King Cholera ......... stories of Public Health

I have been reflecting on those awful diseases that stalked our cities, towns and villages just over 170 years ago.

Of these Cholera was regarded by many as the worst and was often referred to as “Deadly” or “King Cholera” It is an infection caused by contaminated food and water. The main symptoms are diarrhoea and vomiting, and if untreated will continue until the patient becomes severely dehydrated. In the final stages a cholera victim will bring up what was called rice water and is almost clear liquid with fishy smell and resemble living skeletons.

Its impact was always going to be worst in the overcrowded and unsanitary parts of the city where large numbers were crowded together in back to back housing and narrow enclosed courts.

Span Court off Artillery Street is a fine example of a court and survived into the 1960s.

There are vivid descriptions of these places in the 1840s by writers like Frederick Engels, Leon Faucher and Dr Kay, as well as official reports.

The Report of the General Board of Health on the Epidemic Cholera of 1848 & 1849, drew attention to the fact that in the Market Street district of Manchester half the cases of Cholera were from the inhabitants of courts and cellar dwellings, which were in close proximity to open privies where the water supply was of a “poor quality” often served several cottages and was generally only “turned on for an hour day”

More revealing are the case notes of Dr Henry Gaulter who experienced the first outbreak of Cholera during the May to December of 1832. He kept a detailed record of the first three hundred patients he attended describing their physical condition, the onset of the disease and their living conditions but was forced to abandon the exercise as the numbers increased.

 Here are the fit, not so fit and in many cases undernourished residents of streets which were overcrowded and dirty, like Martha Chorlton aged 57 of 10 John Street Ancoats, who lived in a “locality, crowding, filth, &c. Street in a very populous and poor neighbourhood.”*

Or Thomas Cavanagh aged 5 and his mother Elizabeth who lived at 5 Wakefield-street Little Ireland which “fronted an open area but an impure stream whose channel does the function of a sewer, passes by the door to adjoining field where it collects and stagnates: house and inhabitants very filthy: three children and two adults on a straw bed.” 

And so it goes on but not all the streets were dirty and not all those who would contract the disease were poor. The rich had servants who may have had relatives in the more depressed parts of the city and might walk the disease in by the servant’s entrance.

Nor should we forget that the wealthy often lived in close proximity to run down areas. So that very posh set of late 18th century houses on St John Street off Deansgate was just  next door to Spam Court and surrounded by roads where there was overcrowding and Cholera.

Perhaps also we should be careful not to over state the impact of the disease on the city. There were just over 142,000 people in the city of which according to Gaulter 1,325 died.  But then there is the danger of falling into that callous numbers game which judges deaths in terms of statistics while for the individual just one death is a tragedy.

And the chances were that for those who contracted it death was a pretty strong out come. So for those who caught Cholera in Manchester over 50% would die while in Chorlton on Medlock the figure was 38% and in Salford 30%. These are not odds that I would fancy.

Nor I think should we feel that it was just the cities and towns that suffered. Rural areas were equally unsanitary and diseases like typhus and typhoid were according to the Poor Law Commissioners real threats in the countryside.

Which of course brings us to Chorlton, and in the next few weeks I shall be reporting on child mortality, sickness and public health in our own township but in the meantime I am happy to say that the worst is over here on Beech Road.

Picture; Span Court, south side of Artillery Street, J.Ryder, 1965 m00211, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass & New Wakefield Street, Little Ireland today from the collection of Andrew Simpson

 Sources, Gaulter Henry, The Origin and Progress of the Malignant Cholera, 1833, London, & Appendix A, To the Report of the General Board of Health on the Epidemic Cholera of 1848 & 1849, 1850, London

* Gaulter

Doors I have known .............. now that’s a zippy title

Fairfield Street

Now there is nothing original in showing off a collection of doors.

But I was reminded of just how many pictures of doors I have taken over the years after talking to my cousin Marisa in Canada.

She was recently engaged in a project to photograph and record the stories of doors in her home town in Ontario

And as you do I went looking for some of the ones I have come across over the years.

Most are from cities and towns in Italy, Greece and a shed load here in Manchester

Some of them have appeared before along with the history of the people who lived or worked behind them.

So for now I shall just post the pictures of three I like.

Via Nationale

I  don’t pretend they are classic shots but just ones that I have come to know over the years with the promise of more to come.

The first is one of those most of us pass by without a second glance.

It is on that very busy and at times desolate stretch of Fairfield Street by Piccadilly Railway Station.*

And for a big chunk of the 1970s I often caught the 218 out to Grey Mare lane and then when we bought our first house all the way up to Ashton.

The second is on the Via Nationale in Rome and caught my fancy as I waited outside a clothes shop for what seemed a century.  We had done the sightseeing and now it was that other type of activity involving a series of shops which made even the most mundane Roman relic a thing of beauty and fascination.

And that just leaves me with the entrance to J & J Shaw on New Wakefield Street.

New Wakefield Street

I long ago delved into the history of the company and acknowledge others have taken better pictures of the door and tiled surround, but then this at least is mine and not snatched from the internet.

So there you have it ...... three doors three places and I bet lots of stories, as yet untold.

Locations, Fairfield Street, Manchester, Via Nationale, Rome, and New Wakefield Street Manchester





Pictures; different doors, different places 2002-2010, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Alas it has gone

Catch it before it goes ….. Manchester’s past in pictures

Now here is an exciting project which has been launched to record all those heaps of street art which pop up and vanish almost as suddenly as they appear.

New Wakefield Street, 2002

They range from the thoughtful and artistic to the scrawl of someone who has just discovered a spray can or a paint by numbers box set.

Spear Street, 2016

You can find them on the sides of buildings, bridges and even pavements.

Most have short lives, either because they are painted over, or removed.  Worse still some linger on neglected and as the paint peels and the image fades, they become a ghostly and forlorn reminder of their former self.

