Joshua Parlby .... another story from Tony Goulding

In celebration of my completion of over 100 stories for this Blog I thought I would indulge myself one more time and return to one of my favourite subjects; Manchester City Football Club.

Panel on the outside wall of the Etihad Stadium, 2022

The club now known as Manchester City first played matches under that name in the 1894-5 season. 

The club had joined the Football League in the inaugural season of the Second Division, 1892-3, under the name of Ardwick.

Playing as Ardwick for two seasons against teams such as Middlesbrough Ironopolis, Bootle and Burton Swifts the club failed to make progress on or off the pitch and indeed by the end of its second season was facing a financial crisis and was desperately short of players.

 At this point of the club’s fortunes, they were indebted to the intervention of their charismatic secretary, Joshua Parlby.  He somehow managed to convince the Football League that Ardwick were a viable club and so they maintained their league status. The club promptly changed its name to Manchester City, the hope being that, that would widen the club’s fan base to the whole of Manchester. It was a further nine years before Newton Heath became the second “Manchester “club. (1)

Joshua Parlby was born, during the March quarter of 1855, in Hope, Hanley, Staffordshire in what is now Stoke-on-Trent.  He was the first child of his parents Joshua and Elizabeth (née Smith) His father was a farm bailiff from West Wratting, Cambridgeshire, where his father, also a Joshua was, “a farmer of 300 acres employing 17 labourers”, according to the 1851 census return.

The Parlby family appears to be absent from the 1861 census for some reason (2) but in the 1871 census they are included. Joshua and Elizabeth and their four younger children Thomas, 13, Ellen, 12, William, 9, and Marshall, 2, at 96, Market Street. Joshua is shown as a farm bailiff, “Out of Employ”, while Elizabeth’s occupation is recorded as a “Manufacturer of Silk Lawns”. Joshua their eldest son aged just 16 was living away from home, lodging with Mrs. Mary E. Giles, a 74-year-old widow, and working as a clerk at 5, Albert Road West, Kingston on Thames, Surrey.

Ten years later young Joshua had returned to Hanley and was back living with his mother and three youngest siblings at 96, Market Street and working as a bookkeeper. Joshua’s father was absent on the night the census was taken. (3)  The following year, 1882, young Joshua married Emily Elizabeth Critchley, the daughter of, the recently deceased, Henry Critchley, a Didsbury-born Publican, who herself was born in Hulme, Manchester, in the December quarter of 1864. The ceremony was held at Trinity Church in Northwood, Hanley, Staffordshire on the 31st August.  Shortly after this wedding the groom himself became a publican.  The comprehensively named “Newcastle Guardian and Silverdale, Chesterton, and Audley Chronicle” dated 26th February, 1887 reported that he was the landlord of the Royal Oak Inn on Stafford Street, Hanley involved in an incident there on the 12th January, 1887. After leaving the Royal Oak in January 1889, as reported by the same newspaper on the 12th of that month, Joshua later became the licensee of the “Roebuck” beerhouse also on Stafford Street, Hanley which according to “The Staffordshire Sentinel” obituary of Joshua on the 20th May, 1916 was “then a well-known football and sporting hou

At this time Joshua was a popular publican with a growing importance in the town of Hanley being elected in July, 1889 its representative on the committee which ran Stoke Football Club (one of the 12 original members of The Football League) and in November, 1891 as a councilor on the Town Council.  He played as a full-back for Stoke Amateurs and was an accomplished cricketer, appearing for Staffordshire club and ground. 

It is perhaps a little surprising then that less than a year after being elected to the town council he chose to move to Manchester, (4) in September, 1892, to become the first paid secretary of Ardwick Football club as it entered, the recently expanded, Football League.

Although he was instrumental in maintaining Ardwick’s league status (5) and the club’s subsequent name change to Manchester City, Mr. Parlby did not continue as its secretary after he had restored the club’s financial stability and oversaw its inaugural season as Manchester City. With Manchester City safely established in the football league and having been a prime mover in the signing of Billy Meredith the club’s first “Star” Joshua returned to the pub trade. He did, however retain an interest in the club, remaining a director and serving on its “team committee".

