Wild Family Visit

A few months ago I was asked to do some research for a family who were visiting Stockport from Melbourne, Australia. Their ancestors had lived at 31 Market Place, now Staircase House, they also had an ancestor who was mayor of Stockport and one who who penned several books and plays.

Rather excitingly, they visited Stockport this week and myself and Margaret greeted them to show them the research we had, items from our archives and old photographs of Stockport. We were even able to show them books from our archive which were written by their ancestor William Isaac Wild!

This was followed by tea and scones with the mayor, before returning to the library so they could examine the material in more detail.

It was a fascinating day, and lovely to meet the people who I had researched for. It was so interesting finding the information, as their ancestors were a rather notable family in Stockport there was a fabulous amount of information to be found.

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A Little Update

I haven’t given an update for a while – as the new trainees have been recruited I’ve been busy searching for a new job for when my contract ends in June.

We have been very busy the last few weeks with training courses and visits.

Lauren & I went for a visit to Tameside archives to see the Archive management software CALM in action. In 2010 Tameside was given four stars in the National Archives Self Assessment making it the best Archive in the North West. It includes two large temperature controlled archive spaces, and a search room with family history resources similar to the one at Stockport.

I also spent a day in the Lending Library downstairs – the Heritage Library is reference only, so there are certain tasks which we don’t do much of upstairs – such as  book renewals, transfer of books to other libraries, and dealing with requests. I spent a day learning all these, which was really interesting and I hope to spend some more time down there in the future. It also made me realise I need to venture down to borrow books more frequently!

We had two training days last week – the first was ‘Effective Minute Taking’ which was very useful and has made me feel confident about taking minutes during meetings, and the second day of the ‘Taking Stock’ course. This course is four days in total, and is a development course aimed at women – it’s been wonderful for confidence building, recognising your strengths, team working etc. and very enjoyable – I’ve met some lovely ladies!

I’ve also been busy replying to lots of enquiries which have been coming into the library – most notably a family who are visiting the library from Australia in May – their ancestors had a boot shop in what is now Staircase House, so I have been compiling some information for when they visit, and have found that one of their ancestors wrote books and plays, some of which we have copies of in the archives – very exciting!

So that is a very speedy round-up of what I’ve been up to over the last few weeks!

Cataloguing the Goodison Collection

A project I have been working on for a while is cataloguing the Goodison Collection – a collection of family papers and school documents spanning three boxes. It is amongst this collection I found the WW1 letters I wrote about recently.

The collection is broken down into two main categories – family documents and school documents, although the two are closely entwined. The collection spans almost 100 years, from 1875 to 1972.

The main person in the collection is Joseph Goodison, who was headmaster of Higher Brinksway Council School from 1884 to 1924. The collection includes qualification certificates, exams, and a scholarship to attend Owen’s college in Manchester. There are also personal letters, reference letters from previous employers, and several photographs.

Goodison had eight children altogether, and two of these, Winifred and Ellen, went on to train as teachers.

The collection allows us to piece together information about their lives – for Joseph particularly. His obituary in the Stockport Express in 1935 described him as having a “wonderful and extensive influence” over his pupils, his “kindly counsel was a precious heritage” and “he loved every child in the school”. We know that he was ambitious; in 1882 he was sent a letter by E. Holyoake advising that he was too young yet to be headmaster, however just two years later in 1884 at the age of 23 Joseph was appointed as headmaster of St John’s British School, Stockport (later Higher Brinksway Council School). The school was newly opened, and was known at first as the ‘iron school’ – there is a photograph of the headmaster with children in the iron building. Joseph was headmaster there until his retirement in 1924.

The Goodisons were certainly a family of collectors. The collection is a rich source of information regarding the schools they worked at. Amongst the highlights of the collection are:

• The first log book of St John’s British School (later Higher Brinksway) 1884-1899
• Letters written by soldiers during WW1 to Joseph Goodison (read more here)
• A speech Joseph Goodison gave to the National Union of Teachers in 1917, during WW1
• Reference letters for teachers
• Photographs of the family and schools
•  Documents relating to the Dilwara Cruise around the Baltic in 1937
• A cookery book with recipes & magazine cuttings (I used this for a recent project, read more here)

It is quite amazing the amount of information contained in this collection, which gives a view of Stockport Schools over such a large period of time and through two generations of a family – so much information can be pieced together about their lives and the schools.

The collection has also proved useful for displays and exhibitions; for our ‘Explore Your Archives’ project in November we used the cookery book and school log book from this collection, and the WW1 letters will form part of an exhibition for Stockport’s WW1 Centenary later this year .

