Celebrating Burnage Garden Village
Resource Booklet and Exhibition Catalogue Martin Dodge and Alison Ronan
Building Manchester’s pioneering Edwardian model for better housing
Acknowledgments
CA
L SOCIETY
MANCHESTER
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The exhibition was developed with the generous help of Vicky Jolley (Manchester School of Architecture) and Lois Smith. The curators wish to thank the Management Committee of the Manchester Tenants Ltd. The exhibition was made possible with the generous help of Alison McCartan and Ken Walker, Burnage Garden Village and the enthusiastic support from Sarah Hobbs and Larysa Bolton (Manchester Archives+). Excellent technical help was provided by Jim Backhouse (B15 model workshop, UoM), Nick Scarle and Graham Bowden (Cartographic Unit, UoM) and Donna Sherman (University of Manchester Library). Antoinette Hunter, John McCrory and Amanda Wait provided vital access to original material on Burnage Garden Village. Peter Warrington provided great assistance in photographing, scanning and sharing material. Financial support from School of Environment, Education and OGRAP Development, University of Manchester and the Manchester GE Geographical Society was vital to production of materials for the exhibition and printing of the booklet.
This work is released under a Creative Commons Attribution– NonCommercial–NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. 10 April 2019.
The Manchester Guardian, 20th September 1906
Resource Booklet and Exhibition Catalogue
CONTENTS Preface 2 Introduction 3 Bygone Burnage
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Ebenezer Howard and the ethos of Garden Cities
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The need for better housing
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Initiation of Burnage Garden Village
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The evolving layout of Burnage Garden Village
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House designs
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First residents of Burnage Garden Village
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Further reading
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Burnage transformed
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Resources 24 Exhibition: Cabinets
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Exhibition: Posters
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Exhibition: Models
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The Manchester Guardian, 12th January 1907
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Preface After serving on the Committee since 2013 I was elected Chairman in 2016 until I chose not to be re-elected in April 2019, but I have been involved on the Village since being employed as a plumber in 1968. As you can imagine there has been many changes in that time but the ethos of the Village is still the same. A Company Secretary and Estate Manager along with assistants are employed working alongside a voluntary 12-person Committee elected by the shareholders every 18 months. There is still a Social Section Committee who oversee the running of social events. The Village is still totally private with no outside funding with each household owning £100.00 of shares. Although many improvements have been made it still remains a Garden Village with trees and grass verges all around the Village and a very popular place to live with modern amenities. Ken Walker, March 2019
Tressland Popham Crowther, a photographer who lived in the Village and was one of its earliest residents, wrote in the 1950s, “I live in a crazy place called a Garden Village. It is one of the few left intact after a spurt of enthusiasm before 1914. Why crazy? In the first place we have sacked the landlord. That doesn’t mean we don’t pay rent – but not so much as we should be paying if we had a landlord. It’s crazy to think that if the place belonged to an old fashioned landlord, we should all be paying much more rent than we do now. Just think for a moment – 140 rents could be increased by say, an average of 10/- per week. That would be £70 per week extra income, if only we had the decency to let some experienced landlord run the business for himself. Just think what a landlord could do with an extra £70 per week. In time he could buy himself a peerage. The place is run by a committee of twelve – all tenants. Eleven men and one woman! She is a housewife. Of the men, there is a schoolmaster, a teacher, a traveler, a GPO official, a warehouseman, an insurance manager, a corporation official, a herbal practitioner and a clerk – and three are now retired. Nothing extraordinary in this assembly! All in good jobs and steady men of good report – Socialists, Liberals and Tories – various religions and some with none. But here lies the craziness. These twelve citizens actually control the whole business of running the estate of over 11 acres and 144 houses for a paltry fee of £25 per annum. No not £25 each, £25 the lot including the Chairman. Crazy! Ah but you say, what about expenses? Not even a cigarette or an acid drop adorns the table at the weekly and monthly committee meetings. I have often thought that describing ourselves as committee rather a Board of Directors has been the cause of our inferiority complex. By now you will be convinced that there in it. Sensible men don’t work for nothing, you say. That’s the point – we are not sensible – we’re crazy!” 2
