THE FORGOTTEN STORY OF ERNEST & SHENA SIMON AND THE CREATION OF MANCHESTER’S GARDEN CITY EXHIBITION CATALOGUE CURATED BY JOHN AYSHFORD AND MARTIN DODGE THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER SUPPORTED BY
Ernest Simon in the 1920s; Shena Simon in 1934.
Panel 24: “The Last Years of the Simons” The Nuclear Age 32
Panel 25: “The Last Years of the Simons” The Ghost of a Just Man 33 Panel 26: “The Last Years of the Simons” Citizen Shena 34 Panel 27: “Epilogue” Ernest Simon (1879-1960): Citizen of Manchester 35 Panel 28: “Epilogue” Shena Simon (1883-1972): A Long Life Spent Campaigning 36 Panel 29: “Epilogue” Wythenshawe Down the Years 37 Further Reading 38 Growth of housing in Wythenshawe 39 Exhibition photographs & launch programme 40 Acknowledgements
42 Contents 32
Introduction 4 Panel 1: The Forgotten Story of Ernest and Shena Simon and the Creation of Wythenshawe 5 Panel 2: The Scourge of Slum Housing in Manchester 6 Panel 3: The Solution – Build a Completely New Garden City for Manchester 7 Panel 4: “Before” (1879-1912) Henry and Emily Simon, and the Young Ernest 8 Panel 5: “Before” (1879-1912) Shena Potter and Social Reform 9 Panel 6: “Before” (1879-1912) The Wythenshawe Area in the Edwardian Era 10 Panel 7: “Beginnings” (1912-1922) Civic Campaigns and Family Tragedy 11 Panel 8: “Beginnings” (1912-1922) Dreams of Wythenshawe 12 Panel 9: “Beginnings” (1912-1922) Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress 13 Panel 10: “The Gift” (1922-1931) The Battle for Wythenshawe 14 Deed plan for Manchester’s purchase of the Tatton’s Wythenshawe estate 15 Panel 11: “The Gift” (1922-1931) Shena on the Council and Barry Parker’s Plan 16 Panel 12: “The Gift” (1922-1931) Ernest Enters National Politics 17 Panel 13: “Building Begins” (1931-1934) Shena Takes Charge of Construction 18 Panel 14: “Building Begins” (1931-1934) Creating a Community 19 Shena Simon’s election leaflet to voters in Wythenshawe (1934) 20 Panel 15: “Building Continues” (1934-1939) How to Abolish the Slums 21 Panel 16: “Building Continues” (1934-1939) Education, Democracy and Totalitarianism 22 Panel 17: “Building Continues” (1934-1939) Wythenshawe Starts to Take Shape 23 Panel 18: “The Second World War” The Simons and the Second World War 24 Zoning map from The City of Manchester Plan (1945) 25 Panel 19: “The Second World War” Wartime Wythenshawe & 1945 Manchester Plan 26 Panel 20: “The Second World War” Building Jerusalem 27 Panel 21: “The Post War Years” Lord Simon Becomes BBC Chairman 28 Panel 22: “The Post War Years” Education for the Masses 29 Panel 23: “The Post War Years” Wythenshawe after the War 30 Selection of covers from Wythenshawe Civic Week guide booklets (1950s) 31
Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+ page
(Above) Source: Manchester – City of Achievements (1947). (Below) Wythenshawe Hall in the mid-1950s. Source: Manchester Local Image Collection, ref. m47649.
The Simons were wealthy local politicians and social reformers who helped to realise the construction of a garden city to rehouse thousands of people from Manchester.
The Forgotten Story of Ernest and Shena Simon and the Creation of Manchester’s Garden City’
John Ayshford and Martin Dodge, July 2022.
THE FORGOTTEN STORY OF ERNEST AND SHENA SIMON AND THE CREATION OF WYTHENSHAWE Welcome
.
Who built Wythenshawe? While many people were involved in its initial formulation, planning and practical realisation, this exhibition focuses on the pivotal part played by Ernest and Shena Simon in creating Wythenshawe.
54
OF ERNEST AND SHENA SIMON AND THE CREATION OF WYTHENSHAWE
The exhibition was the joint collaboration of John Ayshford and Martin Dodge. Sharing a mutual interest in Ernest Simon’s radical ideas about how to rebuild Britain after the Second World War, we soon decided to work on a project to recount the history of Wythenshawe and recover the lost legacy of the Simons. Garnering information from scores of Manchester Guardian articles, various histories of Wythenshawe, and from weekly trips to the archives in Manchester Central Library to examine the papers of the Simons, we researched and planned the exhibition over the course of 2021 and early 2022. The exhibition, originally displayed at the Wythenshawe Forum Library and elsewhere across Manchester traces the story of Wythenshawe during the twentieth century. From a humble collection of small villages, Wythenshawe was developed as a garden city to rehouse the tens of thousands of families previously forced to live in Manchester’s inner-city slums in well-built and spacious neighbourhoods amidst green surroundings. Alongside illustrating Wythenshawe’s history, the exhibition tells the captivating lives of Ernest and Shena Simon who played a critical role Wythenshawe’s development. On 21st May 2022 the Wythenshawe Forum Library kindly allowed us to host a launch event which was attended by upwards of fifty people. During the launch attendees listened to speeches from the curators, as well as talks by Libby Edwards about the history of Wythenshawe’s old aristocratic family the Tattons, and by John McCrory on the history of slum clearance in Manchester. Old footage and photos of the Simons were shown and visitors were able to look at the many books they authored.
This catalogue has been produced to accompany the exhibition: ‘Who Built Wythenshawe?
The exhibition is curated by John Ayshford and Martin Dodge, University of Manchester. We bring together interests in the historical geography of housing development in the Manchester area and a deep fascination in the ideas and actions of Ernest and Shena; along with admiration for the sheer hard work of this overlooked partnership of social reformers! We acknowledge the positive support of the Forum Library and Manchester Archives+ and we are pleased to display the exhibition in the heart of Wythenshawe.
Halfacre Road, Benchill, late 1930s. Source: Manchester Archives+.
