Discovering those who cared for the sick and wounded in Chorlton during the Great War

I have moved just a little closer to some of the men and women who served during the Great War.

And it comes from a database by the Red Cross which has put  on line its records from the Great War.

Even before the war started the Red Cross had made preparations for coping with the large numbers of wounded who would be returning from the battlefields.

So when the conflict did begin voluntary hospitals were established across the country.
Some were in school halls, and others in private houses and relied on the voluntary support of the local community.

Here in Chorlton we had two, one on Edge Lane in the Sunday School of the McLaren Baptist Church and the other in the Methodist Sunday School on Manchester Road and across south Manchester there were more.

Until recently I knew little of the men and women who served in the hospitals.

I had one list for the first year of the war of those who worked at the Baptist Church a few names from newspaper correspondence and the odd record of some of the administrators.

But the Red Cross records will bring them out of the shadows, for along with their names and addresses there are brief details of what they did.

Some are more detailed than others so those for Eltham in south east London describe particular duties. So I know that Miss Ada Fanny Boultbee, assisted the “sick & wounded, did  convoy duty. Well Hall Station any time day and night at 1. 1/2 hours notice. tea. Coffee, milk, ready.”

And provided a wealth of detail
“August 5th 1914. Struck Divisional Camp at Chichester. 7. 1914. Organizing Hos: cores: Soldiers & Sailors Institute Woolwich. 30th. 1914- Accepted responsibility of sick & wounded Convoy Duty Well Hall. Col: Stephenson with request for same from Col. Simpson. Herbert Hos:- Sept. 7th. 1914 First Convoy. 3/4 hour notice. All ready. 16 -1914 Mobilized by Col. Stephenson at "Cathay" Eltham. S.E. B.R.X.S. Brassard No.7. A.M.S. July - 1917 Demolized. Col: Simpson' of opinion that that Sick & Wounded Convoy Duty at Well Hall Station was no longer rec. under altered conditions of transport. Ada St.John. Boultbee. Hon. Comdt L /26.”

Sadly those for Chorlton are less detailed but there is still a suprising amount of information.
Some worked at the Baptist Church and another at Manchester Road while the rest were spread out across Whalley Range and Didsbury with one at the  2nd Western General Hospital in town.

So far the Red Cross has only published surnames from A to B but that has still revealed twelve Chorlton people and tow of those I have tracked on the census for 1911.

In time it will be possible to find out much more about their backgrounds and what happened to them after the war which in turn will throw light on the degree to which Chorlton did its bit.

But I do know that Frank Burrows of 71 Reynard Road was engaged in   March 1917.

He was 25 years old  was paid 35 shillings a week and was an orderley at Didsbury  College Hospital.

Before the war he had worked as an insurance clerk.

And Miss Mabel Coatman also 25 of the Lyndale on Barlow Moor Road worked at Lancaster House Hospital in Whalley Range as a support assistant.

So it is all there to be found.


Pictures; doctors and nurses and men from the Red Cross Hospital of Wood Lawn in Didsbury circa 195, courtesy of Rob Mellor, and the Edge Lane Red Cross Hospital circa 1924,  from the Lloyd collection

*British Red Cross,  http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/History-and-origin/First-World-War

The Red Cross hospitals of Chorlton during the Great War

G.B.Simpson and friends, circa 1918

The Great War has now passed from living memory. 

A conflict which claimed ten million dead, blighted the lives of millions more, and which is commemorated in towns and villages across the country has now really become a piece of history.

 Here in Chorlton there are a number of war memorials including one in the grounds of the Methodist Church on Manchester Road another in the parish church and a few more including that in Southern Cemetery. 

There are familiar local names and in some cases more than one member of the same family.

Few however now know of the contribution that was made by people in the township to those young men who were wounded and were cared for in Chorlton and Whalley Range.

 Soon after the war began the Sunday school halls at the McLaren Baptist Church on Edge Lane and the Methodist Church on Manchester Road were turned over to convalescent hospitals.

The story of the first year of the military hospital in the Sunday school of the MacLaren Memorial Baptist Church on the corner of Wilbraham and Sibson Road was written up by the East Lancashire Branch of the British Red Cross as part of “An Illustrated Account of the Work of the Branch During the First Year of the War.”*

The McLaren Memorial Church circa 1920

It represented a massive commitment on the part of the 16,000 Chorlton people.

The number of voluntary nurses and orderlies ran to 89 and another 70 worked at some point in the kitchen. 

There were also regular fund raising activities, loans of equipment and twice weekly ward concerts.

 More than anything it shows the level to which the war effort was supported and funded by voluntary actions.

 Like many churches of the period it had a large Sunday school and it was this which was converted into the hospital in November 1914.

 “a ward of 31 beds, kitchens, mess room, bath room, dispensary, pack stores, linen rooms, matrons’ room and office” all of which were on the ground floor.

The building was large enough to accommodate

The Sunday School to the left, converted into a hospital

The original plan had been for 25 beds but in May 1915 an extra six beds were added.

