So …. where in Chorlton-cum-Hardy was Victor Stapleton Ashby in 1921? ……..

Now as questions go this is not as daft as it reads, nor is it a candidate for The Twilight Zone.*

Barlow Moor Road, circa 1920s

Victor Stapleton Ashby made motor cars and briefly from 1921 till later in the decade he made them on Barlow Moor Road in Chorlton.

Just where is still unclear but made them he did, and such was my surprise that we were the automobile centre of south Manchester that a few days ago I wrote about Mr. Ashby, his father and the Ashby motor cars.**

To be accurate they were “a two-seater light car powered by a 970 cc 8 hp engine, three-speed gearbox or four-ratio friction drive, continued until 1924”.***

The family were based in Towcester in Northamptonshire and look to have made the transition from traditional coach building in to cycle and motor engineers by the beginning of the last century.

In 1901 they patented an experimental motor car, applied for an international patent, and went into a partnership with Short Brothers the aircraft manufacturers in 1919, employed six Ashby staff members, and the car was known as the Short-Ashby in 1921.

But owing to poor sales Short Brothers withdrew their support in 1922 and the Ashby’s then moved to Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Barlow Moor Road, date unknown

And here comes the mystery because Victor’s father and mother remain in Towcester, but he does not show up on the 1921 census, so it is reasonable to suppose he moved with the business.

That said I can find no reference to him or his wife and daughter.  They married in 1915, and by the following year he was serving in the London Motor Boat Section as a “motor engineer” until he was demobbed in 1919.

Twenty years later they are living back in Towcester but so far for those missing few years in the early 1920s there is nothing.

All of which means it will be one of those old fashioned searches involving the street directories and electoral rolls for the period which are on microfilm in the Central Ref in town and the slow laborious hunt for a name and an address.

Looking for Victor

In the meantime someone might have an idea where they lived in Chorlton.

We shall see.

Location; somewhere in Chorlton

Pictures; Barlow Moor Road circa 1920s from the collection of Allan Brown and Barlow Moor Road, date unknown, from the Lloyd Collection

* The Twilight Zone (marketed as Twilight Zone for its final two seasons) is an American science fiction horror anthology television series created and presented by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from October 2, 1959, to June 19, 1964. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twilight_Zone_(1959_TV_series)

**When Chorlton made cars ………..https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2023/01/when-chorlton-made-cars.html

*** ***Graces Guide to British Industrial History, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Victor_Ashby_and_Son

On finding Mr. Howarth's bottle with the galloping horse ...... on Cheltenham Road

 Now here is a mystery which involves a bottle, George Howard of Thornburn Street and our own Cheltenham Road.

Yesterday David posted the bottle on social media asking for help identifying the company who sold it, adding, “This was found next to the foundations of my house in Cheltenham Road CCH. Marked 'HOWARD'S Thorburn St Upper Brook St Manchester.' Pictorial is a fast galloping horse with rider. Anyone know what it was?”

And never wanting to miss out on a mystery, I went looking for HOWARD'S Thorburn St Upper Brook St Manchester, and it all got a tad twisty.  

I couldn’t find a Howard at Thornburn Street in the early 20th century.  There was a John Spelman there listed as a mineral water manufacturer.

However George Howard “herb beer brewer (Howard Brothers)” was listed at 4 Sagar Street  in Lower Broughton from 1895 through to the early 20th century.  So perhaps they moved to Thornburn Street after 1911.

The houses  on Cheltenham Road date from 1927, and it is possible that sometime after that date the bottle was buried, lost or just thrown away, by which time George Howard had moved from Salford.

There was a George Howard who was in Hulme at the beginning of the 20th century and had brothers, and gave his occupation as a “Teasman” in 1916 at his marriage.

It is just possible that George made the short jump from a Teasman to a brewer of herbal beer.

We shall see.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; the bottle, 2021, courtesy of David Strong.

The lost building on Barlow Moor Road ……….

No matter how much you uncover about the story of Chorlton, there is always something new.

1927

So, a while ago Kelsey Broome sent me a photograph of the old Royal Oak on Barlow Moor Road, which I had never seen before.

The pub dates from the early 19th century and was demolished sometime in the 1920s for the Royal Oak we know today.

This much I knew, but had never been able to pin down exactly when this happened.

