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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Lancashire => Topic started by: element4 on Friday 12 August 16 14:37 BST (UK)
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My ancestors Thomas Greenwood and Bridget Ward got married in 1846 and their address on their marriage certificate is given as 30 Angel Street. I looked it up on a google map of Manchester, and Angel Street runs alongside a park area that used to be the notorious slum Angel Meadows.
Thomas Greenwood is described on his marriage certificate as a Marine Store Keeper, which I never understood until today reading something about Angel Meadows, where it said that there were a lot of Marine Stores in Angel Meadows, and it means a rag and bone man.
On the 1851 census, Thomas and Bridget are living with Bridget's younger brother and sister, and their two sons. Bridget was born in Ireland.
The 1951 census doesn't make them sound overcrowded or living in the kind of many to a room slum conditions you associate with the descriptions of Angel Meadows.
Does anyone know anything about this area?
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A Marine Store Dealer was a licensed broker who bought and sold used cordage, bunting, rags, timber, metal and other general waste materials. He usually sorted the purchased waste by kind, grade etc. He also repaired and mended sacks etc. Marine Store Dealers were governed by an Act of Parliament 1st. Geo. IV. sec.16 cap.75. Which enacted that every marine-store-dealer shall have his name inserted in legible characters over his shop-door and shall also keep a book in which he shall insert the name and address of any person from whom he shall buy any article.
Stan
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You can see Angel Street on the 1850 Town Plan at https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/384430/399019/13/100873 it appears to be a main road with substantial buildings on each side, not back to backs. (you will have to change the zoom level)
Stan
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In the 1911 census Angel Street is mainly lodging houses and lock up shops.
Stan
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Hello,
If you search for Angel Meadow you can find several references to the area in academic or historical papers and both fiction and non-fiction.
In this article here (http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-683359) you can read about Dean Kirby who recently brought out a book about his family connection.
I did hear the archaeologist speak about the discoveries made - it was very interesting.
Regards
Heywood
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The 1851 census doesn't make them sound overcrowded or living in the kind of many to a room slum conditions you associate with the descriptions of Angel Meadows.
Angel Street was not in Angel Meadows it was on the edge. If you look at the map https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/384474/399116/13/100873 you can see Angel Meadows and the back to back houses.
Stan
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The church situated on Angel St was dedicated to St. Michael and All Angels.
The area was quite rural and the congregation was quite"well to do ",arriving in carriages so the church was known as a "carriage church".
Angel St. houses were quite substantial and of a fair size but as the area declined they were split into multiple occupancy or lodging houses.
Arkwright built a mill near Crown Square at the end of Angel St and that is probably when the many back to back houses were built ,to house the workers. Incidentally "back to back " means just that ie no back doors , the houses shared an internal wall which meant there was no back exit, just a front door.
People confuse terraced houses which do have back exits with back to back houses.
A lovely book "Sunrise to Sunset" by Mary Bertenshaw is a vivid account of the area.
Probably only available at The central Library local history section.
The graveyard of St. Michael`s adjoins the flagged area where 40,000 people were buried, sadly the York stone flags have gone and all is grassed over.A few gravestones from St. Michael`s remain near the end of Angel St. two gateposts mark the entrance to the church yard near Crown Square.
An absolutely fascinating area and it bugs me that my family was from just out of the area, how interesting if they had been. they were from Worth St, Copper St,Montague St and Hancock St.
Lots of photographs on Manchester Council Photographic archives.
There was an episode of "Time Team" but sadly they concentrated on the larger houses on angel St and completely missed out the crowded courts where there was no running water (except down the walls!)two or three toilets for many many people . and pigs dwelling there too.
Nineteen people lived in a house in John St , which had a cellar, one ground floor room ,one bedroom and an attic . No water or sanitation.John St was practically under the viaduct of the Lancs and Yorks railway after the lines were added to. Not all were of one family. Viktoria.
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The church situated on Angel St was dedicated to St. Michael and All Angels.
The area was quite rural and the congregation was quite"well to do ",arriving in carriages so the church was known as a "carriage church".
