Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 52 ............ the one beside the Police Station

Now you would be forgiven for thinking this was nothing more than the entrance to a lock up, but not so.

Maps from the late 19th and early 20th centuries show it as a road running into Salford Approach.

But it does seem to predate the Police Station and Salford Approach which were built and cut in the early 1880s and seems the start of what in 1849 was Harding’s Buildings, a shi

short stretch of which has survived as Harding Street

Location; Salford

Pictures; Chapel Street 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the area in 1900, from Gould’s Fire Insurance Maps, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Lost and forgotten Salford streets nu 9 ......... Mallett's Court and Greengate

Greengate, numbers 34-42, circa 1895

You won’t find Mallet’s Court nor for that matter the beer shop of Mrs Lucy Parton which occupied numbers 34 & 36 Greengate, or the home of Mr James Finn shopkeeper.

They were all there on this bit of Greengate in 1895.  Mrs Parton’s beer shop is there on the immediate right of the picture announced by the sign of the Flying Dutchman.

But already the row of houses next door are marked, for there is a sign announcing that they are to be sold, and just a few years later the site is empty and later still has become a garage for the Daimler Motor Company.

The Flying Scotsman, circa 1895

Mrs Parton however hung into 1909 but she too had vanished two years later and the pub was now a boarding house.

Now in time I will go looking for Mrs Parton along with Mr Finn and the other inhabitants both of this bit of Greengate and Mallet Court which led off to seven back to back properties.

And for those wanting to know exactly where we are on Greengate, had you stepped just one more down from the beer shop you would have been standing on the corner of Greengate and Gorton Street.

All a bit more helpful than the caption on the picture postcard which just said “Old Houses, Greengate Salford.”

Which just leaves me to ask if any one is passing this bit of Greengate to snap the corner with Gorton Street and send me the results.

Other than that I will offer up the detail of the area from Goad's Fire Insurance maps which show Gorton Street, Greengate and Mallet's Court.

Greengate, circa 1900

At the time no doubt Mrs Parton was still offering up beer to her customers.

And here I must give a thankyou to Alan Jennings who corrected me on the original story where I called her pub the Flying Scotsman.

In my defence I couldn't read the name, and the directories only list the place as a "beer shop" so I was pleased that Alan came in with, "Hi Andrew, not trying to be picky, but the pub was called the Flying Dutchman, not Flying Scotsman. 

It was named after the 1849 Derby winner, it closed in 1906 when Cornbrook brewery were awarded compensation for the licence.

In 1850 it was a whip makers shop, 2 years later it was the Flying Dutchman, tenanted by Henry Smith, later licensees included William Boswell in the 1860s, Sarah Hindle in the 1870s and Paul Parton in early 1900s. 

The brewery installed Thomas Carney in July 1905, 8 months later the police reported that the pub was still being used by thieves and other bad characters and so it was referred for compensation. Carney was at the Waterloo hotel before that."

Now that is not picky just a sound piece of historical correction and has set me off looking for the story of the Cornbrook brewery.

Please keep them coming Alan.

Location; Salford






Picture;“Old Houses, Greengate Salford, circa 1895, from the collection of Mrs Bishop and map from Goad's Fire Insurance Maps, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 8 .... Chapel Street

Now before anyone says anything I am quite well aware that Chapel Street is neither lost nor forgotten.

Anyone who has tried to cross the road from Trinity Church to the other side during the rush hour well testify to that.

But for JBS who sent this picture postcard on July 12 1905 at 3.30 pm Chapel Street as she experienced it has long gone.

She had arrived that morning “all safe ..... weather Beautiful, if I can I shall stay here till Wednesday providing I can find lodgings.”

I can’t be sure but given that the card was addressed to a Miss Smith of 78 Wellington Street, Batley, I think we can assume she was from Yorkshire.

And the rest as they is up to the curious to match her lost Chapel Street with ours today.

Location; Salford 3

Picture; Chapel Street, 1905, from the collection of Mrs Bishop

Salford women in uniform nu 3 .......... the inspector of “clippies”

The first clippies were taken on in the May of 1915 by Salford Corporation.

