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

In Manchester voting in the Parliamentary election of 1844

“This day may be characterised as one of great activity, bustle and preliminary preparation, on both sides, for the completion of the canvas, and for bringing up the voters”*

Manchester Guardian, May 1844

And in the 171 years since the election of 1844 little has changed for the election team, the candidates and the voters.

So while there is not the violence or the bribery and voting is carried out in secret there is much that would be familiar to a voter from 1844 looking at an election today.

They might be surprised at how restrained the candidates were when talking about each other and mystified at the lack of dirty tricks and intimidation practised by the leading members of the political factions.

But they would be at home with the banners and posters and the sheer excitement of the outcome.

Yesterday we followed our 27 voters into Manchester from Chorlton where they voted at the Bush Inn on Deansgate.

James Bracegirdle, Methodist

They were a mixed bunch of “gentlemen,” business types and farmers.  Over half qualified to vote by virtue of owning property while the remainder were tenant farmers.

But only two were absentee voters, which contrasts with another rural area down south where just fifty percent lived in the place they cast their vote.**

It is a practice which sits a little uncomfortably with our modern ideas of democracy as does the practice of voting openly and having your vote recorded in the Poll Books.

Now not all of these Poll Books have survived but where they do they give a fascinating insight into how a community might vote.  Of course some care has to be taken with them.

Our 27 represented about 9% of the entire adult population and there is plenty of evidence that the open nature of voting led to some tenants feeling that they could be intimidated by the landlords.

Just nine years earlier the vote in Chorlton mirrored the wishes of the big Tory grandees who forcibly expressed their preferences.  So of the sixteen tenant farmers who were qualified to vote, twelve farmed land from one of these big Tory landowners.

They may not have voted for the “big family’s wishes” and it is equally possible that they shared the same outlook, but as we saw yesterday the Tory candidate received 72% of the vote here.

Jeremiah Brundrit, Methodist

Of course some of our electors were well off enough to be independent of any such intimidation and this may have included the small group of Methodists.

In total we have the names of 72 Methodist families who were active in the years up to 1851 out of a total of 119 families.  Not all of these have revealed their occupations but of those who have, seventeen  were farmers and market gardeners, nine  in trade and retail, forty four were labourers, one, Betty Moores was a charwoman and one a servant.***  
There were also a policeman, a coachman and a sailor.

Few of the farmers worked large amounts of land; most were market gardeners making a living from less than 5 acres.

But even given this middling to lowly economic status Chorlton Methodists represented a large number of those entitled to vote in the reformed Parliament.

In 1832 of the 21 electors, eight were Methodists of which 5 were freeholders and three tenant farmers.

I doubt that will ever know whether they went together to Manchester to vote and sadly the Poll Book for 1844 is not available so it is impossible to hazard who they voted for or if they all voted the same way.

At least we know that James Holt of Beech House consistently voted Tory.  He had a fine house in a large estate stretching from the corner of Beech Road, down to High Lane, along High lane almost to Cross Road and back along Cross Road to Beech Road.  He had made his money in calico engraving in Manchester and moved from his fine house in St John’s Street to Chorlton in the 1830s.

But he retained his right to vote in Manchester and had two votes.  And his story is for another time.

Pictures; from the Manchester Guardian, May 1844, Jeremiah Brundrit and James Bracegirdle from the Wesleyan Handbook, 1909, data from the electoral register for 1832

*The Manchester Guardian May 29 1844
** This was Eltham in Kent where only 35 of the 67 electors lived in the district.
*** Beech Road Baptismal Records 1807-1847 from The Register of Baptisms, In the Wesleyan Chapel Radnor Street Circuit 1830-1837, microfilm MFPR2120, Local History Library Manchester City Council Libraries, Beech Road Baptismal Records 1807-1850,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; Election leaflet, courtesy of Cllr Mathew Benham 

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

Manchester Withington voted

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

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

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

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

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

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

Location; Manchester

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

Doing elections the old fashioned way ……………

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

All the electoral extravaganza, 1986

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

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

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

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

Calling card, Kirkdale Ward, 1946

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

The Election team, 1986

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

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

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

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

Old fashioned leaflet, 1986

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

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

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

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

Polling Station, 2024

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

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

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

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

Chorlton has its firs Labour MP, Keith Bradley, 1987

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

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

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

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

Dave Black canvassing, 1986

But ever was it so.

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

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

The Conservative Club circa 1910

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A decade in Chorlton elections

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Stories from an election, Chorlton May 1980

It was the first year into a Conservative Government and the 1980 election campaign in Chorlton was fought out on both local issues and national ones.

