Just before midnight on Princess Street …………1963

This is one of those pictures I wish I had taken.

We are on Princess Street approaching Whitworth Street, and given that it’s almost midnight the streets are empty.

I like the effect of the streetlamps, which along with the absence of people and vehicles makes for a very atmospheric scene.

Of course, the buildings running down from 113 to Whitworth Street have long gone, although they survived until relatively recently, after which the site was an empty plot for ages.

But when I first came across the picture last year, the plot was being developed with speed, with the boards promising “Luxury City Centre Living”, with the name Manchester Square.

Location; Princess Street




Pictures; Princess Street, 1963,  "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

The door …. and the story

This is the entrance to Whitworth House at 121 Princess Street, and the inscription above the door offers up one of those fascinating twisty turney stories.

Morreau, Spiegelberg and Co, 2023

Morreau, Spiegelberg and Co were listed in 1903 as “manufacturers, shipping and merchants”. 

My Pevsner says of the building “on the east side, of [Princess Street] the former premise of Morreau, and Spiegelberg, C Legg, 1912. Arcaded below with slightly projecting bays, above topped with a range of big shaped gables”.*

As a description it isn’t much but it’s a start for what is a large property occupying a site bounded by Bombay Street, Princess Street, Granby Row and Samuel Ogden Street.

And it’s size is totally in keeping with what seems to have been the business of Morreau, and Spiegelberg which can be tracked back to at least 1896 when they were on Portland Street, and on to 1916 when they were still at Whitworth House.

Marcus Morreau had dissolved a business partnership in 1897 and another in 1911 by which time he was already in partnership with George Spiegelberg.

Now I am never really a fan of delving into the lives of the wealthy, given that their wealth and prestige has ensured a trail of information from business documents to newspaper references.

But in this case because I had the names it seemed churlish not to explore their lives, and I started with Mr. Mooreau.

He was born in Wörrstadt in Germany in 1859 and was living in Whalley Range as a lodger in 1881.

121 Princess Street, 2023

As yet I can’t be sure when he first moved to Britain, but he was naturalized as a “British Subject” in 1892, made several trips to New York in the 1890s and was married in Calais in 1900.  Alice his wife was French was just 18 when she married Marcus.

In the early years of their marriage they moved around south Manchester but by 1911 they were on Lapwing Lane.  

The house is still there and is a grand looking place. 

It had 16 rooms and the Mooreau’s employed five servants two of whom were described as nurses, along with their German cook, a “waitress” and a “housemaid”.  Intriguingly both the last two were born in Manchester but described themselves as a “British Subject by parentage”.

And as befitting someone of wealth there are pictures of Mr. and Mrs Morreau and two of their three children as well as one of Alice and a sibling in 1890.

These are available from a family blog and are one of those remarkable finds and come with a picture of George Spiegelberg.**

Highfield, Didsbury, 1894

It was a find that came at the end of a long day of trawling the records and writing the story which I suppose is one of those lessons that you should always finish the research first.

But then the Brotmanblog blog is someone else’s story compiled with their research so it is fitting that those who want to pursue the family should follow the link and read their account.

And if you feel adventurous take yourself down to 121 Princess Street and gaze on the former warehouse and offices of Moreau, and Spiegelberg.

Alternatively you could head south to Didsbury and the site of Highfield House which was where Mr. and Mrs. Morreau were living in 1920 when Marcus died.  

Alice was still there a year later where she shared her home with two of her children, a governess and three servants and a Mr. Spiegelberg who was visiting from nearby Bowden.

The OS map for 1894 shows Highfield as a large 14 roomed house set in extensive grounds with a lodge off Ford Lane.

And that for now it it.

Location; Manchester, and Didsbury

Pictures;, 121 Princess Street, 2023 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and Highfield in Didsbury from the OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

* Manchester, Clare Hartwell2002, Pevsner Architectural Guides p198

** Brotmanblog: A Family Journey,  https://brotmanblog.com/2019/09/03/a-brickwall-when-and-where-did-alice-weinmann-marry-marcus-morreau/

Steam and stuff ......... forty four years ago on Princess Street

It was 1980 and having followed a steam cavalcade of vintage cars, lorries and buses I came acroos the Super Sentinel.

Location; Princess Street, Manchester

Picture; Steam and stuff .....forty four years ago on Princess Street, 1980 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Two plaques …… one lost building ..... and a forgotten road

So, when you are out with the camera on a sunny and dry February morning you make the most of it.

A blue plaque, 2023

And having done the “artistic shots” I was wandering around the old commercial part of the city looking for those narrow streets and alleys which could offer up a story.

What I found were two plaques waiting to be saved on a building which I am sure is soon for redevelopment.

It is a big slab of a place which has seen better days and comprises of 79 Mosley Street, 16 Princess Street and 14 Back George Street, and featured in an earlier blog story.*

I had passed it countless times but only recently became interested in it after I spotted a ghost sign for one of the previous occupants.

