Those who went from Ancoats to serve in the Italian army in the Great War

Manchester Guardian, 1919

“Italians seem to be re-establishing themselves in Ancoats as fast as the military authorities will allow.”*

Now I have long been fascinated by Little Italy and the contribution made to the life of the city by the Italians who settled there in the late 19th century.**

And as you do just naively assumed that when the Great War broke out in 1914 some at least would enlist.

Now at present I have no way of knowing who and how many did but the real story comes in to its own eight months later when Italy joined the war on the side of the Allies.

Even then I just assumed they would join up locally, but being Italian nationals they chose to return to Italy.

To Our Italian Comrades, 1915-1918, Manchester, 2014

The Manchester Courier reported in August 1915 that 70 young men had already left and went on to reveal that many older men were also planning to leave.

As always behind such decisions are a wealth of stories like those men who made the long journey only to be found medically unfit.

Or the  “young Italian medical man resident in Manchester [who had] the misfortune to be born in Berlin was at the outbreak of the war placed in a concentration camp by the English authorities [and] while anxious to join his colours to fight the Germans had to fraternize with the enemy prisoners [until] he could return to Italy only to find his eyesight debarred his entering the army and so was on his way back to England.”***

And behind that decision to leave for home came the equally difficult choice of uprooting the whole family and taking them back as well. As the Manchester Guardian observed “many of the poorer men will be careful to take their families with them, so that the Italian Government my provide for their maintenance if the need should arrive.”****

But once the war was over “men have been coming back-in some cases whole families have come back-to Ancoats, mainly, it may be under the pressure of economic considerations, but not-without a certain pleasure  in the return.” 

The reporter might have also added that for some at least the decision to serve in the Italian army had been at considerable economic sacrifice.

One such case highlighted by the Manchester Courier in 1915, involved a successful Italian ice cream vendor who sold his business and furniture leaving his wife to find work in a local firm to support their children.

Outside Nazaren Bela's Ice Cream shop, Jersey Street, 1922

Of course many of the stories that appeared in the papers during 1915 were in part designed to bolster the mood for war which had gone off the boil in the eight months since the start of the conflict.

And much had been made of the spontaneous demonstrations by “a considerable number of Italian subjects living in Manchester and Salford for the war” including a “procession through the main streets of the city to the Town Hall” just days after Italy joined the war.

It was estimated that 300 men might eventually leave for Italy and given that there were about 1000 Italians in the twin cities with upwards of 500 in Ancoats this was a major contribution to the war.

All of which puts into context that newspaper story of the return of so many to Ancoats.

Pictures; The Manchester Guardian, September 6 1919, Memorial “To our Italian comrades, from the collection of Sally Dervan, 2014, and outside Nazaren Bella’s Ice Cream Shop on Jersey Street, 1922, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Italy in Ancoats, the Colony coming back after the war, Manchester Guardian, September 6 1919

**Little Italy, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Little%20Italy

***Manchester Courier, August 1915

****The Italian Colony, Excitement in Ancoats, Manchester Guardian, May 26 1915

Tragic Loveland Family

This month’s history talk at Chorlton Good Neighbours given by Andrew Simpson explored the subject of British Home Children; a scheme which saw many thousands of destitute children “transferred” from Britain to (largely) Canada between 1870 and 1930. 

Thomas John Loveland’s headstone 

One of these children was Thomas John Loveland who, after the death of his father (1) impoverished his mother with five young children, was, at the tender aged of eight, sent to Canada by the Barnardo Homes. Thomas John later returned to the United Kingdom as a member of the Canadian Expeditionary Force which came to Britain’s aid during the First World War. He was invalided home to Britain, where he died on 6th November 1918. He is buried in Manchester’s Southern Cemetery.  Andrew also mentioned Thomas John’s family which he was separated from as they remained in England and that one of his 4 siblings, his brother Edward, was also a casualty of “The Great War”. In his case dying on 6th August 1917 of wounds suffered while serving as a Gunner / Acting Bombardier with the Royal Field Artillery. He is buried in Lussenthoek Military Cemetery, West- Vlaanderen, Belgium. (2)

Canadians returning from trenches on the Somme, November 1916

I was curious about the lives of the other family members and decided to investigate what became of them.

Starting with the 1911 census I found the mother living with a widower (3) William Smith Fearis, a house painter, at 4a, George Street, Walsoken, Norfolk.

Several factors made further progress a painstaking business. Firstly, although the village is located in the west of Norfolk it adjoins the town of Wisbech, Cambridgeshire which results in a split in the registration of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, with some catalogued as Cambridgeshire events and some Norfolk. Of more confusion however is the fact that although William Smith and Eleanor did not marry until the December quarter of 1915, they had several children between them. Also, I found William Smith’s last name spelt at least three different ways.

The 1911 household then comprised of William Smith and Eleanor living as man and wife, Eliza the 15- years-old daughter (4) of Mr. Fearis’s first marriage, Mary, William and Eleanor’s child and John a child of Eleanor’s first marriage. 

