Poverty…. gas masks ….. going to the flicks …. and a night in Chorlton ….. stories from Madeline Alberta Linford

Madeline Alberta Linford was by any measure a remarkable woman.

Madeline Alberta Linford, 1921

At just 22 in 1917 she was writing for the Manchester Guardian, at 27 she had reported on the famine and typhus outbreak in Poland followed by on-the-spot reporting from Austria, and Germany.

In the same year she was chosen to create to create a page "aimed at the intelligent woman", defined by C. P. Scott  as discussing issues such as "domestic economy, labour-saving, dress, household prices, and the care of children".*

And she remained the only woman journalist on the Manchester Guardian till 1944.

During the war she was also night picture editor, combining it with voluntary war work.

She “wrote a biography of Mary Wollstonecraft, published in 1924, and five novels: Broken Bridges (1923), The Roadside Fire (1924), A Home and Children (1926) Bread and Honey (1928) and Out of the Window (1930)”.* 

To all of this she also championed other women writers.

I first came across Ms Linford when Tony Goulding wrote about her life for the blog back in 2023.** 

It is a comprehensive account of her life and particularly her time in Chorlton on Claude Road and Wilbraham Road and is an excellent starting point.

My interest was reignited after a chance conversation with Cllr Mathew Bentham whose friend now lives in her old house in Chorltonville.

August 1917

As you do, I went looking for her articles in the Manchester Guardian. 

Alas her stories on Poland, Germany and Austria have yet to turn up, but there were plenty of articles spanning her years as a critic reviewing plays, and films as well as those reporting on contemporary issues.

Reading them for the first time over a century since they were produced, they offer up a fascinating insight into Britain during the early and middle decades of the last century.

And there were some surprises, not least that in 1917 both here and in Hollywood films were being made in colour.

Her review of Annabel’s Romance in the August of 1917 at the Deansgate Picture House begins with that simple observation that “A coloured film is still rare” **, while five years later she playfully remarked that the colour effects in A Study in Scarlet made “Faces as expressionless as though a sponge had wiped the life out of them”.****

Deansgate Picture House, 1928

But for me it is her articles on hospitals, shopping and the impact of the war which bring the 1920s and 30 bouncing into life.

December 1922

Like the piece on the Manchester Babies’ Hospital in Burnage Lane, written in 1922 which is both informative and written with style.

She visited in late December when “the hospital is in party dress [with] its Christmas decorations which are simple and consist of silvered twigs latticed across windows with robins perching on them, trails of pink almond blossom, and bright ballons tugging at their strings.”*****

But this is 1922, in that time before the NHS when poverty is the main reason why the fifty-bed hospital is full and why “the fifty cots could be filled over and over again”.

“All of them are suffering in some way or another from malnutrition.  They come from the most destitute homes in Manchester where their poor little bodies have been the victims of ignorance, poverty and in a few tragic cases, of actual neglect … where all the good things of life are short”.

Manchester Babies’ Hospital, 1962

“Children of six months weighing only six pounds; newborn babies whose weight barely reaches three pounds. 

The wards are full of them, lying with terrible apathy in their cots, their faces wizened and furrowed like those of the very aged, and their waxen fingers as helpless as broken ones. Anyone who since the war has visited the infant welfare centres of Berlin or Vienna will find the tragedies all over again in this Manchester hospital.”

And because rickets marches with poverty “the conservatory has been turned into a semi-open-air ward for rickets”.

Equally telling is the admission of just how much money is needed to maintain and advance the care. So, while “The Babies’ Hospital is full of plans for the future and a laundry is now being built and X-ray department is one of the great needs [with] it is hoped an extension to enable another twenty babies to have their shire of skill and kindness but for these schemes as well as the ordinary everyday running of the hospital money is badly needed”.

It is a powerful piece of reporting which comes with the style of an accomplished writer and so she begins by locating the hospital in a “big old house of the type of successful businessmen built for their families half a century ago. One can imagine it furnished in mahogany and rep with steel engravings of ‘Pilate’s Wife’s Dream hanging in the hall and camellias cherished in the conservatory”.

