With Alice McIlwrick, fighting elections in the 1920s in Didsbury and Chorlton

Alice McIlwrick should be remembered.

She was the first Labour candidate to contest a local election here in Chorlton in the November of 1928 and she did very well gaining 14% of the vote.*

But beyond some brief details of her role in the election campaign there was little I could find out about her.

Not that I ever forgot Alice, and I always told myself that at some point something new would turn up and of course it did.  In this case from her grandson who posted a comment on my orginal story.

Tony McIlwrick lives in Scotland and he wrote

“Alice McIlwrick (1881-1964) was my grandmother. She married in 1919 and had two children. She was a graduate and a strong believer in the value of education - both her children went to Manchester University, her son becoming an electrical engineer and her daughter becoming a GP. 

As well as education she was also an ardent feminist and held strong left wing views. Her husband's parents had emigrated to Kansas from Manchester in the 1880's but following the premature death of his mother Frederick McIlwrick and his two young siblings were brought to Manchester and raised by a maternal aunt. Frederick, Alice and their two children lived in Parrs Wood Road in the early 1920's but in 1926 moved to Barlow Moor Road where they stayed until 1945 when they moved to Bowdon, Altrincham. 

In 1961 Frederick & Alice moved to Davenham, near Northwich to live with their daughter and it was there that she died.”

This was all I needed to reignite the search and sure enough in the course of the morning I came across a reference to their marriage and the celebration of their daughter’s coming of age in 1943 and some tantalizing hints of a concert career as a contralto in the early 1920s.

Along the way I uncovered Frederick’s 1911 census return.

And then I was drawn back to the politics.

She was the first and for many years the only Labour candidate to have fought the Didsbury ward in a municipal election which accordng to the Labour historian Rhys Davies was a real challenge “in that forsaken quarter, knowing what our fate must be.”  Neverthess “after much thought and doubt, Mrs McIlwrick, B.A., an ardent Labourite, a very forcible speaker, well versed in municipal affairs decided to don our colours, in a by-election there on May 17th 1927.”**

The result was not really in question, with the Conservative candidate gaining 55% of the vote, the Liberal 34% and Alice garnering 11%.

But this was a significant achievement for the Labour party given “that our cause was so weak that there was hardly any help forthcoming even on the day of the poll.”

And rereading the accounts of the two elections she fought here in Chorlton in the November and December of 1928 there is no doubting that she was a formidable politican.

The Manchester Guardian had reported that she was a serious candidate who would do well in the contest, a view endorsed by the Labour Party who sent its M.P., R J Davies and the Councillor Wright Robinson to speak on the same platform.

And the record shows that she gained 14% of the vote in the November election and despite a much lower turn out in the following month lost only 2% at the December by-election.

The years either side of that election saw the Labour Party strengthen it postion.  In 1923 it formed its first ever government and  became the largest party in the House of Commons six years later.

And these were the years when Alice was particularly active here in south Manchester.

The posters from the 1924 General Election at the beginning of the story would have been familiar enough to her and would have been the first Labour posters supporting a parliamentary candidate to be posted up in Chorlton.

The years after the Great War had seen unemployment increase particularly in the old traditional heavy industries and touched on that feeling that the country had not become a  place “fit for heroes.”

Nor had that basic problem of unemployment gone away.  Only once did the figure of those out of work drop below 8% during the decade and so Labour’s call for the country to turn out the Conservatives coupled with an appeal to woman to vote Labour “for the children’s sake did not go unheeded.

Nationally Labour gained 287 seats while in Withington which included Chorlton Labour took 16% of the vote which was an increase of 7% five years earlier.

I would love to know Alice’s part in all of this and I rather think it will not be long before it is revealed.

Pictures; Labour Party campaign posters from 1924 and 1929

*When all eyes were on Chorlton, the local elections of 1928, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Alice%20McIlwrick

** Socialism in Surburbia, Rhys Davies, 1930

See also Posters from the 20th century, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Posters%20from%20the%2020th%20century

When all eyes were on Chorlton, the local elections of 1928

Now I know that local elections do not fascinate everyone, but the 1928 election here in Chorlton had got the lot. 

It was fought out against a backdrop of worsening unemployment figures and an expectation that 1928 might be the year that the Labour Party became the largest group on the City Council.

Across the city the Manchester Guardian did not rate the chances of the Conservatives too highly and speculated that of the sixteen seats they were defending they might only hold eight.

