Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ....... nu 37 Francis Street and that children's charity

Now Francis Street which is off Great Ducie Street is hardly likely to lift the heart of the casual tourist or I suspect anyone.

In the back yard off Francis Street, 1873

True there is a hotel on the corner but the rest stretching out to Charter Street and down to New Bridge Street to the south  is a car park.

And the rest is rather unpromising.

Walk along Francis Street as I did a couple of years ago and you come to a dead end having passed what was more open land and a warehouse which was up for sale.

Of course things may have changed and it is on my to do list to visit with a camera which neatly takes me to this photograph.

Part of the Refuges, circa 1882

It was taken in 1873 from the back yard of a children’s charity.

The charity was the  Manchester & Salford Boys’ & Girls’ Refuges which had been established in 1870 to provide a bed and a meal for destitute boys.

The charity quickly extended its work to include girls as well as boys,and  provide more permanent homes offering training for future careers along with holiday homes.

It also campaigned against some of the worst cases of child exploitation taking negligent parents to court and arguing against the practise of employing young children to sell matches on the streets of the twin cities.

And like other children’s charities it became involved in the migration of young people to Canada.

The organisation is now called the Together Trust, and it is still engaged in the primary role of helping young people.

So given how vital their work was then as now I thought I would offer up the detailed plans of their buildings on Francis Street.

The complex was part home and part industrial school but also included a gymnasium and classrooms given over to training for those who were migrated to Canada.

From 1870 till 1939 many organizations engaged in caring for young people migrated some to Canada and later Australia as well as other parts of the old British Empire.

More of the Refuges, circa 1882

The practice has come in for some criticism and also had its critics at the time and the Manchester & Salford charity stopped earlier than most.

That said there were success stories and these are contained in letters and reports held in the Trust’s archives some of which are regularly featured in their blog.*

Added to which the organization is engaged in some exciting work with local schools aimed at extending our understanding of their work both in the past and today.

This also includes help offered to those who may have had relatives in the care of the Trust and want to trace their story.

All of which brings me back to Francis Street where their main building was situated.

Location; Salford

Picture; the yard of the Manchester & Salford Refuges, 1873, courtesy of the Together Trust,  http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-together-trust.html and details of the buildings from Goads Fire Insurance maps, 1882-1901, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Getting down and dusty, the Together Trust, http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/

In the midst of plenty ........ two children sleeping rough “one under a Salford Railway arch and the other below an old staircase in a Deansgate entry”

It still beggars belief that in a city some called the “second city of the Empire,” which proudly displayed its trade links to the world in its brand new Town Hall and would ambitiously build its own route to the sea children slept rough on the streets,  making a pitiful living selling matches, and shoe laces later in to the night.

First Shelter, Quay Street, 1870

But of course it happened and in response to the stories of children sleeping under a Salford Railway arch and another below an old staircase in a Deansgate entry, the Night Refuge for Homeless Boys opened its doors.

Its full title was “The Boys’ Refuge and Industrial Brigade” and on January 4 1870 if offered a handful of boys found on the streets of the twin cities, a bed and breakfast, before turning them out on to the streets again.

Within a decade the organisers had expanded into a  ranges of activities designed to help young people and a full half century later could point to a whole series of achievements, from rescuing children  off the streets to residential and vocational homes,  seaside holidays, and involvement both in the courts and in legislation to protect young people.

Along the way it also migrated some young people to Canada.

But it began with that one building.

It was on Quay Street off Deansgate and a quarter of century later Mr Shaw one of the prime movers in the shelter reflected on those early days.

“In a dark little room on the ground floor of the house was a living room where meals were served.  A front collar was a living-room by day and a school and band room at night.  The back cellar, described as being dark and damp as a cavern, was made to serve the purpose of a bathroom and lavatory .  

The sleeping accommodation was almost amusingly primitive. 

It took the shape of hammocks hung out round the upper room from strong hooks in the wall, each hammock having two iron legs which fitted into sockets in the floor.    [and] when the boys jumped into bed ‘with a burst’ away went the held fasts and sockets and even a portion of the wall too, and that a dusty heap in the middle of the floor was generally the rest.

Mr Shaw and a group of Boys, 1883

In the year 1870 there were some forty inmates of the Refuge.  Today nearly 500 boys and girls are being cared for and trained within the institution to a life of usefulness, while according to the last report issued in 1894 , not less than 2,595 children come more or less under the influence of the Society and its branches in the course of 12 months.”*

Those involved were motivated by strong religious convictions, but also by that simple and obvious response that not only was the plight of destitute and neglected children and an abomination but “while we leave the little children practically uncared for we shall never want for a fully supply of candidates for our reformatories, workhouses and goals.”

The building had a short life and the organisation relocated to Strangeways but the scale of the problem was such that one refuge was not enough.

That lack of provision was highlighted “in the winter months of 1871 when three boys applied at the Refuge looking for shelter.