What is astounding is that the cost of equipping the hospital which came to £140 was met by public subscription after an appeal for funds from the local Red Cross, and that this was “in addition to the liberal amount of hospital appurtenances so freely furnished on loan by the public.”

Nor did the generosity stop there. For while the War Office allowance for each man per day was 2 shillings [10p], the average cost for the upkeep per bed was 25 shillings [£1.25p]which again was met by the public through “subscriptions, donations and the proceeds of entertainments.”

Uknown soldier

During that first year of the war 159 volunteers worked at the hospital and all but four came from the township.

There are many familiar names, some whose families had been in the township for generations.

Ann Higginbotham aged 22 was the daughter of Alfred and Emily whose family had farmed by the green since the 1840’s.

There were also newer names like H. F. Dawson and A. H. Dawson or the Kemps. Miss Kemp worked in the kitchen while Harry her father was on the committee. He had two chemists’ shops and would be remembered for over half a century by Kemp’s Corner.

*Chorlton-cum-Hardy Red Cross Hospital, East Lancashire Branch of the British Red Cross Society Sherratt & Hughes, 1916

Pictures; The McLaren Memorial Baptist Church, Edge Lane, from the Lloyd Collection, G.B.Simpson, and friends circa 1918 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A history of Chorlton in just 20 objects number 12 ....... an engraved silver cup 1917

Continuing the  story of Chorlton in just a paragraph. They are in no particular order, and have been selected purely at random.

Presented to the Wesleyan Church by the Wounded Soldiers of the Wesleyan School Hospital Xmas 1917.  I doubt whether many people know that during the Great War we had two voluntary hospitals here in Chorlton.   One was in the Methodist Sunday school building on Manchester Road and the other in the Sunday School of the MacLaren Memorial Baptist Church on the corner of Wilbraham and Sibson Road.  Sadly little has survived in the form of records.  We have a few newspaper references, letters from some of the medical staff and patients, and a contemporary account in a Red Cross book of the work undertaken to care for the recovering soldiers. So this silver engraved cup is an important object recording not only the gratitude of the soldiers but the voluntary efforts of the people of Chorlton.






Picture; courtesy of Philip Lloyd

William Eric Lunt a soldier of the Great War

William Eric Lunt, was born here in 1895, and died of wounds in the 36th Casualty Clearing Station at the Somme on October 14th 1916.

This was the story I had decided to tell, but sometimes the stories just tumble out, crossing time and connecting the Chorlton of the early 20th century with that rural township I have come to know so well.

And this is what has happened today.  The Lunt family lived in Chorlton and made their living from farming for all of the 19th century.  In 1845 they rented two acres of land off Moss Lane* from the Egerton estate and were market gardeners growing a variety of food for the Manchester markets.

His smallholding was mostly orchard, stretching back from Moss Lane to Rough Leach Gutter and was a smallish amount of land, and like many of our market gardeners Lunt may also have had other jobs as well. And we know that he paid 4s. 7d a week in rent and in that cottage he and his wife brought up six children.



Above; The Lunt home and land on field numbered 18.

Not only this but we can follow him through his activities in the local Methodist church and his participation in our first brass band which started up sometime in the 1820s.

And the Lunt family perfectly reflect the changing nature of Chorlton.  As the 19th century came to a close more and more of the agricultural land was given over to housing. Perhaps the Lunt’s saw it coming and while they may have retained their land they had by 1901 opened a shop at number 60 Sandy Lane selling fruit and young William had chosen to work as a warehouseman apprentice.

Which brings me to where I had intended to start.  William was just 19 when he joined up on September 5th 1914; just one month after the war had broken out.  He was a fit young man weighing 129 lbs and was 5’ 11 inches.  His army records describe his complexion as sallow, his eyes brown and his hair dark, and that at present is all we know of his physical appearance.

In fact that is about all we have, for though there are eighteen military documents, as well his birth certificate and two census returns, none of them shed any light on who he really was, his likes and dislikes, or whether he was serious, humorous or like most of us a bit of both.

He was to become part of that new Kitchener’s army of young idealistic volunteers many of who were to die at the battle of the Somme.  I wish there was more.  I know he had joined up at Ardwick, was assigned to the 8th Battalion of the Manchester Regiment and remained in Britain until the summer of 1916 when he embarked at Folkestone landing on July 27 at Boulogne.

It should be possible to piece together the next few months from the official history of the regiment and from the war diary the unit filled in for every day of the conflict.  But at present perhaps all I can say is that he was caught up in the Battle of the Somme, was wounded on October 12th and died two days later of his wounds.
“The 36th Casualty Clearing Station was at Heilly from April 1916. It was joined in May by the 38th, and in July by the 2/2nd London, but these hospitals had all moved on by early June 1917. .......  There are now 2,890 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. Only 12 of the burials are unidentified and special memorials are erected to 21 casualties whose graves in the cemetery could not be exactly located. The cemetery also contains 83 German graves. The burials in this cemetery were carried out under extreme pressure and many of the graves are either too close together to be marked individually, or they contain multiple burials. Some headstones carry as many as three sets of casualty details, and in these cases, regimental badges have had to be omitted. Instead, these badges, 117 in all, have been carved on a cloister wall on the north side of the cemetery. The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.  