That same playful way of writing is evident in a series of articles she wrote in the run up to the first war time Christmas of 1939.

Set against the novelty and danger of going out in the blackout, and the surprise that the shops almost had a prewar feel about them the ever-present conflict is not far away and includes a delightful and humorous take on what the fashionable woman looks for in a bag to contain her gas mask.

July 1947

And along with all the serious and the not so serious comes a review of our own “Chorlton Repertory Theatre Group which has been an enlivening feature of Chorlton-cum-Hardy and the neighbouring suburbs”.

Written in in the summer of 1947 it reviews the group’s “choice of plays, performed in the Public Hall ranging from Shakespeare to Noel Coward and to farces which had caught the fancy of West End audiences” and focused on “The Letter” by W. Somerset Maugham.

It is a well balanced and I think affectionate report and offers up the names of some of the actors.  These include Harry Littlewood, Gloria Foster, Arthur Spreckley, the producer, and James Lovell who “designed and painted the excellent sets” which might be another story. 

One to read, 2024

But for now, I will just leave you with a suggestion to read a review by Quentin Outram of a selection of Ms Linford’s writing “M.A.L” The Journalism and Writing of Madeline Alberta Linford" edited by Michael Herbert and published in 2024

Pictures; Portrait of Madeline from the Guardian’s photograph of its 1921 editorial staff researched by Tony Goulding, Manchester Babies’ Hospital in Burnage Lane, m15731, 1962 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass Deansgate Picture House, from Kinematograph Year Book, 1928

Further reading; Outram, Quentin, The Journalism and Writing of Madeline Alberta Linford, Society for the Study of Labour History January 3rd 2023, https://sslh.org.uk/2025/01/03/the-journalism-and-writing-of-madeline-alberta-linford/

Herbert Michael,[ed] “M.A.L” The Journalism and Writing of Madeline Alberta Linford, self-published through Lulu.com and available Society for the Study of Labour History, https://sslh.org.uk/

* Madeline Alberta Linford, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeline_Linford

**Madeline Alberta Linford .... another story from Tony Goulding, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2023/12/madeline-alberta-linford-another-story.html

***A Coloured film at Deansgate Picture House, Manchester Guardian, August 21st, 1917

****A Study in Scarlet, Manchester Guardian, February 24th 1922

*****A Hospital of Cots, The Sick Babies of Manchester, Manchester Guardian, December 29th, 1922

******Chorlton Theatre Group, Manchester Guardian, July 30th, 1947

Snaps of Manchester number 5 ... in Albert Square with trams and horses

Of all of the snaps of Manchester I have featured this is one of my favourites.

We are in Albert Square sometime between the late 1920s and early 30s and we are at that cross over moment when horse drawn vehicles were about to become just that little less common.

In another decade they would be confined to milk floats and the rag and bone man.

But here they are still in use pulling a cart and a covered wagon.

In other respects it is a scene which I recognise from when I first arrived in the September of 1969.  In fact apart from the trams and their overhead cables and rails it is pretty much as I remember it.

Picture; courtesy of Sandra Hapgood

Waiting for the off.......... Manchester Corporation trams lined up in the Princess Road Car shed, 1926

Sometimes the image says it all.

And for anyone who was born after the last of the old trams rumbled their way through our streets and for that matter those who can just remember them, here is a magic picture.

It was taken in 1926 in the Princess Tram depot.

Within two decades and a bit these majestic vehicles had stopped running and now even the garage has gone.

So here they are as stately and magnificent with the sun shining down through the big glass roof.

Now I don’t think it is romantic tosh to say you get a real feel of just how impressive these trams were all lined up and waiting to go.

No wonder they still have the power to call up memories and draw new generations in.

Picture; the Princess Road Car shed, 1926 from the collection of Sally Dervan

Walking the streets of Hightown .... a full century ago

I remain in awe of those writers who can sum up someone in a few simple sentences.