And in the way of things they also employed tram inspectors

Location; Salford

























Picture; Salford tramways  inspectors, 1917, m08107, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Salford women in uniform nu 2 .......... the gas inspectors

During the Great War women began to replace men in a wide range of industries.

In the May of 1915 Salford Corporation took on 15 women to work as guards on their trams.

It would be a few months later before Manchester followed suit and while they were undergoing their training the Manchester postal authorities decided to utilise the services of women in the “delivery of letters.”

And across the twin cities women were engaged as gas inspectors.

I hope that Salford Corporation was a little bit more generous in their recognition of the work undertaken by their woman gas inspectors than Manchester.

In 1918 Mr Frederick A Price the superintendant of the Manchester Gas Department reporting to the Gas Committee of Manchester Corporation on the work of the 31 women clerks and 85 women meter inspectors concluded that while they were good and careful workers and  industrious and painstaking.*

But they lacked initiative, were not capable of discharging the higher administrative duties and lacked the necessary imagination and concentration with the power of organisation adding they liked to indulge in a little gossip.**


Location; Salford

Picture; Salford women gas inspectors, 1917, m08110,, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

* Women at Mens’ Work, Manchester Guardian, January 5, 1918

**from Manchester and the Great War, Andrew Simpson, the History Press,  published in February 2017, ISBN -33: 9780750 978965

Working a Salford Corporation Tram in 1917 ............ Salford women in uniform

I like the way that stories have a habit of reappearing and so it is with Miss Rebecca Chapman of Hodson Street who in 1918 began work with Salford Corporation as a “clippie” on the trams.

My old friend David Harrop acquired her contract, license and handbook and they featured on the blog back in May.*

And because it was such a good story she made her way into my new book on Manchester and the Great War due out in February 2017.**

Now yes I know the title is Manchester and the Great War, but by the very nature of things people didn’t adhere to strict geographical boundaries.  

They moved from area to area, lived in Manchester but worked in Salford and Trafford and swapped homes and work places.

So a little bit of Salford has got into the book, and quite right too.

All of which is an introduction to a new short series featuring photographs of Salford women in uniform and given Miss Chapman’s contribution I have started with a picture of a clippie from 1917.

And I rather think she is holding her handbook which gave detailed instructions on how to work the tram, what to do in emergencies and the pay scales awarded to clippies.

There was even a few pages dedicated to making notes.

Miss Chapman had written soon after joining the Corporation that "she had fallen off the tram"

it was the only entry so I guess she never fell off again.

Location; Salford

Picture; Instructions to Female Conductors from the collection of David Harrop, and "uniformed woman worker with Salford Tramways," 1917, m08109,, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

* Miss Rebecca Chapman gets a job on a Salford Tram in 1918 .......... stories behind the book nu 23, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/miss-rebecca-chapman-gets-job-on.html

**Manchester and the Great War, Andrew Simpson, the History Press, was published in February 2017, ISBN -33: 9780750 978965

Celebrating a year of peace on Salford streets in the summer of 1919

Now my grandparents never talked about the Great War.

It was something they lived through and seemed happy not to dwell on.

Nor did they or my mum and dad spend much time looking back at the rerun.

To be fair they answered the questions I asked but never initiated a conversation.

Given our own family tragedy which hung over the events of the Second World War I can understand why.

I don’t know how mum and dad celebrated either VE Day or VJ Day and I never cared to ask my grandparents how they saw in the Armistice Day celebrations on November 11, 1918.

But it will not have been like many.  Granddad was somewhere on the Western Front, and Nana was in Cologne, and so while my grandfather, his two brothers and my two uncles would have passed  the day with a mix of relief and fun, she faced up to the defeat of her country.

Al of which would have been a long way from the streets of Salford when this Corporation tram was dressed for a Victory Day Parade the following year.

It comes from the collection of David Harrop who maintains an extensive collection of memorabilia from both world wars along with an equally extensive set of material covering the history of the postal service.

In time I will go looking for stories of that day along with others from Armistice Day.

Location; Salford

Picture; illuminated Salford “Victory” Tram 1919, courtesy of David Harrop

Salford Station ............ the one you miss

It’s the one you miss. Salford Central Station is on New Bailey Street and is set back between two railway viaducts.