I had always thought it must be in the late 1920s, and after a tour of the upstairs began to think it might have crossed over into the next decade.

But as so often happens a new bit of the jigsaw falls into place, which in this case was delivered by Bill Sumner, who provided me with this aerial picture of the new Royal Oak, with the magic date of 1927, which narrows down its construction.

1907

More so because there had been efforts during the early 20th century to get permission to replace the old pub with a new one.

But Bill’s picture just threw up another mystery which is the large building to right of the pub, behind the bank.

It is a substantial building, which is absent from the OS map of 1907, and has disappeared by 1952.

At present the only clue might be a reference in 1911 to a Frank Johnson at 21a Barlow Moor Road, who was a furniture dealer.

But that is it, and I will have to wait till I can get into Central Ref and look through the directories for the period from 1911 through to 1952 which might just of up some answers.

That said someone might know.

We shall see.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Barlow Moor Road, 1927, Britain from the Air, EPWO, 17618, detail from the OS map of Manchester, 1907

Hailing a cab in Chorlton in the 1920s

Charles Croton was one of our taxi drivers and successful enough to have moved from horse and cab to motor vehicle by the 1920s and was listed in the telephone book by 1911.

All of which makes him a suitable candidate for a story.

He was another of those new people who moved in to Chorlton just as the place was expanding.  He had been born in London in 1867 and his father was also a hackney coach driver.

His earlier years are a little murky but I know he married Ann in 1887 and their first child was born two years later.  These were the years when they seemed to move about the country. Some of the children were born in Hulme but others in Littlemore in Oxfordshire, but by 1901 they were settled here in Chorlton on Sandy Lane.

So this makes them a perfect example of the families who moved here to take advantage of the new housing development which was going up mainly along Barlow Moor, Wilbraham and Manchester Roads and the areas off in each direction.

These were the middling people who mostly earned a living by working as office workers and professionals in the city taking advantage of the new railway which could whisk commuters into Manchester in under fifteen minutes.  But there were also more wealthy families who owned businesses as well as skilled semi skilled and manual workers who lived in the six shilling a week houses.

The Croton’s however occupied what had been a farm house and here the attraction may well have been the yard where the taxi could be kept as well as the close proximity to Shaw’s motor garage and petrol pump on Barlow Moor Road.

And in other ways they reflect this new Chorlton with all four of the children entering the new trades.  So while Reg the eldest followed his father into the cab trade, was an engineer in the Corporation electrical works and both daughter worked as shop assistants, one in confectionary and the other in drapery.

Charles died in the summer of 1926 but the business continued into the 1930s still on Sandy Lane.  Which takes me back to Reg.  The picture was taken in 1922 which would have made him thirty years old.  He is parked up in the station I guess waiting for the arrival of a train and a potential fare.

So there you have it, a little bit about one of our families.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

When Chorlton made cars ………..

It is a story I have twice come back to having had a stab at finding out where and when a firm set up here in Chorlton making cars.

Shaw's Motor Garage, date unknown

First time round I tried following up a request about Ashby Cars, but only got as far as learning that they relocated from Towcester sometime after 1921 and ceased production later in the decade.

Then after a conversation with Ian Henderson who thought they might have been based on Edge Lane my interest was reignited.

And as before I turned to Graces’ Guide to British Industrial History who offered up “Pioneer Motor Works, of Towcester and Barlow Moor Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy.”  The business was run by Victor James Ashby and his son Victor Stapleton Ashby.

The history of the firm is a bit sketchy, and there is a gap between them producing an experimental car in 1901 and 1919 when they commenced production of about 50 "Ashby Cars" before going into partnership with the aeroplane makers Short Brothers.

According to the Grace database, “After returning from the First World War Victor Stapleton Ashby designed a cyclecar that came to the attention of aeroplane makers Short Brothers. 

Short Brothers employed six Ashby staff members, with the car being known as the Short-Ashby in 1921. 

Short Brothers withdrew their support in 1922 owing to poor sales. The Ashbys then moved to Chorlton-cum-Hardy, where production of a two-seater light car powered by a 970 cc 8 hp engine, three-speed gearbox or four-ratio friction drive, continued until 1924.

After which they introduced a 2 hp / 550 rpm engine in1925”.*

Site of Shaw's Motor Garage, circa 1990s

And that pretty much is that.  Grace mentions a garage workshop in Towcester but I very much doubt I will be able to find it, although I did trawl Brackley Road where they were still living in the May of 1921 but drew a blank.