Outside lavatory, Back Percival Street, 1951

Dickens could do it, and today I came across a short description of a Mrs. Poyser which is up there with the best.

It comes from the novel, Magnolia Street by Louis Golding, which was based on the streets in Hightown in Manchester during the 1920s.

These were the streets he remembered from his youth, and in particular the uneasy relationship between Jew and Gentile.

He was born in the city in 1895 to a Ukrainian-Jewish family, described his politics as “strongly to the left” and in 1938 wrote The Jewish Problem which was published as a Penguin Special.*

The Jewish Problem, 1938

The book examines the history of antisemitism, and Zionism, against the backdrop of “The Nazi Horror” and concludes with a final chapter on  “The Future”

But he was also a prolific popular novelist, and I can see why, because his description of Mrs. Poyser  who ran a grocery shop on Magnolia Street perfectly recreates one of those people we have all come across.   “The Jewish women met socially in Mrs. Poyser’s grocery shop, facing the Lamb and Lion.  

There they forgathered in between the washing up after one meal and the preparation for the next; or they called in on their way from the market, to show what a fat chicken they had picked up or how fine a silver hake for chopping and frying.

On a certain Sunday morning in May in the year 1910, there was news and news of the Mrs. Poyser’s sort.  News was, in a sense, Mrs. Poyser’s prerogative.  She weighed it, she sorted it out into bags, she handed it over the counter, along with a pair of kippers or a pound of sultanas”.**

Back Percival Street, 1951

The book, which was written in 1932, had its roots in a series of short pieces he had sent into the Manchester Guardian a decade earlier, describing life from the Jewish side of Magnolia Street which the newspaper had rejected as “nonsense”.

His response was in his own words “to mobilise the Jews on one side of the Street and the Gentiles on the other side and make of them – and this is a thing which has been ignored in references to the book – a study not of Jew-Gentile problems but of the problems which assert themselves when two communities are found in close proximity to one another.  The sort of thing which happened in Magnolia Street to the dwellers on one side or the other are what happened exactly in a street in Belfast in which Orangemen lived one side and Catholics on the other and in Tunis where at the end of a certain area the French lived on side and the Italians on the other”.***

At present I am only on chapter two, with a full 500 pages a head of me, and not wanting to spoil the experience, I haven’t turned to the back, but my spoiler alert, with help from another Manchester Guardian article is that Didsbury features along the way.

Percival Street, Holt Town, 1953

Well, we shall see.

What did intrigue me, was that Mr. Golding was participating in “the formal opening of the new library set up by Messrs. Kendal, Milne and Co. in their Deansgate establishment [to a large audience] “on The workshop of the novelist’s brain”.****

Now that I would have liked to have been part of.

And in a sort of way I should also have liked to have walked those streets in Hightown that he knew so well.

Of course, they have mostly gone, cleared away in the clearance programmes of the second half of the last century.  But there are a few pictures, and in particular the two that appear here.  Both are of Back Percival Street, a small slip of a place which didn’t warrant a listing in the directories and doesn’t get recorded by name on the maps.

But my Facebook friend Bill Sumner, swiftly located the street where I thought it might be beside Percival Street, which was off Waterloo Road which in turn connected Bury New Road to Cheetham Hill Road.

Leaving me just to reflect on those two images of Back Percival Street, which are a powerful reminder of just how tough the area could be, whether you were Jew or Gentile.

Location; Hightown

Pictures; Outside lavatory, Back Percival Street, 1951, m08286 and m08291, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, cover from The Jewish Problem, 1938 and extract from the OS map showing Percival Street in Holt Town and surrounding streets

* The Jewish Problem, Louis Golding, November 1938, reprinted, November 1938, and January 1939

**Magnolia Street, Louis Golding, 1932

***The Making of a Novel - Mr. Louis Golding and “Magnolia Street”, Manchester Guardian, March 9th, 1935

****Ibid The Making of a Novel

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

Off to the seaside in the 1930s

Now if you are of a certain age you will remember the works outing to the seaside and the variation which were organised by the local pubs.