Over the years some of those I count as favourites have gone, like the one on New Wakefield Street I photographed back in 2002.

Or the one of the reclining lady on Spear Street.  She appeared in all her glory in 2016 and was obliterated two years later by a series of sprayed tags which can claim no artistic skill and say little about the artist other than a narcistic need to paint their name.

Salmon Street, 2023

And they deserve to be remembered, partly because many make a statement of what was going on in the city at the time, and because some are humorous and well executed.

Radium Street, 2023

All of which is a lead into the project which is seeking funding and will rely on volunteers to record the pictures with a date, location and description of the condition of the image.

The eventual aim will be to display the collection at a suitable venue, possibly in the Northern Quarter or in the restored Town Hall.

The original idea came from a group of art students and Manchester historians who saw the importance of the project and the potential for a series of “historic walks”.

The scheme has now been endorsed by "Manchester 69" which has a long track record of sponsoring similar projects 

It was established as a centre for the contemporary arts in the late 1960s and mounted campaigns to save some of our 19th century buildings from demolition. 

More recently it has engaged with the London born photographer Richard Bux on a history of tripe shops in the city.

Roman fort, 2002

The launch of this new street art project will be at 10 am today in its studio on Sugar Lane off Withy Grove.

The centre piece will be a collection of recovered graffiti found on the wall of the Roman fort at Castlefield and include a series of comments on the Roman Governor and Emperor along with the enigmatic Latin tag "Aprilis stultus es fuerat".

So it should be a good morning.

Location; Manchester

Pictures, New Wakefield Street, 2002, Spear Street, 2016, Salmon Street, 2023, Radium Street, 2023, and the Roman fort at Castlefield, 2002, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The confusing story of New Wakefield Street

It was the railway wot did for New Wakefield Street.

New Wakefield Street, 2002

It’s that twisty thoroughfare that runs from Oxford Road alongside the railway viaduct and ends at Great Marlborough Street.

It might have been something more than it is, but that viaduct determined that only the south side would be developed, and the development would be a collection of mucky businesses.  

So, in 1911 these included a printers, a shirt maker, as well as an engineering works, a rubber tyre maker, a packing case firm and an art metal workshop alongside a company specializing in refining oil and a drysalters’ store.

All of which meant that it was a place you went for work, or to deliver or collect stuff, or as a cut through to Great Marlborough Street. 

But I don’t want to give the impression that it was ever destined for great things because even before the viaduct arrived the area was a collection of mean houses and smelly, noisy factories some of which occupied the appalling slum known as Little Ireland, which Dr. Kay and Frederick Engels described in detail.

And the maps can’t quite agree on our dismal thoroughfare.

Wakefield Street and Railway Street, 1851

The 1841 OS map shows it as a continuous street running west to east, crossing Great Marlborough Street before ending in what was then Oxford Street.  

The western half up to Great Marlborough Street was dominated on the south side by 17 terraced houses of which 15 were back-to-back properties, facing a Whipstring Manufacturer, beyond which there were what might have been more houses on the northern side.

It was these “northern” properties which the viaduct did for, cutting a swathe from London Road Railway Station out across Chorlton-on-Medlock and on towards Cornbrook and open country. 

And oddly it would appear this stretch is not recorded on the OS Map for 1849 which shows an engineering works straddling what should have been the bit of Wakefield Street which joined Oxford Street.

New Wakefield Street, 2017, looking west

All of which becomes even more confusing just two years later when Adshead’s map of Manchester shows the road reinstated but going under the name of Railway Street, a name it has lost by 1863 when it shows up in the directories as New Wakefield Street.

In the fullness of time, I will set about trawling the Rate Books in a laborious search for just when the name changes occurred.

Leaving me just to reflect that the workshop in my picture and the open space that was opposite have undergone their own changes, but that is another story or perhaps for a walk.

Location; Manchester

Picture; New Wakefield Street, 2002, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, in 1851, from Adshead map of Manchester 1851, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and in 2017 courtesy of Andy Robertson

Looking for our memorial to Manchester’s Cholera deaths

Now I may well have missed it, but I don’t think we have a memorial to those who perished in the great Cholera outbreak of 1832.

The Cholera Monument, Sheffield, 2006

And I say that because today I came across Sheffield’s monument to its Cholera victims, which stands just a bit west of the railway station, situated in grounds that were laid out in 1850, fifteen years after the monument was completed and seventeen years after the epidemic which killed 402 people.

402 victims of the disease were buried in grounds between Park Hill and Norfolk Park adjoining Clay Wood. Money from the treasurers of the Board of Health was set aside for a monument for the site.

Cholera was regarded by many as the worst of the killer diseases that swept through our towns and cities in the 19th century.

It was often referred to as “Deadly” or “King Cholera” and is an infection caused by contaminated food and water.

The main symptoms are diarrhea and vomiting, and if untreated will continue until the patient becomes severely dehydrated. In the final stages a cholera victim will bring up what was called rice water and is almost clear liquid with fishy smell and resemble living skeletons.

Its impact was always going to be worst in the overcrowded and unsanitary parts of the city where large numbers were crowded together in back to back housing and narrow enclosed courts.

New Wakefield Street, 2004

There are vivid descriptions of these places in the 1840s by writers like Frederick Engels, Leon Faucher and Dr Kay, as well as official reports.

The Report of the General Board of Health on the Epidemic Cholera of 1848 & 1849, drew attention to the fact that in the Market Street district of Manchester half the cases of Cholera were from the inhabitants of courts and cellar dwellings, which were in close proximity to open privies where the water supply was of a “poor quality” often served several cottages and was generally only “turned on for an hour day”.

More revealing is the case notes of Dr Henry Gaulter who experienced the first outbreak of Cholera during the May to December of 1832. He kept a detailed record of the first three hundred patients he attended describing their physical condition, the onset of the disease and their living conditions but was forced to abandon the exercise as the numbers increased.