So travelling out of Manchester into Salford even on foot it was not the most visible of places.  

Moreover the actual entrance seemed to retreat away from the road and so apart from the station’s name on the wooden canopy there was  really only the sign above the entrance announcing the way “To the ticket office” and the railway timetables which gave a clue as to what was behind the maroon door.

But all that has changed.  The viaducts have been painted and the detail highlighted, as have the pillars and the entrance is now behind a glass wall which draws you into the station itself.

It is one of our oldest stations having been opened in 1838 as the terminus of the Manchester and Bolton Railway and in 1843 the viaduct across New Bailey Street were built to connect with Victoria Station.  Only the Liverpool Road Station is older, but that closed for passengers in 1844 when Manchester Victoria was built.

Of course the purist will point to the fact that I am mixing up Manchester and Salford and treating them as one but I rather think that is being a wee bit pedantic.

The station has had many names.  For the first twenty years it was just plain Salford, was then renamed Salford (New Bailey) until 1865 when it reverted to its original name and in 1988 it was changed to Salford Central.

I suppose the fact that for a long time it was only open at peak times and is closed on Sundays does continue to make it a bit of a forgotten station.  So to bring it back I thought I would include the 1894 painting of the station by H. E. Tidmarsh from Manchester Old and New.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Manchester Old and New, William Arthur Shaw

When Tuck & Sons confused Salford for Manchester

Now here is one of those picture postcards guaranteed to upset someone.

It was produced by Tuck & Sons and marketed around 1905, although the actual image maybe older.

It is entitled the Technical School and was part of the series of twelve cards issued as YE ETCHED MANCHESTER.

And if that were not enough the description on the front of the card runs, Manchester, Technical School, Salford, with the added insult that the designer incorporated the coat of arms of Manchester rather than Salford.

This may I suppose  make it a collector’s curiosity and one that seems to have been corrected on later cards.

Picture; Manchester, Technical School Salford, Tuck & Sons, 1905, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 13 ............ the one they condemned in 1910

Now I am back with Barn Street which for a long time I couldn’t  find which is not surprising given that it was one of those tiny streets north of St Stephen’s church hemmed in by Rosamond Street to the west and Mottram’s brewery.

Barn Street, 1849

Added to which its inhabitants would not rate highly on any of those lists of the well do and influential of Salford.

In 1901 their occupations ranged over a variety of the unskilled and semi skilled occupations, including labourers, textile workers, a carter and a charwoman.

My own interest is simply that my friend Val’s mother was born there in 1904 and so as you do I went looking for it.

In total there were eleven houses, which were a mix of 4 and 2 roomed properties.

Val’s mother was born at number 14 which was one of the six which consisted of 4 rooms.

The remaining five were made up of just two rooms and in to these were crammed eighteen people when the enumerator called in the March of 1901 to compile the census.*

Barn Street, 1901

And it will be some of these that that the council had declared as unfit for human habitation nine years later.

The slight puzzle is that on both the 1849 and 1894 maps all the properties consisted of back to back houses which seems to preclude a set of four roomed ones.

But the eastern side backed onto another row which faced a closed court and it is just possible that at some time after 1894 these were knocked through to make larger properties.

There is no doubt that this enclosed court must have been a dire place to live.  It was entered by a narrow entry which ran alongside the wall of the brewery from Thomas Street and in the way of these things didn’t even warrant a name on any of the maps and certainly isn’t in the directories.

But the census returns offer up two possibilities one of which is Brewery Yard and the other Simpson’s Passage, and given the access to our court it might well have been Simpson’s Passage.

Barn Street, 1894

In 1901 the return lists just five properties which might be the ones on the eastern side leaving the ones opposite to have been converted from two into four rooms becoming ourproperties on Barn Street.

All a bit mystifying.

So I shall leave Barn Street with a reference to Mr and Mrs MacDonald who in the April of 1901 were living at number 14 Barn Street with their three children and a lodger in the four rooms.  Mr McDonald was a carter working for a building form and the lodger was an Albert Fernely of Salford who described himself as a “stocker of a stationary boiler."**

Now that boiler may or may not have belonged to Mottram’s Brewery but a search for Mr Mottram and his brewery seems the next port of call.

Location; Salford.