In my case it was a boozy day out to Brighton for the employees of Glenton Tours, and I guess because numbers were a tad low Dad asked me if I wanted to go and also if I wanted to bring some friends.

And so that was how at the tender age of 15 I went on my first “Beano” or “Jolly.”

What they all had in common was that they ended up at the seaside, involved numerous stops for “refreshments”, “comfort pull ins”, more refreshments and somewhere along the way a meal.

In most cases you paid for the trip in instalments, travelled by motor coach set off early in the morning returning late at night.

And the benefits of the sea air and countryside were slightly negated by the enormous amounts of beer and cigarettes consumed on the journey but what fun they were.

In an age before paid holidays and when the annual leave from work was little more than a week and a bit a day out with friends and family was an important occasion.

They would be remembered for years after and the stories of those left behind along with the raunchy seaside entertainment would be told and retold becoming ever more outrageous and funny with each retelling.

I was reminded of all this by two photos from the collection of Ken Fish which date from the 1920s or 30s.

Both convey that mix of fun, excitement and anticipation at the trip ahead, and are an important record of the day away.

And long before the coach it was the horse drawn charabanc, but that is for another time.

Pictures; from the collection of Ken Fisher, date unknown

*The day the photographer took the picture of the charabanc, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/day-photographer-took-picture-of.html

Piccadilly Gardens ....... the early years nu 3 a plan for a new civic attraction .... 1920

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.

A plan for the gardens, 1920

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.

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.”*

And before the gardens ..... a hole in the ground 1917

The proposals ranged from an Art Gallery, to a tramway terminus and an underground railway centre and for a while part of the site was occupied by Manchester’s Reference Library.

But in 1920 the City Council decided to convert the site “into a pleasant garden. 

The existing hollow in the centre of the site is to be utilized for a sunken garden on the Dutch style and its banks will slope up to a border of flowering plants.”*

The gardens opened in the September of 1921 and in a revealing comment from one of the speakers the new civic attraction was planned only as a temporary measure until a new art gallery was constructed on the site.

Well that’s a twist in the story I didn’t know about.

Location; Manchester

Picture; the proposed gardens in 1920 from the Manchester Guardian, October 1920, and detail from a picture postcard of Piccadilly , 1917, from the collection of Rita Bishop

*After Sixteen Years : A Garden for Piccadilly; Manchester Guardian, October 23 1920, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

The unpromising picture postcard that offers up a bag of history .....

 As picture postcards go this one of the Midland Hotel wouldn’t win any prizes.

It maybe that the quality was poor to begin with or that repeated “touching up” of the original did not do it any favours, but I can’t say I would be pleased to get this one through the post.

That said it is an interesting one for a number of reasons.

First it postdates 1907, because until that date the church of St Peter had stood on the site of the landscaped area.  Nor can it be after 1924, because there is no evidence of the cenotaph, flanked by the twin obelisks, which was unveiled in 1924.

That said I rather think we are dealing with old stock, because it carries a post mark with the date of April 1925, a full ten months after the cenotaph, and been built

And also carries a stamped reference "London Defended" at the Wembley Stadium.

This was a series aerial displays performed from May 9th to June 1st 1925, by No. 32 Squadron RAF at the Wembley Stadium. 

Similar to the display they had done the previous year, when the aircraft were painted black, it consisted of a night time air display over the Wembley Empire Exhibition flying RAF Sopwith Snipes which were painted red for the display and fitted with white lights on the wings, tail and fuselage. 

The display involved firing blank ammunition into the stadium crowds and dropping pyrotechnics from the aircraft to simulate shrapnel from guns on the ground, while explosions mimicked the effect of bombs being dropped into the stadium.*

Leaving me just to remark that the card was sent to Vienna and the message is in German.

So that pretty much is that.

An old iffy picture postcard, offers up a view of St Peter's Square, long gone with a bit of a story spanning Vienna and London.

