A will ……. the Eltham Hutments and a soldier of the Great War

There are always stories, and some are more unexpected than others.

Well Hall Road and the hutments circa 1920

This one concerns a will, the Eltham Hutments and a soldier of the Great War.

Now as someone who had grown up in the Progress Estate I was well aware of its connection with the Royal Arsenal and the Great War, but didn’t know that there had been a whole set of “Hutments” constructed at the same time.

They were more temporary and all had gone before we settled in 294 Well Hall, so it was a revelation when I firs came across them and more so when I discovered a connection between them and George Davison, from Manchester who served in the Royal Artillery and was stationed in Woolwich.**

The Will, 1918

In the March of 1918 he made his will shortly before embarking for the Western Front.

It was witnessed by H M Drinkhall and V L Dade, and was hand written in a single sheet of note paper and is simple and the point. “This is the last will and testament of me George Gurnel Davison of Birch Vale Cottage, Romily, Cheshire.

I give devise and bequeath to my dear wife Mary Ellen all my property whatsoever and wheresoever and I appoint her sole Executor of this my will.”

By the time he made the will he had served with the Royal Artillery for four years and spent time in London and Ireland but now with the German offensive in full swing he was about to go to France, and as we know would be killed just three months later.

In one of his letters to his wife he had mentioned the Drinkhall family and how they were looking forward to her coming back to stay.

And that set me off looking for them, and in that I was helped by my friend Tricia, who located them to one of the hutments on what is now the site of the old Well Hall Odeon, which is just a few minutes walk from our old house.

That hutment will be one of those near the top of our picture, and takes me off on a number of different directions.

Detail of the hutments, circa 1920

In time Tricia and I will go looking for more on the Drinkhall’s, but for now I like the idea that someone I was writing about in connection with a book should have spent time just yards from where I lived.***

But it also points to an interesting aspect of the war, which was that Mrs. Davison visited her husband while he was stationed around the country.

As well as staying with the Drinkhall’s, she spent time in Ireland, where the one surviving photograph of the couple and their son was taken in 1916.

I have no idea if this was a common practice but given the restrictions of train travel and the cost of such journey’s it should be a fascinating area of study.

The Davison family, 1916

For now, I shall just gaze on Tricia’s picture with renewed interest.

Location; Eltham, London


Pictures, Will, 1918, of George Davison and the Davison family, 1916, from the collection of David Harrop, and picture postcard of Well Hall Road, date unknown courtesy of Tricia Leslie

* The Eltham Hutments by John Kennett, 1985 The Eltham Society, http://www.theelthamsociety.org.uk/

**George Davison, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/George%20Davison

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

Mrs Nellie Davison at Well Hall .......... stories behind the book nu 27 making the connection

An occasional series on the stories behind the book on Manchester and the Great War*

Places Nellie would have visited, the parish church, 1915

By now I shouldn’t be surprised at how what seem random bits of history have a habit of becoming entangled and by degree draw me into the story.

Of course I know that theory that you are only seven handshakes away from  the great and the famous but I was not prepared for just how close I came to a couple who lived in Manchester during the Great War.

They were George and Nellie Davison who were married in 1908 and settled in Romiley after living here in Chorlton-cum-Hardy and in Hulme.

George Davison enlisted in 1914, spent time in Woolwich and Ireland and died on the Western Front in 1918.

Duncan and Nellie Davison circa 1916

Over the last three years I have slowly worked my way through the letters he sent and a collection of his photographs, papers and medals.

Nellie spent time with him both in Woolwich and in Ireland which I thought must have been unusual but perhaps not.

And then yesterday I came across a comment from George that a Mrs Drinkal missed Nellie commenting that “she was lost" without the presence of his wife.  Now that letter was sent from Woolwich which offered up a tantalizing clue as to where Mrs Davison stayed and perhaps where George was billited.

Well Hall Road, 1915

And with the help of my friend Tricia from Bexleyheath we think we know where that house was.

Having found one link to a Mr Drinkal I passed the task over to Tricia who came up with the goods

He was she told me “living at 7a Elmbrook Street which appears to be hutments on the site of where the Well Hall Odeon later stood.

William Henry Drinkal and Hilda May Garrod were married in 1916 at Dunmow in Essex and had their first child in 1917.”

All of which fits because a W H Drinkhall witnessed George’s will in March 1918.

