Lunch time on the green by the lych gate in 1910

We are sometime in the summer of 1910 and judging by the collection of young people I think it must be dinner time.

A few are young enough to be at school but four at least of the central group will have been working.

And I think they will have been on their lunch break from the laundry.  This was the Pasley later renamed the Queen and Pasley on Crescent Road.*

It opened in 1893, and at one point employed 50 staff. It was along with the brick works the closest we came to being industrial.

Inside the place which survived into the 1980s, all the washing machines were belt driven by a huge steam engine and the laundry was the first to install the “float-iron system” which consisted of the multiple roller pressing machines. This was 15 feet wide and 15 feet long and “was a mass production ironing machine, with delicately poised rollers. You could put a shirt with pearl buttons on it and it wouldn’t leave a mark.”**

So with the noise, steam, and general hubbub I guess posing for the camera outside the lych gate was a welcome diversion.

Now it is impossible to know who any of them were, but I rather think the young man standing with his arms folded might just be Arthur Higginbotham who would have been 15 and was the son of one of our local farmers.

The Higginbotham’s had been here since the 1840s and lived in the farmhouse almost opposite the church yard.

Someone very similar crops up in other pictures from the time riding a horse and while it is speculation it makes sense that this was Arthur rather than another employee of the Queen and Pasley, for I doubt they would have had a lad with a horse or likewise allowed their own horse to be ridden without a saddle through the village.

So on that hot summer’s day Arthur may have taken time out from the farm and strolled across to join the crowd.   I rather expect he knew all of the others there and like them enjoyed the novelty of having a photograph taken. Just how much of a novelty can be gauged in the mix of poses.

There at the centre are the confident ones staring back at the camera with arms folded and hands on hips.

And then there are those who peer back a little unsure of the pose to strike.  The boy with his hands in his pockets the girls with the basket one of whom is craning her neck to see what is going on.

But for me it is the two on the extreme left. One looks directly into the camera, but the other seems more interested in the work of the men down by the gates to the Bowling Green Hotel.

None of the workman gives the photographer any house room.  Whatever they are doing it is far more absorbing than the effort of posing for the camera.

And I suppose that is the point.  I said having your picture taken was still a novelty but that is a little inaccurate, because there would by 1910 have been regular commercial photographers wandering the township.

In some cases they specialized in taking pictures of the new rows of houses which were going up across Chorlton and would make a living from offering the images to the local householders who more often than not bought the card to send to friends and family.  You come across these with a cross drawn above a house or a comment on the back telling the reader, “This is our house.”

Other commercial photographers were more interested in the iconic scenes like the Horse and Jockey, country lanes or the Lych Gate.

And I suppose this is how our picture came together. On that hot summers day with some good light to play with the photographer had set up on the green, and as happens in minutes he has drawn a crowd. I say he because I am fairly confident that this was still a time when most travelling photographers were men.

And given that it was midday most of his audience were children or young people on their lunch break.

You can get some sense of just how impromptu the whole thing is from what looks like a cricket bat on the ground beside Arthur.

I guess the two boys were in the middle of a game, while the two young girls caught with their basket were either on an errand or carrying their lunch.

It is a wonderful picture and one that is worth far more study.  There are the buildings of the old Bowling Green and the barn of the farm to the left of the church and just poking up over the wall of the graveyard the monument with its apparently broken pillar.  All of which is for another time.

*renamed Crossland Road
**memories from the owner of the laundry March 1985

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

Working women ......... stories for International Women's Day

Taking a break from The Queen and Pasley 1910

It is just one of those things.

The passage of time has made it certain that I will never know who this group of young people were.

The photograph dates from 1910 and the caption suggests that some of them worked for the Queen and Pasley Laundry on Crescent Road.

And it got me thinking about how their lives would pan out.

Of course the outbreak of the Great War would sweep all of them along and the young man in shirt sleeves would in all probability have volunteered or been called up.

But on International Women’s Day I was drawn to the group of young women.

They would all be in their late thirties or even older when they were able to cast a vote in a parliamentary election.

