Municipal Housing in Manchester before 1914: tackling ‘the Unwholesome Dwellings and Surroundings of the People’

Jersey Street, 1910

Now I am a great fan of Municipal Dreams which celebrates the efforts and achievements of our early municipal reformers ever since I came across an article about Woolwich in south east London close to where I grew up.*

The articles are well researched, well written and thought provoking.

I had hoped that at some time the blog would focus on Manchester and today it has.**

"Manchester has been described as the ‘shock city’ of the Industrial Revolution and if you lived in Ancoats it was, indeed, pretty shocking.  Ancoats was the world’s first industrial suburb – factories and workshops cheek by jowl with mean terraces of back-to-back working-class housing and courts."

And what follows is a description of how the Corporation began to tackle these very real problems.

So as I always say rather than tell you about the story I just suggest you read it yourself.

"Municipal Dreams celebrates the efforts and achievements of our early municipal reformers.

These men and women dreamed of a better world.  

But this was a dream built in bricks and mortar; an idealism rooted in the practical power of the local state to transform lives and raise the condition of the people.

I believe that the legacy of our early municipal reformers is unjustly neglected and often unfairly maligned.  

This is a modest attempt to record their story and set that record straight.

This isn’t a crudely party political blog but, at a time when the local state and directly provided public services are under unprecedented attack, the lessons of the past seem relevant.  

In other words, this is not an exercise in nostalgia but a reminder that it doesn’t have to be this way.

In practical terms, I aim to add a new entry each week.  These entries are not intended to be a record of only metropolitan politics: if there’s a London bias that reflects only my location and my access to archives.

I would welcome comments, suggestions and assistance in adding to this record of municipal dreams wherever they were dreamed and however they took shape.

Well I have left my comment.

Pictures; Jersey Street, Maria Street Passage to Royal Oak Inn J.Jackson 1910, m10281, Ancoats, Angel Street, 1900, S.L. Coulthurst, m08798, Rochdale Road, S.L. Coulthurst, 1900, m41073, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council

*Municipal Dreams, http://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/about/

**Municipal Housing in Manchester before 1914: tackling ‘the Unwholesome Dwellings and Surroundings of the People’
http://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/municipal-housing-in-manchester-before-1914-improving-the-unwholesome-dwellings-and-surroundings-of-the-people/

Another lost shop on Wilbraham Road

The Barbecue on Wilbraham Road passed quietly out of Chorlton, mourned by many.

I remember the hand written sign going up in the window announcing that after years of trading the business was closing.

Long ago I stopped eating meat but can still remember when I did and this was one of the shops I went to.

And Andy Robertson was determined to record the shop before its transformation.

So here are two of his pictures taken in the August of 2013.  For those a little curious Andy is there in the main picture caught in a reflection.

Now he has been kind enough to share photographs of the bits of Chorlton we all took for granted but which are now gone.

My favourite so far was the offi on St Ann’s Road which was seen by 434 people in just a day.

So I have asked him to continue to snap away  because these vanished places are just as important to record as any posh house or historic pile.

And perhaps there will be others who want to add one of their buildings to the collection.

Only a few days ago Jonathan told me  that the old garage on Stockton Road was up for sale.  Now I do have some pictures but they date back a few years and so unless I can get down there soon I would welcome a contribution

Pictures; The Barbecue, 486 Wilbraham Road, August 2013, courtesy of Andy Robertson

At Didsbury Library with the launch of Didsbury Through Time February 22nd

Our new book on the history of Didsbury published by Amberley has been out since November and without a trace of modesty I have to say it has been the best seller in their Through Time series.

I also have to confess that I spent a happy afternoon in a local bookshop recently comparing our Didsbury Through Time with other books in the same series and again without a trace of self pride I thought ours was the best.

But you can judge for yourself because this Saturday we will be having an official launch of the book at Didsbury Library.

The day will also feature an exhibition of some of the paintings which went into the book, and one of those power point presentations describing how we produced it.

When we showcased the book back in December at the Parsonage it was well received, sold well and met with a mix of flattering comments.

So this Saturday we shall be at the Library.

Pictures I wish I had taken ...... One of the fair, Kurt Hubschmann, 1938

There are always those pictures that you wish you had taken and this is one of them.  

It was taken by Kurt Hubschmann on “a fine summer afternoon in 1938”.

Kurt Hubschmann was born in Strasbourg in 1893 and turned to photography after the Great War, opening a portrait studio in 1923 but became interested in photo journalism and joined the Dephot photo and press agency.

In 1934 he moved to Britain, changed his name to Hutton and became a leading photographer for Picture Post.

I first came across his work in a slim book published by the Focal Press in 1947.*

 It is a wonderful collection of his work and contains detailed technical notes on each of the 88 photographs in the book.

So I know that he took this picture with a Leica and that it was “a fine summer afternoon in 1938”.

I also know something of the background to the shot itself which was part of a commission to record a day at the fair.

“Fair pictures” he wrote "can be very disappointing.  Probably because so much of the atmosphere of a fair is a deliberately calculated effect meant to get to work on human senses and not on the hard unwinking stare of the lens.  

The glitter is bogus and all that is real about a fair are a number of hard working people who are shrewd and very skilful about their jobs.  There is no reason why one should not try to photograph that glitter, but it hardly ever comes off and the fun of the fair escapes – unless it is caught as it is reflected in people’s faces.

