In praise of a great city ........ Manchester in 1937

Now, you can just look at these wonderful paintings of a lost Manchester, admiring the colour and verve of what you see, followed by charting how different the individual scenes are today.

The Royal Exchange, 1937

But, that would be to ignore the accompanying text by J. B. Priestly which is not only a powerful homage to the City but is a fascinating piece of historic writing.

The paintings and text are taken from Manchester ...... heart of the Industrial North, published by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, in 1937,* when Britain was emerging from the Great Depression which for many, was “that low dishonest decade”** of mass unemployment dire poverty and the Means Test.

And while the south was prospering, great chunks of the North, were still struggling, and so hence this book which shouts the energy, drive and civic pride of Manchester and by extension Salford and the surrounding towns.

“I believe in Manchester because what really matters in the end is character, and Manchester has the right sort of character.  Its history proves that in two very different ways.

First Manchester has not only always faced adversity with courage, but has always contrived to assert itself triumphantly at what would appear to be the worst possible moment.  It is a mistake to imagine that the cotton trade, of which Manchester is the centre, has flourished without interruption until the recent slump. 

King Street, 1937

During the American Civil War when the Southern States were blockaded, there was a cotton famine, and there have been periodic slumps since then.  Manchester’s answer to them has been to build its Ship Canal, triumphantly to organise its Jubilee Exhibition, to complete its impressive Royal Exchange during the difficult years of the Great War, and during the present slump to build a fine new Reference Library and to extend its Town Hall.  

No defeatism there.  

In the second place, the character of Manchester is shown in the influence that it has had on English public life, social, educational and artistic affairs.

I should estimate this influence as being equal to that of any other three English provincial cities put together.

When I was a boy living in Bradford, a city that shares some of the characteristics of Manchester, we thought of Manchester as we did of London.  And why not?  Manchester has the best newspaper, the best symphony orchestra and the best theatre in England.  

The Ship Canal

We know that the geographical position of this city is a magnificent one for it lies in the centre of a vast spider’s web of roads and railways, and canals, and has an outlet to the sea and really lies at the very hub and heart of a colossal straggling city that includes all the densely populated regions of South Lancashire and West Riding, and it has ample supplies of good water and coal and iron and power.

This is good, but character is better.  

Perhaps the secret of the Manchester character is that it is nine- tenths hard northern grit, solid Lancashire bone and muscle and brain, plus a remaining tenth, acting as a leaven, of liberal-minded and enterprising foreign influence, a contribution from Europe.  

You are not compelled to accept my analysis, but the smallest research will convince you that I am not wrong, in my estimate of the character of these people.  

Go and talk to them, and you, too, will believe in Manchester”.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; the Royal Exchange, King Street, and the Ship Canal, 1937 from Manchester ...... heart of the Industrial North

*Manchester ...... heart of the Industrial North, Manchester Chamber of Commerce, 1937

**September 1st 1939, W.H. Auden

Planning an adventure across Peckham in the summer of 1960

Now I say Peckham, but the chances are that in the summer of 1960 it could have been anywhere, from Nunhead and on to Dulwich, or via Deptford to Greenwich Park and the River.*

Entrance to the Royal Observatory, 2017

Of course adventures back then were not planned, but pretty much spur of the moment, and relied as much on Jimmy and John Cox’s vague memories of how to get to these places as anything.

Steps down to the River

It being midweek and pocket money spent, a Red Rover was off the cards and like so many adventures it was done by foot, leaving in the morning and getting back in the afternoon in time for tea.

For those born in the first half of the last century such adventures will be as recognizable as Tin Tin, Robin Hood, and I Love Lucy from the telly, and Two Way Family Favourites on the wireless.

If we were lucky our pooled finances might run to a bottle of lemonade and the price of a bag of chips, all supposing we could find a chippy. 

And on the rare occasion we came across a chip shop and a bakery together, there was the meal beyond meals, consisting of a hollowed out bread roll filled with chips, and washed down with warm lemonade.

The promise of an adventure in the park

So, adventures were limited on how far we could walk till we got lost, and whether we were successful in finding the goal of the trip.

But always qualified by that simple rule that once beyond the few streets around Lausanne Road, we were in alien territory where any local gang of lads could take offence at our presence.

This never actually happened, but it was an expectation which was a lesson in always be vigilant.

That said most adventures passed off with out event, but more by accident than design.