Little Ireland, 1844

 Here is the fit, not so fit and in many cases undernourished residents of streets which were overcrowded and dirty, like Martha Chorlton aged 57 of 10 John Street Ancoats, who lived in a “locality, crowding, filth, &c. Street in a very populous and poor neighbourhood.” *

Or Thomas Cavanagh aged 5 and his mother Elizabeth who lived at 5 Wakefield-street Little Ireland which “fronted an open area but an impure stream whose channel does the function of a sewer, passes by the door to adjoining field where it collects and stagnates: house and inhabitants very filthy: three children and two adults on a straw bed.”

And so, it goes on but not all the streets were dirty and not all those who would contract the disease were poor.

The rich had servants who may have had relatives in the more depressed parts of the city and might walk the disease in by the servant’s entrance.

Span Court, 1965

Nor should we forget that the wealthy often lived near run down areas. So that very posh set of late 18th century houses on St John Street off Deansgate was just next door to Span Court and surrounded by roads where there was overcrowding and Cholera.

Perhaps also we should be careful not to overstate the impact of the disease on the city.

There were just over 142,000 people in the city of which according to Gaulter 1,325 died.  But then there is the danger of falling into that callous numbers game which judges deaths in terms of statistics while for the individual just one death is a tragedy.

And the chances were that for those who contracted it death was a pretty strong outcome. So, for those who caught Cholera in Manchester over 50% would die while in Chorlton on Medlock the figure was 38% and in Salford 30%. These are not odds that I would fancy.

Nor I think should we feel that it was just the cities and towns that suffered. Rural areas were equally unsanitary and diseases like typhus and typhoid were according to the Poor Law Commissioners real threats in the countryside.

So where are Manchester’s memorials.?  I can think of the inscription on the foot of the cross in St John’s Gardens, and the plaque in St Michael’s Fields in Angel Meadow, but I am stumped as to a specific Cholera one.

That said I bet there is, and someone will tell me.

I hope so.

Picture; Cholera Monument, Sheffield, Gregory Deryckère, 2006,** New Wakefield Street, Little Ireland 2004, from the collection of Andrew Simpson,Little Ireland, 1844, from the OS of Manchester & Salford, 1844, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/  and Span Court, south side of Artillery Street, J. Ryder, 1965 m00211, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass 

 *Gaulter Henry, The Origin and Progress of the Malignant Cholera, 1833, London, & Appendix A, To the Report of the General Board of Health on the Epidemic Cholera of 1848 & 1849, 1850, London

**Gregory Deryckère, permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation

Peeling art …….

An occasional series featuring pictures from a walk through the City

Location; Wakefield Street, Manchester

Picture; Peeling art, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A forgotten bit of the city ….. on a sunny April day

Now I like the way Manchester continues to develop exciting new buildings and rejuvenated areas which offer up a lot in the way of urban living.

That said I remain uncomfortable at the sheer scale of some of the tower blocks which have lost that idea of scale and human proportion as they reach ever higher to scrape the clouds.

But during all these new and shinny enterprises there are the grimy bits of the city waiting for something to happen.

True there are fewer of them than before, and in some cases it is less an area and more a bit of a building.

And that brings me to the corner of Oxford Road and Charles Street and a bit of Oxford Place, which once upon a time was the Imperial Building.

At street level it is occupied by a Costa Coffee, a restaurant which was the Portland Book shop, some assorted small retail outlets and what was once a branch of the HSBC.

In its time the bank was perfectly sited for the BBC Building and a host of businesses along this stretch of Oxford Road.

It still had a feel of the 1950s with its polished wooden doors and counters which harped back to a time before “slick corporate identity” and even longer before internet banking.

It closed a long time ago, and so far has not attracted any new tenants, which has led to its becoming a very sorry looking place.

But with the new development on the site of the old BBC I have every confidence things will change, and these sorry and sad images of it will be banished.

All of which reminded me of that time when people flocked to Mrs. Gaskell’s Baths which during the 1930s into the 50s were the must to place to visit for “Wax Baths, Wax Facials and Beauty Treatments” along with a hairdressing saloon and swimming lessons in its warm pool.

My old friend Sally came across Mrs. Gaskell and wrote an excellent story which first appeared on the blog back in 2014 and which I always return to.*

Leaving me just to include that other interesting place which is Wakefield Street and leads to the Salisbury pub and the steps up to Oxford Road Station.

Location; Oxford Road

Pictures; grimy pictures and a murial, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson 

*Mrs Gaskell's Baths, under the Imperial Buildings on Oxford Road, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2017/09/mrs-gaskells-baths-under-imperial.html 

Prominent Methodists of Chorlton-cum-Hardy..... another story from Tony Goulding

Founded in 1881 as “The Manchester Theological College” and renamed in 1906 in honour of Sir William Pickles Hartley, of “Hartley’s Jams” fame, who was among the church's most prominent benefactors; Hartley College was an institute for the training of ministers for the Primitive Methodist Church. 

 Hartley (Primitive Methodist) Training College,1924

Two of the college’s earliest Principals moved to addresses in Chorlton-cum-Hardy on their retirement.

Rev. James Macpherson
   
 Rev. James Macpherson was the Principal of “The Manchester Theological College” for the first eight years of its life (1881-1889).

He also edited the Primitive Methodist’s Magazine - “The Connexional” from 1871 until 1876, during which time, in 1872, he was elected President of the Primitive Methodist Conference.

He was born, in Edinburgh, in 1814.  In the September quarter of 1839, he married Fanny Bishop Buck in Weymouth, Dorset.  The couple produced five children, Christian, Archibald, Sophia, Jessie, and George. All five children were born in the North-West of England; the first three in Rochdale, Jessie near Chester and George in Haslingden, Lancashire.

