A drunken jolly out from Manchester and stone throwing at Stretford........ petty crime in a rural community

Drunkenness violence at the Royal Oak, October 1855

Alcohol related crimes posed a real problem, from both our own and the Sunday visitors who made their way from Hulme and Manchester to drink here.

More than anything it is the sheer numbers that might surprise us.  These appear to have been organised outings and away from their own homes and filled with beer they can only be described as a mob.  

Eye witnesses on one occasion talked of a group of six men playing pitch and toss in the road, vandalising the property of locals and turning to intimidation when they were asked to stop.

Thomas Johnson who lived close by was beaten up and perhaps only saved from worst treatment by the intervention of another group.  To make matters worse the same gang reinforced by another twenty reappeared the following week and attacked property and threatened the inhabitants before fleeing when the police and a group of locals arrived.

The Royal Oak much the same 50 years after the outrage

The beer house was the Royal Oak which was the first on the route in from Hulme and Manchester.  The cottages can be traced to a collection of cottages beyond William Knight’s farm.*

The level of drunkenness in Manchester was a regularly commented on by writers in the 1840s   and there is no reason to believe the same was not true in rural communities.

There were plenty of pubs and beer shops  in the township  all of which stayed open all day and late into the night.

During 1846 and 1848 the farmer Higginbotham recorded many instances where his carters were too drunk to carry on working.  Between April 6th and April 27th George Badcock was drunk on six occasions.  On one of these he had been drinking all afternoon, and on another all day.

His replacement was Thomas Davis who fared little better, having been sent to town to collect dung he spent the day drinking and left the cart in Manchester.  A decision which with hindsight may have been a wise decision, for only a few years previously and on the same road that Davis would have used a carter was killed in a road accident caused by the drunkenness of another driver.


There were similar problems with pubs and beer house in the township. The license of the Black Horse at Lane End was finally withdrawn for breaking the drinking laws as was William Brownhill’s.  Nor should we forget the part played by alcohol in the death of Francis Deakin who had been drinking all day in a local beer shop.

Drunken gang at Stretford in the September of 1832

Finally just over the border the Trustees of the Bridgewater Canal experienced their own drink problem when a drunken group of men threw stones and potatoes at one of the packet boats passing through Stretford on a Sunday evening in the year of 1832 seriously injuring a young child.

Pictures; The Manchester Guardian, October 29, 1855, the Royal Oak circa 1900 from the collection of Tony Walker, and Manchester Times & Gazette September 29 1832

You can read more about the crime in the township in The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy.html

Next; Burglaries, robberies and poaching in Chorlton and beyond

*Manchester Guardian October 29 1855

**Engels and others described the level of drunkenness amongst sections of the working classes in Manchester

A murder mystery between courses at the History Dinner on March 28

Now as unaccustomed as I am to after dinner speeches I have nevertheless accepted Chris’s invitation to speak at the Chorlton Cafe on the night of the History Dinner on March 28th.

I say after dinner but in fact it will be before, during and after the meal.  So no pressure there then.

This is a bit of a departure from the normal History Talk where I do the bit after the plates have been cleared away.

So in keeping with being a bit different I have decided to settle on the the brutal murder of Mary Moore “who was robbed and cruely murdered at Withington” in June 1838.

Mary was 49 years old, married to Joseph Moore and lived on the Green.  

She was employed by the Chorlton family of Dog House Farm to sell vegetables and fruit at Smithfield Market.

On any one day Mary might make a considerable amount of money from the sale of the farm produce.  Not surprisingly therefore she was described as a “remarkably steady woman not at all addicted to liquor”.

And that is all you will get for now.

On the night we will have a bit of the background to the darker side of life in Chorlton, followed by the story and to give you all something to talk about during the meal a set of clues which will help in trying to track down the murderer.

Ah I hear some people mutter, “not a suitable topic for a Friday night dinner at the Cafe” but I am not so sure.

Along the way as we pick our way through Mary’s journey back to Dog House, the awful murder and the events that followed there will be much about our Chorlton in the 1830s, including a description of the Horse & Jockey where the inquest was held.

Now who can turn all that down?

Of course there will be those who will read up on the story in my book The Story of Chorlton cum-Hardy, but in the interests of fair play I know they will not reveal the ending.**

Picture; of Mary’s gravestone in the parish graveyard from the collection of Andrew Simpson.

* The Post  Box Cafe, http://www.thepostboxchorlton.co.uk/

** The Story of Chorlton cum-Hardy, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy.html