Drama on election night in Manchester ……………. new Party makes gains and threatens the Establishment ………..

It is the sort of headline the media delights to run, and will follow up with acres of “in depth investigation”, penetrating discussion, and of course soundbites from members of the public.

Solidarity, 1887

Back in 1894, the Manchester Guardian was less dramatic, more measured and a tad dismissive of the election of the first two Labour candidates to the city council.

They were John Edward Sutton and Jessie Butler, both worked in the coal industry, and both were members of the recently formed Independent Labour Party which had been established to campaign for the election of working class candidates at local and Parliamentary elections.

The Manchester Guardian was quick to point out both men were the outsiders.  

Mr. Sutton who was standing in the Bradford Ward was up against a sitting councillor who had been elected unopposed since 1888, “when he defeated Liberals and independent candidates by a majority of considerably more than a thousand.”

In Openshaw which was the other Labour gain the seat had been won by the Liberals the previous year with a majority of over 700 votes.

Labour makes gains, 1894

But as ever the devil is in the detail, and the Bradford branch of the ILP had in the words of the Manchester Guardian “practically grown from nothing to its present strength in the course of the past three years”

Moreover, some of the working families in both wards would have owed their livelihood to the Bradford Colliery, and the year before the industry had faced a major national strike following the employer’s decision to cut coal miners wages by one quarter, while the Miner’s Federation demanded a “living wage” for the workforce.

ILP logo, 1893-1975

The industrial conflict grew bitter, troops were dispatched to some of the coalfields, and as tensions grew strikers at Featherstone in Yorkshire were fired on, with sixteen hit and two killed, while in Llanelly, in Wales “police  armed with cutlasses” guarded the colliery after the cavalry had been withdrawn.**

The strike ran through the summer of 1893, and concluded in the November, and it appears to have played a major part in both Mr. Sutton and Mr. Butler becoming involved in politics.  John Edward Sutton joined the ILP during the strike and by its end, was “has been one of the principle leaders at the Bradford branch of the Independent Labour Party”.

While for Mr. Butler who was an assistant to the secretary of the Miner’s Federation , it “was in part the action taken by the Labour Party on behalf of the miners which [led him] to become a member”. 

The ILP arrives, Manchester, 1894

Both contests were hard fought with the Conservatives in the Openshaw ward distributing leaflets which branded the ILP as a vote for “Socialism and Anarchy”, but as the Manchester Guardian observed “It is improbable, however that the working class electors in the ward, who are perfectly familiar with Mr. Butler were in the slightest  degree influenced by an appeal exhibiting such a limited amount of intelligence”.***

And in Bradford Ward, despite the Conservatives  having “for some years occupied a strong position in this ward, holding all three seats ……. A large section of the working men, however, have expressed dissatisfaction with [the Tory candidate] and they gave effect to their feeling by nominating Mr. Sutton and working energetically in his behalf”.

ILP gain, Bradford, Manchester, 1894

A degree of confidence which saw them continue to elect him to the City Council for almost 20 years and followed that up with electing him as the MP in 1910, again in 1922 and from 1923 through to 1931.

But for many on that night of November 1894 the ILP’s entry on to the Manchester electoral scene was something to savour.  

In total they got just over 10,000 votes spread out across the eleven wards they contested, and racked up some very decent three figure results, some of which like at Harpurhey brought them close to being the second party.

John Edward Sutton, date unknown

All of which were promises for the future, while at Bradford and Openshaw the promise had arrived.

John Edward Sutton secured 2072 votes, ahead of his Tory rival who achieved 1,757, which gave the ILP a majority of 335, and 54% share of the vote.

In Openshaw it was a closer contest with Labour winning by 22 votes, but that is not to diminish the result.

Such can be election dramas.

Location; Manchester, 1894

Pictures; Solidarity, Walter Crane, 1887, extract from the Manchester Guardian, November 2nd, 1894, Logo of the ILP, 1893-1975, Manchester election results, November, November 2nd, 1894, and John Edward Sutton, date unknown

*The Municipal Elections, Manchester, the Manchester Guardian, November 2nd, 1894

**The Coal Strike, the Manchester Guardian, September 26, 1893

***Salford Eccles A General survey of the elections, the Manchester Guardian, November 2nd, 1984

When adventures came with the price of a ticket to London Bridge ………..