As for the location on Barlow Moor Road that is still to be found, but my money might be on that stretch of the road from the old cinema/Co-op to High Lane which in the early 20th century was home to Charles Shaw’s garage which was still trading in the mid-1950s at 483 Barlow Moor Road.

It is just possible he rented space out.

Alternatively there was a an industrial unit on what is now the Marks and Spencer's store which might have briefly been our motor car factory.

My Facebook pal Tony has access to the directories for the 1920s and I have asked him to go looking, while I will search the local newspapers.

So, we may be in luck.

We shall see.

Ian has found an image of Short Ashby car and it wil appear once I can check out the copyright.

Location; Towcester and Chorlton

Pictures; Charles Shaw’s Garage, 483 Barlow Moor Road, date unknown and again circa 1990s  

*Grace's Guide to British Industrial History, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Victor_Ashby_and_Son

Outside Beech Road Police Station ........ revealing a little of the life of PC Frederick George Ross

This is Police Constable Frederick George Ross standing with his colleagues outside the police station on Beech Road.

Now I can’t be exactly sure when the picture was taken but one source has suggested 1925.*

And that would have made PC Ross forty-seven years old.

He had joined the city force in 1904 and by  1910 was living on Priory Avenue before moving to Whalley Avenue.

Of the named officers he is the one we know most about and that is as much a bit of luck as it is research.

After all if he had not been recognised and his name added to the picture we would not have been able to discover his story.

But with a name a search of the police employment records and the census returns not only located him but provided me with the name of his wife and daughter and his own place of birth.

PC Ross had married Rebecca Jane Lawson in 1909 in Bolton and their daughter Nora was born the following year.

Like all such stories the detail is even more fascinating for while Nora had been born in Bolton she was registered at the Chorlton office and baptised at St Clements in the May of 1910 which is how we know the family were living at Priory Avenue.

Almost a year later they were on Whalley Avenue and a search of the directories will reveal when they moved from that address.

But that is not quite the end of the story because in the course of doing the research I came across a relative who had posted a series of pictures, one of Frederick and Rebecca and two showing PC Ross during police inspections one of which is dated to 1921.

And according to this source Mrs Ross was in Ireland by 1925 where she died in 1949 followed by her husband fifteen years later.

In time there will be more but for now that is all but it is a lesson in how it is possible to discover a family story.

Nor is that all, because looking at the police records what is interesting is the number of officers who were born in Ireland and Scotland, a trend which goes back beyond 1904 when Chorlton voted to join the city.

Before that date we had been policed by the Lancashire Constabulary who were responsible for building the station in 1885.

Just six years later the officer in charge was a Sergeant Milne from Ireland assisted by two PCs from Scotland and a decade on with  Sergeant Milne there were officers from Ireland and Gloucestershire as well as Lancashire.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; PC Ross, 1875-1963 from Police officers outside Beech Road Police Station circa 1925 from the Lloyd Collection

Down on Maple Avenue with more rare pictures

This is another of those wonderful images from Ray Jones whose family owned one of the houses on Maple Avenue for over a century, spanning the old Queen’s Jubilee, two world wars, and much else.

It was taken by Ray’s grandfather and dates from the 1920s.
That said I bet there will be someone out there who is an expert on such vehicles and can offer up the make, the date and more than a bit of its history.

In the same way there will be someone else who will follow up on the number plate and go to those sites which explain how the letters and numbers can date the car.

But for now I shall just thank Ray and make that obvious remark that there would have been very little other traffic parked up on that sunny day on Maple Avenue.

All of which is in direct contrast to today and leads me to wonder just when the transition happened.

Look at photographs from the 1960s and even early 70's and many roads will still be relatively empty and that I think highlights the need for more pictures from those middling decades.

The collection is full of images from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when commercial photographers plied their trade selling to local residents as well as the picture postcard companies.

But from the 1960s as the trade in picture postcards went into decline the numbers of photographs has also diminished.

I know they will be out there, mostly as snaps which now sit in family albums or at the bottom of the sock cupboard and bringing them out into the light would advance our knowledge of the area.

So that’s the appeal done, leaving me just to thank Ray and say I know exactly which house on Maple Avenue this is, but until I approach the owners it seems unfair to say more.

