From green fields to gas works, the Reverend William Birley’s change of parish in 1859

In 1859 the Reverend William Birley had left Chorlton where he had been for seventeen years exchanging the small rural living for one in the  in the heart of Salford.  

This was St Stephens* and it was surrounded by rows of terraced housing which hid smaller houses and dark courts as well as the gas works, timber yards, iron works and cotton factories .

To the west and north the area was cut off by the river and to the east by the railway.

The contrast between the two places could hardly be starker.  During the day there was the noise from the countless factories, mills and foundries, while at night the clunk of shunting railway wagons and the whistle of steam locomotives carried over the roof tops.  Added to this was the all pervading smell from the gas works and the ever present pall of smoke from countless domestic fires and factory chimneys. **

But this was just the outward appearances of a hard and grim parish.  In the area bordering the church most were engaged in manual occupations.    Many of these were best described as pauper trades,

“for the wages can never enable a man to rear a family in independence.  Street sweepers, night soil men and policemen, handloom weavers and cotton dyers, hawkers, strikers in foundries, minders of planning and drilling machines, railway porters and the whole range of labourers, ....their wages varying from 12 to 18s [60p-80p] per week.  Deduct from this highest sum of 2s 6d for rent and how can a man keep and clothe himself, wife and four or five children on the remainder?”***      

These were also physically demanding jobs which could be dangerous.

Nothing perhaps prepared the casual visitor to the scene in the gas works as the men cleared the coke from the ovens and transported the red hot material on hand waggons, or the noise, dust and repetitive labour of the spinning room of a mill.
Perhaps it was the wish to bring a message of religious hope to such a place which motivated William Birley.

After all the income at St Stephens’s was £145 a year which was just £42 more than he had received in income from St Clements’ in the township.****    His sense of duty had also led him to sit as a Poor Law Guardian while still living in the township and later became an Inspector of schools for the county.*****

He was comfortably well off having described himself as of independent means at the 1841 census, held shares in a number of railway companies and was a director of at least two companies.  

He chose to live some distance from his parishioners in Leaf Square.  This was a pleasant and elegant spot separated from Greengate and St Stephen’s by a double loop of the river, and further isolated by the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal, and the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.

Looking out from his windows he had an uninterrupted view of the delightfully laid out square, and across open land to the river and Peel Park beyond.  Only the railway and canal could be said to act as mild blots on what was otherwise a fine vista.

Moreover his neighbours were drawn from the same genteel class.  They included a property owner, retired solicitor, fellow cleric, an iron merchant and those on independent means.      As would be expected all had a variety of servants, housekeepers, cooks and governess’s to ease their comfortable lives.

True there were nearby examples of industry in the form of cotton and flax mills, a dye works and brewery but these were surrounded by open land and houses with large gardens.   Even the rope walks which were some distance away between the square and the railway could not have been said to distract from what was a pleasant place.

St Stephen’s, it has to be said was more impressive than our own church in the township.  It was made of plain brick, dated from 1794 and was reckoned by contemporary observers to be comfortably fitted, containing three galleries and an organ.   All of which made it bigger than ours and with its tall classical tower and two floors it stood out from the village church William had previously preached in.***

But then it was set in the middle of Salford, with a timber yard running alongside the graveyard and a  foundry at the back of the church.   Just across the road towered the gasworks and a little further away was the rope works.

There is more on William Birley, the book. The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy.html

Pictures; St Clements Chorlton-cum-Hardy, from the OS map of Lancashire, 1841-53, and St Stephens in Salford & Leaf Square, from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1844-49, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Duffield, H. G., The Strangers Guide to Manchester 1850, 29, , The church was demolished in 1962 and the site is now a small park between Trinity Way and St Stephens Street.

**In the 1861 census these comprised the enumeration districts of numbers 7, 8, 9 , and 10, where the occupations included labourers, warehouseman, textile workers, foundry workers, laundresses, and porters

*** Watts, John, The Facts of the Cotton Famine, Simpkin, Marshall & Co, Manchester 1866, page 99, Google edition page 120

****Lewis, Samuel, A Topographical Dictionary of England, S Lewis & Co Vol 1& 3 1840

*****He held shares in the Birkenhead, Lancashire and Cheshire Junction Railway and the Fleetwood, Preston and West Riding Junction Railway [Preston Guardian December 24 1846], and  was a director of the Socttish Amicable Life Assurance Society [Manchester Times Saturday February 17 149], and the Manchester and London Life Assurance and Loan Association [Manchester Times Saturday March 12 1853],

The Birley family of Didsbury … Chorlton-cum-Hardy connections … another story from Tony Goulding

In this beautiful setting of St. James Church, Didsbury lies, in the foreground, the family grave of the distinguished Didsbury family the Birley’s. 

St. James's church and Birley grave

The patriarch of the family was Joseph Birley, a cotton spinner and merchant, who was born on the 31st May, 1782, in Blackburn, Lancashire. His parents were Richard Birley, a successful cotton merchant and owner of cotton mills in the town, and Alice (née Hornby). Richard was also in partnership with his brother-in-law John Hornby (1), who together built some of the first cotton mills in Blackburn.

