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

Breaking news …… the past is back

Corny title perhaps but good news because after a break of many months the online catalogue of over 80,000 images of Manchester is back and up and running.

Down an alley, Tib Street, 2023

It has been a barren and empty time for those of us who have wanted to search out a Manchester  street or a building but today I got an email from Jane Parr, at Archives and Local History in Central Library telling me that the glitch has been sorted.

Angel Street, undated

And that is about it.

Other than to say I wish people who trawl and post images from the database would credit Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council and carefully add the date, location and photographer.

Apart from it being good manners to acknowledge the source of the picture it provides a context.

Otherwise all we have is "an old picture of Manchester, it looks different from now".

So for those unfamiliar with the service just follow the link and get looking.

Picture; Angel Street, S.L.Coulthurst, undated, m08543 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Down an alley, Tib Street, Manchester, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Mystery solved ….. and a confirmation of the honest and right way to do things ....

I won’t be alone I think in wondering why I haven’t been able to access Manchester Libraries digital collection of photographs.

St Andrew's School, 1920 Ancoats

At the last count there were over 80, 000 with some of them also appearing on a Flicker account.

A long time ago I sought permission to reproduce images from the collection on the blog with the clear understanding that I would acknowledge Manchester libraries and include the reference number and credit the photographer.  To which I also added the date.

But for perhaps six months the site has been down and despite requests for information all I got was that it “had issues”.  

This week in response to another request I got the promising reply that “Unfortunately the site is provided by a third-party company and there are still apparently problems that they need to fix, although we are assured it is nearly ready. In the meantime, you can see most of the images by going to http://gmlives.org.uk/results.html and selecting photograph as the category”.

All of which is very promising but makes me reflect on the request I made a decade and a bit ago to use their pictures is the simple observation that I don’t hold the copyright and like any images which I haven’t created they are not mine to use without permission.

Now I know in the case of the 80,000 most were donated by individuals who perhaps are the real copyright holders, but it remains the case they ain’t mine to use unless I ask and get the go ahead.

Not that that troubles many on social media who happily download and post away with no reference to where they came from, where they were taken and a date.

At best they leave a caption along the lines of “an old part of the city” which is as useful as reflecting “it was different in the past”.

Dates, locations and the name of the author are all important in providing context to the image, and help tell a story.

 Palais De Luxe cinema, Barlow Moor Road, circa 1928

And it matters.

Years ago someone reposted a picture I had used of an old Chorlton cinema, ignored  the story that came with it and so rendered its real value worthless.

Because the source came from an archive in east Scotland in a collection devoted to the Lion Foundry and had been taken by a local Chorlton photographer called Charles Ireland in the early 1920s.

All of which was important in telling the story of this cinema and throwing light on the fact that it had been taken to illustrate the cast iron and glass veranda which fronted the building. 

Equally important was Charles Ireland who not only lived in Chorlton but was a recognised photographer with studios in Manchester.

Abandoned, Rochdale Canal, 1979

Finally, the date helped locate the films being shown that week and provided extra information on the concert party that was down to perform live.

Angel Street, 1900

All of which means that using the catalogue entry is important, as is seeking permission.

When it comes down to it someone took the picture and at the very least they or the present holders should have the right to decide where and how it should be used.

And it is not enough just to mutter “well it was out there so its fair game to be used”, which in a different context could be used to justify walking away with a bike parked outside a shop.

Many of us have seen images we have taken, or accounts we have written stolen and reused on the most inappropriate sites in a context which does little credit to the original piece of work.

Common Lodging House, Angel Street, 1897

So I shall be pleased when those 80,000 images are back online and will continue to be careful to credit Manchester Libraries and offer up all the information from the catalogue.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; St Andrew’s School, Homer Street, 1920, m48646, Angel Street common lodging house, 1897, m08365, Angel Street, 1900, Samuel L Coulthurst, m08978, S.L.Coulthurst, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass,  The Rochdale Canal, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Palais De Luxe cinema, circa 1928, Charles Ireland, GD10-07-04-6-13-01 courtesy of East Dunbartonshire Archives

On Angel Street with Matilda Walker and her two children

Anyone who has grown up in a terraced street in the older parts of our towns and cities will recognise the wicket that has been chalked on the side of this brick wall.

In the absence of parks, playing fields and any green spaces the street was where you played.  In the winter you kicked a football and in summer you played cricket.

So I guess Mr J Jackson might well have pitched up with his camera sometime between May and September judging by the chalk marks on the wall.

Now the date was 1909 but I am curious as to where all the people were.  This after all was still a time when the arrival of a photographer drew the crowds.