  Following further research in the 1911 census I discovered Thomas John’s two sisters Eliza and Harriet had both remained in London, Harriet who was 15 was living at 100, Leven Road, Poplar, London; a few doors away from where her family were residing in 1901. This was also the address Edward gave on his attestation papers at his enlistment into the army on New Years Day 1915. According to the census return Harriet was living with her aunt, a widow, Eliza Walter however, I have discovered she was more likely her great aunt as in the 1891 census, Harriet’s mother Eleanor (Hawks) was recorded in the Walter’s household. 

 Eliza Loveland, Thomas John’s other sister was, working as a general domestic servant for John Conoley, a beer seller, his wife Minnie and their five children at 5, Crosby Road, Forest Gate, West Ham, London.

The 4 years of the First World War were incredibly tragic for Eleanor Loveland / Fearis as not only did she suffer the loss of two of her sons in the conflict but two of her daughters died within months of each other in 1916, Harriet in Poplar during the June quarter, then Eliza in the December quarter in Hampstead. 

Sadly, she had also previously had to grieve the death, during the March quarter of 1899, of a third daughter, Eleanor Elizabeth who was just seven years old

It is not hard to fathom her feelings then when her remaining son was mobilised into the royal Tank Corps on 27th August 1918. He survived the war and was demobilised on 2nd December 1919 and returned to live with his, by then again widowed, mother in George Street, Walsoken.

Both Edward James and Thomas John were taken into care by Dr Barnardo's Homes, as was their younger brother George, who was born in the West Ham registration district during the December quarter of 1902.  Whilst Edward James was to remain in Britain, George was also a British Home Child. He was one of 195 such children, some as young as seven, who sailed from London on 14th March 1912 onboard the S.S. Corinthian bound for Toronto via St. John, New Brunswick. 

 Interestingly in the 1911 census he is shown as a “boarder” with an elderly couple Henry and Ann Dorsett and their unmarried son Herbert (40) and daughter Matilda (42) on the High Street, Long Crendon, Buckinghamshire. Herbert was a journeyman baker while Matilda is described as a chapel cleaner. One of George Loveland’s fellow boarders, Alfred William Dodson was also a “Barnardo's Boy” and in turn was shipped to Canada in March 1914.

William Fearis died in July 1917 and was buried in Walsoken on 6th July. His widow, Eleanor Elizabeth, remained in Walsoken until at least 1931 largely on her own though both her son John and stepson, George William briefly resided with her on the demobilisations from the army.  When she died in the March quarter of 1937 however, she had returned to Poplar, London.

 Mrs. Loveland/ Fearis had two daughters with William Smith; Mary Elizabeth born on 16th September 1909 and Eleanor E. born June 1911.  Mary Elizabeth went to live with her Aunt Eliza in Leven Road, Poplar; she later married Leonard H.W. Hutchins there in the December quarter of 1932. The 1939 register records her living at 17, Constance Road, Leicester with her half-brother John Loveland and his wife Gladys Ethel (née Cunnington) who were married in Leicester during the December quarter of 1935.

 In 1921 Eleanor E. (Nellie) was recorded as an adopted child of the Coleman family at 19, Nene Parade, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. The household was a Public House, “The Nene Inn”. The licensee was Henry James Coleman, who was married to Rebecca Ann (née Jackson). Also in the household were two sons and a daughter, one of the sons, George Henry, being married to Nellie’s half-sister Rose Emma.

 Eleanor married William Jackson during the March quarter of 1931 and gave birth to a child in the March quarter of 1933 only for tragedy to strike this extended family yet again. Eleanor at just 24-years-old died in Ipswich, Suffolk in 1936’s March quarter.

Finally, what is evident that in the face of all the hardship and loss this family suffered they steadfastly endeavoured to maintain family connections.  Desperately sad evidence of this can be seen in this request sent by Eleanor to the Army ---

  “---- can son be sent home, on leave, as sister is dying”.

Notes: - 

 “Bow Creek Mystery” -The Echo London 10th September 1903

1) Thomas John’s father Edward Loveland married his mother Eleanor Elizabeth (née Hawks) in the West Ham registration district during the June quarter of 1891.  As this cutting from “The Echo (London)”, dated 10th September 1903, reveals his death was both tragic and mysterious.

2)  Thomas John’s story and that of Arthur Wisdon Ervine, another British Home Child and soldier of the Canadian Expeditionary Force buried in a neighbouring grave in Manchester’s Southern Cemetery are covered extensively in these blog posts. 26th June 2019 and 11th November 2018.

3) William Smith’s first wife, Emma, appears on the 1891 census at 12, Morley Carr, North Bierley, Bradford, Yorkshire. It is likely she is the Emma Feairs who died in Wisbech during July 1897 and buried in the town’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery on 25th July 1897. Despite repeated searches I have found no record of their marriage.

4) Due to the variations in the spelling of William Smiths surname allied to the family moving counties regularly it is hard to be accurate concerning their pre- 1901 history.  The daughters Emma Rose and Eliza were born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire and Cleckheaton, Yorkshire respectively. Emma Rose on 12th March 1887 and Eliza during the September quarter of 1896.  According to the record of his time as a prisoner-of-war in Soltau, Lower Saxony, Germany George William was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire on 17th August 1891. These detailed and well-preserved German records also state alongside his home address, name, rank, and serial number that he was captured “Nicht verwundet” at Lille on 20th October 1914. However, the birth details shown on them are incorrect as George William appears with his parents on the 1891 census aged 7 months, born in North Bierley, Bradford, Yorkshire (West Riding). 