Drawing on historical research, documentary photographs, old maps and original records from the archives, this exhibition illustrates many notable moments in the history of Wythenshawe as Manchester’s garden city. It also traces the history of the Simons and where their lives overlapped with the development of Wythenshawe from the 1920s up to the Immediately1960s. following the end of the First World War the Simons were involved in the conception of Wythenshawe. Then largely farm land belonging to the estate of the Tatton family in Cheshire, Wythenshawe was envisaged as bold municipally funded garden city scheme to house 100,000 people with the phased development of distinct neighbourhoods over several decades. The Simons paved the way for the creation of Wythenshawe by purchasing and donating Wythenshawe Hall and its surrounding parkland for the people of Manchester in 1926. In the late 1920s and 1930s Shena was deeply involved in the practical planning of the housing development and the provision of community facilities. While the construction of homes began in earnest in the early 1930s, much of the development had to wait until after the Second World War, by which time Ernest and Shena Simon had become significant public figures on the national stage. Shena was a leading educational reformer and Ernest had been ennobled in 1947 for his public service, choosing the title Lord Simon of Wythenshawe in recognition of the Simons’ proudest achievement. We end the chronology of the exhibition in the early 1960s with the death of Ernest and the granting of the Freedom of the City of Manchester to Shena.
In conjunction to transferring the 29 exhibition boards into a published format, the booklet is illustrated with additional colourful maps, vibrant ephemera and original documents excavated from the archives. It also provides a handy list of additional printed and archival sources about Wythenshawe and the Simons that we used during our research. We hope that this catalogue will help people in Manchester and particularly those from Wythenshawe to learn more about their fascinating history and the amazing lives of the Simons. We took great pleasure whilst working on the Who Built Wythenshawe? exhibition together and hope you too can enjoy uncovering the history of the Simons and Wythenshawe in this catalogue.
The Wythenshawe we see today would not have existed without the great energy and inspiring altruism of the Simons. Yet their role in pushing for a garden city, their wider work in improving the social conditions of working people across Manchester and their fascinating personal lives are largely forgotten. There is little in the way of memorials to the Simons, but their legacy runs deep as we hope this exhibition will reveal.
Introduction
(Above) The Simons’ campaigning on the doorstep in the 1922 General election. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+..
THE SCOURGE OF SLUM HOUSING IN MANCHESTER Welcome THE SOLUTION – BUILD A COMPLETELY NEW GARDEN CITY FOR MANCHESTER Welcome 6 7
Wythenshawe’s design was based on the ideas of a garden city. These ideas emerged from Ebenezer Howard’s influential book Garden Cities of To-morrow published at the turn of the century. The ethos of a garden city was 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. It informed planning principles in terms of zoning of activity, separation of homes from factories, and in having well laid out low density residential areas composed of well-built dwellings. The first garden cities to be created were Letchworth in 1904 and Welwyn Garden City in 1920 in Hertfordshire.
(Above) Courtesy of Unilever Archives & Records Management. (Above) Idealised model of better urban planning in Howard’s book, Garden Cities of To-morrow (1902).
Howard’s ideas pervaded early developments in town planning and were particularly appealing to campaigners in crowded industrial cities looking for ways to re-house thousands of working people in a better environment, not least Ernest Simon. He hoped that Manchester could be expanded so as “to develop either selfcontained garden cities or dormitory cities with express transport to the centre of Manchester, and to transfer to those cities large portions of the population now forced to live in slums.”
(Above) The vast ring of poor quality ‘slum’ housing power visualised by T.R. Marr in this map. Source: Housing Conditions in Manchester and Salford (1904). Dense terraced housing around St Mary’s Church in Hulme, 1926. Source: Manchester Local Image Collection, ref. m67728.
Several decades later Reverend Mercer (1897) in his article The Conditions of Life in Angel Meadow spoke to the correlation between poor people’s lives and the places they were forced to dwell, “Do the slums make the dwellers in them, or do the dwellers in them make the slums? The truth, as usual, would seem to lie halfway between these extreme views … a vast amount of preventable misery and degradation, and its conditions are due, not to the characters and habits of the [area] alone, but obvious defects in social machinery.”
Around the same time model settlements like Port Sunlight, built by billionaire industrialist Lord Leverhulme for the workers in his soap factory near Birkenhead, were powerful archetypes of spacious housing with gardens and allotments. More immediate to Manchester in the Edwardian period a number of experimental small garden suburbs and estates were constructed, including ones at Burnage and Chorlton near to the Simons family home in Didsbury. Manchester Corporation’s first foray in municipally funded suburban housing was a small estate of 150 cottage houses at Blackley built in 1904 but this scheme was tiny in relation to the scale of problem. To progress further and rehouse tens of thousands, along the lines of the first garden city at Letchworth, Manchester City Council needed much more space for low density town planning. Flat open farm land just across the Mersey River in Cheshire seemed to be the ideal choice, if only it could be acquired and developed.
(Above) Courtesy of the Management Committee of the Manchester Tenants Ltd.
The engineering workshops and spinning mills across Manchester made some people rich but produced a landscape of poverty for many factory workers. The rapid growth of the city was largely unplanned and it created a disorderly patchwork of factories, warehouses, canals and railways, gasworks, and clusters of small houses and terraces. While the affluent minority were able to move further away into the suburbs, those living around the industry and transport suffered from overcrowded conditions, pollution and had little open space. Some of the most notorious slums with terrible live expectancy due to insanitary conditions were Little Ireland and Angel Meadow. Friedrich Engels described Little Ireland in his 1845 work The Condition of the Working Class in England: “In a rather deep hole, in a curve of the Medlock and surrounded on all four sides by tall factories and high embankments, covered with buildings, stand two groups of about two hundred cottages, built chiefly back-to-back, in which live about four thousand human beings, most of them Irish. The cottages are old, dirty, and of the smallest sort, the streets uneven, fallen into ruts and in part without drains or pavement; masses of refuse, offal and sickening filth lie among standing pools in all directions; the atmosphere is poisoned by the effluvia from these, and laden and darkened by the smoke of a dozen tall factory chimneys. A horde of ragged women and children swarm about here, as filthy as the swine that thrive upon the garbage heaps and in the puddles…The race that lives in these ruinous cottages... must really have reached the lowest stage of humanity.”
HOUSING IN MANCHESTER
(Above) The practical case for low density housing to allow daylight made in the influential Tudor Walters Report (1918). (Above) Source: Modern Housing in Town and Country (1905).