In the 1820s Joseph Birley moved to Manchester a city in which his older brother, Hugh Hornby Birley, was already a prominent if somewhat infamous resident. (2)  In partnership with his brother they developed the large cotton mills complex on Cambridge Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester He settled in Didsbury, Lancashire, building a large house at Ford Bank. On the 29th August, 1824, together with his brother, is recorded as being a member of the committee formed to progress the building of the Manchester to Liverpool Railway. (The world’s first passenger railway).

In the 1841 census it is recorded as housing Joseph, his wife Jane (née Hornby), his first cousin, together with his ten children and eight servants.

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 1830

My initial thought on seeing this grave was to ponder if there was a connection to the Rev. William Birley, the rector of St. Clement’s, Chorlton-cum-Hardy from 1843 until 1859 when he exchanged livings with his successor at St. Clement’s, Rev. John Edmond Booth, then the rector of St. Stephen’s, Salford. 

It was not surprising that Rev. William decided to move to Salford as a number of his cousins had also relocated there. Herbert to Spring Bank and Henry to “Brentwood”, both in Pendleton whilst another cousin, Arthur, lived at Wood Bank in nearby Pendlebury.

Rev. William was indeed related to the Birley family of Didsbury, Joseph Birley was his uncle. There are also other connections between the Birleys of Didsbury and the clergy of St. Clement's. On the 26th April, 1855 Rev. George Langton Beckwith, who since November, 1852 had been assisting Rev. Birley at Chorlton-cum-Hardy, was married to, Joseph Birley’s daughter, Elizabeth at St James’s Church, Didsbury.  A generation later, on the 2nd April, 1891 at Forest Hill, Oxfordshire, one of Joseph’s granddaughters, Mary Adelaide, married Rev. James Creswell Pigot the nephew of the Rev. Frederick Octavius Pigot who also served as one of Rev. Birley’s curates in Chorlton-cum-Hardy between February, 1856 until January, 1859. 

Obituary of England Cricket

Another member of the Birley / Hornby extended family was Albert Neilson (A. N.)  Hornby the famous cricketer for Lancashire and England. He is best known as the captain of the ill-fated England cricket team which lost to Australia on the 29th August, 1882. This defeat at the Kennington Oval, London was England’s first in a test match on home soil and a satirical obituary notice placed in the Sporting Times a few days later which ended 

"N.B. The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia"  This led to contests between the two countries being called “The Ashes”

A. N. Hornby was also immortalised in the lines 

“As the run stealers flicker to and fro,

 To and fro:

 O my Hornby and my Barlow long ago!”

From “At Lord’s” the celebrated cricket poem by Francis Thompson.

Already rich through their cotton manufacturing, the family’s wealth was enhanced by going into partnership with Charles Mackintosh in the production of the eponymous waterproof garments. (3) 

    The affluence of the family can be gauged by the estates left by two of Joseph Birleys children when they died in 1890. Cecilia died at the home she shared with her sisters, Jane and Adelaide, 1, Stanley Place, Chester, Cheshire on the 2nd January, 1890. Her estate was valued at £33,891-0s-3d. (Equivalent to £4,633,824 today) When her brother Herbert died at his home, Spring Bank, Pendleton, Salford, Lancashire on the 20th November, 1890 he left an estate valued at “45,262-3s-11d.(£6,051,822 in today’s value). 

Pictures: - St. James’s Church and Birley family grave courtesy of Andrea Martinez. Image of Manchester-Liverpool Railway, 1830 and “Obituary for English Cricket” both in Public Domain and sourced from Wikipedia. “Manchester Heroes” from the collection of Tony Goulding.

“Manchester Heroes”

Notes: -

1) John Hornby was a prosperous cotton spinner in Blackburn. Two of his sons William Henry and John were both separately elected as that town’s Member of Parliament, as were two of William Henry’s sons, Edward and William Henry Jnr. (known as “Harry”). The latter was noted as never having spoken nor attempted to speak in the House during his 24-year career there! Nevertheless, he was also twice selected to be the mayor of Blackburn; thus, emulating his father who had been the town’s first mayor in 1851. A. N. Hornby, the England cricketer mentioned above was also one of William Henry’s sons.

2)Hugh Hornby Birley’s notoriety was the result of his involvement in the “Peterloo Massacre”. As Captain Hugh Hornby Birley he was second-in-command of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry on the 16th August, 1819. After being ordered by his superior officer, Major Thomas Joseph Trafford to do so he led the charge of his troops into the crowd of peaceful protestors into St. Peter’s Field. Although it is still somewhat contentious but the blame for the resulting fatalities and injuries is widely placed on this action. It is argued that his command was both partisan and ill-disciplined. Some accounts have also suggested they were “half-drunk” having spent the morning in local taverns.

As one of the demands of those assembled at Peterloo was that Manchester should have a representative in Parliament, it was with extreme irony that his nephew and namesake Hugh Birley was elected to serve as the city's Member of Parliament from 1868 until his death in September, 1883.

3) Their mill, in Cambridge Street, is still standing, now converted to residential use but for many years was a factory of the Dunlop Rubber Company who acquired the building in 1923.

Acknowledgements: -

As well as census and other records on “Find My Past” and Wikipedia entries I have gleaned extra information from the following sources.

Graces Guide to British Industrial History. Birley family records posted on line (RootsMagic). “Peterloo Massacre – 1819" (2009) by Philip McKeiver. “100 Halls around Manchester” https://100hallsaroundmanchester.wordpress.com