Introduction This booklet supports a small exhibition celebrating the development of Burnage Garden Village after 1906. It is the culmination of a partnership between the University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, the Manchester School of Architecture and the management committee of Manchester Tenants’ Ltd. The collaboration grew out of parallel interests in 2018, with Alison Ronan researching the early tenants of the Village, many of whom were involved in the radical politics of the early twentieth century, while Martin Dodge was interested in the original plans of the Burnage estate. In conceiving the project they have great help from Victoria Jolley who was researching the urban planning of the period, especially in relation to the work of Raymond Unwin and the Garden City movement. We decided early on that we would put together a small exhibition, and a year ago we booked three small display cases in the Radical Manchester section of Archives+ in the Central Library in Manchester. We recruited a volunteer, Lois Smith to help us, and worked fruitfully with a community project based in Burnage Library, gathering more information from local archivist John McCrory and community worker Amanda Wait. The exhibition was launched in Central Library on Saturday 2nd March 2019 with over 60 people attending; many were residents of the Village with tales to tell. They were fascinated to see facsimiles of the original maps and architectural drawings of the house designs and intrigued by some of the unknown histories of the Burnage estate. This has been a truly collaborative project, with all the partners learning from each other and making a small but memorable and informative exhibition which celebrates Burnage Garden Village. Thank you Alison Ronan and Martin Dodge, April 2019
Dr Martin Dodge is Senior Lecturer in the Geography Department at the University of Manchester. He completed his PhD at University College London and has previously worked at Cardiff University and the University of Nottingham. Much of his current research focuses on historical geography and the changing socio-economic form of Manchester. He co-wrote the book Manchester: Mapping the City (Birlinn, 2018) and he has co-curated several high-profile public exhibitions about the city, including Infra_MANC (2012), Making Post-war Manchester (2016) and Celebrating Burnage Garden Village (2019). Dr Alison Ronan is Visiting Research Fellow in the Centre for Public Heritage and Public History MMU. She has worked closely with community groups over the last 5 year developing local projects about the anti-war movement in WW1 in the textile towns of East Lancashire. She is a regular speaker and contributor to local history groups and academic conferences across the country. Her current interest is in the first tenants of the Burnage Garden Village, many of whom were socialists, suffragists and conscientious objectors as well as craftsmen and journalists.
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Bygone Burnage According to William Arthur Shaw (Manchester Old and New, Volume III, Cassell and Co. 1894) “It is held to be the prettiest village anywhere near Manchester, still untouched in its cottage existence and rusticity, as it is endless in its little wealth of foliage. Its lingering life and loveliness are all the more acceptable for the progress of growth, devouring apace, which is going on all round.�
Drawn by Sarah Cobbett, from her Sketches in the Neighbourhood of Rusholme and Burnage (Geo. Faulkner & Sons, 1891).
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Excerpt from Ordnance Survey 25” maps from early 1890s. The small settlement of Burnage is evident with scattering of larger houses along Burnage Lane. The Garden Village would be built on the large field in the centre of the map (labelled ‘62’).
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Ebenezer Howard and the ethos of Garden Cities The shocking state of industrial cities, which had grown rapidly and with little planning in the nineteenth century, and suffered with chaotically arranged facilities, polluting factories jammed tight together and acres of over-crowded terraced housing, demanded solutions. One of the most influential to emerge as an utopianist model for better living condition through more effective organisation of space was offered by Ebenezer Howard. His influential book, first published in 1898, engendered the Garden City movement that sought to bring the beneficial aspects of the countryside – natural light, fresh air and green space – to urban living along with socialist notions of common ownership. Around this time enlightened industrialists like Willian Lever, with his soap works near Birkenhead and Joseph Rowntree, who ran a large cocoa factory near York, designed model villages for their workers, aiming to improve their lives with better housing, open space, allotments and communal facilities. The ideas from Garden City movement and improved housing offered to workers in places like Port Sunlight and New Earswick were influential on the initial thinking behind Burnage Garden Village. 6
Courtesy of Unilever Archives & Records Management.
Courtesy of Joseph Rowntree Archive.
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The need for better housing
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The large extent of poor housing in Manchester, forming almost a complete ring of insanitary conditions around the city centre, was well documented by campaigners in the Citizens’ Association for the Improvement of the Unwholesome Dwellings and Surroundings of the Peoples. The results were published by Thomas Marr in the 1904 with a thematic map, excerpted above, to show the geography of slums. A sample of the survey data collected on the living conditions of the poor is shown opposite. Marr would be one of prime movers in the building of Burnage Garden Village.
Initiation of Burnage Garden Village
According to Michael Harrison, “[m]any of the stockholders came from important Manchester families. The names of Renold, Broadhurst, Ryland, Simon, Fitzsimmons and Eckhard were among the first loanholders, as were those of Professors Herford, Schuster, Weiss and Toller. Reformers and philanthropists like Miss Margaret Ashton, E. A. Gaddum and T. C. Horsfall gave generously. The largest individual loanholders were Miss Rose Hyland, a local Poor Law Guardian, and the Dunkerley brothers, Frank, an architect, and Roylance, an agriculturalist.� (Source: Town Planning Review, July 1976, page 260) 9
The evolving layout of Burnage Garden Village The original housing layout for the Village was drawn up by local architect J. Horner Hargreaves in early 1907. The Hargreaves plan shown left is redrawn from the version shown in Michael Harrison’s 1976 article. The sketch of the plan shown below is taken from an architectural drawing signed by Hargreaves. Hargreaves’ proposed plan was not implemented and a revised design of the estate with markedly changed street layout is shown opposite.
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House designs A range of different types of houses were designed for Burnage Garden Village by local architects Gustave Agate and J. Horner Hargreaves. They drew upon established Edwardian suburban housing ideals, along with distinct Arts & Crafts influences of the period, to produce dwellings that focused on usable living space and natural light. Most of the 144 houses were semidetached but there were a few short terraced cottages and two detached dwellings. Rent levels were charged by size, from 5s 3d per week for the smallest to 11s 6d for the largest houses. All properties had an indoor bathroom, hot and cold running water and electricity supply.
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First residents of Burnage Garden Village There were many notable early residents of the Village and here are brief biographical details on a selection of them:
Edgar Whiteley (b. 1871) – 5 East Avenue In September 1915 the offices of the Labour Leader in Blackfriars Street Salford were raided by police. The magistrates had ordered the destruction of 127 copies of the Labour Leader which was published on the 5th August and asked ‘What we were fighting for?’
Tom Larrad (b. 1881) – 9 East Avenue Labour Councillor for Ardwick and political agent, who was very active in Labour politics in Manchester, during the 1920s and 1930s.
Dick Wallhead (1869–1934), Muriel Wallhead (1893–1983), Richard Wallhead (b. 1897) – 21 East Avenue Dick Wallhead was a member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), a journalist and lecturer. A committed opponent of World War I, he was imprisoned in 1917 under the Defence of the Realm Act. He was elected to Manchester City Council in 1919 and became Labour MP for Mythyr Tydfil. In 1914 his daughter Muriel declared herself ‘primarily as an anti-war propagandist’ for the ILP. Her friend Ellen Wilkinson (later a Labour MP) became a regular visitor to the Village. Muriel married her conscientious objector husband, James Nichol, in 1920. She entered Parliament in 1945 as the MP for Bradford, losing her seat in 1950. His son Richard was a Conscientious Objector in WW1.
Thomas R. Marr (d. 1940) – 31 East Avenue ‘Tom’ Marr came to Manchester from Edinburgh in 1898 to work at the University Settlement in Ancoats. He then established the Citizens’ Association for the Improvement of the Unwholesome Dwellings and Surroundings of the People, in 1902, which was the principal stimulus in Manchester for housing reform. He was a local councillor.
Tressland Popham Crowther – 11 South Avenue T.P. Crowther was a photographer and many early postcards of the Village bear his imprint. His son Bill was a Conscientious Objector in the Second World War. 18
John and May Dent (b. 1880) – 22 South Avenue May was a member of the Women’s Freedom League and was one of the women involved in the Milk Protest in 1916. John was a linotype print operator so he may well have worked with Edgar Whiteley at the Labour Press.
George and Annie Brickhill (b. 1871) – 33 South Avenue George was a school teacher and a committee member of the Manchester Tenants Ltd. Annie had been a teacher before her marriage. Annie was the secretary of the South Manchester branch of the Women’s Freedom League whose meetings were held in her house.
Clara Doughty (b. 1859) – 26 North Avenue Clara was a member of the Women’s Freedom League and took part in the milk boycott in 1916. Her daughter Clara was a schoolteacher and her son Joseph was pioneering mountaineer and a founder member of the Rucksac club.
Harold Wild (1896–1979) – 21 North Avenue Harold was a Conscientious Objector in the First World War. He wrote an extensive diary during the war (available at www.olioweb.me.uk/echoes).
Herbert and Maud Dean (b. 1880) – 5 West Avenue Maud was a socialist, a member of the ILP and she was a member of the Women’s Freedom League. She may well have been a one time member of the WSPU as her eldest daughter was called Christabel. Maud was one of the main protesters in the Milk Protest of November 1916. She stood unsuccessfully as a Labour candidate for Withington ward in 1922 after the resignation of Margaret Ashton.
Harry Rendell Bond (1881-1960) – 7 West Avenue Architectural sculptor who worked on the design for the Stormont Parliament buildings in Belfast and designed the sculpture on Ship Canal House, King Street, Manchester.
These addresses are shaded darker orange on the map opposite.
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1
13
31
29
26
43
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NORTH AVENUE
110
21
2
16
6
1
8
26 21
2 14
22 2
11
26
136
8
9
142
13 146
5 154
1
SOUTH AVENUE
BURNAGE LANE
1
7
Courts
124
14
Bowling Green
Tennis
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WEST AVENUE
WEST PLACE
Club
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EAST AVENUE
5
2
7
1
33
23
11
8
1
2
MAIN AVENUE
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7
Main Avenue 1. Frank BARRACLOUGH – patent agent 2. Samuel Hill FARGHER – sub postmaster 3. William John RUSACK – commerce traveller 4. John Henry JAMIESON – secretary 5. John MADDOCKS – salesman 6. Charles CLEARY – post office clerk 7. Thomas IVES – manager 8. Henry Samuel LLOYD – householder
East Avenue 1. Charles DOUGHTY – manager 3. Herbert JOHNSON – teacher 5. Edgar WHITELEY – householder 7. William PRESTWICH – householder 9. Tom BOWMAN – householder 11. Harry HALLSWORTH – clerk 13. James ROSE – bookbinder 15. Samuel FARGHER – organ builder 17. Frank Ashton CLAYTON – brass finisher 19. Frederick William GODDARD – signalman 21. Harry B GRINDON – householder 23. Ernest Arthur LEACH – newspaper correspondent 25. Mrs Mary WOLSTENCROFT – householder 27. Charles NEWTON – householder 29. John LEACH – householder 31. Thomas R MARR – clerk 33. William Arthur WARD – householder 35. Ralph BUGLARS – printer 37. Walter MARSH – clerk 2. William FLETCHER – secretary 4. Charles NEWLAND – telegraphist 6. William WILLIAMSON – clerk 8. John E WALTON – fitter 10. Henry MALAN – engraver 12. William CLEARY – engineer
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14. Harry EMBLETON – sign writer 16. John HAYWARD – electrician 16. Oscar SMALLEY – teacher 20. John Frederick FLETCHER – clerk 22. George Edward GRIERSON – traveller 24. John FOULKES – householder 26. Joseph Weston STANLEY – householder
North Avenue 1. James WILSON – householder 3. James HULMES – sign writer 5. Tom HARRISON – clerk 7. Frederick George HOOPER – clerk 9. Henry OWEN – gardener 11. Samuel Walter BARRATT – clerk 13. Arthur STEWART – electrician 15. Miss Minnie LAWTON – householder 17. William Thomas HALL – buyer 19. Wilfred T ECROYD – householder 21. Anthony BUXTON – householder 23. Mrs Annie SCOTT – householder 25. Arthur CLAYPOLE – traveller 27. Henry M RICHARDSON – journalist 29. James WILSON – engraver 31. James HOLMES – householder 33. Samuel Charles TEMPLAR – clerk 35. Arthur J WILLIAMS – PO clerk 37. Edgar MALLINSON – manager 39. John H CONOLLY – clerk 41. Edward MAWDESLEY – householder 6. Louis Harold SHAW – drysalter 8. James WYCH – tailor 10. Tom HARRISON – clerk 12. Clarence HATTON – householder 14. Isaac WOOD – school teacher 16. Benjamin BITTON – telegraphist 18. William FOULDS – musician 20. William CORBETT – auto meter inspector 22. Edwin HARRISON – householder
24. William A WILKES – police inspector 26. Mrs Clara DOUGHTY – householder
West Avenue 1. William JONES – clerk 3. Edward ASHTON – clerk 5. Herbert DEAN – draughtsman 7. Harry Rendell BOND – sculptor 9. William INGLIS – householder 11. Frederick PHILLIPS – householder 2. William BURGESS – salesman 4. Edward PRINCE – householder 6. Arthur RICHARDSON – gas inspector 8. Frederick JERVIS – mechanic 10. Frederick CROWTHER – householder 12. Herbert THORNLEY – householder 14. John EVANS – joiner 16. William H BURLEIGH – householder
West Place 1. 3. 5. 7. 2. 4. 6. 8.