When you are 10 on a Saturday morning with 2 shillings and sixpence pocket money the world was your oyster.

The railway station, undated

For an extra 6 pence there was always a Red Rover with its opportunity to travel across the entire bus network of London Transport.

But I have never been good travelling on buses and anyway the fun of Red Rover was the company of friends.

And Saturday I was usually on my own which drew me instead to Queens Road Railway station, and the price of a return ticket to London Bridge which was the starting point for many different adventures.

All of which started with the station itself, which was off Queens Road, through an archway and past the booking hall to the stairs that led to the platform.

The map, 1908-1913

At 10 it was all a tad daunting.  The booking hall occupied a gloomy space, the stairs seemed to go on for ever and the wooden platform was just a little unnerving given the that the gaps in the boards allowed you to stare down to the ground below.

Over the years I have come across many pictures of the railway station, but all were copyright and then Ken Cook posted one which he kindly gave me permission to use.

I don’t have a date, but it looks close enough to how I remember it.

My Wikipedia tells me “The station opened with the line on 13 August 1866, and had two wooden side platforms and an intermediate centre platform to serve the third centre line.

The railway station entrance, 2023

Until 1911 passenger trains ran to the East London Line, stopping at Old Kent Road. This link was re-instated on 9 December 2012 by London Overground”

Back in the early 1960s  the station and journey to London Bridge was just a means to an end but along the way it allowed you to look down on the streets, warehouses, and churches, with of course that memorable moment when you passed the Peak Frean factory with its overpowering sweet smell of biscuit manufacturer.

Only when you arrived at London Bridge did the adventures begin which consisted of the walk past the model shop under the arches, the purchase of a cartoon of Toffets from the vending machine, then across the River and down those steps which descended onto Lower Thames Street and the walk past the fish market to the Tower of London which was free on Saturdays to kids.

Billingsgate, 1928

The tiny streets off Lower Thames Street were twisty turny places, but were pretty empty on a Saturday morning.

But there was still the evidence of the busy early morning business at Billingsgate.  These included bits of fish, piles of discarded ice and the odd broken wooden box and the lingering fishy smell.

What always struck me was how empty and silent the place was at 10 in the morning with only a corporation waste lorry and road sweeper.

Lower Thames Street, 1928

And even more the contrast just a few minutes later as the road brought you out at the entrance to the Tower, which is a story for another time.

Working the fish, 1928

Leaving me just to add Queens Road Railway Station has its own Facebook page …. now how cool is that.**

Location’ Queens Road circa 1959

Pictures The platform of Queens Road Railway Station, date unknow courtesy of Keen Cook, map showing the railway stations around Peckham and New Cross, 1908-1914, Railway Clearing House, from Queens Road Railway Station, Wikipedia, and Queens Road Railway Station, courtesy of Google Maps, 2023, and Billingsgate Market, 1928

*Queens Road Railway Station,  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queens_Road_Peckham_railway_station

** Queens Road Peckham railway station, https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=119989041381362&paipv=0&eav=AfZ1LfaKJgEadP5IdXEC95p5pNQ_uVZ-0aNU1GE0Neo3_GSZsTZf-xQ2u-2dz4xnZwA&_rdr

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no. 31 .... back on the Thames at the Cutty Sark

It is not the best picture I have taken, added to which it has suffered a bit from being converted from old colour slide pictures but I like it.

And it is another of those images I took which reminds me of a Thames that has gone

For four decades it was one of the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s which sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Location; Greenwich

Picture; Greenwich circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

That bit of art down by our Precinct ......

It may yet be saved but I doubt it, and so this murial on the outside wall of the doomed shopping centre will soon be gone.

There will be some who judged it and found it not to their taste, but I liked it, and often wondered who the artist was and who commissioned it.

And I recently reflected that someone should record it before it becomes broken rubble destined for hardcore on some motorway development.

All of which is a lead into Peter Topping’s photos. He took up the invitation and snapped the murial earlier in the week, along with the closed and shuttered former retail outlets.

I suppose it is the way of things that street art has a short life.  I remember two pieces by the artist David Vaughan.*  

One was on the side of the railway viaduct behind the replica Roman fort in Castlefield, and the other was on the gable end of what was once a butcher’s shop on Egerton Street in Ashton Under Lyne.