Now I know the spelling is different but the coincidences are too close and so I can now place our Nellie in Eltham in 1916 on Well Hall Road.

And the real prize for me is that the Drinkal home was just minutes from 294 Well Hall where our family lived from 1964.

294 Well Hall Road, 2015

So there you have it.......  half a century may separate me from George and Nellie but there is the link.

It would be easy get a bit silly about the connection but for someone who has spent the last few years getting to know Mr and Mrs Davison, sharing their ups and downs and his final fate there is something powerful in knowing that we share the same place.

All of which just leaves me to thank Tricia, and remind  those who live in Manchester that the George Davison collection will be part of the exhibition in July to commemorate the Battle of the Somme in the Remembrance Lodge in Southern Cemetery.

Research by Tricia Leslie

Location, Well Hall, Eltham, London

Pictures; from the collections of David Harrop and Andrew Simpson

Painting; 294 Well Hall Road, © 2015 Peter Topping

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

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

“At present we do nothing at all other than parade” ......... sharing a day in 1915 with George Davison at Woolwich Barracks*

Mr and Mrs Davison and their son, 1916 Ireland

Now I went looking for anything that might have happened on October 27 1915 but the databases proved unrewarding.

“Unfortunately” according to one “there are no historic events for this date” other than it was the day that Herschel Saltzman was born and as everyone knows he  “was a Canadian theatre and film producer best known for his mega-gamble which resulted in his co-producing the James Bond film series with Albert R.”**

So a day of little significance which was pretty much how George Davison of the Royal Artillery described that Monday in 1915 to his wife in a letter home.

Woolwoch Barracks circa 1914

He had enlisted the year before had spent Christmas and most of 1915 in Ireland before briefly being posted to Woolwich and judging by his comments the army was not quite ready for his arrival.

There were no beds but he had managed to “find two blankets and use my coat and trousers for a pillow – the floor is the only bed and it is abominably draughty.  Our German friends (?) chipped pieces off the barracks the other day and part of the roof is being temporarily held up by wooden joists.”

And time hung heavily “at present we do nothing at all other than parade at 6 o clock am 8 am and 1.45 pm to see if any clothing is available.  There are no knives forks or spoons to eat with so you can imagine the result when fingers have to be used.”

George's letter to Nellie, October 27 1915

His experiences were no doubt echoed by his companions and conditions must have been grim given “that there are 1500 more men than the place will accommodate” which accounted for meal times being “something approaching a football scramble.”

Added to which he was still unable to “send a complete address [because] there are about 1000 other recruits to be dealt with before I get posted to any Battery.”

But there were compensations and George had managed to get the pendant and chain his wife had asked for.

Now on the surface it is an unremarkable letter but of course that is what makes it so important, for here stuck in Woolwich was George Davison biding his time as the army coped with the huge numbers of men who had volunteered since the outbreak of war.

For anyone who knows Woolwich Barracks George’s description of his time there will be of special interest more so because of the reference to Zeppelin raids.

And here I have to own up to a personal connection because just under a year after the letter was written the house two doors down to ours on Well Hall Road was destroyed by a Zeppelin bomb.

History of War, Part XXIV October 27 1915

Nor is that the only link with Mr Davison because for a while he lived here in Chorlton-cum-Hardy just a short walk from our house on Beech Road.

But even if there were not these personal links I have over the last year become close to the man as I work my through the collection of letters he sent home to his wife.

The George Davison Collection is a wonderful insight into how one family coped with the Great War and is a neat contrast to a contemporary account of the war issued by the Manchester Guardian every fortnight.***

And by sheer chance the first volume I have is dated October 27 1915 and covers the Italian Campaign, Russian Domestic Politics and the war on the Western Front with the added bonus of a series of adverts for everything from A Sun Bath to Valkasa the Tonic Nerve Food and the Manchester Guardian Christmas Gifts Fun known as "Tommy's Christmas which was “open again for the supply of Comforts for Lancashire and Cheshire Regiments at the Front.”

I will never know if Mr Davison read the history or if he benefited from “Tommy’s Christmas.”

By November 1915 he was back in Ireland and there he would stay till he was posted to the Western Front.

Pictures; of George Davison his wife Nellie and son, the extract from his letter, postcard of Woolwich Barracks and over of the History of War, courtesy of David Harrop.