The geographical range of the civil records of this family does, however, indicate the typical lifestyle of a Methodist minister who would rarely be attached to the same church/chapel for more than a couple of years. In the March quarter 1858, his wife, Fanny, died in Blackburn, Lancashire at the age of just 48. Just over three years later in the September quarter of 1861 he re-married, also in Blackburn, Mary Jane Aspinall.
     
Rev. Macpherson’s daughter, Christian, moved to live in Edinburgh, Scotland where she met Duncan Kennedy, a joiner and builder, who she married in Partick, nr. Glasgow on 13th February, 1873. Later his daughter and her husband returned to Lancashire and settled in the Cheetham area of Manchester.

Rev. Macpherson had by this time acquired a row of houses on Cluny Street, Cheetham one of which was already occupied by his son George with his wife and family. Duncan and Christian moved into an adjoining property with Rev. MacPherson appointing Duncan Kennedy as his agent for the remaining properties.
 
Shortly after the loss of his second wife, who died in South Manchester, during the March quarter of 1888, and his retirement from his post as Principal, Rev. Macpherson continued his ministry in South Manchester living initially at 30, Meadow Street, Moss Side, with his two unmarried daughters, his son and three grandchildren. He spent the final seven years of his life in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, first renting a house at 27, Albany Road from 1894 until 1896. Then in 1897 the rate book shows him as the owner occupier of 23, High Lane, a large newly-built house of 10 rooms, where at the 1901 census he was still living with his single daughters Jessie and Sophia, his widowed daughter Christian Kennedy, and his son George. Adjacent to this new property which he named “Cluny Cottage” there commenced the development of new buildings for the Primitive Methodist Church.

Macpherson Memorial (Primitive Methodist) Church 1959, High Lane

A school / church hall was built in 1896 followed by a church, with services taking place from 1898 and opened fully on the 20th September, 1902. As Rev. Macpherson had by this time passed away at his home on 18th April, 1901 the new church was given the name of “The Macpherson Memorial”
    As of 1900 the Manchester rate books show Rev. Macpherson’s Cluny Street properties alone providing an approximate rental income of upwards of £350. Given this large income his naming of his family home “Cluny Cottage” and the new church being named after him it is perhaps, not too conjectural to conclude that both “Cluny Cottage” and adjacent Primitive Methodist structures were all financed from the Cheetham property portfolio. What can be said for definite is that, in December, 1902, the final sworn assessment of his estate, for probate purposes, was £8,214-1s-0d or just over £1,000,000 at today’s value.

Rev. William Jones Davies
   
Rev. William Jones Davies was for five years from 1908 until 1913 the principal of the renamed Hartley College on Alexandra Road, Whalley Range, Manchester.
Rev. Davies was born in 1851 in Lydham, on the Shropshire/Montgomeryshire, England/Wales border. His parents were Edward, a farmer and Martha (née Jones). William’s younger brother, Edward Robinson, was also a Primitive Methodist minister. Rev. Davies married Emily Jane Bradford in the June quarter of 1883 while he was stationed at Cradley Heath, South Staffordshire.

The couple had seven children including one set of twins, George Denis and Mary Christine, born in the September quarter of 1888 in the Clun district of Shropshire. Sadly, Mary Christine was to die tragically young at just 12 years old while Rev. Davies was serving as a minister in Grimsby, Lincolnshire. Of his other children; one of his remaining daughters, Dorothy Llewella, became a student at Manchester University and he would have witnessed her degree ceremony at the University’s Whitworth Hall on 3rd July, 1915 when she was awarded an Honours Degree of Bachelor of Arts (Class 2:1) in History. His first born, William Claud Howard, followed him into the Primitive Methodist ministry who after his father’s death in 1916 left the Primitive Methodist Church and later became a minister in the Presbyterian Church.
       In retirement, Rev. William Jones Davies lived at 6, Oak Avenue, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, where he died on the 21st June, 1916.

6 Oak Avenue, 2020

Rev John Bedford
Rev. John Bedford, a one-time President of the Wesleyan Conference (1868-69), passed away in the early hours of the 20th November, 1879 at his home, 18, Whitelow Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy.
    He was born on 27th July, 1810 in Wakefield, Yorkshire (West Riding). His father, also named John, died when he was only five years old. After initially working in a solicitor’s office, in Leeds, he became a full-time minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Glasgow, Scotland in 1831. Shortly after becoming a minister he met Maria Gledhill who he married in 1835 and with whom he had two surviving sons William Henry born in Bolton, Lancashire in the December quarter of 1842 and Frederick Samuel who was born in Birmingham in the December quarter of 1850.
     From, 1860 his increasing rôle in the administrative affairs of the Wesleyan conference necessitated his permanent residence in the Manchester area. In this year, 1860, he was appointed to the general chapel committee and soon rose to the position of being its secretary. At the church’s conference in Bristol in 1867, Rev. Bedford was elected to serve as its President for the following year.
Rev. Bedford first settled in the Chorlton-on-Medlock district of Manchester, where he resided for over a decade at 18, Acomb Street before around the time of his semi-retirement from his Secretarial work for the “Conference” he made the move to Chorlton-cum-Hardy.
According to the rate books of the Chorlton-cum-Hardy township this was, from the 6th September, 1872, at Wilton Street, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, where a near neighbour was a young Church of England clergyman; Rev. Hugh Bethell Jones. Somewhat unusually for that time there is some evidence that the two men were on very friendly terms. When in March, 1876 a subscription was raised to present Rev. Bethell Jones with a gift to mark his departure from St. Clement’s, on his appointment to the rectorship of St John the Devine’s, Brooklands, Cheshire, Rev. Bedford contributed one guinea to the collection. Although he was too indisposed to attend the presentation to his fellow cleric at the National School on Chorlton Green on 23rd March, 1876 he did send a very glowing testimonial which was read out at the ceremony and transcribed in the report of the event in the “Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser” on the 25th March, 1876.
 