Pictures: - Thomas John Loveland’s headstone from the collection of Tony Goulding, Canadians returning from the Somme, November 1916 by Castle, W.I. (William Ivor) - Library and Archives Canada -Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33407592  “Bow Creek Mystery” -The Echo London 10th September 1903 Content provided by THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive. www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk.

One Special Constable …. a medal … his truncheon …. and the Great War

 I think finding Special Constable John T Clark might not be as easy as I first thought.*

Medal awarded to John T Clark

He served between 1914 and 1919 in Manchester and while I can reference  quite a few John T Clark’s none quite fit the bill.

But this John T Clark did his duty during the Great War and was awarded a medal which sits with his truncheon in the collection of my old pal David Harrop.

My Wikipedia tells me that just weeks after the outbreak of war in August 1914, Parliament adapted the  Special Constables Act of 1831 making it easier to appoint special constables. Under the 1831 act there was a requirement for a "‘tumult, riot, or felony’ to have occurred or be imminent before special constables could be appointed, and extended to special constables the gratuities and allowances for constables injured in the line of duty or dependents of constables killed in the line of duty from the Police Acts between 1839 and 1910.”**

In Manchester plans had been set in motion to recruit 5,000 special constables who would be divided into commands of 50 men led by a “leader.”  

By August 21 20 leaders had been enrolled and there had been 200 applications to join the force, and such was the interest in volunteering that it was reported that by November the Special Police Reserve had reached the target of 5000.

In the following year the Chief Constable doubled the hours of duty of the special constables.  Instead of one tour a week of four hours they were to be required to perform two tours of duty of four hours each.  

The medal

This according to the Chief Constable was to ensure a sufficient supply for the evening stretching into the early morning and had been prompted by the increasing number of regular constables who had enlisted and was made more difficult by the impossibility of getting “the right sort men without trenching on the military or munitions supply.” ***

Some however of the specials viewed aspects of their work as mundane and a waste of time.  Writing to the Manchester Guardian in the February of 1915 “Special Constable” “could see little point in patrolling Mount Street, Exchange Street and St Anne’s Street [when] there is always a policeman on point duty well with in a hail.  Our beats are so short, and the number of specials employed so great that we feel ourselves to be merely wasting our time.” ****

The truncheon

All of which may have been the view of a “special” but not perhaps of the burglar caught two days later by the efforts of a succession of special constables.

The said burglar had been seen by two of the citizen force who failed to catch him, but they “blew their whistles, and immediately there was an epidemic of whistle blowing among special constables in the neighbourhood.  The wretched burglar was so frightened that he took refuge beneath the grate of a cellar, and it was there that he was apprehended.”

Such are the little events which make for the bigger picture, and part of that that bigger picture and somewhere will be John T Clark, leaving me to explore the Greater Manchester Police Museum’s archive and redouble my efforts trawling census records, street directories and newspaper clippings.

We shall see.

Location; Manchester During the Great War

Pictures; medal and truncheon of John T Clark courtesy of David Harrop, 2025

*And as so often happens, after posting the story I think I have found John Thomas Clark. He was born in 1864, and died in 1935. He described himself as a "Children's clothes manufacturer" with a factory at 4 Fairfield Street, Manchester.  He lived in Sale, and Bucklow and died in Rushholme leaving £105,086.

**Special Constables, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Constables_Act_1914

*** Special Constables, Two Weekly Beats, Manchester Guardian June 28, 1915

****Citizen Police: First Week on the Active List, Manchester Guardian, February 15, 1915

Annot Robinson ........ revisiting a remarkable woman

I have decided to revisit Annot Robinson*.

Mrs Annot before her marriage to Sam Robinson

I first came across her   in an excellent account of her contribution to Manchester politics in the early 20th century.**

Just weeks before I had  been reading some of her correspondence to the Daily Citizen in 1915 on the exploitation of woman in the workforce. 

“Women” she wrote “will most certainly have to take the place of men.  

There is already a shortage of men workers in Manchester  but so far as I am aware no women taking on a man’s work will be receiving a man’s wage.“***

She had been born in Scotland in 1874 married and moved to Ancoats in 1908 and returned to Scotland in 1923 where she died two years later.

She had become active in Scottish politics in the 1890s and by 1895 was working for the Independent Labour Party in Dundee.

Annot Robinson speaking at a Suffragette meeting circa 1910 with her daughter

“She entered a marriage based at first on love and shared political ideals but which was ultimately disastrous. 

Subsequently living as a single-parent in an unaccepting age, she struggled in support of her chosen and unpopular causes, a constant and active member of the ILP and at different times of the WSPU, the NUWSS and the Women’s Labour League (WLL), Women’s War Interests Committee, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, an ebullient speaker and tireless traveller and twice a candidate in local elections.”****

All of which was set against the backdrop of being “at first the family bread winner and then a single parent of two young children.”*****

And at this point rather than just lift Ms Rigby’sresearch I shall point you towards the article and in the fullness of time return to Annot Robinson when I found out more myself.