The Liberals who were defending just five were reckoned to be safe in four of the five but it was Labour “with fewer seats to defend and a greater number of more vunerable positions [to] attack,” who were making an “audacious bid to secure a clear majority .... and although the attempt is hardly likely to succeed on the present occasion it is by no means a forlorn one.  The Labour representation has been steadily increasing and the at the moment only requires nine additional seats to give it the preponderance it desires”*

So attention focused here, where the Guardian told its readers the Conservatives were defending a slim majority and one that looked all the more under threat because the year before the Liberals had won the seat with a huge majority of nearly 2,500 votes, but as the Guardian went on to warn “it must be borne in mind that at the present occasion Mr Wicks, the Liberal candidate, is opposed by a serious Labour candidate in addition to the retiring Conservative.”

Sadly any campaign literature is unobtainable at present and we are forced back on the newspapers.  The Labour candidate was Alice McIlwrick who had stood the year before in Didsbury and gained  10% of the vote.

I wish I knew more about her.  She lived in various parts of south Manchester, had married at the age of 20 and was confident enough to issue a challenge to her Liberal candidate to “speak for a quarter of an hour in response to a challenge.”  

Moreover she was indeed seen by the Labour Party as a serious Labour candidate as they sent the Labour M.P., R J Davies and the Councillor Wright Robinson to speak on the same platform.

The result was not I suspect what many had expected.  The Conservatives retained the seat with 4, 788 votes to 3, 955 for the Liberals and a very creditable vote of 1,457 for Labour and 14% of the vote.  It was the first time the Labour Party had contested the seat and it would be another four years before they improved on that share of the vote.

What makes the election even more interesting was that it was rerun a month later.  The Tory councillor had died suddenly and the election was held just five days before Christmas.  Again the Manchester Guardian weighed in with the observation that “there are few wards in which Conservative and Liberal opinion is so nicely balanced.  Of the eight elections that have been fought in Chorlton since 1920 four have been won by the Conservatives and four by the Liberals.”

And in an echo of a more recent Lib Dem assertion that the “Conservatives can’t win here” the Liberals pointed out that the Tory candidate‘s majority the month before was just 253 above what he had polled in 1925 while the Liberals had won the year before with a “record majority of 2,329 votes.”

None the less they were equally quick to point out that Labour “cannot possibly hope to win the seat and  suggest that a number of moderate Labour votes go to Mrs Pilling [the Liberal] who is a strong candidate.”

But in the event the Labour vote held with Alice McIlwrick obtaining 12% of the vote, the Liberals dropping three per cent and the Tories gaining an extra six per cent.

Now this may well have been simply because of the lower turn out by the electorate.  In the November election this had been 52% but a month later it had fallen to 28%.

And in part it may also have had something to do with the intervention of the Salford Diocesan Catholic Federation who had reported that “the questions addressed to the candidates on the education question have been answered satisfactorily by Mr Somervile the Conservative candidate; unsatisfactorily by Mrs Pilling the Liberal candidate, and that Mrs McIlwrick, the Labour candidate, has not replied to them.”**

The right of Roman Catholics to establish parochial day schools for children up to fourteen had become an important issue.  The Salford Diocesan Catholic Federation had held five meetings where candidates in the election were "invited to outline their attitude towards this educational problem.  In addition five test questions have been sent to each municipal candidate, and the answers to these will be published during the weekend. The views of each candidate will determine whether he shall have the support of local Catholics."***
The issue had arisen after a dispute in Levenshulme when the Education Committee had refused to approve plans for a parochial school.

Well I suspect the jury will be out until we can find some more first hand accounts of the election but like all these things I am confident they will turn up.

Picture; The Conservative Club and party headquarters, and the result of the election in November 1928.

* Manchester Guardian October 1st 1928
** Manchester Guardian December 18th 1928
***Manchester Guardian October 27th 1928

When Chorlton nostalgia proves iffy ……….

I am looking at a picture of Chorlton in 1982 which offers an interesting take on just how easy it is to view where we live through rose tinted spectacles.

You know the line, which starts by bemoaning the amount of litter discarded across the road, runs on to call down the way the place has become a haven for takeaways, charity shops, and bars.

To be fair I do have some sympathy with the idea that perhaps there are now too many bars and takeaways, but the retail model that saw heaps of small local traders has gone, banished by supermarkets, and online shopping, and charity shops are good value, make sense on this recycling age and of course benefit those who need help.