*The George Davison collection is a unique record of material held by David Harrop and includes letters postcards, official documents many personal items from when Mr Davison was born in Manchester to his death on the Western Front in June 1918 and continues into the middle of the century. George Davison, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/George%20Davison

**HISTORYINDATES, http://historyindates.com/27-october-1915/

***The Manchester Guardian History of the War

A tank, a souvenir, and the soldier far from home in Woolwich

Now the romantic in me would like to think that George Davison bought one of these as a souvenir for his wife Nellie and their son Duncan.

The Woolwich Tank, circa 1918

He was in the Royal Artillery and was stationed in Woolwich during the Great War, first in 1915 and then again in 1917, and 1918 while they were living in Manchester.

That said Nellie spent time with him in “digs” in Ireland and Woolwich so it is very possible that she would have come across this piece of crested china, and took it home from London.

Pieces like this were very popular during the Great War and were turned out in their thousands.

The coat of arms of Woolwich

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

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

Sometimes in their zeal to market across the country they got it wrong, so while you could have bought an ambulance or tank with Manchester’s coat of arms, you could also have bought a model battleship, despite the fact that there was no such ship in the Royal Navy during the conflict.

The Davison's, 1916

Our Woolwich tank is in perfect condition, and bears the name Shelley China, which was a Staffordshire pottery company founded in 1862, only ceasing as an independent business in 1966.

What I particularly like about this one is that it has been acquired by my old friend David Harrop, who is the also the custodian of the George Davison collection which is a fascinating archive of letters, personal documents and pictures, spanning the period from George’ birth in 1886, through to his war service and into the 1950s.

Mr Davison was killed on the Western Front in June 1918, but his wife continued to add to the collection throughout a big chunk of the century.

And what makes the collection just that bit personal for me, is that he appears in the book I wrote about Manchester and The Great War, but more than that he was at one point in 1918  living just down from our family home on Well Hall Road prior to embarkation for France.*

This I know because we have his will he made out in March 1918, witnessed by a Mr Drinkwater who lived on what is now the old Well Hall cinema.

And in a letter to Nellie he refers to her stay at the house which was just minutes from ours.

Nor does the connection end there, because before he married Nellie, he lived in Chorlton-cum-Hardy just a short walk from where we live now.

And while there, at Barway House on Edge Lane he wrote a series of courting letters to Nellie.

Shelley China

All of which makes the tank and the story very personal.

When David told me he had the tank the message just said “Tank coming home” and while it is not going back to Woolwich it will be joining the George Davison collection, and was  pride of place in a major exhibition to mark the end of the Great War, which was on show at Central Ref from in 2018.

Location; Woolwich, Manchester

Pictures; the Woolwich Tank, circa 1918, George Davison, his wife Nellie and son Duncan, 1916 from the collection of David Harrop

*Manchester Remembering 1914-18, Andrew Simpson, 2017, the History Press, 

https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-great-war-how-we-remember-it.html

Woolwich in 1915, a Manchester soldier and a love letter from Chorlton

The Great War is now over a century ago.

Royal Artilery Barracks, Woolwich

During the four years of war  Eltham like the rest of the country saw its men go off and fight and learned to cope with the adjustments to everyday life which followed.

But nothing I suppose could ease the loss of those who never returned.  Some of those who appear on our war memorial are being honoured all over again as work is done to research their lives.

So with that in mind I thought I would rerun some stories of the experiences of those who lived through the conflict, starting with George Davison who passed through Woolwich in 1915 and wrote to his wife,

Arrived safely today. No settled address at present.  Best wishes George.”

Now at first glance there isn’t anything special about George’s message to his wife Nellie even given that it was sent from Woolwich to 146 Bedford Street, Hulme in Manchester.

A post card home  from Woolwich to Manchester, 1915

Thousands of young men every year leave the family home in search of work and until things are settled will not have a permanent address.

But what makes the card just a little more interesting is the date and time for George sent it on October 25th 1915 just in time for the late evening collection.

He was in the Royal Artillery and over the course of the next three years was to serve in Ireland and on the Western Front where he was killed in the June of 1918.

I can’t yet establish when he enlisted but Woolwich may have been one of the first posting after he left Manchester.

And just four days after our post card he sent another to Nellie with the request not “to send any letters to Woolwich until further notice.  Expect leaving this weekend for unknown destination.”

During those few days be bought a number of cards depicting Woolwich but never sent them and they now form part of the George Davison collection.