Angel St. houses were quite substantial and of a fair size but as the area declined they were split into multiple occupancy or lodging houses.
Arkwright built a mill near Crown Square at the end of Angel St and that is probably when the many back to back houses were built ,to house the workers. Incidentally "back to back " means just that ie no back doors , the houses shared an internal wall which meant there was no back exit, just a front door.
People confuse terraced houses which do have back exits with back to back houses.
A lovely book "Sunrise to Sunset" by Mary Bertenshaw is a vivid account of the area.
Probably only available at The central Library local history section.
The graveyard of St. Michael`s adjoins the flagged area where 40,000 people were buried, sadly the York stone flags have gone and all is grassed over.A few gravestones from St. Michael`s remain near the end of Angel St. two gateposts mark the entrance to the church yard near Crown Square.
An absolutely fascinating area and it bugs me that my family was from just out of the area, how interesting if they had been. they were from Worth St, Copper St,Montague St and Hancock St.
Lots of photographs on Manchester Council Photographic archives.
There was an episode of "Time Team" but sadly they concentrated on the larger houses on angel St and completely missed out the crowded courts where there was no running water (except down the walls!)two or three toilets for many many people . and pigs dwelling there too.
Nineteen people lived in a house in John St , which had a cellar, one ground floor room ,one bedroom and an attic . No water or sanitation.John St was practically under the viaduct of the Lancs and Yorks railway after the lines were added to. Not all were of one family. Viktoria.
Thanks. That is a lot of research leads for me to try to follow up.
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The church situated on Angel St was dedicated to St. Michael and All Angels.
The area was quite rural and the congregation was quite"well to do ",arriving in carriages so the church was known as a "carriage church".
The graveyard of St. Michael`s adjoins the flagged area where 40,000 people were buried, sadly the York stone flags have gone and all is grassed over.A few gravestones from St. Michael`s remain near the end of Angel St. two gateposts mark the entrance to the church yard near Crown Square.
I am not sure if my ancestors used that church. They were married in 1846 a the church of St Mary, St Denys and St George, which I think later became Manchester cathedral, and this is where their son, my great grandfather, Hiram Greenwood was baptised on 25th October 1846.
Unfortunately I don't have a Census for this family when they were living in Angel Street at the time of their marriage in 1846, which often show the number of rooms a family is living in. They only married in 1846 and the only census is for 1851, when they have moved to Clegg Court, Hulme, which lists the occupants as Thomas Greenwood age 32 Broker, Bridget Greenwood age 28, Hiram Greenwood age 4, James Greenwood age 3, and Bridget's younger siblings Betsy Ward age 23 and John Ward age 14, latter two born Ireland as was Bridget. After the 1851 census, this whole family disappears from the records, although I have been able to trace Hiram, my great grandfather, who lived in Salford on the 1871 census, age 25, and then moved to the countryside outskirts of Manchester after his 3 year old first born daughter died in 1871.
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Thanks Stan, Heywood and Viktoria for all that information, which brings out a mystery in itself why my ancestors were living in this big substantial house in 1846, together at their time of marriage. The kind of big house that much later than their time got converted into a multiple occupation boarding house. I have no census information for them in 1846 at that address, so can't find out the other occupants of the house. Thomas seems to have had his own marine store, or rag and bone man store, sorting out scrap.
Maybe 30 Angel Street already was a multiple occupation boarding house in 1846, and its glory days were past?
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Hello,
If you search for Angel Meadow you can find several references to the area in academic or historical papers and both fiction and non-fiction.
In this article here (http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-683359) you can read about Dean Kirby who recently brought out a book about his family connection.
I did hear the archaeologist speak about the discoveries made - it was very interesting.
Regards
Heywood
I read the article you link here. It wouldn't load on my laptop but loaded easily on a mini iPad. Dean Kirby can write, he puts academics to shame, his details bring it alive and bring into perspective the people like him who live in Manchester to this day, who their forebears were. It sounds as though occupations like fishmonger and horse dealer were common, and also that a lot of people living there had escaped the Irish famine.