But the image I took forty-three years ago belies that assertion that the 1980s were a haven of litter free streets, thriving traditional local businesses, and an area in want of a charity shop.

Here in 1982 on the corner of Barlow Moor and Wilbraham Roads, the litter drifts around the Nat West Bank, the Butcher’s shop is no more, and already there is a charity shop.

I know it is 1982 because the relatively new Social Democratic Party were contesting all three Chorlton seats in the local elections and had rented the empty Cash Butcher’s shop making an SDP presence in the centre of the township.

Already the decline away from those traditional shops was evident on Beech Road, which saw some close but for a while not reopen and during the 80s saw the brief appearance of an amusement arcade.

Historically the litter louts of the 1980s were not new, and a close examination of photographs from the beginning of the 20th century offer up scenes of the discarded stuff, not only on roads but also in the Rec on Beech Road.

As to the number of alcoholic outlets in the 1900s, they were still limited to few pubs, there was a very successful temperance lobby which blocked applications for new pubs and even objected to the expansion of new existing ones.

That said the trend for bars, and charity shops ahs quickened, but given the demise of that old retail model, I suspect the alternative would be empty shops.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Chorlton in 1982, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

“I make no rash promises …. promises never fulfilled and perhaps never meant to be” ……

Yesterday I wrote about the election campaign of Frank Beverley who stood as the candidate for the Chorlton-cum-Hardy Labour Party in the local elections of 1937.

At the time I had yet to uncover his election address containing the outline of what he stood for.

Happily today I have that address in front of me and it makes interesting reading, partly because of its honesty but also because the points he made 85 years ago have a resonance with the problems faced by many during this “Crisis in the cost of living” and the response of some in National Government.

So here it is, along with the endorsement by the Chorlton-cum-Hardy Labour Party.

He lost, and the story of that election can be read by following the link.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; Election leaflet, courtesy of Cllr Mathew Benham 

*Mr. Frank Beverley ……. Chorlton-cum-Hardy .... 1937, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2023/01/mr-frank-beverley-chorlton-cum-hardy.html

Mrs. Mary Francis Kelsall of Chorlton ……… politician ……. textile worker …… and mother

I like the way that a story I wrote just a few days ago can come back with a series of twists.*

Mary Frances Kelsall, on her 90th birthday, 1979

In this case it began with a story of a Mr. Brightman who stood for election to the City Council in the November of 1945 for the Chorlton-cum-Hardy ward. ** 

Election leaflet, Chorlton -cum-Hardy Labour Party, 1945

His running mate was a Mrs. Kellsall and I promised to return when I knew more about her.

And out of the blue Trevor James emailed me with, “I know of Mrs. Kelsall. I did quite a bit of family history work for a lady in Wisconsin – on a quid pro quo basis, as she did lots for me in the USA. 

As our research progressed, parallels grew. It ended up with finding that my mother had travelled daily into town with a distant relative of [the Wisconsin lady] – the said Mrs. Kelsall. This was immediately post-WW2. 

The Kelsall’s lived on the Barlow Hall estate, on Floyd Avenue.”***

And that was enough to spur me on, fulfil the promise, and fin her I did. 

Doreen, Frances & Mary Francis Kelsall, 1928

She was Mary Frances, born in 1889, married in 1913, with two children, and died in 1985.

In 1921 the family were at 10 Bland Street Moss Side, and she worked as a shirt machinist for Central Shirt Co, at 19 East Street, which employed 739 people.

The firm is listed in the 1911 directory in a building it shared with various companies, including a merchant, embroider hat manufacturer shipping merchants and Milling engineers.  The large building was at the end of East Street as it ran into Bale Street and stood opposite the famous Tommy Ducks pub.

By 1939 she was living at 18 Floyd Avenue off Barlow Moor Road.

And in 1945 according to the minutes of the Chorlton Labour Party she was one of six members who were invited to attend a selection meeting “for the final choice of candidates”. ****

Looking through the record of the Party for the 1940s I can at present find only one other reference to her, which was in June 1945 when she is listed as a sub agent in the forthcoming General Election.

