“had a very rough time of it” …… letters form Harpurhey ….1916

I am looking at a letter sent by Jack Scott to a Mr. J. J. Clayton in January 1916.

So far, a preliminary search for both has revealed nothing, despite knowing that Mr. Clayton lived in Clacton on Sea.

The letter was sent from B7 Ward, Alfred Street Hospital, Harpurhey and carries the post stamp, “Posted by a Wounded Soldier 2nd Western General Hospital, Manchester”.

Now, the hospital was one of the Manchester schools taken over by the military to care for soldiers recovering from wounds.

In all eight had been requisitioned between the outbreak of the war and 1915 as the casualties’ figures rose.*  

Alfred Street School was the forty-second Municipal school to be built for the City, and the foundation stone was laid by Mrs Pankurst in 1904.

It catered for 1,100 students and cost £18, 850. 

In her address Mrs. Pankhurst praised Manchester Education Committee for the way it was “training up it’s future citizens [and was pleased] that the education of the girls was to be equally considered with that of the boys”. **

But the requisitioning of the eight schools resulted in the loss of 3,897 school places, but would create provision for over 1,000 wounded soldiers***

Just what wounds Jack Scott was recovering from is unclear, but he does write that he “had a very rough time of it and never expected to recover [adding I am one of the lucky ones”.

And in the January of 1916, he in an upbeat mood, that he was soon to be released after a set of tests, one of which had already confirmed that “no germs had been found”.

All of which would hasten his return to the Front and here he expressed a wish not “to go to the East again [but] don’t mind France”.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; letter from Jack Scott to  Mr. J. J. Clayton in January 1916, courtesy of David Harrop

*Central High School for Boys and Girls, Whitworth Street, requestioned 1914, Alfred Street , Harpurhey,  Alma Park, Levenshulme, Grange Street, Bradford, Lilly Lane, Moston, Ducie Avenue, Moseley Road, and Heald Place, Andrew Simpson, Manchester Remembering 1914-18, 2017

**New School at Harpurhey, Manchester Guardian, Oct 17th, 1904

*** Margaret Edwin Sparshot, 2nd General General Hospital, Manchester 1914-1919

Down on Rochdale Road ……. with the Embassy Club

This is Peter Topping’s painting of the Embassy Club on Rochdale Road.

For many it will of course be one of the venues across the City where you could still watch live entertainment.

But for me who collects Temperance  Billiard Halls, this is another one for the collection.

The Temperance Billiard Halls were an important aspect of the Temperance Movement and  many in the were built by The Temperance Billiard Hall Co Ltd, which had been founded in 1906 and was based at 3 Ford Lane in Pendleton.

In 1911 the temperance empire, included sites on Moss Lane East, Stockport Road, Ashton Old Road, Bury New Road, Broad Street, Eccles New Road, Liverpool Road, Station Road, Altrincham, Cross Street Sale, Manchester Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Wilmlsow Road, Rusholme, Hyde Road in Gorton, Stretford Road, Old Trafford, Cheetham Hill Road, as well as this one on Rochdale Road.

I can’t as yet be sure when it was built, but it will be sometime between 1903 and 1909.  Nor can I be quite sure when it closed, but I do know that in 1958 it became Bernard Manning’s Embassy Club.

And along with places like the Golden Garter in Wythenshawe, the Princess Club and the Mersey Hotel, it was a place to enjoy live entertainment at a time when many people were opting to stay at home in front of the television.

In the case of the Embassy Club the big attraction was Mr. Manning himself, and here there is a great divide between those that found him funny and those that thought much of his act was at best questionable and at worst offensive.

Personally, I didn’t find him funny, but then nor did I like most of the “alternative comedy” which in the 1980s came to dominate both television and a lot of the cubs.

All of which I suspect flows from the fact that I was brought up with the Goons, ITMA, and the Glums, and pretty much stopped laughing after Beyond the Fringe and That Was The Week that Was.