The slum problem had emerged in large part because of a lack of regulations over housing conditions. Ernest Simon explained how private builders maximised profit with little concern for their inhabitants: “The housing of the working-class population was undertaken by the speculative builder… He could, and did, in the poorest districts, crowd as many houses on to an acre as the space could be made to hold… He could build his houses back-toback, or blind–i.e., with no doors or windows at the back. He was under no necessity to provide yards or air-space round the houses, or to put in a damp-proof course…. Windows might be the smallest size possible, and often were not made to open.”
(The Rebuilding of Manchester, 1935)
Newgates, Corporation Street, 1908. Source: Manchester Local Image Collection, ref. m75639.
BUILD A COMPLETELY NEW GARDEN CITY FOR MANCHESTER
The worse industrial slums and mean rows of Victorian terraces were giving way to better Edwardian workers’ housing by the early 1900s but the sheer scale of the existing problems needed a step-change in municipal activity to provide decent housing for tens of thousands of families in Manchester.
SLUM
SHENA POTTER AND SOCIAL REFORM ERNEST AND SHENA’S BACKGROUNDS AND WYTHENSHAWE BEFORE PLANS FOR HOUSING DEVELOPMENT 1879-1912 BEFORE
Henry Simon. Source: The Simon Engineering Group (1947).
Shena Dorothy Potter was born in 1883 in Croydon. Her parents Jane Boyd and John Wilson Potter came from families linked to the shipping industry. In 1904 Shena went to Newham College in Cambridge and studied economics. Like other female students at the time, however, Shena was not entitled to full university membership at Cambridge and had to travel to Trinity College Dublin to receive her degree in 1907. Following Cambridge Shena embarked on a doctorate at the London School of Economics. Here she began her passionate lifelong engagement as a social reformer. Shena investigated industries which chiefly employed poor women workers, travelling to Australia and New Zealand to learn about conditions there. Shena also worked for the National Union of Women Workers under Margaret MacDonald, wife of future Labour Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald. From 1911-12 she was actively involved with the NUWW in campaigning to ensure that women’s interests were represented in the new National Insurance legislation. A keen supporter of female suffrage Shena found that chief difficulty in their campaign was the fact that women could not directly influence MPs.
Ernest Simon diary, 20th July 1912
BEFORE
Ernest Darwin Simon was born in October 1879, the second of Henry’s eight children. He attended the prestigious private Rugby School alongside the sons of family friend and editor of Manchester Guardian newspaper C.P. Scott and graduated from Cambridge in 1901 with a firstclass degree in engineering. Ernest was a bright, yet shy student; his introverted and introspective nature would mark his character into manhood. After university Ernest joined his father’s businesses, rising rapidly and taking charge of both companies by 1910. Ernest worked diligently in business but looked beyond the world of engineering and moneymaking. Indeed, when Henry Simon died in 1899 he asked his children ‘to understand that the only justification for man’s existence is that he or she will undertake useful work’, a message Ernest took to heart for the rest of his life. I often wonder what effect my shyness has had on my character. I was till recently abnormally and extraordinarily nervous. At school I was hopelessly ragged, because I never dared to answer. I used to put my waistcoat on before my tie; because ties being I suppose new to me, I was afraid of tying mine in the wrong way. When shaving began, I went up at secret times so as not to be seen… I never had the courage to laugh till I was 28! Ernest Simon diary, 1911 Source: Ernest Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. PLANS FOR HOUSING
Source: Ernest Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
Shena in 1912. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
Henry’s success in business enabled him to become a keen philanthropist. He donated generous sums to Owens College, the precursor to the University of Manchester, and saved the Hallé Orchestra in a time of desperate financial need. Henry also helped to set up the Manchester Labourers’ Dwellings Company and the Manchester Pure Milk Supply Company to improve the housing of the working class and to prevent infants contracting tuberculosis from infected milk, issues that Ernest would later ardently campaign for. In 1878 he married Ernest’s mother Emily Stoehr. After Henry’s death Emily helped to establish a garden suburb for Didsbury and ran the large family home, Lawnhurst as a hospital during the First World War for which she was awarded an OBE.
The Simon family in 1898 at Lawnhurst. From left: Henry and Ernest; Emily is fifth person. Source: Brian Simon, In Search of a Grandfather: Henry Simon of Manchester, 1835-1899 (1997).
REFORM 8 9
The company headquarters on Mount Street in central Manchester, 1929. Source: SSPL/Getty Images. Emily Simon (Née Stoehr) during the First World War. Source: The Simon Engineering group (1947) Ernest at Cambridge University. Source: Ernest Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. Henry and Emily Simon, and the Young Ernest
The story of the Simons begins with Ernest’s father Henry Simon. Henry was born in 1835 in Brieg in Prussia, now Brzeg in Poland. In 1860 Henry moved to Manchester and established himself as pioneering industrialist, revolutionising the milling of flour for bread and production of coking coal in Britain.
ERNEST AND SHENA’S BACKGROUNDS AND WYTHENSHAWE BEFORE
DEVELOPMENT
Ernest met Shena at a party in Didsbury and by July they were engaged. In a letter to Ernest seven years later Shena reminisced how: ‘The Insurance Act came into force on Saturday 12th and I came back from a lecturing tour in Devonshire that night and on Sunday I went to Oxford’. Ernest proposed out on the river, but it seems it may have not gone entirely to plan as Shena recalled as ‘on the Wednesday – today – we upset the canoe’ Marrying in November, they spent their honeymoon travelling to France, Italy and Monaco. Their union marked the beginning of decades of joint public service which would earn them the title the Simons of Manchester. Ernest was overjoyed with the engagement: So I have lost an appendix & found a wife! It would have come any how, but the chance of being together in Oxford & really seeing something of one another settled it at once. I have felt ever since we met at the Eckhards in February that it was coming. I always imagined ‘love at first sight’ could mean nothing but physical love–which is the very least it meant in this sense. It was purely mental attraction, a feeling that here at last was the women with whom I could live & be in real sympathy & companionship’.
(Above) An example of Shena Potter’s early campaigning to improve the position of women in society.