Instead I will close with a comment from Ray who thinks "the the motor is a BSA cyclecar but I'm not certain."

Location; Maple Avenue, Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture, a car, two kids, and auntie on Maple Avenue, circa 1920s, © Ray Jones

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

"See better days and do better things," the sad end of the Chorlton Liberal Club.

The Chorlton Liberal Club had opened in the October of 1897.

It wasn’t the first club the Liberals had had here, that was on Wilbraham Road but the new one on Manchester Road was more “commodious and suitable for the purpose.”*

Its opening was greeted “with the hope that the club would strengthen Liberalism in Chorlton-cum-Hardy” and membership figures seemed to bear this out. 

In the space of the year they had recruited another 50 members and were confident of more.  I suspect the club was only part of that success, with something also down to the influx of new people into the township.

Not that they saw it that way.  The official opening was done with a gold key and the job fell to Reuben Spencer “an old Liberal” who “hoped it would be a centre of light and leading, round which young men would be prepared to take a part in social, municipal and public life generally.”

We might jib at the emphasis on men especially as women were active in local politics and within two decades Sheena Simon was elected with a majority of over 1400 votes and 58% of the vote as the first woman Liberal councillor for Chorlton.**

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.

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 squeezed 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  till 1946 by which time they had slipped to third place.***

I suspect this might have also been reflected in the state of the club which I remember as a slightly dowdy place by the 1970s.

All of which was a great shame.  It had been a private residence before becoming a club and I rather think might have been built sometime in the 1880s.  It last occupants had been the Lloyd family who where there in 1891.

It remained an impressive building and gained a new lease of life after the fire in the 1980s when it became the Lauriston Club.

And now with the close of the club it is again a residential property.

Pictures; the Liberal Club after the fire from the Lloyd collection, undated

*Liberalism at Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, Manchester Guardian, October 11, 1897
**Not that she was the first woman councillor here in Chorlton, that was Jane Redford elected in 1910.  She was not a Liberal but styled herself a Progressive Candidate and must have been close enough to the Liberal outlook to ensure they never put up a candidate against her or other Progressives.
**The Chorlton By-Election, Manchester Guardian December 18, 1928
*** Local election results 1904-1949, compiled by Lawrence Beedle

Down on Manchester Road with our poshest cinema

Now you know you were being treated when the cinema was the Savoy, or as it later became known the Gaumont on Manchester Road.

The Picture House, 1920, later the Savoy and Gaumont

I had always thought this was the case, after it was larger and more impressive looking that its two rivals which were the Pavilion on Wilbraham Road and the Palais De Luxe on Barlow Moor Road.

And by 1928 it’s only challenger in Chorlton was the Palais which was smaller and older.

All I wanted was confirmation of the Gaumont’s premier position, and it came today from the Kinematograph Yearbook for 1928.

The Savoy, 1928

I now have four in the collection, starting with the one for 1914, and running through to 1928, 1929 and 1947.

There will be more, but for now I have just the four, and it is the 1928 book which dishes up the evidence that it felt confident in charging 8d to 1s. 6d, for admission while the Palais came in at 6d to 1s. 3d.

The Palais De Luxe, 1928

So, on the nights you might want to impress someone special, that “specialness” was reflected in what you were prepared to pay.

Of course, the choice of film might still have something to do with it, but I reckon that that all important first date or anniversary would tip the balance in favour of the Savoy.

The Palais De Lux, 1925

Later in the 1930s, came the last of our cinemas, up by the park, and it outlasted the Savoy by a few decades.

All of which makes it an exciting idea that there are those who want to buy up the former cinema and transform it into a community hub.

Now that would be fun.

Location; Chorlton,

Pictures; the Picture House, 1920, later renamed the Savoy and later still the Gaumont, from the Lloyd Collection, listing details from the 1928, Kinematograph Yearbook, and the Palais De Luxe cinema, circa 1928, Charles Ireland, GD10-07-04-6-13-01 Courtesy of East Dunbartonshire Archives

Looking for cows, farm buildings and a milkman on Brookburn Road in 1927

Now I am the first to admit that you would be hard put to fit this wooden door into the history of a farm in Chorlton.

Outside the stables circa 1920s

But this is the stables of Brook Farm which dates back to at least the late 18th century and was still a farm of sorts in the 1920s.