Pictures; Annot  before she married Sam Robinson, and Suffragette meeting in Manchester, circa 1910, Annot Robinson standing.  The baby is her daughter, Cathy.  From ANNOT ROBINSON: A FORGOTTEN MANCHESTER SUFFRAGETTE

*Annot Robinson, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Annot%20Robinson

**ANNOT ROBINSON: A FORGOTTEN MANCHESTER SUFFRAGETTE, Kate Rigby, Manchester Regional History Review, Vol 1 Nu 1 Spring 1987,
http://www.hssr.mmu.ac.uk/mcrh/files/2013/01/mrhr_01i_rigby.pdf

***"no women taking on a man’s work will be receiving a man’s wage" ............stories from the Great War, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/no-women-taking-on-mans-work-will-be.html

****ibid Kate Rigby

***** ibid Kate Rigby

Letters to the Daily Citizen, courtesy of the Labour History Archives & Study Centre,  at the People’s History Museum, Manchester, http://www.phm.org.uk/

A little bit of Manchester in Eltham Palace

Now I do miss Eltham, it was where I grew up and it is a place I was very happy.

But at the age of 19 I went north following a girlfriend who had started a course at Manchester Polytechnic, which on reflection was not the best way for me to choose a degree course especially as she left for London just three months later.

The Sentry, 2007

I stayed and the city has been my home ever since and I do think of it as home, but like all ex pats I have never forgotten Eltham and in particular Well Hall.

All of which made the discovery that one of the City’s war memorials was replicated in miniature and sits on a table in the study of Eltham Palace a source for thought.

I came across it recently while working on the new book.*

The original was commissioned by S & J Watts to commemorate those who worked for the company and died in the Great War.

The memorial was erected  in 1922 in the main entrance of the company’s building on Portland Street.

The Sentry is a bronze sculpture, which stands in an arched niche just inside the building and faces a marble plaque commemorating the dead.

It depicts the sentry standing on duty, and was commissioned from the British sculptor Charles Sargeant Jagger who also designed the Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner, London.

Eltham Palace, 1961

And to my surprise and pleasure there is a small version of the figure in the study of Eltham Palace, where it was displayed by Stephen Courtauld, who like Mr Jagger was a member of the Artists' Rifles.

So there you have it a little bit of Manchester in the heart of Eltham.

But I can’t close without a reference to the building which holds the orginal statue.

This  is the  large, Victorian Grade II listed building known as Watts Warehouse.

It opened in 1856 as a textile warehouse for the wholesale drapery business of S & J Watts, and was the largest single-occupancy textile warehouse in Manchester.

Today the building is part of the Britannia Hotels chain.

Watts Warehouse, 1973

One source has referred to its ornate style as being typical of
“the extravagant confidence of many Mancunian warehouses of this period, but the Watts Warehouse is notable for its peculiarly eclectic design. Designed in the form of a Venetian palazzo, the building has five storeys, each decorated in a different style – Italian Renaissance, Elizabethan, French Renaissance and Flemish – and roof pavilions featuring large Gothic wheel windows.

The interior was similarly lavish in its decoration, with a sweeping iron cantilever staircase, balconied stairwell, and mahogany counters for displaying merchandise.”*

And that makes it a sort of palace.

Location, Manchester and Eltham in London

Pictures; the Sentry, Cnbrb, 2007 Wikipedia Commons, Eltham Palace, from Eltham Palace Ministry of Works Guide Book, 1961and the Watts Warehouse, 1973, m56859 , courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

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

** Watts Warehouse, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Warehouse

Messages from Le Harve ..... a woman called Gertie ....... and an address on Oxford Road

 I like this picture postcard which was sent from Le Harve in the August of 1915.

And what I particularly like is the way the name has been adapted to include pictures of the town.

Now my Wikipedia tells me that Le Harve “is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine” *

So, it is not surprising that many of the individual photographs inside the letters are of ships, the port, and the sea.

And it reminds me of the images that were produced in the 1960s which are a bold mix of lettering with an imaginative way of showing off the images of the town.

In fact, when I first saw it, I assumed it was from that “swinging decade” and here lies an interesting observation in what attracts us to such a picture post card.  For me it was that 1960s connection but for David Harrop who recently acquired it I suspect it will be the Manchester address, which was 1 to 3a Oxford Road.

David has a fine collection of picture postcards, and many are linked to the city.

So having clocked that link I went looking for what I could about 1 to 3 Oxford Road, and the firm Parkinson’s where the card was sent.

Given that the sender omitted his surname I wondered if I could discover his identity by looking for clues to the firm.  

It followed that if Stanley was a serviceman, then he might well have enlisted at the start of the war and could just possibly get a mention in the Book of Honour which was a list of the men who volunteered for the Manchester Pal’s Regiments in 1914.

The book records the men, the companies, battalions and regiments they were assigned to and has a list of the businesses for which they had worked.

Alas Parkinson’s is not there and nor is it listed on Oxford Road in 1911.

All of which leaves me with Gertie Whitehead who was the recipient of the card.

There was a Gertie Whitehead on the 1921 census who was a "Children’s Costume Finisher" employed by Clarkson and Hurst Children’s Costume Manufacturer.

A decade before the firm were based at 43a Granby Row and she was living on Rochdale Road, who ten years earlier had been a boarder in a house in Chorlton Medlock.

There are other Gertie’s but she seems closet to the fit.

Leaving me just to continue to look for Parkinson’s which if it was in anyway connected to the garment trade may fix our Miss Whitehead.

