Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 6 ............ Gravel Lane

Now I know that strictly speaking Gravel Lane is neither lost nor forgotten.

It runs from Blackfriars Road up to Greengate, but that first chunk is hidden underneath the railway viaducts which make it a tad foreboding.

But if you do wander into that dark cavern you will be rewarded by some fine cast iron pillars on the corner of Viaduct Street.

These support the original Liverpool and Manchester Railway’s track which was constructed in 1844 and while it was a substantial structure carrying four railway lines it was not yet the structure we know today.

Back in the late 1840s looking out from the north side of Trinity Church there was still a wide expanse of space beyond which were a  Rope Walk, a series of mills and foundries and a timber yard.

Gravel Lane, 1849

And a walk up Gravel Lane in 1849 would have taken you past the Methodist Chapel, a whole shed load of houses with access to some closed courts and Christ Church which stood between King Street and Queen Street.

All a little different today.

Location; Salford

Pictures; Gravel Lane, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the area in 1849, from the OS for Manchester and Salford, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Leaving Salford for Canada part 2 ............... the long journey

Now the Hampson family are not strictly family.  

Pendleton, 1848

They belong to my cousins from Ontario, but theirs is a fascinating story which is part of the story of both countries.

James Hampson was born in 1816 and married Sarah Tildesley in December 1838 at the Parish Church of Eccles.  In 1841 he described himself as a cotton dyer and in that year was living in Pendleton.  Sometime after 1849, James, Sarah and their children left for Canada which was a popular destination for emigrants.

Now I can be fairly certain of this because their last child was born in  England in 1849 and the Canadian census of 1851 records them as there.

Thousands of people, many of them from Ireland left these shores in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Most hoped that a new country would mean a fresh start with new opportunities and a better life.

The 1840s were a hard time for all but the rich and there were schemes to resettle working families across the Empire. This was a policy that was actively pursued by the Poor Law Commissioners with parochial aid or assistance from local landlords.

The Commissioners reported that over 2, 000 had gone to Canada in 1841 which was an increase on the year before, and that assistance was also being given to move to Australia and New Zealand.

The main sea port for their departure was Liverpool.  In the hundred years from 1830 to 1930 over nine million emigrants sailed from to the US, Canada and Australia.

I don’t think we will ever know exactly why the Hampson's left and there is no record of when they went but they were part of a steadily rising number of people which  reached a high point in 1849.

Even today the decision to emigrate cannot be an easy one to take, but a hundred and sixty seven years ago the cost, the problems and the very real dangers must have weighed heavily.

A ticket for just one person travelling on the cheapest passage might be three to five times James’s weekly wage, and of course there were four of them.**

Then there were the ever present threats from unscrupulous dealers, ship owners and the crew who might cheat the passengers at every turn of the journey.

Lastly there was the sea passage itself, a trip of a month in a sailing ship at the mercy of an unpredictable weather on the open sea, crammed together with people some of whom were ill with disease.

So, taking that decision was as much an act of faith as it was a rational choice with a secure conclusion.
The ships might hold up wards of four hundred passengers although some like the Isaac Wright could carry 900 people.

The Hampson's could expect a fairly basic diet on the journey.  Each passenger was given a weekly ration of bread, rice, tea, sugar as well as oatmeal flour, molasses and vinegar and one pound of pork.   Passengers could however supplement this with their own provisions but there was an upper limit.

There are contemporary stories of passengers being cheated of their rightful ration either because it was delivered late or just not at all.

Conditions on board were not ideal.  Packed together there was the ever present threat of disease and death.

All the passengers were by law inspected by a doctor before they embarked but this did not always prevent the outbreak of illnesses.  In one month in 1847 twelve ships making landfall at Grosse Island reported a total of 198 dead passengers out of just over 3,000.