The picture of the ‘iron school’ can be viewed at: http://www.stockport.gov.uk/services/leisureculture/libraries/libraryonline/stockportimagearchive/sia/?accessionno=36035&picResultsNo=6#picInfo

Letters, Letters, Everywhere!

I recently began listing three boxes of archives, a collection of material dubbed ‘miscellaneous schools’ but which is actually various documentation collected by two generations of a family of school teachers. Amongst this was a small bundle of letters, written by ex-pupils of Higher Brinksway Council School whilst they were serving in the army during World War I, to their old headmaster Mr Joseph Goodison.

Of course with the World War I centenary taking place later this year, this was a prime time to find these letters, and they will hopefully be used as part of a display about the war in Stockport. The letters send best wishes to the headmaster and his family, offering snippets of information about their lives in the army, and one even has written a poem.

The boys who wrote letters to Mr Goodison whilst on service are:

• Charles Stanley Bradbury
• Joseph T. Sidebottom
• George Woodford
• James Duxbury
• William Prophet
• John Goudy
• Samuel R. Dickinson
• Harold Wild
• Herbert Williams
• Walter S. Newton

For now I am trying to find out some more about these boys, where they came from and what happened to them.

Stockport Ragged School

As a part of the display for the ‘Explore Your Archives’ Campaign (on display in the library until the 14th December) I did a little bit of research about children in the Ragged School in Stockport.

Stockport Ragged and Industrial School was founded as a charitable institution for necessitous children. It was established in June 1854, and certified as a Ragged & Industrial school in 1866.

The annual reports of the school give an insight into the life of the children who were taken into the school – with detailed descriptions of their strictly ordered routines:

• “5.30 [am] – first bell; all rise, dress and make beds”
• “5.40 to 5.45 – Perfect silence must be observed for five minutes, which time is set apart for private prayer”
• “8.30 to 8.30 breakfast. During the time of meals, silence, order, and decorum must be maintained.”
• “Wednesday Afternoon – recreation or country walk in fine weather; if the weather be unfavourable, school work goes on as usual.”

In the archives we have a wonderful old photo album of children who were at the Ragged School. Some of their names are written underneath. The children are in varying states of disrepair,  shoeless and dirty with ragged clothes full of rips and holes, they look badly cared for.

I was quite interested to find out where these children came from, and how they ended up being in the ragged school. I chose children who were featured in the photograph album, and found the children listed at the school on the 1871 census. This gave me a year of birth and birth place, and allowed me to discover a short biography about the child’s life. The school was located in Townend House on Higher Hillgate.

Frank Wilkinson 1864 – 1939

Frank Wilkinson was the first child I researched. In the photograph album he is my favourite child; he has a lovely cheeky smile on his face, even though his clothes tell a story about the hardship of his life.

He was listed on the 1871 census in the school aged 7, and I used this information to find that he was born in Heaton Norris 1864. Unfortunately because he was born after the previous census there is no way to find out any more about his early life, but tracing him on the 1881 census once he had left the school found him living back with his parents Thomas and Mary, the youngest of their seven children. He was working as a piecer in a cotton mill in Tonge, Lancashire (near Middleton). This was a job usually reserved for children which involved ‘piecing’ together the broken cotton. The mills were noisy and children would work for up to twelve hours a day. His brothers Joseph and Albert were also employed as piecers, and the rest of his family were employed in the cotton industry with the exception of his elder brother Edwin who was a brewer’s labourer.

In 1886 he married Ann Johnson from Congleton at St Michael’s Church in Tonge. They went on to have three children – Harriett, Albert and Adelaide, who also worked in the cotton industry. Frank died in 1939 in Middleton, aged 74.

Susan Spilsbury 1860 – 1947

The next child I researched was Susan Spilsbury, in her picture she looks so sweet and innocent. She was born in 1860 so I was able to find her on the 1861 census, so find out a little about her life before the Ragged School. Susan was born out-of-wedlock in 1860. In 1861 she lived with her widowed mother, Elizabeth Dewhurst – a cotton weaver. They lived in a licensed lodging house on Bamford Street along with 40 other people – lodging houses were notoriously overcrowded and unsanitary with many requiring beds to be shared, at a cost of about four pence per night. With this start in life you can begin to imagine how Susan would be destined for the Ragged School.

In 1864 Elizabeth married Susan’s father William Spilsbury, a cotton rope maker, and they went on to have two more children – Thomas and Elizabeth. In 1871, aged 11, Susan was an inmate at Stockport Ragged & Industrial School, though her brother & sister were still at home with their parents – her father was working as a labourer & her mother was a housewife.