In all there must be a hundred postcards, letters and official documents from 1915 till 1955.  Many are from George to Nellie and after his death there is correspondence from the War Office, the pensions department and his commanding officer.

In uniform in Wolowich, 1915

There are also his school reports, details of his first job along with the social club he joined and his membership of the Independent Labour Party.

And if that was not enough there is a series of charming letters he wrote to young Nellie before they were married.

The first dates from 1904 when she was just 16 and talks of his recent proposal of marriage and his wish to meet her parents on the following day.

Others follow during the course of the next two years and are the usual love letters sent in the age before the telephone.

But it would be a full four years before they married and another three years before the birth of their son.

This is a wonderful collection of material spanning the last decades of the 19th century and well into the next.

And for me there is a very personal connection which links me to George.

During the years before he was married he lived just a few minute’s walk away at Barway House on Edge Lane here in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, the first marital home was close by in Hulme and we shared a similar political outlook.

All of which then just leaves Woolwich.  He was stationed there briefly in 1915 and I grew up close by separated by just forty years which in the great sweep of things is not much.

I suspect that the Woolwich he knew was still the one I was familiar with in the 1960s and which has now pretty much vanished.

The Royal Herbert

I doubt that he would recognise Beresford Square or Wellington Street any more than I can today, and I am sure would be equally hard pressed to make sense of the area around the Arsenal or for that matter the water front.

Odd that two people separated by those four decades should still have more in common than I would have thought.

But then that is sometimes how history pans out, which is less by grand design and more by a series of hiccups.


Pictures; from the collection of David Harrop

Letters from the Western Front

Mr and Mrs Davison and their son, date unknown

I am rereading the letters of George Davison.*

It has been a moving experience and one that has taken me from his first letters and postcards to his death on the Western Front just five months before the end of that war.

And taken me to Woolwich, Ireland and finally France.

But the collection is bigger than even this because it starts with his school records, includes the letters he sent to his future wife and finishes with the terse official correspondence from the War Office and along with all these is a series of further documents taking us into the 1950s.

They cover his enlistment in Manchester, his time in Woolwich and Ireland before his arrival in France and also reveal the changing addresses of his family.

I have yet to read them in detail but as I move to scan the last letters of May and early June I know that I will soon record his last letter because he was killed on June 17 1918.

And nothing quite prepares you for the knowledge that soon there will be no more letters from George and that the link with his wife of seven years will be severed.

His final letters talk of the irritations of moving around the Front including the loss of personal equipment and the varying quality of the accommodation and on June 15 wrote

The last letter from George to his wife, June 15, 1918

“You would be surprised to see some of our living places – at present we have an excellent dug out about 20 feet below the surface. 

It has however two drawbacks – poor ventilation and only artificial (candle) light.  

Compared to some it is a Palace.”

And this was where he died on June 17 when the dugout received a direct.  All three men in the dug out were “killed instantly” and according to the Royal Engineers who inspected the position “it was not considered safe to recover the bodies.

The dug out was then filled in and is marked as the resting place of your brother in law and his comrade. ”**

Now I have read and reread those last few letters and they still have the power to move me.

I was prepared for the fact that he was killed but you can never quite shake off either the manner of the death or that the description in the letter of July 6.

And that I think is all that needs to be said.

Picture; of George and Nellie Davison and additional material courtesy of David Harrop

*George Davison, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/George%20Davison

*extract of the letter sent to Bdn W.F.Evans, R.A.F, July 6 1918

When Well Hall, Woolwich and Manchester collided........ stories from a book

Now I no longer think it odd that one of the most vivid descriptions of the Royal Artillery’s Barracks at Woolwich should be from letters sent by a young soldier to his wife in Manchester.

George Davison, 1916

Or that his will made in the March of 1918 should have been witnessed by a friend who lived on the site of Well Hall Odeon just minutes away from where I grew up on the Progress Estate.

What links all of these is that they were part of the research I did for a book on Manchester and the Great War which came out last year.*

It told the stories of the people who lived through the conflict, waved loved ones goodbye who were destined for battlefronts around the world, and then got on with the daily demands of earning a living, and bringing up a family against a backdrop of rising prices, and food shortages.

Yesterday I reflected on that “last will and testament" of George Davison who was that soldier and also of his wife Nellie who spent time with the Drinkall family who witnessed the will and who were fond of both George and Nellie.**

In his letter’s home George writes about the conditions in the barracks, the poor quality of the food and the bedding, and the antics of his fellow soldiers.