Some ships arrived safely with no deaths others like Bark Larch from Sligo lost 108 of its 440 passengers with another 150 reported ill.  The highest death rates seemed to be ships bound from Ireland escaping the effects of the famine some years earlier.***

Location; Salford, Greater Manchester

*The Eighth Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, HMSO 1842, Page 37 Google edition page 58

** In 1847 a ticket might cost between £3.10/- and £5. From a newspaper article The tide of emigration in the Illustrated London  News July 1850

***Immigrants to Canada, http://jubilation.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/thevoyage.html

Picture; detail of Pendleton from OS Lancashire 1841 courtesy of Digital Archives Association www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Leaving for Canada in 1849 .... a momentous step

I think you would have to be really poor of imagination not to feel something at seeing the marriage certificate of an ancestor.

I am staring at the marriage certificate of James Hampson and Sarah Tildsley who were married on December 9th 1838 in the parish church of Eccles.

Now strictly speaking they are not family but belong to my cousins in, Ontario, but Pendleton where they were both born and lived is just five miles away from Chorlton and they began their married life during the time I been writing about our own township.

And sometime just a decade after their marriage they took the momentous step and left for Canada with their five children the eldest of whom must have been no more than eleven and the youngest just about two years old.

James Hampson was born in 1816 and Sarah a year later and they reflected something of the changes that were happening to Pendleton.  Both came from families which were connected with the new Pendleton which was a place of cotton mills, dye works and coal mines.  Sarah’s father was an engineer and both James and his father were cotton dyers. By the 1840s this part of the northwest had become a centre for the manufacture of cotton.  In 1842 there were 412 cotton mills employing thousands of workers in what is now the Greater Manchester area while Manchester alone had 41 factories.

And cotton dyeing is an essential part of the cotton process.  Many of the dye works were situated along the banks of the River Irwell utilising the steady flow of water.  Before the 1850s the process still relied on natural dyes using the flowers, berries, leaves, barks and roots of plants and herbs.  As such the work would not have been as dangerous as it was to become with the introduction of chemical dyes.

But it must still have been very uncomfortable.  James would have constantly been exposed to hot and cold water and dyes which left his hands stained different colours.  He would also have worked longer hours than other cotton workers.  Long after the government had begun to regulate working hours in the cotton industry a Royal Commission in 1855 found that many bleaching, dyeing and printing workers  regularly put in fifteen or sixteen hours a day and often continued for several days and nights without stopping.

The family lived on Ashton Street within a few minute’s walk from cotton mills, a dye works and a coal mine with the newly built railway and the slightly older canal close by.

Looking out from their home the Hampson’s would have been faced with a row of one up one down back to back houses which backed on to Miners Row.  Theirs might have been a slightly bigger house but the detailed 1848 OS map shows that their nearest water pump was some distance away.

And while there are was sill dotted with plenty of open land it must have been obvious that in the next few decades all of it would be developed for more industrial and residential use.

The rural appearance of where they lived should not blind us to the fact that it must have been a hard life.
Hours were long and wages were low. Engels quotes from the Factory Inspector, Leonard Horner in October 1844

“The state of things in the matter of wages is greatly perverted in certain branches of  cotton manufacture in Lancashire; there are hundreds of young men, between twenty and thirty, employed as piecers and other wise who do not get more than eight or nine shillings a week, while children under thirteen years, working under the same roof, earn five shillings, and young girls from sixteen to twenty years, ten to 12 shillings per week” *

Wages fluctuated with the trade cycle.**  In 1833 the highest wages were paid to men between the ages of 31 to 36, with huge disparities recorded for women and children. Their wages could also be docked for minor misdemeanours ranging from lateness to leaving a window open.***

Now trying to make sense of wages one hundred and sixty-years later is always fraught with difficulty. However Engels living in 1845 was in no doubt that the above wage levels were not good.  And this had a direct impact on the standard of living.  Their food was basic and monotonous. The staples were bread, oatcakes, watery porridge, potatoes, and a little bacon. Sometimes the porridge was flavoured with onions. Porridge was also made in thick lumps so it could be eaten with the hands at work. Tripe (sheep stomach lining), slink (calf born too early), and broxy (diseased sheep) were regarded as treats by the poorest.