40 Whitelow Road, 2020

Although Rev. Bedford died in 1879, his widow, Maria, and son, Frederick Samuel, continued to live on Whitelow Road. Maria died in the December quarter of 1888. Frederick Samuel and his family continued to live on Whitelow Road, however, and at some stage they had moved to number 40 (Although this was possibly due to the houses on Whitelow Road being re-numbered following a new housing development). Even after Frederick Samuel passed away in the March quarter of 1909 his widow Mary Jane remained in the house; she was still recorded living at 40, Whitelow Road in Kelly’s 1933 Directory of Lancashire, Manchester, Salford & Suburbs. In the meantime, two of Rev. Bedford’s grand-daughters Nellie, in 1921, and Ethel Mary in 1922, had held their weddings in the Methodist Church on Manchester Road. Throughout the First World War, Ethel Mary had served as a volunteer of the British Red Cross and in the kitchens and later as a nurse in two of the Red Cross Hospitals in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. One was at a building she would have been very familiar with; the Manchester Road Methodist Sunday School. The other was the Baptist’s Sunday School on Wilbraham Road.
Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Hartley (Primitive Methodist) Training College (1924)
 m 68658 (Unknown), Macpherson Memorial (Primitive Methodist) Church 1959, High Lane, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, m 17904 A.E.Landers, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
 6, Oak Avenue, 2020, 40, Whitelow Road 2020

Tony Goulding, © 2020

Sources
 I would like to acknowledge a good  source of data "My Primitive Methodists" website
 E-mail address:-  enquiries@englesbrook.org.uk            

New Wakefield Street ...... the one with history .... but catch it while you can

New Wakefield Street is one of those little streets which most of us will never go down unless you have business there.

New Wakefield Street, 2017

It runs down from Oxford Road, to Great Marlborough Street and is dominated by the tall and sweeping brick viaduct that carries the line from Oxford Road Railway Station to Piccadilly.

A sniffy visitor might comment that there is nothing of note amongst the buildings, save the tiled entrance to what was once J & J Shaw.*

But that is to ignore the fascinating mix of different properties, some newer than others and pretty much all of them have a chequred history of different owners and different uses.

New Wakefield Street, 2019

I have always liked walking down the street, which I first discovered when visiting the site of Little Ireland, that notorious slum, which Dr. Kay and Mr. Frederick Engels described in their accounts of housing conditions in the 1830s and 1840s.**

And Andy Robertson shares my interest in the place, having also wandered down it over the decades, recording the changes.

Back in 2017 his pictures show that the developers had yet to become interested in New Wakefield Street, but within just two years the red brick building and the one next to it have gone.

The lost buildings, New Wakefield Street, 2017

The red brick one was Sound Control and the one next had been H & J Quick, motor agents and dealers in 1969.

And at one end of the street and surrounding it new buildings have gone up which are in direct contrast to the old ones in both style and height.

So, while the existing ones had pretty much conformed to the century’s old height, the new ones reach up to the sky.

Bakehouse Street, 1844

All of which was a perfect opportunity to delve back into the history of the street.

It is there in 1851 but was known as Railway Street, and petered out before reaching Great Marlborough Street, while its near neighbour on the other side of the viaduct didn’t exist, and access to the three streets beside what is now the Salisbury was just a patch of open ground.

That said judging by the OS map of Manchester and Salford dated 1844, nor did Railway Street.  It too was open ground with a road which is now lost running parallel to Oxford Road and Great Marlborough Street.

This was Bakehouse Street, which was home to Oxford Road Rectifying Distillery on one side and a Machine and Tool Manufactory on the other.

Whitworth Street West, 2020

And that is about it.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; New Wakefield Street, 2017 & 2019, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and detail from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1844, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/



*Doors I have known .............. now that’s a zippy title, 
https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2017/08/doors-i-have-known-now-thats-zippy-title.html

**New Wakefield Street, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=wakefield+street

Telling the story of our canals ………… a new book in the making

Now if you were born in the first half of the last century, you will have seen our canal network slowly decline, from a once proud and busy set of waterways, to a dismal, neglected and in places dangerous afterthought.

The Rochdale Canal, 1980

But many are now fully restored and while they may not anymore be used to transport goods, they offer up opportunities for recreation, from those who take to the water in colorful boats to those who walk the water or cycle its paths enjoying the scenery and reflecting on the history.

And all of that, has inspired Peter and I  to write a new book, which will feature the much-loved Cheshire Ring.

Like all the other Topping/Simpson books, it will be a mix of original Peter paintings, contemporary and old photographs, along with stories about the canals, the people who worked on and around them, and the buildings and places of interest which survive along the line of each waterway.

The Rochdale Canal, 1979

The chapters will be designed so that they can be walked, cycled, or sailed, with plenty of places to stop off to take in the sites, or the local hostelries.

At this point we are still in the planning stage, and welcome contributions, which can be stories, photographs or memorabilia.*

For our part Peter has already begun painting some of the iconic buildings on the Ring, and I have started the research, which has taken me back to my favourites which are Bradshaw’s The Inland Navigation of England and Wales, and  Joseph Priestley’s Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railways, published in 1830.

Both are full of maps historical background and wonderful descriptions of the network in its heyday.

Added to which there are some fascinating memories from people who describe the canals when they were still working waterways, children who played along the derelict towpaths, and plenty from those who take to water for holidays or the odd weekend.

All of which leaves me to share my own favourite canal which is the Rochdale, which will be well known to those who take it to cross through the city from the Castlefield to the Dale Street Basins.

Manchester Canals, 1830

"The canal is one of the main links in the chain of inland navigation between the east and west seas, being made for vessels of such size as enables them to navigate the tide way, and to pass between Liverpool and Hull without the expense of reshipping their cargoes, thus affording great advantages to the populous towns of Manchester, Rochdale, Halifax, Wakefield and others on the banks of the intermediate rivers. 

