Walking past the Library

 Location; Oxford Road, All Saints, Manchester

Picture; Walking past the Library, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Remember them ……..

After over 80 years a war memorial to some of the men who fought in the Great War has come out of the shadows.

The memorial went into storage sometime after All Saints Church was bombed in 1940.

The details remain sketchy, and it is unclear whether the church was the one in All Saints in Chorlton on Medlock or the one in Stretford.

Many of the men listed came from Hulme or Chorlton on Medlock and David Harrop who is now the custodian of the memorial says that “two possibly three are interred in Southern Cemetery, and many family members of these men are interred in Southern, it really is the most appropriate location and reflects the memorials origins”.

All of which points to the All Saints Church on Oxford Road.

The church was badly fire damaged and was demolished in 1949.

So it is fitting that David will be placing it in his permanent exhibition in the Remembrance Lodge at Southern Cemetery.  The exhibition already contains many items related to the two World Wars and some which have links to servicemen and women who are interned in the Cemetery.

A heap more work needs to be done on the men listed and in time it maybe possible to finally identify the church.

But for now, as David has said it’s presence in Southern Cemetery “is the most appropriate location and reflects the memorials origins”.*

Location; The Remembrance Lodge Southern Cemetery

Pictures; the War memorial 2023, courtesy of David Harrop

*The memorial will be on show later in the year or at the start of the next

That lost church in All Saints ......a place in Shropshire ..... and a connection with Africa

It is rare to get an exact date for when a photograph was accepted into the catalogue of a picture postcard company, and by extension the date the image was taken.

But in the case of this picture of All Saints Church in Grosvenor Square I can place it sometime in the year 1900.

And this I can do because the name of the company which marketed it was Valentine and I have their catalogue listings which means using the number on the bottom right-hand side I can track it to one of the 1,241 photographs which were placed in the catalogue for 1900.

More than this I know it will in all probability be at the back of the year, given that the last catalogue number is 34,736, and ours is 33,191, making in the last 545 to be added. 

The story of the church is well known, so I shall just record that it was “consecrated on April 12th, 1820.  The building consisted of a chancel, nave, aisles and a domed tower.  It was partially destroyed by fire in February of 1850 but was restored and reopened by Christmas of the same year, only to be badly damaged during the Manchester Blitz and demolition some years later” *.

There is heaps more which are available including maps and pictures by following the link.

For now, I am more interested in this particular card which as posted on May 12th, 1906, to a Miss. Biddle in Oswestry from someone living at 56 Richmond Grove East in Longsight.

The sender’s name is indecipherable, but I know that this was home to a Theophilus Beal who was there from at least 1901 through to 1929.  

He was a railway carriage cleaner was married to  Lydia and had three sons, none of whose first names resemble the one on the card.  But the Beales’s did have a lodger in 1910 and while he is not the sender of the card, it is possible that another lodger who was there in 1906 sent the card.

Alternatively, the clue maybe in part of the message which runs "I have just been here to see my cousin march to drill” and so we have be dealing with a relative of the Beale’s.

As for Miss Biddle, she was staying at an address in Oswestry, which is in Shropshire close to where the Beales’ came from.

That said the address also include the village of Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain which actually is in Wales, but to be fair very close to both Oswestry and more to the point Shropshire where the Beale’s came from.

So, there is more to play for.

Leaving just to point out the buildings in the background which include the old Art School and the Chorlton on Medlock Town Hall.

The town hall in 1945 was the venue for the Fifth Pan African Congress which was attended by 90 delegates, 26 from Africa. 

They included many scholars, intellectuals and political activists who would later go on to become influential leaders in various African independence movements and the American civil rights movement, including the Kenyan independence leader Jomo Kenyatta, American activist and academic W. E. B. Du Bois, Malawi's Hastings Banda, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, prominent Jamaican barrister Dudley Thompson and Obafemi Awolowo and Jaja Wachuku from Nigeria. 

It also led partially to the creation of the Pan-African Federation, founded in 1946 by Nkrumah and Kenyatta.

But that is another story.

Instead, I will finish by saying that the card belongs to David Harrop who thinks it is the only picture postcard to show the church.

Location, All Saints, Oxford Road, Manchester

Picture; All Saints Church, 1900, Valentine Postcard, courtesy of David Harrop

*All Saints Church Grosvenor Square, https://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/gone/allsaints.html

All Saints on a sunny April Saturday ….. with a heap of history

Now All Saints on Oxford Road has been one of my haunts for over half a century and it is somewhere I still regularly return to.

Grosvenor Building, 2022 formerly Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall 

The park which is the centre piece of the place is bounded on three sides by Manchester Metropolitan University, which when I first attended as a student was the newly formed Manchester Polytechnic.

Back then the Poly consisted of the Manchester School of Art, John Dalton College of Technology and the College of Commerce and was later joined by College of Education in Didsbury, and along the way it has picked up other educational establishments.

When I first wandered the area, I had no idea of its history or that there had been a church and burial ground on the site of the present park. Its main attraction was that here was the student’s union houses in the old Righton Building which we knew as Till Kennedy, after a later occupant.

Manchester School of Art, 2022

Subsequently I learned that here was the Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall and Dispensary which I remember as a soot blackened building whose interior looked to be in need of much tender care and attention.  

Grosvenor Square, formerly All Saints Burial Ground, 2022

It was built during 1830-31 and is best remembered as the venue in 1945 for the Fifth Pan African Congress which was It was attended by 90 delegates, 26 from Africa.*

They included many scholars, intellectuals and political activists who would later go on to become influential leaders in various African independence movements and the American civil rights movement, including the Kenyan independence leader Jomo Kenyatta, American activist and academic W. E. B. Du Bois, Malawi's Hastings Banda, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, prominent Jamaican barrister Dudley Thompson and Obafemi Awolowo and Jaja Wachuku from Nigeria. 

It also led partially to the creation of the Pan-African Federation, founded in 1946 by Nkrumah and Kenyatta.

Beside the former Town Hall is the Art School, and the Righton Building, while close by is the Ormond Building which was the offices of the Chorlton Union which administered the Poor Law from the late 1830s through till the mid-20th century.  

Bellhouse Building, 2022

The building dates from 1881 became the offices the Manchester Poly in 1970 and was briefly occupied by us students sometime in the following year during a protest over library cutbacks.  

I still reflect that a few years earlier students across the West had taken over university buildings as a stand against the Vietnam War, the perceived “class based” nature of education and the “elitist control of universities”, while we spent three nights sleeping on the floor of the Poly’s offices because of a few less books.

That said the loss of a few less books was an important issue to make a stand on, even if it also allowed my girlfriend and I an opportunity to be together.

Beyond the Ormond Building, is the delightful looking Bellhouse Building which was once the town house of the Bellhouse family which my Pevsner, tells me was built in 1831 for the Bellhouse’s who “were the most successful building contractors in Manchester of the day.  Only the façade is original.  …. It was converted around 1910 for the Manchester Eye Hospital but became offices in 1987".**

All Saints, 1950, OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1950

Leaving me just to add that there is a wonderful short historical description of the area by Steve Marland.***

Location; All Saints

Pictures; walking around All Saints, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* All Saints in the snow, 1958, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2019/12/all-saints-in-snow-1958.html

**Manchester, Clare Hartwell, 2222, Pevsner Architectural Guides, pp 130-33

***All Saints – Grosvenor Square Manchester, MODERN MOOCH,December 5, 2018, https://modernmooch.com/2018/12/05/all-saints-grosvenor-square-manchester/