The forgotten hospital in Longford Hall

 I know l shouldn't be surprised that Longford Hall was given over to use by the Red Cross as an Auxiliary Hospital during the Great War.

Many family homes, along with schools and other public buildings were requisitions or volunteered as hospitals for soldiers  recovering from wounds and illnesses. 

Here in Chorlton l have tracked three with the promise of another, and over the years l have written about more in Didsbury, Whalley Range, Salford and across Manchester and beyond.

I just didn't think of Longford Hall but I should. It was a fine large building, formerly the residence of the  Ryland family and from 1908 it was owned by Stretford.

So at the outbreak of war it became a centre of war activity including its role as a hospital.

After the war most of these hospitals were returned to private use or continued as hospitals. 

The equipment from beds to cooking pans and typewriters were sold off and with two generations their existence had started to fade.

So l am off to do the research, starting with one of those scrap books recording photographs and comments of the hospital.

Location; Longford Hall

Pictures; pictures, undated courtesy of Bill Sumner

Walking the mean streets of Manchester in the 1880s ………

Now, many of us will have been brought up with the stories of the appalling housing conditions in our cities, towns, and villages in the 19th century.

New gates, 1908

Just a few minute’s stroll from the imposing and elegant Georgian and Victorian government and commercial buildings were scenes of awful poverty, where the casual observer and interested researcher ventured with some trepidation.

The accounts of Dr. Kay, Frederick Engels and a heap of other writers are testimony to “how the other half lived”.

In the later 19th century surveys like that undertaken by Booth and Rowntree catalogued the poverty, and inequality in health, and housing provision.

To these can be added an excellent set of maps and notes on Manchester during the 1880s which like Booth and Rowntree’s work offer-coloured coded maps along with detailed descriptions which come from the reports of the officer of  Health for Manchester.*

I had come across some while researching at Central Ref a few years ago, but last week Craig Thomas offered up a link to a whole of set of digitized maps and reports.

They really are a cornucopia of wonderful things including a map of the Enumerator Districts for the city for 1871, which will make it easier for anyone wanting to locate a street.

44 Angel Meadow, 1900

And that pretty much is that I could say more, but what would be the fun of distracting you from looking for yourself.

That said there is a nice short Manchester Evening News report of how the maps were digitized.

Read more; Manchester Housing Conditions; https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Manchester%20housing%20conditions

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Pictures; New gates, 1908, m8316, Angel Street, 1900, m85543, S.L.Coulthurst, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass 

*Victorian Sanitary Survey Maps for Central Manchester, https://luna.manchester.ac.uk/ll/thumbnailView.html?startUrl=%2F%2Fluna.manchester.ac.uk%2Fluna%2Fservlet%2Fas%2Fsearch%3Fos%3D0%26lc%3Dmaps002~1~1%26q%3D%3D%22Project%3A%20Victorian%20Sanitary%20Survey%20Maps%20for%20central%20Manchester%22%26bs%3D100

**Forgotten maps of Manchester slums restored and available to view,  Nigel Barlow -April 3, 2019, https://aboutmanchester.co.uk/forgotten-maps-of-manchester-slums-restored-and-available-to-view/

Looking inside a grand Victorian house …. Rye Bank and the story of Mr. Bryce Smith ... part 1

In the course of the last few days I have got to know a lot about Mr. Bryce Smith, who lived at Rye Bank in Chorlton, described himself as a “calico printer”, owned a  prestigious warehouse on Nicholas Street in Manchester, and a factory in Whalley near Blackburn.

Inventory, 1891

I doubt I would ever have gone looking for him if I hadn’t been shown an inventory of the contents of his home which was made shortly after his death in 1892.

The inventory is now in the possession of Chris Griffiths who thought I would be interested, which of course I am.

Because, here spread over 57 foolscap pages and bound in  leather is an insight in to just what a wealthy family accumulated in their home.

Looking through the inventory I noted that the list of Mr. Smith’s library was covered  21 pages, his collection of oil paintings, water colour drawings and engravings over another two pages and his silver and plated articles across two more pages.

And that is just what caught my eye, leaving me to explore the full nineteen rooms along with the lists of linen, glass, and china.

Index to the Inventory, 1892

All of which will reveal much about the life of one well off Victorian family, here in Chorlton in the late 19th century.

