Looking for Mrs Elizabeth Cunliffe ………

History has not been kind to Elizabeth Cunliffe. 

The Soho Foundry Tavern, 1851, Great Ancoats Street

So far, she features in just one historical record, from the 1851 census after which there is nothing.

For a brief while I thought I had found her ten years earlier and again for the last three decades of the 19th century, which would have made an interesting story as it tracked a young farm servant to a woman “living on her own means” aged 93.

But on closer inspection the young farm worker is not the elderly woman with money behind her.

Sadly, they were neither born in the same year or in the same place, and so what could have a fascinating story charting a remarkable journey turns out to be nothing more than a shared name.

Nor is the young Elizabeth aged 16 and living on a farm close to Liverpool the 26 years old woman who had married a James Cunliffe and described herself as a “Publican” on the 1851 census.

But there is enough left in that one record to pursue Mrs Cunliffe.

They were living at 251 Great Ancoats Street, close to where the Ashton Canal runs under the road at New Islington.*

Great Ancoats Street, 1962

Mr Cunliffe was a “Boiler Maker employing six men” and while he appears on the Street Directory at 251 Great Ancoats Street he is not listed amongst the eight men of that name in the alphabetical section of the same directory.  

Those eight included a bricklayer, provision dealer, tanner, and mechanic, along with a beer retailer, crate maker, dyer and weaver.

Nor can I find any listing for Elizabeth in the directories despite the reference to her as a publican. 

Now that is intriguing because there was the Soho Foundry Tavern on Great Ancoats Street which is recorded on the Rate Books as a pub at 251 in 1854 and 1855, and its occupant was her husband.

So if this was their pub, they must have taken it over sometime during 1851 because at the start of the year the Soho Foundry Tavern was run by an Ann Goff and by 1863 by Joseph Abrahams.

Moreover I know that in 1847 they were in Newton Le Willows and by 1849 were here in Manchester, because Thomas their eldest had been born outside the city while the birth place of their daughter May was here in Manchester.

All of which looks more than a bit confusing and messy.  But it was not uncommon for families to have more than one occupation, and well into the 20th century some pubs were run as a secondary business.  

I thought at first that perhaps Mrs Cunliffe was actually a beer retailer, which was an occupation made possible by the 1830 Beer Act which allowed anyone who could afford to pay two guineas for a license to brew and sell their own beer from their home.  Often the beer was dispensed from one room of the family home, and some beer shops morphed into pubs.

Looking towards Great Ancoats Street, 2022 from New Islington

But the Soho Foundry Tavern was not a beer house/beer shop.  It is listed a public house, took up a large footprint on the maps and commanded a higher rateable value than the surrounding premises all of which suggests it was a going concern.

And that pretty much is that other than to record that a James Cunliffe was running a beer house in the 1880s at 347 Great Ancoats Street which commanded a rate of just £20 compared to the £50 paid for the Soho Foundry Tavern thirty years earlier.

I say that is it, but the mystery thickens slightly because the Elizabeth Cunliffe who appears in the census records for 1891 and 1901 may not share the same birthplace or date of birth as our Elizabeth from Great Ancoats Street, but she was living in Newton Le Willows which was also the birthplace of her husband James Cunliffe and their son Thomas.

So lots more research to do.

To which John Anthony Hewitt has added, "Hi Andrew, I have a marriage for a James Cunliffe, full age, Boiler Maker, Eccles Street, Liverpool, to Elizabeth Welsh, minor, Eccles Street, Liverpool, at St Nicholas Church, Liverpool, 30 March 1845. His father, John, was a Contractor, and her father, Thomas, a Shoemaker. Source: (https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/collections/2197/images/englb5617_283-nic-3-31_m_00034?treeid=&personid=&rc=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=wBg19&_phstart=successSource&pId=1703824) 

This would fit with the 1851 Census ages, 31 & 26, giving years of birth as ca. 1820 & ca 1825. 

Also, I noticed the 1851 Census recorded James Cunliffe as born in Ashton-le-Willows, which was another name for Ashton-in-Makerfield; old maps (NLS) also record 2 names for Newton-le-Willows, the alternative being Newton-in-Makerfield. Source for Ashton-le-Willows: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol4/pp142-148 "

And also fits with the 1841 census entry which shows the two of them living and working on a farm.

