Mrs. Spann does her bit for the Didsbury war effort …… September 1914

Now, I have yet to discover much about Mrs. Spann who posed for the camera in the September of 1914 and was one of the “Didsbury Ladies” raising money for the Relief Funds.

Raising Funds, 1914

The Manchester Courier printed the picture with the caption “Didsbury Ladies are making a special two days’ efforts to raise money for the Relief Fund.  The photo shows Mrs. Braithwaite, Mrs. Spann, Mrs. McWilliam, and Mrs. W. Merrill, with their organ”, outside Didsbury Railway Station.

A National Relief Fund had been launched a month earlier and within a week had received a £1 million in donations, which by the end of the war would total over £7 million.

Here in Manchester just a week after the launch contributions amounted to £7,854 ranging from Rylands and Sons Ltd who had given £5000 down to Mr. Thomas Parker who donated £10.*

These were matched by sums coming from factories and other workplaces, leading the secretary of the Manchester Relief Fund to record his thanks to the workers in Didsbury, West Didsbury and Withington for their kindness in assisting in raising locally the “magnificent sum” of £162 2s. 5d.**

And with more diligence I might turn up Mrs. Spann, listed as one of the individual contributors.

But so far, she has remained a tad elusive, and I have had to fall back on looking any reference to the Spann family in Didsbury, of which there are a few.

The ghost sign for Spann, 2013

In 1911 there is an Ann Jayne Spann who was living at 35 Chapel Road, Didsbury, along with three Thomas Spann’s, one at 5-7 Oak Street who was a joiner and builder, another at 114 Burton Road who described himself as a house furnisher, and lastly a cabinet maker listed at 35-37 Wilmslow Road.

As yet no Thomas Spann appears on a Didsbury census return which would offer up a link to a Mrs. Spann, but I will broaden the search.

But for me there is an intriguing link which is the ghost sign on the gable end of 683 Wilmslow Road, which is now home to Costa Coffee, but in 1909 was number 35 and 37, and the premise of Thomas Spann whose name is still there and who appeared in an earlier story.***

Thomas and his wife Laura occupied number 37, and I rather think this maybe our Mrs Spann.

There are still the other “Didsbury Ladies” to find, and somewhere more references to the Didsbury Relief Fund, and who knows there may be family of Mrs. Spann in Didsbury.

And it turns out that there was a Thomas Spann who owned a  car and motorcycle shop at the Didsbury end of Barlow Moor and whose son was a TT racer.  Their home was in Cheadle which has set me off looking once more.

Location; Didsbury

Pictures; Manchester Courier, September 1914, courtesy of Sally Dervan, and the ghost sign, 2013 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

 * Manchester Donations, Manchester Guardian, August 13, 1914

** Mr. H H Bowden, Correspondence, Manchester Guardian, October 8, 1914

***A ghost sign in Didsbury, a cabinet maker and the disappearing coal yard, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2015/11/a-ghost-sign-in-didsbury-cabinet-maker.html

Solving the mystery of the lost Didsbury school ...... and its war memorial

Yesterday I was on Burton Road with a series of pictures taken by Barbarella of the former church and its war memorial.*

The war memorial, 2017

Over the years I have written about both.**

But until yesterday I always assumed that the memorial had been erected by the church, but according to one source, it had been relocated from St Mary’s to what was St Luke’s Mission Hall”.***

Now I quite naturally concluded that St Mary’s was another church, but a search of the directories drew a blank.

So while there were a few churches of that name none were listed in the Directory for Didsbury, and given that most of the young men came from our township, it threw up a mystery.

But mystery’s are to be solved, and St Mary’s turned out to be a school on what was once Chapel Street, and is now Whitechapel Street, behind Barlow Moor Road and Wilmslow Road, with its church on Queens Road.

The former Church Northern Grove, 2020

The school appears on the 1893 OS map and in 1911 it was listed as “261 mixed and infants; average attendance 122, Charles Ayres, master”.

And that rather at present seems to be that.

There is no reference to the school in the records kept by the Archive and Local History Library and so far I have turned up just the one image of the former school taken in 1973, by which time it had been converted into industrial use.

Sadly the building has now gone,  replaced by a set of apartments.

The former school, Whitechapel Street, 1973

I shall go on looking for its story, but for now I will close with Charles Cyril Futvoye of Clyde Road, who is on the memorial and will have gone to the school.

He enlisted in 1916 aged 22, giving his occupation as “Motor salesmen” and he was assigned to the Army Service Corps.

His bother George had also enlisted just two years earlier and was one of the Manchester Pals, belonging to the 20th City Battalion of the Manchester’s.

Both had been to University and had served in the Officer’s Training Corps.

George survived the war, but Charles did not.

And I wonder if George was present when the memorial was moved from St Mary's to St Luke's.

Which is a way of saying I got the connection with the school wrong, and for that I have to thank Maureen Stephenson who responded to the original story with, "The following information is from Pam Siddon's booklet West Didsbury - A Walk on the West Side. Hopefully, it will solve the St. Mary's mystery. 

Queen's Court, site of St Mary's Church, 1956

On the opposite side of the St. Aidan;s United Reform Church, on Palatine Road was a St. Mary's Church, St. Mary's was demolished in 1929.

St. Mary's had been built in when the parishioners of St Luke's on Burton Road became very resentful at having to attend services there. The road was badly lit, the pavements dirty and hardly anyone lived nearby. 

In 1888 they held a meeting and agreed to build a temporary church on Palatine Road. 

St. Mary's was a wooden structure of pitched pine with a corrugated iron roof which was always known as 'The Iron Church'. The organist and choirmaster, Samuel Lamford, was the music critic of 'The Manchester Guardian'. (Andrew, the church may have been on the site of the present day Queens Court flats?)"

I can't explain its but it appears on the 1893 OS map and  is still there on the 1933 OS, but has gone by 1956, when the present flats are recorded on the site.

All of which just leaves me to thank Maureen and appeal for pictures of the church

20th Platoon of E Company, 20th City Battalion of the Manchester's 1916

Pictures; the war memorial Burton Road, 2017, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, , Burton Road, 2020, from the collection of Barbarella Bonvento, the former St Mary’s school, 1973, J F Hughes, m21570, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass 
 and the 20th Platoon of E company, 20th City Battalion of the Manchester Regiment, Manchester City Battalions Book of Honour, 1916

*Feeding centres, a war memorial and the British Mountaineering Council ….. doing the essential walk and making it historic .... no. 11, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/05/feeding-centres-war-memorial-and.html


**Stories from a Didsbury war monument, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2019/03/stories-from-didsbury-war-monument.html

***War Memorials, https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/warmemorials/st-mary-s-church-school-t5140.html