And that is about it.

In 1922 aged 28 she was living with her family on Rochdale Road, while ten years earlier she had been a boarder in a house in Chorlton Medlock.

As for Stanley he remains an enigma.  His message to Gertie spoke of fine weather and the expectation of a letter from her, and was signed “Love Stanley X”

But I doubt that we can read too much into that.

Location, Le Harve and Manchester

Pictures; from the Le Harve picture postcard, 1915 courtesy of David Harrop.

*Le Harve, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Havre

The German Christmas card from Nell Lane …. 1918

There is a story here which is over-layered with a mystery, but I doubt I will find an answer to why someone would send a Christmas card from a British military hospital during the Great War.

The hospital was the old Withington Workhouse infirmary which was requisitioned to care for wounded servicemen.

Thousands will have passed through during the conflict but I am not sure that their records have survived.

Some of the men who died of their wounds are buried in Southern Cemetery, but as for the rest, I fear their records have been lost forever.

And that brings me back to the card, which was acquired by my old friend David Harrop who sent it over today.

It is a printed postcard, but carries no imprint on the reverse, leaving just the stylized picture with the word "Christmas" in German along with the reference to “Military Hospital Nell Lane Manchester 1918”.

So, was it one of a batch especially designed for German POW’s recovering in the hospital, which could be sent home for Christmas?

If so, it opens up a whole new line of research on the hospital.

Someone will know, or will make a sound guess based on information I don’t have.

And yes someone offered up an answer, which was as I supposed.  

The hospital provided care for German POW's, some of whom died and were buried in Southern Cemetery.

But what I didn't know was that, "On 16 October 1959, the governments of the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany made an agreement about the future care of the remains of German military personnel and German civilian internees of both world wars who at the time were interred in various cemeteries not already maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. 

It was agreed that the remains would be transferred to a single central cemetery established on Cannock Chase for this purpose"*

Location; Nell Lane

Picture; Christmas, Military Hospital Nell Lane Manchester 1918, from the collection of David Harrop

*Cannock Chase German Military Cemetery, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannock_Chase_German_Military_Cemetery?fbclid=IwAR2NCwTf3PWjF2Emxy6knxj-8l0-3QIiVosJ9Ici2kbzJoe_zt4vCPivWzU

Mr George Dansie of Barforth Road Peckham Rye ......... currently residing in Manchester

Now recently I came across one of those fascinating links that connected my current city of Manchester with where I grew up in Peckham on Lausanne Road.

George writes home, 1917

And the connection was a Mr George Dansie of Barforth Road Peckham and a picture postcard he sent from Manchester in the November of 1917.

The card was of the Manchester YMCA in Piccadilly which was a temporary wooden building erected in the grounds of what had once been a hospital.*

It was also known as the Khaki Club and although meant for soldiers recuperating from wounds and shell shock was open to any servicemen and became a popular club.

I have yet to find out what Mr Dansie was doing in Manchester but given that he had been born in 1890 it is more than likely that he was stationed in the city.

There are a few men with his name in the military record and one in particular who was in the Royal Army Service Corps could be him.

The Manchester YMCA, 1917

Sadly George doesn’t give too much away in his message home.

He writes that he “will be writing a letter to you tomorrow” and that he had been to two theatres last week and was planning to visit another.

But what caught my eye was a sentence he added as an afterthought and squeezed into the top of the card where he wrote that the Manchester YMCA “is very like the Camberwell hut.”

And that took me on a journey which ended with the Camberwell hut or at least a painting of the building.

The Camberwell YMCA, 1917

The picture is in the collection of the Southwark Local History Library and Archive and according to the background notes was painted in 1917 by "the artist Russell Reeve who was born in Norfolk and lived in Hampstead. 
He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and the Royal Academy of Art. 

In 1916 permission was granted for the building of a YMCA hut on Camberwell Green for the use of passing troops."

The Camberwell building is not unlike its Manchester companion and leaves me wondering what its fate might have been.

Interior of the Manchester YMCA, 1917

I don’t remember it but then we left Peckham for Eltham in 1964.

The Manchester YMCA was demolished sometime around 1920 when the site was turned into a public park.

So the hunt is now on to discover more of the history of the “Camberwell hut.”

Location; Manchester, Peckham and Camberwell

Pictures; YMCA Hut on Camberwell Green, 1917 Russell Reeve, GA0325, courtesy of Southwark Local History Library and Archive, the Manchester YMCA postcard from the collection of David Harrop and the picture of the interior from the collection of Bill Sumner

* Piccadilly Gardens ....... the early years nu 1 The YMCA Hostel 1917,

** Southwark Local History Library and Archive 

William Eric Lunt ........ a Chorlton soldier from the Great War

I am looking at a picture of William Eric Lunt which I never expected to see.

William Eric Lunt, circa 1914

He was born here in 1895, and died of wounds in the 36th Casualty Clearing Station at the Somme on October 14th 1916.

The Lunt family lived in Chorlton and made their living from farming for all of the 19th century.

In 1845 they rented two acres of land off Moss Lane from the Egerton estate and were market gardeners growing a variety of food for the Manchester markets.