At that particular meeting the group had discussed the “broad principles of the campaign”, along with “general arrangements for meetings, committee rooms, clerical work, literature and canvassing”.*****

Mr. Brightman had been appointed agent and the sub agents were Mr. Luly for Withington, Mr. Ball for Chorlton and Mrs. Kelsall for East Didsbury.All of which appeared in an account of Mrs. Kellar on Friday, but what was missing was a photograph and I began the piece lamenting that “I doubt I will ever turn up a picture of Mary Frances Kelsall”.

Manchester Labour and Election News, October, 1945

And now like a corporation bus I have two both of which turned up at the same time, for which I have Mary L Price of Wisconsin to that thank.

She is related to Mrs. Kelsall and kindly offered up the three images.

So finally, I can look on her, while as yet there is only Labour Party election leaflet featuring her name and policies, I am confident more will out.

And on a personal note I was the election agent for the Chorlton Labour Party from 1980 till 1987 and again during the early 1990s. As such I oversaw the historic first victory of a Labour candidate in Chorlton in 1986 and was one of the sub agents in the Manchester Withington Parliamentary election which saw Keith Bradley elected as the first Labour MP.

Chorlton Labour Party Election material, 1980

I don't know if Mrs Kelsall was still living in the area or if she retained her political beliefs but I like to think it makes a link between me and her.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures: Mary Frances Kelsall aged 90, 1979, and in 1928 with her two children, courtesy of Mary L Price, and Election material from 1945, courtesy of M G Wittard, and Chorlton Labour Party Election material, 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Mrs. Mary Frances Kelsall ……… an election …. and the search for her story, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2022/11/mrs-mary-frances-kelsall-election-and.html

**Mr. Brightman ….. Chorlton-cum-Hardy……… and the election of 1945, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/11/mr-brightman-chorlton-cum-hardy-and.html

***Trevor James, November 21st 2022

****Minutes of the Chorlton Labour Party September 13th, 1945

*****Minutes of the Chorlton Labour Party November 6th, 1945

When Chorlton was in Moss Side

The year is 1978 and the Labour Party is defending its Moss Side seat in a byelection which was occasioned by the death of Frank Hatton who had won the seat for Labour  in February 1974.

George Morton and "team" in Chorlton, 1978

The Labour candidate was George Morton, who had served on both Manchester City Council and the Greater Manchester Council and lived locally.

There were four other candidates, drawn from the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, and the National Front and the Workers Revolutionary Party, and the election was fought against a backdrop of growing industrial conflict, which has come to be remembered as the “the winter of discontent”.

Added to which the Labour Government had lost its slim majority of three in 1976 and entered a pact with the Liberal Party the following year, which lasted until September 1978.

Here in Moss Side and indeed in Chorlton, George was well received and the outcome of the election was a Labour victory, with George increasing his majority and share of the vote in the General Election which followed in 1979.

And for those who are pondering on the significance of a Moss Side story, that is because Chorlton was in the Moss Side Constituency.

The seat had been created in 1918 and was abolished in 1983 when changes to the Parliamentary boundaries moved Chorlton into Manchester Withington.

For most of its existence it returned a Tory MP, with the Liberals briefly winning the seat in the 1923 General Election only for the Conservatives to win it back a year later.

Campaigning in Moss Side, 1978

By 1929 the Labour Party had over taken the Liberals as the main contender to the Tories and across the next three General Elections achieved between 32% and 41% of the votes cast.

The seat was finally won by Labour in the landslide victory of 1945, when William Griffiths took the seat for Labour with 49% of the vote.

Sadly in Chorlton, Labour had to wait until 1986 for its first election victory, which was followed  a year later when Keith Bradly won Manchester Withington, giving Labour voters the double.

Location; Moss Side and Chorlton

Picture; George Morton campaigning in the by-election in Chorlton and Moss Side in 1978, with fellow MPs, the local organizer and volunteers, from the Lloyd Collection

Mr. Frank Beverley ……. Chorlton-cum-Hardy .... 1937

This is Frank Beverley, and in 1937 he stood as the Labour Party candidate in the Municipal Elections.

Vote for Frank Beverley, 1937

And to date there is little more I can find about him.

I think he was born in the January of 1911, and his parents were George and Ada who were living on Chester Road.  George Beverley was a cabinet maker and Frank was one of six children, and in the March of 1911, he was baptised in St Mathew’s Church.

After that a Frank Beverley is recorded in the 1939 Register as living in lodgings in Southport working as a tool maker.

There will be more but at present that is it.

Election material, 1980

Which brings me back to the 1937 election and his candidacy.  