The Wellington Hotel, Stockport Road

He first kept the Joiner’s Arms in Deansgate, Bolton, Lancashire before becoming, for over a decade, the landlord of The Wellington Hotel on Stockport Road, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester

When he died on the 19th May, 1916, he had moved back to Bolton and was managing the Railway Hotel at 2-4, St. Helen’s Road, Daubhill, Bolton.

 Joshua and Emily had 13 children, though only 10 survived to adulthood.  The first son named after father and grandfather had a distinguished academic career, qualified with a B.Sc. from Manchester University and furthered his studies to achieve an M.Sc. at Trinity College, Cambridge. During the First World War, he served as a military accountant in Mesopotamia for which he was given an O.B.E. in George V’s 1919 new year’s honours list. He later held prestigious posts in both Iraq and India.  On leaving his post, in Baghdad as the “comptroller and auditor general of accounts” he was awarded an insignia of The Order of Al Rafidain by King Ghazi of Iraq. He later was made a Companion of the Indian Empire (C.I.E.) in George VI’s birthday honours list of 1942 for services as the Military Accountant General. After the war he retired to Paignton, Devon with his wife Elizabeth Scott (née Stuart) who he had married, while on leave from Iraq, on the 8th September, 1926 at The Union Baptist Chapel, Oxford Road, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester.

The Union Baptist’s Chapel, Oxford Road

Another of their sons Douglas, died of malaria, aged 26, on the 5th November, 1918 while serving in the 6th Garrison Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers. He is buried in the C.W.G.C. cemetery,  KIrechkoi-Hortakoi near Thessaloniki, Greece.

 Following Joshua Parlby’s death in 1916 his widow briefly managed The Royal Hotel on Vernon Street, Bolton before retiring and moving, with her 5 youngest children, to “Laurel Bank”, 7, Kenwood Road, Longford, Stretford, where she passed away on the 18th October, 1929. By the time of her death of her 10 children, as well as Joshua pursuing his career in the Middle East and Douglas dying in Greece, two other sons had emigrated to British Columbia, Canada; also, three of her daughters had died in quick succession during the 1920s. (Emily Elizabeth in August, 1924, Elsie in August, 1926, and Lucy in February, 1928)

Pictures;  panel on the outside wall of the Etihad Stadium, The Wellington Hotel (m39847 – H. Milligan) and Union Baptist’s Chapel (m71849 – unknown) Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Archives, and Information. Manchester City Council. http://manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Notes: -

1) They remained a “Manchester” Club although after only 8 years as Manchester United they moved to Old Trafford which is, of course, outside the City of Manchester.

2) Joshua’s obituary in the Staffordshire Sentinel did state that he attended Christ’s Hospital School in London (The Bluecoat School) during the 1860s.

3) Joshua Parlby Senior was made a bankrupt in October 1864 and thereafter seems to have fallen on hard times with periods of unemployment and estrangement from his family.  In September, 1869, his wife, Elizabeth, was forced to obtain an order of protection of the income from her lawn manufacturing due to her husband’s “dissipated habits”. (ex “The Staffordshire Sentinel and Commercial & General Advertiser” of Saturday 11th September, 1869) When he died on the 21st February, 1891, he was apart from the family home of 96, Market Street, at 40, Charles Street, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire as shown by the Government Probate Death Index.

4) According to an 1894 rate book the Parlby’s home on moving North was at 31, Halsbury Street, Longsight then in the Gorton Township.

5) The fact that he also served on the Football League’s management committee (1893-99) no doubt aided this endeavour.

Chew and Furniss – the Birth of the “Blues” ... Part 2 .... another story from Tony Goulding

This is the Hyde Road Hotel which in August, 1887 witnessed the meeting where Ardwick F.C. was established. 

The Hyde Road Hotel

Two stalwarts of Gorton (Association) Football Club, Walter Chew, the secretary, and Lawrence Furniss, a former club captain, had ambitions to develop the club into a more professional concern. They wanted to be able to compete against the top teams of the day, twelve of which were to form the professional Football League on the 17th April, 1888 in the Royal Hotel on Market Street, Manchester. In part 1, I told the story of Walter Chew now I move on to that other prime mover at this meeting, Lawrence Furniss.