Major Street Shelter, 1905

As the home was already full, they had to be turned away. Seeking warmth and shelter and being unable to afford three pence to stay in a lodging house for the night they had wandered up to the brickfields of Cheetham.

A few days later a newspaper reported on the demise of a young boy who had been burned to death at one of the brick kilns in the neighbourhood. This boy was one of the three who had, had to be turned away much to the consternation of the committee.

It was this incident that convinced the charity that they needed another building in which to receive any child in need of help, whatever the hour and this led to the opening of another on Major Street.

"Open all day and all night children in need of shelter could be brought and receive food and a bed for the night, whilst their individual circumstances were investigated. It ensured that no child requesting aid would ever be turned away again.”



Location; Manchester & Salford

Pictures; the first refuge opened in 1870 and a group of young boys from the charity in 1883, and the Major Street Shelter 1905 courtesy of the Together Trust, https://www.togethertrust.org.uk/

* The Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges A quarter of a century’s progress, Manchester Guardian, January 4 1895

**A new book on the Together Trust, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20Together%20Trust

Looking deeper into the people who supported a children’s charity ........ Miss Malvey and social reform

Now as I dig deeper into the story of the Manchester children’s charity I have become fascinated by the people who toiled tirelessly to improve the lives of the young people they encountered.*

And in particular have been struck by what motivated them to give up their time and money which in many cases stretched over decades.

The conventional assumption is that for most it was either down to strong religious beliefs or that vague term “humanitarian concerns”.

Neither on their own is very satisfactory as an explanation, and obscures the subtle differences in why people supported the charity.

In most cases it started with that most basic concern that in what many called the second city of the Empire where conspicuous wealth and great commercial success were everywhere to be seen, just yards away children were hawking goods for a pittance and some were sleeping rough while others were in families which had toppled over into real and abject poverty.

The response as ever was mixed but for those who didn’t cross the road the challenge was not just the short term one of “rescue” but the longer and more positive one of offering care and vocational training to enable young people to lift themselves towards a better life.

Of course even the most respectable and hard working were at the mercy of unforeseen events ranging from a trade depression and unemployment to sickness or the death of the breadwinner which could pitch a family into the workhouse.

For some like Olive Christian Malvey that understanding of the reality of working class life appears to be what brought her to the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges.

Until recently she was just a name on one of the charity’s annual reports and a face on a page from one of their publications. **

But I was intrigued by the reference to her as the author of Soul Market “who, in such an intensely practical way has done much for the homeless girl and woman in London.  

The first shelter she provided for this class of needy ones was opened by Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Albany.  Those who have read that striking book ‘The Soul Market’ will know that [she] speaks on the subject from personal experience.”***

The book was one of a number Miss Malvey wrote in the early years of the 20th century and arose from a series of articles she wrote for Pearson’s Magazine about the lives of working class women in one of the poorer parts of London.

Soul Market was published in 1907 and was followed by Baby Toilers, and White Slavery.

All in their way deal with the issues of poverty, and appalling work practices.

Soul Market consisted of twenty chapters ranging from ‘Up and down the Social Ladder – From a Society Crush to the Spike,’ ‘Gliding the Gutter’, ‘In the Sweating Dens of West and East London’, and ‘Women who Work and Babes who Weep.’

There are a number of useful biographies about Miss Malvey of which Olive Christian Malvey: journalist, ‘lecturer, reciter, and social worker’, by Sarah Jackson is particularly informative.****

And for anyone interested in the migration of young people by the charities Miss Malvey struck an interesting position.

During the annual meeting of the Manchester and Salford Boy’s and Girl’s Refuges, she said “She was sorry that so many had to be sent away to Canada.  It would be better if they could have homes and parents in England, but since they had not it was a good thing that that could be sent to such a beautiful wide land as Canada.”****

Some might jib at what still seems an abrogation on the part of a British social reformer to criticise the policy but it fits well with that general view held by some that the migration of young people to Canada was wrong, and when I have delved deeper into her writings we may find confirmation that that was so.

In the meantime, Soul Market, Baby Toilers, and White Slavery are all available as down loads.

Location; Manchester & London







Pictures; Miss Malvey and other scenes from her book Soul Market, 1907 and Miss Malvey in 1912, from the Children’s Haven page 14

*A new book on the Together Trust, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20Together%20Trust

**The Children’s Haven, April 1912

*** The Children’s Haven, April 1912, page 13

****Olive Christian Malvey: journalist, ‘lecturer, reciter, and social worker’, by Sarah Jackson in particularly informative, http://eastendwomensmuseum.org/olive-christian-malvery-journalist/

**** Saving the Children, Work of the Boys ‘and Girls’ Refuges, Manchester Guardian, April 12 1912

Hidden away, living in a court in 1908

We are in New gates which was a closed court off Corporation Street close to the junction with Withy Grove and the year is 1908.

There were still enough of these dismal and dark places around in the city and the height of these houses should not blind us to the fact that they contained just three rooms.  So what you see in the picture was what you got.