And more than once I have pondered on the links between me and the Davison’s.

Our house on Well Hall Road would in all probability have been known to them, and I regularly passed the barracks where he was stationed.

Added to which, before he was married he lived just a ten minute walk away from where I live in Chorlton which is a suburb of Manchester.

So while we may have been separated by almost a century I have a strong connection with a soldier from Manchester who lived briefly in Woolwich and Well Hall and became part of my book.

Location; Well Hall, Woolwich and Manchester

Picture; George Davison, 1916, from the collection of David Harrop

*Manchester Remembering 1914-18, 2017, the History Press, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/the-great-war-how-we-remember-it.html

** Mrs Nellie Davison at Well Hall .......... stories behind the book nu 27 making the connection, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/mrs-nellie-davison-at-well-hall-stories.html

Made in Woolwich at the Arsenal in memory of those who died in the Great War

Now I grew up in one of those houses built for Arsenal workers during the Great War, and have read about the munition girls, the vast numbers of shells and bullets which were turned out but had no idea that from 1920 they were also responsible for making these bronze plaques issued to the next of kin who lost loved ones in the conflict.

Memorial Plaque, circa 1919

It measures 122mm in diameter and depicts an image of Britannia holding a trident and standing beside a lion.  Two dolphins swim around Britannia and a second lion appears at the bottom.

Each plaque carried the name of the dead servicemen omitting any reference to a rank and running along the plaque was the inscription “He died for Freedom and Honour” which was changed for the 600 issued to commemorate women to  “She died for Freedom and Honour.” 

In all 1,355,000 were made and they continued to be produced into the 1930s in recognition of those who died of their wounds after the war.

The first were made in Acton in London and in 1920  production was transferred to the Royal Arsenal and here comes the connection with George Davison of Manchester.

He enlisted in 1914, served in Ireland and died on the Western Front in June 1918 and in 1915 and again in 1916 and 1918 he was stationed in Woolwich.

Those made in Woolwich have a special mark on the back which George's has got which marks another link between him and Woolwich and confirms that his was made sometime during or after 1920.

All of which just leaves me to mention his will made in March 1918 in Woolwich shortly before embarking for the Western Front. It is witnessed by H M Drinkhall and V L Dade, and was hand written in a single sheet of note paper and is simple and the point. “This is the last will and testament of me George Gurnel Davison of Birch Vale Cottage, Romily, Cheshire.  

I give devise and bequeath to my dear wife Mary Ellen all my property whatsoever and wheresoever and I appoint her sole Executor of this my will.”

By the time he made the will he had served with the Royal Artillery for four years and spent time in London and Ireland but now with the German offensive in full swing he was about to go to France, and as we know would be killed just three months later.

Location; Woolwich, London

Pictures, memorial plaque, circa 1920 and will, 1918, of George Davison from the collection of David Harrop

Love stories from number 28 Edge Lane

Now here is what looks like a series of love stories featuring no 28 Edge Lane.

But first to the house which for a great chunk of its existence was known as Barway House.

It is still there hidden during the summer by a canopy of leaves but recognisable from this 1958 photograph by A E Landers.

Barway House 28 Edge lane, 1959

It is typical of the sort of house which ran along Edge Lane and dates from the 1880s when it went under the name of Barway Villa.

It seems to date from 1865 and was built by a John M Hazelgrove, who lived there for a year before taking up residence at the Oaks on Edge Lane.

It was then occupied by Mr Arthur Kay Dyson who was in imports and exports with an office at 28 George Street in town.

And in 1881  was the home of Alexander Henry Gilbody and his wife Mary Ellen.

The house in 2018

The Gilbody’s had three children and were cared for by three servants which is what you would expect of a family which appear to have been comfortably well off and living in a 12 roomed house set in its own grounds with a large greenhouse to the south and stables to the rear and a rateable value of £110.

The family were still there a decade and a bit later which neatly offers up the first two love stories.

For on November 8 1891, Philip Matthew Schofield aged 25 married Hanna Crosby from Wales.  She was just 20 and both worked in the house.  Mr Schofield was the coachman and Hannah a servant.

And in the February of the following year Miss Amelia Caroline Sharpe married Harry Wells Currie a hair dresser, both were from Port Maddock.