Pictures; Barn Street, 1849, from the OS for Manchester & Salford, 1842-49 and in 1894 from the OS for South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Simpson’s Passage, Enu 20 29-30, Greengate, Salford, Lancashire 1901

**Barn Street, Enu 20 11-12, Greengate, Salford, Lancashire 1901

Miss Rebecca Chapman gets a job on a Salford Tram in 1918 .......... stories behind the book nu 23

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

As the war turned into 1915 the growing demand for women to replace men in the workplace took on a pace during 1915.  In the May of that year Salford Corporation took on 15 women to work as guards on their trams and a few months later Manchester followed suit while the Manchester postal authorities decided to utilise the services of women in the “delivery of letters.”

This had followed an appeal by the Board of Trade in the March for women to register for work at the their local Labour Exchange and in the course of the next three years women were to be found working in heavy industry, as well as on the land, and in offices and on the transport network.

Of course in many respects none of this was new.  For over a century they had worked in textile mills and coal mines, laboured alongside men and children in the fields and done a variety of dirty and unpleasant occupations often for little remuneration.

But the scope of their involvement and the fact that many of these occupations were new to women marked a sea change as did the fact that some of these occupations were far better paid than their previous jobs.

I don’t know what young Rebecca Chapman had dome before she was appointed as “Driver conductor” for the Salford Corporation Tramways but she was sufficiently proud of her job that she retained both the handbook issued to ”Female Conductors” along with her licence and certificate of employment.

She was eighteen years old when she was appointed in the August of 1918 and her handbook records that her “conductor’s uniform number was 98” and she lived at Worthington Lodge, Park Lane in Higher Broughton.

It is a fascinating set of instructions running to 49 pages covering everything from pay “to the collection of fares” safety and the maintenance of the tram car.”

She was expected to be “firm, civil and obliging in the execution of her duty at all times, answer civilly” and was forbidden from accepting any form of gratuity. **

Her pay on appointment was 6.22d rising 7. 33d after four year’s service.

I would like to know more about Ms Chapman and how she had ended up at Worthington Lodge which was a large house with 21 rooms and 12 cellars given that back in 1911 she and had her widowed mother and six siblings were living in a 2 roomed house on Hodson Street in Salford.

The family had not had an easy time.  By 1911 her mother who was 37 had been widowed twice and was bringing up her family on the wages of a charwoman.

A decade earlier they had been living in a slightly larger property in the delightfully names Paradise Row in Greengate which was hard by the the Vapour-Gas Light Company, gas machine manufactures.

All of which may mean that her job on the Salford Trams like those of other women conductors was a significant new occupation.

Not that her appointment was without opposition.  Tram workers in Salford had argued that “the work of a guard is not a woman’s work and that it would be too much to expect that women should take charge of the early workmen’s cars or the late cars which would keep them up until midnight.”***

But I suspect by August 1918 when Miss Chapman began collecting the fares her job was seen as vital, and not without a few dangers. Just a week after she had started she recorded in the back of the handbook that she “had fallen off” the tram at 11.40 on Thursday September 17.

If it happened again she didn’t bother to report it.

And that is where for now I will leave Miss Chapman.  I went looking for after the war and did find that in 1926 a Miss Chapman married a Philip Shuman but there was also another who died in 1924 so we shall have to wait for further research.

In the fullness of time that will happen after all these few items that have survived a century offer a glimpse into life on the Home Front during the Great War, at which point I will thank David Harrop who provided these three from his collection.



Pictures, certificate of employment August 26, 1918 licence September 9 1918 and Instructions to Female Conductors, Salford Corporation Tramways, 1918, from the collection of David Harrop

*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

** Instructions to Female Conductors, Salford Corporation Tramways, 1918


*** Woman Tramguards, Manchester Guardian May 29, 1915

A Classic Slum and other books by Robert Roberts ........... on the place he was born

I first came across Robert Roberts and the Classic Slum in 1973.

Waterloo Street, 1893

I can’t remember if it was recommended to me or I just found it on the bookshop shelf.

Either way the phrase “poverty busied itself” leapt off the page and I was hooked.  Here is a vivid description of Salford life at the beginning of the 20th century.*

It is an account not tarnished by romanticism or bedevilled by lofty and detached criticism but a vivid description of what it was like to live a working class area.