Well almost for in fact only three of the houses in the court had three rooms, most of the rest consisted of just two.  Into these thirteen properties lived fifty-six people.

The majority made a living at the bottom end of the job market and so here were labourers, cleaners, and charwomen along with a street hawker and umbrella makers.

Living conditions were pretty basic.  The water pump in the corner of the picture and the white painted building which was the shared lavatory served the whole court. Clothes were washed in the big wooden tubs close to the pump and hung out on lines across the yard. 

And this narrow yard was the communal area where along with the washing, the children played and people met and talked.

Here there was little in the way of privacy and judging by the repairs being done to cobbles and the  poor brick work there was much that made the place an uncomfortable one.  Add to this the lack of sunlight and ventilation and it is easy to see why such courts were places of necessity not choice.

Now I have written about other such courts in the city and it is easy to pass over the image and the conditions but I suspect many people looking at the photograph will have family who lived in such places.  

My own great grandmother did and some of these courts were still around as late as the mid 1960s.

Here in New gates in 1908  it may just be possible  to identify some some of the people in the picture.  This is not so fanciful.  True many inhabitants of such courts did not stay long, but others did. The parents of my great grandmother lived in Whiteman’s Yard for at least two decades.

Just seven years before this photograph was taken Sarah Cooper was living at number 4.  She was a widow who earned a living as a charwoman at that may just be her sitting on the doorstep.  But as I said we are bordering on the realms of speculation, better to wait till I have visited the rate books which will not only give the names of the tenants but also the rents they paid and the duration of their stay.

Picture; New gates, 1908, m8316, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

1883 .......... one year in the work of the Manchester and Salford Children’s charity

Now 1883 was a busy year for our own children’s charity which had been established just thirteen years earlier as a rescue mission to feed and give a bed for the night to destitute boys on the streets of Manchester and Salford.

Outside the Refuge offices, circa 1900

Just over a decade and a bit later it had expanded into a whole range of support activities including homes for both boys and girls, vocational training, seaside holidays, along with campaigning for legislation to protect vulnerable children and intervening in the courts against neglectful and abusive parents.

And the key  to knowing about  the work of the charity, is to start with the annual reports, and at random I have chosen 1883.

It was a busy year but looking at the spread of reports from 1871 through to 1919 it was typical.

And with that in mind I thought it would be useful to focus on that report.*

The first port of call was the newspapers and in particular the Manchester Guardian, and starting next week I shall be delving into the archives.  Like all good research every item begs a whole set of questions which will take me off in all sorts of directions.

But for now it is that year of 1883 and that report.

The report began with the appalling news of the “virtual collapse of old central premises in Strangeways just when the new additional building was almost finished.”

But that hadn’t stopped the completion of extension scheme for Orphan  Girls’ Home Branch or the start of “The Seaside Home for weak, pale faced city children” which had been established at Lytham.

It is easy perhaps to react against the Victorian directness of language but  this and the other summer camps organized by the charity provided children with a holiday by the sea which for many would have been their first.  And some of the 225 children “under our care and training at the Refuge and branch homes” may well have been on one of those trips to the seaside.

The report detailed the gender split, and the number who had had one or both parents still living, and concluded by describing where 118 went onto who didn’t stay in the Refuge.

And that is all for now.

Location Manchester

Picture; courtesy of the Together Trust

* Manchester & Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges, Manchester Guardian, March 12 1884

**The Together Trust, https://www.togethertrust.org.uk/who-we-are

"Shedding an occasional ray of light and cheer upon the dull lives of the slum children" ......... the Cinderella Clubs

Now until recently I had no idea that there was an organisation called the Cinderella Club or of its links to the wider socialist movement and of its work in helping poor working class children.

It is one of those little stories which has faded from view, but is an interesting insight into how we were dealing with child poverty over a century ago.

“The idea of the Cinderella Clubs seems to have originated with Robert Blatchford, a journalist with the Sunday Chronicle. According to the Leeds Mercury of 18 April 1890, the Cinderella Club Movement, which was founded in Manchester, aimed 'to shed an occasional ray of light and cheer upon the dull lives of the slum children.' 

The Chronicle had 'asked for helpers in other towns,' and appears to have had little difficulty in securing these from the middle and working classes as well as patrons from the better classes.  In Leeds, for example, the Cinderella Club could count amongst its patrons the Mayor and Lady Mayoress and at least one local Member of Parliament.”*

In pursuing the story I came across twenty-five photographs of the work of the club taken in 1910.

They cover everything from Christmas visits to parties and the inevitable day out by the sea.

And it clearly there is a story here, both in its own right and as another challenge to those who saw the migration to Canada as the answer to child poverty, destitution and neglect.

Of course the Cinderella Clubs could never do more than be a short term fix to a big problem and there will be those who argued that in the long run a new start away from the grime and awful conditions of our inner cities in the fresh air and open fields of Canada and later Australia was the way forward.