I never could find out what happened to my ancestors Thomas and Bridget Greenwood after the 1851 census, or Bridget's younger sister and brother, Betsy and John Ward, who were living with them in 1851. Betsy Ward was listed on the 1851 census as a house servant age 23, so I might have better luck trying to trace what happened to her.
I think it is really important to understand these ancestors who came over from Ireland escaping the famine, and struggled in horrible sad conditions, yet leaving their descendants to carry their genes and probably a lot more. There has to be more significance to their lives than the horrible conditions they struggled with from start to finish.
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Interesting information
1851 2230/335/53
30 Angel Street unoccupied
30 Angel Street cellar
John Welsh 29 yrs Excavator b Ireland
Margaret Welsh 30 yrs Cap Maker b Ireland
Edward Welsh1 yr b Ireland
Mark McCann lodger 30 yrs Excavator b Ireland
Ellen McCann 30 yrs Waste ?..ker b Ireland
Most neighbouring houses are occupied by more than one family or have visitors /lodgers and generally from Ireland.
Glad you found the book information.
Heywood
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Interesting information
1851 2230/335/53
30 Angel Street unoccupied
30 Angel Street cellar
John Welsh 29 yrs Excavator b Ireland
Margaret Welsh 30 yrs Cap Maker b Ireland
Edward Welsh1 yr b Ireland
Mark McCann lodger 30 yrs Excavator b Ireland
Ellen McCann 30 yrs Waste ?..ker b Ireland
Most neighbouring houses are occupied by more than one family or have visitors /lodgers and generally from Ireland.
Glad you found the book information.
Heywood
Thanks, that information is very interesting. I wonder if the illegible writing on the census for Ellen's occupation means "waste broker"? It sounds like some variation on rag and bone dealer too. My ancestor Thomas Greenwood's occupation was given on the 1851 census as "broker". (On another source, his occupation was given as "card dealer", which sounds like something to do with the cotton industry, as elsewhere he was listed as a "carder").
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I thought it looked a bit like 'waste maker' but yours sounds better :)
The Greenwoods in 1851 are in Hulme - living in a court so there wouldn't be much room in the house I would imagine. They are not far from the 'Little Ireland' area which Engels wrote about but interestingly, where they are living - Cleggs Court, Medlock Street, there are not that many Irish born.
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Just a joke but Angel Meadow was a "tough" area and people used to say it was so tough you could get mugged by nuns and police dogs would only go in threes ;D
Goulden St police station was the largest in Manchester. Violet Carson was born in the area and played the piano at Sharp St Mission. she played Ena Sharples in Coronation St.
My father in law used to say he knew her "when she had nowt".
However there were some good people there and many remember the real family life which somehow parents, the mothers especially ,made for their kids.
Charter St mission must have been a beacon of light especially for young girls arriving at Victoria station to be servants.Pimps were waiting to draw them into a life of prostitution.
Officials from Charter St Mission were also waiting as trains pulled in to inform the girls they could
stay there and find a job safely.
At Charter St they had a little cubicle of their own, laundering facilities and communally cooked for themselves.
They were thus able to take "daily " jobs instead of residential ones where all too often the master of the house told them things were part of their duties and if they did not comply they would be dismissed without a reference,a almost a death sentence in those days.They would be summarily dismissed anyway when it became obvious they were pregnant by the master.
Try telling that to the mistress of the house.
Charter StMission is a fantastic place to visit but not sure if it is still open to the public.
They would give out clogs to needy children with a good breakfast Christmas morning.
A sad sign of the times---the clogs had burnt into the heels "NOT TO BE PAWNED"This was so they could not legally be accepted as a pledge by pawnbrokers( perhaps even the famous Piggy Riley)
for drink money for importunate parents who would see their children go barefoot if they could get drink.Late1800`s to early 1900`s or later,maybe living memory, my aunt remembered the Christmas clogs.She was born 1907 '
How fascinating anything to do with Angel Meadow is.It is surely named after the dedication of the church which supposedly was the ugliest in Manchester.All fields at one time but oh how quickly it changed.