Many workers were still paid on a Saturday evening and by then the quality of food at the markets was poor.
“The potatoes which the workers buy are usually poor, the vegetables wilted and the cheese old and poor quality, the bacon rancid, the meat lean, tough, taken from old , often diseased cattle”****
An observation Engels followed up the report that on January 6th 1844 eleven meat sellers had been fined for selling tainted meat.   Added to this there was the adulteration of food as this report from The Liverpool Mercury shows
 '
Salt butter is moulded into the form of pounds of fresh butter, and cased over with fresh. In other instances a pound of fresh is conspicuously placed to be tasted; but that pound is not sold; and in other instances salt butter, washed is moulded and sold as fresh...pounded rice and other cheap materials are mixed in sugar, and sold at full monopoly price. A chemical substance...the refuse of the soap manufactories...is also mixed with other substances and sold as sugar...chicory is mixed in good coffee. Chicory, or some similarly cheap substance, is skilfully moulded into the form of the coffee berry, and it is mixed with the bulk very liberally...cocoa is extensively adulterated with fine brown earth, wrought up with mutton fat; so as to amalgamate with portions of the real article...the leaves of tea are mingled with sloe levies and other abominations. Used leaves are also re-dried, and re-coloured on hot copper plates, and sold as tea. Pepper is adulterated with dust from husks etc; port wine is altogether manufactured (from spirits, dyes etc.), it being notorious that more port wine is drunk in this country than is made in Portugal. Nasty things of all sorts are mixed with weed tobacco in all its manufactured forms.” *****

Hard work, long hour’s poor housing and a poor diet left its mark on the health of people.  In 1842 the average life expectancy of the working class in Manchester was just 17 years of age.  There is no reason to suppose it was any better in Salford.  Indeed infant mortality in Salford in 1850 was much higher than the national average.******

All this took its toll as this description of mill workers by a medical worker in 1833 is horrifyingly unflattering:
'...their complexion is sallow and pallid--with a peculiar flatness of feature, ...their stature low--the average height of four hundred men, measured at different times, and different places, being five feet six inches...their limbs slender, and playing badly and ungracefully...a very general bowing of the legs...great numbers of girls and women walking lamely or awkwardly, with raised chests and spinal flexures...nearly all have flat feet, accompanied with a down-tread, differing very widely from the elasticity of action in the foot and ankle, attendant upon perfect formation...hair thin and straight--many of the men having but little beard, and that in patches of a few hairs...' *******

Given all this it is easy to see why a family might choose an alternative and the 1840s were a  hard time for all but the rich and there were schemes to resettle working families across the Empire. This was a policy that was actively pursued by the Poor Law Commissioners with parochial aid or assistance from local landlords.   The Commissioners reported that over 2, 000 had gone to Canada in 1841 which was an increase on the year before, and that assistance was also being given to move to Australia and New Zealand.

Location; Salford, Greater Manchester

*Horner Leonard Factory Inspector quoted by Engels Frederick The Conditions of the Working Class in England 1845 page 170

**Frow, Edmund & Ruth, Radical Salford 1984 page 34

***Frow, page 4

****Engels page 101

*****Liverpool Mercury quoted in Engels, Friedrick page 102

******In 1850 infant mortality was 175 per thousand compared to 150 nationally

*******Gaskell P, The Manufacturing Population of England, London, 1833

Pictures; Marriage certificate from the collection of Jacquie Pember-Barnum, 1848 OS map for Lancashire and Union Street Mill,Ancoats, Austin and Gahey, 1835, m52534, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass 

Making a new start, Canada in 1851, an introduction to a story of immigration

James Hampson was born in 1816 and married Sarah Tildesley in December 1838 at the Parish Church of Eccles.

In 1841 he described himself as a cotton dyer and in that year was living in Pendleton.  Sometime after 1849, James, Sarah and their children left for Canada which was a popular destination for emigrants.  Now I can be fairly certain of this because their last child was born in  England in 1849 and the Canadian census of 1851 records them as there.

Thousands of people, many of them from Ireland left these shores in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Most hoped that a new country would mean a fresh start with new opportunities and a better life.