The warehouse on Nicholas Street, 1883

Now, I knew of the existence of Rye Bank which stood in extensive grounds, facing Edge Lane and extending along the side of Ryebank Road, but I knew little of the people who occupied it or just when the house was demolished.

Just when the family moved into the property is a little unclear.  They were there by 1871, but may have been elsewhere on Edge Lane before that.

Either way in 1871 the Rate Books reveal that Mr. Smith was occupying Rye Bank which he owned, and he stayed for two decades.  The house had an annual estimated a rateable value of £229, which marked it off as the largest property on this bit of Edge Lane.

But then Bryce Smith was a wealthy man.  He left £162,622 on his death and his warehouse and offices on Nicholas Street, which are still there, bear witness to his financial standing.

There is a lot more.  His papers are deposited the Lancashire County Archive, and contain amongst other things  the “Bill of Quantities for the erection of a warehouse in Nicholas Street. Manchester for Bryce Smith Esq” in the August of 1873.

So watch this space.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; pages from the Inventory Rye Bank Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1892, courtesy of Chris Griffiths, and the Nicholas Street, showing the Smith warehouse, 1883, from Goads Fire Insurance maps, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Bryce Smith Papers, DDX 2/37Lancashire County Archives,

https://archivecat.lancashire.gov.uk/CalmView/Overview.aspx

Sherard House and Church Row in Eltham in 1841 and Richard White census enumerator

Sherard House from the garden, 1909

This is Sherard House and once again I set out to describe the place and once again I have got side tracked.

But I shall start with a little of what I know.

 It stood on the High Street roughly on the site of the Nat West Bank, was built in 1634 and retained many of the original features including “the handsome mantelpieces of carved oak, oak panelling which surrounded the library and the quaint old open fire places.*

By the 1840s the front had been changed considerably but the rear remained unaltered although it would have been difficult to see the features given that it was covered in ivy.

And I would  have loved to walk through its 20 rooms and sat in the garden which extended north to the footpath known as the Slip.

Church Row numbered 316-320 and Sherard House 311 and garden 309, 1844

I can’t be sure at present but I think in the June of 1841 it was occupied by a Jane Edwards who was attended to by six servants but had moved on by 1843 when Sherard House was home to Samuel and his wife Frances and their children.

The Jeffreys were well off, farming 256 acres of land north of the High Street around Well Hall.

Not that they or any of our people of property can be said to have lived a life excluded from those of the less well off.

At the bottom of their garden were the five gardens of Church Row, in which lived the families of a shoemaker, carpenter, plumber and three agricultural labourers.

And these people fascinate me.  There was John and Dorothy Fiske, Anne Wakeman, John and Susanna Francis who shared with Joseph and Jane Arnold, while further down the row lived the Russell and Blundell families.

What is all the more remarkable is that these ordinary families show up in a range of official documents from the tithe schedule to the parish records.

The opening page of the census Enu 4 Eltham Kent , 1841 with Richard's signature

All would have been known to Richard White schoolmaster and the enumerator who in the June of 1841 was responsible for delivery the census forms to the 126 households on the north side of the High Street from the church down to South End.

His was the job of making sense of what had been written and in some cases of filling in the forms of those who were illiterate.

These enumerators were not slow to amend and correct the entries, sometimes even altering the occupations listed by a householder.

Now Richard White is an interesting chap and I only wish I knew more about him.  He would have been paid for his work, and may have been selected from a number of people who applied for the job.

Baptismal record of Catherine White, 1838

He lived with his wife in Pound Yard close to the National School, and baptised his two children at the parish church, and then he falls out of history.

I can’t find him or his wife Mary, although there is one official reference to their son later in the century.  Neither of them was from Eltham so perhaps they moved on.

I suspect the rate books may give me a clue, and I have yet to pursue the school records, but in the meantime I shall leave them, but secure in the knowledge that I will return to both them and the occupants of Church Row.

*R.R.C Gregory, The Story of Royal Eltham, 1909

Pictures; Sherard House from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers,http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm detail of Eltham High Street,  1844 from the Tithe map for Eltham courtesy of Kent History and Library Centre, Maidstone, http://www.kent.gov.uk/leisure_and_culture/kent_history/kent_history__library_centre.aspx

Baptismal records and census extracts from ancestry.co.uk courtesy of The National Archives

1883 .......... one year in the work of the Manchester and Salford Children’s charity

Now 1883 was a busy year for our own children’s charity which had been established just thirteen years earlier as a rescue mission to feed and give a bed for the night to destitute boys on the streets of Manchester and Salford.