It could so easily also have been Manchester or a clutch of other northern cities and towns and for that many any one of the equally grimy bits of south east London where I grew up.

Robert Roberts was born in 1905 and lived at 1 Waterloo Street at the junction with West Wellington Street.  The house had four rooms and one of those was the shop.

Here he lived with his parents and his four siblings.  His father was a brass finisher and his mother ran the shop.

At which point many will groan and mutter “not another story about dirty old Salford, from a southerner who only plays at being a northerner.  Why can’t he offer up something on the Salford of today?”

It’s a criticism with a tiny bit of validity.  I am from south east London, having been born in Lambeth, spent my early years in Peckham and then Eltham which is the place near Woolwich.  That said I have lived here from 1969, had a dad who was born in Newcastle upon Tyne and a mother who grew up in Derby.

But what makes the Classic Slum and its companion A Ragged Schooling more than just a set of memories is that they are supported with a heap of scholarship drawn from newspapers and official documents all mixed with descriptions of ordinary people Mr Bickam a veteran from the Boer War who on August 5 1914 tried to enlist the day after war broke out.

The bigger Salford picture in 1893

“He stopped my mother as she hung washing across the street. ‘Turned down!” he said disgustingly – ‘Bad teeth!.  They must want blokes to bite the damned Germans!’  She laughed.  Mr Bickham went on his way.  ‘They’ll be pulling me in though,’ he called over his shoulder, ‘before this lot’s done!”

An amusing comment on the outburst of patriotism at the start of the war but which doesn’t prepare you for what happened because “By August 5 1915 he had been lying dead three months in France.”

Many will know the book but for those that don’t or like me are coming back to it after a long break it is well worth a read.

All of which leaves me to say I chose not to offer up a picture of Flatiron Market or a grimy street, instead just a detail from the 1893 OS map of South Lancashire showing Waterloo Street.

Although it is worth mentioning that in the 1911 street directory only Mr Roberts and another shopkeeper are listed the rest of the street were not.

Picture; Waterloo Street, 1893 from the OS for South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*The Classic Slum, Robert Roberts, 1973 page 39

News of a Salford soldier from a German POW camp .............. May 1918

Albert Derry was 25 years old when he was captured during the last big German offensive on the Western Front in March 1918.

News from Germany, May 1918

It was the first day of that big attack and I can fully understand the anxiety his family must have gone through, knowing that his battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers were in the thick of the fighting.

And it would not be until May that they got confirmation that he was a Prisoner of War at Limburg an der Lahn.

The camp held 12,000 British soldiers who remained in captivity till the end of the war.

I wish I knew more.  In time I will look up the war diaries of the battalion which will give a detailed account of the fighting.

Church Street, 1911

For now I know that Private Derry had been born in 1893, that  his father was a shoe maker and he was one of eight children.

His father had married Frances in 1880 and along with the eight children there had been another three that had died.

In 1911 they were living at 155 Church Road in Pendleton and a decade earlier they had been on Pimlott Street which was close by.

With a bit more research it should be possible to discover a little more about Pimlott Street and make a comparison between the two houses.

But for now I will just reflect that in the May of 1918 Limburg an der Lahn must have seemed a long way from the butcher’s shop Albert had worked in before the war.  His army records were lost in the Blitz and while I know he was awarded the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal, what happened to him on his return has yet to be discovered.

There is an Albert Derry living in Salford who died in 1940 and that for the moment really is it.

Location, Salford and Germany

Pictures; POW card, May 1918, courtesy of David Harrop

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

Peel Park, a mistake by Tuck and Sons and a trip out to an orphanage in Tottington

Now I don’t suppose Delia or her sister Gertie gave a seconds thought to the glaring mistake made by the picture postcard company which marketed this photograph of Peel Park at the turn of the last century.

The company in question were one of giants of picture postcards with offices in New York, Paris and London, a catalogue of images that covered pretty much all of the world and offered up a picture for almost every event, from Christmas to high summer and including the pin ups and music hall stars of the period and much else.

The company was Tuck and Sons and the mistake is a big one which will not surprise some, and just confirm for others the ability of companies south of Altrincham to get the North all mixed up.

