Till & Kennedy's on Cavendish Street ........... or if you prefer Mr Righton's Drapery Emporium and the Student's Union

Now this is one or those buildings which will mean many things to many people.

Righton's Buildings in 2015

For some it will be the old show rooms and for me and some of my generation Manchester Polytechnic’s first proper Student Union.

Before then the three colleges pretty much did their own thing with their own bars.

The College of Commerce on Aytoun Street where I went was known for some pretty spectacular Saturday nights with big bands, the Art College may have done the same but I doubt that much happened down at John Dalton

Detail including Mr Righton's name, 2015

All of which is outrageously  biased but fits with someone who wasn’t even aware of the other two sites until sometime in late 1970 almost a year after I begun at the “college of knowledge.”

Nor can I be fully sure when the Till Kennedy Building opened for pints, bands and much more.

One source has it throwing back its doors in 1969, before which it had been Till & Kennedy’s the ironmongers.

Righton's in 1958

It was built in 1905 for William Righton whose name appears above the main entrance.

He was a draper and the building offers up plenty of clues to its origins as a drapers shop.

The spacious ground floor was perfect for accommodating a vast range of fabrics while the large windows allowed the maximum amount of daylight into the building, a feature complimented by the top-lit gallery with the cutaway floor providing extra light to penetrate down into the main shop.

Now this had always puzzled me as had the benching around the gallery and only now have I discovered that these benches were where “the cloth was measured.”*

Righton's in 2015

It had a short life as a student’s union and has been used by various faculties of the Poly and the MMU.

I remember visiting it to look at the collection of taped memories of life in Manchester in the first half of the last century but as much as I tried my mind wandered to disco nights and of a particularly magic evening with Osibisa.

Added to which there were those endless student general meetings where our own version of politics was played, all of which was I suspect a long way from Mr Righton’s bolt of blue cloth or Till and Kennedy’s taps and assorted iron ware.

Pictures; the Righton Building, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson and in 1958, H.W.Beaumont, m19060, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Manchester An architectural history, John K Parkinson-Bailey, 2000, Page 317

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

All Saints in the snow, 1958

All Saints in the snow, 1958

It is another of those pictures which really speaks for itself, but that won't stop me adding some words

We are on the corner of Oxford Road looking down Cavendish Street.  To our right is the park and behind the bus the Art College.

Now I have a fond spot for All Saints partly because it was an area I spent a lot of time as student and because it is full of history.  The park was the site of All Saints Church, while just out of sight beyond the car on the left is Chorlton on Medlock Town Hall built in 1830-31 and the venue in 1945 for the Fifth Pan African Congress.

Chorlton on Medlock Town Hall, 1972

“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. 

Snow and a bus, All Saints, 1958

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

The British Press scarcely mentioned the conference. A number of resolutions were passed such as the criminalization of racial discrimination and the main resolution which decried imperialism and capitalism.”*

By the time I attended a meeting in the old Town Hall sometime in early 1970, the place was showing its age and would soon be gutted and become part of the Art College.

In the same way the building behind the park which had been the home of the Chorlton Union which ran the Poor Law for south Manchester would become the administrative centre of Manchester Polytechnic.

It was a place I once occupied with a girl friend during a protest at cuts in library provision but that as they say is another story.

Picture; Traffic in the snow, Oxford Road and Grosvenor Square, All Saints, Chorlton-on-Medlock, W.M.Johnstone, 1958,m00166, Chorlton on Medlock Town Hall, 1972, m52112, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

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