outside the old Refuge Building for years, and never gave much thought to the building opposite.

Back then it was just a furniture shop, and as I was a first year student on a grant, living in a series of drab and worn out  bed sits I gave Shaw’s Furniture shop scant attention.

And likewise I don’t think I ever went in the cinema round the corner, or took a train from Oxford Road Railway Station, and gave no attention to the features of the Refuge Building behind me.

It would be years before I went in to the former furniture shop, and only after it had become the Cornerhouse which was an art gallery, cinema, bookshop, bar and café, with superb views up Oxford Street, and some pretty interesting films which you would never see at the Odeon.

Likewise my discovery of the railway station with its wonderful 60s entrance would be delayed for a few years, and instead I fastened on the Oxford Road Corridor from town to Withington.

Which also meant that the hospital opposite Shaw’s, along with the kiosk which announced “You Are Safe With The Oxford Rubber Goods” was just a blur from the window of the 42.

Nor do I think I ever went in the Wimpy, which has over the decades changed its name and the food on offer.

And now, Shaw’s is No. 70, the Refuge Building is a hotel, and the kiosk became Euronews, although last time I passed it all seemed closed up.

But I still use Oxford Road Station and marvel at that entrance.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Shaw’s, and the Wimpy, 1967, "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY,  and Oxford Road Railway Station, 2009 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Another 20 objects in the story of Chorlton ........ nu 1 the ration announcement

I am looking at a card sent to the Chorlton branch of the Manchester and Salford Co-op shop on Beech Road in the summer of 1953.

Over the years I have seen everything from a declaration of war to letters from the good and the great along with plenty of other official stuff which once carried great significance.

But in its way this little piece of paper is up there with the rest and would certainly have been greeted by the people of Chorlton as a very important moment, for this marked almost the end of 14 years of rationing which had begun in 1940.

“Limits had been imposed on the sale of bacon, butter and sugar.

Then on 11 March 1940 all meat was rationed. Clothes coupons were introduced and a black market soon developed while queueing outside shops and bartering for extra food became a way of life.

There were allowances made for pregnant women who used special green ration books to get extra food rations, and breastfeeding mothers had extra milk.

Restrictions were gradually lifted three years after war had ended, starting with flour on 25 July 1948, followed by clothes on 15 March 1949.

On 19 May 1950 rationing ended for canned and dried fruit, chocolate biscuits, treacle, syrup, jellies and mincemeat.

Petrol rationing, imposed in 1939, ended in May 1950 followed by soap in September 1950.

Three years later sales of sugar were off ration and last May butter rationing ended."*

So this marked one of those moments to be savoured and perhaps marked the real end to the war and the return to “normalcy.”

Now rationing couldn’t have been easy but it was a real attempt to prevent the dramatic rise in food prices which had marked the first three years of the Great War.

Back then the continued rise in the cost of living had not only meant great hardship for the majority of the country but contributed to a real sense that some were profiteering from the shortages at the expense of the rest.

And so I am pleased that Bob Jones shared this little bit of history with me.

Pictures; courtesy of Bob Jones

*1954: Housewives celebrate end of rationing, http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/4/newsid_3818000/3818563.stm

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

In the Lloyd’s ……. with John and Enriqueta Rylands

 I am not the only one who has looked forward to the second novel about the lives of Mr. and Mrs Rylands.

It is the second in a trilogy which explores their lives by local author Juliette Tomlinson.

The first novel came out in 2024 and last month she published Sunnyside which takes the story forward.

And last night an invited audience celebrated the launch of book number two.

The speeches were brief, the live music from a ukulele band was excellent and Juliette was on hand to talk through how she came to write the book and sign copies.

Of which there was a good supply of Sunnyside from Chorlton Bookshop who did the business of selling copies to eager readers.

So, a good night all round and for those who missed the event Juliette will be speaking during the Chorlton Arts Festival on May 23rd about her first two novels. **

Location; The Lloyds

Pictures, a special night from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 2026

*Longford, A Manchester love story, 2024, and Sunnyside The Story Continues, 2026 Juliette Tomlinson, The Squeeze Press, are available from Chorlton Bookshop or from The Squeeze Press, www.woodenbooks.com

**Juliette Tomlinson, talking about Longford and Sunnyside at the Beagle , 456-458 Barlow Moor Road, May 23rd, 19-21.30

Carts …. horses ….. and another busy day …… the lost Hulme and Moss Side .. part 3

This is the third dip into a collection which recorded life in Hulme and Moss Side during the house clearances of the 1960s and 70s.