The extended Potter family in 1931. Ernest is standing, second left and Shena is seated, fourth from the left. Shena’s parents are seated in the centre. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
Ernest and Shena Simon family tree Henry(1835-1899)Simon John W. (1856-1933)Potter Other siblings 43brotherssisters Shena D. (1883-1972)Potter Emily Ann (1858-1920)Stoehr Jane Boyd(1861-1946)Thompson Ernest D. (1879-1960)SimonBrian(1915-2002)Simon Antonia(1917-1929)SimonRoger(1913-2002)Simon Other siblings 44brotherssisters M ied 1879-1912 SHENA POTTER AND SOCIAL
1879-1912 BEFORE WYTHENSHAWE AREA IN THE EDWARDIAN ERA 1912-1922 BEGINNINGS CIVIC CAMPAIGNS AND FAMILY TRAGEDY 10 11
(Above) Excerpt from Ordnance Survey 6 inch map, published in 1911, covering part of Wythenshawe. Source: National Library of Scotland. At the beginning of the twentieth century the Wythenshawe area could not have been a more different place to its industrial northern neighbour. A rural part of northern Cheshire, Wythenshawe comprised three main small settlements Northen Etchells, Northenden and Baguley. Northenden and Baguley were first mentioned in the Doomsday book in 1086, with the name Wythenshawe (Willow-Wood) first being used in 1316. Much of Wythenshawe was held for hundreds of years by the aristocratic Tatton family.
Ernest Simon’s diary, 20th August 1915
Source: Ernest Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+
(Right) The Smokeless City was co-written with Marion Fitzgerald who worked with Ernest in combatting smoke pollution in Manchester. Fitzgerald, who was also involved in the Manchester and Salford Women Citizens Association, was a leading member of the Manchester and Salford Better Housing Council and provided valuable research for Ernest’s books How to Abolish the Slums (1929) and The Rebuilding of Manchester (1935). (Left) Logo of the journal of the Manchester and Salford Women Citizens Association, founded in 1917. Shena played an instrumental editorial role in the journal in its early years. Source: University of Manchester Library.
By the turn of the twentieth century there were signs of modernisation and growing links with Manchester. Better transportation saw more houses appearing in Northenden as people began to settle there to commute to Manchester either by omnibus or by bicycle. 1898 saw the first car owner in Wythenshawe and 1910 the first motorised bus service to and from Manchester. Many workers from Manchester travelled south to enjoy the countryside in Wythenshawe, visit its pubs and cafes and go boating on the meandering River Mersey. Despite these changes Wythenshawe area retained much of its rural and oldfashioned character, for instance one of the first picture-houses to open was adjacent to a blacksmith in TheNorthenden.Simons’connection with Wythenshawe began at the same time in the early 1900s. Henry Simon, in one of his last acts of last acts of philanthropy, gifted funds for an iron footbridge to connect Didsbury to the Cheshire side of the Mersey. The bridge built in 1901 served to allow easy access for the people of Didsbury to allotments and saved a long journey via Northenden. Henry’s generosity thus resonates with Ernest and Shena’s later work in connecting Manchester with Wythenshawe.
(Above) Scenes of rural Wythenshawe at the turn of the century, a still predominantly a landscape of small farms, labourers’ cottages and halls of the Cheshire gentry. Source: Manchester Archives+, ref. m49074, m36238, m43596, DPA/1631/21.
These years also saw the birth of the Simons’ three children, Roger in 1913, Brian in 1915, and Antonia in 1917. The 1910s, also witnessed terrible events for the Simons. All three of Ernest’s younger brothers were killed whilst serving during the First World War. Ernest’s diary records the first tragic death of his brother Eric in 1915. With the war nearing a close the Simons felt that their work in social reform was more important than ever. Shena wrote to Ernest in October 1918: “The only way we can repay the world for our great good fortune, especially in view of the innumerable lives spoilt for ever by the tragedies of the war, is to do everything in our power to make the world a better place for the coming generation”.
WYTHENSHAWE AREA IN THE EDWARDIAN ERA
(Below) Source: Manchester Local Image Collection, ref. m7755. (Above) A snapshot into the past: the extended Tatton family at the turn of the Twentieth Century. The picture entitled Wythenshawe shows the Tattons at the front of Wythenshawe Hall in 1898. Courtesy of Libby Edwards.
The 1910s saw the Simons cement their position as leading social reformers in Manchester. Ernest was elected as a Liberal councillor for Didsbury and made it his priority to tackle the air pollution plaguing the city. In 1911 Ernest had become honorary secretary of the Smoke Abatement League of Great Britain and in 1912 he helped to found its Manchester branch.
CIVIC CAMPAIGNS AND FAMILY TRAGEDY
(Below) The 1921 Census record for the Simon household at “Broomcroft” in Didsbury illustrates their affluence or “great good fortune”. They had five live-in servants, as well as a chauffeur. Source: Findmypast.co.uk.
Shena and Ernest with their first son, Roger (1913). Source: Shena Simon papers, Manchester Archives+.
Meanwhile in 1914 Shena helped to found the Manchester and Salford Women Citizens Association. Shena outlined the aim of the association in the feminist journal Common Cause in July 1916: ‘To create in each ward of the city a centre to which all women municipal voters can attach themselves, and which, by means of meetings, lectures, and the diffusion of information generally, will educate women to realise the power they possess as voters to press for the better consideration of all municipal affairs, and especially those that affect women and children’. In these positions of civic prominence they campaigned together on pressing municipal issues, foremost the high rate of infant mortality in Manchester. Between 1914 and 1915 Ernest, using his position on the council’s sanitary committee, and Shena, with the Women Citizens Association, successfully lobbied the council to create maternity centres to provide services for mothers and children to curb infant mortality. A decade later Ernest recorded in his book A City Council From Within (1926) how infant mortality had been reduced by nearly a half thanks in part to these centres.
He said he was not afraid of the risk of being killed, but he could not bear the thought of killing. He had definitely given up shooting, & would kill only vermin. I urged him to do Red Cross, & join the Friendly Ambulance unit, or something similar – but after half accepting… he took a commission in the 2/5 Lancashire Fusiliers; went out in May; wrote cheerfully to Mother last Sunday; & now all we know is that he is dead.