Nor was it the first time Tuck and Sons had done so.

As cards go the quality is not wonderful and may have something to do with the image having been retouched and then “colourized.”

But perhaps it was a small compensation for Gertie who according to Delia had “not had much time to take you about when you were here.” 

Even more so because Delia thought that it was “quite a change for you to be with us.” At first I thought this might be explained away by Gertie’s address which was the Convent Holly Mount Tottington near Bury.

But was confused by a reference to “my love to Tilly and Geff,” but a search discovered that Holly Mount was an orphanage opened in 1888.  By 1897 it could "accommodate up to 216 girls aged from 4to 13 with the Boards of Guardians paying 5 shillings a week for each girl they placed there.  

By 1930 the number of girls had risen to 300 aged from 3 to 16 with the weekly charge being 14 shillings.  Although Holly Mount was primarily a girl’s establishment, boys were also accommodated.”*

Now there is more but I will just direct you to follow the link to the Holly Mount site.

But in time I might go looking for Miss Gertie McCabe and who knows what might turn up.

And for any one still mystified at the mistake the clue is in the right hand corner.

Location; Salford and Tottington

Picture; Peel Park, circa 1900, marketed by Tuck & sons,  from the collection of David Harrop

*Holly Mount Orphanage School, Tottington, http://www.childrenshomes.org.uk/TottingtonHollymount/
Location Salford and Tottington

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 38 Garfield Street and a post card home

Now I am having difficulty locating Garfield Street which was off Trafford Road.

I know it was there because sometime after September 26 1917 Mr and Mrs Lewis received a picture postcard from the Western Front.

It is a beautifully written message which draws attention to the Cathedral on the other side of the card “Hopes this finds you in the best of health, thanking you for the good wishes you so kindly sent in the letter.”

It was signed Jim and I rather think the surname was Elliot but so far I haven’t been able to locate either Jim or Mr and Mrs Lewis and Garfield Street.

Location; Salford


Picture; picture postcard, 1917 from the collection of David Harrop

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford .............. nu 43 Gravel Lane the car park

Now whatever you might have thought of Gavel Lane I doubt that it deserved to become just one big car park.

But that is pretty much all it offers from the moment you reappear from under the railway viaduct and head north past King Street, Norton Street and Queen Street to Greengate.

In all I counted five big cark parks where once there were houses, shops two pubs a beer shop, a chapel and even a school.

Today, while there are some tall flats on the corner with Viaduct Street and that glass office bock that straddles Gravel Lane and Greengate the rest of the street is an open landscape which is a home for cars.

All of which presents me with a puzzle, because sometime in 1900 that veteran photographer Samuel L Coulthurst took the picture of the Jolly Carter on Gravel Lane.

Of course I cannot believe he got the pubs name wrong but according to the directories for the period from 1895 through to 1903 there is no Jolly Carter on Gravel Lane.

There is instead the British Queen on the corner of Queen Street, a beer shop at nu 63 and finally the Legs of Man at 67 Gravel Lane.

So it does seem he mistook the name, which I think was the Legs of Man which stood on the corner of  Gravel Lane and Greengate and is now under that glass office box.

Of course there will be someone who knows and I hope will come up with a solution to the problem.

As it was judging by the closed shutters and empty streets Mr Coulthurst had no one to ask.

In the meantime it just leaves me to point out that the wall to wall advertising of household products is not new and nor is the amount of litter that was strewn across the street.

And that is not all because before I made the second coffee of the morning Alan had written in with, "yes this is the Jolly Carter, it stood on the corner of Cable Street and Gravel Lane, it was used as a beer house for 60 years or so prior to its demolition in 1893 for 'Railway use.'"  

So a thank you to Alan, apologies to Mr Coulthurst and a reminder to dig deeper into the directories.

Location; Salford

Additional research Alan Jennings

Picture;  the Jolly Carter, Gravel Lane, 1900, Samuel L Coulhurst, m08787, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

So what was going on at All Saints in Weaste on July13 1912?

Now here is a mystery worthy of investigation.

We are at All Saints Church in Weaste on July 13 1912 and it would be fun to know exactly what was going in.