 While Walter Chew helped establish Ardwick as a force in local football and was responsible for a permanent ground for the club to play their matches at, it was his successor, Lawrence Wain Furniss, who oversaw Ardwick’s entry into the Football League.

  Unlike his predecessor, Lawrence was not a native of Manchester being born on the 18th January, 1858 (1) in Cromford, Nr. Matlock, Derbyshire. His father, Edwin Furniss, was the long-serving stationmaster of the village railway station. 

Cromford Station

Cromford railway station – the ornate building on the left is thought to be the original stationmaster’s house

His mother was Sarah (née Wain) which gave Lawrence his unusual middle name.  Lawrence began his working life working as a railway clerk and was working in that capacity at the time of the 1881 census which shows him as still residing with his parents in Cromford. However, at some stage during the early to mid 1880s decade he moved to Manchester. In 1891, the census recorded him as living, as a lodger, at 128, Kirkmanshulme Lane, Longsight, Manchester. His landlady Mrs. Sarah Bowker was a widow (of William a builder) who had two grown-up children also in her household. These were her son William Henry (26), a buyer for a machine maker, and her 23-year-old daughter, Ellen, an assistant schoolmistress. On the 1st June, 1895 Lawrence married Ellen Bowker at St. Mark’s West Gorton. Rather fittingly the minister conducting the service was Arthur Connell who was also to christen the couple’s first child, Elsie Kathleen, on 26th October, 1896 (born 29th September at 4, Tank Grove, Longsight) in one of his last acts before his retirement. Lawrence and Ellen had two more children, twin daughters, Marjorie and Winifred born on the 1st September, 1901 at 4, Peel Grove also in Longsight.

 As stated above during his tenure as secretary, Ardwick were able to progress to play a higher standard of football culminating in being admitted first to the Football Alliance (2)   in the 1891-2 season and then to the the newly-formed Football League Division 2 the following season. In order to achieve this Lawrence and to confront a perennial dilemma faced by sports teams over the years –to represent an institution, club or area or to try to become more successful by importing better quality players from outside (known in footballing circles as “ringers”). In 1890, Lawrence and a fellow Ardwick official, John Allison, travelled to Scotland to engage some top players of the clubs there. This was a common practice by English clubs at the time as Scottish football was until 1893 a strictly amateur game (ostensibly). The Ardwick “raiding party” were able to sign five leading players.  Lawrence has also been credited with “discovering”, while he was refereeing a game of  Northwich Victoria his former club, the Welsh Wizzard, Billy Meredith, and bringing him to Manchester City. 

Billy Meredith during his "City" playing days

Billy Meredith during his "City" playing days

Billy Meredith, born in 1874 in Chirk, Nr. Wrexham, North Wales, was possibly English Football’s first superstar playing for both Manchester Clubs over a period of 30 years.  

 Sometime during the first decade of the 20th century Lawrence and his family moved out of Manchester to Marple in Cheshire.  He is on the Electoral Roll of 1908 for the Parish of Marple which shows him living at the quaintly named Bottoms Hall, Bottoms, Roman Bridge Lakes. Living close by at “Strawberry Hill” were his older brother, Edwin, variously a land agent / farmer and the manager of a cotton mill, and his nephew Evelyn Oswald who was to die on The Western Front on the 22nd April, 1917. He was 34 years old and serving as a private, with the Durham Light Infantry, when he was killed in action in a battle for the Lens coalfield in Northern France. He has no known grave and is one of the 20,639 names commemorated on the Loos Memorial.

 Lawrence Furniss continued his involvement with Ardwick / Manchester City fulfilling various administrative functions he was a board member from 1903 but the following year fell foul of the Football Association over irregularities in the transfer of two players, J. Thornley and F. Norgrove, to the club from Glossop F.C. As a consequence, he was suspended from taking part in any football related activity from the 4th November, 1904 until the 7th May, 1907. Thus, he avoided involvement in the much more serious charges involving allegations of bribery and illegal payments to players which resulted in dramatic penalties being imposed on the club in 1906. After a spell out of football Lawrence returned to briefly take up the position as the club’s Chairman during the first World War and later held that office from 1923 until 1928. In this latter period, he oversaw the move to the club’s new ground the ambitious purpose-built Maine Road, christened by some as “The Wembley of the North” Three years after his resignation he was appointed Manchester City’s first president.  It was in this rôle that he was injured in a road traffic accident while travelling home from a reserve team match at Maine Road. He was a passenger with a club director, William Menzies Shaw, in a motor car hired from Finglands Hire Car Ltd. when it was in collision with a Manchester Corporation bus in Moss Side, Manchester. At the Manchester Assizes Civil Court on the 7th July 1938, he received £600 compensation for personal injury. (Mr. Shaw was awarded £150)