The 1840s were a hard time for all but the rich and there were schemes to resettle working families across the Empire. This was a policy that was actively pursued by the Poor Law Commissioners with parochial aid or assistance from local landlords.   The Commissioners reported that over 2, 000 had gone to Canada in 1841 which was an increase on the year before, and that assistance was also being given to move to Australia and New Zealand.

The main sea port for their departure was Liverpool.  In the hundred years from 1830 to 1930 over nine million emigrants sailed from to the US, Canada and Australia.  I don’t think we will ever know exactly why the Hampson's left and there is no record of when they went but they were part of a steadily rising number of people which  reached a high point in 1849.

Even today the decision to emigrate cannot be an easy one to take, but a hundred and sixty years ago the cost, the problems and the very real dangers must have weighed heavily.  A ticket for just one person travelling on the cheapest passage might be three to five times James’s weekly wage, and of course there were four of them.**

Then there were the ever present threats from unscrupulous dealers, ship owners and the crew who might cheat the passengers at every turn of the journey. Lastly there was the sea passage itself, a trip of a month in a sailing ship at the mercy of an unpredictable weather on the open sea, crammed together with people some of whom were ill with disease.

So, taking that decision was as much an act of faith as it was a rational choice with a secure conclusion.
The ships might hold up wards of four hundred passengers although some like the Isaac Wright could carry 900 people. The Hampson's could expect a fairly basic diet on the journey.  Each passenger was given a weekly ration of bread, rice, tea, sugar as well as oatmeal flour, molasses and vinegar and one pound of pork.   Passengers could however supplement this with their own provisions but there was an upper limit.  There are contemporary stories of passengers being cheated of their rightful ration either because it was delivered late or just not at all.

Conditions on board were not ideal.  Packed together there was the ever present threat of disease and death.  All the passengers were by law inspected by a doctor before they embarked but this did not always prevent the outbreak of illnesses.  In one month in 1847 twelve ships making landfall at Grosse Island reported a total of 198 dead passengers out of just over 3,000.  Some ships arrived safely with no deaths others like Bark Larch from Sligo lost 108 of its 440 passengers with another 150 reported ill.  

Location; Salford, Greater Manchester

*The Eighth Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, HMSO 1842, Page 37 Google edition page 58

** In 1847 a ticket might cost between £3.10/- and £5. From a newspaper article The tide of emigration in the Illustrated London  News July 1850

Picture; detail of Pendleton from OS Lancashire 1841 courtesy of Digital Archives Association www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

The Salford Cinema, ...... from place of worship in 1846 to a picture house in 1912 and now home again to a religious group

The Salford Cinema, 2009

Never one to hide my mistakes the story now begins with a correction from Martin who writes, "The "Rex" was not the Chapel Street Independent Chapel. 

The Independent Chapel is the one shown in the old map on the corner of Chapel Street and Lamb Court and is still open as a Chapel Street and Hope United Reformed Church.

I'm afraid you have your churches mixed up!"

But rather than pull the story I shall leave it sitting here until I can fully correct my mistake.  So dear reader read on and be aware!

This is Salford Cinema which was opened in 1912 and closed for business in 1958, only to reopen as a Bingo Hall nine years later before finally closing its doors for good in 1976.

Many will remember it  as the Rex which was the name it was given in 1938 after it had been bought for a second time.

Like many of our picture houses which were built in the first few decades of the last century it couldn’t compete with the television and after years of laying empty was turned to other uses.

All of which is better than becoming a car park for at least we can still admire the building even if we can’t watch a film inside.

But the Salford/Rex holds a real history, because although it was opened in 1912 as a cinema the building dates back to 1846, and its use has come full circle, because it started life as the Chapel Street Chapel, (Independent).

Chapel Street Chapel, 1846

It’s there on the OS map for 1846 and looks to be an impressive place, but sadly did not make it into The Stranger’s Guide to Manchester which contained “information on every subject interesting to residents or strangers,” which was compiled by H G Duffield in 1850.

Here can be found detailed description of the leading buildings of the twin cities, but all he gives our chapel is one line in the listings for “Independent Chapels,” as “Chapel-street, Salford.”