Looking back the challenge to walk along the parapet above a disused railway line even then seemed fraught with danger, and the subsequent walk along that railway bed ended when boredom set in.

Not that it stopped us doing it again and again.  It was a walk  where we met no one, found the odd discarded treasure, and were accompanied by the occasional bird, and the lazy buzz of bees and the sight of butterflies.

The Thames, 2017

The only real disaster occurred down by the Thames at Greenwich.  

The tide was out and we had a choice of turning left or right at the bottom of the stone steps hard by the entrance to the foot tunnel.

Right would have taken us by degree to the sandy bit in front of the Naval College.

Left, and we were amongst a collection of beached barges.  These seemed more interesting, but we were unprepared for the oozy, oily river mud in which we slowly sank.  

We weren’t in any real danger, and was rescued by a workman, but walking home to Peckham with shoes and ankles covered in the foul smelly mud was not pleasant, but nothing to the interrogation from mother, and to my eternal shame the speed with which I blamed Jimmy and John.

That long ago summer was interrupted by both of them going off on holiday and left to my own devices I fell on the summer school at Edmund Waller.

And as we all know that summer of 1960, the sun shone every day, and boredom was banished from our activities.

Looking out from the park

But then nostalgia for those long gone holidays can be deceptive, and lead you off into adventures where it was always hot, never rained and there was always an interesting destination.

It was one of the last carefree summers, the following was marked by the transition from junior to secondary school, which offered up new friends, and while Jimmy and John also went to Samuel Pepys, the adventures were over.

Location; out of Peckham 

Pictures; Greenwich, 2017, from the collection of Jillian Goldsmith

*And for those who wonder why all the pictures are of Greenwich in 2017, back in 1960 I didn't have a camera, and a full 57 years later our Jillian retraced many of the Greenwich adventures and took some fine pictures.

So …. where in Chorlton-cum-Hardy was Victor Stapleton Ashby in 1921? ……..

Now as questions go this is not as daft as it reads, nor is it a candidate for The Twilight Zone.*

Barlow Moor Road, circa 1920s

Victor Stapleton Ashby made motor cars and briefly from 1921 till later in the decade he made them on Barlow Moor Road in Chorlton.

Just where is still unclear but made them he did, and such was my surprise that we were the automobile centre of south Manchester that a few days ago I wrote about Mr. Ashby, his father and the Ashby motor cars.**

To be accurate they were “a two-seater light car powered by a 970 cc 8 hp engine, three-speed gearbox or four-ratio friction drive, continued until 1924”.***

The family were based in Towcester in Northamptonshire and look to have made the transition from traditional coach building in to cycle and motor engineers by the beginning of the last century.

In 1901 they patented an experimental motor car, applied for an international patent, and went into a partnership with Short Brothers the aircraft manufacturers in 1919, employed six Ashby staff members, and the car was known as the Short-Ashby in 1921.

But owing to poor sales Short Brothers withdrew their support in 1922 and the Ashby’s then moved to Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Barlow Moor Road, date unknown

And here comes the mystery because Victor’s father and mother remain in Towcester, but he does not show up on the 1921 census, so it is reasonable to suppose he moved with the business.

That said I can find no reference to him or his wife and daughter.  They married in 1915, and by the following year he was serving in the London Motor Boat Section as a “motor engineer” until he was demobbed in 1919.

Twenty years later they are living back in Towcester but so far for those missing few years in the early 1920s there is nothing.

All of which means it will be one of those old fashioned searches involving the street directories and electoral rolls for the period which are on microfilm in the Central Ref in town and the slow laborious hunt for a name and an address.

Looking for Victor

In the meantime someone might have an idea where they lived in Chorlton.

We shall see.

Location; somewhere in Chorlton

Pictures; Barlow Moor Road circa 1920s from the collection of Allan Brown and Barlow Moor Road, date unknown, from the Lloyd Collection

* The Twilight Zone (marketed as Twilight Zone for its final two seasons) is an American science fiction horror anthology television series created and presented by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from October 2, 1959, to June 19, 1964. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twilight_Zone_(1959_TV_series)

**When Chorlton made cars ………..https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2023/01/when-chorlton-made-cars.html

*** ***Graces Guide to British Industrial History, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Victor_Ashby_and_Son

An almost familiar scene of Mount Street in the heart of the city ........ just 89 years ago

Now here is a picture of the city which is at once both familiar but not familiar.