Their working lives might just stretch to something in town just 4 miles away but otherwise theirs was the laundry or perhaps domestic service.

For their mothers and grandmothers job opportunities were even more limited.

Before the 1850s many would have spent sometime in the fields, either working full time alongside other family members or during key moments in the year like sowing or harvesting.

Of course there was always domestic service which was the second largest source of employment in the township. Like the country as a whole it was mainly an occupation for single working class women. So in the township in 1851 there were 53 female servants, ranging from governesses to housekeepers cooks, maids and nurses.

Domestic service counted for 27% of the labour force of which 68% were woman and of these 81% were unmarried. By comparison just 22% of single women were engaged as washerwomen and laundresses.

But it was not much of an opportunity for local women. Only ten of the fifty three working as servants were born here and just another eleven were from neighbourhoods less than 5 miles away. Sarah Bayley was one of these.

She had worked for the Higginbothams’ at Yew Tree Farm in Withington during 1841 and later moved to work for Daniel Sharp on the Row. Those households with servants would have heard a mix of northern accents including those of Yorkshire and punctuated by voices from Derbyshire and far away Ireland.

Part of the reason for this was a concern that locally employed servants might be tempted to divulge family secrets which could fan out around the township and haunt the household’s reputation for generations.

It followed that anyone wishing to find employment was often forced to look outside the township. In some cases news of vacancies came from family members who were already employed in a household and in other cases from the help of local gentry or clergy who might know of vacancies or were prepared to actively search amongst their friends who might need a servant.

There were also the hiring fairs and newspaper adverts and the workhouse. But the hiring fairs may not have played much of a part in our local economy. Either way our servants came from far and wide.

Cleaning another’s home was not limited to domestic servants. Mary Hesketh made a living as a char woman, which was paid by the week and required her to visit on a daily basis. It was a job which allowed those who were widowed or single a means of providing for themselves.

Taking a break from The Queen and Pasley 1964

So for Mary who was 60 and living alone, charring was an important source of income. Ten years later none of the char woman at the end of March 1851 were married. Most were single in their twenties and living at home.

For many married working women the alternative here in the township was to wash other peoples’ clothes, either by attending at the customer’s house or washing them at home.

There were 23 of them and most were married with some of the younger ones working alongside their mothers. They were by and large concentrated along the Row, up by Lane End and in a cluster by the Royal Oak in Renshaws Buildings.

Adapted in part from The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2011/11/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy.html 

Picture; by the parish graveyard, 1910 from the Lloyd collection, remaining pictures from the collection of Tony Walker

Snaps of Chorlton No 4 Bringing down the chimney of the Queen and Pasley circa 1990s or perhaps even earlier

An occasional series featuring  private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

I can’t remember exactly when this was but I reckon it was in the 1990s and points to that simple observation that much of our recent past slides away without us bothering to record it.

Now I have written about the Queen and Pasley Laundry along with the other ones that served us including the one on Beech Road and others on Manchester Road and Wilbraham Road.*

But the Queen and Pasley was the biggest and was still in business in the late 1980s on Crossland Road.

My old friend Tony Walker took the picture which may have been linked to an article which was published in Chorlton Green in 1985 or was taken later.

I can’t now remember if this was during a repair of the big chimney or just prior to its demolition.  And I pretend to be a historian.

Picture; from the collection of Tony Walker

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%27s%20lost%20laundries%20and%20launderettes

The Queen & Pasley

Sometimes it is amazing how quickly our recent past can vanish.

The Pasley Laundry was opened in 1893 on what is now Crossland Road and did not reach its 100th birthday.

Laundries are a measure not only of the size of a community but of their prosperity.

 Given the arduous nature of wash day it is not surprising that those who could afford to pay for the weekly washing to be cleaned did so. The population had doubled in the ten years before 1901 and the next decade saw an equal increase. The occupations of the residents of new Chorlton ranged from manufacturers, bank managers and solicitors to clerical and skilled workers.