Something of its previous history can be seen by walking down St Stephen’s Street to its junction with Browning Street where you can see the original stone and a blocked up chapel window.

And for those who want more I would direct you to, Salford Cinema, http://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/outside/SALFORD/salfordcinema.html

Picture; of the Salford Cinema from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and detail of the Chapel from the OS of Manchester & Salford, 1842-44, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Salford buildings that tell a story ........ part 3 Mrs Burke's beer shop on the corner of Bank and Encombe Place

The beer shop which is now no more

It is amazing what little bits of history you come across when you just set off wandering across the twin cities.

Bank Place, 2014

This is the corner of Bank and Encombe Place and it is somewhere you could easily miss.

But if you did turn off Chapel Street and wander along the route that comes out at Upper Cleminson Street I doubt that you would be aware of its former history.

The road twists and turns and as it does actually changes its name five times, starting as St Paul’s Place, then turning left to become Bank Street then Wilton Place before briefly assuming the name Bank Place and finishing off as Encombe Place.

Bank Place, 1894

All of which is a clue to what we have lost because until relatively recently Bank Place continued from Wilton Place round the side of the church to join up with Bank Street with the church in the centre.

Today all of the ten houses which ran from Bank Street round to Encombe Place have gone.

Back in 1911 these were seven and roomed properties and home a mix of people from Joshua Ross who was a foreman and Daniel Roberts a printer to an office cleaner, clerk and carrier.

But it is the building in Andy’s picture that draws me in.  I don’t know when it stopped selling beer but I do know that in 1911 it was the beer shop of Mrs Josephine Burke who shared the six roomed house with her five children and one niece.

Mrs Burke and her neighbours, 1911

Mrs Burke was a widow and she had taken over the business from her husband on his death in 1907.

In time I will go looking for Mr Burke but for now I shall content myself with Josephine who had been married in 1882.  She had been just 21 gave her occupation as a sewing machinist and came from a comfortably off family.  Her father was a plumber employing four men.

Three of her own children were clerks and two helped behind the bar.

Hers was the only house on the west side of the street but her neighbours included the Rev Arthur Lyle who was the curate of St Philips, a Miss Hood who ran a “Free Kindergarten” along with a clerk plumber and caretaker.

Bank Place, 1849

Today there is little sense of what was once here, the buildings have gone and with them the small community that lived around the church.

Go back another fifty years and that life around St Philips is even more apparent.

All of which makes me think there is even more to find out about the people of Bank Place and its neighbouring streets

And just minutes after the story was re-posted Rick has written in to say that "the Borough Tavern,when I worked at Farmer Norton.On the corner of Upper Cleminson St and Adelphi St was the Brewery Tavern,so named after the Adelphi brewery Co.

Later the buildings were used by Wire drawing dies and Anglardia Ltd.".

And breaking news ....George Edwards tells me "sadly I think it was only in the last 12 months. I was hoping since they have rejuvenated this area with new town houses (time keepers sq) to go with the remaining Georgian townhouses, that someone might reopen it as a pub". News which has been confirmed by Pete Harrison

Picture; Bank Place, 2014 from the collection of Andy Robertson, the same place in 1844 from the 1842-49 OS Manchester & Salford, and in  1894, from the OS for South Lancashire, 188-94 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Salford buildings that tell a story ........ part 2 looking behind the old foundry wall on Adelphi Street

It is so easy to pass a building without ever wondering about its history or even what lies behind it, especially that has now gone.

On Adelphi Street, 2014

And so it is with this slab of a building on Adelphi Street at the junction with Peru Street.

The metal gantry which runs on to it announces the firm of Lloyds Metal Processors and that is a clue to the sites industrial heritage.

Once and not that too long ago this was the Adelphi Iron Works which occupied part of the stretch from Peru Street back towards Upper Cleminson Street.

In the 1890s it had shared the spot with the New Bridge Foundry but by 1911 was the sole resident of this bit of Adelphi Street.

On Adelphi Street in 1844

But go back to the 1840s and the site was one large set of filtering ponds fed by the Adelphi Reservoir on the other side of Peru Street.