It certainly is not in this picture, but the girl’s air of complete aloofness from her surroundings attracted me.  I do not know who she was.  

Probably one of the fair children, bored by the daily round.  I sneaked up, and took a couple of snaps and the next moment she was gone.”

Picture; One of the fair, Kurt Hubschmann, 1938

*Speaking Likeness, K.Hutton, The Focal Press, 1947

Walking Chorlton's Past Sunday February 23rd at 2.30

On hot days

Now I think it is time for another History Walk.

These have been a popular event ever since the first one way back in 2009.*

On hot summer days, wet spring evenings and decidedly cold winter afternoons me and a  band of the interested have wandered across Chorlton in pursuit of its past.

We have strolled down Chorlton Row** in the June of 1847 picking out the farm houses, wattle and daub cottages and the homes of the posh with an acknowledgement of who we would have to be polite to.

On bright but cold days

And we have walked from the four banks to the library in what had once been called Martledge.

This coming Sunday we will be back at Martledge exploring what this bit of Chorlton was like in the late 19th century.

The walk will take us past some farms, the old Royal Oak pub, a very interesting block of houses dating from 1832 and by degree out across the Isles to gaze at the sight of the old Chorlton Ice Rink and finish off with the story of the Great Burial Scandal and the almost forgotten stories of Chorlton and the Blitz.

Along the way there will be tales of dark deeds, quite a bit about the people we might have encountered and more than one silly story.

The event begins at 2.30 pm on February 23rd outside the Post Box Cafe on Wilbraham Road.***

For your £10 you will get a hot drink to fortify you as we head out to explore more of our history, finishing at 3.30 back at the Post Box for soup or cake.

And for those who can’t wait or just want to think of a question to ask we shall be stopping by the brick works.

Now not a lot of people know about the Chorlton brick works.

After all it had a short life less than 40 years.

And cool but wet evenings

It was concentrated around the Oswald Road and Longford Road axis and was a continuation of the practice of extracting marl for farming and clay for brick making which went back to at least the early 17th century.

At the turn of the 19th century The Chorlton Land & Building Company Ltd was given permission to use the land.

No doubt a reflection of the need for bricks for the new housing boom here in Chorlton which had been in full swing since the 1880s.

But that is enough for now.



Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Chorlton Walks, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%20Walks

**Chorlton Row was the name for Beech Road

***The Post  Box Cafe, http://www.thepostboxchorlton.co.uk/

A little bit of the 1950s with Eagle Times

Winter 2013

Now they say that nostalgia ain’t what it used to be, and they may have a point.

My friend Bernard is forever telling me that things were better when we were growing up in the 1950s.

He claims the summer’s were warmer, it always snowed on Christmas Day and Wagon Wheels were twice the size they are today.

I doubt any of the claims and have to concede that however pleasant my childhood there was a darker side to it.

That nasty war in Korea dragged on till I was four we grew up in the shadow of the “Bomb” and not all of my junior school teachers were nice to know.

That said I find myself wandering back into that decade more often than I used to.

Keen readers will have followed the Eagle posts which reflect on that comic and its place in my childhood.*

And so I am back with Eagle Times and the Eagle Society, which are ”dedicated to the memory of EAGLE - Britain's National Picture Strip Weekly - the leading Boy's magazine of the 1950s and 1960s.”**

Summer 2013

I have been a member since the late 1980s with the occasional lapse due to forgetting to pay the subscription.

My interest started as a bit of nostalgia mixed with a desire to meet people who were selling copies of the comic.

And I remain a an ardent reader, which long ago moved away from just celebrating te Eagle to exploring many aspects of the youth culture, which for a pretend historian like me adds much to what I know.

So that is it.  It just leaves me to direcdt you to the site.

Picture; Winter and Summer 2013 covers of Eagle Times.





*The Eagle, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Eagle

**Eagle Times, http://eagle-times.blogspot.co.uk/

Something is stirring down on Edge Lane at the old Masonic Hall

Now back in April of last year I wrote about the Masonic Hall on Edge Lane and a little bit of its history.*

It had been empty for a while was the subject of planning application from 2012 and I feared the worse for the building, concluding with the observations that the planning application was for conversion into flats with additional properties in the rear garden.**

The plan included the demolition of the two wings which were later additions and the planning report highlighted that it “is now in a poor state of repair and projects a poor image for this significant site within the conservation area.”

Sadly since then all work on the property has ceased, the stained glass windows have vanished and the building looks pretty much of an eyesore.

I hope it will not go the way of so many buildings which eventually with no one to save them and open to the elements and the vandals will disappear.

Well it seems work has reconvened and Andy Robertson was on hand to capture the start of the new development.

And I have to say Andy has revealed details of the buildings I didn’t know existed, so over the next few weeks I shall be featuring some of these pictures he took on a February day in 2014.

Not only has he caught the rear of the old hall but some of the period detail from when it was still two private residences.

I am also hoping he will wander back and take some more as the old Masonic Hall is reinvented.

No pressure then, Andy.

Pictures; from the collection of Any Robertson, February 2014

*What we are losing, ........ the old Masonic Hall on Edge Lane and a lesson in how history is not always what it appears http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/what-we-are-losing-old-masonic-hall-on.html

**Manchester City Council, Planning and Highways Committee, March 15, 2012, Application Number 096371/CC/2011/S1 http://pa.manchester.gov.uk/online-applications/simpleSearchResults.do?action=firstPage