Aged 21 Susan was living back at home with her family, and was working as a cotton reeler – winding thread on to bobbins. In 1891 at the age of 31 she married Frank Goodier, a hat planker from Macclesfield who was 8 years her junior. Nine years later they had a daughter, Edith Lillian, who was born when Susan was 40 years old. In 1911 Susan worked as a charwoman, and her husband was a temporary postman. Susan died in 1947 in Stockport, aged 87.

Mary Jane Gore 1862 – 1936

Mary Jane Gore was born in Woodley in 1860, on her marriage certificate she stated her father was George Gore, but we have been unable to locate her mother. We know that she was an inmate at Stockport’s Ragged and Industrial School in 1871.

In 1881, aged 21, she was working as a kitchen maid at the Union Club, Mosely Street, Manchester. The Union Club was for gentlemen, where they “may at any time be provided, in a superior manner and at a moderate charge with Provisions, Wines, etc.” Life for Mary Jane would have been gruelling, with long hours and physically exhausting work.

In 1887 she married Peter Heap, a stone mason from Burnley, at the Manchester Collegiate Church (now Manchester Cathedral). In 1881 she lived in Burnley with her husband and three children – Eliza, James & George. Her husband was working as a building contractor. She went on to have five more children, a total of eight children who were born between 1888 and 1901. In 1911 she was a housewife, living with all her children, who mainly worked in the cotton industry except for one who worked as a railway labourer. Mary Jane died in Burnley, Lancashire in 1936 aged 76.

Ellen Ogden 1858 – ?

Ellen Ogden was born in 1858 in Stockport, daughter of Mary Ogden. I have been unable to find any information about Ellen’s father as he was not present at the 1861 census, though her mother claimed she was married. Her mother and brother Andrew were both born in Ireland – her mother was just 15 when Andrew was born, and it appears that some of Ellen’s siblings had different mothers. Ellen was the fifth and youngest of the children.

In 1861, aged 3, she was living with her family in a cellar on Welcroft Street  with her mother, four brothers and sisters, and three lodgers. In 1861 there were approximately 790 people living in cellar dwellings in Stockport, of these 37% were Irish. Cellar dwellings were cold, damp and small, with the people who lived in them were prone to fevers and poor health.

In 1871, aged 12, Ellen was an inmate at Stockport’s Ragged & Industrial School. In 1881 her mother Mary was living on Small Street and working as a washer woman, with four boarders. Her brother Andrew was living with his family in Stockport, what happened to Ellen after she left the ragged school? We’re not sure – she may have married, she may have moved out of the area, or she may have died, but we haven’t found a trace of what happened to her next.

It was lovely to find some information about where the children came from, and where they went, and it was nice that most of the ones I researched lived to a ripe old age.

This information forms a part of a display about School Life in Stockport, which is currently at Stockport Heritage Library.

The information was compiled using the Birth, Marriages & Deaths index, and censuses from 1871 – 1911. Photographs from Stockport Image Archive S/T55.

 

Stockport Conservation & Heritage Forum

On Thursday 25th July we went to our first meeting of the Stockport Conservation & Heritage Forum held in Staircase House. The forum meets quarterly and comprises of representatives from over 40 voluntary & community groups with an interest in local heritage and conservation issues.

The first half of the meeting was a presentation by Norman Redhead from the Archaeology Service which has recently relocated from the University of Manchester to the University of Salford. His talk was punctuated by a demonstration of the Greater Manchester Historic Environment Record which is a Geographical Information System & database detailing the Greater Manchester area. You can view more information about the GMAU here.

The demonstration of the database was really fascinating; it gives a view of how the environment has changed, and a map layering option means that you can view an area, and see what used to be there. This meant that Mr Readhead could show us how the ratio of urban & residential areas increased slowly, with a dramatic increase from 1967 to the present day, showing the graduation of how a small cluster of residential areas  became as it is today with over 50% of the area urbanised.

We were also given a talk about the buildings which are at risk in Stockport, this correlated nicely with the Tour of Historic Buildings of Manchester which we attended with the other HLF trainees. The main issue is a lack of funding, and the buildings ranged from Wycliffe Congregational Chapel on which restoration work has begun, to St George’s Vicarage which has an uncertain future, as do Cheadle Royal Nurses Home and Wybersley Hall.

We then had a speech from a lady representing the Stockport Building Preservation Trust who spoke about Woodbank Memorial Park and Woodbank Hall – highlighting the issues that they have been unable to sell the hall due to access issues, therefore they have set up the preservation trust to apply for funding and begin this project.

There was also a short mention about the HLF trainees, introducing us to the group and asking if anyone has any potential projects which could give us some direct experience as a part of our traineeships, so hopefully some interesting opportunities will arise.

The meeting was a good opportunity to meet people who work within heritage across Stockport and Manchester, and to gain an awareness of issues with heritage and conservation which are ongoing in the area.