The Royal Arthur, 1940

As we head towards Remembrance Day I have decided to feature a set of photographs of the men and women who lived through the two great world wars.

This is another from the collection of Graham Gill who so often provides me with both pictures and encouragement.

Yesterday I featured his uncle Tommy on his wedding day in 1945 and here is Tommy again in 1940.

Graham writes, “1940 Royal Arthur. The first Royal Arthur was previously a Butlins holiday camp and was commissioned as a training establishment on 22 September 1939. 

It served during the Second World War, becoming the central reception depot for new naval entries after HMS Raleigh was transferred to the Army in February 1944. Royal Arthur continued in service until being paid off in 1946.”

Picture; courtesy of Graham Gill

Forty Years of Planning the Future of Manchester: The Key Plans from 1926-1967

City of Manchester Plan, 1945

Now here is a little piece of our history that you can’t afford to miss.

Most of us at some time have moaned at the loss of so much of Victorian Manchester, swept away by a combination of municipal plans and commercial considerations.

And if you have been minded to dig deeper into the reasons why then this site offers up some interesting answers.

Here can be found the famous 1945 plan for Manchester, along with an earlier one for 1926,  a summary of what was planned in 1967 and a highway plan from five years earlier.

"A series of key public planning documents and maps relating to the city of Manchester and its regional context have been digitised and made freely available for the first time. 

These eight historic Plans span the central decades of the twentieth century with the first published in 1926 and the last in 1967.

This set of documents represents the genesis and evolution of British town planning in relation to the city of Manchester over forty years. 

Whilst the documents themselves were researched, analysed and authored locally, they were consistently enacted in response to national statute in the regulation of building and urban development that began with the Housing Act of 1909. 

SELNEC: A Highway Plan 1962

The Plans evolve from early survey type reports into detailed formal proposals and guidelines for development. 

They contain many zoning schemes to logically reorganise land-use, proposals for new and improved housing, and insistent calls for investment in bigger roads and better transport services across the Manchester area. 

The overarching goal was to bring order to the city of Manchester and its satellite towns in Cheshire and Lancashire and to overcome the perceived problems caused by unplanned and ‘chaotic’ urban growth during the phase of rapid industrialisation in the first half of the nineteenth century.  

The various Plan documents and maps have been digitised by Joe Blakey and Martin Dodge from the Department of Geography, University of Manchester, with the advice and material support of Richard Brook, Manchester School of Architecture.

The digitisation work was supported by the Manchester Statistical Society’s Campion Fund. We also acknowledge the help and encouragement of David Govier (archivist for Manchester City Council) and Donna Sherman (map librarian, Rylands University of Manchester Library).

Permission to digitise and release these Plans under Creative Commons license was kindly granted by Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council."

*Forty Years of Planning the Future of Manchester: The Key Plans from 1926-1967, http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/m.dodge/mappingmanchester//plans/

Wartime wedding 1945

As we head towards Remembrance Day I have decided to feature a set of photographs of the men and women who lived through the two great world wars.

This is of Graham’s uncle Tommy and aunt on their wedding day in 1945.  He served on a minesweeper in the north Atlantic.

What strikes you about these pictures is of course the number of men and women in uniform, which is I suppose is stating the obvious but nevertheless marks such images off from today.

To the left are Graham's grandparents.   Missing on this picture is Graham's mum who lived through both wars and celebrated her 100th birthday recently.


Picture; courtesy of Graham Gill

Reforming our prisons in the 19th century, the story of Sarah Martin

Black Horse Row, 1841

Now I am always looking out for new blogs which extend my knowledge, and I am fully aware of my own limitations as a writer and researcher, so here is a very informative site on the 19th century and in particular the moves for prison reform.

So I would recommend Convictions, by Helen Rogers* and the rest I shall leave up to Helen.
“In 1818 a dressmaker stepped through the gates of Great Yarmouth Borough Gaol hoping to read the Bible with a young mother, confined to prison for cruelty to her infant daughter, and save her from damnation. 

For quarter of a century Sarah Martin continued visiting the gaol, preaching each Sunday in the prison chapel, teaching thousands of inmates to read and write, helping them learn new skills so they could support their families after release.