Mount Street, 1937

We are on Mount Street with Central Ref and the Town Hall Extension to our right and Central Street on the left.

So far so good, but the tram and the much darkened walls of the old Town Hall places us at a time long before now.

Given that the Town Hall extension was started in 1934, completed in 1938 and opened a year later, the date for our scene must be the mid to late 1930s.

But I can get closer because the painting comes from the book Manchester Heart of the Industrial North which I know was published in 1937.

And that will places us on Mount Street no later than 1937 and I suspect no earlier than 1936.

I first came across the book on the recommendation of my friend Angela and having looked through the book decided I had to go looking for it.

Fortunately I came across a copy at a reasonable price and that is that.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Mount Street, circa 1937, from Manchester Heart of the Industrial North, 1937

Memories of that other Thames ……

 I don’t know if cargo ships still berth along my bit of the River at Greenwich.

But someone will know, and I hope will tell me.

I left London in 1969 and while I still came home for holidays my visits to this bit of where I grew up became less and less.

But back in the late 1970s I did wander the water with a camera and recorded what I saw.

To some they will be dismal, and grimy but they were my part of London.

What strikes me about the berthed ship is how deep the inside compared to the men.

It’s a silly observation given that the hold had to store heaps of things, but it reminds me of just how different the Thames at Greenwich was five decades ago.

The image is one that sat as a collection of negatives in our cellar for 40 odd years, and only recently has come out of the shadows as I digitalize those pictures.

And Peter from Greenwich added "Good evening Andrew, I always enjoy your pictures of the grimy industrial part of my hometown. 

The coaster on the mud at Lovells was one of the first of a type designed with elevating wheelhouses and masts ets to work upstream on the Rhine and other European rivers. The depth of the hold would have probably been around 4 metres".

Location; The River Thames

Pictures; waiting to load, the Thames, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

  

On finding Mr. Howarth's bottle with the galloping horse ...... on Cheltenham Road

 Now here is a mystery which involves a bottle, George Howard of Thornburn Street and our own Cheltenham Road.

Yesterday David posted the bottle on social media asking for help identifying the company who sold it, adding, “This was found next to the foundations of my house in Cheltenham Road CCH. Marked 'HOWARD'S Thorburn St Upper Brook St Manchester.' Pictorial is a fast galloping horse with rider. Anyone know what it was?”

And never wanting to miss out on a mystery, I went looking for HOWARD'S Thorburn St Upper Brook St Manchester, and it all got a tad twisty.  

I couldn’t find a Howard at Thornburn Street in the early 20th century.  There was a John Spelman there listed as a mineral water manufacturer.

However George Howard “herb beer brewer (Howard Brothers)” was listed at 4 Sagar Street  in Lower Broughton from 1895 through to the early 20th century.  So perhaps they moved to Thornburn Street after 1911.

The houses  on Cheltenham Road date from 1927, and it is possible that sometime after that date the bottle was buried, lost or just thrown away, by which time George Howard had moved from Salford.

There was a George Howard who was in Hulme at the beginning of the 20th century and had brothers, and gave his occupation as a “Teasman” in 1916 at his marriage.

It is just possible that George made the short jump from a Teasman to a brewer of herbal beer.

We shall see.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; the bottle, 2021, courtesy of David Strong.

Going to the Art Gallery in Piccadilly Gardens in 1929 ........ the one we never got

Now what do you do with a big hole in the ground in the centre of Manchester?

Today of course it would be sold for development and pretty soon a tall less than elegant tower would fill the spot “offering a mix of commercial and residential opportunities for our times.”

But not so in the early decades of the last century when the Corporation decided to do something bold and innovative with the hole that was the Manchester Infirmary and is now Piccadilly Gardens.

There were plenty of suggestions including plans for an art gallery these never happened.

I must admit I never followed up on the art gallery project so I was pleased when my friend Neil Simpson sent me a picture of the proposed new gallery along with a description from How Manchester is Managed which were issued yearly by the City Council and described what they did.

The books are a wonderful resource for anyone interested in the history of the City.   I plundered them back in the early 1970s but had since pretty much forgotten about them.

So Neil’s discovery reunited me with an old set of friends and in the 1935 edition was this article on the new proposed art gallery.