The Conservative called on the electorate to “Stop The Labour Rot in Chorlton” the Liberals pointed to their growing “revival in the city of Manchester” and Labour reflected on the cost to the electorate after a year of Conservative Government.

So here are extracts from leaflets that the three parties pushed through doors in the May of 1980.

The Conservative candidate was Maureen Vince, the Labour candidate was Harold Brown, and the Liberal candidate was John Commons.

Some wondered about a slogan that called for the electorate to "Stop the Labour Rot in Chorlton," when all three elected councillors were Conservative, but the upshot was a Tory victory, although their vote was well down on previous years.

And in 1986 Labour gained its first council seat here in Chorlton with the election of David Black.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Off to the pub to vote in the Parliamentary election of 1844

“Voters in respect of property in the several townships or places of Chorlton-with-Hardy, Heaton Norris, Moss Side, Reddish, Withington, Urmston are to vote at Booth No 11, at the rooms adjoining the Bush Inn, in Deansgate, Manchester.”*

The Bush Inn, Deansgte

Well that pretty much would have added to the fun of voting in 1844.

Of course first you had to get into Manchester which was a 4 mile hike.

But these electors were men of property and if they didn’t own a coach or could share one then there were always the twice daily package boats from Stretford along the canal which transported passengers in comfort and speed.

A ticket for the front room cost 6d [2½p] and the back room 4d [1½p].

And once landed at Castlefield it was but a short walk up to number 106 Deansgate where the Bush Inn stood.

It’s gone now but it was on eastern side of Deansgate between Lower King Street and St Mary’s Street in the middle of a block of eight properties of which four were pubs.**

Now not everyone got to vote in a pub, but many did.  The unfortunate depending on your inclination might have gone to the Town Hall but plenty more voted in or next to a pub or hotel.

Elections were carnivals where treating electors was common, shady practices embraced and violence and alcohol went hand in hand and in 1835 Mr Pickwick became part of one.

It was late in the evening when he and his companions, dismounted from the roof of the Eatanswill coach.*** they had come to this small country town with the express purpose of observing a Parliamentary election and they were not disappointed.

The town was decked out with the colours of the opposing parties; a crowd was listening to an impassioned speech on behalf of one of the candidates, while the rival party had employed men with drums to drown out his speech.   Meanwhile a group of voters were locked up in the coach house of the White Hart and constantly plied with drink to ensure they remained drunk and unavailable to the opposing party’s agent.

Jeremiah Brundrit one of our 27 electors

Not that this agent was over concerned for as he confided to Mr Pickwick,

“We are pretty confident, though, we had a little tea-party here, last night -- five-and-forty women, my dear sir -- and gave every one of 'em a green parasol when she went away.' 
    'A parasol!' said Mr. Pickwick.
 
'Fact, my dear Sir, fact. Five-and-forty green parasols, at seven and sixpence a-piece. All women like finery -- extraordinary the effect of those parasols. Secured all their husbands, and half their brothers -- beats stockings, and flannel, and all that sort of thing hollow. 

My idea, my dear Sir, entirely. Hail, rain, or sunshine, you can't walk half a dozen yards up the street, without encountering half a dozen green parasols.'

Moreover they had already secured all the public houses leaving their opponents nothing but the beer shops.
All of which chimes in with press reports of the 1844 by election which was a contest between the Liberal William Brown and the Tory William Entwhistle.

“Several of the election booths were much crowded; and there was considerable bustle and animation in the various districts from the coaches and cabs driving about, .....The vehicles hired by Mr Entwhistle’s friends were distinguished by small blue banners and by large blue placards, containing exaggerated statements."

Not that the Tories were any better.  In the Ashton district of the constituency they spread the story that the leading free trader Richard Cobden was not endorsing the Liberal candidate which forced Cobden to publically declare that “Mr Entwhisle’s friends have put forth a placard at Ashton-Under-Lyne that I have deserted the cause of our excellent candidate Mr Brown.  It is false.”

So nothing new there then.  And equally both election teams were adept at talking up their side and issuing regular updates on how each candidate was favouring.

All of which was possible as elections were still held in the open in full view of all who wanted to record who a voter supported.

And in an effort to reduce the Liberal lead the Tories, brought “up large bodies farming tenantry polling in this district, and they managed to reduce it to 35; but were never able to turn the scale or even bring it lower.”

But this was Manchester where Liberal support might be reckoned to be strongest, across the large South Lancashire constituency the Tories held on to the seat with a majority of 598.

As for Jerremiah Brundrit I rather think he may have given the drink a miss.

