return to the dwellings introduction
The two areas on Oldham Road were rebuilt: the first, Victoria Square in 1894. The five storey four-sided hollow square block contained 235 two roomed and 48 single roomed dwellings. The four corner turret towers contained common laundries and the lofts, drying rooms. Dwellings were groups in pairs, sharing a common lobby, with a sink and water closet. There were no baths and no hot water supply.[i]
To explore the history of Victoria Square, we have to first start with the history of Ancoats. There have been various debates about whether the square is indeed in Ancoats at all, as many residents past and present view it as being situated in New Cross, however the border of Ancoats is considered to be Oldham Road, and for that reason we will consider Vic Square, as it's known to its residents, as being in Ancoats, whilst acknowledging New Cross's proximity.
Ancoats was a small village prior to the industrial revolution that brought the mills to the area. It was in the countryside, with cottages, cornfields and inns.
The name Ancoats first appears in 1212 as Elnecot, derived from the old English ana cots which means 'lonely cottages'[ii]
The area surrounding Manchester was made up of around thirty small towns and villages, each with small populations of about 2000. In 1798, however, the first mills were built by McConnell & Kennedy and the Murray brothers. These were built by the canal, and it became obvious that the workers would need to migrate nearer the area to work the ten to fourteen hour days, five and a half days a week that was soon required to keep up with demand on the mills.
Around 1775, two brothers from Cheshire, George and Henry Cornwall-Leigh, sold their land in the area to Thomas Boond, a bricklayer, who took years later sold it on to Thomas Hodkinson of Didsbury. Houses were built in the area to house the immigrants from Ireland and Scotland who came looking for work. Between 1774 and 1801 it is estimated that Manchester's population trebled.[iii] The houses were built quickly and with little thought to the health of those living in them. They were back to back, with water closets shared by several houses either in a yard or actually within the structure of the row, with the doors opening out onto the street. There were outside taps only, and philanthropists were concerned not just with the filthy living conditions, but also with the moral health of the workers living so intimately together, especially the morality of the women, as Angus Bethune Reach in 1849 noted:
There will be little female virtue where, in the very nature of things, there can be little delicacy or decent reserve.[iv]
Cellar living was also common for those who had the least money, and a family renting a whole house would often rent their cellar out to poorer relatives or single mothers. Outsiders, like Bethune Reach, were shocked by what they saw during their visits to the area:
The old districts are, as might be expected, invariably the worst. They contain the largest proportion of cellar dwellings, of close filthy courts, of undrained lanes, and of rows of houses built back to back, without any provision for ventilation, and with very little for cleanliness… In the older parts of the borough of Manchester itself, along the great thoroughfare called the Oldham road (sic), and in the Ancoats district - the latter entirely an operative colony - are situated some of the most squalid-looking streets, inhabited by swarms of the most squalid looking people which I have seen.[v]
This is indeed damning, although it must also be remembered that whilst Engels was researching the working class, he paid no particular attention to the Ancoats area, and Anita Street which initially was called Sanitary Street, which surely suggests that the corporation at the time of naming the street were showing some pride in the facilities of the area.
The facts could not be ignored however; the area was overcrowded and conditions were not good. The 1801 census showed a population of 11,039 residents, whilst just fifty years later there were 53,737 residents, and the provision of housing wasn't keeping up. By 1842, Ancoats average of death was 14, and the houses could hold up to twelve people per room.[vi] Life could be rough, but there was camaraderie in the community:
Women and men, real men and women, on Sundays had regular 'up and down' pitch battles, women with breasts bare and petticoats turned up, cock fights and dog fights were held here as lately as 1866.
Yet by the 1890s it was said (rather sadly, perhaps) "You hardly ever see a street fight"[vii]
Certain charitable institutions opened, such as the Horsfall Museum, Charles Rowley's Ancoats recreation movement, Ancoats Hall, The Roundhouse and the dispensary. These survived on charitable donations from the wealthier districts, as those who run the mills recognised the need to keep their workforce healthy, to a certain extent anyway. And there were schools built for the education of potential workers; St Andrews and George Leigh Street were two of the closest. George Leigh Street School had the playground built on its roof, as there was no room for one anywhere else, so the children played up there as well as in Victoria Square and Sanitary Street.