The Baltic produce can thus be readily conveyed into Lancashire and the manufacturers of Lancashire in return exported through the ports of Goole and Hull to Hamburg, Petersburg, Lubeck and other continental markets. 

The Rochdale Canal, 2003 

The stone from Cromwell Bottom and its neighborhoods is hereby also conveyed to Rochdale and Manchester. 

These connections are likely to make it ultimately an undertaking of considerable profit to the proprietors.” **

So, our own international highway and one that carried everything from “corn, timber, woollen cloth, coals and raw materials.”

But like all our canals find it difficult to compete with the railways and finally closed in 1952, although the section through the heart of the city from Castlefield to Piccadilly proved profitable and stayed open.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 1979-2003, map of the canal network around Manchester from Bradshaw’s map of 1830, The Inland Navigation of England and Wales, and the extract from Joseph Priestley’s Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railways, 1830 courtesy of Digital Archives http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

*You can contact us by leaving a comment on the blog, or emailing peter@pubbooks.co.uk or leaving a message at 07521 557888


** Priestley, Joseph, Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railways, 1830, Page 579

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ........... no 57 New Wakefield Street and the ghosts of Little Ireland

New Wakefield Street is the long twisting street which takes you away from  what was Little Ireland that byword for all that was bad about Manchester in the 1840s.

I have written about it as have shed loads of historians back to Frederick Engels and Dr Kay.

And I have to confess when I wandered down the street I was more interested in the graffiti that had been left on the wall of the railway viaduct and the impressive door way half way on your right.

In the distance is Imperial Buildings which for two and a more decades was home to Gaskell’s Baths which included a heated pool, and sauna which one journalist wrote “sweeps the filth of Manchester out of one’s pores” and were combined with treatments for obesity, rheumatism and sciatica.

They operated from the 1930s through to the 1950s and years later Mrs Gaskel could be found at the Galleon in south Manchester.

And that pretty much is that.

Location; Manchester

Picture; New Wakefield Street, 2004  from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Down on New Wakefield Street

Now I could go into the history of New Wakefield Street.

 It is the long twisting street which takes you  down to what was Little Ireland that byword for all that was bad about Manchester in the 1840s.

But I won’t.

I have written about it as have shed loads of historians back to Frederick Engels and Dr Kay.

Instead I shall just repost this picture taken well over a decade ago which I often revisit.

Location; New Wakefield Street, Manchester

Picture New Wakefield Street, 2004 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

New Wakefield Street, 2004

An occasional series featuring places I continue to think are special.

This is New Wakefield Street, just off Oxford Street and close to what was once Little Ireland

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

More from the pen of Tony Goulding ............. SUICIDES IN CHORLTON-cum-HARDY

It is perhaps quite surprising for such a small community the number of suicides which took place in Chorlton-cum-Hardy in Victorian and more especially Edwardian times. 

In a previous blog piece I have already told the story of the sad demise of the Rev. Roland Joseph Blain, who took an overdose of laudanum on 31st. January, 1914. Recorded below are the details of four more stories of men taking their own lives.

Perhaps, however we should not be so surprised by the sadly familiar ring to the list of reasons given to account for these desperate acts.

A lover's tiff, the death of a partner or close friend, stress of work, financial ruin marriage break-up, approach of a possibly lonely old age.

These stories could as easily have come from last week’s Evening News as those of over 100 years ago.

1) Frederick Adam Cope

On 8th July, 1853 at "Oak Bank" the 28 year old son of Frederick Cope Snr.; who in partnership with his brother Richard operated a very successful wine merchants business through various outlets in Manchester city centre.

Two days earlier the family's eldest daughter, Barbara Anne has been married at Manchester Cathedral. (1)

The wedding-guests included young Frederick's fiancé and, according to evidence given at the inquest , following a quarrel between the bet roved couple Frederick shot himself in the heart whilst in a distraught state brought on by his (perhaps erroneous) perception that the young lady had broken off their engagement.
 Frederick was laid to rest in the old churchyard by Chorlton Green on 5th. July 1853.

When his father Frederick Snr.died in February 1874 in Leamington, Warwickshire his body was brought to Chorlton in order that he could be interred alongside his son.
In the opening years of the 20th century within just over a year three other incidents took place; two of which involved a double tragedy

2) Nicholas Marsden / Frank S. Johnson

The first such instance occurred on 6th. March, 1901 at 36, Keppel Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy.
Nicholas Marsden a 50 year old, Blackburn-born accountant arrived on the doorstep of his brother-in-law's house in an exceedingly agitated state; having lost all of his and his wife's money through, unwise speculative investments.

What his intentions were is not clear but the tragic outcome was a murder/suicide as he shot  Mr. Frank Stoll Johnson , a well-respected legal clerk in Manchester (and his brother-in-law) on his doorstep, before shortly thereafter turning the gun on himself in the front garden. Both men were buried in Southern Cemetery on the same day 8th.March, 1901.

The murdered victim in a family plot E.1546:- his assassin in an unmarked communal grave M.756.

 As a consequence of this case four school-age children had lost their father: Nicholas's son Nicholas (b.1891) and daughter Phyllis (b.1890) together with Frank's two daughters Dorothy J. (b.1889) and Jessie N. (b.1892).

The murder of her husband was the second trauma to affect her family in a 6 month period following the tragic death of her 15 year old daughter Phyllis Bertha just the previous September. Perhaps unsurprisingly in these circumstances Mrs. Janet Johnson left the area with the remains of her family, only returning (on her passing away in November 1906) to be buried in the same grave as her husband and young daughter.

3) Thomas Wood/ Newton Cookson

Another double tragedy happened just 13 months later, on 17th. April, 1902
Thomas, a dairyman and market gardener, of Redgate Farm was found with his throat cut, an open razor clasped in his dead hand, in a ditch in an area known locally, with grim prescience, as "Reaper's Field" close to the neighbouring Firs Farm.                        