The postcard was marketed by Tuck and Sons, under the heading of Manchester, LMS, with the note that “THIS HOTEL IS ONE OF THE "MIDLAND" HOTELS AND IS MANAGED BY ARTHUR TOWLE, CONTROLLER, L.M.S. HOTEL SERVICES, ST. PANCRAS, N.W. 1”

Location; Manchester

Pictures; the Midland Hotel, circa 1907-1924, from Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdbpostcards.org, and poster of London Defended Torchlight and Searchlight spectacle, The Stadium Wembley May 9 to June 1, 1925, Scanned from original document by me Jimmy3d0 (talk) 14:18, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

*British Empire Exhibition, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire_Exhibition

 

Shopping on Market Street sometime in the 1920s

This is Market Street sometime between the two world wars. 

We are looking down towards St Mary’s Gate and away in the distance on our left is the Royal Exchange.

Now I can’t be sure of the date but it will be after 1911.

In that year Lockhart’s cocoa rooms were trading from number 70a Market Street while at number 72a was Linscott the jewellers, but by the time our fashionable shoppers were idling up Market Street the jewellers had gone to be replaced by the Ladies Shopping Mart.

Now I fully aware that this is a tad lazy and were I serious about dating our picture I would be trawling the directories from 1911 through to 1939, but as most know the Local History Library will close soon till February to manage the move back into Central Ref and there are other calls on the time left.

So I shall return to the photograph and reflect on how much has changed on Market Street some of which was the product of enemy action in the last war but most by the developers of the late 1960s and 70s.

The buildings on the corner of New Brown Street were destroyed along with some of Market Place during the bombing, but  that great swathe of properties on our right stretching down towards Corporation Street went so that we can now wander in the enclosed world of the Arndale.

And they went within living memory, although I have to say most of us will be hard pressed to remember this stretch of Market Street when traffic flowed freely from Piccadilly down to St Mary’s Gate.

I have to say I am fond of this picture which comes from the collection of Sandra Hapgood because it captures perfectly a little of that world we have now lost.

Picture; from the collection of Sandra Hapgood

Snaps of Manchester number 4 Piccadilly in the late 1920s

Now I can’t be sure but I think we are looking at Piccadilly sometime before 1932.

It is difficult to be sure but I don’t think that the Ryland’s Building which is now Debenhams’s is there near the centre of our picture and if that is the case then this can be no later than 1932 and possibly sometime in the 1920s.

Like all the images in this collection owned by Sandra Hapgood there is much in the clothes and the vehicles to suggest this is the time frame.

Of course I might have missed some vital clue which can pin point the date and prove me wrong.

Either way it is one of those snaps of Manchester that I have been featuring.  Each of them is not by a professional and all of them were I think taken quickly while on the move and as with so  many snaps they are very personal, meant as a reminder of a day out or to share with family and friends.

And that is both their charm and their value because all of them are not the usual scenes of the city.  Instead they are shot from odd angles or concentrate on places seldom visited by the professional.

Picture; from the collection of Sandra Hapgood.

St Ann's Square, Snaps of Manchester nu 6

I have to say that there often seems to be building work on the corner where Old Bank Street runs into St Ann’s Square.

And so it as when this snap was taken sometime I think in the 1930s.

Back then the Royal Exchange was an exchange trading in cotton and after the completion of its extension between 1914 and ’31 was the largest trading hall in the country.

Now I might be slightly out with the date, the cars suggest the 1920s and it all hangs on whether what we see is the finished exchange.

Happily someone will have an opinion and provide an answer.

Either way it is another of those wonderful snaps from the collection of Sandra Hapgood, and as I have said before they are a valuable record of what the city looked like.

For unlike the carefully posed professional images these were instant pictures, taken by someone who just liked what they saw.

And so often are ones that no one else has taken.

Picture; St Ann’s Square, date unknown courtesy of Sandra Hapgood

On Deansgate where it joins Blackfriars Street in the 1920s

The corner of Blackfriars Street and Deansgate has never been a popular one for photographers.

Now I know this because I have counted just three on the digital archive of the City and can think of just a few others I have seen in various collections.*

So I was pretty pleased when I came across this one which I think must date from the 1920s.