Mericourt-l'Abbe is a village approximately 19 kilometres north-east of Amiens and 10 kilometres south-west of Albert. Heilly Station Cemetery is about 2 kilometres south-west of Mericourt-l'Abbe, on the south side of the road to Corbie.”**

It is not much of a record for what had been a young life with promise and a future.  And I suppose that is the point.  After almost a century the grief of the death of so many has faded but not I think the sadness that so little is left of who this young man was.

*Sandy Lane

**http://ww1cemeteries.com/ww1frenchcemeteries/heillystation.htm

Pictures; Allied Victory Medal, awarded to servicemen and women who had served between August 1914 and November 1918,detail from the tithe map of 1845 showing the cottage and land of the Lunt’s courtesy of Philip Lloyd, and the Heilly Station Cemetery, Mericourt-l@ Abbe Somme, courtesy of WW1 Cemetries.com http://ww1cemeteries.com/index.htm

William Eric Lunt ........ a Chorlton soldier from the Great War

I am looking at a picture of William Eric Lunt which I never expected to see.

William Eric Lunt, circa 1914

He was born here in 1895, and died of wounds in the 36th Casualty Clearing Station at the Somme on October 14th 1916.

The Lunt family lived in Chorlton and made their living from farming for all of the 19th century.

In 1845 they rented two acres of land off Moss Lane from the Egerton estate and were market gardeners growing a variety of food for the Manchester markets.

His smallholding was mostly orchard, stretching back from Moss Lane to Rough Leach Gutter and was a smallish amount of land, and like many of our market gardeners Mr Lunt may also have had other jobs as well.

And we know that he paid 4s. 7d a week in rent and in that cottage he and his wife brought up six children.

William and family circa 1905

Which brings me back William who was just 19 when he joined up on September 5th 1914; just one month after the war had broken out.

He was a fit young man weighing 129 lbs and was 5’ 11 inches.

His army records describe his complexion as sallow, his eyes brown and his hair dark, and that at present is all we know of his physical appearance.

In fact that is about all we have, for though there are eighteen military documents, as well his birth certificate and two census returns, none of them shed any light on who he really was, his likes and dislikes, or whether he was serious, humorous or like most of us a bit of both.

But up until yesterday I only had the one picture of him outside the family shop on Sandy Lane when he was about ten years old.

That in itself was one of those rare accidents where a photograph in the collection can contribute to a story of someone you have been researching.

The scroll, 1917

And now we have a second photograph which I think must be very close to the time he enlisted.

It was sent over by Julie Bryce who wrote, “I came across your blog post on William Eric Lunt. 

I'm one of his his great nieces and I have a few photos of him and some documentation commemorating his death which was sent to his parents home at 60 Sandy Lane. 

My daughter sent me a photo of the sign for the William Lunt Gardens in Chorlton and asked me if I thought it might be a relative. I was amazed to find the new estate was named in honour of Uncle Willie as representative of all those of Chorlton who lost their lives in the First World War. 

His sister Gladys May (my grandmother) would have been very proud.”

And it is fitting that the photograph has a place in my book Manchester Remembering 1914-18  because not only does William Eric Lunt feature in the book but so does the story of the naming of the road here in Chorlton.

I had been asked to suggest names to be considered for the honour and Mr Lunt’s seemed most appropriate.

An embroiderd silk postcard,  1914-18

But this isn’t quite the end of the story because just a month before the photograph arrived another relative made contact.

This was Margret Irvine who came across the story and commented

“Councillor Newman has kindly forwarded to me your information about William Lunt. 

Thank you so much for this. I knew some of it from family talk, my own research and recently from your own web pages, but the mystery remained as to why William should have been selected rather than any of the other WW1 casualties, so thank you for an explanation of that.”

I am pleased that William has come back out of the shadows and has gained wider recogntion.

The memorial, 2014

He was to become part of that new Kitchener’s army of young idealistic volunteers many of who were to die at the battle of the Somme.

I wish there was more.

I know he had joined up at Ardwick, was assigned to the 8th Battalion of the Manchester Regiment and remained in Britain until the summer of 1916 when he embarked at Folkestone landing on July 27 at Boulogne.

He is commemorated on the memorial in the gardens of the Methodist Church on Manchester Road.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; William Eric Lunt, circa 1914 and the scroll, 1917 from  the collection of Julie Bryce, William circs 1905, from the Lloyd Collection, embroidered silk postcard, circa 1914-18 courtesy  of David Harrop, and the memorial in the Methodist Church, Manchester Road, 2014, from Tony Goulding

*A new book on Manchester and the Great War, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20and%20the%20Great%20War

Manchester Remembering 1914-18 by Andrew Simpson was published by the History Press on February 2 2017

Snapshots of the Great War nu 4 .............. the Gala in Alexandra Park that never happened and thoughts on the “massacres” yet to come

It was going to be the third of a series of Galas “to be held under the auspices of the Educational Committee” of the Manchester & Salford Co-op and was planned for August 15 1914 in Alexandra Park.