It was reported that Mr. Wood was very depressed by the terrible occurrence of just the day previous when his close friend and business associate, an occupier of Brook Farm, Newton Cookson had been found drowned in the Bridgewater Canal at Stretford.

Newton's widow moved away to live with her daughter Marian, an elementary school head teacher, of 58,Derbyshire Lane, Stretford.

In contrast Mr. Wood's widow Mary as well as his two grown-up sons, James, a commercial clerk, and John Freserick William, a music teacher, all remained in the area.

Indeed the 1911 census shows John F.W. still residing with his mother at 52, Wilbraham Road -the address for Redgate Farm.
James and his young family being close by at 78, Manchester Road.
Sandwiched between these two sad events is the final example of self-destruction

4) John Edwin Lockwood
The above was 54 years old, a widower, and a tailor’s trimmings merchant operating from premises at 64, Cannon Street.

He resided at 16, Catwright Road (off what is now Kingshill Road) having recently moved to there from 44, Hawthorn Road, only a week before...This move is perhaps evidence of the financial difficulties which John Edwin was facing and which prompted him to shoot himself near "Sally's Lake," Hawthorn Lane, on 1st. September, 1901 .

His corpse was taken to the Bowling Green Hotel to await the inquest on his death. He left behind two daughters, Gertrude and Mabel Maria both of marriageable age.

Indeed the impending marriage of Gertrude (2) may well have exacerbated his anxiety over his money troubles and been a contributory factor in Mr. Lockwood's fatal decision.  John Edwin was born in Wakefield, West Yorkshire in 1847 but his family soon re-located to the Newton Heath area of Manchester, where his father, James, was an inspector in the Railway Police.

After marrying Elizabeth Bates (3) in 1865 the couple lived with John Edwin's mother-in-law, Maria from whom he also rented his initial trading premises, on Church Road, Newton Heath.

As his business progressed he moved into his own accommodation with his expanding family first in Newton and eventually in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. He also re-located his place of business to a more central area.

NOTES
1) The bridegroom was Mr. Josiah Hunt of London and the wedding ceremony was conducted by the newly ordained Rev. Francis Haden Cope cousin of the bride being the son of Richard, Frederick Snr's brother and business partner.

2) Gertrude's marriage went ahead as planned when she wed Albert Edward Barlow, a cashier of 27, Zealand Terrace, at St.Clements (old church) on November 9th. 1901. Indeed within a year both John Edwin's other two children his son Harold Bates and his younger daughter Mabel Maria had also celebrated their weddings.

3) The loss of his wife Elizabeth in July 1898 was reported have induced in Mr. Lockwood a long-lasting depression Significantly after his death his body was taken to be buried with his wife at All Saints church Newton Heath.

Lastly, as a postscript, I have just come across a report from The Manchester Evening News dated 3rd. March, 1914 which shows that the taking of one’s own life is not a solely masculine phenomenon. It records in detail the death of a young woman, a Miss Maud Wagstaff, who took a lethal dose of "spirits of salts" whilst in a depressed state apparently brought on through the stress of her (over)work as a tracer
Researching this lady has proved to be something of a challenge involving a multitude of residences, some in Scotland, and a variety of different transcriptions of the various names. Maud was born in Southport in 1883, to John Buckley Wagstaff, a master engraver, and his second wife Amelia Alice .

Her father was already in his 60’s recently widowed and re-located from Scotland with his teenage son Horace. After moving around several addresses around Lancashire and Greater Manchester at the time of the tragic event Maud and her mother were living at the home of a half-sister of Maud’s ,Agnes Soppet , 74,Keppel Road. Incidentally all these three share a grave -N 1035 in Southern Cemetery. Unfortunately there is no memorial stone in situ either there never was one or it has been lost in the interim period.

© Tony Goulding, 2015

Pictures; from the collection of Tony Goulding

All you ever wanted to know about the history of Manchester street names, today at St Ninians, Wilbraham Road

Today at 1.30 Jean Bailo, a Blue Badge Guide, will talk  about the history of street names in Manchester hosted by the Chorlton Good Neighbours at St Ninians Church Hall  on Wilbraham Road

Mary Street and James Leigh Street, 1844

Now we all have our own favourite bit of town and I suppose my is Castlefield.

That said over the years I pretty much wandered all over the city, armed only with my camera, a note pad and heap full of curiosity.

And as you do you can uncover some hidden gems, from buildings tucked away and missed by the developers to lost and bizarre bits of our history.

On one such adventure I found a forgotten and derelict stables in one of the railway arches off Water Street.
It entailed a bit of trespass and more than a bit of careful footwork but there it was from a time when all the railway companies still relied on horse power to deliver goods which had arrived at their stations.

It will have gone I guess by now but more often there are still clues to our past history, and some at least are there in the street names.

I was reminded of this when I turned down New Wakefield Street past the Salisbury and up that flight of stairs to Oxford Road Station.

Now the Salisbury is another one of those old Manchester pubs which seems to offer the past up with your pint.

The Salisbury on the corner of James Leigh Street, 2013

It dates from at least 1841 and can be found on the OS map of Manchester and Salford for 1849 surrounded by mean houses which were packed together in between Oxford Street and the railway line.

In total there were three of these narrow streets consisting of James Leigh Street, Cayley Street and Mary Street, which took in 28 small back to back properties.

And while the back to backs have long gone, the names of the people who built the houses are still there. So James Leigh, and perhaps his wife or daughter Mary left their mark as did Mr William and Mr Frank just round the corner in the streets they built.

And I bet Ms Jean Bailo, will have plenty more names and stories.

Map; New Wakefield Street and the surrounding area from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Painting; The Salisbury, © 2013 Peter Topping, 

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The Salisbury in New Wakefield Street and a new name for an old pub

© 2013 Peter Topping

Now the Salisbury on Wakefield Street is another one of those old Manchester pubs which seems to offer the past up with your pint.