The Corporation was well aware that “the space available in the Central Gallery had become overcrowded and great difficulty was experienced in finding accommodation for displaying the treasures to advantage,”*

And so having purchased the old Infirmary site in 1918 the “City Council concurred in the views expressed by the Art Gallery Committee that the site was the best place for the New Gallery.”

In 1925 after an open competition had been launched the design by Mr. E. Berry Webber was selected.  He was “29 years old, has designed a building which in all essentials admirably fulfil its functions as a Gallery and Museum of Applied Art and will at the same time , be a building in which the public can see what is to be seen easily and methodically. “

It was to be a building “in which clarity of design is essential [and one which] with its simple and dignified elevation and its freedom from irrelevant ornament will look what it is namely a, a place for the exhibition and study of Art.”

But it never happened.

The financial crash in 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression meant that on grounds of economy the City Council took the decision in 1931 to defer its construction for five years.

Picture; the proposed new Art Gallery, 1935 from How Manchester is Managed, Manchester City Council, 1935, page 73

*How Manchester is Managed, Manchester City Council, 1935, pages 72-73

The lost building on Barlow Moor Road ……….

No matter how much you uncover about the story of Chorlton, there is always something new.

1927

So, a while ago Kelsey Broome sent me a photograph of the old Royal Oak on Barlow Moor Road, which I had never seen before.

The pub dates from the early 19th century and was demolished sometime in the 1920s for the Royal Oak we know today.

This much I knew, but had never been able to pin down exactly when this happened.

I had always thought it must be in the late 1920s, and after a tour of the upstairs began to think it might have crossed over into the next decade.

But as so often happens a new bit of the jigsaw falls into place, which in this case was delivered by Bill Sumner, who provided me with this aerial picture of the new Royal Oak, with the magic date of 1927, which narrows down its construction.

1907

More so because there had been efforts during the early 20th century to get permission to replace the old pub with a new one.

But Bill’s picture just threw up another mystery which is the large building to right of the pub, behind the bank.

It is a substantial building, which is absent from the OS map of 1907, and has disappeared by 1952.

At present the only clue might be a reference in 1911 to a Frank Johnson at 21a Barlow Moor Road, who was a furniture dealer.

But that is it, and I will have to wait till I can get into Central Ref and look through the directories for the period from 1911 through to 1952 which might just of up some answers.

That said someone might know.

We shall see.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Barlow Moor Road, 1927, Britain from the Air, EPWO, 17618, detail from the OS map of Manchester, 1907

The ship …….. a lighter …. and the River

Now I am the first to admit as pictures go these might not be the ones to enter for “The most exciting picture of the century”, but they are over 40 years old and come from a time when the Thames was still a working river.

I had wandered down to Greenwich looking for the old food factory where I had worked at the beginning of the 1970s.

It was called Glenvilles and was close the Tunnel, and along the way I decided to record whatever took my interest.

Just exactly where along the water I was I can’t now remember, but in the second image there are the silos of what I think were Tunnel Refineries, which after the passage of four decades  is as close as you will get to a location

Happily I am sure someone will correct me, citing the exact spot and adding heaps more detail.

Well we shall see.

And here is the reminder that we should all record the place, date and a bit of background information each time we go out with a camera.

Leaving me just to say that before anyone sneers at the quality of the images, they were taken when I was just beginning to develop and print my own photographs, using smelly photography and the negatives have sat in the cellar for 40 years.

Location; The River

Picture; The ship …….. a barge …. and the River, circa 1978/79 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Walking with history …….. Bucatini Cacio e Pepe

It is one of the obvious observations that some of the simplest of dishes remain both fun to make and above all are totally delicious.

Bucatini Cacio e Pepe

So, it is with Bucatini Cacio e Pepe which combines my favourite pasta with cheese and pepper.

I have been making a variation for over forty years mixing pasta with olive oil, grated pecorino cheese and heaps of black pepper.

Our kids all grew up with it and will still opt for it as an alternative to chilli and garlic pasta.

But I had never tried the equally simple and quick Bucatini Cacio e Pepe.  

One source records that it originates with Italian shepherds who wanted something quick to make while out in the fields and originates in the region of Lazio.

And it is quick, only requiring you to cook the pasta mix it  to a bowl of grated pecorino and add a quantity of the pasta water which forms the sauce and then finish off with as much black pepper as you want.  

Three ingredients made in the time it takes to cook the pasta.