Barway House on Edge Lane and Barway Road, 1894

Ten months earlier she had been living with her mother and brother at home in Wales and I guess may well have come to Barway House to take the place of the newly married Hannah Schofield.

In time I shall go looking for both couples but for now I shall finish with George Davison who was living at Barway House during the end of 1904 and into the following year.

I did at first think he was lodging there but a little later a George Davison is listed as the caretaker and later still is on the census return.

But this was his father because by then our George had married his sweet heart who he had written to throughout 1904 and 1905.

Some of his courting letters have survived and they are a mix of affectionate comments, concerns about Nellie’s health and descriptions of his studies which take up much of the correspondence

He was set on bettering himself and here are the records of his success in Latin and French along with English and Maths all of which were governed by his desire to do well and offer her a secure future.

From George to Nellie, 1904

But what strikes you more than anything is the frequent reference to the arrangements of where to meet whether it was at the “end of the Grove” or at her parent’s home.

Today all of this would be accomplished by a phone call or a text but back then it was the letter and the postcard which with the frequency of the post meant that arrangements to meet could be made on the same day with the confidence that both would get the message.

By the end of 1905 he was living in Old Trafford and in 1908 the couple were married by which time he was back in Barway House, and from there they started their married life in Hulme.

So perhaps not a tale of great consequences or matters of high politics but just a set of stories of people behind the door of number 28 Edge Lane, a house I have passed countless times but given no thought to.

Pictures; Barway House in North east side, 1958, A E Landers, m17773, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass extract from the OS map of 1894 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ the house in 2018, from the collection of Jonathan Keenan, and letter from George Davison from the George Davison collection courtesy of David Harrop

Peeling back the story of the Molynneux Brothers and thier connection to Manchester & Woolwich

This is one of those stories which bring together Manchester and Woolwich along with a soldier from the Great War and a new resource for anyone interested in our photographers from the 19th and early 20th century.

Sent by George in October 1915 from Woolwich

And not for the first time it confirms my belief that history is messy and can take you in all sorts of directions.

Now I have been writing about George Davison who served with the Royal Artillery from 1915 till his death on the Western Front in the June of 1918.*

Much of what I know of him comes from the Davison collection which contains letters and postcards he sent to his wife Nellie during the Great War, his school records and references to his first job, and his political affiliations.

It comes from a much bigger set of material which has been collected by David Harrop and contains memorabilia from both world wars and much more on the history of the postal service in this country.

George and Nellie Davison with their son, 1915

So back to George Davison who was born in Harpurhey and in the October of 1915 was stationed in Woolwich where sent a series of postcards back to his Nellie in Bedford Street Hulme.

And as you do I idly clocked the name “Molyneux Brothers” who issued the postcards.

They were turning out scenes of Woolwich during the early 20th century and I had come across some of the pictures of the Arsenal about a year ago.

At the time I was curious did a bit of digging but came up with nothing and left it.

But Mr Davison’s post cards renewed my interest which led me to Photographers of Great Britain & Ireland 1840-1940.***

They had a reference to the brothers which in turn led me to explore the census returns and electoral registers for Woolwich which turned up the two brothers with one of them at William Street and another at Thomas Street and  business addresses at both William Street and Welllington Street.

From Slater's Directory, 1911

But that wasn’t all for today Ron who runs the site was back with more and like all good messy history it brought the brothers here to Manchester.

In 1874 there is a reference  to a James Molyneux on Great Ducie Street in Strangeways with another listing a few doors up for 1890 as well as at Norfolk Street in Hulme in 1876.

Unknown Victorian woman date unknown

Nor is this all for in the first decade of the 20th century T & A Molyneux were trading as printers on Great Jackson Street in Hulme.

Of course they may not be related but I think there is a connection.

“I believe James Molyneux was born in 1845 in Liverpool. He was at 65 Great Ducie Street in October 1874 as he registered the death of Samuel Melville, of the same address. Samuel was a fish and poultry dealer but I wonder whether Samuel's wife Ellen Emma might have helped around the house for James as part of their lodging. 

In 1881 James was living at 65 Great Ducie Street with Mary Ann Harrison, servant, Mary White servant and Fred Harrison (presumably some relative of Mary Ann) aged 13 an apprentice. 

I have looked at 55 Great Ducie Street in the 1891 census but it is recorded as uninhabited so I don't why that was.”***

Reverse of  Manchester woman image

The father of our two Woolwich brothers was a John Molineux also from Liverpool who by 1891 was living in Woolwich with his wife Ellen and five children the eldest of whom was called Mary Ann.

