Living on the semi-rural southern edge of Manchester out of the smoking chimneys of the houses and mills of the town, John and his family would not have to see – unless they went expressly – the conditions of the vast numbers of people who were thronging to Manchester for work.
Friedrich Engels, who explored the worst areas, wrote in the Condition of the Working Class in England that a person might live in Manchester for years,
and go in and out daily without coming into contact with a working-people's quarter or even with workers, that is, so long as he confines himself to his business or to pleasure walks
Less than a mile north of Wren & Bennett's works was the Old Town, lying alongside the River Irk, which Engels described as "a narrow, coal-black, foul-smelling stream, full of debris and refuse". Mills, tanneries, bonemills and gasworks stood on the river and dry weather left slime pools
from the depths of which bubbles of miasmatic gas constantly arise and give forth a stench unendurable even on the bridge forty or fifty feet above the surface of the stream.
He described in detail the narrow, winding streets of dirty and decaying houses, the courts and lanes and tangles of passages crammed with dwellings in "filth and disgusting grime"
in one of these courts there stands directly at the entrance, at the end of the covered passage, a privy without a door, so dirty that the inhabitants can pass into and out of the court only by passing through foul pools of stagnant urine and excrement
He wrote of the lack of ventilation of the streets and courts, the "filth, debris, and offal heaps" and the "multitude of pigs walking about in all the alleys."
South of the Old Town was the commercial district "perhaps half a mile long and about as broad." Mostly consisting of offices and warehouses, much of this area was only alive by day but the main streets leading into town were lined with "brilliant shops" and here and there the upper floors were occupied and full of life until late at night.
Working-class housing stretched "like a girdle" that averaged a mile and a half in breadth around the commercial district. Almost all the mills stood alongside the rivers and canals of the town. The middle classes had moved out to places like Cheetham and Chorlton, and the most prosperous of all were furthest out still
on the breezy heights of Cheetham Hill, Broughton, and Pendleton, in free, wholesome country air, in fine, comfortable homes, passed once every half or quarter hour by omnibuses going into the city
As the town had grown, John's mother had moved from the centre of Manchester first north to the fresh air of Cheetham and then to Chorlton on the southern edge of town. When John's sister Ellen was married in 1839, the family was living in Lloyd Street, Greenheys, to the west of today's Whitworth Park. It was a countrified area described by Elizabeth Gaskell in her first novel Mary Barton (1848)
There are some fields near Manchester, well known to the inhabitants as "Green Heys Fields," through which runs a public footpath to a little village about two miles distant … thoroughly rural fields … here and there an old black and white farm-house
By the spring of 1841 the Hopkinsons had moved to 41 Rumford Street, near to the Rusholme Road Chapel, and only about a mile from Wren & Bennett's works.
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| O.S. map of Rumford Street 1849 National Library of Scotland |
Comfortable and spacious family houses with gardens were being built in terraces along Rumford Street, which was a very long road that ran southward from the edge of Manchester into the countryside. (It lies underneath today's University District). In 1842 Elizabeth Gaskell, her Unitarian minister husband and their family moved into Number 121, a larger and more expensive semi-detached villa at the farthest end of the road. Mrs Gaskell described their house seven years later as "the last house countrywards" and "a mile and a half from the very middle of Manchester". They could see fields from some of their windows – "not very pretty or rural fields it must be owned" – but all the same the Gaskell children could see cows milked and watch haymaking.
In 1845 John's mother took the tenancy of Number 1 York Place, the last of her moves in Manchester. Except for six years in their early marriage, York Place was to be John's home for years – he and Alice and their family lived at Number 12 from 1855 until 1874.
York Place has now disappeared under the site of Manchester Royal Infirmary, but I think it was built by Richard Lane & Partners, who were the architects of Victoria Park. The Wikipedia entry for Victoria Park, the exclusive gated development with its own tollgates, walls and police, built in the countryside to the south of the Rusholme Road Chapel, mentions that a "cul-de-sac of villas was built opposite Whitworth Park, and these were later demolished for the construction of the Royal Infirmary". This description tallies with the maps.
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| O.S. map of York Place 1848-50 National Library of Scotland |
A photograph of 5 York Place (which can be seen here) shows rather dimly a large, plain semi-detached villa on three floors, possibly with a cellar, and an advertisement for one of the houses shows their appeal
Manchester Courier, 7 October 1843York Place, Oxford RoadTo be let, and may be entered upon immediately, a very Excellent Dwelling House, most pleasantly situated at York Place, Oxford Road, lately in the occupation of William Cooper, Esq. It contains dining, drawing, and breakfast rooms, six or seven lodging rooms, and every other convenience suitable for a family of respectability.Apply to Mr Wilson, Solicitor, 37, Mosley-street
Rumford Street must have been particularly convenient for John for work, for his keen pursuit of further self-education and for Rusholme Road Chapel, but York Place was perhaps only half a mile further out of town.
John was, in the true Nonconformist spirit, always eager to improve himself and learn more.
In 1841, soon after he started work, he noted in his log book that he had bought himself a tool chest. (His daughter Mary remembered how he later taught his children to use the tools and made them their own workshop in the cellar.)
In 1842 he made a note of buying chemicals, so he must have been making experiments. Perhaps he had been inspired by going to a lecture – it seems very likely that he joined the Manchester Athenaeum.
He certainly was at the Athenaeum's Grand Soirée at the Free Trade Hall on Peter Street on Thursday 4 October 1844 – this was the brick-built Free Trade Hall of 1842, not the monumental building of 1853.
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| Benjamin Disraeli as a young man |
It was a grand occasion, attended by 3,000 ladies and gentlemen and all the great and good of Manchester, representatives of the Mechanics' Institutions, the libraries, the literary institutions and the local Literary & Philosophical Societies. The Manchester Times of 5 October 1844 reported in detail the speech of the chairman, the Conservative MP and future Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81). He extolled the aims and achievements of the Athenaeum (its news room – library – lectures – classes in modern languages – debating society – gymnasium) and he exhorted the youth of the town, calling on them to "aspire":
The youth I address have duties peculiar to the position which they occupy. They are the rising generation of a city unprecedented in the history of the world – a city that is at once powerful and new…The elders of their community have not been remiss in regard to their interests: let them remember that when the inheritance devolves upon them, they are not only to enjoy but to improve. They will some day succeed to the high places of this great community: let them recollect, then, who lighted the way for them; and when they have wealth, when they have authority, when they have power, let it not be said they were deficient in public virtue and public spirit. When the torch is delivered to them let them be always ready to light the path of human progress to educated men!(Loud and long continued cheering)
In 1842 John went to a lecture by James Braid (1795-1860) who was a Scottish-born, Manchester-based surgeon, known for his innovative treatment of conditions such as club foot. Braid was lecturing on what was then known as "Animal Magnetism", which he approached from the point of view of science, pioneering the use of hypnotism and hypnotherapy as a useful remedy.
in June 1842 John went to a lecture by the Revd John Curwen (1816-80). Curwen was a Congregationalist Minister who advocated a Tonic Sol-fa method of teaching sight-reading, which he had adapted from earlier systems, including that of Sarah Ann Glover (that is, Do-re-mi with hand signals).
John's attendance might have been inspired by recent developments at the Rusholme Road Chapel.
Note: The 1848-50 maps of York Place and Rumford Street can be examined on National Library of Scotland Map Images at Georeferenced Maps (search under England and Wales, Town Plans for Manchester, OS 1:1,056, 1848-50)
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