The farm stood on Brookburn Road opposite the school, and the stables was sited on what is now the playground beside the new bit of the school.

I can’t be sure exactly when it was demolished but it may have lingered on into the very early 1970s finally being knocked down to make way for the school which of course means there will be people who remember it.

I missed it by just a handful of years but Peter Mcloughlin has vivid memories of the stables and the farm which for a big chunk of the last two centuries was also a dairy.

Peter’s father worked there for twenty or so years from the early 1920s and as you would expect amassed some fascinating pictures of the place.

I had already been interested in the farm and have begun to track the tenants who ran it from Mrs Lydia Brown who was there in the 1840s, through to the Holland family and Mr and Mrs Cookson who were still there in 1911.

After that the chronology gets a bit hazy but by the 1920s the diary belonged to Mr Charles Boden and later became Dobson’s  before becoming Express Dairies.

At which point we have reached that moment in time when my own sons will be able to talk confidently of the milk yard across from their school.

Letterhead from the 1920s

During its time under the Boden’s the business expanded to include branches in Eccles and Stockport and after the last world war Peter’s father became manager at the Daisy Bank Dairy on Brinnington Road successfully expanded the number of rounds.

This is a bit of the history of the farm I knew nothing about which is all the more remarkable given that it is recent history.

Bits of the farm’s story from the 19th century are fairly easily accessible, so I know how much land Mrs Brown was farming in the 1840s, where it was located and its usage.

Added to that I can track the families who ran the farm for the rest of that century using the census records and street directories and it will be possible to crawl over the old rate books and get an idea of the value of the farm.

I even know that in the October of 1865 Mr Holland reported a case of cattle disease on his farm which
turned out to be “the only case in this division of the county.”*

And we do have the odd photograph of the farmhouse which had nine rooms making it a substantial building.

At Brook Farm, 1920s

But the evidence trail for the period after 1911 is more difficult to find and so Peter’s pictures and memories are important.

At which point I could become pompous and slide into a series of observations of how much of our collective past we let slip away.

But I won’t, instead I shall just thank Peter, promise more stories from his collection and just make the appeal for any more photographs or stories of the farm.

Which just leaves me to offer up a hostage to fortune and ponder on the building in the background of this picture of Peter's dad and Mr Boden at the farm.

I think it is the rear of the Bowling Green which when our photograph was taken was still relatively new having replaced the old one which dated back to the 18th century.

So there I have said it and await the comments.

Pictures; from the collection of Peter McLoughlin

*Manchester Times Saturday October 28, 1865

The story of one family in Chorlton ........... part 4 working at Brook Farm in the summer of 1927

It is easy to forget that just two generations ago we still had a number of independent dairies here in Chorlton and stories of being sent for milk at the farmer’s door is only now passing out of living memory.

Mr McLoughlin outside Brook Farm, 1927

The Bailey’s down at Park Brow Farm, Mr and Mrs Riley on Beech Road in the 1960s and Mrs Lomax at Hough End Hall two decades earlier were part of a local industry which stretched back into our rural past.

By the 20th century the dairies had lost most of their land but go back fifty or so years and most of them were part of bigger operations centered on cereals and market gardens.

And that brings me to Brook Farm which in the 1870s had been the home of the Holland family who farmed 54 acres and employed three men.

It stood on the north side of what is now Brookburn Road opposite the school and dates  from at least the late 18th century.

Brook Farm circa 1900

Back in 1847 the radical journalist Alexander Somerville stopped at Brook Farm and reported his conversation with Lydia Brown the tenant farmer who complained about the ash trees which grew around the fields  “which are not only objectionable as all other kinds are in and around cultivated fields but positively poisonous to other vegetation, and ran through the ground causing much waste of land, waste of fertility, and doing no good whatever.  Squire Lloyd is the landlord.  

Mrs Brown a widow, is the tenant.  She keeps the farm in excellent order so far as the landlord’s restrictions will allow.  But neither herself nor her workmen must ‘crop or lop top’ a single branch from the deleterious ash trees."

It was my old friend Lawrence who came across the orginal newspaper story and set me off researching the farm and more recently I have Peter McLoughlin to thank for offering up a wonderful collection of photographs of his father who worked at the dairy during the 1920s.