Of course the most obvious suggestion would a fete or perhaps even a celebration of the establishment of the church which “began as the mission church of St. Paul in the parish of St. Luke's was built in 1903, extended by Rev. Theodore Emmott, and consecrated as All Saints on 31 January 1910. 

An Order in Council, 19 July 1910 (London Gazette, 26 July) assigned part of St. Luke's parish to All Saints.

In 1949 the parishes were re-united as St. Luke with All Saints.”*

It was situated on the Eccles New Road with its vicarage at nu 542 close to Stott Lane.

Now some at least of the records of the church are in the Manchester Archives and Local Studies centre so

I may find a clue there to this event and a trawl of the papers might also turn something up.**

July 13 1912 was a Saturday and if I wanted to be really nerdy I guess I could find out the weather for the day.

But I shall close with that name on the bottom left hand corner which is a G Greenhalgh who may have been the photographer and who may also have been responsible for turning it into a picture postcard.

I found a George Fredrick Greenhalgh at 17 Derby Street but there is no listing of him as having a photographic studio.

Not that any of this detracts from what is a nice photograph of an unknown event in Salford in 1912 and leaves me to ponder on whether any of those staring out at us were related to the men who appear on the All Saints War Memorial now in St Lukes.***

Location; Salford







Picture; All Saints in Weaste on July13 1912, a picture postcard from the collection of David Harrop

*The National Archives, http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/rd/4dfa81eb-e538-457b-b499-a017ab385114

** Manchester Archives and Local Studies http://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/448/archives_and_local_history

***Salford War Memorials, http://www.salfordwarmemorials.co.uk/all-saints-weaste.html

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 15 ...... less about Greengate and more about the photographer

Now this is another of those pictures of Greengate just down from Gorton Street and we are back at the Flying Dutchman and the entrance to Mallett’s Court.

There is much in the picture which brings out Salford life at the beginning of the 20th century.

The first obvious detail is that of the people drawn like a moth to a flame.

Photography and especially street photography was still a novelty to the majority of people, and so when Mr Coulthurst turned up the curious, the vain and those with time on their hands came forth to stare at the camera.

The picture shows  their clothes, a barrow with what looks like fruit and veg and the predominance of children.

Look closely and one of the young girls has a crutch.  It would be silly and pointless to try and second guess why she is using it, but of course this was before the National Health Service.

Indeed it is worth pointing out that the babe in arms would have almost reached its fiftieth birthday before the principle of free medical care at the point it was needed would have been introduced.

There is much more but instead I want to focus on the photographer.

He was Samuel L Coulhurst and his collection of photographs many of which were taken in the working class areas of the twin cities are a powerful record of how people lived.

Mr Coulhurst was born in Blackley, described himself variously as a “book buyer” and “stationary buyer" and lived in various parts of Manchester and Salford.   He married Annie Higson in June 1900 and he died in Helsby in 1939.

He was  well known during the late 19th century, exhibited at the Royal Photographic Society in 1897 and was a member of the Manchester Amateur Photographic Society which under took the first photographic survey of Manchester and Salford between 1892-1901.

In 1901 232 platinotype of their prints were handed to the Manchester and Salford Reference Libraries.*

A third copy was retained by the Society but over the years a number have gone missing.
Some appeared in a book published in 1995.**

The photographs are mounted on sheets of card, either singly or groups of 2 or 4 photographs per sheet. Manuscript details are written in ink beneath each image giving a brief description, a number and the photographer’s name. ***

Pictures; Greengate Old Houses (opposite Bulls Head), Salford,  Samuel L Coulthurst, 1900, m08784, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

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

**The Samuel L Coulthurst Photographs: Victorian Salford and Manchester, 1995, Friends of Salford Museum’s Association

***National Archives, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/A2A/records.aspx?cat=124-2373&cid=0#0

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 12 .......... Barn Street

Barn Street is so totally lost and forgotten that I have yet to find it on any street directory.

Nu 38-42 Greengate circa 1895

Now I know it existed because Val’s mother was born at number 14 Barn Street in 1904 and there is also a reference in a Salford Council report from 1910 indicating that four of the houses opposite were unfit for human habitation along with several others in the street.