M&S Co-operative Herald, July 1914

There had been two earlier events one at Yates’ Field in Fallowfield and the other in Broadheath with “RACES, MAYPOLE DANCES, SPOON AND BOOT CLEANING COMPETITIONS”  as  well as a “FANCY DRESS COMPEITION” with tickets for refreshments at 3d for adults and 2d for children.

The earlier two had been scheduled of July 11 and July 25, but the Alex Park gala was planned for August 15 just eleven days after Britain became involved in the Great War.

The secretary of the Educational Committee wrote that “at their first meeting, held 10th August, [it was] "most regretfully decided to postpone the gala.

All arrangements had been completed, but it was felt not to be a time for festivities when the nation, without the slightest warning was involved in a Continental War.

Had we not lived through the few days which have just elapsed it would have been discredited that so much could have transpired in so short a time.  August 1914 has become a landmark in history.  

We knew that on the Continent of Europe things were not quite comfortable owing to the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne, but that by the fourth day Britain would be involved in war was unthinkable.  

M&S Co-operative Herald, September 1914

We went on our holidays and gave ourselves to to the enjoyment, for was it not the last bank holiday before the winter?”

The letter is revealing in so many ways not least because the Co-op movement was founded on the principles of co-operation which extended across national borders and yet here was the secretary reflecting on how unthinkable it was for Britain to be involved in a general war but matching much of the nation in believing that

“Britain has had this unholy war thrust upon her, and since it must be, the nation, a whole and undivided nation, has risen as one man to bear the burden, whether to face the enemy on the field of battle, or to minister to the wants of those left behind.”

Of course not all in the Labour Movement shared that view.   Kier Hardie argued against the war and continued to do so till his death in 1915.  Nor was he alone.

Unknown unit, date unknown

But the mood of the country was more with the secretary of the Educational Committee who concluded that “Let us all hope and pray that never again shall it be possible for such an atrocity as war to be embarked upon by any nation, and to that end let every aid and encouragement be extended to our rulers when the end has arrived and saner councils can be held.

No country should ever again have such a preponderance of power to plunge nations into war.  

Horrible as the massacres are to contemplate, if war is ever to be abolished good will have come out of evil.  God save the Allies.”

This is not the often paraded pro war sentiment of the early months of the conflict but a more measured and sober approach as befitting an organisation based on co-operation.

Pictures; of the Manchester and Salford Co-operative Hearld, July & September 1914, courtesy of the National Co-op archive, and unkown unit from the collection of David Harrop

The National Co-op Archive, http://www.archive.coop/
 Located in central Manchester, the National Co-operative Archive is home to a wide array of records relating to the history of the worldwide co-operative movement. The collections include rare books, periodicals, manuscripts, films, photographs and oral histories, and provide researchers with an unrivalled resource for the development of the co-operative movement, from the initial ideas of the eighteenth century to the present day.

The Lunt Family of Chorlton-cum-Hardy another story from Tony Goulding

This is “Lane End” as the junction of Sandy Lane and Barlow Moor Road was known in the 19th century. 

Lane End, Chorlton-cum-Hardy - 29-09-1902

In this vicinity the censuses and Rate books of the Chorlton-cum-Hardy township from 1840s until the beginning of the 20th century show the homes of various members of the Lunt family who were renting land from Lord Egerton to work as market gardeners.

The Lunt family were long established in the township and are found extensively in the records, dating back to the 18th Century, of both the Established Church (St. Clements) (1) and the non-conformists. There is too a will of William Lunt, a farmer, dated 27th January 1817.

The head of the family in the 1841 census is George Lunt who died, aged 50, in September 1853 and was buried in St. Clement’s Churchyard on 18th September. Following his death, the tenancy passed to his widow Jane (née Gorbutt) his second wife who he had married, on 3rd November 1834, at St. John’s Church, Deansgate, Manchester. Jane in turn died in October 1864 and was buried in St. Clement’s churchyard on October 30th (2)

John Henry Lunt's shop Sandy Lane circa 1900

For the next 40 plus years the patriarch of what became a very prominent family in late Victorian and Edwardian Chorlton-cum-Hardy was George Lunt’s eldest son, William.

 William was born in Chorlton-cum-Hardy on 10th September 1831 to George and his first wife Alice (née Cookson). (3) His mother died in March 1834 and was interred in St. Clement’s churchyard on the 20th of March. 

By the end of the 19th century the growth of the township’s population had resulted in altered economic conditions for the area’s market gardeners through a combination of the expansion of local markets and pressure on the agricultural land for housing. 

Two of William’s sons took the opportunity to vertically integrate their businesses by opening Greengrocer shops to sell in part their own produce.

John Henry retained the link with Lane End with a shop at 60, Sandy Lane, while George William’s shop was this one at 119, Beech Road.