In 1868 Manchester Corporation formed a Health Committee, and work on the housing in the area slowly began. In 1881 the Corporation's medical officer reported that the high death rate was caused by the density of the population[viii] and the Sanitary Committee agreed that something had to be done. In 1885, an Unhealthy Dwellings Committee was appointed, and it advised that the area around what is now Victoria Square was unfit for dwellings.[ix] In 1890, an Artisan's Dwelling Act was passed:
The local authorities were empowered to erect lodging houses and dwelling houses and were to inspect local housing conditions from time to time, additional powers were given to prevent obstructive action by property owners. The Act thus not only extended the ability of local authorities to demolish insanitary dwellings but also sanctioned the principle of municipal building…
Such dwellings were to be approved by the Sanitary Committee and the Local Government Board. At the same time, the Sanitary Committee embarked upon a wider scheme of reconditioning, with the intention of eliminating back-to-back houses and improving drainage.[x]
And so Manchester Corporation cleared out and demolished the area next to Oldham Road in 1891, and chose the architects Spalding and Cross of London and the builders Southern and Son to build the first municipal dwellings at a cost of £97,481.7s 11d. The building was completed in 1894, and could house 848 people, however with the demolition work over 1250 people had been displaced. The Corporation planned to build more dwellings, on Pollard Street and Rochdale Road.
Whilst the Square seemed to solve some of the problems, as early as 1904, just ten years after they were built, there were still issues with the area. It was noted that the area contained twelve pubs, one for every 40 houses, and that there were no green or open spaces.[xi] Rents were also quite high still, but work continued in the area, so that by 1929 it was discovered that only 4% of houses were overcrowded. It was by now, however, considered a slum district and the houses, with no bathrooms and shared WCs still, were considered unfit for modern living. The Corporation were building new houses, out in the suburbs like Wythenshawe. A study on slum abolition in 1929 noted:
Ancoats is a typical slum district… Notwithstanding this, the investigators discovered an astonishing amount of genuine pride of place amongst the people they visited. Many are proud of having been "Ancoats People" for generations… Some tenants in the old Corporation dwellings in Ancoats, on being offered new houses in the suburbs, have refused them, remarking that they intended "to live and die on the Oldham Road".[xii]
The Dwellings, as Victoria Square was known then, attracted some hostile press, as it did not fit in with the more modern style being promoted by the 1930s. Manchester had visions of being rebuilt, and old style dwellings like Vic Square just did not fit in:
They have no bathrooms, and washing and sanitary arrangements are shared between pairs of tenements - a thoroughly unsatisfactory arrangement. Even so they represented a big improvement as compared with the slum houses which they replaced, and they were at low rents, within the reach of the displaced tenants. But they have never been popular, and no more schemes for the erection of lofty buildings have been put forward…[xiii]
The Square avoided demolition, and continued to survive in its tenement state throughout two wars, standing up to a bomb in World War II that was displaced by one of the young Wozencrofts, long-standing tenants of the Square. By the late 1970s, however, demolition was once again mooted. New housing following World War II had been built in Wythenshawe, and new high rise blocks were being built in Manchester and Salford as entire slum areas were demolished. The Dwellings were not as popular as they once had been, even though there were still families living there who had been residents all their lives - Old Mother Record being one such, celebrating her 100th birthday in the Square in the late 1970s. Once again, however, it escaped demolition, perhaps more by chance that design. It was suggested that the Square could be used to house older people, and so the Council converted the tenements into flats and put in lifts. In 1988 the building was given Grade II listed status, and a scheme of improvements were undertaken. In 1996, work to improve the balustrades began and in November 2001 a programme of repair and security work begun. Gates were put on the open entrances, and CCTV was installed, later winning a "secure by design" award. In 2002, Neighbourhood Wardens started to patrol the area, and in 2005 the new laundrette was opened by Cllr. Jim Battle. Freda the cow was donated to the Square in June 2005, and in 2006 the residents committee received a cash grant to improve the central square and garden, turning it into a green space for everyone in the Square to enjoy. The Square was run by Manchester City Council until December 2005, when Northwards Housing took over. Improvement work is planned and ongoing, including new windows and bathrooms or kitchens in all flats.