     Lawrence Wain Furness passed away at 303, Wilmslow Road, Fallowfield, Manchester on the 31st July, 1941. His home at the time was still The Old Mellor Hall, Mellor, Nr Marple, Cheshire. Two years earlier, the 1939 Register recorded him as a widowed (3) Land Agent living there with his unmarried daughter, Marjorie.

Pictures   Hyde Road Hotel m 27241 Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Archives and Information Manchester City Council. http://manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass 

Cromford Station by Geof Sheppard - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83013768

Billy Meredith - by Stevo1000 - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11452244 

Notes: -

1) Lawrence was born in 1858, although in his later years he appears to have “shaved” 4 years off his age. In 1939 he gave his date of birth as 18th January, 1862.

2) Formed in 1889 as an alternative to the football league after 3 seasons the two bodies merged with the formation of the League’s Second Division.

3) His wife had died in the September quarter of 1926 in Didsbury, Manchester.

 

Chew and Furniss – the Birth of the “Blues”, another story from Tony Goulding

Continuing the early history of Manchester City, this is the Hyde Road Hotel which in August, 1887 witnessed the meeting where Ardwick F.C. was established. 

The Hyde Road Hotel

Two stalwarts of Gorton (Association) Football Club, Walter Chew, the secretary, and Lawrence Furniss, a former club captain, had ambitions to develop the club into a more professional concern. They wanted to be able to compete against the top teams of the day, twelve of which were to form the professional Football League on the 17th April, 1888 in the Royal Hotel on Market Street, Manchester.

Walter Chew had recently acquired a new ground for the Gorton club to play on but as this was on waste ground besides some railway arches on Hyde Road, Ardwick, it seemed expedient to change the name of the club to reflect its new location. 

Walter retained the position of secretary of the newly-named club providing a stabilising factor. Although he was still unpaid his was a very important rôle as he was responsible for arranging many of the club’s fixtures (1) and for forging ever more important commercial links with local industry. Some important links were forged with local businesses, in particular, two  major factories between which the new ground 9was sandwiched .   Bennetts Iron foundry, Ardwick, at which a number of the clubs early players worked, and Galloways Boiler Works also a significant employer of the area (at one point over 800 persons had jobs in their boiler works)  who supplied some of the materials to develop the Hyde Road ground.  (2) 

Picture 2

Key: -  Dark blue G Galloways Boiler Works.

            Light green B Bennetts Iron Foundry.

            Light blue   ______   Elizabeth Street.

Walter Chew, was born in Hulme, Manchester on  the 27th, August, 1864 the second child of Thomas, a warehouseman, and his wife Sarah Ann (née Harrison). 

The census of 1871 records Walter, aged 6, living with his parents and an older brother, William Henry (9) at 16, Walter Street, Gorton. By the time of the next census in 1881, the family had moved to 12, Elizabeth Street, West Gorton. (This was the address used for correspondence for Gorton F.C. and later Ardwick’s early years) 

Walter and his brother were both employed as warehouse clerks whilst their father’s occupation was given as “calico printer’s journeyman”. There was also a new family-member, Elizabeth Ann, born in 1872. Another son, Thomas, was born in the June quarter of 1867 but sadly died in the December quarter of the following year. The 1891 census reveals the family still at Elizabeth Street, although William Henry had married in the September quarter of 1886 and moved away. Walter’s occupation was recorded as a mercantile clerk, his father was a warehouseman and his sister was described as a cigarette maker. During these years, however Walter must have also been kept very busy with his work for the Gorton and Ardwick Football clubs.