It did present a little challenge at first to identify exactly where it was because the caption just refers to Deansgate.

But the clue was Stewart and Stewart who were tailors, trading at 46 Deansgate which was on the corner with Blackfriars Street.  Theirs was a large enough business to extend from Deansgate along Blackfriars Street.

They were trading there in 1911 and with a bit of research it should be possible to follow them back and forwards through the 20th century.

As for the building I cannot remember when it came down and was replaced with the present red brick one.
I know it survived the Manchester Blitz so I guess it was just one of those that fell to the developers.

This was not the case with the building opposite which went on the night of December 24th along with the entire block stretching up St Mary’s Gate to St Ann’s Square and also included the Royal Exchange.

Happily some of the near neighbours of 46 Deansgate have survived including the building which once housed T. Hayward & Co. Glass & China.

All of which is a lesson in keeping an eye on the buildings we pass and so often take for granted.

Locatiion; Manchester

*Manchester Local Image Collection, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Picture; Deansgate and Blackfriars Street, circa 1920s, courtesy of Sandra Hapgood

Mystery solved ….. and a confirmation of the honest and right way to do things ....

I won’t be alone I think in wondering why I haven’t been able to access Manchester Libraries digital collection of photographs.

St Andrew's School, 1920 Ancoats

At the last count there were over 80, 000 with some of them also appearing on a Flicker account.

A long time ago I sought permission to reproduce images from the collection on the blog with the clear understanding that I would acknowledge Manchester libraries and include the reference number and credit the photographer.  To which I also added the date.

But for perhaps six months the site has been down and despite requests for information all I got was that it “had issues”.  

This week in response to another request I got the promising reply that “Unfortunately the site is provided by a third-party company and there are still apparently problems that they need to fix, although we are assured it is nearly ready. In the meantime, you can see most of the images by going to http://gmlives.org.uk/results.html and selecting photograph as the category”.

All of which is very promising but makes me reflect on the request I made a decade and a bit ago to use their pictures is the simple observation that I don’t hold the copyright and like any images which I haven’t created they are not mine to use without permission.

Now I know in the case of the 80,000 most were donated by individuals who perhaps are the real copyright holders, but it remains the case they ain’t mine to use unless I ask and get the go ahead.

Not that that troubles many on social media who happily download and post away with no reference to where they came from, where they were taken and a date.

At best they leave a caption along the lines of “an old part of the city” which is as useful as reflecting “it was different in the past”.

Dates, locations and the name of the author are all important in providing context to the image, and help tell a story.

 Palais De Luxe cinema, Barlow Moor Road, circa 1928

And it matters.

Years ago someone reposted a picture I had used of an old Chorlton cinema, ignored  the story that came with it and so rendered its real value worthless.

Because the source came from an archive in east Scotland in a collection devoted to the Lion Foundry and had been taken by a local Chorlton photographer called Charles Ireland in the early 1920s.

All of which was important in telling the story of this cinema and throwing light on the fact that it had been taken to illustrate the cast iron and glass veranda which fronted the building. 

Equally important was Charles Ireland who not only lived in Chorlton but was a recognised photographer with studios in Manchester.

Abandoned, Rochdale Canal, 1979

Finally, the date helped locate the films being shown that week and provided extra information on the concert party that was down to perform live.

Angel Street, 1900

All of which means that using the catalogue entry is important, as is seeking permission.

When it comes down to it someone took the picture and at the very least they or the present holders should have the right to decide where and how it should be used.

And it is not enough just to mutter “well it was out there so its fair game to be used”, which in a different context could be used to justify walking away with a bike parked outside a shop.

Many of us have seen images we have taken, or accounts we have written stolen and reused on the most inappropriate sites in a context which does little credit to the original piece of work.

