This substantial house on the corner of St Clement’s Road and High Lane has, due to its location, over its lifetime been allocated a number of addresses.
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| 1, St. Clement’s Road, 1959 |
Various rate books and census returns have it placed both on High Road and St. Clement’s Road. Further complicating the matter are the facts of St. Clement's Road being formerly known as Church Road and, that the general area was originally, simply referred to as Pitts Brow.
The house was previously known as “Cavendish House” and dates from before 1871. It has served as the presbytery for the adjacent Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady and St. John since 1927.
It was originally, for over two decades, the home of Dr. John Rains and family. The 1891 census showed Charles Henry Watson, a “butter merchant” it was briefly then, until 1900, the residence of Mary Ann Mead the widow of the grocery magnate, Thomas Seymour Mead.
Dr. John Rains was a doctor in Chorlton-cum-Hardy from at least 1869 when he appears in that year’s rate book in a substantial house with garden and stable which carried a rateable value of £127. He was born in Bonsall, Derbyshire on the 4th March, 1828. He studied for his M.D. at Kings College, Aberdeen and also qualified as a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians by examination of Edinburgh University. He then spent three years continuing his medical training at the Royal School of Medicine, Manchester, (1) where in 1853 he became a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries. In the same year he was elected to the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Newly qualified he was appointed House Surgeon to the Ardwick and Ancoats Dispensary. He left this post in the middle of 1855 and removed to 36, Cavendish Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock, where he remained until moving to Chorlton-cum-Hardy in 1868/9. On the 26th September, 1855 Dr. Rains married Eliza Agnes Clarke of Salford, Lancashire. The couple underwent two wedding ceremonies, firstly at St. Mary’ s Catholic Chapel, Mulberry Street (“The Hidden Gem”) and, after, at the Cathedral, Manchester. From the available records it appears that they only had one child, a son John Evans who was born in the September quarter of 1856. (2)
Eliza Agnes, passed away in Cavendish House on the 28th January, 1890. After the death of his wife Dr. Rains moved in with his son and his newly-wedded wife, Louisa Margaret (née Taylor) at 28, Dover Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester. On the 24th February, 1893 his only grandchild, John Cyril Taylor Rains, was born.
Dr. John Rains died, at home, on the 12th November, 1896 leaving, at today’s value over £400,000 in his will. He is buried alongside Eliza Agnes in this grave, G2 in the Roman Catholic section of Southern Cemetery, Manchester.
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| Dr. John and Eliza Agnes’s grave |
The next occupier of Cavendish House was Charles Henry Watson who, the rate books show, was a tenant of Dr. Rains and his heirs from 1891 until the 3rd July, 1898.
Charles Henry was born in Walsgrave, Nr. Coventry, Warwickshire during the September quarter of 1863. He was one of the 10 children (8 sons and 2 daughters) of William Watson, a farmer of 416 acres and his wife Emma. The three eldest sons, Charles Henry and his brothers William George and John Alfred, all went to Birmingham to learn the provisions trade. The 1881 census shows them all living together at 100, High Street, Birmingham, Warwickshire.
Charles Henry was still in Birmingham when he married Maria Watson in the December quarter of 1888 but shortly afterwards the couple moved north as their first child, a girl, Marion Dorothy was born in the Moss Side district of Manchester during the December quarter of 1889. Whilst they were residing in Chorlton-cum-Hardy two more children arrived and both were baptised at St. Clement’s Church: a son, William John, and another daughter, Gladys Lillian. They were born on the 12th January, 1892 and the 25th February, 1894, respectively.
Evidence from the rate books indicates that the Watsons left the area in the early summer of 1898 as from the 3rd July that year they show that 1, St. Clement’s Road had a new occupier, Mrs. Mary Ann Mead.
Charles Henry Watson must have been something of a businessman as, on leaving Chorlton-cum-Hardy, he was able to retire at the young age of 35. He is recorded in the census of 1901 as a "retired provision merchant”, living at, New House Park Mansion, St. Peter (rural), St. Albans, Hertfordshire. His large household consisted of him, his wife, Maria, their first child Marion Dorothy a fourth child, Marjorie Phyllis, (born in Hendon, Middlesex in the December quarter of 1898) and no fewer than seven servants. The couple’s two middle children are not with their parents; however, they do appear together, in both the 1901 and 1911 censuses, staying as “visitors” with Thomas Cund (3) and his freshly married (in 1900) second wife, and former housekeeper, Annie Mary (née Goodwin). In 1901 they were living at Hill Village, Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire and in 1911 they had moved to “Sigglesthorne”, Stoutwood Avenue, Bournemouth, Hampshire. On both occasions also in the household was also Maria’s younger sister, Ethel May, whose rôle may be surmised with reference to an entry in latter census. The census of 1911 had an additional section to record any infirmities in the household, in it the two Watson children were both recorded a little cruelly as “feeble-minded”
Their condition is further illuminated in their entry in the 1939 Register, in which they are recorded as “living on own means” still in Bournemouth, Hampshire but having moved to 29, Tuckton Road. Residing with them were Gladys May. and John William Goodwin (4) who are described as nurses (mental).
Following the Watson’s departure, the next occupant of the house was the recently bereaved Mrs. Mary Ann Mead. She was the widow of Thomas Seymour Mead whom she had married (as his second wife) on the 30th June, 1868 in the parish church of West Lavington, Wiltshire. She was born in this village the daughter of Samuel, a master carpenter and his wife, Emma (née Glass Turner).
