Manchester's Multi-Ethnic Legacies And
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Exploring Greater Manchester a fieldwork guide Web edition edited by Paul Hindle GRA EO P G H IC R A E L T S S E O H C C I E N T A Y M A new guide augmenting those in the original printed edition (1998) edited by Ann Gardiner, Paul Hindle, John McKendrick and Chris Perkins Exploring Greater Manchester 19 Changing landscapes of an inner city street: illustrating Manchester’s multi-ethnic legacies and current diversity. Ian Douglas, Maureen Douglas and Nigel Lawson School of Environment, Education and Development, The University of Manchester [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Aims: This walking tour investigates traces of the multi-ethnic past of a changing urban landscape. It examines a present- day landscape whose components range from the nineteenth century immigrant heritage of Irish Roman Catholic churches and Jewish synagogues to modern churches, mosques and temples relating to the many faiths currently practised in twenty-first century Manchester. It also looks at how buildings that have served different communities for nearly two centuries have changed their functions and have heritage values and now house business or community activities that currently contribute to Manchester’s dynamism. The walk has links with two other walks in this series: Manchester City Centre Churches (Connelly et al., 2015) and Angel Meadow: the Irish and Cholera in Manchester (Busteed and Hindle, 2014). Readers may like to include Manchester Cathedral in this walk as it is close to Victoria station. This walk starts at Victoria Station, and includes Chetham’s College and Library before proceeding up Cheetham Hill Road. The Angel Meadow walk, which also starts at the station, goes down to the River Irk leaving Red Bank on the walker’s left. Details about the Cathedral are in the City Centre Churches walk. Starting point: The booking hall of Victoria Station Estimated time: 2 hours Further Information: Hartwell, C. (2001) Manchester. Yale University Press, New Haven. Parkinson-Bailey, J.J. (2000) Manchester: An architectural history. Manchester University Press, Manchester. Scantlebury, E. (1995) Muslims in Manchester: The depiction of a religious community. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 21, 425-435. Williams, B. (2008) Jewish Manchester: an illustrated history. Breedon, Derby. Maps: Ordnance Survey Greater Manchester Street Atlas (large scale city centre pages) Adshead’s twenty four illustrated maps of the township of Manchester: divided into municipal wards: Corrected to the 1st. May, 1851 (http://johannes.library.manchester.ac.uk:8181/luna/servlet/detail/maps002~1~1~340314~123176?sort=Reference_ Number%2CReference_Number%2CReference_Number%2CPage&qvq=q:adshead%2Bmaps;sort:Reference_ Number%2CReference_Number%2CReference_Number%2CPage&mi=1&trs=24) Date of Last Revision: December 2016. Introduction Long existing as an industrial district, Cheetham Hill is 1840s to the 1890s people from Eastern Europe settled in Red the home of a multi-ethnic community, a result of several Bank, where high-density terraced housing and workshops waves of immigration. Cheetham Hill was taken into the developed, immediately to the north of Victoria Station. Manchester township in 1838 as part of the first phase of More Jewish migrants arrived during the late nineteenth incorporation, at which date it was more country than town. and early twentieth centuries, fleeing the poverty and In subsequent decades, its proximity to Victoria Station persecution of continental Europe, creating a major Jewish helped it to grow into a changing, immigration-stimulated quarter. The area was the birthplace of the author Frances community. In the mid nineteenth century, the area Hodgson Burnett, the Nobel Physics Laureate J.J. Thomson attracted Irish people fleeing the Great Famine. From the and Benny Rothman of Kinder Trespass fame. Exploring Greater Manchester 1 Its rich Jewish heritage from 1840 onwards to 1920 has Wealthy Jewish households had made Cheetham Hill been well researched. In 1911, the Victoria County History a distinctive Jewish inner suburban community by 1914. reported that: Furthermore, many Jews, whose livelihood was based on the “The southern end of [Cheetham] township having a local textile workshops, lived in other parts of Manchester large Jewish population, British and foreign, there are (Clapson, 2000). From the 1890s onwards those who could nine synagogues, some of the buildings having formerly afford it started to move north up Cheetham Hill Road; been used as Nonconformist chapels. A hospital and initially to Hightown and subsequently, between 1918 dispensary have been founded, and there is a Home for Aged Jews. A Talmud Torah school has been opened” and 