“The estate generally is admirably suited for building development, and undoubtedly ranks as one of the finest sites within the county of Cheshire… If laid out on sound and broad town planning lines it would form one of the finest garden cities in the United Kingdom, affording a residential district for the working-classes of Manchester sufficiently removed from the smoky atmosphere of a large industrial centre, yet within easy access, where the people would be housed in the midst of delightful surroundings”. Excerpt from Report of City Surveyor taken from The Rebuilding of Manchester by Ernest Simon and J. Inman. (1935). Nov 6. I was awake for nearly four hours last night – an unprecedented thing – from sheer excitement. My unopposed return to the City Council, followed by the extraordinary Labour wins, which have corrected a 30 year old Tory majority into a working Progressive majority, opens up vistas of useful & even thrilling work which I can hardly yet grasp… I have every hope of becoming Chairman of the Housing Committee, with a sympathetic Council.
1912-1922 BEGINNINGS DREAMS OF WYTHENSHAWE 1912-1922 BEGINNINGS LORD MAYOR AND LADY MAYORESS 12 13
In November 1921 Ernest and Shena became the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Manchester and were determined to use their positions to promote causes dear to their hearts. Ernest used his opening speech upon becoming Lord Mayor in November 1921 to urge Manchester’s citizens to take a greater interest in civic affairs so as to replicate the ancient Athenians and their triumphs. Central to this was Ernest’s hope that developing garden cities for Manchester ‘to transfer to those cities large portions of the population now forced to live in slums’ would ‘do much to stimulate… a keener civic spirit among the citizens’. Shena too wasted no time as Lady Mayoress to improve the position of women in the city. Within the first fortnight of becoming Lady Mayoress, in a deliberate political gesture, she turned down a request to distribute Christmas presents at St Mary’s hospital. Dismayed by the fact that there were no women involved in managing the hospital specifically for women and children, Shena’s refusal sparked a tide of interest in the press. On Christmas eve Ernest reflected on their term so far:
Shena’s position was vindicated when in March the following year the management conceded and appointed two women to its board. This victory was overshadowed, however, by Ernest falling very ill with pneumonia in February. Ernest wrote in his diary how he was ‘kept alive by brandy & morphia & hourly doses of oxygen’. Ernest returned to mayoral duties in May, using his recuperation to finish his first book The Smokeless City. Alongside helping Ernest through his illness, Shena continued her busy work as Lady AsMayoress.LadyMayoress Shena actively encouraged more women to participate in civic affairs to help address the problems facing women. Shena believed that new municipal homes with modern amenities built away from factories, pollution and dirt would help to end the tyrannical demands of housework and allow women to begin to take their place as citizens.
Source: Ernest Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+
The report, heavily influenced by garden city architect Raymond Unwin, called for new working-class houses to be well-spaced apart, well-lit by sunlight, and to have good ventilation, a garden and a bathroom. In December Manchester-born David Lloyd George was elected Prime Minister on a pledge to build “Homes Fit for Heroes”. His government introduced the Addison Act 1919 which gave local authorities such as Manchester City Council the means to build houses for the working-class.
(Above) Shena’s refusal to give out Christmas presents at the women’s hospital makes the headlines. The Daily Sketch 26th November 1921. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. (Above) Daily Dispatch 13th February 1922. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
(Below) Ernest and Shena visiting a hospital children’s ward (1922). Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. (Above) Source: The Manchester Guardian 25th July 1922, p.11.
DREAMS WYTHENSHAWEOF
(Left) The ‘Father of Wythenshawe’: William Turner Jackson. Jackson is photographed here as Lord Mayor in 1923. Source: Manchester Local Image Collection, ref. m73579. (Above) Excerpt from the Wythenshawe Estate Report of Professor Abercrombie, March 1920. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
(Below) The practical case for low density housing to allow daylight made in the influential Tudor Walters report (1918). Baguley Sanitorium in 1916. Source: Manchester Local Image Collection, ref. m52568.
The close of the First World War witnessed major developments in housing reform. In 1918 the Tudor Walters report was published.
The committee wasted no time in instructing the City Surveyor as well as the leading academic town planner Patrick Abercrombie to produce reports on the possibility of the council developing Wythenshawe. The reports produced in December 1919 and March 1920 could not have been more exciting for Jackson and Ernest who hoped to turn their dreams into reality. Not long after in 1921 the Council resolved to purchase Wythenshawe.
Ernest Simon’s diary, 24th December 1921 Source: Ernest Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+
Ernest Simon’s diary, 6th November 1919
We are immensely enjoying our year of ‘morality’, as a provincial mayor has called it. Shena complains that she does all the bazaars & I get all the dinners! It has all gone well so far, the only stunt being Shena’s ‘No’ to St Mary’s hospital, when asked to distribute Xmas presents. She refused because there were no women on the board or staff; & there was a regiving press campaign for a fortnight. It was a border line case; but proved a great success & I think did good. Everybody (except the men doctors!) falls in love with Shena wherever she goes; as for me I have managed the ceremonial side better than I expected.
Towards the end of their tenure in October 1922 Ernest reiterated the demand for a garden city for the citizens of Manchester to applause at the Town Hall. The realisation of Manchester’s garden city, however, was to prove far from straightforward.
Around the same time the idea of building a garden city for Manchester had arisen in the mind of William Turner Jackson. Jackson was a Labour councillor, later alderman, originally from Nottinghamshire and was chairman of the sanitary committee. As chairman he worked with the Simons to create municipal maternity centres and combat air pollution. His role on the council meant that he often visited Baguley Sanitorium, and it was from these trips that he envisaged developing housing along garden city lines in Wythenshawe in early 1919. Ernest was captivated by the idea and publicly supported Jackson’s vision. Soon after in November that year Ernest was reelected as councillor for Didsbury and was chosen as chairman of the new housing committee which Jackson was part of too. Ernest noted his delight at the possibilities this afforded: With the new ability given to councils to build houses Ernest hoped “to make Manchester Housing scheme the best in the country: to do a bit of constructive Socialism by showing that a municipality can build houses”
LORD MAYOR AND LADY MAYORESS
(Above) The deed plan for the purchase of Wythenshawe Hall and grounds by the Simons. Source: Legal Records Centre, Manchester City Council. BATTLE FOR WYTHENSHAWE
1514
(Right)ShenaSource:SimonPapers,ManchesterArchives+.
The deed plan for Manchester’s purchase of the Tatton’s Wythenshawe estate (highlighted in red).