The first was of a group of Roman soldiers on the march and fitted with the Roman fort, while the Egerton Street painting was of a smiling image of the old Queen and painted for a street party held in the Jubilee year of 1977.

Sadly, both are gone, the first after a slow flaky decline was obliterated sometime in the early 2000s, and the Queen just vanished.

So that just leaves me with Peter’s paintings of the happy murial and yes I used the word murial …… which of course only makes sense if you knew Hilda Ogden.

And raises the question of what has happened to the wooden sculptures in memory of Harry Goodwin the Celebrity photographer who was born in from Chorlton.

He died in 2013 and the two pieces were installed in his memory on the corner of the Precinct close to the car park entrance.

Answers to the blog on the Chorlton history site.

Location; Chorlton Precinct

Pictures; art and the doomed Precinct, 2024, from the collection of Peter Topping and Roman soldiers, Beaufort Street in Castlefield from David Vaughan, undated

*David Vaughan, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=david+Vaughan

**Celebrity photographer Harry Goodwin dies aged 89, Chorlton-born Harry was well-known as the resident photographer on the BBC's Top Of The Pops, Paul Britton Reporter. MEN, September 24th 2013,  https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/celebrity-photographer-harry-goodwin-chorlton-6085656

The lost cottages of Mayfield ........ reveal themselves

 History hasn’t been kind to Mayfield Cottages.

Mayfield Cottages, 1849

There are no pictures of the properties, no reference to them in the street directories, and so far I haven’t even been able to locate them on the 1851 census.

Not that I should be over surprised at these omissions for they were in one of the unfashionable parts of the city, located just a little east of London Road, and sandwiched between the Medlock to the south and a railway viaduct to the north.

And while they looked out on to a school, they backed onto other houses, and were within earshot of a mill, two print works, a couple of dye works and a collection of bleaching houses, engine sheds and a tannery.

So, not the sort of place to attract a 19th century version of House and Home, intent on extolling the attractions of inner city living.

Nor can I be exactly sure when they were built.  They appear on the 1841 OS map of Manchester, but look to be absent from Johnson’s map of 1819.  

The earliest reference to them in the Rate Books is 1846 when they were owned by the Trustees of an A. Binyon, and commanded rents which were a tad lower than houses in the surrounding streets, ranging from 2/3d  up to 3/6d.

Those same rent books do offer up the names of the tenant who paid the rent, but so far the first individuals I can locate on the census records come from the 1861 census.

By which time the original ten cottages had increased to 12, and together they were occupied by 51 people, the eldest of whom was 72 and the youngest just 2 months.

The majority were from Manchester but the street would have echoed with accents drawn from as far away as Ireland, Cumberland and Middlesex.

And given the location of the cottages, most of those who lived there were engaged in manual work, probably in the nearby factories.  These included several textile workers, a warehouse porter, and a  calico machine printer.

But there were also a number engaged in skilled trades, including dressmaking, as well as a blacksmith and a wheelwright.  And these last two occupations are a reminder of the continued reliance on the horse and horse drawn vehicles.

Buxton Street, 1900

To these can be added Ann Smith who described herself as a “Charwoman”,  Alice Gregory who took in laundry and James Green who was a fishmonger and his next door neighbour who was a “Fruit salesmen”

Some of the cottages were back to back properties and some had cellars which in 1861 were occupied by families, ranging from a family of three and another of five.

The cottages were still there in 1894, but vanished under Mayfield Railway Station which opened in 1906.

So the search is now on to track the properties back and forward from the first known date of 1841, and look to see how many of the inhabitants can be brought out of the shadows, and perhaps add to our knowledge of this bit of the city. 

And because no images remain of the cottages I have fallen back on this one of no 6. Buxton Street which was just a few minute's walk away.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Mayfield Cottages, 1849, from the OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1844-49, courtesy of Digital Archives Association,  http://digitalarchives.co.uk/and no 6 Buxton Street, 1895, H Entwhistle, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

One building ……. five views ......... and the story of a school

The time when this building was a school will all but have faded from living memory.

But I know a few who remember it as an overflow dining room for the new school on St Clements Road, and a few more who might just have been at the VE Day celebrations in the May of 1945.

More recently it was a workshop, design centre and an office, and back in the 1980s four of us considered it could be the venue for a restaurant.  