His smallholding was mostly orchard, stretching back from Moss Lane to Rough Leach Gutter and was a smallish amount of land, and like many of our market gardeners Mr Lunt may also have had other jobs as well.

And we know that he paid 4s. 7d a week in rent and in that cottage he and his wife brought up six children.

William and family circa 1905

Which brings me back William who was just 19 when he joined up on September 5th 1914; just one month after the war had broken out.

He was a fit young man weighing 129 lbs and was 5’ 11 inches.

His army records describe his complexion as sallow, his eyes brown and his hair dark, and that at present is all we know of his physical appearance.

In fact that is about all we have, for though there are eighteen military documents, as well his birth certificate and two census returns, none of them shed any light on who he really was, his likes and dislikes, or whether he was serious, humorous or like most of us a bit of both.

But up until yesterday I only had the one picture of him outside the family shop on Sandy Lane when he was about ten years old.

That in itself was one of those rare accidents where a photograph in the collection can contribute to a story of someone you have been researching.

The scroll, 1917

And now we have a second photograph which I think must be very close to the time he enlisted.

It was sent over by Julie Bryce who wrote, “I came across your blog post on William Eric Lunt. 

I'm one of his his great nieces and I have a few photos of him and some documentation commemorating his death which was sent to his parents home at 60 Sandy Lane. 

My daughter sent me a photo of the sign for the William Lunt Gardens in Chorlton and asked me if I thought it might be a relative. I was amazed to find the new estate was named in honour of Uncle Willie as representative of all those of Chorlton who lost their lives in the First World War. 

His sister Gladys May (my grandmother) would have been very proud.”

And it is fitting that the photograph has a place in my book Manchester Remembering 1914-18  because not only does William Eric Lunt feature in the book but so does the story of the naming of the road here in Chorlton.

I had been asked to suggest names to be considered for the honour and Mr Lunt’s seemed most appropriate.

An embroiderd silk postcard,  1914-18

But this isn’t quite the end of the story because just a month before the photograph arrived another relative made contact.

This was Margret Irvine who came across the story and commented

“Councillor Newman has kindly forwarded to me your information about William Lunt. 

Thank you so much for this. I knew some of it from family talk, my own research and recently from your own web pages, but the mystery remained as to why William should have been selected rather than any of the other WW1 casualties, so thank you for an explanation of that.”

I am pleased that William has come back out of the shadows and has gained wider recogntion.

The memorial, 2014

He was to become part of that new Kitchener’s army of young idealistic volunteers many of who were to die at the battle of the Somme.

I wish there was more.

I know he had joined up at Ardwick, was assigned to the 8th Battalion of the Manchester Regiment and remained in Britain until the summer of 1916 when he embarked at Folkestone landing on July 27 at Boulogne.

He is commemorated on the memorial in the gardens of the Methodist Church on Manchester Road.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; William Eric Lunt, circa 1914 and the scroll, 1917 from  the collection of Julie Bryce, William circs 1905, from the Lloyd Collection, embroidered silk postcard, circa 1914-18 courtesy  of David Harrop, and the memorial in the Methodist Church, Manchester Road, 2014, from Tony Goulding

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

Manchester Remembering 1914-18 by Andrew Simpson was published by the History Press on February 2 2017

Piccadilly Gardens ....... the early years nu 1 The YMCA Hostel 1917

Now if you are of a certain age the old Piccadilly Gardens will be a special place and even now generate a lot of heated debate about the present site.

The YMCA Hostel, 1917

So here over the next few days are stories of the early years of those gardens.

In the Middle Ages it was nothing more than a site used to excavate clay for building and was simply known as “daub holes,” but in 1755 it became the home of the Manchester Royal Infirmary which continued to offer up medical care until 1910 when the hospital relocated to Oxford Road.

And then for the next twenty years the debate raged about what to do with this hole in the ground at the very centre of the city.

Detail of the hostel

And it was indeed a hole in the ground which had been left over from the demolition of the old MRI leading one journalist to comment “the place has remained year after year a good imitation of a rubbish heap or the ruins of some volcanic upheaval.”*

But more about that new civic addition later for now it is this building which has caught my easy.

It comes from a picture postcard which was sent by George to his mother who lived in Peckham in south east London.

George writes home

As yet I know nothing more about George or his mother but I given that my early years were spent not too far away from their family home I shall going looking for them.

I know That George's father was a corn seed dealer and young George worked in te business, but what was doing in Manchester is unclear.

And George doesn’t give too much away.

He writes that he “will be writing a letter to you tomorrow” and that he had been to two theatres last week and was planning to visit another.

And that  takes us back to the picture of the YMCA hostel.

I had no idea that it existed on the site and must have been an additional one to the large and impressive YMCA on Peter Street which opened in 1911.

It must date from after the demolition of the MRI and had gone by 1920, so it will be down to Central Ref and a trawl of the directories to pin down its short history.

Interior of the hostel, date unknown

But Bill Sumner has saved me a visit to the archives, because almost soon after the story was posted he came back with the information that this YMCA was also known as the Khaki Club and "although meant for soldiers recuperating from wounds and/or shell shock, any servicemen at home on leave were welcomed and it became a popular club."

Now I knew that the YMCA had a presence in Heaton Park where battalions of the Manchester's were camped so this makes perfect sense.

Detail of the interior

And once again shows just how shared knowledge helps tell the story of the past.