119, Beech Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy - 2018

The First World War was particularly devastating for the family with four of William’s grandsons being killed in the conflict.

The first to die was George William’s son Serjeant Herbert Lunt of the 21st Battalion, Manchester Regiment who was killed during one of the bloodiest days of the Battle of the Somme, 14th July 1916.  He was buried where he fell and was later re-interred in the Flatiron Copse Cemetery, Mametz, France. His brother, George, who was also a Serjeant in the same unit died on 2nd April 1917. 

He has no known grave and is commemorated as one of the 34,799 men listed on the Arras Memorial. Between these two deaths, John Henry’s only son Pte. William Eric Lunt died of wounds on the 14th of October at the 36 (Heilly) Clearing Station, France and buried in its attached cemetery. 

He had been wounded in action on the 12th of October when his unit the 18th Battalion, Manchester Regiment suffered horrendous casualties while attacking a heavily defended German position near the strategically important town of Bapaume. Of 350 men who “went over the top” only 100 returned to the British Lines. 

Finally, on 4th October 1917, a third of George William’s sons, Pte. Arthur Lunt of the 11th Battalion, Manchester Regiment was killed in action during attack an on Poelcappelle, Belgium as part of the Third Battle of Ypres. He, again, has no known grave and is one of almost 35,000 names on the Tyne Cot Memorial. 

He is also remembered alongside his three brothers on this gravestone of his parents (George William, died 4th December 1920 and Fanny, died 7th November 1947) (4) in the Church of England section of Southern Cemetery, Manchester – Grave G.838.

Grave G.838.

Besides John Henry and George William mentioned above William also had four daughters; Alice Ann, Mary Jane, Margaret, and Elizabeth. (5) All four of whom, unusually for the era, survived to adulthood, each also remaining unmarried and making independent livings as dressmakers and milliners.  Alice Ann was the first to set up on her own moving to a house on High Lane, Chorlton-cum-Hardy where the 1881 census shows her working as a dressmaker. By the 1891 census she had been joined by two of her sisters, Mary Jane and Margaret in “The Cottage” High Lane. No occupation is recorded for Mary Jane while Margaret is shown as a milliner.

All four sisters were reunited in time for the 1901 census which record shows them living together at number 25, High Lane, along with their aged, 69-year-old father, William.

William died on 27th July 1906, his wife Mary (née Wedell), (6) who he had married at All Saints Church, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester on 4th January 1854, pre-deceased him on 23rd April 1891 as did his eldest daughter Alice Ann, on 6th April 1904. 

A second of the four sisters, Mary Jane, died at the High Lane residence on 15th January 1917. Soon after this the two remaining sisters moved back to a property on Sandy Lane, Number 70, where they continued in business as milliners until the 1930s. Margaret passed away in August 1931 and Elizabeth in February 1939. 

Grave G.838

All four sisters plus both their parents and three children of George William and Fanny who died in infancy, Fanny (1884), Albert (1887), and Florence (1895) are interred in grave F. 878 in the non-conformist section of Southern Cemetery, Manchester.

There is a curiosity in the inscription in which William is described as the: -

 “Beloved husband of the above Mary & Emma Lunt”. 

This would seem to suggest that William re-married after Mary’s death, but I could find no further evidence of this.

As a final note, none of the cottages occupied by the family in the 19th century have survived, however Brownhills Buildings, one of which, No. 4, was the home of George William Lunt for over a year from March 1889, which date from the middle of the 19th century were still standing as this photograph shows in 1972. 

In one of those links which can so enhance my appreciation of History for more than a decade before this picture was taken, I lived on the adjacent Ansdell Avenue and spent many hours playing in the entry between the two properties. 

Brownhills Buildings, Sandy Lane, Chorlton-cum-Hardy –1972

Also, I occasionally visited one of them; possibly the one that had once been George William’s home. 

On this theme too, 25, High Lane, is the house next door to what used to be the home of the minister of Macpherson Memorial Primitive Methodist church. (Handy for the non-conformist members of the family!). The adjacent church had a Sunday School now the Manchester Centre for Buddhist Meditation. After the closure of the church this building served for a couple of years as an annexe of St. John’s Roman Catholic Primary School, and I was one of the pupils who were taught there.

Pictures: - 

Lane End and Brownhills Buildings (1973) m18193 by P.C. & m17696 by H. Milligan respectively, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information, and Archives Manchester City Council http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass Others from the collection of Tony Goulding.

Notes: -

1) The earliest record in the parish registers is for a baptism of Jane Lunt the daughter of a farmer William and his wife Betty on 6th March 1774.

2) Unfortunately, there isn’t an existing gravestone recording this grave nor are the details listed on the map produced prior to the landscaping of the graveyard in the 1970s. Presumably it was one of those listed as indecipherable.

3) The wedding of George Lunt and Alice Cookson took place on 8th June 1822 in the Collegiate Church (now the Cathedral), Manchester.

4) George William married Fanny (née Plant) in the Chorlton Registration District during the September quarter of 1883.

5) The eldest five of William’s children were born while he was working away from Chorlton-cum-Hardy as a domestic gardener in Bloomsbury Lane, Timperley, Cheshire.

6) The birth name of William’s wife is uncertain as her father’s name recorded on her marriage record is James Layland.

Acknowledgements: - Besides the usual rich source of data from The Newspaper Archive and other records on “Find My Past”.  I have delved into the records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the especially of The Manchester Regiment Group for details of the actions around the deaths of the four Lunts. https://www.themanchesters.org

Finally, I have referred on occasion to Andrew Simpson’s comprehensive study of Chorlton-cum-Hardy in the 19th century “The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy" 2012.

When the Great War came to Chorlton ..........

I have become fascinated by those miniature porcelain pieces which were produced during the Great War.

They continue to come on to the market despite the passage of a over a century and their propensity to have been chipped, broken, or just thrown away.

They were turned out in their thousands and will have resided on mantlepieces, glass cabinets and other “special” places.

The porcelain companies, seeing the potential of war souvenirs switched from models of Blackpool Tower and Ann Hathaway’s cottage to tanks, battleships and ambulances.

They turned out identical ones, with just the name of a different town or city and coat of arms to distinguish them.

Some I guess were bought on the spur of the moment, perhaps as a reminder of a loved one serving in the armed forces, or as a quiet but determined statement of patriotism while others will have been presents

Many of the pieces were just general reminders of the war, like a tank, an ambulance or a battleship, but sometimes we get the name of a ship.

But until now I have never come across  apiece which was produced specifically for Chorlton, but here we are.

And while the lettering is unclear this miniature of a shell was produced for Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

It may never have actually been sold here but I would like to think that it was, and graced a mantelpiece, or the china cabinet somewhere in the township,

Location, Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture porcelain miniature of a shell, circa 1914-1918, from the collection of David Harrop

Chorlton in two World Wars

Celebrating peace on Halstead Avenue, 1945

“Tonight I will go to sleep knowing that everyone I love will be safe.”

Even now that one line entry in a diary has a profound effect on me.

It was written in the late evening of May 8th 1945, at the end of the first day of peace in Europe.*

For some it had been a riotous night of fun, dancing and abandonment, for others a time of quiet reflection on the cost of six years of a hard war.

I don’t know what my parents and grandparents did on that night.  Nana I expect spent some of it thinking of her son who was buried in a cemetery in Thailand and must also have wondered what her native Germany would be like.

She had been born in Cologne a city which like so many was now a desert of rubble, wrecked streets and shattered lives.

Granddad no doubt was in a pub while mum and dad would have been celebrating in their different ways.

It is of course an event fast fading from living memory and will soon join the experiences of those who lived through the Great War as a piece of history only now visited through the films, books, memorials and personal accounts of that earlier conflict.

And our Red Cross Hospitals have done just that but between 1914-18 there were two of them  here in Chorlton operating from the Baptist and the Methodist Sunday Schools and others in Whalley Range.

Silver cup presented by recovering wounded soldiers  1917

Many local people supported them and hundreds of wounded soldiers spent time recovering from battlefield wounds and diseases caught while in action.

We have the names of some who worked in the hospitals, letters written by the troops and this silver cup.

The inscription reads, Presented to the Wesleyan Church by the Wounded Soldiers of the Wesleyan School Hospital Xmas 1917.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Victory street party, Halstead Avenue, courtesy of Tom Turner from the Lloyd collection, and the silver cup from a picture in the collection of Philip Lloyd

*Of course it would be another four months before Japan surrendered and the fighting was truly over.

Uncovering the story of Joseph Thomas of Chorlton born 1894, died 1917 on the Western Front

Joseph Thomas and men of the 2nd City Battalion 1914-1915

It began with this postcard and as so often happens it set me off on a journey which led from a small house in Chorlton to the grand offices of an accountancy firm opposite the Town Hall and ended on the Western Front.

The postcard comes from the collection of David Harrop and was one of a number I have been looking at.*

What caught my attention was that it was sent to Henry Thomas who lived at number 6 Fairhaven Avenue and was sent in the March of 1916.

Cooper Street, circa 1900

Now Mr Thomas was a chimney sweep and had grown up around the corner in Brownhills Buildings on Sandy lane.

These pre date 1832 and were once the property of Mr Brownhill who had been the wheelwright for the township.

That in itself was a fascinating link with our past but the postcard and its message drew me even deeper into the history of Chorlton.

It was from Joseph Thomas who was Henry's brother thanking him for the letter and Postal Order which “I was glad to receive [as] I was getting rather hard up” and announced that he was coming “home as usual on Saturday 2.15 at Victoria,” adding “send a pc if you are meeting me.”

17th Platoon, E Company 2nd City Battalion, 17th Manchester's 1914-16

Joseph had been born in 1894 and in 1914 was working for Richard Haworth & Co Ltd who had offices at 19 Cooper Street.

The building has long gone but it faced the Town Hall close to where the Cenotaph now stands.