According to the Manchester Guardian “Sixty-eight candidates – 31 Labour, 26 Conservatives, seven Liberals and four Independents were nominated for the elections, but as eight of them, four Labour, three Conservatives and one Liberal were returned unopposed there were contests in only 28 of the 36 wards into which the city is divided,”*

The results showed little change with the Tories gaining one extra seat, and Labour losing one with losses by the Liberals to both Conservative and Independent candidates.  

At the end of the night the new balance of power favoured the Tories, with 64 Conservative Councillors, 52 Labour, 22 Liberal and 6 Independents. 

I have yet to find Mr. Beverley’s election address, but the Manchester Guardian reported that “no single major issue is at stake and the campaign has largely resolved around the question of rates, and social services generally, although traffic congestion and exorbitant price demanded for land for rehousing on cleared sites near the centre of the city have had a good deal of attention from Liberal and Labour candidates.”**

The agreement between the Conservative and Liberals not to put up candidates against each other which had been a feature of the last all out Council elections in 1931 in an effort to maximize an anti Labour vote had broken down, but this did not impact on Labour’s result.

The result, 1937

As for Frank in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, he lost.  

The Tories polled 5,776 votes and Labour 2,052.

Undeterred he accepted the nomination to stand again in 1939 but withdrew in the October “owing to a change in his employment [and so] would be unable to contest the forthcoming election”***

It is unclear whether he was a member of the Chorlton branch, but the Party conveyed their best “thanks for past services and best wishes for his future success.” 

All of which suggests he was the Frank Beverley working in Southport.

Mr. Beverley, 1937

But that like so much about him remains to be discovered, including just who left the leaflet at the Town Hall for Cllr Mathew Benham who is one of the three elected Labour Councillors for Chorlton who as elected a full 85 years after Mr. Beverley contested the seat. 

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; Election leaflet, courtesy of Cllr Mathew Benham and election material from 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Independents Gain Most in Manchester, Manchester Guardian, November 2nd, 1937

**Today’s Municipal Elections, Manchester Guardian, November 1st, 1937

***Minutes of the Chorlton-cum-Hardy Labour Party, October 11th, 1939.

Pictures with a story …………. Labour gains Manchester Withington, June 11, 1987

Now, I thought I had lost this photograph which was taken on the night Keith Bradley won Manchester Withington for the Labour Party.

And even given the passage of 32 years, I can name all but two of the people in the picture.

The election in Withington was a contest between, Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberals and the Greens.

Labour polled 21, 650, the Conservatives 18,259, the Liberals 9,978 and the Greens 524, giving Mr. Bradley a majority of 3,391.

The election returned the first Labour MP to the constituency and was notable for a campaign video which featured Keith and a selection of supporters.

Location; Manchester

Picture Keith Bradley and some of the election team. June, 1987, from the Manchester Evening News.

Five elections … five results …… Chorlton, Didsbury & Whalley Range

 So, a day after we went to the polls here are the results.

The sun shone for most of the day, and in the run up to the day the political parties offered up their own take on what would happen, while the pundits on endless news programmes examined the possible outcomes, projecting as yet imaginary results as suggestions for the forthcoming General Election.

Today as the results tumbled in those spokespersons and "expert" analysts set to with the partial results to make of what they would.

Nor should we forget there was an election for the Mayor of Greater Manchester, result of will be  available after the count on Saturday. 

And after all that you can read about past Chorlton elections by following the link.

Compiled from The Elections Office, Manchester Town Hall, https://www.manchester.gov.uk/electionresults

Pictures; The Election at Eatanswill, Phiz (Hablot K. Browne), August 1836, the Pickwick Papers, Municipal Election results for Chorlton, Chorlton Park, Didsbury, East & Didsbury West & Whalley Range,  from Manchester City Council

*Election results for Manchester City Council, 2024, https://www.manchester.gov.uk/electionresults

**Elections; https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/

BREAKING NEWS ... East Didsbury .... Labour takes both Council seats.

Doing elections the old fashioned way ……………

It is a sobering thought that many things I took for granted and did regularly have become a bit of history as anachronistic as paying someone to wake me up by tapping on the window or turning on a gas lamp.

All the electoral extravaganza, 1986

And at 74 there are heaps of these, but on this day after yesterday’s elections I am drawn to how we managed and ran local election campaigns in the middle decades of the last century.