If you are really interested try reading Engels` "The conditions of the working poor in Manchester"
Google it. You`ll be shocked and amazed- will also have such respect for your ancestors who came through that.
Cheerio thanks for reviving the topic.Viktoria.
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If you are really interested try reading Engels` "The conditions of the working poor in Manchester"
Google it. You`ll be shocked and amazed- will also have such respect for your ancestors who came through.
I found a free online pdf of this Engels book by googling it. Interesting.
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Viktoria, thank you for recommending that Engels book. I opened the free online pdf file onto a mini iPad and sat in the sun in a park reading it offline yesterday. The language, style and way of thinking seemed old fashioned but it was interesting, I remembered the bits about the young women factory workers having to leave their babies for horrendously long hours so they could work to survive, in the charge of children and old women who were worth the tiny amounts they were paid, and the high infant mortality. That they would be soaked with breast milk during the long hours they were working in the factories. And the bits about the working classes buying a lot of quack medicines as their health was poor. (I remember in a museum seeing nineteenth century devices for feeding milk to babies, and reading that these were responsible for a lot of infant mortality).
It was strange, Engels seeped into my dreams last night and I could actually see these people.
Reading something like Engels which is outside my reading comfort zone, and a lot harder than passively consuming secondary historical sources, might have opened some sort of door into an ability to visualise what history was really like, a bit like how they say learning a second language is good for your brain.
I had been struggling to even find anything like a primary historical source, and I think Engels' book qualifies as that.
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If you can get it ,try Asenath Nicholson`s book" Annals of the Famine in Ireland". . It was recommended by a RootsChatter some time ago and I got it as little Christmas present.
Lilliput Press. 62-63 Sitric Road.Arbour Hill.Dublin 7 .Ireland.SBN number1-874675-94-5 Edited by Maureen Murphy.Cost under £10, I think.
Be warned it is a four box of tissues read.
Isn`t RootChat a lovely site.Friendship, information, education and a good laugh now and again.
Irish funny coming up.Irish people whose first language is Gaelic have a great logic in their manner of speaking English.
Elderly Irish chap leaning over his little garden gate. Along comes an American tourist who asks
" Where does this road go to?"
" Sure an all sorr, the road doesn`t go anywhere , it stays here- but if you walk along it you will get to Ballydown".
See what I mean.
Viktoria.
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Saw the repeat of Time Team today which was about Arkwright`s mill at the bottom of Angel St.
Again I was sorry they did not excavate one of the true back to back houses , but concentrated on Angel St houses which were quite substantial and at one time were very respectable, only later did they house several families.
John St not far away, was a cellar, ground floor room, bedroom and attic.It housed 19 non-related people.The ground floor walls could still be seen in the 1990`s and the room was 8x8 feet!!
No sanitation and only water supply from the river Irk, upstream several tanneries which discharged into the Irk-----.Angel St was not that bad.
Interesting programme.
Viktoria.
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Just read a passage in Asenath Nicholson`s book about the famine in Ireland
It is amazing how alike were the conditions she describes and those Engels described as existing in Angel Meadow--and other places.
How sad that people came to Angel Meadow to escape conditions in Ireland only to find them exactly the same.
As my mum used to say-- we don`t know we are born.Viktoria.
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I have been researching Sweeney and the 1851 England Census shows my 4 great grandfather Alexander Sweeney (laborer) and his family, lived at 6 Angel Street. The census showed 3 other surnames at the address: James Griffith, John Lochan,with family and Flansburgh. The Sweeney's appear to have immigrated from Ireland, date unknown and unable to locate Irish records. The Census of 1861 shows new address of Williamson Street, which I hope was an upgrade! They subsequently immigrated to United States and settled in Natick MA. The Angel Street area sounds horrid. Multiple videos and documentaries depicting life at the time. There appears to be a pub at that location now.
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My Ancestors also lived in Angel Street at this time. Joseph Sands lived at 77 Angel Street and married Mary Ginty (who lived next door). They married in 1847. Is more than possible they knew your ancestors.