The very mix which is reflected in the large detached and semi detached houses stretching along Edge Lane and High Lane and the tall terraced properties radiating out from the station.

Here were the customers of our five laundries which in themselves were a mix. Yapp’s Laundry was big enough to have branches on Ashton Old Road, Chorlton on Medlock and in Whitefield and Stretford. 

Others like Wing Sam operated from one shop while Martha Keal’s premises on Beech Road was also the home of a her builder husband John. The biggest was the Pasley, later renamed the Queen and Pasley on Crescent Road. It opened in 1893, and at one point employed 50 staff.

All the washing machines were belt driven by a huge steam engine and were the first to install the “float-iron system” which consisted of the multiple roller pressing machines. This was 15 feet wide and 15 feet long and
“was a mass production ironing machine, with delicately poised rollers. You could put a shirt with pearl buttons on it and it wouldn’t leave a mark.”

Vans from the laundry would collect the washing and deliver it to the sorting office where each item would be marked, and classified into bins, before the loads were emptied into the ten washing machines. After being washed the clothes went through stages of being dried before being set out still slightly damp for the ironing and pressing and finally being re-sorted in the packing room and returned in the vans to the customers.

But the Queen & Pasley like all the rest were slowly being squeezed as the growing prosperity of the 1950’s led to people buying their own washing machines and by the self service launderette which are themselves now in decline.

And just after this was posted, Bob and Jean commented that "both my Gran and Granddad worked there in 1911 he was a van driver and I used to pass it a lot as a kid," and  "my mum worked their in about 1946 and then moved to the Grange .I used to go in the summer holidays with other children and one of the staff would take us to the park and look after us."

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; the inside of the Queen & Pasley circa 1960 from the collection of Tony Walker

Snaps of Chorlton No 9 Kathaleen Leavy in the Queen and Pasley, mid 1960s

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

We are inside the Queen and Pasley Laundry on Crossland Road.

I have featured both the picture and stories on the laundry* but rather think it is time to bring it out again for this series.

Picture; from the collection of Tony Walker

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%27s%20lost%20laundries%20and%20launderettes

Chorlton's corner shops number 16 ........those two shops on Crossland Road in 1972

Now I have been meaning to write about those two corner shops on Crossland Road because they were still doing the business when I washed up in Chorlton in the 1970s, and also because of the presence of the laundry just a little further up the road.

This  was the Pasley, later renamed the Queen and Pasley and opened in 1893, when this was still known as Crescent Road  and at one point employed 50 staff.

All the washing machines were belt driven by a huge steam engine and were the first to install the “float-iron system” which consisted of the multiple roller pressing machines. This was 15 feet wide and 15 feet long and
“was a mass production ironing machine, with delicately poised rollers. You could put a shirt with pearl buttons on it and it wouldn’t leave a mark.”

Vans from the laundry would collect the washing and deliver it to the sorting office where each item would be marked, and classified into bins, before the loads were emptied into the ten washing machines.

After being washed the clothes went through stages of being dried before being set out still slightly damp for the ironing and pressing and finally being re-sorted in the packing room and returned in the vans to the customers.

I suspect that many of the staff would at some time or other have called in at the two shops.

And I also know there will be plenty of others who will remember the two.

Pictures; Stanely Grove and Crossland Road, H Milligan, 1972, m18209 and m18207, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Chorlton in the snow

It was taken where the Brook twists away from what is now Brookburn Road

 A second chance to read an old story.

Today the view across to the church and the barn of Hannah Cheshire at Ivy Farm is hidden by the modern Bowling Green Hotel and the row of houses that follow the line of the brook into Chorltonville.

The postcard was sent in the November of 1908 but the image is likely to be much older.

To the right beyond the barn is the Queen and Pasley Laundry with is distinctive tall chimney which dates the photograph to after 1893 when the laundry was opened.

But there is much in the picture which could take us back to the middle decades of the 19th century. The old Bowling Green Hotel which stood slightly to the side of the parish church was built in the 1780s, while the cottage on the left behind the hut had been built by 1818 and may be older.