It belonged to the Adelphi Dye Works, Print Works and Baths and is reminder of just how many textile processing plants existed within a short walk of where we are, along with a Rope walk and brewery.

That said there were still some fine houses including the impressive Adelphi House set in extensive gardens and facing out to the reservoir on one side and the sweep of the river on the other.

And here I am a little confused because by the 1890s this was a Freemason’s Hall and what had been grandly called Adelphi Bank on Adelphi Terrace had assumed the name of Adelphi House.

On Peru Street in 2014

All of which takes me back to that simple observation that what you see is not always what there is to know.
So looking at that brick slab in Andy Robertson’s picture you might wonder what was behind it.

And the answer is very little, for unlike me who must have passed it plenty of times Andy turned off Adelphi Street to wander down Peru Street and revealed that today it is just a brick slab standing guard over an expanse of empty land.

And soon after the story was posted Rick Holt  left a  comment of which there is more in the comments below.

"This part of the building houses a substation,so cannot yet be demolished.In the end corner near Peru St is a white stone plaque set in the brickwork.This is the only evidence that the building once was the home of Sir James Farmer Norton & Co Ltd,established 1852.There are more shots of the area on the above site." 

And "unknown has added that "his part of farmer Norton's was the toilet block at the bottom of number 1 bay where they built the rolling mills and wasn't the sub station which was on the other side of the road just in front of the toilets was the packers."

Picture; on Adelphi Street at the junction with Peru Street, 2014,from the collection of Andy Robertson and the area in 1844 from the OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1842-44, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Who remembers working at the Overbridge and Springfield Mills in Salford?

Sometimes you just get drawn into a picture and from it begins a story.

So a few days ago Andy Robertson was on his way back from leaving his car serviced when in a side street he saw the tall brick tower of the Overbridge and Springfield Mills.

There is something very impressive about this relic of a once proud mill caught in the fast fading sunlight of a winter afternoon.

Now there will be people who can tell me much more about the mill.

It was a listed building, appears as one of the 51 Salford mills and in time I will discover its history.

I know that in 1951 it was owned by Halls Threads Ltd because I have come across an advert for the firm and the Mill.

But that is at present all I have until I start digging deeper.

That said I did come across this from Greater Manchester Fire Service from April 2011*

"Salford firefighters tackle empty mill blaze

Just before 10pm on Thursday, April 7 fire crews from Manchester Central, Salford and Broughton Fire Stations attended a fire in a two storey empty building 100m by 20m at Overbridge and Springfield Mill, Sherbourne St West, Strangeways, Manchester.

At the height of the blaze approximately 50 firefighters tackled an intense fire that engulfed both floors of the two storey building. Firefighters used 5 jets, assisted by a high reach aerial monitor jet to successfully extinguish the fire. 

The building was severely damaged by fire and part of the roof structure collapsed, it is expected that firefighters will be at the scene throughout the night and into tomorrow morning damping down and making the scene safe."

Which is a shame.

The building dated from 1845 and was a cotton spinning or doubling mill which by 1996 like so many old mills was in multiple occupation.

The site comprised a spinning mill with external engine house, warehouse, office and stable range across a courtyard, and various ancillary buildings to the rear of the site.

The mill was made of brick with cast iron columns supporting cast iron beams and timber beams on upper floors.

To the south west of the building there was a circular stair tower with a main entrance at its base.

The office and warehouse buildings also  dated from around 1845.  The office faced the street with the warehouse at the rear and there is a suggestion that there was a former staling building at the rear

The engine house was probably built in the 20th century and according to English Heritage was a “good example of an 1840s mill with typical courtyard layout and surviving substantially intact."**

Alas no more.

All of which makes Andy’s picture a timely reminder of what we have lost, but maybe there will be people who can tell me more.

Picture; from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Greater Manchester Fire, http://www.salfordonline.com/gmfnews_page/27244-salford_firefighters_tackle_empty_mill_blaze.html

** British Listed Buildings, http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-471591-springfield-and-overbridge-mills-