Tomorrow; more about our electors, including who they were and how they voted.

Pictures; detail of Deansgate from the OS map of Manchester, 1842-44, courtesy of Digital Archives http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and Jeremiah Brundrit

* Manchester Guardian, May 29 1844
** These were from Lower King Street The Star Hotel, followed by the Bush Inn and the Golden Lion and lastly by St Mary's Street, the Three Arrows
*** Dickens, Charles Pickwick Papers Chapter 12 1836-37

What's in a postcard? ........ Chorlton in 1994

Now I came back across this postcard today and was immediately drawn into it, not least because as postcards go it is a very late one.

Look closely and much of the detail looks very contemporary.  And so it should because it dates from 1994.

Of course there have been some changes, Cafe on the Green in the top right hand panel has undergone many changes of name and owners while Richard and Muriel’s next door is now an estate agent nor has the Pot Shop on Wilbraham Road once home to a collective of potters survived.

All of which makes it the most recent postcard in the collection and quite a novelty given that the practice of sending this type of card had all but stopped by the 1990s.

As my friend Lawrence once remarked such cards are just not stocked in local shops anymore, added to which when you do find them the cost of sending them is prohibitive and there is no chance they will arrive on the same day.

And a hundred years ago people regularly sent such postcards so confident that they would arrive within hours of being posted that they were often used to arrange a meeting later in the day.

But this is not in fact a post card; it is an election communication reminding people that “If you want a poster for your window, a car lift to the polling station, or wish to join” contact the election agent.  I should have recognised it as I took the photographs and in those long far off days will have delivered some of them in the run up to the May 5th election.

I had all but forgotten it but it served to remind me that often we see what we want to see.  I assumed I was looking at a postcard and took this one at face value until I turned it over and instead had to smile at the ingenuity of choosing to combine such an old fashioned style with a pretty neat take on electioneering.

And the embarrassing postscript, I had posted it as 1988, and it was Lawrence who corrected me.

Some days even when you lived through it you get it wrong.

Perhaps to lift that 1960s throwaway comment "If you remember the 1990s you weren't there". Or dreaming of the 60s.

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson from the original produced by Lawrence Beedle, 1994 and donated by Steve Henderson whose house I might have delivered it to.

100 years of political images

The story of the political history of Chorlton over the last 100 years has yet to be written. In the meantime here are three images from the last century of local political campaigns.

In 1904 Harry Kemp along with the other two Progressive candidates issued their election address for the first local election since Chorlton joined the city of Manchester.

Just over 70 years later Tony Walker photographed the sign outside the Conservative Party Offices when Chorlton returned three Tory councillors.












And in 1986 the Labour Party issued the first of a number of leaflets during their campaign which saw the election of the first Labour councillor.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; from the collection of Tony Walker and Andrew Simpson

Chorlton & Didsbury voted ….. Local elections May 2022

So yesterday we went to the polls.

Midday in the sun at the Polling Station, 2022

Once upon a time in Manchester the counts would be conducted on the night, and within a few hours the results would be known.

That immediacy added to the drama of the election.

After a long day of campaigning, a brief visit to the pub to thank all the volunteers, the candidate, agent and a small team would make their way into town and the Town Hall where the counts were undertaken.

And in some cases arriving at the same time as the ballot boxes.

The contents of those boxes would  then be delivered to the relevant "counting room", the ballot papers counted to verify that all had arrived,  followed by the serious business of counting each candidate's votes.

These would be put into bundles which would be stacked at the front, and as the count continued it would be possible to estimate who was winning.

The rest was the declaration of the winning candidate, some cheers, speeches from the winner and losers, and then into the night to celebrate or not at a venue booked in advance.

But now many local authorities choose to count the votes the following morning, when all, and most importantly those doing the counting are fresh.

All of which makes perfect sense but delays the results, and takes the edge off the drama while leaving  the candidate, a few more hours of waiting.

Still in the case of Manchester some of the results will be through by midday, unlike the remote parts of Scotland where we might have to wait days.

But nothing like that stretch of eternity in the 1945 General Election when the results of the "service votes" held in far away theatres of war took weeks to trickle home.

So, this blog story has come to you later in the day, courtesy of the Elections Office at the Town Hall and the Manchester Evening News.*

Leaving me just to reflect that turn out in the 4 seats was higher than in other parts of the city, with Chorlton on 41.21%, Chorlton Park on 36.73% , Didsbury East, 44.61% and Didsbury West at 44.61%.

And at the Manchester City Councils, Election site, you can trawl past local, national and European results, and for those even more nerdy there the election records on the Guardian newspaper site right back into the 19th century.

