A little bit of gentle fun at the seaside in the 1930s ............. no 22 "It’s disgusting”

A short series reflecting on a bit of gentle fun from the seaside.

Location; at the seaside in Wales

Picture; courtesy of Ron Stubley

The Last Burials in St Clement's old Church ....... another story from Tony Goulding

Following an enquiry by Dr. Hoffman, a Home Office inspector, held in the Lloyd Hotel on Friday the 25th November, 1881 an embargo was placed on the opening of new graves in the churchyard and new burials limited to those parishioners in possession of a family grave with sufficient space to accommodate a fresh coffin. 
     

I was curious to see the effect of this ruling and especially to find the identities of the last people to be buried in the churchyard of old St. Clements. Initially I took a look at the burial records of St. Clement’s Church. They confirmed the statement made to Dr. Hoffman that the average number of interments over the previous ten years had been 38.  However, after closer inspection, they indicate that in the 2 years immediately prior to the enquiry the number of burials taking place was around 30 per year possibly due to the deteriorating state of the graveyard. This figure fell immediately to the low 20’s; by the end of the decade the number of interments had fallen to single figures and by the turn of the century the number was down to 2-3 per year2

These parish records also provided me the names of the individuals in those final interments. Unfortunately, the records provide no indication of family relationships so further research was necessary in censuses rate books and directories. Even so my “detective work” was being thwarted until I spotted this tombstone while visiting the churchyard on another quest.
Thomas Caleb Butcher :- (Buried 25th February 1916)

The very last person to be interred in the Parish Graveyard was Thomas Caleb Butcher3, a smith / joiner, on the 25th February 1916. As revealed on his tombstone Thomas was buried in the Ashcroft family grave. William Ashcroft, a slater /mason, was the first husband of Thomas’s wife, Sophia (née Richards). According to the inscription he was the grave’s first occupant (18th July 1865), however the parish register has a burial on the 15th February, 1853 of Mary Elizabeth Ashcroft who was the 20-month-old daughter of William and Sophia.4

Also occupying this grave is Sophia Butcher (Ashcroft/Richards) buried on the 17th November 1905 and her son, with William, William Ward who was buried, aged 19, on the 15th May 1872.
The Ashcrofts and Butchers were long-term residents on Church Road renamed St. Clements Road latterly at No. 43.

Thomas Caleb Butcher died at 43, St. Clements Road on the 22nd February 1916 and left the sum of £1,292-16s -1d to his new wife Mary Ann (née Parkinson) of Pendleton, Nr. Salford, Lancashire an instructress in a laundry and the widow of John Statham, a commercial clerk. Thomas had married Mary Ann, who was nearly 20 years younger, in the June quarter of 1909 in the Chorlton  registration district of Manchester.

Emma Lester: - (Buried 9th December 1914)

Emma Lester was the penultimate person buried in the old churchyard. Finding Emma’s family plot was tricky until after perusing the list of the tombstone inscriptions5 dated the 18th February 1976 made by Manchester City Council in advance of landscaping of the grounds, I found her burial in a Jones family grave.

 Emma Lester was born Emma Sidwells in Rangemore, Nr. Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, and married Edward Jones, recorded as a cashier of Stretford, Lancashire, at St. Mary the Virgin, the parish church of Weeford, Staffordshire on the 18th September 1869. After her first husband died on the 23rd December 1889 Emma re-married in the December quarter of 1890 to Joseph Vann Lester, a clerk from Bermondsey, Surrey. The couple appear at 43, Bold Street, Moss Side, Lancashire on the 1891 census. However, in both the 1901 and 1911 censuses is absent from 54, Bishop Street, Moss Side in 1901 and 20, Kensington Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester where in 1911 Emma was running a boarding house.  Emma Lester/ Jones died on the 5th December, 1914, in Manchester’s Royal Infirmary, and was buried in the grave of her mother-in-law, Elizabeth, husband Edward, and two of her children; a son Harold Newton, died on the 13th December, 1872 aged 1 year and 10 months and a daughter, Emma Elizabeth, who died at just 12 months old on 23rd March, 1876.
A sum of £77- 4s –6d  was left in her will to her daughter Clara Elizabeth Jones.