Common Lodging House, Angel Street, 1897

So I shall be pleased when those 80,000 images are back online and will continue to be careful to credit Manchester Libraries and offer up all the information from the catalogue.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; St Andrew’s School, Homer Street, 1920, m48646, Angel Street common lodging house, 1897, m08365, Angel Street, 1900, Samuel L Coulthurst, m08978, S.L.Coulthurst, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass,  The Rochdale Canal, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Palais De Luxe cinema, circa 1928, Charles Ireland, GD10-07-04-6-13-01 courtesy of East Dunbartonshire Archives

Snaps of Manchester number 7 ....... the Town Hall and the Cathedral in the 1920s

Now if you live in Manchester or like me claim it as your adopted city the chances are that you will have taken a picture of the Town Hall.

It was designed by Alfred Waterhouse and finished in 1877, and it remains a splendid building.

 I spent many years from the 1970s in the various state rooms and when meetings ground to tedious repetition and sloganising there was always the paintings, the wallpaper and the ceilings to marvel at.

The outside is no less impressive, but I have never found a good angle at which the to take a picture, and the result is that you  end up somewhere on Cross Street or South Mill Street trying to get all of the building in the frame.

Now I know it is possible to stand directly opposite on Brazenose Street but all too ofteh you have to wait for a clear moment when a bus a taxi or a lorry aren’t passing.

So I am always pleased when someone pulls it off.  In this case the picture comes from the collection of Sandra Hapgood and dates from the early decades of the last century.

It is another of those Snaps of Manchester which are often just as valuable as the carefully composed images taken by a professional.  And although they are often undated and their significance is lost they can be just as interesting.

More so because they are often of places which are unrecorded by the professional or commercial photographer.

Having said that I would like a £ for every image I have seen of the Cathedral.  This one comes from the same collection and will date from the same time.

It was taken from Exchange Station, now long gone, although bits of its railway past are still littered around what is now a car park.

Today the stretch of Victoria Street is closed to traffic which seemed a good idea but I rather think the temporary building in front of the Cathedral however worthy its use detracts from the Cathedral.

Pictures; from the collection of Sandra Hapgood

One to do today ....... Who Built Wythenshawe ......... at Central Ref from 11 am

 Now for many people Ernest and Sheena Simon will for ever be connected with Wythenshawe.

How to abolish the slums, 1929

They donated Wythenshawe Hall and its surrounding land as part of the project to build a new housing estate south of the city which would offer new homes to thousands of Mancunians who up until then had lived in properties which were at best inadequate, and many of which qualified for the title of slum.

And they were actively engaged in the project.

The exhibition at the Forum, May-July, 2022

But as the event, Who Built Wythenshawe will testify there was much more to both of them.  

The event  "will feature talks from the curators, and from local historians on the Simon and Tatton families, as well as unseen footage of the Simons. 

Visitors will be able to look at the many books written by the Simons and a number of photos of them alongside maps of Wythenshawe as well as have a chat with the curators”.

And so as well as talks on various aspects of their contribution to improving conditions for the people of Manchester there will be sessions on Ernest Simon's German parents and on the Tattons of Wythenshawe.

Shena and Ernest Simon visiting a hospital, date unknown

The event will be at Manchester Central Library on August 15th, starting at 11 am, and follows on from a very successful exhibition of the same name which ran from May to July at the Forum Library in Wythenshawe.*

But if you can’t get to the event you can follow the story on the web site, Who Built Wythenshawe.**

Location; Manchester Central Library, St Peter’s Square

Pictures; courtesy of John Ayshford

* Who Built Wythenshawe, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2022/05/who-built-wythenshawe-exhibition-today.html

**Who Built Wythenshawe, https://whobuiltwythenshawe.wordpress.com/

Spend a morning in the company of two Manchester pioneers ..... the Simon's of Wythenshawe at Central Ref ....... Monday August 15th

 Now for many people Ernest and Sheena Simon will for ever be connected with Wythenshawe.

How to abolish the slums, 1929

They donated Wythenshawe Hall and its surrounding land as part of the project to build a new housing estate south of the city which would offer new homes to thousands of Mancunians who up until then had lived in properties which were at best inadequate, and many of which qualified for the title of slum.