And Bill also found a fascinating article about the club and a story both of which I leave you to read by following the link.**

All of which just leaves me to report that the sign to the right of the picture reads "Manchester City YMCA Khaki Club and Hostel."

Location; Manchester

Picture; the YMCA Hostel, 1917 courtesy of David Harrop and interior of the hostel from the collection of Bill Sumner.

Tomorrow; a war time use for the Gardens

*After Sixteen Years : A Garden for Piccadilly; Manchester Guardian, October 23 1920, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council,

**100 years ago: Canadian chancer jailed for ‘posing as Royal Navy Captain to pull women’Tony Flynn Salford Online

Stories of the Great War ...... from Manchester

 This is my uncle George in the last years of the Great War.

George Bradford Simpson, 1918

Now I suspect it cannot be before 1917 given that he was born in 1899.

And it is an image that will be familiar to us all. 

Similar pictures appear all the time in books and programmes about the First World War and most families will have one photograph of a young man ready to leave for the Front or at home on leave.

Young Clara, date unknown

These young men stare back at us in their ill fitting uniforms in individual poses or with friends and family and along with those images of the battlefields they pretty much shape our idea of that war.

More recently we have come to see that generation and those who fought in the Second World War as frail men and women with faltering voices and walking sticks who were venerated as the last of their generation.

We forget the majority of them lived full productive lives, contributed to their community getting on with the daily demands of work family and holidays.

This I know because I grew up with them, and when I was growing up they were still just in their 50s and early 60s, and were younger than I am now, still vital, still working and many as yet still waiting to be grandparents.

So, when I was given the chance to write about them I jumped at the opportunity.

The book was commissioned by the History Press in 2013 and told the story of the men, women and children of Manchester who lived through the Great War and it drew on official reports and newspaper accounts as well as letters and photographs and a multitude of other personal items.

Mr and Mrs Davison and their son, 1916 Ireland

Much of this material had never been seen before and some of it was unique in that it allowed us to follow families through the whole conflict challenging many of those easy and preconceived views of the war.

So here was the story of George and Nellie Davison of Harpurhey and Hulme, including his years at night school while living in Chorton before they married, her regular trips to stay with him in London and Ireland and his final letters home before his death in the June of 1918.

Across the city and over the river we learn of Miss Rebecca Chapman’s first week as a Salford tram clippie, and Mrs Fannie Jane Barlow’s juggling act of bringing up two young children while working long houses in a Red Cross Voluntary Hospital.

George Davison's letter of June 15 1918

Along with these are the stories of the thousands of children on “part time education” because their schools had been taken over to look after wounded soldiers, as well as those who opposed the war, the campaigns against profiteering and the unequal status of women in the workplace.

And because all books end up with a personal reflection, there are the stories of six of my own family who served and came through and my connection with George Davison, who for a short time was billeted just three minutes walk from where I grew up.

Many of the stories behind the book are available by following the  link.

Pictures; Clara in the uniform of the East Lancs, date unknown,  the Davison's 1916,  and George's letter home, 1918, courtesy of David Harrop, and George Bradford Simpson, 1918 the collection of Andrew Simpson

Location; Manchester

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

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

Piccadilly Gardens ....... the early years nu 2 trenches in Piccadilly

Looking across to the site of the MRI sometime after 1911

Now Piccadilly Gardens continues to excite a wealth of feelings from those who miss the old sunken gardens and have no love for that concrete slab to those who dwell on the seedy last days of the old park and point out that in these cost cutting days the present space is pretty low maintenance.

Of course before 1914 there were no gardens just the site of the Royal Infirmary which when it was demolished left a debate on what to do with the site.

It took a few years before the Corporation decided that this was a perfect place for a park in one of the busiest parts of the city.

This much I knew but what I didn’t know was that in the June of 1917 according to the Manchester Evening News the Red Cross “found a practical use for the old Infirmary site in Piccadilly ....[turning] it into a miniature sector of the Western Front.

Manchester Evening News, June 1917

The front line trenches and their equipment are said to be perfect in every detail.  There are grim touches of realism here and there, - like the torn and tattered heap of clothing nearthe terrible barbed wire entanglements to represent a dead Boche.  Some rare and valuable war relics may also be seen, including some fine specimens of enemy guns.

With infinite labour the trench diggers who were the convalescent soldiers from Heaton Park, have passed right through the heavy masonry and substantial brickwork of the old Infirmary foundations.”

There is no record of what the "convalescent soldiers from Heaton Park" thought of the task and I have yet to dig deeper to discover what the public made of the “miniature sector of the Western Front” in the heart of the city.

But once they had explored the trenches they could go on to visit the adjoining museum which “was wonderfully interesting.”

All of which just begs the question of why the display was produced.

Given that it had been produced by the Special Effects Committee of the East Lancashire branch of the Red Cross I suspect that along with its propaganda value it was linked to the organisation’s campaign for volunteers and funds.

I do know that Heaton Park had had its on set of trenches which were open to the public and no doubt so did other parts of the country.

Pictures; the site of the Infirmary, date unknown from the collection of Rita Bishop and Trenches in Piccadilly ............ a New Use for the Old Infirmary Site June 1917,  the Manchester Evening News from Sally Dervan

“Influenza is still spreading in Manchester and the death rate is high”*......... stories behind the book nu 21

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

All deaths in Manchester, November 1918

Now however you play with the figures the flu epidemic of 1918 was an awful event.