For a few this may have been the case but as the records are beginning to show the migration of thousands of children to Canada brought heart ache, suffering and in some cases a degree of cruelty which exceeded what these young people had experienced here.

It also neatly side stepped the real issues that the prevailing economic and social system was responsible for the conditions endured by the majority of working people which even in good times was circumscribed by the possibilities of ill health unemployment and just bad luck.

Any of which could pitch a family into real poverty and destitution.

So I shall dig deeper in to the Cinderella Club Movement and into the Christian Socialists who seemed to be linked to the clubs.

All of which only leaves me to thank Dee who first published the story on facebook yesterday and in turn led me to the various sites which gave me some insight into their work.

In the meantime I shall just return to the images from the archive and in particular to the four I have featured.  I could have chosen others. But these I think sum up the club.

They all convey that mix of excitement and sheer pleasure that from a  party and a day out.  It is there in the smile on the face of the lone boy and from some of those in the hall.

And then there is the station scene.  It is a destination I do not know but maybe someone will follow the clue of “FURNISH AT WARINGS MANCH’R or recognise the station approach and come up with a place.

It is so representative of an institutional day out.  The children all in the best clothes, with a uniformity in their dress, the adults also decked out in their finest accompanying their own children and beyond them the day to day throng of railway passengers.

But there is also something else which I am not so sure about and sits a little uncomfortably with me.  It starts with that sign announcing “POOR GIRLS AND BOYS”, and going on to explain that the camp is SUPPORTED SOLELY BY VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS, and that it is "OPEN FOR INSPECTION DAILY.”

This may be a necessary part of any voluntary organisation and good self publicity but  reminds me of those before and after images that the children’s societies of the period went in for as a way of promoting their work of rescuing young people off the streets.

But I suspect that those in our picture were not bothered about the sign, they like the lad with the smile and the present are more content with what had been offered them.

Pictures; Cricket Game with the Cinderella Club, 1910,  m68190 , a party meal, m68191, one happy child, m68208, and setting off, m68209, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council

* The Cinderella Club Movement from the blog, Victorian History, http://vichist.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/cinderella-club-movement.html

**Manchester Local Image Collection, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/ResultsList.php?QueryName=BasicQuery&QueryPage=%2Findex.php%3Fsession%3Dpass&Anywhere=SummaryData%7CAdmWebMetadata&QueryTerms=Cinderella-Club&QueryOption=Anywhere&Submit=Search&StartAt=1

The stories behind the picture ................... Manchester in the 1870s

Now you know just by looking at the photograph that there is a story here.

And the more you look it is apparent that there will be as many stories as there are people staring back at us.

It starts with those young boys, all in uniform and many holding musical instruments and goes on to the adults.

Their tall hats and beards suggest a date sometime in the 1870s.

Of course we do have to be careful because often the appearance of a person, from their clothes to the style of their hair may reflect the fashions of an early age from which the individual has not moved on from.

Finally there is the banner which is difficult toread but there is enough to suggest a message carrying a high moral tone.

So it might be logical to suppose that this is the youth wing of a religious group and that might takes us to the Salvation Army or the Boys Brigade or any one of a number of others.

The Salvation Army is a candidate in that it was formed in 1865 and just possibly so is the Boy’s Brigade which was established in 1883.

But neither fit the picture.  In the case of the Boys Brigade while the organisation was formed in 1883 in Glasgow it would be a full decade before it took root across the country and I know this is not a group of  Salvation Army, because we are in the back yard of a building belonging to the Manchester & Salford Boys’ and Girl’s Refuges which was established in 1870.

Their original purpose was to rescue destitute children from the streets of Manchester and Salford but expanded into a much wider organisation which owned homes, undertook the vocational training of young people and campaigned for better working conditions for those children engaged in a range of exploited labour.

Alongside these activities the charity was also active in the prosecution of parents who were abusive or neglectful, and offered help to others who through bereavement, ill health or unemployment found it difficult to support their children.

Finally like many other children’s charities they migrated some of those in their care to Canada.

In the case of the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges this part of their work lasted just 34 years from 1872 till 1914 in two short periods from 1872-75 and 1883-1914.

The organisation still exists although it is now the Together Trust,  and is based in Cheadle and it is still engaged in the primary role of helping young people.

For me as a historian leaving aside all their good work it is their archive that fascinates me, which includes the records of those who went through the charity including admission books, letters and profiles and photographs.

And as you would expect the archivist of the Trust is very careful about confidentiality and the rights of individuals to their anonymity even a century and bit on from when they were admitted.

That said she regularly features some of the material in the Trust’s blog.*

And that brings me back neatly to our picture which dates from the 1873 and was taken in the back yard of the charity’s building in Strangeways.
Now this I know because I asked the archivist who for good measure supplied the message on the banner which reads Boy's Refuges, Industrial Home, Francis Street, Strangeways.