They came and stood staring at the camera with a mixture of curiosity, bravado and  more than a little vanity.

Some posed, most just looked on in bewilderment and a few steadfastly refused to acknowledge the presence of this man and his camera.

Within a few decades so commonplace would the camera be that people ignored its presence and just got on with life.

But here in 1909 I would have expected more, especially on Angel Street that narrow and crowded street which connected Rochdale Road with St Michael’s Fields.

This was a densely populated area dominated by the “common lodging house” and so you do wonder where they are.

Mr Jackson’s picture is from  the St Michael’s Field end and our property is up for sale.

Now with a bit more research I should be able to tell you more about it.

In the meantime I shall just share a little of the work I have done so far on Angel Street.

It is a slow laborious task because I am transferring the 1901 census returns on to a spreadsheet but when it is completed I will have a full record of who lived here including their occupations, age, and place of birth and marital status, all of which will provide a background to the area.

And in time I shall be able to track some of residents back across the decades around the city and determine to what extent many of those who ended up in these cheap over crowded lodging houses were the flotsam and jetsam of Manchester, destined to move from one crummy set of rooms to another.

The advantage of the spread sheet is that it allows you to sort the data in any way you want, looking for patterns in age range, occupations and places of birth.

So far I have searched just a handful of these lodging houses but they reveal a remarkable number of young women with children who described themselves as single, running counter to that commonly held belief that they would describe themselves as married or widowed.

Women like Matilda Walker who at the age of 23 was bringing up two children aged four and three months at number 17 Angel Street.

She gave her occupation as charwoman and I wonder how she balanced working with looking after her daughter Sarah and the baby John.

She would have been just 19 when she gave birth to the first and there will be a story here.

Of course the research area is limited to just one street but I suspect there will be enough here to keep me busy for a while.

Picture; Angel Street, 1909, J Jackson, m00198, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Trying to find the lives of the people behind the doors on Angel Street

Now tracking down the residents of some common lodging houses in the seedier part of Manchester in the late 19th century was never going to be easy.

But as part of the story of the people behind the doors of Angel Street it was something I wanted to do, if only to give these long lost people some substance.

After all living in a common lodging house and sharing a room if not a bed with a group of strangers marks you out as at the bottom of the pile and the chances are you will leave little of anything behind.

So in I wanted to piece together their lives before they arrived in Angel Street in 1901.

Some had been married and will have run a family home, others might have always been on the move from one temporary accommodation to another, but the census returns would at least anchor them somewhere every ten years before 1901.

And it would throw light on their occupations helping determine whether they had always been in jobs which were low paid, casual and uncertain.

There were 112 to choose from and not being a statistician I went for ten to begin with.  These included the young Matilda Walker aged 23, a single mother of two who gave her occupation as charwoman, a number of middle aged men and women from Manchester and two elderly men born in Ireland.

To make it easier to track the women I went for those who said they were single and pretty much split the men between those who were married and those who were unmarried.

Now any one who has searched for family relatives will know that crawling over the official records can lead to countless alternatives and a lot of dead ends.

And so it has been with my ten.  In some cases a census return would yield up a clue only to be marginalised when three other likely candidates offered themselves up.

Worse still many just didn’t appear at all.  They seem to have evaded the enumerator on census day, were not baptised and passed away leaving not even a death certificate.

Of course they will be somewhere but as yet not where I can find them.

I rather think some will have gone under different names, perhaps others left the country or were just never at the right place to be caught on an official document.

Matilda who was born in Salford may be the daughter of John and Matilda who were living at 33 Back Hampson Street in Greengate in 1891.

She is the only one roughly of the right age to show up on a census return, but I can’t find her for a decade before and likewise I lose her after 1901.

Nor have her children fared any better.  Sarah had been born in 1897 and John in 1901.  Of John there is not even a birth record and for his sister a choice of two 14 year olds who in 1911 were working as domestic servants, one in Surrey and the other around the corner from Angel Street.

Of the other nine there were a few false dawns and more dead ends.

Not that I shall stop.  The exercise remains a valid one and so I travel in hope.

Picture; Angel Street, 1900, Samuel L Coulthurst, m08978, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Behind the door of 44 Angel Street revealing stories of the "common lodging houses"

Angel Street in 1901

I am back on Angel Street between 1897 and 1901.

Recently  I wandered down the street in the company of Samuel L Coulthurst who took a series of pictures of the people and their homes including one rare shot of the inside of number 44.

