This is “Lane End” as the junction of Sandy Lane and Barlow Moor Road was known in the 19th century.
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| Lane End, Chorlton-cum-Hardy - 29-09-1902 |
In this vicinity the censuses and Rate books of the Chorlton-cum-Hardy township from 1840s until the beginning of the 20th century show the homes of various members of the Lunt family who were renting land from Lord Egerton to work as market gardeners.
The Lunt family were long established in the township and are found extensively in the records, dating back to the 18th Century, of both the Established Church (St. Clements) (1) and the non-conformists. There is too a will of William Lunt, a farmer, dated 27th January 1817.
The head of the family in the 1841 census is George Lunt who died, aged 50, in September 1853 and was buried in St. Clement’s Churchyard on 18th September. Following his death, the tenancy passed to his widow Jane (née Gorbutt) his second wife who he had married, on 3rd November 1834, at St. John’s Church, Deansgate, Manchester. Jane in turn died in October 1864 and was buried in St. Clement’s churchyard on October 30th (2)
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| John Henry Lunt's shop Sandy Lane circa 1900 |
For the next 40 plus years the patriarch of what became a very prominent family in late Victorian and Edwardian Chorlton-cum-Hardy was George Lunt’s eldest son, William.
William was born in Chorlton-cum-Hardy on 10th September 1831 to George and his first wife Alice (née Cookson). (3) His mother died in March 1834 and was interred in St. Clement’s churchyard on the 20th of March.
By the end of the 19th century the growth of the township’s population had resulted in altered economic conditions for the area’s market gardeners through a combination of the expansion of local markets and pressure on the agricultural land for housing.
Two of William’s sons took the opportunity to vertically integrate their businesses by opening Greengrocer shops to sell in part their own produce.
John Henry retained the link with Lane End with a shop at 60, Sandy Lane, while George William’s shop was this one at 119, Beech Road.
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| 119, Beech Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy - 2018 |
The First World War was particularly devastating for the family with four of William’s grandsons being killed in the conflict.
The first to die was George William’s son Serjeant Herbert Lunt of the 21st Battalion, Manchester Regiment who was killed during one of the bloodiest days of the Battle of the Somme, 14th July 1916. He was buried where he fell and was later re-interred in the Flatiron Copse Cemetery, Mametz, France. His brother, George, who was also a Serjeant in the same unit died on 2nd April 1917.
He has no known grave and is commemorated as one of the 34,799 men listed on the Arras Memorial. Between these two deaths, John Henry’s only son Pte. William Eric Lunt died of wounds on the 14th of October at the 36 (Heilly) Clearing Station, France and buried in its attached cemetery.
He had been wounded in action on the 12th of October when his unit the 18th Battalion, Manchester Regiment suffered horrendous casualties while attacking a heavily defended German position near the strategically important town of Bapaume. Of 350 men who “went over the top” only 100 returned to the British Lines.
Finally, on 4th October 1917, a third of George William’s sons, Pte. Arthur Lunt of the 11th Battalion, Manchester Regiment was killed in action during attack an on Poelcappelle, Belgium as part of the Third Battle of Ypres. He, again, has no known grave and is one of almost 35,000 names on the Tyne Cot Memorial.
He is also remembered alongside his three brothers on this gravestone of his parents (George William, died 4th December 1920 and Fanny, died 7th November 1947) (4) in the Church of England section of Southern Cemetery, Manchester – Grave G.838.
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| Grave G.838. |
Besides John Henry and George William mentioned above William also had four daughters; Alice Ann, Mary Jane, Margaret, and Elizabeth. (5) All four of whom, unusually for the era, survived to adulthood, each also remaining unmarried and making independent livings as dressmakers and milliners. Alice Ann was the first to set up on her own moving to a house on High Lane, Chorlton-cum-Hardy where the 1881 census shows her working as a dressmaker. By the 1891 census she had been joined by two of her sisters, Mary Jane and Margaret in “The Cottage” High Lane. No occupation is recorded for Mary Jane while Margaret is shown as a milliner.
All four sisters were reunited in time for the 1901 census which record shows them living together at number 25, High Lane, along with their aged, 69-year-old father, William.
William died on 27th July 1906, his wife Mary (née Wedell), (6) who he had married at All Saints Church, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester on 4th January 1854, pre-deceased him on 23rd April 1891 as did his eldest daughter Alice Ann, on 6th April 1904.
A second of the four sisters, Mary Jane, died at the High Lane residence on 15th January 1917. Soon after this the two remaining sisters moved back to a property on Sandy Lane, Number 70, where they continued in business as milliners until the 1930s. Margaret passed away in August 1931 and Elizabeth in February 1939.
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| Grave G.838 |
All four sisters plus both their parents and three children of George William and Fanny who died in infancy, Fanny (1884), Albert (1887), and Florence (1895) are interred in grave F. 878 in the non-conformist section of Southern Cemetery, Manchester.
There is a curiosity in the inscription in which William is described as the: -
“Beloved husband of the above Mary & Emma Lunt”.
This would seem to suggest that William re-married after Mary’s death, but I could find no further evidence of this.
As a final note, none of the cottages occupied by the family in the 19th century have survived, however Brownhills Buildings, one of which, No. 4, was the home of George William Lunt for over a year from March 1889, which date from the middle of the 19th century were still standing as this photograph shows in 1972.
In one of those links which can so enhance my appreciation of History for more than a decade before this picture was taken, I lived on the adjacent Ansdell Avenue and spent many hours playing in the entry between the two properties.
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| Brownhills Buildings, Sandy Lane, Chorlton-cum-Hardy –1972 |
Also, I occasionally visited one of them; possibly the one that had once been George William’s home.
On this theme too, 25, High Lane, is the house next door to what used to be the home of the minister of Macpherson Memorial Primitive Methodist church. (Handy for the non-conformist members of the family!). The adjacent church had a Sunday School now the Manchester Centre for Buddhist Meditation. After the closure of the church this building served for a couple of years as an annexe of St. John’s Roman Catholic Primary School, and I was one of the pupils who were taught there.
Pictures: -
Lane End and Brownhills Buildings (1973) m18193 by P.C. & m17696 by H. Milligan respectively, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information, and Archives Manchester City Council http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass Others from the collection of Tony Goulding.
Notes: -
1) The earliest record in the parish registers is for a baptism of Jane Lunt the daughter of a farmer William and his wife Betty on 6th March 1774.
2) Unfortunately, there isn’t an existing gravestone recording this grave nor are the details listed on the map produced prior to the landscaping of the graveyard in the 1970s. Presumably it was one of those listed as indecipherable.
3) The wedding of George Lunt and Alice Cookson took place on 8th June 1822 in the Collegiate Church (now the Cathedral), Manchester.
4) George William married Fanny (née Plant) in the Chorlton Registration District during the September quarter of 1883.
5) The eldest five of William’s children were born while he was working away from Chorlton-cum-Hardy as a domestic gardener in Bloomsbury Lane, Timperley, Cheshire.
6) The birth name of William’s wife is uncertain as her father’s name recorded on her marriage record is James Layland.
Acknowledgements: - Besides the usual rich source of data from The Newspaper Archive and other records on “Find My Past”. I have delved into the records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the especially of The Manchester Regiment Group for details of the actions around the deaths of the four Lunts. https://www.themanchesters.org
Finally, I have referred on occasion to Andrew Simpson’s comprehensive study of Chorlton-cum-Hardy in the 19th century “The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy" 2012.