The Guardian results along with the Guardian and Manchester Guardian are available online from Manchester Public Libraries.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Polling Stations, May 5th 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Local Election Results, Manchester City Council, https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/500329/elections/4981/the_next_election/3

Socialism in Suburbia …………. more stories of Chorlton, Withington and Didsbury

Socialism in Suburbia is a slim pamphlet of just fourteen pages and sadly to day is very difficult to obtain.*

Forward The Day Is Breaking, 1910

My copy comes courtesy of Jeff Bridson and is an electronic version of his photo stated pages, which look to have been copied many times.

The original was written by Rhys Davies MP, and published in 1930 by the National Co-operative Publishing Society.

It is a fascinating account of the early years of the Labour Party in the old Withington constituency which included Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Withington, and Didsbury.

Socialism in Suburbia, 1930

At the outset Mr. Davies reflected that this was “suburbia in excelsis; [which] has more rich, petty bourgeoisie within its borders than almost any other part of England”.  Added to which “there is hardly a trade union branch to be found anywhere; there are no industries of any kind within in its confines; it is a residential area throughout.  

But within this vast political province there are hundreds, if not thousands, of trade union officers by the score make their home here.  The Woodworkers Society’s head office is right in the heart of things, whilst the Typographical Association of the National Union of Distributive and Allied Workers, and the Ironfounders’ Society Headquarters are just on its boundaries”.

The story began with a meeting called by the Clarion newspaper in 1906, requesting that “Socialists of the commercialized districts, come together at a meeting at the White Lion”.

A dozen attended and later meetings were held in the home of Mr. C.W. Hunt who became a Labour representative on the local Board of Guardians, and amongst others who regularly attended were Dr. Tom Garrett and Mrs. Garrett who also sat on Chorlton Union Board as socialist Guardians.

At which point it is worth pointing out that here in Chorlton the first socialist society had been formed in 1894, and while the evidence is fragmentary, they were active throughout that decade and into the next. **

R.J. Davies, MP, date unknown

None of which detracts from Socialism in Suburbia which gives a detailed account of those early years including how campaigning was undertaken, the results of municipal and Parliamentary elections, and the difficulty of “converting Withington’s inhabitants to Labour and Socialism”, with Mr. Davies commenting that “The achievement of not losing our £150 deposit in 1929 was regarded as much a victory as winning Ardwick, Clayton Gorton Hulme or Platting would be to Labour adherent’s resident within those constituencies in Cottonopolis”.

Not that he was a stranger to political campaigning.

He was born in 1877 in Wales, began work as a farm servant, before becoming a coal miner for ten years and then a cashier “to a co-operative society in financial difficulties and began at once to organize co-operative employers into a trade union.  

After four years in co-operative service, he was offered a post in the central offices at Manchester of the old Amalgamated Union of Co-operative Employees” ***

R.J.Davies, speaking, 1945

His record in Manchester in the labour movement is impressive, having been President of the Manchester and Salford Trades Council, as well as the Manchester and Salford Labour Party, was a City Councilor for ten years, and then elected as MP for Westhoughton in 1921, a seat he held till his resignation due to ill health in 1950.

Reading his speeches, I am struck with the range of the issues he embraced, as well as his knowledge, passion and commitment.

He campaigned on worker’s rights, the cotton industry, international peace and the welfare of children as well as calling for a national homeland for Jewish people.

Nor was he afraid of criticizing senior Labour members of the wartime coalition government, as well as  voting against the Labour Government in 1947 over the introduction of National Conscription.

But he remained firmly committed to the Labour Party,  taking  great pride in the Labour landside of 1945, and was seen on the first day of the new Parliament “pushing and chuckling his way to the Chamber, calling to a friend “Heavens above.  It might be a Labour party conference’”. ****

Members of Withington CLP circa 1990s

All of which brings me back to his book, and his closing comments that “this Suburbia and home of Manchester’s intelligentsia might well be won for Labour”, which was indeed the case in 1987 when Mr. Keith Bradley took the seat from the Conservatives.

Location; Withington, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Didsbury

Pictures; Labour Party poster, 1910, front cover of Socialism in Suburbia, 1930, R.J Davies, date unknown, R.J. Davies,MP,  speaking in 1945, and members of Withington CLP, circa 1990s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson


*Davies, Rhys, Socialism in Suburbia, 1930

**Beedle, Lawrence, Chorlton’s Socialist History 1996

***The Staffordshire Sentinel, April 14th, 1925

****R.J. Davies, Manchester Guardian, November 3rd, 1954