1939, to the new semi-detached houses of Crumpsall, (VCH, 1911). Prestwich, Whitefield or Bury or to southern suburbs such as The synagogues then were: The Great Synagogue and New Didsbury. Red Bank itself was cleared by the City engineers Synagogue, Cheetham Hill Road; British Jews, Park Place; in 1938 (Williams, 1992). Other people came in. Polish Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue; Central Synagogue, settlement in Manchester began in the area with the pre- Park Street; Rumanian Synagogue, Waterloo Road; 1939 Polish community in Manchester being concentrated Strangeways and Cracow Synagogue in Strangeways; and around Cheetham Hill and socialising in the Cheetham the North Manchester Synagogue, Bury New Road (VCH, Hill Road ‘Polskie Kolo’ (Polish Circle) Club (Scragg 1986; 1911). Bielewska, 2011). Abraham Moss Centre HIGHER BROUGHTON Rochdale Road Cheetham Hill Road HARPURHEY River Irwell Road Leicester Road Elizabeth CHEETHAM WARD Waterloo Street Street W CHEETHAM Queens Road HILL Monsall Gt. Cheetham Bury New Road Street Great Camp Map 2 COLLYHURST Clowes HMP Street Strangeways LOWER BROUGHTON River Irk River Irwell Road Cheetham Hill Road Way Rochdale Victoria Trinity Station Oldham Road MANCHESTER 0 1 km Chapel Street CITY CENTRE Map 1: Cheetham Ward, showing the area covered by this walk (Contains OS data © Crown copyright, 2016). Exploring Greater Manchester 2 The World War II blitz destroyed many buildings in Post-1950 inner-city redevelopment led to the clearance and around Cheetham Hill Road. Gradually new buildings of much inadequate housing and redundant buildings that replaced those that were damaged, but the uses of many affected the character of the ethnic communities in the area. remaining structures changed. The Jewish suburban In some cases, such as the West Indian or Jewish groups migration continued after 1945 (Clapson, 2000). When in Cheetham Hill, it encouraged dispersal to other areas: post-1945 Polish migrants arrived in Manchester, some of whilst other groups, particularly the Pakistanis, became them settled in close proximity to the existing Cheetham more concentrated in the area (Mason, 1977). In the 2011 Hill Polish community, while others bought houses in Census, Cheetham Ward as a whole (Map 1) had a total Moss Side, which was at the time the cheapest location in population of 22,562, of whom 28% were Pakistani, 28% Manchester (Bielewska, 2011). Migrants from South Asia white British and 7% white other. 48% of residents did not and the Caribbean moved into the locality during the 1950s have English as their main language, but only 8% could not and 60s. Since that time, it has attracted people from Africa, speak English well. The multi-ethnic character of the area is Eastern Europe and the Far East. well expressed in the present-day urban landscape, in the modern uses of the oldest remaining buildings, and in the diversity of religious worship across a range of buildings. Figure 1: The central block of the original station. Figure 3: The station booking hall. Figure 2: The canopy outside Victoria station which housed Figure 4: The ceramic tile wall map of the Lancashire and the Refreshment Room showing the place names. Yorkshire Railway. Exploring Greater Manchester 3 Broughton Street North Street 16 20 10 18 19 Derby Street15 Street 14 17 Bent Sherborne St 11 Street 21 Knowsley Street Blacklock St 9 Street 13 8 Empire Street 12 HMP Stocks 22 Stanley Strangeways 7 Chatley Street 6 5 St. Chad’s St Lord 23 4 Red Bank Carnarvon Street Southall Street River Irk Street Lord Street Dantzic Street 24 Cheetham Hill Road Dutton Street Julia Street Pimblett Street 3 Bury New Road Red Bank New Bridge Street Victoria Station River Irwell 1 Miller Street Rochdale Road 2 Manchester 0 250 m City Centre Map 2: Route of the Cheetham Hill Road Walk (Contains OS data © Crown copyright, 2016). Exploring Greater Manchester 4 Stop 1: Victoria Station. Stop 2: Chetham’s School and Library. The Leeds to Manchester Railway reached Manchester in In the 13th century, an easily defended bluff overlooking 1839. Originally terminating in Miles Platting, the line was the confluence of the Irk and Irwell was the site of the extended to Hunts Bank in the city in 1844. The connection manor house of the Grelley family. In 1421, a Priest’s College of the Leeds Extension Line to the Liverpool and Manchester for Manchester’s medieval collegiate church was built on Railway at Victoria Station on 1st January 1844 created a the site of the Grelley manor house. This is now one of through route between Hull and Liverpool. Passing through the most complete medieval complexes to survive in the the industrial cities of northern England, the link greatly north west of England. The college was dissolved in 1547 facilitated immigration from Eastern Europe