This blog is about the conviction, or faith, that drove Sarah Martin to devise one of the first schemes for prisoner rehabilitation.  After she died in 1843, the Victorians memorialised her as a courageous pioneer of prisoner reform but now Sarah Martin has long been forgotten. 

While her pious judgements about inmates will be off-putting to many of us today, her practical approach to working with prisoners and their families, sometimes for years after their sentence, has much to teach us, as does her kindness.

On this blog I will be sharing snippets from the book I am slowly writing, Conviction: Stories from a Nineteenth-century Prison. I have written some academic articles on reading, writing and singing at Yarmouth Gaol and am working on more. 

But in this blog I am experimenting with a different style of history writing that starts with people, their lived experience, voices and stories. If you have information on any of the individuals mentioned in this blog or would like to know more about them, please drop me an email h.rogers@ljmu.ac.uk.

So one to read.

Picture; Black Horse Row (Row 3) where the Riches family lived in 1841
* http://convictionblog.com/

Chorlton History Group, tomorrow, the history of the disabled people's movement in Manchester

It’s that time again for another talk at the popular Chorlton History Group which will be on the  history of the disabled people's movement in Manchester at 1.30pm at Chorlton Good Neighbours.St Ninina's Church, Chorlton, tommorow, November 7th.

Enough said.  If you want to know more in advance of Bernard’s talk then visit, Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People http://gmcdp.com/

Picture; the disabled drivers association and a demonstration outside Manchester Town Hall demanding full access for disabled people in 1986.

In Vernon Park, Stockport in 1905

It is a testimony to how far picture postcards were marketed that this picture of Vernon Park in Stockport was sent from Chatham in Kent to East Peckham in Paddock Wood near Maidstone.

I doubt we will ever know whether J.D.S who sent the card came from Stockport or just liked the scene and bought it from a local shop.

Vernon Park was the first of Stockport’s park and was opened in 1858 on land donated by George John Warren, whose title of Lord Vernon became the name for the park.

It is situated a little to the north east of Stockport and one side is bounded by the river Goyt.

Now I have never been which my loss is because it is a magnificent example of an early municipal park.

It was a very popular park in the 19th century and something of its grandeur can be got from our picture.

Those steps are still there as I believe is the mill in the distance.

Picture; Vernon Park, from the series Stockport, by Tuck & Sons, 1905 courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/ 

A picture which finally gives up its story

In Gateshead in the late 1920s

Now a few weeks ago I was pondering on my failure to unlock the story of an old photograph.*

We all have them in the family collection of pictures.

They are those with no name, or date or any clue as to where they were taken or even what connection they have to the family.

Now this is almost one of those, and I say that because I am pretty sure it will be where my father worked in the 1920s but that is about it.

So I was very pleased when my friend David from Furness Vale came up with these two pictures and the accompanying text.

A Leyland Lion, 1927

"This is a Leyland Lion of 1927, and another from 1929. 

Both of these buses are at the Museum of Transport.**

I'm not an expert on buses but vintage transport does have an appeal. 

The bus in your picture does look like a Leyland but without a clearer view of the radiator I can't be sure. 

It is likely to be mid 1920's at the earliest. 

Leyland supplied a lot of buses with their own bodies but as has always been the case, many other coachbuilders also built bus bodies. 

I can't see any buses on the internet with that stylish curved panel so it may have been built by a small coach works. 

These buses were beautifully built and finished and often lasted a long time so dating the photo is difficult. I have had a good look on the internet and drawn a blank. I will hazard a guess though. 

Leyland Lion 1929

Motor garages quite often ran a local bus service. As this bus is posed outside a garage it could be that this is one such operator.

Ribble operated mostly red double deckers out of Lower Mosley Street Bus Station which they shared with North Western. Most routes ran to north into the Lancashire towns.”

Now despite David’s modesty I think he has pretty much solved my question.

Pictures; courtesy of David, Furness Local History Society.

*The picture which stubbornly refuses to give up its story, Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the 1920s
http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-picture-which-stubbornly-refuses-to.html

**Museum of Transport, Greater Manchester, http://www.gmts.co.uk/