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

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

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

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

On Angel Street in 1898

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Outside 44 Angel Street in  May of 1897

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

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

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

Patrick Comer

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inside number 44 Angel Street, 1897

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

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

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

Location, Angel Meadow, Manchester

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


**Asa Briggs, Victorian Cities, 1963

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

On Angel Street with the "common lodging houses" in 1900

On Angel Street in 1900

We are on Angel Street in 1900.

Now I can’t be exactly sure where along Angel Street we are  but I think it will be around the middle and it is just possible we are looking down from St Michael’s Fields  towards Rochdale Road.

The Street still exists today and there is still a pub at what would have been number 6, on the corner with Dyche Street.

Back then it was the Weavers Arms although now it goes under the name of The Angel Pub which  I guess will have been an inspired piece of thinking by someone attempting to re brand the place.

In time I will go looking for how long there has been a pub on this site and when it may have changed its name.

I suspect it may have had some lean years given that until recently there was little in the way of anything on any of the surrounding streets.

But now new build has gone up off Angel Street and a little further down are the new Co-op offices.

That said Angel Street is just a shadow of its former self.

But back in 1900 it was alive with houses, businesses and a cotton mill.

Now I knew I would never be able to identify the woman in the picture sitting on the steps, but I am became curious about her and where she lived.

So as you do I hunted down the street directories and census returns.
I was expecting the usual mix of small terraced properties sandwiched between factories timber yards and engineering works.

What I found were lodging houses, not one but lots of them.

I counted nine on a street which listed only eleven properties but these numbers hid a more interesting discovery that many of these lodging houses were collections of individual house which had become larger units.

So number 9 Angel Street also included numbers 11 and 13, and this was replicated all along.

Here then was one of those places given over to cheap accommodation where the residents were crammed in.

In nu 44 Angel Street, a "common lodging house"

And there was a uniformity here, men and women of all ages mostly at the lower end of the income range and from across the country and over the sea.

At number 44 there were 32 people staying and by one of those odd strokes of luck just four years earlier a Mr Coulthurst had wandered down Angel Street with his camera capturing our woman on the steps and even more remarkably taking a picture of an upstairs room at number 44.

Now four years is a long time in the life of a rundown lodging house just off Angel Meadow but it could just be that some of the 32 men  sleeping there on the night of the census in 1901 might have been in 1897.

Most were either single or widowed but there were some married couples.

Theirs were the jobs that paid little, and were as uncertain as any.  So amongst the 32 were Thomas Reed, 74 from Ireland who gave his occupation as "hawker" and Frederick Mason a labourer from Scotland aged 34.

And there are plenty more which leads me to think that here there is a real opportunity to wander across the census returns and try to track some of these people across the city and across occupations.

Now that should be a fascinating journey.

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

Back on Angel Street that place of "common lodging houses and unfilled dreams"

Angel Street, March 2014

This will be the last story on Angel Street for a while.

Today it is a pretty nondescript place of empty spaces waiting development, new residential build and a pub.

It runs from Rochdale Road down to Style Street and St Michael’s Fields more popularly known as Angel Meadow.

I have passed it countless times and not given it much of a second look which is a shame because back in the late 19th century it had become almost entirely a street full of common lodging houses.*

For most people interested in the history of the area I doubt that it features prominently.  After all by Style Street is Angel Meadow a notorious burial ground packed in its time with the dead of the surrounding streets many of whom were buried unnamed and unrecorded in common graves marked only by a small cross.

Angel Street, May 1897

Close by is the Ragged School which in turn gets a fair number of visitors but Angel Street is just an alternative route from Cheetham Hill across to Oldham Road and Great Ancoats Street.

Those that drive along it may just clock the new and very impressive Co-op building at the corner with Style Street but will probably be unaware of the archaeological dig two years ago which revealed the lives of the people who lived in the mean houses and grim cellar dwellings on the present site.**

Now I am deep into the research of Angel Street trying to tease out the lives of those that lived in the common lodging houses but it is a slow job made difficult because the people who washed up here were already at the bottom of the pile and history has been unkind to them.

Angel Street March 2014

Still something of their lives is beginning to emerge.

And in the meantime Angel Street and the surrounding area is set to change.

Already much of the land has been cleared of the last of its industrial buildings and like so much of the city is fast becoming residential again.

All of which means that these pictures of Angel Street will soon be as much a piece of history as that in Samuel Coulthurst’s photograph of 1900.









Pictures; Angel Street Today from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and in 1897 by Samuel Coulthurst, m85543, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Angel Street, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Angel%20Street

**A planned archaeological dig in Hulme and two retired teachers, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/planned-archaeological-dig-in-hulme-and.html