They were taken by Roger Shelley and they are a powerful visual description of communities who continued to work and play as around them the wrecking ball wiped away a century and a bit of houses and workshops.

I have to say I had almost forgotten “the rag and bone man” who went door to door collecting the broken, the discarded and the out of fashion household goods.

Today it’s a man in a van, often as not only interested in scrap metal and who announces his presence with a bout of loud music and still occasionally with a call for “any old iron” which would have been recognised in the streets by characters from a novel by Charles Dickens.

And Roger captured the scene as it played out in the 1960s.

Location; Hulme and Moss Side

Pictures; from the collection of Roger Shelley, 1960s and 70s.

Hough End Hall still a working farm in the 1950s

This will be the last of the descriptions of the Hall from Oliver Bailey whose family rented and then owned Hough End and the surrounding land.

The Hall from Nell Lane, in 1952

It is a fascinating account not least because it is the only detailed description of the place during the 20th century.

There are a few anecdotes about the place from people who remember it as children and there is the 1938 survey commissioned by the Egerton Estate.

But most of these anecdotal accounts are vague and lack detail while the Egerton survey cannot be copied or photographed.

Back in the 19th century there is a short description of the Hall by the historian  John Booker which includes an engraving * and an inventory of the contents of the farm in 1849 published in the Manchester Guardian but this  sheds little light on the Hall itself.

So Oliver has cornered the market on descriptions of the Hall in the 20th century and at anytime come to that.

And in the process of sharing these memories he provided a plan of the buildings which to my knowledge apart from the Egerton survey is the only idea we have of what was there.

The Hall and surround buildings 1950s

It confirms that part of the hall was a smithy and right up to the end the place was a working farm with Mr Bailey’s pigs, horses and cattle and Jimmy Ryan’s rabbits.

“At one time my father had Highland cattle in the field where the school once was and there may be pictures in the Manchester Evening News archive. 

"My memory might be playing tricks there, he definitely had Highland cattle but they may have been in the field near Chorlton Station or perhaps even in both locations.

He also had a peacock with a couple of peahens and for a period Hough End was nicknamed Peacock farm because of the noise they made and because the peacock used to fly across Nell Lane into the park so lots of people saw it. 

There was a deep depression in the field near the rear left hand corner of the plot of the Hall itself and it was made a by a bomb which dropped there during the second world war, certainly it was known as bomb crater corner. 

According to family history the blast knocked my father over – he was an ARP Warden during the war so could have been out at night on fire watch.

During the war there was a riding school at Hough End, a Mc somebody – a search through a trade directory might find him - and my sisters learnt to ride horses at that time. The horses were kept in the loose boxes in the long building parallel to Mauldeth Road."

All that is left is for me to thank Oliver and his family for taking the trouble to recall the old hall and just hope it provokes more memories.

© Oliver Bailey, 2014

Picture; Hough End Hall from Nell Lane, T Baddeley, 1952, m47852, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Plan; © Oliver Bailey, 2014

*John Booker, A History of the Chapels of Didsbury & Chorlton, 1857, Cheetham Chetham Society Manchester

As other saw us …… Mr. Greenwood and his superior map of Eltham, Woolwich and much else

Now this is one of my favourite maps of where we live.

Eltham, 1829-34

It comes from Greenwood’s "Atlas of the Counties of England, from Actual Surveys made from the Years 1817-1833".

Charles Greenwood was born in 1786 in Gisburn in Yorkshire, trained to become a surveyor and set up a practice in Dewsbury in 1815.

In the following year he began a survey of the county of Yorkshire, which was published in 1817, and a year later moved to London, with the intention of producing maps of the remaining counties of England.

These were to be produced at a scale of one inch to the mile for England and three quarters of an inch to one mile for Wales.

His intention was produce a set of forty two maps to be sold for 135 guineas.

But with stiff competition from other private map makers he reproduced the maps at a reduced scale and these sold in parts from 1829-1834.

Location; Eltham, from Greenwood’s Atlas

Picture; Eltham, from Greenwood’s Atlas, 1829-1834, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Voting in the General Election at Eltham in the November of 1837

In the November of 1837 the electorate of Eltham went to the polls.  