Sadly his army records no longer exist but I know he enlisted in the 17th Manchester’s at the outbreak of the war and was stationed at Heaton Park before leaving for France in the November of 1915.

In time I will track his movements and the battles he fought in.

And we as these things go only hours after posting the story Stephen O'Neill replied identifying Joseph as the young man on "the top row far left" which is a powerful note to close on.

Sadly Joseph was killed on August 1 1917.






Picture, postcard dated, March 22 1916, and E Company 17th Service Battalion, the 2nd City Battalion, Manchester Regiment, from Manchester City Battalions Book of Honour,  from the collection of David Harrop, detail of 19 Cooper Street, 1900 from Goads Insurance Map, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*David Harrop, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/David%20Harrop

A last word on one Chorlton family and the Great War

The gravestone of the family, 2014

I think this will be the last story for a while on James Arthur Parkes who was the oldest Manchester man to die in the Great War.

He was 63 and had served his country since at least 1878 first in the 26th Regiment of Foot and ended his career in the Durham Light Infantry.

His time with the Colours had taken him to Scotland and County Durham before returning to Manchester.

And as the story unfolded it became clear he hadn’t died on a battlefront but exactly what he was doing back in uniform at 63 evaded me until Lawrence dug in a different direction and came up with this.

356 Manchester Regiment outside the Town Hall, 1915

“By coincidence I was checking who from Chorltonville was a casualty in the Great War. James Arthur Parkes lived at 9 Meadow Bank. 

A former soldier he enlisted again in August 1915 worked at the recruitment centres at Houldsworth Hall, Deansgate and at the Town Hall. 

He was made a Captain in the Durham Light Infantry back in 1897 and was given that title again on rejoining. He died at home.”

Now I have no doubt that more will come out especially about his two sons who died serving with the Manchester Regiment, and the family who continued to live in Chorltonville into the 1960s.

Picture; the grave stone of Mr Parkes and his family in Southern Cemetery, July 2014, from the collection of David Harrop and 356, Manchester Regiment Lord Kitchener, Thomas E Scholey, May 21 1915, m08695, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Additional research by Lawrence Beadle

Wilbraham Road in 1913 and the first of six images from Raphael Tuck and Sons

There are some images of old Chorlton which just keep cropping up.

Now that I guess is not surprising given that they were commercial photographs which appeared on postcards through the late 19th and into 20th centuries.

And once a company had a winner the image just kept being used.  In some cases they were sold on or offered to local businesses and with the passage of time many were retouched and even given a colour tint.

The longevity of some can be counted in decades, and companies were not averse to reissuing a card for Christmas with a seasonal message, printed over a scene of the township in high summer.

All of which is an introduction to a short series of six pictures issued by Raphael Tuck and Sons in 1913, although each of the actual photographs may be older.

I wrote about Tuck and Sons yesterday and all of our six have appeared in the blog before but together over the next six or so days it will be fun to explore them again and in some cases focus on the messages rather than just the image.

Our first is of Wilbraham Road on that stretch from the Albany/Corkland junction looking down towards Barlow Moor Road.

To our left on the corner is Gable Nook once the doctor’s surgery and next to it the three houses which were bombed in 1940 and replaced twenty years later by the modern post office.

Directly opposite are the two blocks of shops of which the nearest had once been private residences.

And so the message on the back which was sent by Marie to Annie in late 1914.

It begins with the usual pleasantries about Annie’s health but concludes with “hope you are well enough to hear all the war news.”

And that is what lifts this card above the rest and at the same time confirms the importance of this type of source.

We may not be told any more but what a wonderful link with a conflict which has now passed out of living memory, but here is written about as a continuing event.

Pictures; Wilbraham Road, from the series Chorlton-cum-Hardy, issued by Tuck & Sons, November 1913 courtesy of TuckDB http://tuckdb.org/history

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ... part 132 ….. 1921 and a revelation

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

The Rec and the house on the corner of Beech and Beaumont Roads, 1930s

Now, just when you think you have got to know someone, up pops an entirely random fact about them.

And so, it is with Joe Scott who I had always thought was the man who built a big chunk of the more modest houses across Chorlton, including the one he moved into in 1915, and which is now ours.

Across the census returns, the directories and people’s memories, Joe was a builder, who built for rent, and moved from sound two up two down properties into more prestigious semidetached houses in the 1930s.

So in 1910 he described himself as a “plasterer”, and 30 years later as a “Master Builder” and in the intervening years he advertised across Chorlton in parish magazines that his  houses came complete with electricity and an option on a garage.

Joe does electricity and garages, 1928

All of which marks him out as a builder with a keen eye to where the future lay.  

So having seen the appeal of electricity and the growing potential of the motor car, which he incorporated into the houses he built, he had a telephone installed in the mid 1920s, and a TV three decades on.

Both of which will have been ahead of most residents on Beech Road

But then in 1921 he gave his occupation as “Insurance Agent” working for the Royal London Insurance Company at 85 Manchester Road.  

It does seem a career blip to which I can only suppose this was a temporary change of job brought on by the war resulting in a cessation of construction work.