Now Mary Ann was born in 1871 in London and so while she cannot be Mary Ann Harrison it was the common practice then as now for children to carry the name of a family relative or close friend.

In the same way the elder of out Woolwich brothers was a John which I know was a common enough name but might link us to the Mr Molyneux of Great Ducie Street.

All of which just leaves the occasional miss spelling of Molineux for Molyneux which appears in one  Manchester directory for the early 20th century but then even printer’s can make mistakes.

So I shall continue to go looking for the Molyneux Brothers both here and in Woolwich.

The buildings they lived in and traded from will have long gone, but there is much information out there including official documents and maybe the odd trade card along with a picture from the digital archive.

We shall see.

And as I finished the story Ron kindly sent me some pictures from the Molyneux Studios
that were taken at 65 Great Ducie Street.

They include both the images of sturdy Victorian worthies and the reversse of the pictures which acted as a trade card, and I am fascinated by the connection with the United States.

All of which just adds another trail to follow up and which is a long way from Woolwich, but then That is how I like my history, messy, diverting and always full of questions.

* Woolwich in 1915, a Manchester soldier and a love letter from Chorlton,  http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/woolwich-in-1915-young-manchester.html

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

*** Photographers of Great Britain & Ireland 1840-1940, www.cartedevisite.co.uk

Pictures; courtesy of David Harrop of Woolwich on Green Hill and the Davison family from the collection of David Harrop and unknown Victorian woman and card  from the Ducie Street studio courtesy of Ron Cosens, Photographers of Great Britain & Ireland 1840-1940

A little bit more on that Burnley mystery

Officers of the B.V.T.C, 1914

Just when you think you are getting to the bottom of a mystery the search takes off in the most unexpected of ways.

Yesterday I was trying to work out what a Manchester man who lived in Stockport was doing in Burnley at the outbreak of the Great War.

He was George Davison who came from Manchester, started his married life in Hulme and went on to live in Romiley in Stockport.

But in 1914 he was in Burnley long enough to be associated with the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps.

And by the end of that year he had enlisted and spent the war in Woolwich, Ireland and later the Western Front.

George's badge, 1914

That he was somehow connected with the Corps is evidenced from two pictures of the unit parading outside St John the Evangelist in Worstholme and an enamelled badge of the Volunteers with his name and the inscription George Davison Company Commander A Coy 1914.

All of which was further confirmed by a postcard with a Burnley address wishing his son Duncan a happy birthday.

The card was sent to Fairholme Road.

Now I couldn’t work out from the handwriting the location of the house but Craig Simpson could and went one better by contacting Burnley Library who then added to the mystery because “all our map, directory, census and electoral registration records show that Fairholme Road was not built until 1922.

There was a Fairholme Street, but the only records we have for this in 1914 show only odd numbers (1, 3 and 5).

Further investigation shows that this is actually one and the same road ....... it changed its name after the opposite row (of even numbers) was built in the early 20's (there is a continuation of residency at Number 5 which can clearly be followed).

The postcard, 1915

So, to clarify – there wasn't a 4 Fairholme (or Fair Holme as it's sometimes written) anything (either Rd or St) in 1914.  Which quite clearly raises more questions than it answers!”

At which point I confess I had not looked too closely at the postcard because the post mark dated it to April 1915, by which time George was in Ireland.

Earlier in the month his wife Nellie had been in Stockport where she seems to have been for most of that year.

But the correspondence for the four years of the war show that she moved out of the cottage in Romiley, spent time back in Hulme and was also for a time living close to George when he was in Woolwich and Ireland.

The family circa 1916

And it may also be that the total absence of any letters in the collection for 1917 was because she had relocated to be near him.

Not that this solves the mystery of Burnley but it does open up the intriguing question of how many other married women followed their husbands to live near them.

Train travel got progressively more difficult during the Great War and there was a continual hike in the cost of rented accommodation but if Nellie did it and did it with her young son others may have also done so.

As for Burnley the address may have been wrong, but that said it did get to Nellie and Duncan because it was in the collection.

Badge, 1914

So I don’t know.

But the family were somewhere in Burnley both in 1914 and again in 1915 which calls for more investigation.
The obvious first step will be to check out Nellie and Georges’ siblings and see who they married and if there was a connection with the town.