(Above) The deed plan for the purchase of land (highlighted in red) of the Tatton’s Wythenshawe estate by Manchester Corporation. Mostly farming and open pasture land, it comprised 2,568 acres across the Cheshire parishes of Baguley, Northenden and Northen Etchells. Source: Legal Records Centre, Manchester City Council.
THE BATTLE FOR WYTHENSHAWE
The purchase of Wythenshawe by the council did not give the green light for the construction of Manchester’s garden city however. While Manchester owned the land, it did not have administrative authority over Wythenshawe. To resolve this issue the council sought sanction from Parliament to extend the boundaries of Manchester so as to give the city control over Wythenshawe. In 1930 a committee of MPs decided that the local Cheshire councils were unable to provide the infrastructure required for the housing development. They thus decided that Manchester should have control, with Parliament giving Manchester the requisite authority over Wythenshawe in the autumn. It would increase the size of the city by about a quarter, with the addition of some 5,567 acres of land which was larger than Salford at the time. The struggle for Wythenshawe was thus over and on midnight 1st April 1931 Wythenshawe was incorporated into Manchester. (Right) Graph presented by Manchester’s Medical Officer of Health during the 1930 parliamentary committee hearing to demonstrate the contrasting levels of daylight in Manchester and Timperley next to Wythenshawe. The prevailing winds meant Wythenshawe was unaffected by the smog from Manchester’s factories. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
(Above) Ernest’s letter to the Manchester City Council expressing the Simons’ wish to give Wythenshawe Hall and park to the people of Manchester. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
(Left) A single paragraph on the Manchester Guardian’s frontpage thedecisionsummarisedsuccinctlyamomentousthatwouldreshapecity.Source: Manchester Guardian 6th May 1926, p.1.
(Below) There were strong views opposing the purchase of Wythenshawe estate for housing by Manchester Corporation. Source: Manchester Guardian 6th January 1926, p. 11.
The birth of Manchester’s garden city was protracted and politically difficult. It would take over twelve years from William Turner Jackson publicly announcing his idea to develop Wythenshawe as a garden city in 1919 before the area would become officially part of Manchester. The first immediate obstacle was the refusal of the landowner Thomas Egerton Tatton to sell his Wythenshawe estate to the council. This was overcome, however, when he died in 1924. The emergence of the possibility of developing Wythenshawe only led, however, to serious wrangling within Manchester City Council over whether to undertake the expensive purchase of Wythenshawe. With no real progress being made, Ernest and Shena took a decision which would prove pivotal to the future of OnWythenshawe.the8thApril 1926 the Simons announced to the Lord Mayor and the council that they were about to purchase Wythenshawe Hall and 250 acres of its surrounding parklands, and that they would donate their acquisition to the council for use as a beautiful open space for the citizens of Manchester. Their shrewd private purchase, which cost over £25,000, the modern equivalent of nearly £1,700,000, helped to reduce the burden faced by the council who decided to buy the rest of the Wythenshawe estate soon after on 5th May.
1922-1931 THE GIFT THE
Source: Legal Records Centre, Manchester City Council
Source: © Garden City Collection (Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation), ref. Plan382. PLAN
The years following the First World War were tumultuous ones for Britain. The decline of Britain’s staple industries resulted in a sharp rise in unemployment and wage reductions. This led to years of labour disputes which culminated in the General Strike in 1926. The poor state of Britain’s economy and levels of inequality in society seriously concerned Ernest and motivated his desire to venture into national politics. Ernest was dismayed, however, by the paucity of fresh thinking by his party, the Liberals, to meet the challenges facing Britain. The utter lack on the part of the Liberal Party, &the M/C [middle-class] candidates in particularof any knowledge of or interest in industrialproblems, & the great question of equality betweenthe two nations of England, is most striking.
Archives+.(Above)
Ernest’s involvement in national politics was not just limited to policy formulation, but saw him become an MP for Withington twice in 1923-4 and 1929-31. Unsurprisingly Ernest’s maiden speech focused on the issue of public housing. I want to deal with the matter particularly from the point of view of the policy of the Government as regards the housing of the working classes. For the last four years I have been chairman of the Manchester Housing Committee, and my whole job has been to try to get houses built. It has been a very difficult task. House of Commons Debate, 18 January 1924, c433; Debate on King’s Speech. His brief tenure in Parliament was not without success, however. Ernest became the Liberal Party’s chief spokesman on housing and his Prevention of Eviction bill became law in 1924 which stopped tenants from being evicted if they were unemployed. Similarly, in his second stint he worked with Eleanor Rathbone in securing for local authorities the ability to provide rental allowances for poorer tenants in council housing. In 1931 Ernest became a housing minister, but due to ill health and his failure to be reelected, his tenure in government only lasted a few
(Right) Letter from Barry Parker to Shena. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
Excerpt from Shena’s broadcasted talk ‘Cities of the Future’ 4th March 1930. Source: The Listener, 9th April 1930.
Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. Ernest relaxing in 1927. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. A(Above)letter by Prime Archives+.ManchesterSimonSource:fromtoMacDonaldRamsayMinisterErnest1931.ShenaPapers,
Besides his major contributions to local and then national politics in the 1920s, Ernest was responsible for running two large engineering companies. They enjoyed considerable success under his direction and a new of purpose-built factory and headquarters complex was opened in 1926 between Stockport and ErnestWythenshawe.andShena also suffered personal tragedy with the long illness and eventual death of their beloved daughter in 1929.
(Left) Ernest campaigning in the 1922 General Election. Source: Manchester Evening News 10th November 1922.
Parker planned Wythenshawe so that it could safely facilitate the rise of car ownership. Main roads would not go through housing estates and schools would be built away from traffic. Parker planned the main road to Manchester, the Princess Parkway, so that houses would be set well back from the road with parallel parkland paths. The parkway was designed to keep vehicle traffic flowing and curved in response to natural topography. It was innovative in the use of clover-leaf intersections and roundabouts rather than traffic-light junctions. Shena was enthralled by the plan and in a 1930 BBC Radio broadcast she laid out her vision of a utopian city based on Parker’s plan of Wythenshawe. Like Ebenezer Howard, Shena believed that Wythenshawe as a garden city would end the division between the urban and the rural. “Slums and overcrowding will be regarded by the citizen of the future as something which they can barely imagine. Above all, the houses will be beautiful outside as well as convenient inside. I am afraid that some of our housing estates have not added to the beauty of the country in which they have been placed, but this will not happen in Utopia. I think each house will have a separate garden.”