Location; Great Ancoats Street

Pictures; walking New Islington, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and in 1851 from Adshead’s map of Manchester, Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and Goolden's Buildings, T Brooks,1962,m11279,courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*New Islington, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=New+islington

Gooldens Buildings in New Islington ………. Lost and now redicovered

Now this is one of the best views across to what was Gooldens Buildings, which stood just a short distance from Great Ancoats Street and faced the Ashton Canal.

Looking towards Gooldens Buildings, 2022

If I wanted to be entirely accurate the buildings were just a little past the lock keepers gate house heading east to the main road.

Sod’s Law dictated that I wasn’t looking for them when I wandered around New Islington on Monday, and the exact spot was occupied by builders on a break, the odd parent with a push chair and heaps of passers-by, making taking pictures a bit difficult.*

Gooldens Buildings, 1851

Nor had I heard of the eight properties which made up “Gooldens Buildings”, but as you do having decided to investigate what the area was like in the mid-19th century they seemed a perfect starting point.

Three of the eight were back to backs and the remainder seem to have had a backyard.  

They formed a rough L shape with the larger houses fronting the canal and the smaller ones running off at right angles, beyond which there were more houses and one of those closed courts of 13 back-to-back one up one down properties looking onto Booth’s Court, where sunlight and fresh air struggled to penetrate.

Gooldens Buildings started as a row of houses but appear to have given its name to the stretch of thoroughfare along side the canal up to Great Ancoats Street.  So long after the original houses had vanished or were converted into retail and industrial use, the name Gooldens Buildings remain.

By the 1920s some of the site had become a collection of warehouses and a factory and later still in 1953 the footprint is the same.  Tantalizingly there is only one picture of the street dated 1962 showing the corner of Gooldens Buildings and Great Ancoats Street with a hint of one of the warehouses.

The canal close to Gooldens Buildings, 2022

The first reference to the eight properties of Gooldens Buildings, dates from 1833 and the last from 1890.  These come from the Rate Books and offer up the names of various owners and residence over those 57 years.

As to exactly when they were constructed is still in doubt, but I think it will be sometime after 1819 because they do not appear on Johnson’s map of that year.

All of which leads me to burrow down into their history and explore who called them home.

The census returns show that in the spring of 1851 there were 49 people living in the row, whose ages ranged from the newly born to 76, with 42% below the age of 21.

Most were born in Manchester with a few from Cheshire, one from Yorkshire and one from Hertfordshire.

Their occupations were pretty much what we might expect of an area bounded by two canals and surrounded by textile factories.

Gooldens Buildings, 1962

The largest grew worked in a variety of jobs to do with the manufacture of cotton, four described themselves as “Canal Boat” men, and the remainder consisted of a Stone Mason, two Hawkers, a salesman, charwoman, launderess, along with a carter, “"and a house servant.

Their rents ranged from 2/9d to 4/9d, when an average wage might be £1.**

In time I will pursue the life stories of the 49 including tracking them across the city using the Rate Books and census returns, and possibly the street directories, although I doubt any would have been deemed worthy enough to have featured in the lists of residents of Manchester in the mid 19th century.

The promise of more residents, Gooldens Buildings, 2022

For now, I will reflect that Gooldens Buildings and the surrounding area will have had a density of living only matched again in the 21st century as New Islington continues to be developed as an attractive part of the inner city.

But unlike today with its mix of waterside attraction, a park and interesting bars and restaurants I think this bit of the city would have been less desirable in 1851.

During the day the noise from the textile mills, and foundries and the ever present danger the two canals presented to young children  Made New Islington a less attractive place to live.

Location; New Islington

Pictures; walking New Islington, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and in 1851 from Adshead’s map of Manchester, Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and Goolden's Buildings, T Brooks,1962,m11279,courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*New Islington, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Islington

**2/9d was two shillings and 9 pennies.  There were twenty shillings to a £ and 12 pennies made up a shilling.  Converting these sums to post decimal currency has little meaning and perhaps matching earnings with rents makes more sense, although there are comparison historical sites out there.