 

Elizabeth Street

Walter married quite late in life aged 36 to Dinah Smith in the December quarter of 1900; the couple remained childless. Sometime during the 1890s the Chews relocated to Levenshulme, Manchester, where in 1901 that year’s census shows Walter and his new bride living with both his parents at 13, George Street.  Ten years later he was still in Levenshulme but had moved to 14, Cromwell Grove. (3) His father, Thomas, had by then died, in the June quarter of 1907 and his widowed mother had moved to live at nearby 46, Wetherall Street. His occupation in this census was described as “clerk (counting house)” for “cotton spinners manufacturers”

       When the 1939 Register was taken, Walter had moved to 9, Redthorn Avenue, Burnage, Manchester and was recorded as a bookkeeper (retired). He was by then a widower, his wife, Dinah having died in May, 1925. Walter remained at this address until he himself passed away on the 30th August, 1948, while he was staying at Clifton, Towallt Road, Gwespyr, Nr. Prestatyn, Flintshire, North Wales. His estate, valued for probate, was the tidy sum of £4,364 – 7s – 7d. (£162,268 in today’s value)

 

He and his wife are buried in, this grave (H 1401) in the Roman Catholic section of Manchester’s Southern Cemetery. Southern Cemetery. (4)

Walter spent a lifetime in a variety of honorary positions within the game of football. After he had been succeeded as the secretary of Ardwick by Lawrence Furniss he served as the treasurer of the Manchester County Association 58 years.  He also served for a time as vice-president of the Manchester and District Referees and Linesman Association.  His earlier rôles with West Gorton, Gorton, and Ardwick were recognised in a broadcast celebrating Manchester City’s jubilee on General Forces Radio on the 26th July, 1944 together with Billy Meredith and Robert Smith.  

    While Walter Chew helped establish Ardwick as a force in local football and was responsible for a permanent ground for the club to play their matches at, it was his successor, Lawrence Wain Furniss, who oversaw Ardwick’s entry into the Football League. His story will be told in the next instalment.

Pictures   Hyde Road Hotel m 27241 and Elizabeth Street, West Gorton m 23352, Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Archives and Information Manchester City Council. http://manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  Map section and Walter Chew's Grave from the collection of Tony Goulding.

Notes: -

1) Very important as Ardwick were not in a League at this time apart from Cup competitions all matches had to be fixed up on an ad hoc basis.

2) Chesters Brewery who owned the Hyde Road Hotel used by the embryonic Ardwick F.C. as dressing rooms before games was also approached for support.. The managing director of the brewery, Stephen Chester Thompson’s, involvement provided Ardwick with new turf for the pitch and a £400 grandstand at the cost of monopoly rights for beer sales at the matches. As an Alderman representing the Conservative and Unionist Party he had some very influential contacts, one of which was A. J. Balfour the M. P. for East Manchester and a future prime minister. He witnessed the 1904 Cup Final when,  with Meredith scoring the only goal, Manchester City beat Bolton Wanderers 1 – 0 , being one of the first  serving prime minister to attend a Cup Final.

3) He may have also resided at 3, Parker Street, Levenshulme as both the electoral roll in 1909 and the following year's directory show a Walter Chew at this address.

4) I am not sure what Walter's link to the Roman Catholic Church was but his connection helps to explain why Manchester for the most part managed to avoid the the deeply ingrained sectarianism associated with Football clubs in other cities especially in Glasgow and, to a lesser degree, Liverpool. It also was part of the Connells' initial idea and later the desire to create a club for all Mancunians when Ardwick was renamed Manchester City.

    Again I have to acknowledge "The Manchester City Story" (1984) by Andrew Ward.

The Connells and the Birth of Manchester City .... another story from Tony Goulding

 Gorton F.C. 1884/5

 

St Marks West Gorton 

As a long-time supporter of Manchester City Football Club, I am naturally interested in its origins. I have long been aware that the club began life as St. Marks (West Gorton) in 1880 and that it sprang from an idea of the rector of St. Mark’s church, Rev. Arthur Connell and his daughter, Anna. 

They desired to try and combat the drink fueled gang violence often of a sectarian nature that prevailed at the time. To this end they instituted firstly a working men’s club which from the outset would be open to all regardless of faith. 

To give the young men of the area an outlet for their energy in a more positive way the parent club spawned initially a cricket club, in 1879, and the following year the club which after several changes of name was to become Manchester City. As a football fan the above was enough to know, however, as a local historian I wished to know more. I began to investigate the lives of the vicar, his daughter and also the two churchwardens who were enlisted to set up the club – Thomas Goodbehere and William Beastow.