85 Manchester road, 1958

The street directories for the period my tell us when he commenced the insurance job and when he finished, if of course they were being produced.

I do know that this seems to have been a short break from the business of building because by the mid-1920s he is advertising in parish magazines with the catching headline “Brick Garages to be Let” and “Houses to sell for £500”.**

And in the years after the Second World War, he does begin to sell off some of his rented housing stock, while maintaining an office behind his house and a yard near Chorlton Green.

In the great sweep of the house’s history it may seem pretty small beer, but it does suggest ways that the Great War interrupted the lives of people, and is yet another bonus for historians from the publication of the 1921 census which came online earlier in the month.

I was reluctant at first to access it, given that even if you have a subscription to the genealogical platform, you still have to pay each time you download a search.

But that decision lasted just a day, and having explored both sides of my immediate family I was drawn to Joe and Mary Ann.

The Rec and the terrace Joe built, circa 1920s/30s

This early period in the story of the house and of their tenure is fragmentary, and so any information must be grabbed with both hands, and I rather like the idea that I can read the 1921 census entry at the same time as I look at one of the first photographs of the house, taken from the Rec in the 1920s or 30s.

The romantic in me can picture Joe and Mary Ann going about their lives around the time these children were playing in the Rec.  

But the historian in me reflects that this is not good history and moreover their house and ours can only just be made out at the end of the terrace.

Joe and Mary Ann's house at the far end of the terrace, circa 1920s/30s

I doubt I will ever actually get to know exactly why Joe was working for the insurance company, and the row of houses on Manchester Road of which 85 was part of was demolished a long time ago.

So that is that.  I know I will be back trawling that 1921 census especially as there is a gap between this one and 1951, with just the 1939 Register as an insight into the lives of people during the decades between and during the last world war.***

 Location; Chorlton

Picture, aerial photograph of Beech Road , circa 1930s-1940s,courtesy of  Britain from Above, EPW 017620, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass advert for Joe Scott from the St Clements Church Bazaar for 1928, 85 Manchester Road, The Rec and the terrace built by Joe Scott, circa 1920s-30s, from the Lloyd Collection

*The Story of a House, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

** St Clements Church Bazaar for 1928, courtesy of Ida Bradshaw

*** The 1931 census was destroyed during the last world war and the 1941 census was never undertaken, leaving just the 1939 Register for historians to study.  The Register took place in the September of 1939 and was used to create the database for wartime Identity Cards. It lists the names, ages and occupations of residents, street by street, and in some cases has additional information on war time activities, including Civil Defence and the Home Guard. It also became the basis for National Health Insurance numbers.

Remembering Joseph Thomas from Chorlton who died in the Great War

The replica, circa 1920s

I wonder just how many of these small replicas of the Cenotaph still exist.

They would have been made in their thousands and displayed on mantle pieces and in cabinets across the country.

Some will have evoked proud memories of a war fought well but for many more they must have been a painful reminder of a lost loved one who died on some faraway battlefield or out at sea.

The end of the Second World War may have given them a renewed significance but as we passed into the long years of peace and growing prosperity most will have been consigned to a back room, and finally laid to rest in a suitcase in the attic.

And in the way of these things those that weren’t thrown away will have been given to a jumble sale and by degree made their way into a collection.

Of course the personal story which went with each will have been lost.

Joseph Thomas, circa 1914-15

But not this one.

This one I can trace to a family and the young Joseph Thomas who was born in 1894 and died on the Western Front in 1917.*

Joseph grew up in Chorlton-cum-Hardy and  worked for Richard Haworth & Co Ltd who had offices at 19 Cooper Street.

The building has long gone but it faced the Town Hall close to where the Cenotaph now stands.

And like many other young men working in the offices of the city he enlisted in one of the Pal’s Battalions.

The first had been raised in the August in a few days and Joseph enlisted in the second city battalion that September.

This was the 17th Manchester’s which after basic training left for France in the November of the following year.

I doubt I would ever have come across him had it not been for a picture postcard he sent to his brother.

The post card asked for an advance till pay day and alerted the family that he was coming home on leave.

At that stage all I had was his brother’s name and address but that was enough to begin to uncover the story of the family and shed light on the young man who just signed himself Joe.

By the end of the afternoon his early career was clear along with the details of his enlistment and a photograph of ten soldiers one of whom I guessed was Joseph.

The rest as they say just fell into place.

Within an hour of posting the story Nicola and Steven had been in touch and were able to identify young Joseph which in turn led to a meeting at which they showed me a collection of family material including photographs, certificates and the replica Cenotaph.

And that I think is a good point to close.

Of all the memorabilia I have come across from the Great War this replica Cenotaph brings me very close to the loss the Thomas family must have felt.

Picture; replica Cenotaph circa 1920s from the collection of Nicola O’Niel and detail from the picture postcard showing young Joseph, circa 1914-15 from the collection of David Harrop

*Uncovering the story of Joseph Thomas of Chorlton born 1894, died 1917 on the Western Front, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%20and%20the%20Great%20War