Thomas GODDARD – householder Francis BEETLESTONE – shipping clerk Charles FROBISHER – electrician John BRADSHAW – householder George L ROBERTS – clerk Joseph WEBB – householder Herbert C STELFOX – process worker Joseph HILTON – clerk
South Avenue 1. John LEACH – householder 3. Henry ELLIOTT – buyer 5. William WILLIAMSON – householder 7. Mrs Emma SUTTLE – householder 9. Joseph ATKINSON – householder 11. Frederick P CROWTHER – householder 13. Robert BUTLER – machinist 15. William Philip WILLIAMS – manager
17. William JONES – householder 19. Daniel SMETHURST – wood engraver 21. Harry ROCHE – householder 23. John HILTON – clerk 25. David MICHAELS – commercial traveller 27. Oscar KUCZYNSKI – salesman 29. Charles EASTWOOD – commercial traveller 31. Frederick Mason PURCELL – householder 33. George BRICKHILL – schoolmaster 35. Samuel MALTBY – householder 2. Miss Elizabeth ROGERS – householder 4. Leonard D STREET – dentist 6. James BRAMLEY – householder 8. Ralph J EDLESTONE – insurance inspector 10. James Edward NUTTALL – householder 12. John DEAN – salesman 14. John BRADSHAW – householder 16. Mrs Emma SUTTLE– householder 18. George SCOTT – householder 20. Alfred Edward SENIOR – townsman 22. John Barlow DENT – householder 24. Charles James GLENVILLE – superintendent 26. Mrs Louisa STELFOX – householder
Burnage Lane 1. Robert B Macpherson – clerk 2. Thomas BOWMAN – householder 3. James SMITH – householder 4. John WESTON – householder 5. William Henry JONES – householder 6. Richard RAMSDALE – teacher 7. Henry Edward McMEEL – householder 8. Arthur CLAYPOLE – commercial traveller 9. John Hugh JONES – clerk 10. Cecil BIANCHI – householder
Source: Keith Jackson and Dennis Nadin, Burnage Garden Village: The First 100 Years 1906–2006.
Further reading Abercrombie P, (1910), “Modern town planning in England: A comparative review of Garden City schemes in England”, Town Planning Review, 1(1): 18-38. Birchall J, (1995), “Co-partnership housing and the garden city movement”, Planning Perspectives, 10: 329-358. Cooper A, (1998), “Burnage 1880–1905, the making of a middle-class community”, Family & Community History, 1(1): 37-55. Corbett S B, (1891) Sketches in the Neighbourhood of Rusholme & Burnage (Geo. Falkner & Sons). Harrison M, (1976), “Burnage Garden Village: an ideal for life in Manchester”, Town Planning Review, 47(3): 256-268. Harrison M, (1981), “Housing and town planning in Manchester before 1914”, in Sutcliffe A (ed.), British Town Planning: The Formative Years (Leicester University Press). Jackson K, Nadin D, (2006) Burnage Garden Village: The First 100 Years 1906-2006 (Burnage Heritage). Sampson P C, (1978) “Ebenezer’s vision”, Lancashire Life, May. Waterhouse R, (1979), “Coming into the garden suburb”, Guardian, 2 August, p.9.
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Burnage transformed Excerpt from Ordnance Survey 25� maps, 1922 edition. Burnage Garden Village is evident in the centre of the map with some additional housing on different sites along Burnage Lane.
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Excerpt from Ordnance Survey 6� map, 1933 edition. The Garden Village is surrounded on all side by large-scale municipal housing development along with several large new roads including Kingsway.
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Resources
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Exhibition: Cabinets
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Exhibition: Models The two models were the centre pieces of the exhibition. They were created especially by Jim Backhouse (B15 Senior Workshop Technician, University of Manchester) and he explains briefly the process involved. “Due to the village being constructed in 1907, all of the plans I had to work with were hand drawn. This lack of digital format drawings meant I faced a number of challenges when beginning to construct the models. All the scanned images of the original architect’s drawings I had to redraw in AutoCAD in order for some of the elements in the model to be manufactured or laser cut. Creating the digital version of the plan views and elevations took quite a long time to complete before any of the model construction work could take place. I found the roof particularly difficult to make, as there are very few original sectional drawings to study to create the correct hip and ridge angles. The 1:500 scale masterplan estate model was made from laser cut plywood, Jelutong timber blocks for the building massing and it was hand tinted using watercolour paints. The 1:100 house model was constructed from laser cut plywood, and acrylic sheet for the window details. The plywood building details and site context were hand painted with watercolour paints. Both models have a small number of scale details like people and cars made at the appropriate size.�
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The Manchester Guardian, 26th September 1910