Kim Wiltshire
2008
notes
_____________________________________________________________
[i] Roberts, Jacqueline, ''A densely populated and unlovely tract': THE RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT OF ANCOATS', pp. 15-26 in Manchester Region History Review: Special Issue Ancoats: the first industrial suburb. Vol. VII, ed. Kidd, Alan and Terry Wyke (Manchester Metropolitan University, 1993), p25.
[ii] Cooper, Glynis, The Illustrated History of Manchester's Suburbs (Derby, Breedon Books, 2007)
[iii] www.italian-heritage-ancoats.org.uk
[iv] Bethune Reach, Angus, Manchester and the Textile Districts in 1849, Ed. C Aspin (Helmshore: Helmshore Local History Society, 1972 (written 1849)), p.5
[v] Bethune Reach, Angus, Manchester and the Textile Districts in 1849, Ed. C Aspin (Helmshore: Helmshore Local History Society, 1972 (written 1849)), p.3
[vi] for more information see Roberts, Jacqueline (1993)ibid
[vii] Rushton, Peter, 'Family Survival Strategies in Mid-Victorian Ancoats', pp.37-44 in Kidd, Alan and Terry Wyke (Manchester Metropolitan University, 1993),ibid
[viii] www.italian-heritage-ancoats.org.uk
[ix] www.italian-heritage-ancoats.org.uk
[x] Redford, Arthur and Ina Stafford Russell, The History of Local Government in Manchester, (London: Longmans, 1940), pp. 422-423
[xi] Marr, T.R, Housing Conditions in Manchester and Salford, (Manchester: Sheratt and Hughes at the University Press, 1904)
[xii] Simon, E.D., How to Abolish the Slums, (London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1929)
[xiii] Simon, E.D. and J. Ingman, The Rebuilding of Manchester, (London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1935, p.21
Victoria Square: a history
The two areas on Oldham Road were rebuilt: the first, Victoria Square in 1894. The five storey four-sided hollow square block contained 235 two roomed and 48 single roomed dwellings. The four corner turret towers contained common laundries and the lofts, drying rooms. Dwellings were groups in pairs, sharing a common lobby, with a sink and water closet. There were no baths and no hot water supply.[i]
To explore the history of Victoria Square, we have to first start with the history of Ancoats. There have been various debates about whether the square is indeed in Ancoats at all, as many residents past and present view it as being situated in New Cross, however the border of Ancoats is considered to be Oldham Road, and for that reason we will consider Vic Square, as it's known to its residents, as being in Ancoats, whilst acknowledging New Cross's proximity.
Ancoats was a small village prior to the industrial revolution that brought the mills to the area. It was in the countryside, with cottages, cornfields and inns.
The name Ancoats first appears in 1212 as Elnecot, derived from the old English ana cots which means 'lonely cottages'[ii]
The area surrounding Manchester was made up of around thirty small towns and villages, each with small populations of about 2000. In 1798, however, the first mills were built by McConnell & Kennedy and the Murray brothers. These were built by the canal, and it became obvious that the workers would need to migrate nearer the area to work the ten to fourteen hour days, five and a half days a week that was soon required to keep up with demand on the mills.