And there will also be the Volunteers.

Somewhere there must be a list of who was in the Corps and with that will come more information on the unit itself which will shed local light on the work of those men too old or unfit to enlist but who felt the need to serve.

Now I have every confidence that David and his colleagues at the library and Craig will in the fullness of time turn up more.

Pictures, officers of the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps, the badge of the B.V.T.C., that postcard, and George Nellie & Duncan from the collection of David Harrop

So what was George Davison doing with Burnley Volunteer Training Corps in 1914?

Now I wonder what George Davison was doing in Burnley in the autumn of 1914.

I know he was a clerk who had variously worked for a solicitor and later a “mineral water manufacturer” and that he had moved from Chorlton-cum-Hardy to Hulme and by 1911 was living in Romiley.

All of which makes his presence in the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps a bit of a mystery but that was where he was in 1914.

The Volunteer Training Corps was a voluntary home defence militia made up of men who were over military age or engaged in important occupations and units sprang up all over the country in the months after the outbreak of the Great War.

Although there was a central committee which was recognised by the War Office the individual volunteer training units were not and had to be financially self supporting providing their own uniforms which could not be Khaki.

Later during 1915 these units were recognised as Volunteer Regiments and in the following year the War Office decided to include them into the County Infantry Regiment and they became “Volunteer” battalions of their local regiments.

But by then George had enlisted in the regular army and was in the Royal Artillery first in Woolwich and later in Ireland and then France.

So I am intrigued at his connection with Burnley not least because the family were in Romiley in 1911 and well into the early years of the war

Of course the family may have temporally relocated and later Mrs Davison did sublet the cottage when she moved to London and Ireland to be close to George so it is possible that for a bit of 1914 he or they were in Burnley.

The street directories and electoral roll along with the rate books may provide an answer but that will involve a lot of research.

In the meantime it is another example of just where you can end up.  Until I saw the enamelled badge for the Volunteers I had no idea that the organization had existed or of the part it played during the Great War.

The Burnley Volunteers were active in the early months of the war and this we know from Mr Davison’s participation but also from an advert which appeared in the Burnley News on November 28 1914, in which

“The Committee of the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps have undertaken to Register the names and addresses of those who wish to join a Burnley Pals Battalion.  

To ensure the success of the proposal leave your names and addresses at the Offices, 2 St James Row, Burnley”*

Now that with a bit of digging might offer up a name of an individual linked to the Volunteers and one day I may be able to place that with one of the men from parading sometime in later 1914.

But that for now is about it.

I went looking for the Offices, of 2 St James Row, Burnley but sadly they have long gone, but then until recently the existence of the Burnley Volunteers were unknown to me so who knows what might turn up and with that something more of Mr Davison’s connection with Burnley will come out of the shadows.

Well we shall see.

Pictures; enamelled badge for the Volunteers, and the BVTC C Company on parade, circa 1914 from the collection of David Harrop

*Rushton William, The Accrington Pals, 1993

Christmas 1915 ............ thoughts from George to his wife Nellie

Last  Christmas our Saul was not  with us and he was missed.

All of which makes me reflect on how much harder it must have been for thousands of families a century ago as we moved towards the second Christmas of the Great War.

George Davison was serving with the Royal Artillery in Ireland and while he had hoped to be home for the festival it wasn’t to be.

And so on the evening of December 23rd he sat down and wrote a quick note to his wife Nellie managing to catch the last post of the day.

It was of course shot through with thoughts of Christmas and the wish that Nellie would enjoy her present and get a toy for their son Duncan but just for a moment George reflected on the absence of any letters from his friends and family “since I left home.  I certainly thought I had a few friends but the old saying ‘out of sight out of mind’ is still true.”

But it was a momentary blip in what was an optimistic letter made more so by the news that Nellie had moved from Hulme to Birch Vale cottage in Romily, “you will find it rather lovely but of course there is nothing like having a home of your own.  I hope you will be comfy in it.”

This was to be her home for most of the Great War and into the decades afterwards.

I don’t know if George ever visited the cottage and Nellie did sub let the property for a while near the end of the war but it is still there today and I rather think later next year I shall go looking for it.

All of which just leaves me to finish with George’s closing remarks “with best wishes for a jolly Xmas for yourself and Duncan.”

Picture; extract from the letter dated December 23 1915 from the George Davison Collection courtesy of David Harrop