The Farm and dairy in 1927

Most of the pictures show Mr McLoughlin at work delivering milk and that makes them unique, because so far there are very few pictures of people at work here in the township and those we have tend to be by professional photographers who included workmen more by accident than design.

Now I can say that because they do not tend to be the subject of the photograph, rarely are caught up close and are never referred to.
But Peter’s pictures are different and they also record those working places which were unlikely to sell as postcards.

So I return to this one which includes part of the farm and dairy in 1927 and in the fullness of time will return with another showing the stables opposite the farm which is now part of Brookburn School.

Pictures; Mr Jim McLoughlin outside Brook Dairy in 1927, courtesy of Peter  McLoughlin  and the farm house circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection

The story of one family in Chorlton ........... part 3 down on Hawthorn Lane in 1925

Yesterday I stood on exactly the same spot where young Nellie Spencer posed for this picture in the summer of 1925 and as you do I looked for the changes brought about by the last ninety years.

And that corner had not faired so well.

To be fair it was bin day which always makes the road look untidy and back in 1925 these houses were no more than twenty years old.

That said it’s not so different today.  There are more trees in the distance and the back wall to the right of Nellie has undergone some change but remarkably the telegraph post is still there although it seems to have shifted a little in the space of nearly a century.

And to confound all those who whinge on about how our streets are far more untidy today I have to say that generally there is a lot less litter than on the streets in 2015 which is an unscientific observation based purely  on comparing pictures of Chorlton in the first decades of the last century with now.

And that is the value of pictures like this which challenge some of our preconceptions of the past.

But to really get to understand the photograph you have to be able to talk to someone who was there.

Now that is next to impossible given the date but it can be possible to do the next best thing and have the image explained by a member of the family who knew Nellie and who remembers being told about the picture.

And here I have been lucky because Nellie was the aunt of Peter McLoughlin who has begun sharing his collection of family photographs.

In the course of the conversation he pointed to the young lad staring across at Nellie and the photographer.

He was a “Nipper” working for Brooks Dairy down on Brookburn Road.  The term was unfamiliar but of course it perfectly describes our young man who will have been his mid teens possibly engaged on his first job.

And of course as was the time he is delivering the milk in small tin jars and wears those leather leggings.

And by one of those odd turns of coincidence her future brother in law also worked for Brooks Dairy.

All of which is part of the value of the collection for not only do we have the images but the names, dates and stories behind each one.

So I know that this family shot was taken in 1925 in back of 67 Hawthorn Lane and staring back at are Mr and Mrs Spencer, Annie who was fifteen and Agnes and Nellie.

On one level there may appear nothing remarkable about it but I know something about each of the five people, and how their lives were lived out in Chorlton.

On the death of her first husband Peter’s grandmother married Mr Spencer who was a regimental sergeant major and in 1913 they moved to India where Adele was born.Annie married Jim McLoughlin in 1945 and the family moved to Stockport where Peter was born.

All of which makes this such a unique Chorlton collection.

Pictures; from the collection of Peter McLoughlin

Net curtains, venetian blinds and that horseman on Brookburn Road .......... Chorlton in the 1920s and 30s

More than anything it’s the detail that draws you in to this photograph of Annie  and Nelly  outside 67 Hawthorn Road in the spring of 1930.

It starts with those net curtains which had been a badge of respectable living from the early years of the last century and would only be swept away by the new look of the 1950s.

I remember them well but more than the curtains it’s those blinds, made of slated wood which made a distinctive clunk when you raised or lowered them.

They filled the windows along with the nets and of course those heavy plush curtains which between them were required features of any surbuban home no matter however modest.

And each in their way made perfect sense.

In an age before central heating the heavier the curtains the better to keep the place warm in winter, while the blinds were essential for houses modifying the full strength of the sun in summer.

Today we might find the nets a tad over fancy but this was still a more private time when displaying the contents of your front room was regarded as more than a bit ostentatious.

The only concession to the seasons was that in some homes at least the heavy curtains came down in summer for lighter ones around the time the sweep would be called in to do the chimneys.

It is a way of life which has pretty much gone, along with the iron railings that topped the small front walls and could be as elaborate as these at number 67 and with that care for detail the gate’s design mirrored perfectly the railings.

And back when Annie and Nelly posed for the camera their home was less than thirty years old and had been part of that housing explosion which had turned Chorlton from a rural community to a suburb of Manchester.