St Mark’s church hall Hyde Road, Manchester.

St Mark’s church hall Hyde Road, Manchester.

Rev. Connell was born in Mallow, Co. Cork, Ireland in 1821.  His father’s name was Patrick and "it is likely that he was christened there on 11th May that year. This record also suggests that his mother’s name was Margaret". (1)

  Arthur Henry Connell married Anna Dwyer the daughter of Alexander, "possibly a prominent local draper and general dealer", at Templemichael, Co. Longford, Ireland on 14th March, 1850. Anna Connell, the couple’s first child was born in Clones, Co. Monaghan, Ireland on Christmas Eve 24th December, 1850. The announcement of the birth in The Longford Journal of 28th December, 1850 records that her father at that time was a Primitive Wesleyan Methodist preacher. Another daughter, Georgina was born in 1853 followed by a son Arthur A. in 1856. 

Thomas Goodbehere’s grave

Around the time of the birth of his son Arthur converted to the established church and commenced training for the priesthood at St. Aiden’s College, Birkenhead, Cheshire. His first recorded position in the Church of Ireland was curate at Lurgan, Co. Armagh, in June 1856, although he was not ordained to the full priesthood until the following year. Rev. Connell served as a curate at another Irish parish, Tullylish, Co. Down whose parishioners presented him with an address and a purse of sovereigns after having made strenuous efforts to retain his ministry following his resignation in January, 1859. Rev. Connell’s next appointment was as a curate at Christ Church, Harrogate, Yorkshire where he remained until he became the first Rector of the new church of St. Mark’s West Gorton in August, 1865. He was to stay in this office for 32 years before retiring due to declining health in 1897 and moving to Southport, Lancashire where he died at Marshside Road, Churchtown.

 Anna Connel remained unmarried and after a brief spell as a governess (2) she spent most of her life working for the church. Firstly, assisting her father, then on his death fulfilling the same rôle for her brother-in-law Rev. John William Dixon who married her younger sister, Georgina, in her father’s church on the 3rd September, 1889. The 1911 census records her as the head deaconess in what is described as a “training home” at 9, Brunswick Square, Bristol. Anna died at her brother-in-law's rectory in Darlaston, Staffordshire on the 21st October, 1924.

 

Chestnut Avenue

Interred in this grave, G 266, in the Church of England section of Manchester’s Southern Cemetery are the remains of Thomas Goodbehere one of churchwardens of St. Mark’s who assisted the Connells in their endeavours to organise a Football Club for the young men of the area. He was born in the May of 1841 in the small village of Youlgreave, Nr Bakewell, Derbyshire. His parents were Benjamin, at that time a miner of the local mineral ores, and Elizabeth (née Bateman) the daughter of Philip Bateman the village schoolmaster. Soon after Thomas was born the family moved to Manchester as the 1847 rate books record Benjamin living at 31, Daisy Street, Hulme. The 1871 census shows them then residing at 7, Robert Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock, with Thomas employed as a “mechanic fitter”, his father working as a Police Officer and his mother recorded as a “dressmaker”. Also, in the household were Benjamin’s widowed mother-in-law, Mary Bateman – a “Fundholder", and Thomas’s much younger brother 8-year-old, Frederick George (3).

 On the 24th June, 1869 at St Paul’s Church, Brunswick Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester   Thomas married Annie Elizabeth “Lily”, the eldest daughter of William Edward Corby a hairdresser and stationer of 116, Borough Buildings, London Road, Manchester and his wife, Hannah (née Bell). 

  At the time Thomas was helping the Connells in forming the football club which metamorphosed into Manchester City the 1881 census was taken on Sunday 3rd April, 1881 This recorded that Thomas had moved to “Summer Lea”, 5, North Road, Longsight, a property he was sharing with his brother Frederick and his family. His household included his wife and one child, 6-year-old Harold. (The couple had had two other children a baby girl called Lily and a son, Frederick William, who both died in infancy in 1871 and 1873 respectively). Thomas’s occupation on this census was given as “Mechanical draughtsman” Later newspaper articles of the 1880’s state that he was a “machinist and engineer” and confirm he was employed at the Union Iron Works of West Gorton. These reports reveal that he was granted a number of patents, in respect of the redesign of cotton manufacturing machinery, on one of which he was in collaboration with his brother, Frederick George. He was also apparently sufficiently affluent to purchase shares (alongside his brother) in a company building a new suspension bridge at Douglas Head, Isle of Man. (4)

  As indicated above Thomas Goodbehere is interred in Southern Cemetery where he was buried on the 19th March, 1903, his wife, Lily, having pre-deceased him in November, 1898.