It dates from at least 1841 and can be found on the OS map of Manchester and Salford for 1849 surrounded by mean houses which were packed together in between Oxford Street and the railway line.

In total there were three of these narrow streets consisting of James Leigh Street, Cayley Street and Mary Street, which took in 28 small back to back properties.

And on the corner was our pub which was then called the Tulloghgorum Tavern, a name it retained till 1895 when it became the Salisbury.

Now the origin of its name is obscure but there is a Scottish poem and Highland reel with the same name, and I am reliably informed that in Gaelic the word is variously spelled - Tullochgorm, Tulloch Gorm, Tulloch Gorum, Tulach Gorm. Tulach or tulloch and means a hill, hillock, knoll while Gorm is Gaelic for blue, green, or blue-green, so the meaning of the two words could be translated "blue-green hills."

The area in 1849 showing the pub

All of which is way beyond me, although it is worth noting that the name of the Lass O’ Gowrie just across Oxford Street also has a Scottish connection.

And given that we are on edge of the infamous slum area known as Little Ireland perhaps the Gaelic could have Irish connections.

That said the change of name is certainly linked to the Conservative leader Lord Salisbury who formed a government in 1895.

By then most of the mean little streets had gone, cleared away by the railway company, and industry.

But it is still possible to get a sense of what it might have been like a century and a half ago.

You drop down from Oxford Street into a hollow and then as now the place is dominated by the tall railway viaduct and two of those narrow streets.

And while the back to backs have long gone, and Little Ireland is just a page in a history book at least the names of the people who built the houses are still there.

James Leigh, and perhaps his wife or daughter Mary left their mark as did Mr William and Mr Frank just round the corner in the streets they built.

Map; New Wakefield Street and the surrounding area from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Painting; The Salisbury, © 2013 Peter Topping, 
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Sugar Lane, an industry and a campaign

You won’t find Sugar Lane today.  It was off Withy Grove in town and has long since disappeared underneath the Arndale.  

But it was there by 1793 and was one of those typical little streets which provided a home for all sorts of small time businesses.  In the 1850s there was William Longmore the merchant, as well as a quill dresser, tailor, drysalter and twine manufacture and two pubs and a beer shop.  Fifty years later it was still a mix of small light industry specialising in brush and umbrella makers and a few warehouses which was still pretty much what was going on there just before its demolition in the early 1970s.

Looking at pictures of the lane I came across the Sugar Loaf Inn, which was a Wilson’s outlet but I guess must have once been something else given its double fronted shop appearance.  It is the sort of place I would have liked to visit, but never did and I am indebted to the excellent blog site Pubs of Manchester http://pubs-of-manchester.blogspot.co.uk/ which is a fund of information on our city’s public houses.

All of which is a prelude to a post on the story of sugar in Manchester.   Now sugar is something we take for granted and yet it is one of those industries with a dark and political history.  It was of course linked to the slave trade, and with cotton and tobacco made great wealth for many at the expense of those taken from their homes and families and delivered to the Americas as slaves.

It would be easy to single out the plantation owners, along with those who directed the slave trade from the cities of Bristol, Liverpool and London as well as other European cities.  But indirectly there were many more who gained from what one 1749 pamphlet described as “this inexhaustible fund of wealth.” They included the ship builders, who built the ships that carried the “African trade” the cotton merchants who traded cotton and the factory owners in whose mills it was spun and woven as well those who ran the sugar refineries.

All the more surprising then that here in Manchester there was a major campaign to abolish the trade upon which so many people profited. The radical Thomas Walker who lived at Barlow Hall had persuaded well known abolitionist Thomas Clarkson in 1787 to preach at the city’s Collegiate Church.  It was a great success, as Clarkson remarked “when I went into the church it was so full that I could scarcely get to my place; for notice had been publically given.  I was surprised, also, to find a great crowd of black people standing in the pulpit.”


The success of that Sunday sermon was followed up by a petition to Parliament which the Manchester Ant Slavery Committee had already planned.  In all over 11,000 people called for an end to the African trade.  This amounted to one fifth of the city’s population reflecting working class opposition to the slave trade and the practical campaigning skills of Walker and the others.*

Which is a good point to mention the talk by Bill Williams at the Chorlton History Group meeting tomorrow.**

Now I had not given much thought to sugar  in Manchester but some people have and so I was more than pleased to come across the site Sugar Refiners and Sugarbakers at http://www.mawer.clara.net/intro.html and a whole section given over to the location of the industry here in the city from at least 1772 http://www.mawer.clara.net/loc-manch.html 

There were according to the site plenty of business's connected with sugar dotted across the city from Chester Street and New Wakefield Street south of the Rochdale Canal and up along Lower Mosley Street and Portland Street and fanning out north to Water Street, Garstone Street and on to Corporation Street, Cannon Street and Hanging Ditch which it has to be said is pretty close to Sugar Lane.

The earliest were operating in the 18th century but most are recorded from the late 1840s and seem to be grocers who sold sugar as  just one of their products.

One was John Fielding at 27 Withy Grove who in 1793 issued a trade token which on one side carried a crest and the words  God Grant Grace and around the rim, Manchester Promissory Half Penny and on the other side Grocer & Tea Dealer Payable at J.N Fielding's.  Such token were common at the time and reflected the absence of low domination coinage.  Another from Liverpool turned up in our own parish churchyard in 1980 and was also dated 1793.

Other high class grocers who dealt in sugar were Isaac Burgon in the late 1850s and early 60s, and John William forty years later.

Picture; Sugar Lane and the Sugar Loaf Inn  m 05929 1965 W. Highham, Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council

*For a more detailed account of the life and political activity see my book Chorlton-cum-Hardy A Society Transformed which will be published in September.
**Manchester's Black People 1750-1926, Tuesday May 1st at Chorlton Good Neighbours, Wilbraham Road St Ninian's Church, Egerton Road South.  There will be a small charge of £2 to cover the cost of the room and refreshments.