Outside the Refuge offices, circa 1900

Just over a decade and a bit later it had expanded into a whole range of support activities including homes for both boys and girls, vocational training, seaside holidays, along with campaigning for legislation to protect vulnerable children and intervening in the courts against neglectful and abusive parents.

And the key  to knowing about  the work of the charity, is to start with the annual reports, and at random I have chosen 1883.

It was a busy year but looking at the spread of reports from 1871 through to 1919 it was typical.

And with that in mind I thought it would be useful to focus on that report.*

The first port of call was the newspapers and in particular the Manchester Guardian, and starting next week I shall be delving into the archives.  Like all good research every item begs a whole set of questions which will take me off in all sorts of directions.

But for now it is that year of 1883 and that report.

The report began with the appalling news of the “virtual collapse of old central premises in Strangeways just when the new additional building was almost finished.”

But that hadn’t stopped the completion of extension scheme for Orphan  Girls’ Home Branch or the start of “The Seaside Home for weak, pale faced city children” which had been established at Lytham.

It is easy perhaps to react against the Victorian directness of language but  this and the other summer camps organized by the charity provided children with a holiday by the sea which for many would have been their first.  And some of the 225 children “under our care and training at the Refuge and branch homes” may well have been on one of those trips to the seaside.

The report detailed the gender split, and the number who had had one or both parents still living, and concluded by describing where 118 went onto who didn’t stay in the Refuge.

And that is all for now.

Location Manchester

Picture; courtesy of the Together Trust

* Manchester & Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges, Manchester Guardian, March 12 1884

**The Together Trust, https://www.togethertrust.org.uk/who-we-are

Discovering those who cared for the sick and wounded in Chorlton during the Great War

I have moved just a little closer to some of the men and women who served during the Great War.

And it comes from a database by the Red Cross which has put  on line its records from the Great War.

Even before the war started the Red Cross had made preparations for coping with the large numbers of wounded who would be returning from the battlefields.

So when the conflict did begin voluntary hospitals were established across the country.
Some were in school halls, and others in private houses and relied on the voluntary support of the local community.

Here in Chorlton we had two, one on Edge Lane in the Sunday School of the McLaren Baptist Church and the other in the Methodist Sunday School on Manchester Road and across south Manchester there were more.

Until recently I knew little of the men and women who served in the hospitals.

I had one list for the first year of the war of those who worked at the Baptist Church a few names from newspaper correspondence and the odd record of some of the administrators.

But the Red Cross records will bring them out of the shadows, for along with their names and addresses there are brief details of what they did.

Some are more detailed than others so those for Eltham in south east London describe particular duties. So I know that Miss Ada Fanny Boultbee, assisted the “sick & wounded, did  convoy duty. Well Hall Station any time day and night at 1. 1/2 hours notice. tea. Coffee, milk, ready.”

And provided a wealth of detail
“August 5th 1914. Struck Divisional Camp at Chichester. 7. 1914. Organizing Hos: cores: Soldiers & Sailors Institute Woolwich. 30th. 1914- Accepted responsibility of sick & wounded Convoy Duty Well Hall. Col: Stephenson with request for same from Col. Simpson. Herbert Hos:- Sept. 7th. 1914 First Convoy. 3/4 hour notice. All ready. 16 -1914 Mobilized by Col. Stephenson at "Cathay" Eltham. S.E. B.R.X.S. Brassard No.7. A.M.S. July - 1917 Demolized. Col: Simpson' of opinion that that Sick & Wounded Convoy Duty at Well Hall Station was no longer rec. under altered conditions of transport. Ada St.John. Boultbee. Hon. Comdt L /26.”

Sadly those for Chorlton are less detailed but there is still a suprising amount of information.
Some worked at the Baptist Church and another at Manchester Road while the rest were spread out across Whalley Range and Didsbury with one at the  2nd Western General Hospital in town.

So far the Red Cross has only published surnames from A to B but that has still revealed twelve Chorlton people and tow of those I have tracked on the census for 1911.

In time it will be possible to find out much more about their backgrounds and what happened to them after the war which in turn will throw light on the degree to which Chorlton did its bit.

But I do know that Frank Burrows of 71 Reynard Road was engaged in   March 1917.

He was 25 years old  was paid 35 shillings a week and was an orderley at Didsbury  College Hospital.