Well Hall in 1844 with Well Hall House a

All 67 of them, which if my sums are correct represented just over 13% of the adult male population and 6% of the entire adults in Eltham.

This did not compare well with some other places.  In the smaller rural township of Chorlton-cum-Hardy just 4 miles from Manchester the figures were 16% and 9% respectively which was better than the national average which in 1833 stood at just 7% of the adult population.

Worse still only 35 of the 67 lived in Eltham and those who didn’t passed most of the year in places like Chorley in Lancashire, Corbridge in Northumberland and Swinthrop in Yorkshire and even where their residences were in the south they were across the Thames on the other side of London.

And stating these figures is important given that only men had the vote and the qualification to vote was tied to property.  Some of our Eltham electors were tenants and this compounded potential inequality.

In an age when voting was still conducted in the open there was always the possibility of intimidation.  A tenant would cast his vote under the watchful eye of his landlord and the tradesmen would share his political choice with all his customers.

In General Elections the powerful made it known who their favoured candidates were and it took great courage for electors to ignore that stated preference.

Eltham Street now the High Street, 1844, Samuel Jeffyres lived near 309

The 1832 Reform Act may have been greeted by some as an attack on privilege and out moded electoral practices and it did abolish some of the more indefensible ways of electing MPs, widen the electorate to some of the middle class and give the great northern towns of manufacture a representation in Parliament.

But is also deprived some working people of the vote, continued to ignore women  and “if there was less rioting and less bribery at an election, there was still much bribery and more intimidation and election day was still a carnival which usually ended in a fight.” *

So just two years earlier in 1835 in South Lancashire the Tories claimed the Whigs owed a “very great proportion of their votes to the direct interference of the [Whig] Earls of Derby, Sefton and Sheffield “and “200 votes were given to Lord Molyenux and Mr Wood at Ormskirk because Lord Derby had expressed his sincere good wishes in their favour” **

This may well have been the case but pales in comparison with the actions of the Tory landowners to their tenants.  According to the Manchester Times & Gazette, *** Thomas Joseph Trafford of Trafford Park instructed his tenants to vote for Lord Frank Egerton & Wilbraham while Lord Wilton followed the same practice, instructing his tenants to vote for Lord Egerton and use their second vote for the candidate of their choice.

 In Stretford all but one of Trafford’s tenants voted the Tory party line. The level of potential intimidation was all too clear from the one tenant who refused to follow the line.  He expected “in the spirit of the olden times, to hear of Tory vengeance.” 

Now much research has to be done on the Eltham result of 1837 because our 67 electors did not march with the general swing of things in the great big constituency of West Kent.

Election result for West Kent, 1835

Five years earlier the Whigs had swept to power on the back of the Reform Act but a combination of Tory fight back and a slowdown of the pace of reform made the Whigs look tired and over confident.

And so the Tory Party made gains in both the 1835 and ’37 General Elections.

In West Kent the two seat constituency elected a Whig and a Tory, but in Eltham the vote went overwhelmingly to the Tory candidates.

Election result for the Eltham Division of West Knet, 1837

Now this we know because the choices the 67 made were recorded in the poll books.

Our old friend Samuel Jeffryes used both his votes for the Tories as he did again in 1847.

So matching the electorate to their landlords and charting the political preferences of these great landowners will be revealing.

But one should be careful. Intimidation is more likely to work on the small tenant farmer or shop keeper and men like Samuel Jeffryes who styled himself “gentleman” and eventually retired to Westminster to live may just have voted as his conscience dictated.

We shall see.

Location,; Well Hall, Eltham, London

Pictures; Well Hall and Eltham Street in 1844 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

*Young G.M., Portrait of an Age Oxford University Press 1953 Page 28
** The Hull Packet January 30 1835
*** Manchester Times & Gazette January 3 1835
****Thomas Joseph Trafford 1778-1852, owned Trafford Hall and land in Trafford and Stretford

Looking for a ball of wool, a lb. of apples and much more on Wilbraham Road

I doubt that any one born before 1980 would ever think that the stretch of Wilbraham Road from Albany down to Manchester Road would be populated by a string of fast food outlets, bars and charity shops or that Quarmby’s, Dewhurst’s and Meadow’s would have vanished like snow under a winter sun.