From 1966 into the early 2000s I was one of those "party workers” who tramped the streets knocking on doors, canvassing electoral preferences and on the day tirelessly working to ensure our candidate won.

And from 1981 to ’87 and again in the mid 1990s I ran the campaign as the Agent, which involved developing the local election strategy, preparing leaflets, overseeing things during the campaign and on the day, and making a financial return.

I suspect some elements are still the same today and cross party lines but back then it was the predigital age.

Calling card, Kirkdale Ward, 1946

All records compiled from canvassing were written up by hand by an army of members onto self-carbonised pads, known as Reading or Mikado pads and arranged by street.

The Election team, 1986

These were then laid out on long tables in the Committee Rooms and on the day were used to indicate who of your promises had voted and who had to be gently and politely reminded to vote.

This involved teams of “number snatchers” who sat for hours on polling stations on the day collecting the polling numbers of voters as they left.

This in itself was a logistic exercise given that we covered all the polling stations Chorlton from when the polls opened till they closed.

This left much of the day as a quiet one of receiving the information and crossing off names on the pads, which was interspersed with a bit of early knocking up of our promises, taking those who had requested assistance to get to the polling stations and a bit of leafleting with Vote Today leaflets.

Old fashioned leaflet, 1986

And depending on the availability of the team there might also be an early round of Vote Today leafletting before breakfast, matched with regular outings with the speaker cars, throughout the day.

All of which led up to the “big push” in the evening where a team linked to a car would take a specific area working it by visiting those who had yet to vote and taking some to the polling station.

At which point the team took charge of the Reading Pads in their area, deciding which to visit and revisit.

In the 1987 General Election this worked so well that by the evening all the promises had been visited on several occasions and there were few names that had not been crossed out, leaving the teams just to crisscross the ward in their cars emblazoned in party posters.

Polling Station, 2024

And during the campaign mindful of that old tradition of meeting the candidates, we still endeavoured to hold public meetings where the candidates introduced themselves, outlined the Party Programme and their own special interests along with answering questions.

Of all the elements of the campaign this one was sadly on the decline.  The growing emphasis on the national message over the local, combined with greater television election coverage and the development of “sound bites”  pushed the public meeting to the fringe.

Afterall on a wet April evening with a chill in the air, the attraction of sitting in a school hall on uncomfortable chairs lost out to the slick performance of a polished politician delivered via the Six o’clock News.

Today Manchester doesn’t count its votes till the following morning in a venue far from the Town Hall, and that has taken some of the drama out of waiting for the result, but must be welcomed by those who do the counting.

Chorlton has its firs Labour MP, Keith Bradley, 1987

Leaving me just to reflect that I always found the day after the election a huge anti-climax.  Win or lose the Agent only had to look forward to clearing the committee rooms, reengaging with family and friends and trying to fill the void.

And if the candidate were successful then the Agent also had to come to terms with being out of the spot light. 

Quite rightly everyone now looked to the newly elected candidate and within a few days the name of the Agent was forgotten.

So, while Dave Black will always be remembered as the first Labour Councillor elected for Chorlton Ward in 1986 his agent, Andrew Simpson has faded into obscurity, recorded only on the odd piece of election material to have survived as an imprint at the bottom of a leaflet.

Dave Black canvassing, 1986

But ever was it so.

Pictures; Chorlton has its first Labour MP, Keith Bradley, 1987, courtesy of Manchester Evening News, remaining images, 1946-2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Polling day and a heap of election stories ………..

It’s that day again when you either eagerly embrace the walk to the polling station or like Brenda of Bristol exclaim, "You're joking - not another one!".*

Polling Day, 2022

Now I have always liked elections.

For four decades I actively took part in election campaigning starting in 1966 at the age of 16, and now having slowed down a tad, I still follow them.

And over the years I have written extensively on the political fortunes of the major political parties here in Chorlton.

In the early 20th century, it was a straight contest between the Conservatives and Liberals, with each alternating election victories between 1920 to 1928.

But the Liberals were on the slide. They won their last seat in 1932, saw their sitting councillor Lady Sheena Simon loose to the Conservatives the following year and after 1935 did not contest another election until after the war by which time Labour were asserting themselves as the real alternative.

St John's Polling Station, 2022

Throughout the years after the last world war Chorlton returned Tory councillors until Labour won for the first time in 1986.

And despite losing the following year, there after It was Labour the electorate returned with just a short hiccup in the early 21st century when the Lib Dems made a brief successful electoral run.