But at first I could not locate it on either the 1849 nor the 1894 OS maps for the area which I suppose means that it was too small, too insignificant and its residents too poor to warrant its name being recorded.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the family lived off Greengate.  Val’s grandmother was born on East Philip Street, and later after she had married Mr Mitchell they were on Collier Street moving to Frederick Street by 1911.

So I reckoned it was reasonable to suppose that Barn Street was somewhere off Greengate.

Barn Street in 1849

But it turns out it was just a little to the north of St Stephen's Church located off Brewery Street running parallel with Rosamond Street.

The discovery came as it always does from a bit of painstaking research which involved trawling through all 30 of the census returns for Greengate in 1901.

And there at number 27 in the list of streets was ours, and armed with the key streets around Barn Street it was possible to find it on the OS map for 1849.

Later I will go make and get a sense of what the residents were like, but for now I will  just leave you with a picture of  another part of Greengate which is the row of houses just beyond Gorton Street along with the map of Barn Street.

And for those with an interest in that other place over the river, there were four Barn Streets listed in 1903, stretching from Openshaw in the east, to Moss Side in the south, and Moston and Blackley.

Location; somewhere in Salford

Picture; number 38-42 Greengate, circa 1895 from a picture postcard, in the collection of Mrs Bishop and detail of the area in 1849 from the OS for Manchester & Salford, 1842-49, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 11 Collier Street

Now Collier Street will mean many things to many people.

Collier Street, 2015

For those with a preference for music there is the Blueprint Studios directly opposite on Queen Street and for those who fancy a drink as well as their music there is the Eagle half way up Collier Street.

For others it will be the old baths on the corner with Rolla Street where I am told Mark Addy learnt to swim and which were opened by the same company that built the Leaf Street baths in Hulme and others across Manchester.

But sadly there is no one left who can tell me about learning to swim in its pool or even of a Saturday morning splash about with friends and family because the  baths closed  in 1880 after just 25 years of serving the community.

The Eagle Inn, 2011

So you might be forgiven for thinking that Collier Street has abandoned its history, but not so.

My old friend Val got in touch to tell me that her grandparents lived  in “Artisans Dwellings on Collier Street. 

I have now looked up the place and an interesting tale emerges. They were built by the Artizans Company mainly they built in London.

The man who started it started out working as a scarecrow! The company went bust at one point because of embezzlement by the Company secretary and others. 

His name very Dickensian was Swindlehurst.”

The company had begun in 1867 with high intentions of building for profit good quality low rise properties for working people.  This put them slightly at odds with other companies also building for the poor who had gone down the model of multi story blocks of flats.

Most of their properties were as Val said in London, but they seem to have built here on Collier Street running up from Queen Street as far as Rolla Street.

I can’t exactly date them yet, but they are listed in the 1901 census and while they don’t appear in earlier lists there were people on the site in 1891.

Of course these may be earlier buildings which predate Artisans Buildings but there are a row of properties on the 1895 OS map which do seem to conform to what I think they would be like.

Collier Street, 1895

According to the 1901 census Artisan S Buildings consisted of 68 properties in which lived 276 people.*

Their occupations ranged across the sort of\semi and and unskilled jobs that this bit of Salford had to offer.

So far no picture of the buildings has come to light but Elaine Craven remembers “we left the Greengate area in 1959/1960 I don't know when the Artisans were pulled down, but they were a red brick and cream brick if I remember rightly, it had a big courtyard with a gate which was always locked, and I think they were three high, could be wrong, and they looked good. 

All the kids played in the dwellings, but I don't remember how many kids lived there."***

And that just leaves me with the story behind nu 19 Collier Street in 1911 which was home to Mr and Mrs Stone who lived in the last house on the corner of Collier Street and Rolla Street, which was a pub and here in just five rooms lived the Stone’s and their nine children.**

Pictures; looking down Collier Street towards Queen Street, 2015 from the collection of Andy Robertson, and detail of the area in 1894 from the OS map of South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association,  http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Painting; the Eagle Inn, Salford © 2011 Peter Topping

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

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*Enu 14 10- 19, Greengate Salford, Lancashire, 1901

**Enu 131, Salford, Lancashire, 1911

***Elaine Craven, 2016