It’s not an original idea I know, but in the space of two decades much traditional retailing has gone.

I miss it, but I recognize that that way of shopping has pretty much gone, and the arrival of the bar culture has at least kept the shops from staying closed.

What follows are two pictures taken some time in the 1950s into the 1960s, of the businesses on Wilbraham Road and Barlow Moor Road.

I could write more, having explored the history of some of the shops, and made comment on the road signs and bus stops, but I won’t.  

However, the challenge is there for anyone what can to trawl their memory and offer up some memories of the shops, or better still some pictures.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Wilbraham and Barlow Moor Road’s, circa 1950s/60s. from the collection of Dave King

The lost Hulme and Moss Side

Now I have been a great fan of Roger Shelley’s photographs for over a decade, ever since he shared a collection of pictures he took of a group of young lads playing in the near ruin of Hough End Hall nearly 60 years ago.

The attention to detail and his ability to capture the moment are skills I wish I had.

And so, I was very pleased when he posted another group of images he took during the house clearances in Hulme and Moss Side.

The pictures are a mix of street scenes, and the people he encountered, including kids at play, men and women at work and the ever present piles of rubble as the grand plan advanced and centuries old houses disappeared under the impact of the wrecking ball.

Like the work of Shirley Baker* his pictures don’t dwell on sentimentality and don’t make judgments of the wholesale clearances of communities.

They just record what he saw.

I don't have exact locations for the images, but some can be traced through the odd street name or feature.

And with his permission I will be working my way through the portfolio, fastening on images which tell their own stories.

Location; Hulme and Moss Side in the 1960s and 70s

Pictures;  from the collection of Roger Shelley, https://www.flickr.com/photos/photoroger/

*Baker, Shirley, Without a Trace, Manchester and Salford in the 1960s, 2018

Standing on the lost Prichard Street in the summer of 1971 ……… with no thoughts of the future

There will still be some people who remember the close network of streets and houses that stretched back from Oxford Road to the Medlock, and from Charles Street down to Great Street.

Pritchard Street on the cusp of change, 1971

In all there were fourteen streets and countless houses which were all swept away so that the BBC could have a new broadcasting centre here in Manchester.

The lost streets included Pritchard Street, Hesketh, Leigh and Saville Streets and along with the houses there had been a school and a pub.

Planning permission had been granted in 1968 and after a hiccup building began in 1971 was finished in 1975 and the place was home to the BBC until 2011.

And for those wanting to impress a companion, about 800 staff worked there and with the opening of the second studio in 1981 the BBC closed Broadcasting House in Piccadilly which had been there for 52 years.

And now Broadcasting House has gone replaced by Circle Square.

Pritchard Street, 1894

In the meantime, I wonder how many memories of those that lived in that small area can be shared.

After all the buildings only began to be cleared in 1968.

Broadcasting House, 2011

All of which has been prompted by that picture at the top of the page, which must have been taken in the summer of 1971.

We were on Prichard Street with Charles Street and the Lass O’Gowrie in the distance, surrounded by the remains of a warehouse to our right and what had once been a row of back-to-back house.

At the time I doubt we had any idea what the developers had planned, and more than likely we were on our way down to The Eighth Day or to meet up with friends at the Art College on All Saints.

The picture and the memories of that day have lain hidden for over half a century but offer up a little insight into the area off Oxford Road on the cusp of its development.

Lost and forgotten warehouses, 1971

I did wander down during the demolition of the old BBC Broadcasting House, and waited patiently for the site to be redeveloped.

But it seemed an age before the ground was broken and the development began to rise, pretty much eclipsing the surrounding buildings.

Now I don't pretend to be Methuselah, but in the space of that time from the summer of 1971 I have seen the rise of Broadcasting House, its demise and the subsequent rise of Circle Square. 

I guess it is presumptuous to suppose I will be around for the next development/

Well we shall see.

Location; Oxford Road, 1971-2022

Pictures; Prichard Street, 1971,  tall buildings and stairs, Circle Square, Manchester, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpsonand map of the area in 1894, from the OS of South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ BBC New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, 2011, from the collection of Andy Robertson

One Circle Square, 2022

*Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ......... nu 56 the vanished fourteen and the story of the BBC, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2016/10/lost-and-forgotten-streets-of_5.html