It was a two-pint ideas and if we had had the capitol we might just have prompted the Beech Road café revolution by almost a decade. *

But we didn’t and around 2012 a developer bought the place and converted it into residential accommodation.

I remember going round the building during the final fit out in the company of Emily Fisher who worked in the Horse and Jockey and knew the builder.  Emily was impressed by the conversion while my thoughts lingered on its time as a school.

It had opened in 1878 and was the third school on the site. The first had opened its doors in 1817 and was replaced by a second in 1847.

These were church schools and provided elementary education for the children of the poor. They were the product of the National Society which had begun in 1811 and aimed to establish a national school in every parish delivering a curriculum based on the teaching of the church.

The new school had been built with grants from the National Society and the Committee of Council on Education   on land given by George Lloyd in 1843 “for the purpose of a school for the education of poor children inhabiting the said township of Chorlton cum Hardy......and for the residence of the master of the said school for the time being, such schoolmaster to be a member of the Established Church, and the school to be conducted upon principles consistent with the doctrines of the Established Church” **

The 1847 school was a fine brick building which could hold three hundred children which was just as well because we had 186 children between the ages of 4 and 15.  Most were at school, a few were educated at home, and fifteen were already at work. 

The youngest at just ten was Catherine Kirby who was born in Ireland and worked as a house servant, the rest did a mix of jobs ranging from errand boys to farm worker and domestic service.  There were slightly more boys than girls and most were born here.

There may even have been more for when William Chesshyre interviewed their parents in the March of 1851 some children were described as farmer’s sons and daughters. 

They may have been at school or they may have already begun to work alongside their parents on the farm.    And as we shall see just because parents described their children as scholars was no guarantee they attended school or even if they did that they were there full time.

The national picture was one of children even younger than 10 being employed.  A labourer’s child could earn between 1s.6d and 2s. [7½p-10p] a week which was an important addition to an agricultural family’s income and in the words of one government report was “so great a relief to the parents as to render it almost hopeless that they can withstand the inducement and retain the child at school”***    

But in some cases this child labour would have been seasonal.   In one Devon school up to a third of boys over the age of seven were absent helping with the harvest, while in another school during the spring upwards of thirty were assisting their parents sow the potato crop and then dig it up in the summer.  

It was just part of the rural cycle and which one contributor to the Poor Law Commissioners on the employment of women and children in agriculture in 1843 said would at least teach children “the habit of industry,”   which fitted in with the belief much held in the countryside that “the business of a farm labourer cannot be thoroughly acquired if work be not commenced before eleven or twelve.” *** 

There is every possibility that with so many market gardens in the township some of our children would have been called into help when needed.

By the 1870s Chorlton was already on the cusp of change and beginning its rapid transformation from rural community to suburb of Manchester, which was accompanied by a steep rise in the population.

This in turn pre-empted a discussion on expanding the school and plans were drawn up to add another floor but this was shelved in favour of a brand new school on St Clements Road.

I have written extensively about the first two school both on the blog** and in The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, so I shall leave it at that, other than to say contained in those will be heaps of pictures.***

Location; Chorlton Green

Pictures; the former school on the green, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Measuring the quality of ideas by pints may seem daft, but sitting in the pub we could always be confident that and an idea that arose during one or two pints would work, while a three-pint idea might if the wind was in the right direction.  After that the workability of an idea deteriorated.

**Ellwood, Thomas, Chapter 13, National School, History of Chorlton-cum- Hardy, South Manchester Gazette, January 23rd 1886

***Evidence of Mr Austin on Wiltshire schools , Reports of the Special Assistant Poor Law Commissioners on the employment of women & children in agriculture 1843 

 **** Ibid, the 1851 Census of Great Britain on Education 

***** In our village school on the green in the spring of 1847, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/03/in-our-village-school-on-green-in.html

******Simpson, Andrew, The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 2012,  https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20new%20book%20for%20Chorlton

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no. 32 ..... the river walk

Long before it became fashionable to walk beside the river from the modern apartment flat some of us were doing it as a regular part of our working day.

Depending on the shift I was on I often made that walk from the factory to the Cutty Sark Pub, in dirty milk stained overalls trying not to rub up against the rather posh customers.

For four decades it was one of the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s which sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.









Location; Greenwich





Picture; Greenwich circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson