In two words: Elijah Dixon.

The Manchester Bridgewater Freehold Land Society was formed in 1850 by Elijah and his colleagues, with the aim of allowing ordinary workers a chance to acquire land, for housing or allotments, away from the smoke and pollution of overcrowded industrial Manchester.

Despite the parliamentary Reform Act of 1832, most ordinary workers (and all women) were denied the vote unless they owned land, so having your name on one of the society’s plots also gave you this right.

In March 1851, six holdings covering 57 acres at the “top end of Moston”, farmed by tenants of the Hilton family, of the medieval Great Nuthurst Hall, were purchased for £2,900 by the society, the aim being to divide the land into 230 plots. A plot could be bought through a loan, paid off by a subscription of a few pence or shillings a week. Land schemes such as this were early versions of what became building societies.The top end of Moston in 1848, showing the original area purchased by the Society shaded pink. Moston Brook is highlighted in green.

A further £5,000 was invested by the society in laying out new streets to serve the plots. An access road was formed from Hale Lane in Failsworth to replace a footpath, known as Morris Lane, across the Moston Brook, which formed the boundary (and still does). Morris Lane ran into Moston Lane (now ‘East’). The new road, connecting with Oldham Road, gave an easier route to Manchester, Oldham or beyond.

The brook was culverted and the hollow filled in to permit a road wide, level and firm enough to take carts and carriages into the estate at ‘New Moston’. The name chosen reflected Robert Owen’s model housing schemes such as New Lanark and New Harmony.

The access road was opened in 1853 and was soon followed by the laying-out of five streets: Dixon, Ricketts, Potts, Jones and Frost Streets. These were later renamed Belgrave, Parkfield, Northfield, Eastwood and – combined with the existing Scholes Lane, past Pitt’s Farm – Hawthorn Roads respectively.

By 1854, houses had begun to be built, some of the earliest surviving ones being Rose and Moss Cottages, Ivy Cottage and by 1863, a pair of cottages on Dixon Street, one of which was used as a beerhouse. By 1871 this was already named the New Moston Inn; in the twentieth century the two cottages were rebuilt and merged together as one.The New Moston Inn, originally two cottages dating from 1863 or earlier, seen here in 1905.

Around 1870, Elijah Dixon himself moved to a house on Ricketts St (Vine House) from Newton Heath, where he had lived for many years, next to his match works and timber yard. He died at Vine House in 1876, but his daughter and grand-daughter continued the line right up to 1940.

There was little change after Elijah’s death, until Moston and New Moston became part of Manchester in 1890. Many little-used plots began to be sold to developers, and the next twenty years or so saw a massive expansion of housing, both within the original area, with the addition of side-streets and avenues, and beyond, as neighbouring farms were gradually sold off.

Schools were built on what had been Brown’s Farm, Slater Fold Farm gave way to Nuthurst Road, the park and the avenues around Hazeldene Road, and Crimbles Farm, the last to go, enabled further expansion along Moston Lane, extending right up to the Chadderton boundary.

From the 1920s onwards, the building of Broadway spurred further expansion, such as the estates around West Avenue and Chatwood Road: New Moston is now much bigger than the original “top end of Moston”.

Elijah Dixon’s story, of lifelong social justice campaigning and his parallel industrial success, has just been published by Pen and Sword Books of Barnsley (details on the link below):-

https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Beyond-Peterloo-Paperback/p/15101

The authors will be giving a talk to the Newton Heath History Society on Tuesday, 24 July 2018 at 1:30pm, at the Heathfield Resource Centre, off Mitchell St, Newton Heath.

 

Visits to the Lightbowne area of Moston in the late 1950s were a delight. My maternal grandad, a retired railway goods guard, lived on Hanson Road and one of his brothers on Hugo Street. Two more brothers were in Blackley and Collyhurst, with a sister in Harpurhey, but another brother lived on Attleboro Road, before moving to Eccles, and my mum’s sister was at Adrian Street: quite a little clan!The author, aged about four, in the back yard of 5 Hanson Road, Moston.

Every couple of weeks or so, we would stroll down Nuthurst Road, St Marys Road and Jackson Street (now Joyce Street) to perform our family “state visit” to Hanson Road, often spending an hour or two at other addresses, depending who was in.

My grandparents were the sort of people who always had time for the kids, and their house, though a humble two-up, two-down terrace, with donkey-stoned front step and a small back yard, was always spotless and full of interesting bits and bobs. First World War brass shell-cases, polished up as bright as gold, small but colourful flower-beds and hanging baskets, home-made rag rugs in front of the coal-fired iron range, and a lean-to kitchen that always smelled of Fairy household soap.

There was also a harmonium in the parlour but, as was still common in those days, we rarely went in there – that was for special occasions, like weddings and funerals! And, of course, children never went upstairs without being invited: Edwardian protocol was still very much in vogue.