But this was still a period of transition when the sight of a man on a horse was unlikely to turn a head.

We still had farmers who used horses to cart their produce from the fields while plenty of tradesmen transported their good across the township by horse drawn vans.

All of which is a lead in to Jim Mcloughlin sitting astride a horse by Brookburn Road.

Behind him is Brook Dairy which long before it  specialized in milk had been a farm dating back into the 18th century.
I am not sure when the farmhouse was demolished but it should be easy enough to find out by trawling the directories although I doubt that any one will remember its passing.

It will I suspect date from the when the dairy was taken over by Express Dairies which have now also gone leaving the site to be redeveloped into a row of modern houses,

That said there will be plenty who remember the yard, and on reflection I wish I had asked for that big sign which reminded drivers to be mindful of the neighbours.

After all the residents of the houses next door would still have been asleep when the crates of milk were being loaded onto the floats.

And that is now as much a part of our past as horses on Brookburn Road and net curtains up by Hawthorn Road.

Pictures; from the collection of Peter McLoughlin.

The story of one family in Chorlton ........... Jim and Annie McLoughlin

This is young Annie Magee aged fifteen in 1923 outside her home on what is now Ivy Green Road.

Miss Annie Magee in 1923

It comes from a wonderful collection of photographs belonging to Peter McLoughlin whose parents lived and worked in Chorlton during the first half of the last century.

Miss Magee was Peter’s mother.  She was born in 1910, and married his father in 1946.

Mr McLoughlin had lived at Brook Farm Dairy from 1920 and included in the collection are “pictures my Father with the horses outside the dairy which became Dobsons and latterly Express before its demolition.

Dad lived away for three years during the war and when he came back to the dairy got married to Mum in 1946. He then took over the Stockport Dairy and I was born in Stockport in 1950.”

So there you have it the start of a new series featuring a collection of pictures which Peter has agreed to share and what’s more has the stories behind each one.

Now that doesn’t always happen.  Most of the ones I come across are just pictures without that personal aspect.

They tend to be either commercial photographs which were posed and were sold on to picture postcard companies or are long forgotten snaps found at the back of a cupboard  without a date or even a name to identify the place or the individual.

But Peter’s are different and point to just how important it is to preserve both the images and the stories which come with them.

Jim McLoughlin in 1927

All of which is the start of a new series which with Peter’s permission will feature more of the collection and dig deep into the history of Chorlton and his family.

After all the diary has long gone replaced by a set of smart town houses, and as memories fade it will not be that long before even the existence of Brook Dairy/Dobson’s/Express Diaries are lost forever.

Equally there will few left who now know that long before it was a dairy it was a farm stretching back into the early part of the 19th century and most likely established during the century before.

But those are stories for another time.

Pictures; Annie Magee in1923, Jim McLoughlin in 1927 at 106 Chorltonville, courtesy of Peter McLoughlin

Cleaning, polishing and answering the door ........... domestic service in Chorlton in 1927

I have long been interested in domestic service, ever since I researched the working conditions in rural Chorlton in the first half of the 19th century.*

By the end of that century even the most humble of families sought the prestige of at least one domestic servant.

And in many households there was just the one, who often went under the title of maid of all work and that was exactly what her job entailed.

So in a large house hold where there might gradations of servants from butlers, and housekeepers to kitchen staff and many more in the more modest homes there was but one and she did it all.

Now I have come across descriptions of the work of such servants from the 19th century but here courtesy of Bob Jones is one from 1927.

In that year his mum came across from Yorkshire and began work in the big house on Alexandra Road.

In the fullness of time I will go looking for that house and the family that lived there but for now I shall just leave you with her job description.

I could reflect on the many tasks that had to be undertaken or the degree to which new home appliances like the "vac" and the telephone would change the working day, but perhaps I will just point out that missing day which was the Wednesday, her day off.

Pictures; job description for a maid, 19267, courtesy of Bob Jones

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

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

Chorlton Operatic Society ...... three programmes and a story

Now, sometimes what you know about a bit of our history just increases tenfold.

Dorothy, 1920

Yesterday I knew a little about the Chorlton Operatic Society, but not much.