Location; Harpurhey

Painting; The Embassy Club © 2012 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures. www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

The letter from Harpurhey ……………

The letter sent by Mr. Jack Scott from the military hospital on Alfred Street in the January of 1916, is a mix of optimism, pleasure at some good news and a reflection on the future.

Posted by a Wounded Soldier, 1916

In that sense it will not be different from the millions of similar letters that were sent during the Great War.

Mr. Scott, commented on “the good news”, adding “it’s a pity it was not a decrease of £90 a year, but we must not grumble, if we manage to get a decent man, we shall be a happy little party”.

Just what the money was for, and what the “decent man” was engaged to do is lost forever.

But we know “he was getting on very well”, despite some upsets leading him to confide that “I have a had a very rough time and never expected to get better.  I’m one of the lucky ones.  I don’t want to go to the East again, don’t mind France”.

B7 Ward, Alfred Street Hospital, 1916

Just where in the East he served is not made clear, and so far, a search of the military records have thrown up a number of men who might be Mr. Scott.

Nor have I been able to locate the recipient of the letter who was a J. J. Clayton of the Post Office, Clacton-on-Sea, but I am confident that in time both will come out of the shadows.

For now, I shall finish with the hospital, which until 1915 had been Alfred Street School, which catered for 360 boys, 420 girls and 320 infants.

Alfred Street School, 1911

It was one of seven schools which the Government had taken over in the March of that year and prepared to accommodate 1,015 wounded soldiers.

According the chair, reporting back to the Manchester Education Committee, these were the “municipal Central School at Ducie Avenue; Grange Street School Bradford; Alfred Street School, Harpurhey; Lily Lane School, Moston; Mosley Road School, Fallowfield; Atherton Street School, Deansgate; and Heald Place School”. *

In response to a question about the provision of education for the displaced students, he replied “If you can tell me, I shall be glad. 

We shall have to go into the whole thing, so that it may come before the Committee, later.”

That something, became part time education for the displaced students and a series of ad hoc provision by Manchester University, all of which is covered in great detail in Manchester Remembering 1914-18. **

By the end of 1915, a total of 14 schools had been taken over, across the city, and into Salford, Stockport and Trafford, and another four during 1917-18.***

Leaving me just to point the interested to the follow up stories, at A new book on Manchester and the Great War


And with that outrageous bit of self promotion out of the way, I am pleased that the school does still exist.

Harpur Mount Primary School, 2019

The foundation stone was laid by Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst on October 15th 1904, cost £18,850, and is now known as Harpur Mount Primary School.

Location Harpurhey, Clacton-on-Sea

Pictures, the letter, 1916 from the collection of David Harrop, record of Alfred Street School, Slater’s Directory of Manchester and Salford, 1911, and Harpur Mount Primary School, 2019, courtesy of the school.

*Schools for Hospitals, Eight Thousand Scholars to be displaced, Manchester Guardian, March 16th, 1915.


**2nd Western General Hospital, Manchester, 1914-1919, 1919

*** Manchester Remembering 1914-18, Andrew Simpson, 2017, and

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

Waiting for something to happen ........ that building in Queens Park

The house in the Park, 2018

Now I know if I go looking I will find out the fate of the house at the gates of Queens Park in Harpurhey.

I just choose not to, on the firm assumption that someone will tell me.

In what is an awful admission I have to come clean and say I have never visited Queens Park.

All the other big Manchester parks have had the privilege of my presence at some time over the last half century but the one on Rochdale Road just got left of my list.

The house in the Park, 1968

But Andy Robertson was there at the back end of March and took the picture of the lodge as it is now, all boarded up and forlorn.

Having posted it over, he then went looking for an earlier pictures and found one from 1968 taken by L.H.Price.

The rest I leave to whoever wants to write 200 words on “the building at the gates of Queens Park, then and now”

Location; Harpurhey

Pictures; the building at the gates of Queens Park, 2018 from the collection of Andy Roberts, and in 1968, L.H.Price, m4143, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass