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- Herausgeber: Merlin Unwin Books
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
Ludlow, Shropshire, is perhaps best known today for its gourmet restaurants, its famous Food Festival and its attractive Georgian and medieval market town centre. But it has a less glorious claim to fame: the working classes of Ludlow lagged far behind much of the country when it came to their living conditions and, from Victorian times to the middle of the 20th century, many lacked most of the basic comforts. Disease, especially TB, was rife, countless houses had no access to running water, and outside toilets were shared by several families. When it is remembered that Ludlow's poor households often numbered eight or more residents, the degree of deprivation becomes clearer. Yet Ludlow's working classes battled on, largely uncomplainingly, until the local council finally agreed reluctantly to building the minimum number of council houses they could get away with. This is a clear-sighted, well presented and fascinating account of the everyday lives of those living on the 'other' side of Ludlow.
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This book is dedicated to:
My maternal grandmother who was illegitimate and brought up in a small Norfolk fishing village.
My maternal grandfather who was illegitimate and whose illiterate mother gave birth while serving a sentence in Her Majesty’s Prison Cheetham Hill, Manchester (Strangeways).
My paternal grandmother who was the daughter of a village blacksmith in Aberdeenshire.
My paternal grandfather whose widowed mother died in the Aberdeen Poorhouse.
They all knew how the other half lived.
Contents
These 1885 maps of Ludlow show the concentration of back-building that resulted in the many Yards and Courts that hid behind the town’s street-scape (see Chapter 1).
1. Drew’s Court 2. Nag’s Head Yard 3. Hammond’s Yard
1. King’s Arms Yard 2. Pardoe’s Yard (?) 3. Noakes’ Yard 4. Dean’s Yard 5. Weaver’s Yard
CHAPTER ONE
The Background to Working Class Ludlow
The history of the castle, the parish church and the main buildings and institutions of Ludlow has been described in a number of publications [as has the history of many of the social, economic and political hierarchies of the town]. However, the bulk of the population of Ludlow over the centuries has largely been ignored except, perhaps, as the anonymous workers who helped make the profits on which their employers lived or who provided the services that their ‘betters’ required. This book attempts to redress this for the period 1850-1960. An attempt is made to shine a light on the housing and living conditions of the majority of the populace of Ludlow who were often forced to dwell in cramped, overcrowded, dark and damp properties with few facilities. As a result life was hard, especially for the wives and mothers who, on a limited budget, had to keep the house tidy, the family in clean clothes and ensure that food was always on the table. And all this often had to be done against a backdrop of ill health.
Ludlow’s economic boom years were in the 18th and early 19th centuries when glove making became the staple industry of the town. By 1815 there were twelve glove-makers listed employing 735 people many of whom were women and children. There were a few workshops, mainly situated behind the houses of the glove masters where the leather was cut. The pieces were then taken to the outworkers in their homes to be stitched into gloves. The shape of the working class areas of the town was now fashioned when an expansion of poor quality, cheap building, much of it speculative, took place in order to house the expanding number of these outworkers.
DINHAM BACK-BUILDING
Back-building occurred in virtually every nook and cranny in the centre of Ludlow. In 1960 this row of working class cottages, entered by a narrow, brick-paved alleyway between numbers 2 and 7 Dinham, could still be seen. They have now either been demolished or incorporated into the properties that face the street.
(Courtesy of Stanton Stephens)
This new housing tended to be built on the gardens behind the properties that faced the various streets. This in turn meant that in areas in the centre of town all available space was filled. To gain access to these buildings, as well as using paths down the sides of properties, what often happened was that a property facing a street had an alleyway built through it, often dividing it into two smaller houses. In order to have as many houses as possible on a piece of land, some of these buildings were built attached to the back of the original houses, cutting off all light and access from behind and, in effect, turning them into back-to-back dwellings. In order to build the maximum amount of properties on a limited space, many of the new cottages were also very small: either just one room up and one room down or one room down and two up.
DREW’S COURT
This is Drew’s Court just before WWI. It was entered by the side of 119, Corve Street that in 1881 was the home of Mary Drew, a dressmaker. This is typical of the many yards and courts built behind the respectable facades of Ludlow’s main thoroughfares. The poor, original quality of the buildings can be discerned in the crumbling and twisted nature of the brickwork and the ill-fitting windows. Though they had no garden space residents made do with what they had and two homemade pigeon coops can be seen attached to the wall opposite their doors. These properties now lie underneath Tesco.
(Courtesy of Lottie James)
The result of this type of building can perhaps be better understood by looking at individual streets. On the east side of Corve Street could be found four courts of cottages. These would be entered by narrow alleyways and the houses may have faced a small open space in which could be found a communal privy or privies and a wash-house. Alternatively, such outbuildings could have been erected at the end of a row of properties. Later, an outside communal water tap would have been added. Travelling down Corve Street the first court was met just before the Nag’s Head public house. This was officially known as Number 1 Court but known locally as Hammond’s Court after Herbert Hammond, a grocer who lived at No. 132. As will be seen, in most official records such as the ten-yearly census, these courts were often just recognised numerically. However, local people tended to name them after the builder or main landlord or even a tenant, sometimes notorious in reputation, who happened to live there. Because of this, the names of some yards or courts changed over time as the properties changed hands or as a new generation came into being.
KING’S ARMS YARD
This is the King’s Arms Yard in 1916. Situated behind the King’s Arms public house on the Bull Ring (now the Edinburgh Woollen Mill) it was entered by alleyways off both the Bull Ring and Tower Street. John Fury, who had a barbershop on Tower Street, was an ex-South African War veteran who is almost certainly dressed up as part of a money-raising event for soldiers at the front. He lived in the property on the left.
(Courtesy of Shropshire Museum Service)
Next in Corve Street came No. 2 Court known as the Nag’s Head Yard, followed by No. 3 Court or Drew’s Yard named after Mary Drew, a dressmaker who lived at its entrance. Finally came No. 4 Court or the Green Dragon Yard. This last yard was, in fact, one of the earliest to be built with three cottages being constructed, probably in 1772, by the innkeeper.1 A further three cottages were later added. This was a pattern seen all over Ludlow with the number of properties in the yards and courts being added to as and when someone could borrow the monies to invest in a fresh round of building. As will be seen, this meant that the cottages in many of these yards and courts, especially after a few decades had passed, had a number of different landlords some of whom did not even live locally. In times to come this would make enforcement of improvements by the authorities more difficult to achieve. On the West side of Lower Corve Street four more courts could be found. No. 7 Court was built by the Trustees of the Independent Chapel that was already there. Unsurprisingly, this soon became known as the Old Chapel Yard. Of the other three courts – Nos. 5, 6 and 8 – they appear to have been known locally at one time or another as Preece’s Court, Breakwell’s Yard and Pearce’s Court.
Upper Galdeford saw the greatest concentration of back-building. Between 1774 and 1843 over seventy properties had been built on land behind those fronting the north-west side. The positions of two are known: Page’s Yard (that later became known as the Central Hall Yard) and the Greyhound Yard. In addition, at various times there were Sheldon’s Yard, Jones’ Yard, Price’s Yard and the Tin Yard. On the south-east side could be found Shenton’s Yard where eleven cottages were built in stages between 1782-1807. This was later renamed St Stephen’s Yard.
A large amount of back-building was also seen in Lower Galdeford, an area that by the early twentieth century was to contain some of the worst housing in the borough. By 1809, on the north side where it meets Upper Galdeford, seven cottages had been built in what became known as the Three Horseshoes Yard. By the end of the nineteenth century a few of the cottages built during this back-building boom were replaced by better quality housing for the workers. Cottages built on what had been the town pound (animal enclosure) were demolished and replaced by new homes known as Pynfold Close. A similar fate awaited the seventeen cottages built between 1791 and 1835 in Warrington’s Yard, the new group of properties being named Warrington Gardens. However, on the south side, such homes were not replaced. A few could be found in Tallowfat Yard built behind a candle factory slightly uphill of where the National School would be built. Uphill from there at least nine small courts comprising two, three or four properties could be found.
A number were reached by alleyways built through the ground floor of existing houses dividing them into two smaller properties. Four were known at one time or another as Badger’s Yard, Jones’ Yard, Martha Cad’s Yard and Burnsnell’s Yard. The names of the others have been lost except the passage between what is now Nos. 100 and 104 that is named in Police records as Hince’s Yard after a Mrs Milborough Hince, a brothel-house keeper who lived there2. Finally, just where Lower Galdeford meets Tower Street, could be found six cottages that made up Weaver’s Yard situated just outside the town wall: three were built by 1782 and a further three in the first half of the 19th century.
Old Street too had its quota of yards and courts, two of them (No. 2 and 3 Courts) becoming part of the most squalid area of the town by the beginning of the twentieth century. These were Dean’s Yard, where building began in 1771 and which contained eighteen properties by the 1840s, and Noakes’ Yard. Building here began in 1802 and had fourteen dwellings by 1811. What remained of both yards was finally demolished and replaced by the Clifton Cinema that opened its doors to the public in 1937. Today it is Clifton Court. Just above these yards could be found Pardoe’s Yard (No. 1 Court) that comprised five properties. Further down the street two smaller yards also existed: Chapel Yard and Watkin’s Yard. The present Old Street below St John’s Road and Friars Walk, and thus outside the town walls, was originally known as Holdgate Fee. Here could be found Grieves’ Yard just above the Hen and Chickens public house, whilst on the western side could be discovered Davies’ Yard and Grey’s Yard, each containing up to four cottages.
OLD STREET FRONTING NOAKES’ YARD
This accident occurred in 1918 on Old Street when a traction engine timber wagon crashed into the wall of the British School. What cannot be seen is what lay behind the houses. Here could still be found one of the most notorious courts and yards in Ludlow: Noakes’ Yard or No. 3 Court that contained fourteen cottages. Just a few years earlier Dean’s Yard or No. 2 Court could also be found but since 1901 all eighteen of the cottages had been condemned and emptied of tenants.
(Courtesy of Shropshire Museum Service)
Lower Broad Street was yet another area that underwent extensive back-building. One of the earliest examples of such building took place in 1760 when William Corne, a glover, built an alleyway through the ground floor of No. 68 and built a number of cottages to its rear, presumably to house some of his outworkers. Over the remainder of the eighteenth century and through the early nineteenth century a number of such alleyways were made and properties built on the rear of those fronting the street, especially on the western side. On the eastern side, a passage was driven though a property that was then divided and is now known as numbers 9 and 11 (originally 9 and 13). This led to three new properties behind, known as Hartland’s Yard. A similar alley by the side of No. 23 led to nine cottages known originally as Sims Yard and later renamed Taylor’s Court. On the other side of the street can still be found two terraces of properties reached by passages now called Whitcliffe Terrace and the Vineyard. Similar backfilling also occurred in parts of Mill Street. Here could be found Maund’s Yard entered by a passage by the side of No 32. Named after the landlord Francis Maund, a joiner, three cottages were built before 1814 and a further three and a laundry, complete with a tall chimney, probably during the 1820s. Raven Lane, Dinham and even Broad Street, where six cottages could be reached via a passageway between two fronting shops, numbers 60 and 67, also experienced backbuilding.
PEG SELLER
Pedlars, carrying their wares from village to village and town to town were a common sight. They became so numerous that in 1871 they were required to purchase a licence in order to ply their trade. Many had a set route so that regular customers could perhaps expect them every three or four months in order that they could restock. This local pedlar is festooned with hand carved wooden clothes pegs that he is selling door to door.
(Courtesy of Shropshire Museum Service)
In order to squeeze as many properties as possible into a space and to keep building costs down, most provided only cramped living conditions. Many had just one room on the ground floor in which the family lived, ate and washed, whilst all the household chores such as cooking on the fire range, ironing and the drying of clothes and linen were carried out around them. A staircase would go up to either a single bedroom or to two small bedrooms. Some properties had a small scullery at the rear, though for many this was a luxury still to come. By the end of the nineteenth century, as will be seen in the following chapters, toilet facilities were outside and often shared, as they were to remain for many families until well into the twentieth century, whilst an indoor water supply also remained a far off dream for the majority. A description of Pardoe’s Yard at the top of Old Street in 1905, given by the Sanitary Inspector, gives a taste of the conditions that many of these courts and yards, hidden behind the main thoroughfares, were in. On his first inspection in April:
BLACKSMITH, LOWER CORVE STREET
Many local craftsmen lived and worked in their home. These could be tinsmiths, nailers or in this case a blacksmith who had his smithy by the side of his cottage in Lower Corve Street. Family members, even children, would help in the business as they were taught the trade. It was often their job to ensure coal and water was always on hand, to man the bellows or carry out any other small tasks that needed doing.
(Courtesy of Shropshire Museum Service)
‘There were five houses in the court … The (three shared) water closets were in a bad state, the drains were improperly trapped and the paving of the yard was in such a state as to be of a nuisance. There were no rainwater pipes at the rear of the property, two valley troughs discharging straight into the yard making the walls very damp.’
RAILWAY SHUNTING HORSE
By the end of the nineteenth century Ludlow’s early industries had either disappeared or were in decline. The glove industry had been eradicated by 1850 whilst by 1900 the growth of national breweries had caused the town’s malting industry to all but disappear. One new area of job expansion came with the railways. Since most goods came or went by rail many new jobs were created and ones that were full time rather than casual. As well as the need for porters, signalmen and railway labourers, the goods yard needed men to work the horses, to move the wagons and to pull the delivery carts. Here, in 1923, is one of the goods yard shunting horses with his handler.
(Courtesy of Shropshire Museum Service)
A few weeks later one of the three lavatories had become completely blocked and unusable. The cumulative result of such conditions was that ‘there was a great deal of illness in the yard amongst the children’ a situation that, as will be seen in Chapter 5, was not uncommon.3
Overcrowding was also a problem and its extent can be seen in the 1911 census. The cottages in the Greyhound Yard, off Upper Galdeford, were all one room down two rooms up. At No.103 William Cox, a railway platelayer, lived with his wife Sarah. They had had thirteen children of whom eight had survived and all still lived at home. This meant that in the two bedrooms slept the mother and father plus eight children: five daughters and three sons aged from six months to sixteen years. During the day all had to live together in the single downstairs room. At 28 Lower Galdeford James Chandler, a builder’s labourer, and his wife Anne lived in a similar sized property. They had had eight children and the six that still lived, aged from three to fifteen years, were still at home together with a two year old granddaughter. Her mother was presumably an elder daughter who had died giving birth. This meant that nine shared the two bedrooms. Further down the road at No. 41, again in a similar sized property, lived John Fury, a general labourer, with his wife Susan and their seven surviving children whose ages ranged from nine months to fourteen years together with a three year old ‘adopted’ girl. At No. 76 Edward and Alice Penny had to sleep in just one bedroom with their five children, aged one to fourteen years, whilst at No. 35 Frederick and Louisa Penny and their six children aged three months to sixteen years also shared just one bedroom. Numerous other examples of large families living in two or three roomed properties can be found in all working class areas of the town. This includes William Nash, a joiner, who lived at the three roomed 43 Lower Broad Street together with his wife Beatrice and his seven children aged between one and thirteen years.
When allied to poverty, a more intimate picture of what life in an overcrowded cottage could be like was seen in a court case heard in 1899. In a one-up, one-down property in St Mary’s Lane lived a husband and wife and their five children aged between one and eight. The landing had to be utilised as a bedroom though the bed had no bed linen. In the only bedroom the bed was covered with just two sheets and part of a counterpane. All were said to be verminous.4
Crowded conditions were still being experienced in Ludlow throughout the twentieth century and remained for many in 1960. Margaret McGarrity, who lived in Taylor’s Court off Lower Broad Street until 1952, shared one bedroom with her three siblings whilst her parents slept in the other. Joseph Griffiths, who was the youngest of eight children, lived at 42 Old Street until the late 1940s. All ten had to share two bedrooms. Bob Jones was born in 1954 in a one bedroomed cottage at St Stephen’s Yard, off Upper Galdeford, and was one of five children whilst he lived there. There was one bed and two cots in the only bedroom. ‘Me Dad got an old pram and took the wheels off it and made it into a rocking cot for one of us.’
LUDLOW WORKHOUSE
Opened in 1839 for the relief of the poor of Ludlow and the surrounding villages, Ludlow Union Workhouse was built to house 250 paupers. Its inmates mainly consisted of widows, abandoned wives, unmarried mothers, orphans, the mentally ill and the elderly. In addition, vagrants and itinerant workers who could not afford a bed for the night were given board. By 1905, when this photograph was taken, such men had to break 5 cwt. of dhustone in exchange for supper, bed and breakfast.
(Courtesy of Shropshire Museum Service)
As for Bob, as a baby, he slept on the landing in a pulled out bottom drawer of a chest of drawers. Joe Griffiths lived with his parents, one brother and five sisters, in Central Hall Yard off Upper Galdeford. They had two bedrooms. His parents had one, the two boys the other, whilst the five sisters slept in the attic space. Further down the yard, Angie Clare, Alice Pound, their two sisters and parents slept in a one bedroomed cottage until they moved to the Dodmore Estate in 1959. For a while, until his death, their grandfather also shared their limited space. John Marsh lived in a one bedroomed cottage in Lower Mill Street. His sister slept in the sole bedroom with his parents whilst he and his brother slept on the landing until he left home in 1959 to get married. George Cox was born at 8 Raven Lane where he was brought up with his two brothers and two sisters. His sisters slept in one bedroom with his parents whilst the three boys slept in the only other bedroom. As for Winifred Howard, she lived in what had been Holdgate Fee but was then 120 Old Street. At the time of the Second World War Winifred lived there with her mother, stepfather and eight siblings. They had only two bedrooms so the eldest four boys slept in one whilst the girls and the young children slept with her parents. With so much of the housing stock virtually unchanged since the nineteenth century such conditions remained for many well into the second half of the twentieth century.
A further reason for cramped living conditions was because extended families often lived together. This could sometimes mean three or even four generations living in the same house. Before the advent of the welfare state, an elderly parent, who could no longer work or had been widowed, may no longer have been able to afford to remain in their own home or, because of low wages, a married couple, sometimes with a child, would have to stay with a parent or parents-in-law until they could afford to rent a house of their own. The prevalence of extended families living together can clearly be seen using the 1911 census. In Lower Broad Street four married daughters with their husbands and children lived with their parents; four different households also had grandchildren living with them, perhaps the offspring of unmarried daughters or, more likely, because their parents’ home was too overcrowded; two homes had widowed mothers residing with the family whilst in four other households could be found a nephew or niece living, again perhaps because of overcrowding in their own home.
The same patterns of living can be seen in Lower Galdeford. Here seven households had married sons or daughters, together with their children, living with their parents. Four couples had elderly mothers or fathers living with them whilst another six couples or widows had grandchildren living with them. In two cases they were adult grandchildren. In addition, a further five households had nephews or nieces living with them.
Shared accommodation was also still prevalent after the Second World War. Eileen Jones and her brother, Bob (Rusty) Matthews, had, for a while, to share their house on St John’s Road in the 1950s with their mother’s brother, wife and young child until they could find a home of their own. This meant that Bob and his brother had to sleep on the landing on a mattress. In a cottage at the end of a small court, formerly known as Halford’s Yard, entered by the side of 19 Raven Lane, Michael Newman shared two bedrooms with his parents and six brothers and sisters. Because of the overcrowding one and sometimes two of them had to sleep at their grandmother’s, two doors away.
Yet another cause of crowded homes was a need to increase family income and to do this a number of households took in a lodger or lodgers. To find work many men had to go on ‘the tramp’. That meant that at any one time there could be scores of workers looking for weekly or even overnight lodging in Ludlow. At the northern, lower end of Corve Street a number of households took in lodgers. At the time of the 1881 census a widow and her family at No. 72 took in two boarders whilst next-door at 73 a widow and her father took in three boarders. Next door to them, at 74, a brother and sister took an entire family in as lodgers: a carpenter, his wife and two children. Just further up Corve Street at No. 89 a railway worker’s family took in three boarders as did another widow and her family at No. 106. By 1911 nothing had changed.
LANE’S ASYLUM – OLD STREET
This 1895 scene of Lane’s Asylum is interesting in a number of respects. For many years before the Victorian workhouse was built on Gravel Hill it housed the town’s poor. Pavements were then cobbled rather than paved and the road laid with crushed dhustone from the Clee Hill quarries to give carts and horses a better grip when climbing up into town. Vagrants and itinerant workers produced much of this. In exchange for overnight board and lodgings in the casual ward at the workhouse, they had to break a certain weight of stone. The road going off to the right was Frog Lane (St John’s Road) an area of poor housing where many hawkers had settled.
(Courtesy of Shropshire Museum Service)
Many families still needed the extra income lodgers could bring. The census then showed that in the cramped cottages of Lower Broad Street, lodgers could be found residing in six properties whilst in Lower Galdeford they could be found in twelve, usually just one man, though in one case a married couple were put up whilst in two homes three lodgers could be found in each. A typical example was at No. 35 where Robert Price, a nineteen-year-old auctioneer’s clerk, was now the chief breadwinner after the death of his parents. He was responsible for his two younger brothers and four younger sisters aged between four and seventeen years. The eldest sister, aged fourteen, had to keep house. Even though they had only two bedrooms, in order to supplement the family income they took in a lodger who at the time of the census was a 75-year-old travelling jobbing tailor.
With so many men and even women travelling from place to place in search of work, and therefore of lodgings, regulation was deemed to be required. In 1851 Parliament passed the Lodging Houses Act. This Act designated two types of lodging houses: nightly lodging houses where the lodger paid by the night and those lodging houses where the lodger paid by the week. The nightly or common lodging house had, under the Act, to be registered with the local authority. This registration was then subject to annual review. A locally-appointed Inspector of Common Lodging Houses, as well as the police, had the right to enter such premises at any time. The weekly lodging houses could also fall under this legislation if the council passed the relevant byelaw, but Ludlow Council decided not to, which meant that they were free from inspection.
In the year 1865/66 Ludlow had seventeen common lodging houses registered and all were in the working class areas of the town: one in Old Street, six in Holdgate Fee, two in Lower Broad Street, one in Corve Street, four in Upper Galdeford and three in Lower Galdeford. These were licensed to lodge between four and twenty-two people at an average of ten per lodging house.5 A glimpse of what lodging houses were like on the inside can be discerned from a report by the Inspector in January 1886. In four of the six properties inspected at the time three men were allocated to each bedroom. At 42 Holdgate Fee twelve men shared three bedrooms whilst at the largest common lodging house in the town at 1 Waterside, at the bottom of Holdgate Fee, twenty-four people shared just four bedrooms. Two premises required ‘a thorough cleaning’ being in ‘a dirty condition’ whilst two needed lime washing. This was to be carried out annually under the licence and was seen as a natural antiseptic and a deterrent to insects such as cockroaches. In two properties the bedrooms were deemed to lack fresh air as they had bricked-up windows while other windows just opened up onto another bedroom.6
QUARRYMEN
One expanding industry that brought local employment opportunities was that of quarrying in the Titterstone and Clee Hill areas. A number of Ludlow men were employed even though this meant at first a long daily walk from home to a quarry, many arduous hours wielding a hammer to break the stone, and then a long walk back. As the years passed cycles and buses were used to travel to work.
(Courtesy of Shropshire Museum Service)
Such lodging houses were seen as far from respectable and it was not just the lodgers who fell foul of the police. At 1 Waterside run by a couple named Pilson:
‘During the last twelve months this house has been very badly managed. Both Pilson and his wife are frequently drunk and quite incapable of looking after the house and the rough class of people they get there, and the police are frequently called there and have had a great deal of trouble.’
As a result the police recommended in 1900 that the licence should not be renewed. When the Town Council considered this request their deliberations shed some light on the numbers of itinerants passing through Ludlow looking for work. When deciding, against advice, to allow the renewal of the licence it was explained that, in their view, the closing of this lodging house would place an intolerable burden on the other lodging houses that could hardly cope as it was.7 It remained open until the 1930s.
THE TANNERY – LOWER GALDEFORD
This is the old Tannery in Lower Galdeford, finally demolished in the 1970s, along with residential properties either side, to make way for council homes. Both sides of Lower Galdeford saw backbuilding. Here, as well as the front doors to properties, could be found alleyways leading to cottages in yards behind. One can be seen on the far right of the photograph.
(Courtesy of Shropshire Museum Service)
The mass of people passing through Ludlow looking for work is further emphasised by the numbers applying to stay in the casual ward at the workhouse. If those looking for lodgings either could not find or afford them then they could