I did promise myself I would follow up on that story but never did, until yesterday when I came across the two plaques on the Princess Street side.

Not a blue plaque, 2023

I say plaques, but only one of them can claim to be that, the other is a poor attempt at leaving your mark on a boarded up street level window.

The real plaques records that "near this site" was the premises of F.C.Calvert which in 1857 “produced phenol, carbolic acid, used as a disinfectant in soaps and powders and for making dyes”.

All of which is linked to Frederick Crace Calvert PhD FRS who in 1846 “was Professor of Chemistry at the Manchester Royal Institution which was opposite and now houses Manchester City Art Gallery.”

And by one of those twists of history it turns out that Frederick Crace Calvert was living in Exmouth Terrace at 170 Oxford Road which is now under the present Manchester Museum.

Now despite not finding him on the 1851 census I know he was living on Oxford Street by 1849 and he was paying an annual rent of £170, while renting a workshop on Bond Street from the same year.**

Mr.  Calvert goes to France

That workshop was variously described as a “laboratory” as well as a “workshop” and appears to have been in a shared building.

And what makes him that tad more intriguing is that while he was born in London in 1819 he spent a big chunk of his life from the age of 16 in France where he remained till 1846, which “till the end of his life he spoke English with a French accent”.***

At which point rather than “lift” someone else’s research I shall just add the extract from that biography.

Location; Princess Street, Manchester

Pictures; two plaques, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Mr.Calvert comes to Manchester

*The three stories behind no. 79 Mosley Street, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-three-stories-behind-no-79-mosley.html

**This section of Oxford Street is now Oxford Road

***National Biography Vol 3, 1901

The lost houses of Princess Street ........... part two ......... Mr Crabtree, a sink, two taps and a washer

Now Mr Crabtree’s plumbing business has come in for some attention recently.

118-120 Princess Street as was, 2015

It occupied numbers 118-120 Princess Street just down from Charles Street.

It was doing the business back in 1959 and was still trading taps, washers and much else a decade later.

But now it’s gone and the site is  just a hole in the ground as seen in this photograph from Andy Robertson.

I became intrigued by the buildings after they had been featured on facebook by Ray Ogden from a picture by Mike Peel taken in 2006.

They will postdate 1819 and were well established when the surveyors of the Manchester and Salford OS map completed their task in 1849.

And back in 1959

Two years later Slater’s directory recorded the residents of the row and Mr Adshead featured them on his colour map.

All of which means  I can confirm that along the stretch there were a motley collection of businesses and householders, from James Carruthers beer retailer and Lydia Dodson, tobacconist to Edward Hooper of the Medlock Inn.

In total there were twelve buildings running down to the Brook Street Bridge from Charles Street which neatly brings me to the fact that back in 1851 the bridge and our houses stood on Brook Street rather than Princess Street.

The bigger picture, down Princess Street, 1959

Added to which the larger building to the right of Mr Crabtree’s shop dates from after 1851, but that maybe over doing the detail.

Still the photographs from 1959 show something of the other original buildings one of which will have been the Medlock Inn, not that the pub could have amounted to much given that on neither of the two maps of the period is it listed as a place dispensing beer.

That for now is it, leaving me only to thank Andy for sharing his picture of the hole in the ground, his efforts at finding the 1959 pictures and his work which confirmed Mr Crabtree was still on Princess Street in 1969 and that back in 1911 it was the plumbing business of a Hampson Archer.

Pictures; 118-120 Princess Street, 2015, as was from the collection of Andy Robertson & as  R Crabtree & Co Ltd, 1959, HW Beaumont, m05312, & m05313, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council

*The lost houses of Princess Street begin to reveal their secrets, 

A last goodbye to 35-53 Princess Road and a thank you to Andy Robertson

Well, they have gone, numbers 35-53 Princess Road have finally succumbed to a decade of slow lingering decay followed by a smart vision from a developer, hastened on by the approval of a plan to redevelop the site and finished by the bulldozer’s ball.

We have followed the story from February when Andy spotted the first tell tale signs and photographed the boarded up shops.*

It led me back into a fascinating story of a time when the shops hummed with business, when the one on the corner became part of the chain of Pawnbrokers and jewellers established by James Bowes and lots of engaging memories.

And every so often Andy returned, snapped the latest stage which was almost finished in early August and is now complete.

So here are the last three stages of the story.

Set against the events that were unfolding a century ago some may see this as a tad trivial, but that is far from the case.

The past should always be recorded and we tend to be very negligent about marking the passing of the more recent past.

Especially when that past is about ordinary people rather than the people of plenty in their fine homes.

And is a call for all of us to get out there and photograph the changes so that a future generation can judge not only how we lived but whether we made the right choices.

Pictures; from the collection of Andy Robertson, February to August 2014








*Princess Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Princess%20Road