It had begun in the summer, returned later in the autumn, and impacted on industry and commerce, briefly disrupting the tram service and leading to a closure of all Manchester schools on November 30.***

And despite the medical authorities concluding that the outbreak was “reaching the culminating point” and anticipating a decline from the start of December, they called for the closure of all Sunday schools and recommended that children under fourteen should be barred from cinemas and theatres.

Manchester flu deaths as a % of all deaths in November 1918

A wise precaution given that the death toll had risen through November from 81 at the end of the first week up to 297 by November 23, which is shocking enough but is more so when expressed as a % of total deaths.  At the beginning of the month deaths from flu had amounted to 32% of all recorded deaths but by the fourth week that figure had climbed to 53%.

According to one newspaper the mortuaries were full, undertakers couldn’t keep pace with the orders and at the cemeteries the labour available for grave digging had proved quite inadequate.

This had led to efforts to release skilled coffin makers from the army and a call for “greater simplicity in funeral arrangements and a more extensive use of the crematorium.”

And as ever there were those who were swift to make money from the crisis and those who sought easy explanations for its appearance.

Fight the Flu, 1918

So the firm Genatosan Ltd offered up their “Germ Killing Throat Tablet” which would ensure “you will be safe from Spanish Influenza and other epidemics".

It was endorsed by Lady Manns, Lady Jane Joicey-Cecil and Mr Matheson Lang who was ordered by his doctors to take the tablet Formamint which “gave me great relief.”****

It was a set of recommendations bettered only by Lady Firbank who added that “Formamint tablets have completely cured my throat which owing to Influenza has been left weak and painful.”

But perhaps we shouldn’t be over harsh on the makers of Formamint for offering their tablet as a remedy given that at least some thought that there might a link between the outbreak and arrival of American troops who landed shortly before the epidemic began.

Or for that matter the musings of a former US President that bleach might be an effective defence against Covid.

Location, Manchester

Picture; Fight the Flu with Formamint, advert, 1918

*Manchester Influenza A High death Rate, Manchester Guardian, November 9, 1918

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

***Influenza, Epidemic at its height in Manchester, Manchester Guardian, November 30, 1918

****Fight the Flu, advert, Manchester Guardian, August 15, 1918

When a picture postcard doesn’t reveal a story ………

I doubt I will ever discover much about J Heath who inhabited 50 Port Street sometime in the closing stages of the Great War.

Tank in a street, undated

So far, I have only this picture postcard to go on which shows a tank on what might be a Manchester street with a reference to J Heath. 

It is undated and a brief sweep of the media for the period offers up no clues, but if it is Manchester it may have been in conjunction with Tank Bank which was a scheme to raise money for the war effort, and which involved a tank, lots of publicity, and expectation that heaps of money would be raised.

The Tank Bank came to Manchester in December 1917, and in just two days raised £870,444 which the Manchester Guardian proudly declared was more than Liverpool or Sheffield had raised.*

Either way it appears to be a “tank picture” marketed by J Heath, who may have been John Edward Heath who is listed as a printer in 1911 at 27 Newport Street in Rusholme.

But in 1911 the property in Port Street is occupied by a Frederick Armytage who was a confectioner.

All of which leaves me to say it is all still out there to uncover.

Port Street, 1985

Both 27 Newport Street and 50 Port Street still exist and in the case of Port Street has undergone a bit of careful restoration.

I can’t find the pictures I took a few years ago so have fallen back on this one from 1985.

Last year it was a hairdresser’s and 37 years ago was trading as the Salford Sewing Machine Centre, and I bet has been many other things.

Of course the tank might not even be on a Manchester street, and J Heath might have only marketed the card.

But happily someone will know.

And just a few hours after the story went live I had this interesting, informative and thoughtful contribution from Tankmanc,

"Hi. I've been directed to this article by a friend. I'm a) a Mancunian and b) if I might say so, a minor authority on vehicles, armoured or otherwise, of the Great War. 

You might care to have a look at our website. Anyhow, about your postcard. J Heath will be the printer/publisher. I am not certain that the tank is a Tank Bank. 

For a number of reasons, I think it could be a Presentation Tank, one of many that were presented to towns, cities, even villages, around the country as sort of war trophies. From memory there was one at Platt Fields, one at Milnrow, one at Crompton, and several more in Greater Manchester. Unfortunately, there is no number visible on this tank, or we'd be able to place it . 

The background, though, is interesting. There appears to be 4 or more fluted stone columns and part of a building. Putting 2 & 2 together: this could be the colonnade from the old Manchester Town Hall, which in 1912 was moved from King St to Heaton Park. It's still there. Have a google. You'll see what I mean. If that's the case, 

I would say this is not the Tank Bank but a Presentation Tank. What's equally intriguing is why the soldier on the right appears to be hand drawn and superimposed. History repeating itself. I could be wrong, but I'll put this before one or two people who are even better informed than I."

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Tank in a street, undated, from the collection of David Harrop, and 50 Port Street, 1985, M. Luft, 1985, m04948, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*The Tanks Second Try, Manchester Guardian, December 19th, 1917