Around 1775, two brothers from Cheshire, George and Henry Cornwall-Leigh, sold their land in the area to Thomas Boond, a bricklayer, who took years later sold it on to Thomas Hodkinson of Didsbury. Houses were built in the area to house the immigrants from Ireland and Scotland who came looking for work. Between 1774 and 1801 it is estimated that Manchester's population trebled.[iii] The houses were built quickly and with little thought to the health of those living in them. They were back to back, with water closets shared by several houses either in a yard or actually within the structure of the row, with the doors opening out onto the street. There were outside taps only, and philanthropists were concerned not just with the filthy living conditions, but also with the moral health of the workers living so intimately together, especially the morality of the women, as Angus Bethune Reach in 1849 noted:
There will be little female virtue where, in the very nature of things, there can be little delicacy or decent reserve.[iv]
Cellar living was also common for those who had the least money, and a family renting a whole house would often rent their cellar out to poorer relatives or single mothers. Outsiders, like Bethune Reach, were shocked by what they saw during their visits to the area:
The old districts are, as might be expected, invariably the worst. They contain the largest proportion of cellar dwellings, of close filthy courts, of undrained lanes, and of rows of houses built back to back, without any provision for ventilation, and with very little for cleanliness… In the older parts of the borough of Manchester itself, along the great thoroughfare called the Oldham road (sic), and in the Ancoats district - the latter entirely an operative colony - are situated some of the most squalid-looking streets, inhabited by swarms of the most squalid looking people which I have seen.[v]
This is indeed damning, although it must also be remembered that whilst Engels was researching the working class, he paid no particular attention to the Ancoats area, and Anita Street which initially was called Sanitary Street, which surely suggests that the corporation at the time of naming the street were showing some pride in the facilities of the area.
The facts could not be ignored however; the area was overcrowded and conditions were not good. The 1801 census showed a population of 11,039 residents, whilst just fifty years later there were 53,737 residents, and the provision of housing wasn't keeping up. By 1842, Ancoats average of death was 14, and the houses could hold up to twelve people per room.[vi] Life could be rough, but there was camaraderie in the community:
Women and men, real men and women, on Sundays had regular 'up and down' pitch battles, women with breasts bare and petticoats turned up, cock fights and dog fights were held here as lately as 1866.
Yet by the 1890s it was said (rather sadly, perhaps) "You hardly ever see a street fight"[vii]
Certain charitable institutions opened, such as the Horsfall Museum, Charles Rowley's Ancoats recreation movement, Ancoats Hall, The Roundhouse and the dispensary. These survived on charitable donations from the wealthier districts, as those who run the mills recognised the need to keep their workforce healthy, to a certain extent anyway. And there were schools built for the education of potential workers; St Andrews and George Leigh Street were two of the closest. George Leigh Street School had the playground built on its roof, as there was no room for one anywhere else, so the children played up there as well as in Victoria Square and Sanitary Street.
In 1868 Manchester Corporation formed a Health Committee, and work on the housing in the area slowly began. In 1881 the Corporation's medical officer reported that the high death rate was caused by the density of the population[viii] and the Sanitary Committee agreed that something had to be done. In 1885, an Unhealthy Dwellings Committee was appointed, and it advised that the area around what is now Victoria Square was unfit for dwellings.[ix] In 1890, an Artisan's Dwelling Act was passed:
The local authorities were empowered to erect lodging houses and dwelling houses and were to inspect local housing conditions from time to time, additional powers were given to prevent obstructive action by property owners. The Act thus not only extended the ability of local authorities to demolish insanitary dwellings but also sanctioned the principle of municipal building…
Such dwellings were to be approved by the Sanitary Committee and the Local Government Board. At the same time, the Sanitary Committee embarked upon a wider scheme of reconditioning, with the intention of eliminating back-to-back houses and improving drainage.[x]
And so Manchester Corporation cleared out and demolished the area next to Oldham Road in 1891, and chose the architects Spalding and Cross of London and the builders Southern and Son to build the first municipal dwellings at a cost of £97,481.7s 11d. The building was completed in 1894, and could house 848 people, however with the demolition work over 1250 people had been displaced. The Corporation planned to build more dwellings, on Pollard Street and Rochdale Road.