The rest as they say is for another time.

Picture; resources at the Together Trust, courtesy of the Together Trust,  http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-together-trust.html

*Getting down and dusty, the Together Trust, http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/

Chorlton-cum-Hardy does its bit

Now, there is always a story behind a picture, and so it is with this one of a tent carrying the name Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

The tent, 1920s

We are in Birkdale in Southport, and during the late 19th century is the holiday camp for the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges, which had been founded in 1870 to help destitute children.

At first the charity’s work was confined to offering bed for the night and breakfast to a handful of homeless young people.

Within a decade it had expanded to include girls as well as boys, had built permanent homes, established industrial training schools and was engaged in prosecuting neglectful and abusive parents as well as campaigning for legislation to protect young people who made a living from hawking products on the streets.

And amongst all these activities it organised summer holidays.

"The first summer outings were just that and consisted of a day out by the sea but very quickly stretched to a week with the young people living in tents. The holiday season lasted just 3 weeks and in the first year in 1883, 48 boys were taken away to Morecambe. These numbers steadily increased over the years with the camp also visiting Blackpool and Llandudno before a more permanent site in Andsell, near Lytham, was chosen. Lent by John Talbot Clifton, Esquire of Lytham Hall, this site included Byrom Hall, allowing for shelter beyond the tents.  By the end of the 19th century, the camp had moved again, this time to Birkdale, Southport, which was able to accommodate 300 boys. 

The appeal, 1906

The increase of numbers showed just how popular the holidays were. At its height of popularity, children could be seen queuing outside the Children's Shelter on Chatham Street, Manchester for a place at the Summer Camp. 

Poor boys were often recommended by City Missionaries, Ragged School Teachers and other workers amongst the poor. 

The only qualification for attendance was “the need of the rest and change”.

The season now ran from May, through the summer for 20 weeks. Eventually the tents were replaced by corrugated huts which were lined with pitch pine and according to one commentator were “quite impervious to wind and weather” which was all to the good given that many of the annual reports described the summer weather as challenging.

Much of the finance came from voluntary contributions which brings us back to that tent.
The trust made much of what a contribution would pay for, explaining that “six shillings, covers railway fare and maintenance and £60 per week would cover all expenses while £2000 would meet the season’s needs.”*

And in the case of some organizations, like Sunday Schools and the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Brotherhood this extended to tents.

At present I can’t track the source of the funding for our tent, but it dates from the 1920s.

The picture comes from the archives of the charity which today is called the Together Trust and is based in Cheadle.

And is in the new book on the history of the trust which was been written by me and Liz Sykes to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the charity.


Location; Chorlton and Southport



Picture; The Chorlton-cum-Hardy Tent, circa 1920s, courtesy of the Together Trust**

*A new book on the Together Trust, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20Together%20Trust

** Together Trust, https://www.togethertrust.org.uk/

“We have longed that we could take each child and transplant it into a happy Christian home” ........ looking into the work of a children’s charity no. 2*

I am as guilty as many of not looking deeply enough into the motivation that drove those men and women who ran our children’s charities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and did their utmost to improve the lot of young people who at best were living precarious lives and at worst were destitute with some on the edge of crime.

In the rush to look at the cause of the scandal and the variety of responses, the motives of those engaged in the work tend to get glossed over and relegated to that vague acknowledgement of “Christian values” and a humanitarian concern for those less fortunate.

And in the case of the migrating agencies there is that darker assumption that the move to send children to Canada and other parts of the empire was nothing more than a ruthless cost cutting exercise where the bill for maintaining young people in care was more than the price of transporting them across the Atlantic.

It is an analysis which perhaps fits with a more cynical view of how the authorities weighed up the care of the poor and one that I fully embraced.

But history is messy and open to all sorts of interpretations and even that comment attributed to Dr Barnardo that the children migrated were “the building blocks of Empire” is easy to misrepresent.

So I think it is time to dig deeper into the ideas of those men and women engaged in the work of our own children’s charity.

A story which can be found in  the new book on the Together Trust which as the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges was responsible to “turning around” the lives of many very poor children.**

The starting point has been the reports of the annual meetings and the charity’s own publications, including its monthly magazine, the fund raising pamphlets and those given over to advancing practical solutions to child street labour and feckless parents.

What comes over time and time again is the outrage that young lives were being wasted and that in the absence of alternative provision children were being exploited, abused and in some cases left to live on the streets.

Added to that there was a strong Christian  belief, but one which did not get in the way of helping either the young people or those parents who through no fault of their own found themselves on the extreme margin of poverty.

The annual reports stressed that the overriding principle was never to turn the deserving away and that the “door was always open.”

In the same way the “team” went looking to help, whether it was on the streets where they encountered homeless children or back streets and enclosed courts of the twin cities.***

In Angel Meadow reckoned to be one of the worst slums they called on a Mrs J one Sunday evening in the February of 1880 who confided “I’ve striven hard to keep them out of the workhouse, and now what’ll become of them?”  She had made a living as a street hawker but was now too ill to move out of her bed.

The eldest two, a lad of 20 and his sister aged 18 were in prison and remaining four were in desperate need of help. All were “fine children [and] it was wonder to see them so fresh and ruddy in such a locality.

Probably, as they grew up, the bloom would pass away; but whatever the physical atmosphere might be, there could be no mistake about the moral atmosphere surrounding them.”****

And so while there was a need for the four to be placed in a Christian home, the real issue was about taking the children out of the environment no matter the cost and in the process the report touched on the very contentious and current debate on the rights of the parent over the perceived needs of the child.

It is never an easy one to reconcile and I have seen arguments advanced that in some cases this led to charities making judgements which were high handed and brutal.

That said “our four” went into the care of the Refuge with the permission of the mother.

At which point there will be some who are uncomfortable with the heavy Christian emphasis of the report which concluded with the team “speaking a few words of Him who never yet cast out one who truly came to Him” and reflecting that “we can each help to cast a rope over the ship’s side, to help the poor sinking ones below, drawing them safely home to that blessed Home where there shall be no more misery and sin for ‘there  the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.”

But this also was underscored by a very practical commitment, reflected in another report in the Worker which detailed the care in the four of the homes run by the charity in Lower Broughton in Salford.

The four were home to fifty-eight boys and young men all of whom had been trained and found jobs, ranging from painters to organ builders, joiners and engravings.*****

And the idea of helping young people to help themselves was also at the core of the charities work.  There were vocational training homes, "brigades of young lads" as well training for girls in an assortment of skills.

The Refuge stressed the need for good vocationl education provided by the State.

Next; singling out some of those who served the charity.

Location; Manchester and Salford

Pictures; from the Worker, 1880

*A new book on the Together Trust, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20Together%20Trust

**The Worker, February 1880

***Manchester and Salford

**** The Worker, February 1880

***** No.1 Home for Working Boys, Sussex Street, No. 2, 214 Broughton Road, No. 3, St John’s Place, Great Clowes Street, and No. 4, 8 Camp Street

Behind number 14 Major Street in the winter of 1905

14 Major Street, 1905

Now as ever there is a story behind this picture.

We are on Major Street in 1905 and the building is the Boys’ and Girls’ Refuge which was established in 1884.

It was the second shelter opened by the Manchester & Salford Boys’ & Girls’ Refuges offering food and shelter to destitute young people.

The first shelter had been opened by the charity on Quay Street and later relocated to Strangeways but the scale of the problem was such that one refuge was not enough.

That lack of provision was highlighted “in the winter months of 1871 when three boys applied at the Refuge looking for shelter. 

As the home was already full, they had to be turned away. Seeking warmth and shelter and being unable to afford three pence to stay in a lodging house for the night they had wandered up to the brickfields of Cheetham. 

A few days later a newspaper reported on the demise of a young boy who had been burned to death at one of the brick kilns in the neighbourhood. This boy was one of the three who had, had to be turned away much to the consternation of the committee. 

It was this incident that convinced the charity that they needed another building in which to receive any child in need of help, whatever the hour. 

On admittance, date unknown

The result was the Children’s Shelter at 14 Major Street. Open all day and all night children in need of shelter could be brought and receive food and a bed for the night, whilst their individual circumstances were investigated. It ensured that no child requesting aid would ever be turned away again.”*

The story comes from the excellent blog of the Together Trust which describes the work of the Manchester & Salford Boys’ & Girls’ Refuges during the 19th and 20th centuries and is a first stop forthose wanting to trace family members who were cared for by the charity.

I am always impressed by the extent of their archives and the help offered by the archivist to those who want to know more about an ancestor.

Sadly for anyone wanting to stand in front of number 14 Major Street it has long gone.

To be truthful there is very little left of Major Street which runs from Aytoun Street down to Princess Street

Major Street in 1886**

On the corner with Princess Street there is the old Mechanics Institute where the TUC met in 1868, but walk the length of the road today and it  is dominated by two car parks a whole tranche of huge office blocks dating from the end of the last century and the beginning of this one and stuck in the middle is the bus station.

As for number 14 which was on the right hand side just down from Aytoun Street that is now one of those car parks.

At which point I could I suppose regret its passing but it was just a building and the work of the charity still goes and in the fullness of time I hope the archivist will be able to shed some light on what life was like at number 14 Major Street.

Reading back stories from the blog there is much that would help anyone wanting to know about its work and much to set interested descendants on a path of discovery.

All of which leaves me to point you in the direction of that blog and in particular the rest of the story on the opening of number 14.


Pictures; 14 Major Street, 1905 and one of the young people cared for by the Trust courtesy of the Together Trust, http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-together-trust.html

*The Second Annual Meeting, http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/

**Slater's Directory of Manchester & Salford, 1886. [Part 2: Trades, Institutions, Streets], page 508, Historical Directories, http://cdm16445.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/search/collection/p16445coll4/searchterm/Lancashire/field/place/mode/exact/conn/and/order/nosort

Looking for the lost parents ............. and the work of a children's charity

Now as an idea the project to search out the parents of children admitted to a children’s charity in 1870 seemed a good one.

Poverty caused by the Cotton famine, 1862

After all if you want to get a better understanding why young people went into care looking at their parents seemed to have merit.

These parents would have been born in the 1840’s and 50’s when Manchester was still a city being transformed into what one historian has called the “shock city of the Industrial Revolution.”

So it followed that just possibly by tracking the lives of the parents we might get an insight into how those changes affected them and what if any was the impact on how they brought up their children.

The impact of the Cotton famine, in 1862

It was of course always a project on the edge and on reflection I should have been prepared for the fact that there would be many dead ends.

But the first few case studies proved encouraging.

In one case I was able to track one set of parents back to Ireland in the 1820s, follow them to Liverpool and then onto Manchester.

In another case the search led to number 8 Back Richard Street which was a closed court and entered through a narrow passage from Richard Street which was off Cupid's Alley.

Back Richard Street just east of Richard Street, 1849

Here in 1861 the family of four shared the house with the Lindsay family which consisted of Mr and Mrs Lindsay and their four children and another four boarders, making in total fourteen people in the one house.

Next door was almost as equally crowded with ten people, while the surrounding properties ranged from four down to one occupant.

I can’t yet ascertain the size of number 8 which may have been larger than its neighbours but this was still overcrowding.

And the area was densely packed with over 100 properties and 11 courts in a small area bounded by Cupid’s Alley to the north and part of Little Quay Street to the south.

Added to which on the opposite side of Cupid’s Alley stood a Soda Works, Hat factory and Silk Finishing Works.

Not I think an environment which offered much hope for its inhabitants, and in the case of our family at number 8 things were only going to get worse.

In 1870 when our boy was admitted to the charity his mother had deserted the family leaving her disabled husband to look after the two children.

McConnel and Co Mill, 1820

By which time they were living in Wrighton Street which it would appear was so mean that it didn’t warrant an inclusion on the street directory.

But the trail which I hoped would take me back in time to learn more about the mother and father went nowhere.

And not for the first time I had that feeling that the poor do not willingly share their secrets.

Of course the reality is that it is seldom a deliberate decision and more that history has stubbornly ignored not only their secrets put pretty much everything else about them.

Some never made it on to the census records and for those living as sub tenants or boarders they would never be included in the rate books.  Some never married and others may not even have been registered at birth, making the search very difficult.

At home during the Cotton Famine, 1862

A search for the parents of the first twenty to be admitted to the charity in 1870 was pretty much a failure, and where there was an evidence trail it petered out in most cases somewhere between 1861 and the 1850s.

That said there were a few which proved fruitful and at least two boys who we can track into the early years of the twentieth century.

And with patience and by widening the number of boys I look at I think we will get somewhere, and that will help the book which is the story of that charity which began in 1870, was known as the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuge and is now the together Trust.

The book covers the full 150 years of its existence and was published in 2020

Location; Manchester

Pictures; suffering amongst cotton workers in 1862, from the Illustrated London News, m10038, McConnel-And-Co's-Mill, 1820, Ancoats, m52533, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
  and Back Richard Street, Richard Street, 1849, from the Manchester & Salford OS, 1849, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*A new book on the Together Trust, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20Together%20Trust

Living on the streets ………… Manchester 1870

Some of us will in the course of family research come across the relative who was living on the streets, which will be as shocking as that other revelation that they may also have spent time in the Workhouse.

On admission, date unknown

But it is easy to gloss over the realties of being destitute, seeing it as the precursor to the story of what happened next.

And yet, those experiences are vital in helping understand the extent of the problem and the efforts of some to combat it.

Today we may be quite surprised at the absence of provision for homeless children in the twin cities of Manchester and Salford, but in 1869 there was no where to offer them safety and a degree of comfort.

All of which makes that decision by Leonard K Shaw, and his fellow teachers including Mr B. Taylor to set up a place of safety where homeless young people could come and be given a bed for the night and breakfast the following morning a hugely important one.

The Manchester and Salford Boys' and Girls' Refuge opened on January 4 1870 at 16 Quay Street off Deansgate and at first was limited to just twelve beds.

The admission book for that first year recorded that one lad aged fifteen had been “living on the streets and sleeping in Boiler Houses” while William Owen who was just eleven had been “staying in a house of ill fame” on Hardman Street and two brothers who presented themselves at the door of the Refuge were regularly “sleeping in a yard at the back of one of the worst houses in the Charter Street neighbourhood.”

The extent of the homelessness was shocking. In the first decade of its existence the Refuge had picked a thousand young people off the streets and according to the Chief Constable the number apprehended with no fixed home amounted to 1,063 between 1870-72 and while this fell away slightly during remainder of the decade it still stood at 603 in 1879.

Emma on admission to the Refuge, 1913

Nor did the problem abate, in 1886 the Refuge reported that during the previous year it had provided 4,984 meals and given a bed to 1,648 young people.

Behind each of those admissions was a story.  Thomas from Salford, had had been living on the streets for three years having been turned out of the family home by his parents while what had pushed another “on to the streets for some time had been an unkind stepfather.”

But not all of those who occupied a bed were there because of their parents.  Some had left home to find work in the city but without sufficient funds for a lodging house had been “helped with a free supper, a bed and a breakfast, and are afterwards put in the way of returning to the country or their town and sometimes helped to get to sea or to join the army.

In this way many youths have been saved from the alternative of having to spend a night on one of the brick-fields of the city, with the result perhaps of being arrested and sent to prison for "sleeping out.” 

And the risk of arrest was a real one with all its attendant horrors of a night in the cells.  That said the police increasingly used the shelter as an alternative to the lock up in preparation for an appearance in the police courts.

Emma after admission to the Refuge, 1913

Both the authorities and the charity were well aware of the risks that living on the streets posed.

On one of his nightly trips across Manchester and Salford, Leonard Shaw encountered “groups of idle vagrant boys and girls from about 15 to 18 years of age ..... on Angel Street and Charter Street, few of them can read and write, and many have been in prison.”*

The Refuge offered the chance for some at least to turn their lives around and many did just that.

Adapted from the newly published book on the work of the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges, published  by the Together Trust as part of the events to
commemorate the Trust’s 150th anniversary.

Location; Manchester and Salford

Pictures; courtesy of the Together Trust, https://www.togethertrust.org.uk/

* Saving the Children, Work of the Boys ‘and Girls’ Refuges, Manchester Guardian, April 12 1912







**The Ever Open Door: 150 years of the Together Trust, Andrew Simpson, The Together Trust, 2020, 140p, £14-99. ISBN 978-1-5272-5671-2. You can obtain copies of the book from, https://shop.togethertrust.org.uk/     But given the current circumstances there may be a delay in getting books out in the post to people.

Salford and the Spitfire Fund

Now as stories go it is a very small one, but then again it is about Salford and does also allow me to return to the Spitfire Fund and the Manchester & Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges.

Cover of the Spitfire Fund book, 1940

In 1940 the Manchester & Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges had been going for 70 years and was dedicated to helping destitute poor children across the twin cities.

And in the August of that year, the Manchester Guardian reported that “the boys and staff at the boys home in Broughton which is controlled by the Manchester & Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges” collected £4 5s 6d towards the Spitfire Fund.*

The Fund was established in the spring of 1940 and encouraged towns, and businesses along with individuals to donate money to the cost of making a Spitfire.

Spitfire lapel badge, 1940

The cost of making one of these fighters was about £8000 – £12,000 but the target set for donations was £5000 which would pay for the airframe, and once that sum had been achieved the donor could have their name or a caption written in letters four inches high in yellow paint on the fuselage.

It was of course a brilliant piece of propaganda allowing individuals and groups to be part of the war effort and particularly to identify with the pilots fighting in the Battle of Britain.



So each of the stamps carried the message THE BRITISH EMPIRE STANDS FOR WORLD PEACE AND SECURITY DEFEND IT, and on the inside page of the book of stamps under Objects was the message, “The public are invited and urged to co-operating broadcasting that for which the British Empire stands by affixing to the back of all correspondence one of the EMPIRE STAMPS.  

The stamps

Every letter passing through the post should carry this message.

Fifty per cent of the selling price is to be allocated to the Spitfire of Fighting Plane Funds. It is essential that Britain should dominate the air to avoid world disaster.  

We have the splendid men, but they must have the best aircraft and plenty of them.  Please help these two vital objects.”

And the Salford boys did their bit.

Location; Salford

Pictures; Spitfire Stamp Book and lapel badge, 1940 from the collection of David Harrop

*Gifts For Fighter Aircraft, the Manchester Fund, the Manchester Guardian, August 22, 1940

Following the archive trail …… the history blog I like

Now, I am always pleased when the Together Trust posts a new story on its blog about it’s past, which dates back to 1870.*

I have been following the work of this children’s charity for more than a decade and have written about them over the years.**

Like all good blogs, it is concise, delivers a fascinating piece of history and offers up links to pursue the stories.

This month’s edition focuses on the charity’s magazine, The Christian Worker and provides an insight into the work of the charity and a tantalizing search for two young people.

And that is all I am going to say, after all the real fun is in reading Caroline’s article in her own words, which can be accessed by following the link.

Location; Manchester and Salford

Picture; cover of the Christian Worker, 1880, courtesy of the Together Trust

*Together Trust Archive, https://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.com/2022/07/following-archive-trail.html

**The Together Trust, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=the+together+Trust