Thomas Hepplestone: - (Buried on 9th March,1910)
Finding the grave of Thomas Hepplestone who was hindered by the fact that the first person interred in it was Gertrude Moore on the 30th August 1876. Although described as the child of Thomas and Hannah Hepplestone she was in fact a more distant relative who was residing with the couple. His wife Hannah pre-deceased him and was buried on the 11th March 1897.

Thomas was a well-known Manchester gunsmith and in Chorlton-cum-Hardy lived variously at 5, Whitelow Road, and 6, Warwick Road. He was born in 1826 in Prestbury, Cheshire. When he died at Warwick Road on the 4th March 1910 his estate was worth £2042 - 18s - 10d
Eliza Mellor: - (Buried 2nd February 1910)

Eliza Mellors grave was the most straightforward to find as she was buried in her husband, Thomas’s. Thomas Mellor was buried on the 9th July 1875. He was a farmer of White Hill Farm, Nell Lane in what was then part of Withington, Lancashire. In her widowhood Eliza continued in business as a market gardener and latterly a florist; a wise and profitable move following the opening of the nearby Southern Cemetery. When Eliza died on the 30th January 1910 at Rose Cottage, The Nurseries, Nell Lane, Withington, Manchester she was able to leave in her will £925-0s –9d to her three children two sons William and John Thomas and daughter Eliza. At today’s value the amount would be more than £110.000.

There was a later inscription on one tombstone; that of the Manchester architect Thomas Edward Bridgen (died 15th February 1895) and his first wife Elizabeth Lax (died 26th April 1970) who has a commemorative window in the new St. Clement’s Church. In 1929, the death of his second wife, Ellen, on the 17th February was added, however she was cremated at the Manchester Crematorium on the 19th February 1929.

 Finally, there is a map, which can be accessed on “Find My Past”, attached to the council’s schedule of tombstone inscriptions which shows where all the 360+ graves were located. However, they are now all empty; the remains were all exhumed and re-interred in Southern Cemetery in 1930.6   Unfortunately this map is also of not much aid in finding a specific tombstone as during the landscaping of the churchyard by Manchester City Council in the late 1970,s those which were not removed altogether were uprooted and laid flat to form a pathway. This was done with no regard to their original position. Only a few remain as markers of actual burials, one such being that of the Ashcrofts and Thomas Caleb Butcher, though not that of Thomas and Eliza Mellor.

Tony Goulding ©2020

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Old St.Clement’s church and Graveyard 1880 m 70273, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass other images courtesy of Tony Goulding

I wish to acknowledge how useful Andrew Simpson's book "The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy" was as regarding the Archaeology digs.

Notes: -

1) By chance, a burial had taken place in the churchyard the Thursday before the enquiry so those present could observe the fresh grave of 4-month-old John William Marsh.
2) Of course, these figures must be set against the increase in the parish’s population on the one hand and the improvement in the general health conditions on the other
3) One of my  favourite things is where one story has links with another. In this instance one of Thomas Caleb’s stepsons, George Redgate Ashcroft, committed suicide at 31, Dartmouth Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy in the morning of Wednesday the 11th January 1939. (His story was told in a post of the 20th March 2017).
4) Mary Elizabeth Ashcroft’s birth registered in The Chorlton registration district in the September quarter of 1851 (in the sub-district of Didsbury; mother’s maiden name, Richards according to an entry on the “Lancashire BMD” database)
5) Although this document proved to be very useful it has some limitations. Not all the inscriptions could be read due to the weathering of the wording and also it only records the occupants of graves with tombstones and then (as I have illustrated) only those whose names are inscribed on the stones. Also, too, some names inscribed on gravestones may refer to persons buried elsewhere.
As a result, I have to admit I was unable to find the family connections of the fifth most recent burial in Chorlton-cum-Hardy; that of William James Royle. He was born in 1839 in Macclesfield, Cheshire, and owned property on Ladybarn Avenue, Withington, Lancashire as well as a large boot and shoe shop at 42, Moss Lane West, Moss Side, Lancashire. He was buried from St. Clements Church on the 17th December 1909 his wife, Mary (née Morton) having pre-deceased him was also buried from St. Clement’s on the 29th July 1901. Presumably, they were interred in the same plot but other than that the trail ran cold.
6) Despite this skulls and bones were still being unearthed by the Archaeology digs carried out, in advance of the landscaping by the council, in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.

A little bit of gentle fun at the seaside in the 1930s ............. no 21 "Showing 'em how to do it”

A short series reflecting on a bit of gentle fun from the seaside.

Location; at the seaside in Wales

Picture; courtesy of Ron Stubley

Chorlton's private lending libraries a second story

There is a real story yet to be told about the private lending libraries which were a feature of all our towns and cities for perhaps a half a century.

 I have mentioned them before and since then I have come to think more and more about what they might tell us about the growth of literacy during the last years of the 19th and most of the 20th century.

Here alongside the municipally provided public libraries were these private lending libraries. T

hey could be found in bookshops and newsagents and mostly seem to have offered light and romantic novels.

Unlike their council counterparts they charged a small fee but everyone I have talked to maintain the charge was minimal. In some places until the arrival of the public library they offered the only opportunity to lend rather than buy a book.

It is impossible to deduce much from the small number of people who I know used them, but I rather think we are dealing with customers in the lower income groups. Both my mother and her friend were from working class families where incomes were tight.

 Likewise Thomas Cuthbert whose newsagents at 64 Sandy Lane lent books was situated amongst rows of smallish terraced houses and it would be fair to assume his trade came from these houses.

It is also difficult to know how many of these lending libraries existed. Just around the corner from Cuthbert’s in 1929 was the newsagent’s and lending library of Harry Jackson at 364 Barlow Moor Road and there must have been more.

Ida Bradshaw visited one in the shop which is still a newsagent on the corner of Beech and Chequers Roads. "It was all fiction and you could only borrow one book at time but could change books several times in one week. From what I recall quite a lot of newsagents had them mainly for people who didn't belong to council library.”

Philip Lloyd whose parents owned the post office on Upper Chorlton Road, remembered
“We had a private lending library here at 268, Upper Chorlton Road, started in my Grandfathers day, maybe soon after the shop was opened in 1909, and lasted till the 1950s. 

The books were generally Mills and Boon, or that type, and we had a loyal group of people who paid their 3d per book per week, usually putting their initials in the back when they had read it, in case they picked up the same one again. 

 We pasted the front of the dust cover onto the inside front cover and our library label on the page opposite, Lloyd's Circulating Library, leaving room for the rubber stamp of the date due back. 


In the 1950s, Allied Libraries, on Upper Chorlton Road approached us with an offer to supply the books on a rotating basis, which would give us a bigger range, so that is what we did. They were based in two big old houses on the corner of Wood Road North, where flats have since been built.
Our business was newsagents, stationers, fancy goods, toys, games, greeting cards and sub post office.”

I rather think they were perhaps a little less intimidating than the public library. I always remember the one on New Cross Road as a far friendlier place than Deptford Library which was almost directly opposite.

As befitted a municipally run establishment there was an atmosphere of authoritarian silence punctuated only the sound of the date stamp recording the day of return for the book.

By contrast the book shop was a noisy place. My close family friend and adopted big sister Jill remembers “it was a small place but absolutely packed with books - a lovely, warm place in the middle of winter! I would get Mum her books sometimes - just went to the counter and asked for romances and, between the man's memories and mine; we nearly always managed to find something she hadn't read. 
I think you paid a very small sum but I'm really not sure about that.”


Picture; Sandy Lane circa 1910, showing the newsagents which from the late 1920s lent books, Sandy Lane m18194,and 44 Beech Road where Ida borrowed her books, taken by R E Stanley in 1958, m17655 Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council

In the Queens Arms on Rochdale Road ……. 1967

Now, you have to be a certain age to remember when pubs looked like this.

Of course there are a few which have been given a make over to recreate that nostalgic, edgy feel, which I suspect have been dreamed up by “bright young things” whose early years were taken up with Teletubbies, and Ninja Turtles and in later years experimenting with dangerous cocktails during Happy Hour in the local café bar.

I remember the originals, which at best had worn and frayed carpets, but more usually just bare floorboards with outside lavatories for the gents and smelt of stale beer.

The walls and ceiling shouted nicotine, and the cutting age of sophistication was a bottle of babycham, which might come with a range of flavoured crisps, but if it did, they were limited to cheese and onion.

Not that such places were exclusive to the industrial north, in my youth I explored similar ones in Woolwich, and Peckham, with a variation found in Kent villages which offered rough cider at a shilling a pint.

But I am being unfair, because rooms like this in pubs were variously called the Public or the Vault.  Step around the corner into the saloon and there was a degree of comfort and even style.

This one was the Queens Arms and was on Rochdale Road at the corner of Goodier Street.

It has gone now, although I think the building still exists, or at least did last year, and traded as the Sundown Hotel.

This building is a treasure in itself, and still bears the name Walker’s Warrington and Falstaff Ales, which offers ups a fascinating area of research.

For now, I will stick with what the pub looked like in 1967.

The side room is dominated by the darts board, the battered tables and worn lino, and in the absence of central heating, the grate has been laid for a fire.

Behind the bar are signed photographs of some of the Coronation cast, pendants for Man City, Oldham Athletic, and Stockport County and a supply of the original Smiths Crisps.

And because we are in a side room, some of the pictures are stuck on the wall with tape, as is the winning lottery number, and while the Red Island Calendar tells us we are in 1967, no one has bothered to take down the German calendar for 1961 with it exhortation to “Take a break” with Coca-Cola.

Now, that is the sort of detail that our 21st century pub designers would miss.

Nor would they think of making sure the floor was just that bit uneven which in turn would require a folded beer mat to balance the wobbly table.

And I am absolutely sure that they would never be able to perfectly replicate thirty years of accumulated nicotine on the walls and ceiling, or come up with a mismatch of potted plants to adorn a window sill.

All of which leaves me to reflect on whether I miss places like the Queens Arms.

A bit of me does, but I know even then I would have chosen the Saloon over the Vault.

And perhaps the Queens Arms would have been a pub too far, given that that I might well have fallen into the Forrester's Arms, which it turns out became the Sundown Hotel.

Which of course means that I got it wrong.

The Forrester's Arms stood on the corner of Rochdale Road and Kingsbridge Road, which I incorrectly assumed had been a new name for Goodier Street.

You can't get more wrong.

And for the correction I have Andy Robertson to thank who on request sent over a picture of the hotel which had once been the Forrester's Arms, and made doubly sure by digging out an old image of the Forrester's Arms.

A quick glance at the excellent site Pubs of Manchester has offered up a shedload of Queens Arms, so as they say the search goes on.
Location; Manchester

Picture; The Forrester's Arms, 2018, The Queens Arms, 1967,  "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection",
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

On travelling the East Didsbury line into town ....... part 1 .... waiting

I can remember the day the metro link was opened from town to Chorlton, and I was one of the first to travel the line south to East Didsbury.

I have written about both and so for no other reason than I took the pictures and use the line a lot here are two from the last year and a bit.

It is still the most pleasant way of travelling into the city centre and beats the bus on a quick and easy way to get to the cinema at Parrs Wood.

In time I think I shall write about each of the stops from Market Street reflecting on the history of each, and including pictures and paintings.

So this is just the start.

And for those who like train rather than tram stories, Didsbury did have two railway stations.

The first opened in 1880 with a railway staion on the site now occupied by that strip of bars, beside the clock tower, and opposite the library.

That "other" station at East Didsbury opened much later but has the merit of still being open.

Location; Didsbury

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Manchester Trams, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Manchester%20Trams

A little bit of gentle fun at the seaside in the 1930s ............. no 15 "Do it where it won't show”

A short series reflecting on a bit of gentle fun from the seaside.

Location; at the seaside in Wales

Picture; courtesy of Ron Stubley