That electoral run ended in 2011 and despite their much repeated and tired slogan “only the Lib Dems can win here”, their share of the vote has fallen and in many years they have been pushed in to third place.

Voting for All Three Chorlton Ward, 1904

The weather forecast looks good and for any one who has run or participated in a campaign that it is important. 

The received knowledge was always that good weather brought out the voters, especially at teatime when families took the decision to stroll down together after work.

The counts for the Manchester elections take place on Friday morning with the results posted live as they happen on the Manchester Evening site and from the Council at Election results for Manchester City Council, 2024, https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/500329/elections/4981/the_next_election

Leaving me just to hope for good weather and reflect that in the last few years the electoral contest in  Chorlton has gone quiet.

Once posters for all the main contenders would adorn windows, loud speaker vans would patrol the streets, and a bevy of election workers would be everywhere.

Not so this time.

And more disappointing only the Labour Party has seen fit  to treat me seriously and deliver their message and a bit about their candidates in leaflets  through the door.  

An election before now, 1980

The others haven't bothered, perhaps because they haven't the resources, or the will to seek my vote or just because they don't think I am worthy.

Even now it is not to late to get a message from them.

We shall see.

Pictures; Polling day,2022,  an appeal to vote, 1904, and a selection of election material, 1980,  from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Brenda of Bristol,2017, BBC News, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6-IQAdFU3w

*Chorlton Elections, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Chorlton%20Elections

When the tide turns......... politics in Chorlton in the 20th century

The Conservative Club circa 1910

I wonder just what an ardent Conservative or Liberal voter born in the late 19th century in Chorlton would make of the local political scene today.

Their first port of call might be those large political and social clubs which were established within a few years of each other on the edge of New Chorlton.

Both were set up by subscription and those who subscribed were drawn from a wide section of the community.

The Conservative Club opened in 1892 and with its public hall and impressive clock tower seemed to mark the Tories out as a force to contend with which seemed borne out by the fact that during a large part of the 20th century Chorlton returned Tory MPs and councillors. From 1918 to ‘23 and again from 1931 to ‘87 we had a Tory MP.

But the Liberals may well have taken heart that political fortunes can fall as well as rise and so their decision to convert Laurston House into a permanent home for the Liberal Association was a sound one.

It opened in 1897 admidst a fanfare of optimism.  But nationally the years around the opening of the club were not good for the Liberals.  They lost both the 1895 and 1900 general elections and would not be returned to office till 1906.

The ups and downs of Liberal fortunes in the 1920s and 30s

Locally they fared better both on the old Withington District Council and after our incorporation into the city on the Manchester City Council and by the 1920s were so evenly balanced with the Conservatives that the Manchester Guardian reported in 1928 that

“there are few wards in which Conservative and Liberal opinion is so nicely balanced.  

Of the eight elections that have been fought in Chorlton since 1920 four have been won by the Conservatives and four by the Liberals.”*

But by the early 1930s the Liberals were on the defensive increasingly being challenged by the Labour Party.

They won their last seat in 1932, saw their sitting councillor Lady Sheena Simon loose to the Conservatives the following year and after 1935 did not  contest another election until after the war by which time Labour were asserting themselves as the real alternative.

That said it would not be until 1986 that Labour won its first council seat defeating the Conservative candidate by a significant margin. And while they failed to win the following year from 1988 they consolidated their position winning all three seats.

Not that they had it all their own way, for there was a challenge from the Liberal Democrats who at one point won two of the Chorlton seats.

A decade in Chorlton elections

But in the last few years the Lib Dem share of the vote has been falling against that of Labour.

It is a reversal of political fortunes matched across south Manchester leaving a political landscape that our two visitors from the past would not recognise.

The Liberal Club quietly passed away and the building became the Laurston Club.

The Conservative Association lingered on but finally called it a day and their grand building with its Public Hall was sold to a developer.

By then its political fortunes had all but vanished. The last Conservative MP failed to be re-elected in  1987 and in the years since 2006 they have never achieved more than 7% of the total vote.

All of which would seem a grim scenario for both our Conservative and Liberal time traveller.

Pictures; from the Lloyd collection and election data from the Manchester Guardian and Manchester City Council.


*The Chorlton By-Election, Manchester Guardian December 18, 1928

Mrs. Mary Frances Kelsall ……… an election …. and the search for her story

I doubt I will ever turn up a picture of Mary Frances Kelsall.