I had the name of its secretary in 1910, who was a Mr Herbert Bayfield of 61 Claude Road, and the name of the conductor, added to which I had two small newspaper clippings of the society’s production of
“Dorothy" which was staged at the Pavilion Theatre in April 1914 and “Peg o’ My Heart” at the Chorlton Public Hall, eleven years later.

Included in the first revue was a photograph of the cast and in the second a fulsome account of “three successful performances”.*

But today thanks to an anonymous donor, I have three programmes, and the musical score and script for “Be Careful Bill” which may have been performed in 1936 or 1937.

The Rebel Maid, 1927

All of which means, that the story of the Society can now be traced from 1907 through to the mid 1930s.

This includes the names of the actors and musicians along with the subscribers and a full list of performances from 1908 till 1927.

According to the programme notes from La Fille De Madame Angot, “Two Operas are performed by the Society each Season, and throughout the winter months a series of Whist Drives, Concerts and Social evenings are held, when Subscribers and Acting Members have the opportunity of becoming acquainted.

The subscription is 10/- per annum, which entitles each Subscriber to two Specially Reserved Seats for each of the two Opera, which they have the privilege of booking before the general public.

Proportionate profits derived from the Season’s working are devoted to local charities, each Subscriber having a vote as to this distribution, also in the choosing of the Operas for the following season”.**

An earlier Dorothy, 1914

In 1914 one of the charities had been the Chorlton and District Nursing Association, and later ones included the Widows and Orphans Fund of the National Union of Journalists, and the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen.

The influx of new people into the township was sufficiently large and diverse to support many cultural activities and the Operatic Society were performing in the relatively new Pavilion on the corner of Wilbraham and Buckingham Roads.

La Fille de Madame Angot, 1913

It had been opened around 1904, soon changed its name to the Chorlton Theatre and Winter Gardens and from 1909 was our first cinema.

Kemp’s Almanack and Handbook for 1910, listed everything from an amateur gardening society, a drama club and Literary Association along with our operatic society and an orchestral society.

And for those who fancied sport, there was cricket, football, tennis, golf and hockey clubs which vied with lacrosse, cycling and bowling to draw the more athletic resident out to play.

As yet many of these clubs are still sitting in the shadows, but the donation of the programmes not only offers up some fascinating detail about the Operatic Society but also on Chorlton during the first two decades of its existence.

The programmes contain adverts for local businesses, two of which made it into the 21st century and add to what we know about the public halls which were open for hire.  In 1913 the society performed at the Public Hall in West Didsbury and later at St Edmund’s Hall on Alexandra Road and in 1927 at the Public Hall in Chorlton which was attached to the Conservative Club.

Adverts, 1927

But what caught my eye was that at one stage they were based at the Davenport Hall on Stamford Road, which is that part of Brantingham which runs from Manchester Road to Albany Road. During 1912-13 this was their headquarters and it has long been a place with a history waiting to be uncovered.

“The Hall measuring 45 ft long and 16 ft wide with Ladies’ and Gentleman’s Clock Rooms, Kitchen, etc may be hired for Parties, Socials, Whist Drives, Meetings etc, on very moderate terms.  Crockery, Chairs, etc., may also be hired separately”. ***

And like the Operatic Society, which has now come out of the shadows, that small advert has added to our knowledge of long lost public hall.

Leaving me just to reflect on one last advertisement from one of the the programmes, and my favourite.

It  was for Charles Shaw & Sons Ltd., at 98 Barlow Moor Road who as well as having opened the first petrol pump available to the public, proudly declared that having been "established in Chorlton for 29 years we offer the finest service it is possible to give in motoring [with]  for hire a splendid fleet of landaulettes, with men in livery to take you anywhere. No hackney carriage plates on the back but a car that nobody can tell is not your own".****

List of  subscribers, 1912-13

Now if I had the imagination and the skill that could be the start of an opera with and impossible plot, and full of pompous people.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; the Chorlton Operatic Society April 1914 from the Manchester Courier, courtesy of Sally Dervan, and programs of Chorlton Operatic Society, 1912-13, 1919-1920,and 1927, donated anonymously.

*Chorlton Dramatic Society’s Effort for Charity, Manchester Guardian November 21 1915.

** La Fille De Madame Angot programme. La Fille De Madame Angot was performed between May 1st and May 3rd 1913, at the Public Hall West Didsbury

*** La Fille De Madame Angot programme

****The Rebel Maid Programme 1927