NATIONALENTERSPOLITICS
Following the purchase by the council of Wythenshawe, Shena was appointed to Manchester City Council’s Wythenshawe Estate Special Committee to supervise the development of housing there. Led by William Turner Jackson, the committee chose to employ the services of the leading garden city architect Barry Parker, who had helped to design Letchworth, to draw up a plan for the estate. “Wythenshawe is not only in the line of direct descent from Ebenezer Howard’s original conception, but is still more closely bound up with Letchworth. The first step taken by the Corporation after it had purchased the Tatton Estate was to engage Mr. Barry Parker of Letchworth to prepare the Town Plan for the three parishes”. Extract from chapter by Shena Simon in Dugald Macfadyen, Ebenezer Howard and the Town Planning Movement (1930). Parker created a broad plan for the whole of Wythenshawe which divided the land into separate areas for specific purposes. In Parker’s eyes this would ensure that residential areas would be kept separate from industry. Further, houses would be built at no more than twelve to an acre in marked contrast to typical densities of forty to fifty homes per acre in inner Manchester. A thousand acres of agricultural land was designated as a green belt for Wythenshawe to ensure its rural surroundings. The large estate would be formed of ten small neighbourhoods which would be based around a primary school and shopping parade. Neighbourhoods would be composed of clusters of houses around small greens and in geometrical patterns of cul-de-sacs. Parker was particularly interested in hexagonal layouts to achieve maximal efficiency in terms of road space. In reality, however, only a few of these were built in Wythenshawe. The planning took account of existing local place names and country lanes. Many of the ponds and spinneys were retained too. The design of early houses drew on aspects of the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement and each family home was designed so as to have open space at the front and a substantial back garden.
Aerial photo from 1931 showing the completion of Princess Parkway as far as Altrincham Road. Source: Historic England, Britain from Above, ref. EPW036814.
(Right) Undated portrait of Barry Parker by unknown artist. Source: © Garden City Collection (Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation), ref. LBM4520.
ERNEST
The planting plan for the verges of Princess Parkway (1932). Source: © Garden City Collection (Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation), ref. Plan702.2.
weeks.(Above)Source: Manchester Guardian 9th September 1929. (Left) Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
In 1924 Shena was elected as a Liberal councillor for Chorlton-cum-Hardy and joined the Council’s Education Committee marking the beginning of her service on the committee for over four decades. Shena’s first years were marked by several fierce campaigns on the Council. The most notable of which was her role in 1928 in ending the Council’s discriminatory practice of forcing women teachers to resign if they married.
1922-1931 THE GIFT SHENA ON THE COUNCIL AND BARRY PARKER’S PLAN 1922-1931 THE GIFT ERNEST ENTERS NATIONAL POLITICS 16 17
(Right) Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester
(Left) Parker’s ideas set out on this sketch plan of the estate from c.1931 made the hierarchy of neighbourhood roads and the wider tree-lined parkways evident.
Ernest assembled a group of leading Manchester Liberals to press the party into adopting new policies. This group which included Ramsay Muir, professor of History at the University of Manchester, moulded into a national organisation and Ernest was soon working with leading figures such as former Prime Minister David Lloyd George and famous economist John Maynard Keynes to formulate new ideas. In 1928 they published Britain’s Industrial Future A key part of the book was Ernest and Muir’s chapter on industrial relations. They called for higher wages, workers to be consulted, and for greater government intervention in industrial relations. These proposals whilst never implemented by the Liberals in the 1920s anticipated the post-war settlement between capital and labour which afforded workingpeople an unprecedented increase in the standard of living.
SHENA ON THE COUNCIL AND BARRY PARKER’S
Ernest Simon’s diary, 15th December 1918 Source: Ernest Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+
Shena took part in the ceremonial digging of the first sod on the site where the first privately constructed homes would be built in Northenden. It was intended that the estate would have a range of owneroccupiers as well as rented homes to provide a social mix that was part of the garden city ethos. In July 1933 Shena along with other leading council figures welcomed the Prince of Wales, future King Edward VIII. Throngs of local people came to greet the royal visitor, who toured the estate and spoke to residents in their newly built houses. Impressed by their homes and well-kept gardens he reportedly said that “Wythenshawe is a magnificent possession for the city”. In 1933, however, in a shock defeat, Shena lost her seat to the chairman of the Manchester Ratepayers Council. Accusations of extravagant expenditure in developing Wythenshawe and claims that Shena had been unable to pay sufficient attention to her own ward due to her Wythenshawe work resulted in Shena losing her seat. This setback ended Shena’s formal role in planning Wythenshawe, but it did not end her close involvement with its early development however.
(Above) A zoning plan from the early 1930s. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. New houses completed around Haveley Road in the Benchill neighbourhood (1933). Source: Historic England, ref. EPW041648. (Above) Source: Evening Chronicle 16th February 1933. Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
The first tenants to move to Wythenshawe were mainly young families wishing to start a new life in Manchester’s model settlement. The first inhabitants came from all over Manchester, but most were from neighbouring districts such as Didsbury and Chorlton-cum-Hardy or from predominantly working-class areas such as Moss Side and Hulme. A 1935 survey by the Manchester and Salford Better Housing Council found that the vast majority of new residents liked the rural surroundings and their homes, and took pride in their gardens. Despite the new inhabitants’ satisfaction with Wythenshawe and the rapid building of houses, Wythenshawe’s early development was not without problems. In the initial years it proved hard to attract new firms to the area to provide local employment, in part because the smoke-control policy limited them to light manufacturing and more generally due to the economic depression. There was also an immediate lack of amenities and shops for its pioneer residents. When people first moved to Wythenshawe there were no new churches or libraries, and new mothers complained about the lack of child welfare clinics. Transport links were poor too. Buses were irregular and expensive, and there was no rail connection to the city centre. Moreover, renting houses in Wythenshawe was markedly more expensive than in inner Manchester, a significant deterrence for those considering moving from the slums. Shena encouraged the cultivation of community spirit in Wythenshawe and opened the first public meeting in September 1933 of the Wythenshawe Residents Association, with the Simons later donating a pianola for its members. Shena also took an active role in community events in Wythenshawe. In 1934 she laid the foundation stone at the first Methodist church and gave out prizes at the children’s gala. Shena also opened Wythenshawe’s inaugural flower show, which she attended with Ernest and R.H.G. Tatton. The event was popular with over 800 entries. Shena emphasised the public service well-kept private gardens provided in keeping the garden city nature of Wythenshawe.