Chorlton election material, 1980

She was born in 1889 and died just short of her hundredth birthday.

And until this week she was just a name in a story of a Chorlton local election held in the November of 1945.*

She was one of the two Labour candidates who stood in that election and to my shame only had a walk on part in a post which focused on the other candidate who was a Mr. Brightman.

To be fair the story had been occasioned by a discussion with a relative of Mr. Brightman who supplied some of the background information on the man and the election.

But I closed with the promise that I would go looking for Mrs. Kelsall who been Labour’s other candidate.

Of course, I got distracted and never did, until Monday when I received an email from a fellow researcher who wrote, “I know of Mrs. Kelsall. I did quite a bit of family history work for a lady in Wisconsin – on a quid pro quo basis, as she did lots for me in the USA. 

As our research progressed, parallels grew. It ended up with finding that my mother had travelled daily into town with a distant relative of [the Wisconsin lady] – the said Mrs. Kelsall. This was immediately post-WW2. 

The Kelsalls lived on the Barlow Hall estate, at no.16 Floyd Avenue, +/-2. My mother said that Mrs. K. was extremely left-wing and pushy, whereas Mr. K. was laid back to the point of horizontal and totally apolitical. Personally, I have no recollection of the family at all”.**

And that was enough to spur me on and fulfil the promise.

I have found Mrs. Kelsall on the 1939 Register at 18 Floyd Avenue.

She was Mary Frances nee Wade, born in 1889, married in 1913, with two children, and died in 1985.

In 1921 the family were at 10 Bland Street Moss Side, and she worked as a shirt machinist for Central Shirt Co, at 19 East Street, which employed 739 people.

The firm is listed in the 1911 directory in a building it shared with various companies, including a merchant, embroider hat manufacturer shipping merchants and Milling engineers.  The large building was at the end of East Street as it ran into Bale Street and stood opposite the famous Tommy Ducks pub.

And according to the minutes of the Chorlton Labour Party she was one of six members who were invited to attend a selection meeting “for the final choice of candidates”. ***

Looking through the record of the Party for the 1940s I can at present find only one other reference to her, which was in June 1945 when she is listed as a sub agent in the forthcoming General Election.

At that particular meeting the group had discussed the “broad principles of the campaign”, along with “general arrangements for meetings, committee rooms, clerical work, literature and canvassing”.

In the footsetps of Mrs. Kelsall, 1986

Mr. Brightman had been appointed agent and the sub agents were Mr. Luly for Withington, Mr. Ball for Chorlton and Mrs. Kelsall for East Didsbury.

And that is about it.

Despite the huge landslide victory for the Labour Party at the General Election in the July of 1945, the Municipal Elections in the November proved disappointing for both Labour’s Chorlton candidates.

The Conservative candidates, each gained 66.9% of the vote with Mrs. Kelsall achieving 33.1% and Mr. Brightman 31.4% .

But then Labour had never won a seat in Chorlton.  

In the early 20th century, the electors had returned either Tory or Liberal councillors, and after 1945 would continue to elect Conservative candidates until the historic breakthrough in 1986.

Looking back at the local campaign, the election agent commented that “Chorlton ward had polled well, in spite of the lack of many prominent workers, who were fighting in other wards”, which traditionally was the fate of local elections in Chorlton until the 1970s.***

I doubt Mr. Brightman looked upon the result as poor, given that he and Mrs. Kelsall each polled nearly a third of the vote in what was then a traditional Conservative seat.

They had campaigned on welfare issues and the need for post war reconstruction, and looked to Labour gaining a “majority of all other parties” and thereby by playing its part in supporting the “enactments of the people’s Parliament”.*****

And that is it, although I will now trawl the local Manchester papers for more references to Mrs. Kelsall and hold out the hope that someone remembers her.

We shall see.

Chorlton Labour Party, circa 1980s

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Election material from 1980, Chorlton Labour Party badge circa 1980, and campaigning in the 1986 local elections from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* Mr. Brightman ….. Chorlton-cum-Hardy……… and the election of 1945, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/11/mr-brightman-chorlton-cum-hardy-and.html

**Trevor James, November 21st 2022

***Minutes of the E.C. meeting, Chorlton Ward, Thursday September 13th, 1945.

**** Minutes of the Chorlton Labour Party, November 6th, 1945

***** Election Address, November 1st, 1945