Whilst the Square seemed to solve some of the problems, as early as 1904, just ten years after they were built, there were still issues with the area. It was noted that the area contained twelve pubs, one for every 40 houses, and that there were no green or open spaces.[xi] Rents were also quite high still, but work continued in the area, so that by 1929 it was discovered that only 4% of houses were overcrowded. It was by now, however, considered a slum district and the houses, with no bathrooms and shared WCs still, were considered unfit for modern living. The Corporation were building new houses, out in the suburbs like Wythenshawe. A study on slum abolition in 1929 noted:
Ancoats is a typical slum district… Notwithstanding this, the investigators discovered an astonishing amount of genuine pride of place amongst the people they visited. Many are proud of having been "Ancoats People" for generations… Some tenants in the old Corporation dwellings in Ancoats, on being offered new houses in the suburbs, have refused them, remarking that they intended "to live and die on the Oldham Road".[xii]
The Dwellings, as Victoria Square was known then, attracted some hostile press, as it did not fit in with the more modern style being promoted by the 1930s. Manchester had visions of being rebuilt, and old style dwellings like Vic Square just did not fit in:
They have no bathrooms, and washing and sanitary arrangements are shared between pairs of tenements - a thoroughly unsatisfactory arrangement. Even so they represented a big improvement as compared with the slum houses which they replaced, and they were at low rents, within the reach of the displaced tenants. But they have never been popular, and no more schemes for the erection of lofty buildings have been put forward…[xiii]
The Square avoided demolition, and continued to survive in its tenement state throughout two wars, standing up to a bomb in World War II that was displaced by one of the young Wozencrofts, long-standing tenants of the Square. By the late 1970s, however, demolition was once again mooted. New housing following World War II had been built in Wythenshawe, and new high rise blocks were being built in Manchester and Salford as entire slum areas were demolished. The Dwellings were not as popular as they once had been, even though there were still families living there who had been residents all their lives - Old Mother Record being one such, celebrating her 100th birthday in the Square in the late 1970s. Once again, however, it escaped demolition, perhaps more by chance that design. It was suggested that the Square could be used to house older people, and so the Council converted the tenements into flats and put in lifts. In 1988 the building was given Grade II listed status, and a scheme of improvements were undertaken. In 1996, work to improve the balustrades began and in November 2001 a programme of repair and security work begun. Gates were put on the open entrances, and CCTV was installed, later winning a "secure by design" award. In 2002, Neighbourhood Wardens started to patrol the area, and in 2005 the new laundrette was opened by Cllr. Jim Battle. Freda the cow was donated to the Square in June 2005, and in 2006 the residents committee received a cash grant to improve the central square and garden, turning it into a green space for everyone in the Square to enjoy. The Square was run by Manchester City Council until December 2005, when Northwards Housing took over. Improvement work is planned and ongoing, including new windows and bathrooms or kitchens in all flats.
Kim Wiltshire
2008
notes
_____________________________________________________________
[i] Roberts, Jacqueline, ''A densely populated and unlovely tract': THE RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT OF ANCOATS', pp. 15-26 in Manchester Region History Review: Special Issue Ancoats: the first industrial suburb. Vol. VII, ed. Kidd, Alan and Terry Wyke (Manchester Metropolitan University, 1993), p25.
[ii] Cooper, Glynis, The Illustrated History of Manchester's Suburbs (Derby, Breedon Books, 2007)
[iii] www.italian-heritage-ancoats.org.uk
[iv] Bethune Reach, Angus, Manchester and the Textile Districts in 1849, Ed. C Aspin (Helmshore: Helmshore Local History Society, 1972 (written 1849)), p.5
[v] Bethune Reach, Angus, Manchester and the Textile Districts in 1849, Ed. C Aspin (Helmshore: Helmshore Local History Society, 1972 (written 1849)), p.3
[vi] for more information see Roberts, Jacqueline (1993)
[vii] Rushton, Peter, 'Family Survival Strategies in Mid-Victorian Ancoats', pp.37-44 in Kidd, Alan and Terry Wyke (Manchester Metropolitan University, 1993),
[viii] www.italian-heritage-ancoats.org.uk
[ix] www.italian-heritage-ancoats.org.uk
[x] Redford, Arthur and Ina Stafford Russell, The History of Local Government in Manchester, (London: Longmans, 1940), pp. 422-423
[xi] Marr, T.R, Housing Conditions in Manchester and Salford, (Manchester: Sheratt and Hughes at the University Press, 1904)
[xii] Simon, E.D., How to Abolish the Slums, (London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1929)
[xiii] Simon, E.D. and J. Ingman, The Rebuilding of Manchester, (London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1935, p.21