And they were actively engaged in the project.

The exhibition at the Forum, May-July, 2022

But as the event, Who Built Wythenshawe will testify there was much more to both of them.  

The event  "will feature talks from the curators, and from local historians on the Simon and Tatton families, as well as unseen footage of the Simons. 

Visitors will be able to look at the many books written by the Simons and a number of photos of them alongside maps of Wythenshawe as well as have a chat with the curators”.

And so as well as talks on various aspects of their contribution to improving conditions for the people of Manchester there will be sessions on Ernest Simon's German parents and on the Tattons of Wythenshawe.

Shena and Ernest Simon visiting a hospital, date unknown

The event will be at Manchester Central Library on August 15th, starting at 11 am, and follows on from a very successful exhibition of the same name which ran from May to July at the Forum Library in Wythenshawe.*

But if you can’t get to the event you can follow the story on the web site, Who Built Wythenshawe.**

Location; Manchester Central Library, St Peter’s Square

Pictures; courtesy of John Ayshford

* Who Built Wythenshawe, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2022/05/who-built-wythenshawe-exhibition-today.html

**Who Built Wythenshawe, https://whobuiltwythenshawe.wordpress.com/

Who built Wythenshawe ...... the exhibition .... today

 Now, this is an exhibition I will be visiting ….. 

And here I have to declare a personal interest because Wythenshawe was where I spent my 35 years teaching career history.

John Ayshford who is one of the organizers of the exhibition told me

The Simons visiting Manchester residents, 1922

“The exhibition is on the history of Wythenshawe and the fascinating lives of the somewhat forgotten local social reformers Ernest and Shena Simon. 

The Simons played an instrumental part in realising Wythenshawe's development as a garden city to provide better housing for the tens of thousands of families previously forced to live in Manchester's slums. 

Ernest Simon was a pioneering industrialist, politician and housing reformer whilst Shena Simon was a leading feminist and campaigner for comprehensive education who served on the education committee of Manchester City Council for over forty years. 

How to abolish the slums, 1929

When Ernest was appointed to the House of Lords the Simons took the name Lord and Lady Wythenshawe in recognition of the pride they took in Wythenshawe. 

Invitation to industry, 1932

We hope the exhibition will engage the local community in Wythenshawe with their history and foster local pride.

The exhibition will be held at the Wythenshawe Forum Library from 21st May–2nd July. The launch event for the exhibition is at 11:00 on 21st May at the Library. 

Local societies and councillors will be in attendance”.

Leaving me just to add that one of my first teaching projects was the story of Wythenshawe which always proved popular amongst the students who grew in the Woodhouse Park and Benchill areas of the estate.

Added to which my school which had been Oldwood Secondary had been adopted by Shena Simon as her own and she regularly attended Speech Days, although sadly the photographs of her visits have long since vanished.

I could add more but wont, leaving it to the references below provided by John to fill any gaps in people's knowledge.

Location; Forum Library, Wythenshawe M22 5RX

Wythenshawe Civic Week 1955

Pictures; courtesy of John Ayshford

*Shena Simon; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shena_Simon

**Ernest Simons, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Simon,_1st_Baron_Simon_of_Wythenshawe

***In Search of Athens: Ernest Simon’s Campaign to Bolster Britain’s Democratic Culture (1932-1939), by John Ayshford, https://manchesterhistorian.com/2021/in-search-of-athens-ernest-simons-campaign-to-bolster-britains-democratic-culture-1932-1939-by-john-ayshford/

And two more to read ........

Who Built Wythenshawe: The Forgotten Story of Ernest & Shena Simon and the Creation of Manchester’s Garden City, https://whobuiltwythenshawe.wordpress.com/

Who Built Wythenshawe? The Forgotten Story of Ernest & Shena Simon and the Creation of Manchester’s Garden City, https://manchesterhistories.co.uk/news-list/who-built-wythenshawe-the-forgotten-story-of-ernest-shena-simon-and-the-creation-of-manchesters-garden-city/