Before the war he had worked as an insurance clerk.

And Miss Mabel Coatman also 25 of the Lyndale on Barlow Moor Road worked at Lancaster House Hospital in Whalley Range as a support assistant.

So it is all there to be found.


Pictures; doctors and nurses and men from the Red Cross Hospital of Wood Lawn in Didsbury circa 195, courtesy of Rob Mellor, and the Edge Lane Red Cross Hospital circa 1924,  from the Lloyd collection

*British Red Cross,  http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/History-and-origin/First-World-War

Walking along Court Yard in the June of 1841, looking for John Martin and Hannah Simmons

Court Yard, 1858-73

“If you take up a position upon the spot where what we now call the Court-yard meets the High Street, you will be standing at the centre of village activity and trade in olden times.”*

Now I am not quite sure when our local historian R.R.C. Gregory means by olden times, but I guess it will be sometime from the Middle Ages onwards.

Because it was here that the weekly market and annual fair were held from 1299 when John de Vesci the lord of the manor obtained a charter for a weekly fair on Tuesdays, and an annual  fair on the eve of Holy Trinity and the following two days.

It continued throughout the Middle Ages and even after it was discontinued there were four annual fairs until 1778.

Mr Gregory also records that the parish stocks “are said to have existed on the left hand side of the way, not many yards from the High-street,” along with a number of  pumps one close to the corner of the High Street, another a little further along Court Yard, with a third near the lower gateway leading to the churchyard.

Now in an age before mains water supplied, pumps ponds and water courses were very important, particularly given the concentration of properties along the Court Yard.

The 1843 tithe map shows seventeen properties along the east side of the road with a few more on the opposite side but this is a little deceptive because according the census return for two years earlier there were no less than thirty-two households which comprised 195 people.

I have yet to look at the Rate Books but it rather looks as if some properties were sub let.

Old buildings on Court Yard, Christmas 1980

Either way our picturesque ancient road was a populous place with the church at one end, the Crown in the middle and another publican at the end, serving both the spiritual and temporal needs of the community.

It was a mixed group of people with plenty of agricultural labourers a sprinkling of skilled artisans and a few who described themselves of independent means.

And as ever it is the people themselves who draw you in, like 25 years old Hannah Simmons, living wither her three children and what I take to be her sister in law and two children plus a fifteen year old girl who could be a lodger of sister.

It is easy to be judgemental and I did wonder whether Hannah was a single parent. Not that the period was as harsh on women who had children outside marriage as we have been led to believe..  There is plenty of evidence here in the parish records of single women baptizing their children in front of the congregation.

But in the case of Hannah the records show she stood beside her husband at the baptising of Elizabeth in 1839, Joseph in 1840 and Sarah in 1843.children.  The record also that a Joseph Simmons was staying on the night of the 1841 census at Middle Park House on the night of the 1841 census, and a decade later they have moved to Shooters Hill.**

Equally revealing is the story of the Crown. In 1840 it was being run by John Blundell who was still there the following year, but seems to have retired by 1843 when the place was in the hands of John Martin who seems very much a young man with a dtermination to go places.

At the age of 19 he is there in the 1837 land tax records renting a stable from a James Wright and land from a Mrs Dobson, and by 1843 is in the Crown renting the building and the yard.

Court Yard in 1843, showing the Crown

And as he began his long partnership with the Crown I wonder what its former landlord did with his retirement, which sadly was not long for John Martin died at the age of 51 in 1844.

 Not so John Martin who was to serve pints for another three decades.

So I shall end by leaving him in the Crown in the spring of 1871 with his clientele from Court Road who were still the same mix of agricultural labourers and related trades with a few posh people thrown in.

But with one exception who in his way pointed to the future.

For living in Queen Alley off Court Road was the young Edward Norton who was the son of the postmaster and who at the age of 14 described himself as a telegraph messenger, and that more than anything points to the future for Court Road and Eltham.

*R.R.C.Gregory, The Story of Royal Eltham, 1909

**Enu 21 6 Plumstead Kent 1851

Pictures; Court Yard from detail of OS map 1858-73, old buildings on Court Yard,1908,   from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on
The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm detail of Eltham High Street,  1844 from the Tithe map for Eltham courtesy of Kent History and Library Centre, Maidstone, http://www.kent.gov.uk/leisure_and_culture/kent_history/kent_history__library_centre.aspx