That said maybe I didn’t use enough cheese because the sauce was not as gooey as I suspect it should have been, but it was a first attempt.  

On the other hand, I might just revert to the even simpler pasta, olive oil, cheese and pepper.

The dish will be centuries old and reflects that basic peasant cooking which does the best with the minimum.

Ingredients for Spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino

And that will also explain Spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino, or Spaghetti with garlic, oil and chilli.

Now my Silver Spoon Cookbook says I should just fry the garlic and chillies in some olive oil and add the spaghetti by pulling the pasta out with a fork rather than draining it which keeps the pasta moist and just softens the dish.*

As a variation I prefer using linguini and throw in just enough tomato sauce to add a bit of extra colour. 

At which point purists will sniffily point out that I have wandered into making Spaghetti All’ Amatriciana, which blends my chilli, garlic and tomato mix with diced pancetta, which is close, but as a vegetarian would never include meat.

A variation on Spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino

But then this Neapolitan dish like all peasant meals will change slightly depending on what ingredients are available and on the preferences of the cook.

So, with that in mind tomorrow I may look at what exists in the cupboard and the fridge to ring the changes on these two basic friends.

Location; our kitchen

Pictures; wot I cooked, 2026, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

 *The Silver Spoon, 2005, 2000 Italian recipes

How we lived and what we did in 1938

I am back with that slim book which celebrated 100 years of civic achievement here in Manchester.

Your City, Manchester 1838-1938 was written by "the Manchester Municipal Officer’s Guild in co-operation with its Group for Research in Administration and Sociology in celebration of the Centenary of the City’s Charter of Incorporation, with special dedication to the Children of Manchester.” 

Of course when it was published it was the story of what the council had achieved in the century we had had locally elected government.

So there were chapters on the improvements in sanitation, public health, education and housing, as well as leisure, and culture, town planning and the government of the city.

And it looked forward to the future, with clean and cheap electricity and gas, heating and lighting the homes across the city as well as fuelling the domestic appliances for cooking and washing.

All of which makes it a remarkable document, because you can read it as people back then did, marvelling at what one hundred years of municipal endeavour had achieved or treat it as a  bit of a historical record.  After all 75 years have passed since its publication and some of what it describes are themselves distant memories.

The uniforms of the police and their role in traffic management have changed, as has the way our household refuse is collected.  You have to be well into the middle years of your life to remember a dust cart like this or that rubbish was deposited in metal dustbins.

My particular favourite is the Sludge Steamship Mancunium which took the treated sewage waste out to sea where it was “emptied into the ocean 22 miles beyond Liverpool or [that] portion broadcast,was broadcast on to the  land and ploughed in helping to make the land good for agricultural purposes.”

Not so different then from the practice of our own farmers who bought night soil from the privies of Manchester to spread across the township fields.

As for household rubbish the book makes much of the slogan on the side of dust carts of the period to “Burn your own rubbish.”

Now given the number of open fire this was a practical solution and by extension the Corporation did much the same in its destructors, which “are really big furnaces ..... where cart loads of rubbish are burned down to clinkers, the useful parts of the rubbish – old tins, bottles, etc- being saved and sold to firms who melt them down and use them for making new tins and new bottles.”

Less attractive today but at the time lauded as the new and scientific way was “'controlled tipping'.  Here the rubbish is dumped on low lying land and is spread carefully out and ‘sealed’ by covering with a thick layer of soil. 

Then another layer of waste in put on top, ‘sealed’ and so the land is built up into what becomes in a year or two solid land.  

Just as the clinker obtained from the incineration method is put to good use in road making, the controlled tipping method is usefully applied to filling up waste land, and as you will find on the Mersey Bank at Wythenshawe that a large area of waste land previously liable to floods has been built up by this method into high solid land, grass-grown and suitable for all sorts of purposes, such as playing fields and parks...”

And that I suppose is where I part company with the civic achievements because that neat new scientific solution ruined the meadows between our village and the Mersey.  What had been an area of carefully cultivated meadow land became a dumping ground which raised the level of the land and destroyed for ever a unique way of farming.

And before anyone claims that this has prevented flooding close to Chorlton I would just remind them that this was our flood plain which generations had quite happily accepted as the price paid for living close to the river.

But that is not quite the end.  That refuse deposited here 70 or so years ago is still there and may not have gone away.  Just a few years ago my old botanist friend came across a newspaper from 1938 in perfect condition out on the Stretford side of the river.  It appears to have been unearthed by people digging for old bottles or some other ancient treasure.

What was remarkable was that it was in perfect condition which begs the question of what else sits below the surface?  A question which the more sober, dispassionate and scientific readers will be able to answer.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; from Your City, Manchester 1838-1938, the Manchester Municipal Officer’s Guild, 1938

Hailing a cab in Chorlton in the 1920s

Charles Croton was one of our taxi drivers and successful enough to have moved from horse and cab to motor vehicle by the 1920s and was listed in the telephone book by 1911.

All of which makes him a suitable candidate for a story.

He was another of those new people who moved in to Chorlton just as the place was expanding.  He had been born in London in 1867 and his father was also a hackney coach driver.

His earlier years are a little murky but I know he married Ann in 1887 and their first child was born two years later.  These were the years when they seemed to move about the country. Some of the children were born in Hulme but others in Littlemore in Oxfordshire, but by 1901 they were settled here in Chorlton on Sandy Lane.

So this makes them a perfect example of the families who moved here to take advantage of the new housing development which was going up mainly along Barlow Moor, Wilbraham and Manchester Roads and the areas off in each direction.

These were the middling people who mostly earned a living by working as office workers and professionals in the city taking advantage of the new railway which could whisk commuters into Manchester in under fifteen minutes.  But there were also more wealthy families who owned businesses as well as skilled semi skilled and manual workers who lived in the six shilling a week houses.

The Croton’s however occupied what had been a farm house and here the attraction may well have been the yard where the taxi could be kept as well as the close proximity to Shaw’s motor garage and petrol pump on Barlow Moor Road.

And in other ways they reflect this new Chorlton with all four of the children entering the new trades.  So while Reg the eldest followed his father into the cab trade, was an engineer in the Corporation electrical works and both daughter worked as shop assistants, one in confectionary and the other in drapery.

Charles died in the summer of 1926 but the business continued into the 1930s still on Sandy Lane.  Which takes me back to Reg.  The picture was taken in 1922 which would have made him thirty years old.  He is parked up in the station I guess waiting for the arrival of a train and a potential fare.

So there you have it, a little bit about one of our families.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

Pinching pictures ……ever acceptable?

It will have been sometime in the summer of 1979 when I wandered back to the Cutty Sark on Ballast Quay.

Ballast Quay, 1979

A decade earlier the pub had been one of our regular haunts.

Even now the memory of sitting on that low wall on warm evenings with the powerful smell of the River and listening as the boats banged together from the swell of a passing pleasure cruiser is still magic undimmed by the passage of nearly sixty years.

And as you do the first  picture has featured over time in my stories about the pub, Greenwich and the changes to the area.

Ballast Quay, 2022

So, I shouldn’t be surprised that "the man, the power station and the pub" should turn up on a social media site.

What I am not so happy about is that it was posted with no acknowledgement to me who took it or a date.

And that at best diminishes its value as a piece of history and ignores its ownership.

Without a date there is no context, no understanding of the place in the story of Greenwich and it becomes just a picture with little significance.

As such it is useless to a casual observer or the historian.

But a date places it in its time and allows you to draw conclusions about what the place was like in 1979.

More so when standing at roughly the same point in 2022 as recorded by Google Maps.

The advent of AI has in certain circumstances challenged our perception that what you see is really what it is.

So a date and source helps validate the image and I think makes it a more useful window on the past.

Added to which just lifting or more realistically pinching it does nothing for the person who created it.

Ah I hear you mutter, "it’s just the internet, its there so its fair game", but it’s not because if you adopt that attitude, it could be a parked bike standing outside the sweet shop …. "it’s there so it is ok to take it away".

But that would be pinching.

And for many their pictures or their research is their livelihood, and reflects their skill and talent, which is not served by picking it up at random and plonking down in an inappropriate place.

Now I make no great claims about my photograph but it is mine, and courtesy alone demands that I am credited.

But at least Peter the Pincher didn’t choose to crop the image which might totally distort the story behind the photograph.

Before I cropped my picture, 1979

In this case I did that.  

And I did so because I wanted just "the man, the power station and the pub", and that was my choice, but because both images are out there it is possible for people to assess them both.

Fair is fair.

Location; Ballast Quay, 

Pictures;  the man, the power station and the pub, ; Ballast Quay, Greenwich 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Ballast Quat, 2022, courtesy of Google Maps

In search of the sellers of sleep on Angel Street …..

Now yesterday I was on Angel Street exploring the stories behind the doors of the lodging houses, of which there were many in the surrounding area.

44 Angel Street, 1897, 

Number 44 Angel Street was typical.  It was run by Mr. Patrick Comer.  On the night of March 31st 1901 when the census was taken it was home to thirty two men 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 of them earned their living from manual work or the slightly more precarious occupation of selling on the streets.

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 doubt their stories will ever be told, and even after combing all the official records for the 32 the results will be fragmentary and much of their lives will remain in the shadows.

And so following up on comments from John Anthony Hewitt and Geoff Ashworth, who were both interested in the owners and managers of these places who were what the French called “sellers of sleep".

Inside 44 Angel Street, 1897

Not that the owner would have been over bothered at the use put to his properties.  In the case of number 44 this was someone listed as Allanson.  He or she first appears in the Rate Books owning numbers 44, 42, and 38, but by 1898 the empire had shrunk to just 44.

On Angel Street, 1900

A search of the records has so far not thrown up any candidates that I can be confident as being the owner.

That said I was a little more successful with the man I take to be the manager.  This was Patrick Comer who may be one of the men staring out at us from the photograph dated 1898.  He seems an interesting character as he is also listed as occupying both numbers 44 and 40.

And yet the census returns for 1901 offer no reference to Mr. Comer.  Of course he had moved on between 1891 when he appears in the Rate Books and 1901 when is absent from the census.

Or perhaps he was still officially the occupier doffing up 7/6d a week for the rent on 44 and 5/- for number 40, and then collecting  a sub rent from those actually living in the two houses.

So more searching and more speculation.

Location; Angel Street

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

*Angel Street, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Angel%20Street

When Chorlton made cars ………..

It is a story I have twice come back to having had a stab at finding out where and when a firm set up here in Chorlton making cars.

Shaw's Motor Garage, date unknown

First time round I tried following up a request about Ashby Cars, but only got as far as learning that they relocated from Towcester sometime after 1921 and ceased production later in the decade.

Then after a conversation with Ian Henderson who thought they might have been based on Edge Lane my interest was reignited.

And as before I turned to Graces’ Guide to British Industrial History who offered up “Pioneer Motor Works, of Towcester and Barlow Moor Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy.”  The business was run by Victor James Ashby and his son Victor Stapleton Ashby.

The history of the firm is a bit sketchy, and there is a gap between them producing an experimental car in 1901 and 1919 when they commenced production of about 50 "Ashby Cars" before going into partnership with the aeroplane makers Short Brothers.

According to the Grace database, “After returning from the First World War Victor Stapleton Ashby designed a cyclecar that came to the attention of aeroplane makers Short Brothers. 

Short Brothers employed six Ashby staff members, with the car being known as the Short-Ashby in 1921. 

Short Brothers withdrew their support in 1922 owing to poor sales. The Ashbys then moved to Chorlton-cum-Hardy, where production of a two-seater light car powered by a 970 cc 8 hp engine, three-speed gearbox or four-ratio friction drive, continued until 1924.

After which they introduced a 2 hp / 550 rpm engine in1925”.*

Site of Shaw's Motor Garage, circa 1990s

And that pretty much is that.  Grace mentions a garage workshop in Towcester but I very much doubt I will be able to find it, although I did trawl Brackley Road where they were still living in the May of 1921 but drew a blank.

As for the location on Barlow Moor Road that is still to be found, but my money might be on that stretch of the road from the old cinema/Co-op to High Lane which in the early 20th century was home to Charles Shaw’s garage which was still trading in the mid-1950s at 483 Barlow Moor Road.

It is just possible he rented space out.

Alternatively there was a an industrial unit on what is now the Marks and Spencer's store which might have briefly been our motor car factory.

My Facebook pal Tony has access to the directories for the 1920s and I have asked him to go looking, while I will search the local newspapers.

So, we may be in luck.

We shall see.

Ian has found an image of Short Ashby car and it wil appear once I can check out the copyright.

Location; Towcester and Chorlton

Pictures; Charles Shaw’s Garage, 483 Barlow Moor Road, date unknown and again circa 1990s  

*Grace's Guide to British Industrial History, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Victor_Ashby_and_Son

Walking the River ......... by the Cutty Sark

A short series taken from one day when I walked along the River.

Back then the Thames was still a place to to earn a wage and watch as ships, and barges plied their way on the water.*

Location; the Thames

Picture; the River in 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The lost Eltham, Greenwich, and Woolwich pictures, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20lost%20Eltham%20and%20Woolwich%20pictures

The Manchester of 1894

I have spent part of the afternoon looking through a wonderful collection of pictures of Manchester from the late 19th century.

They come from a three volume collection published in 1894 under the title Manchester Old and New.  It was written by William Arthur Shaw and the 300 illustrations ranging from small pictures set into the text to full page paintings were by Henry Tidmarsh.

These for me are the real attraction of the books.  True, some might be dismissed as chocolate box illustrations with a romantic hue, but many were of the less prestigious streets and highways while others like the Rochdale coke and gas works vividly bring to life an industrial scene long gone.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; from Manchester Old and New published in three volumes in 1894 by Cassell, text by William Arthur Shaw, illustrations by Henry Tidmarsh

Mrs Keal and the mystery of 419 Barlow Moor Road

Leon's, 2015

It has taken sometime but I am closer to solving the mystery behind the date on the wall of  419 Barlow Moor Road.

Most people will know the place as Leon’s the fabric shop but I have long wondered why the building carries the date 1885 when it was built around 1915.

The Leon family began trading there in the 1990s and before that it had been the Addressal  Print Works which is listed in the directories by 1921 and for an even shorter time between 1915-17 it was the Chorlton Laundry owned by Mrs Keal.

Not that this helps with the date of 1885 which appears above the door along with the word Established.

Addressall Printing Works, 1959

Now it is just possible that the date refers to either establishment of the laundry or the printing company but there is no reference to Addressal in any of the directories in the late 19th century and any way the stone lettering looks like it was done when the building went up.

So I rather think we must be with Mrs Keal who was running a laundry business on Beech Road in 1894.

That said there is no evidence that she was trading before that date and in 1881 Mr and Mrs Keal were living in Croydon.

But by 1889 they had settled in Chorlton and were running a business from nu 30 Wilbraham Road.
Mr Keal described himself variously as a brick layer or builder and I suppose it is just possible that the date 1885 refers to the start up of his business.

Either way in1915 Mrs Keal was in that building on Barlow Moor Road operating the Chorlton Laundry.

Now I can’t be exactly sure when she moved in but in the April of that year Mr Keal of “Brookbank Bridge Barlow Moor-road died at Chorlton Laundry Brookbank Bridge.”

London Gazette, February 1917

And just over a year later the business went bankrupt.*

According to Mrs Keal at the bankruptcy hearing in the February of 1917 “the main cause of her coming into court was the shortness of loose working capital when she removed to her new premises in Barlow Moor Road after having carried on a similar business on less extensive lines for many years in Beech Road, Chorlton.

Mrs Keal further stated that after she had expended over £900 on new machinery so that she might undertake the laundry work of the military hospitals in Manchester a large proportion of the work was undertaken from her.”

But the “military authorities had established laundries under their own control.  Difficulties in the way of getting sufficient labour had it impossible for her to get the work done as promptly as the hospitals required [and] she could not overcome these difficulties by paying higher wages.”

She went on to say that “she had taken steps to strengthen the weak point in her business affairs which had been pointed out by her accountant.”

But it seems that was it and she finished up the business and moved to St Annes-on-Sea where she died in 1935 leaving £2625.

It is just possible that the date refers not to Mrs Keal's Laundry but to the building business of her husband which may well date from 1885.

And it t maybe the Leon family can help who could have the deeds to the building which will offer up its history.

Peter painted the picture of the building and while there he spotted the story of the Leon family which is displayed inside the shop.

It is a fascinating account of one family business stretching back across the last century and so by the time I get round to writing their story they may well be able to offer up a missing document.

Well we shall see.

Additional research from Tony Goulding

Picture; Addressall Printing Works (originally built for laundry), House adjoining used as office for printers, RE Stanley, m17530 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Painting; Leon's Barlow Moor Road, © 2015 Peter Topping,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

*First Meetings and Public Examinations, The London Gazette, February 16, 1917

**Laundry Proprieters Ill-luck. Failed with a surplus of over £3000, Manchester Evening News March 6 1917