Born in Market Lavington, Wiltshire on the 1st March 1841, the son of a shoemaker, Henry, and his wife Harriet (née Mead); the widow of John Stow. In later censuses his father is also described as a “Grocer/Tea Dealer”. As early as 1851 Thomas Seymour was already learning the grocery business as a 10-years-old boy he was living with his widowed grandmother, Lucy, who ran a grocer’s shop in Littleton, West Lavington, Wiltshire with the help of his 15-years-old half-sister, Harriet Stow.
Thomas Seymour Mead was already living in Manchester from before the 1861 census which records him as a lodger at 75, Booth Street West, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester. Aged 20, he was one of seven young men at that address who were all employed as “grocers”. Possibly they were all at the same shop “Learning the trade”. Thomas Seymour was married twice and each time it was to a lady from the South-West of England. He first travelled south to marry Mary Ann Heiron in Frampton-on-Severn, Gloucestershire on the 7th October, 1862. After the death of his first wife, most likely during the March quarter of 1863 in Wiltshire, his second marriage took place, as stated above, in West Lavington, Wiltshire on the 30th June, 1868. This marriage record shows he was on his way to develop the chain of grocers which made his fortune his occupation is given as “grocer and tea dealer” with his address being Hulme, Manchester.
The rate books of the various Manchester area townships document the extent of the T. Seymour Mead grocery empire and reveal how it expanded over time. From the initial shop, in 1862, at 67, Stretford Road, Hulme he first opened another shop further along the same road at No 304, (5) above which he was residing when the 1871 census was completed. His wife had, by then, given the couple their first child, Harriet Emma Florence. The company then branched out into Chorlton-on-Medlock, to 97, Upper Brook Street. In stages his outlets steadily grew with more shops opening in Hulme and Moss Side as well as moving into the city centre at 7, Piccadilly. Eventually further expansion saw shops opened in the leafier suburbs to the south of Manchester, a shop on Wilmslow Road in Rusholme was followed in turn by shops in Withington and Didsbury. The shop in Chorlton-cum-Hardy opened at 20, Barlow Moor Road in 1894.
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| Barlow Moor Road 1929, T. Seymour Mead’s shop is the one with the awnings down |
Mirroring the development of his business his family also grew though, by the standard of the times, to a quite conservative 6 children. Three of these children had strong connections to Chorlton-cum-Hardy. Two, Clara Maud and Ernest Seymour were christened at Chorlton Road Congregational Church, Old Trafford by Rev. J. A. Macfadyen whose widow later constructed, as his memorial, the church on the corner of Zetland and Barlow Moor Roads, Chorlton-cum-Hardy. Known, now, as Central Church but it was originally, Macfadyen Memorial Congregational Church. During the family’s brief occupancy of Cavendish House two of the daughters were married in St Clement’s Church. These were Clara Maud (again) and Adeline Daisey whose weddings took place on the 4th January, 1899 and the 3rd May, 1899, respectively.
Thomas Seymour Mead, died on the 16th February, 1898 while at Smedley’s Hydro, Matlock Bank, Derbyshire. At this time the family home was Brooklands House, Brooklands, Cheshire. Thomas left £189,440 – 18s -6d (= £23,811,910 at today’s value) in a will with a codicil which was the subject of a high-profile court case. His daughter, Clara Maud sued the other beneficiaries alleging “undue Influence” and suggesting her father was mentally unfit when he composed the codicil. After the case came before a judge with both parties being represented by leading Q.C.s (one being Edward Carson (6) who also appeared in the Worrall divorce proceedings around the same time) the parties came to a mutually satisfying agreement prior to it being heard.
Unfortunately, I have, so far been unable to find a trace of Mrs. Mary Ann Mead after the 1900 Electoral roll which puts her still at 1, St. Clement’s Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy.
Pictures, 1, St. Clement’s Road (1959) m 18179 by A.E. Landers and Barlow Moor Road (1929) m17429 (unattributed but known to be by A.H. Clarke) Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, https://images.manchester.gov.uk/ResultsList.php?session=pass&QueryName=BasicQuery&QueryPage=/index.php?session=pass&Restriction=&StartAt=1&Anywhere=SummaryData|AdmWebMetadata&QueryTerms=m17429&QueryOption=Anywhere and Dr. John and Eliza Agnes’s grave from the collection of Tony Goulding.
NOTES: -
1) Whilst at this college Dr. Rains was awarded a “certificate of honour” for exemplary conduct and attendance. It was presented on the 7th November, 1851 in the old Manchester town hall on King Street.
2) John Evans pursued a successful career as a solicitor.
3) Thomas Cond was “a little economical with the truth" in his census returns. In 1911, he added 10 years to his length of marriage and he referred to himself in both 1901 and 1911 as a retired farmer despite only having vague connections to agriculture as a milk dealer. He started his working life as a “glass porter” and finished keeping a shop selling beer.
4) John William was the brother of both Annie Mary (Cond) and Ethel May and the father of Gladys May.
5)As well as having 5 house servants, Thomas employed 11 live in assistants and 3 apprentices, one of whom was Walter Turner Draper, his wife’s younger brother later to become a business partner.
6) This was the same man who was the champion of the Ulster Protestants against Home Rule prior to First World War.