William Beastow, the other churchwarden involved in the inauguration of St. Mark’s (West Gorton) Football Club, was born in Hulme, Manchester. He was baptised at the Collegiate Church (now the Cathedral), Manchester on 26th April, 1835. His parents were recorded as John Beaston(w), a “machine maker” and his wife Sarah. William was twice married, firstly to Jane Alice Hunter, a joiner’s daughter, at St. Mary’s Church, Manchester on the 19th March, 1859. After Jane Alice died of consumption around the end of October, 1869 (she was interred in Ardwick Cemetery on the 3rd November) he wed Charlotte (née Tipping), herself a widow of Joseph Cooper, in St. John’s Church, Manchester in the December quarter of 1871. 

 As a result of these marital changes the family relationships were a little complicated. By his first wife, Jane Alice William appears to have had 2 surviving children, a daughter, Emily Alice born in 1860 and a son, John Hunter, born two years later. His union with Charlotte produced no other children but did introduce a step-son into William’s household. Charles Frederick was the same age as his natural son John Hunter and according to some sources both were early team members of St Mark’s (West Gorton). 

 William’s first years of marriage were spent in the Hulme district of Manchester. The 1861 census records him at 35, Jackson Street, Hulme and shows his occupation as “mechanic fitter”.

 Following the death of his first wife and with two young children to care for the 1871 census shows that he had moved to live with his younger sister, Mary Alice, and brother-in-law William Fowler, a silk weaver, at 2, Watts Street, Gorton. Settling in the Gorton area he remarried and established himself both in his work in the Union Iron works and in a number of positions in the community. He was, as well as being a churchwarden, variously an “Overseer of the Poor”, an honorary vice-chairman of the rapidly developing football club, by then known simply as “Gorton”, and latterly both a J. P. and a councillor for St. Mark’s ward on newly expanded Manchester City Council. In his capacity as its vice-chairman, he presented Gorton with its first known kit of black shirts with a white cross. (pictured above). He was also a property owner and once rented one building to a local co-operative society. 

 William became a widower again on the 15th January, 1888. He lived at a number of addresses in the Gorton area- 178, Clowes Street, 28, Lime Grove and 157, Hyde Road sharing with his grown-up son, John Hunter. 

His son married Eliza Ann Vere, who had been the family’s housemaid for close to two decades, in St. John’s church, Longsight, Manchester in the June quarter of 1905. He later moved to take up a post of mechanical engineer for a manufacturer of steam ploughs in Hunslet, Leeds, Yorkshire. William by then past 70 moved to this house at 4, Chestnut Ave., Chorlton-cum-Hardy to live with his daughter, Emily Alice, and son-in-law William Leech, a shipping merchant. 

He died in the November of 1912, aged, 78.

Pictures:  St Mark’s church hall Hyde Road,  (m 27448 F. Hotchin  1958) courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives Manchester City Council http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass Thomas Goodbehere’s grave and 4, Chestnut Ave, collection of Tony Goulding.

Notes: -

1) Text in italics represents most likely facts.

2) The 1871 census shows Anna employed as a governess to the managing director of the “Wigan Iron & Coal Co.”, Alfred Hewlett, his wife Elizabeth and their two daughters, Amy (13) and Ada (7)

3) Frederick George Goodbehere became very successful; in 1911 he was recorded as the managing of a textile machinery works and living with his family, a cook and a housemaid in a 14-room mansion on Plymouth Grove, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester.

4) This venture appears to have been very flawed and possibly fraudulent. The “bridge” was never constructed and it’s quite possible the Goodbeheres lost their investment.

Acknowledgement; "The Manchester City Story" by Andrew Ward 1984 proved very useful as a source of the  early history of the club