So with a little imagination and a will to wipe out most of the buildings to the east of Hannah Cheshire’s barns we could be staring at the village from the meadows at anytime during the 19th century.

But that is not quite the end of the story. The postcard was sent from Australia to Matthias Hoyland Petts and his wife Laura at 16 Thorpe Street, Old Trafford.

It is not a conventional postcard and was made by the sender who writes that she has “been out of postcards” and what we have is one of her own photographs.

Now Matthias Hoyland Petts was easy to track. He was a cashier. He had married Laura in 1907 and was still living at Thorpe Street in 1911. By then they had a baby girl born the year before. 16 Thorpe Street is still there; it was part of a terrace, had six rooms and could only have been built in the decade before Louise sent her postcard from Australia.

It seems that Louise was married to Hoyland’s brother Charles who was a brass engraver and lithographer. It is his name on a stamp that appears on the postcard which places them at Warriston Street, in Brighton, Victoria.

Today it looks a pleasant enough little street of clapperboard bungalows and brick houses. Now the assumption is that she came from Chorlton and married Charles sometime between 1901 and 1908 but then there is just too much that we do not know. Perhaps Charles brought the picture out and maybe Louisa was already in Australia.

All of which is a long way from a photograph of Chorlton in the snow taken between 1893 when the laundry opened and 1908 when the new Bowling Green Hotel was built.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection, circa 1893-1908

100 Years of one house in Chorlton .........Part Five

The continuing story of one house in Chorlton during the last hundred years.

Washing the family clothes was a tedious job and it may well be that Mary Ann paid to have the washing done.

Across the city there were 281 laundries some of which had more than one branch. Here in the township there were five, with another on Upper Chorlton Road, and another on Range Road as well as more in nearby Stretford, and Withington.

Of the five Chorlton ones, Mary was spoilt for choice, with Mrs Martha Keel on Beech Road, Miss Mary Jones at Ivy Cottage on Barlow Moor Road and the large Pasley Laundry on Crescent Road, now renamed Crossland Road. She may even have used Wing Sam & Co at Hastings Buildings on Manchester Road which was next to where they had lived in the spring of 1911.

Laundries are a measure not only of the size of a community but of their prosperity. Given the arduous nature of wash day it is not surprising that those who could afford to pay for the weekly washing to be cleaned did so. The population had doubled in the ten years before 1901 and the next decade saw an equal increase. The occupations of the residents of new Chorlton ranged from manufacturers, bank managers and solicitors to clerical and skilled workers. The very mix which is reflected in the large detached and semi detached houses stretching along Edge Lane and High Lane and the tall terraced properties radiating out from the station.

Here were the customers of our five laundries which in themselves were a mix. Yapp’s Laundry was big enough to have branches on Ashton Old Road, Chorlton on Medlock and in Whitefield and Stretford. Others like Wing Sam operated from one shop while Martha Keal’s premises on Beech Road was also the home of a her builder husband John. The biggest was the Pasley, later renamed the Queen and Pasley on Crescent Road. It opened in 1893, and at one point employed 50 staff.

All the washing machines were belt driven by a huge steam engine and were the first to install the “float-iron system” which consisted of the multiple roller pressing machine. This was 15 feet wide and 15 feet long and
“was a mass production ironing machine, with delicately poised rollers. You could put a shirt with pearl buttons on it and it wouldn’t leave a mark.”

Vans from the laundry would collect the washing and deliver it to the sorting office where each item would be marked, and classified into bins, before the loads were emptied into the ten washing machines. After being washed the clothes went through stages of being dried before being set out still slightly damp for the ironing and pressing and finally being resorted in the packing room and returned in the vans to the customers.

Whether Mary washed at home or used a laundry there would still have been much to do. It was after all a time before most families had a hover and sweeping dusting and general household cleaning was done the old way.

Picture; The Grange Laundry,Beech Road, Chorlton, c.1918
The Grange Laundry was opposite the smithy on Beech Road, Chorlton. c.1918.DPA/328/20 Courtesy of Greater Manchester County Record Office