The loo, if you needed it, was in a brick lean-to in the yard, kept brightly whitewashed. Once, my grandad took me upstairs for the view out of the front bedroom window, which overlooked Lightbowne carriage sidings and the engine sheds at Newton Heath.

If the adults had some serious chatting to do, I would occasionally be left to my own devices. My two sisters were usually there, too, but one was only a toddler and the other old enough to join in the adult conversations, so both tended to stay in the house. I would drift off, exploring the myriad back entries (no-one called them alleys, then) or kicking a ball around with local kids.

As I got a little older, I would sometimes be trusted with a message for one of the other nearby kinfolk, or sent on an errand to one of the shops that almost every street corner had.Mum crossing Egbert Street near Langworthy Road in 1940. Mrs Mazza’s was the shop on the left.

There was a cluster of shops along Egbert Street, not far away, the most memorable of which was Mrs Mazza’s ice-cream parlour, at number 33.  She would sell you a cone or wafer, of course, but her speciality was catering for parties or tea-time treats. You could take a baking-bowl and ask for, say, two dozen scoops, with or without raspberry sauce, to be dished out back at the house. It was proper iced cream, too, made on the premises and with a consistency like compacted snow, unlike some of the slithery synthetic stuff available nowadays.

Over the years, I have frequently been surprised at how many people still remember this shop – you inspired a generation, Mrs Mazza!

Sadly, my gran passed away in 1967 and, shortly afterwards, grandad elected to move to a retirement home in Eccles, close to his youngest brother. Not long afterwards, the southern end of Hanson Road, including grandad’s house, was demolished, along with part of Hugo Street and the whole of the carriage sidings site. Further house clearances continued into the 1990s (when the last shops on Egbert Street went) and only a few terraces at the northern end now remain.

The general layout and names of the streets have survived, however, with modern housing at the southernmost end. Alas, this new development incorporates no shops at all…

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How many Blackley residents now know of the role once played by this well-loved park in the history of womens’ suffrage?

On Sunday, 5 July 1896, some 40,000 people gathered at an open-air meeting in the park to hear an address by James Kier Hardie, one of the founders of the Independent Labour Party, along with Richard and Emmeline Pankhurst, and others. The party had been formed following disillusionment with the Liberals, who had repeatedly failed to deliver on many social improvement policies, including extending the right to vote to ordinary workers – and women.

A number of ILP meetings had been held in the Clough when it was a private estate but, after purchase by Manchester Corporation in 1895, the Parks Committee decided to suppress them. In May and June 1896, a number of arrests were made and some speakers were fined, but chose to serve a month’s imprisonment rather than pay. The dispute now centred around free speech in public spaces.

During the 5 July meeting, Keir Hardie, the Pankhursts and others were arrested for supposedly “causing an annoyance”. Magistrates heard the testimony of local residents, none of whom seemed remotely annoyed, and Richard Pankhurst pointed out that there was no such offence as “causing annoyance” anyway.Short article in the Manchester Courier, 9 July 1896

Meanwhile, further meetings were held and at one of these a defiant Ben Tillett addressed 30,000 maintaining that, as the park had been purchased with public money, the public had every right to hold meetings there if they wished. It was the same in many other towns and cities. Eventually, the Parks Committee, urged by the Home Secretary, decided that such meetings were lawful and most of the charges were dropped.

One bright Sunday afternoon ten years later on 15 July 1906, another meeting in favour of Votes for Women was addressed by Keir Hardie and Emmeline Pankhurst’s daughter Adela. The site was described as “north of the main road through the park, where three hills form a natural amphitheatre”.

No estimate of the number attending was given, but the speakers were hemmed in on all sides when 100 or so organised protestors surged down the hill at them. They were almost crushed. Their escape was hampered by the sheer number of ordinary listeners, who were mostly sympathetic, but packed closely together. Several of the speakers suffered blows and torn clothing but managed to slip away in the ensuing confusion.Location of the former drinking fountain and refreshment rooms in Boggart Hole Clough, possibly the site referred to for the 1906 meeting

Keir Hardie, who had recently courted bad publicity criticising the government’s brutality towards the Zulus, and Adela were particularly targeted. The most easily recognised, they were chased up one of the other hills and round an adjacent field by the mob, causing great damage to the trees and shrubs. Adela was shielded by three or four local men and almost made it out of the Clough, but was pursued again after a shout of “Here she is!” brought the mob nearer.

By sheer luck, Keir Hardie and Adela found themselves together again, both exhausted. By slipping away down the wooded valley side, they managed to climb over iron railings leading to Charlestown Road. The mob attempted to follow, but the fugitives by now had a good start and slipped away into a nearby cottage.

Suffragists had become used to jeers and heckling over many years, but the wanton violence displayed at Boggart Hole Clough and other places, simply hardened attitudes on both sides. It was hardly surprising that some protestors, labelled Suffragettes, became increasingly militant.