SHENA TAKES CHARGE OF CONSTRUCTION
(Above) Source: Radio Times 15th February 1933. Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. (Above) Part of Shena’s 1934 election leaflet to voters in Wythenshawe. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
Source: Ernest Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+ (Above) A detailed plan of dwellings in the Northern Moor neighbourhood (1933). Generous amounts of land is allocated for several churches, schools and a local shopping parade. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
Ernest Simon’s diary, 2nd April 1932
The rate of construction was impressive with the council building over 4,600 new houses by 1934. Wythenshawe’s population subsequently skyrocketed from 7,000 in 1931 to 25,000 by the mid 1930s. Private developers began to lease plots in Wythenshawe too. In February 1933
Shena was elected Chairman of the [Wythenshawe Committee] in November. The most interesting municipal committee in England. To build, on virgin fields, a model city of 100,000 persons… She is tackling the job excellently; very keen, thorough, in close touch with the leading officials, inspiring them to united effort – tactful, a fighter, a persuasive actor in the council. I find it difficult to think of anybody doing the job better’.
CREATING
A COMMUNITY
Shena took the lead in developing Wythenshawe, replacing William Turner Jackson as chair of the Wythenshawe Estate Special Committee. In February 1932 Princess road was extended with a new bridge over the Mersey into Wythenshawe where it became the Princess parkway. This arterial connection allowed the construction of new houses to properly begin. The construction of hundreds of new houses began in several different neighbourhoods: Northern Moor, Royal Oak, and the Benchill and Sharston area.
(Left) Shena with the former owner of Wythenshawe hall and estate R.H.G. Tatton in 1934 at Wythenshawe’s first flower show. Source: Manchester Guardian 20th August 1934. Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. (Above) Source: Memories of Wythenshawe from the 1930s to the 1960s by Bryant A. Hill (1997).
Eager to return to the council, Shena stood as an independent candidate for the Wythenshawe ward in November 1934: ‘You have shown your faith in Wythenshawe by coming to live in it, to work for it. I ask nothing better than to be given the opportunity of cooperating with you’
Source: Invitation to Industry Manchester Development Committee, 1932. OF CONSTRUCTION A COMMUNITY
Shena was unable to campaign in person, however, as she was recovering from an operation in London and Ernest took charge of running her campaign. Narrowly losing by 180 votes, she was, however, to return to the council as a co-opted member of the Education Committee in 1936.
(Below) Early housing development featuring tile hung mansard-roofed cottages designed by Barry Parker in liaison with town hall architects. Source: Manchester Archives+.
(Above) Example of advertising to attract new firms to Wythenshawe.
1931-1934 BUILDING BEGINS SHENA TAKES CHARGE
In November 1931
18 19
1931-1934 BUILDING BEGINS CREATING
The 1920s and 1930s saw Ernest become a national authority on housing and he was knighted in recognition for his public work in 1932. During this period, he sat on committees which advised the government, spoke on national radio and wrote three books on housing, How to Abolish the Slums (1929), The Anti-Slum Campaign (1933), and The Rebuilding of Manchester (1935). The books drew on a plethora of nationwide statistical evidence as well as on his experience of Manchester. While Ernest documented the terrible state of housing in Britain for many millions of people he also offered practical solutions to address the crisis.
As a leading expert in housing reform Ernest argued that despite over two million new homes being built since the end of the First World War many of these even with rental subsidies were still unaffordable for the majority of the working-class who remained living in old slum houses which were only getting worse as the buildings aged. He feared that without affordable housing two million children would be destined to grow up in the slums. Locally it would mean that the poor in Manchester would not be able to move to Wythenshawe and enjoy the benefits of garden city living. He believed that local councils were the best agents for building new homes and that far greater subsidies from central government were needed to construct them at affordable rates. In Ernest’s eyes a great well-planned housing programme would additionally help to seriously abate unemployment which plagued Britain at the time. Manchester has a magnificent opportunity. She has made a splendid beginning at Wythenshawe. Let us hope that she will continue her great task of rebuilding the city with the same energy and vision; let us hope that we shall have in fifty years’ time a fine, spacious, and wellplanned residential area where the slum belt now lies, and that our two satellite garden towns will be models for the whole world. The concluding remarks of The Rebuilding of Manchester (1935). Ernest also set a radical planning manifesto for Manchester. He imagined dramatically redrawing the city centre so that the slum-belt would be replaced by municipal flats, schools with open green playing fields, and new large parks which would feature a new exhibition hall and a modern cathedral. As part of his plan Ernest called for the building of 100,000 new homes by 1985, believing that building another garden satellite town similar in form to Wythenshawe would play a key role in meeting this challenging target.
HOW TO ABOLISH THE SLUMS
(Above) The cover of The Rebuilding of Manchester (1935) juxtaposes overcrowded housing in central Manchester with tree-lined cottages newly constructed in Wythenshawe.
1934-1939 BUILDING CONTINUES
Part of Shena’s 1934 election leaflet to voters in Wythenshawe.
Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
(Above) The striking cover artwork of Ernest’s How to Abolish the Slums (1929). (Below) Maps from The Rebuilding of Manchester. The first one shows the slum area in central Manchester and Wythenshawe to the south in 1935. The second map shows Ernest’s projection of how Manchester would look after 50 years of town planning resulting in the eradication of the slums and the completion of Wythenshawe.
2120
(Above) Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. (Above) Ernest’s vision for central Manchester in The Rebuilding of Manchester (1935).
HOW TO ABOLISH THE SLUMS
EDUCATION, DEMOCRACY AND TOTALITARIANISM
In the 1930s Shena became a tireless campaigner for educational reform. With free schooling ending at fourteen there existed an educational apartheid in Britain as the majority of working-class parents could not afford to pay for their children to stay on in education. As a member of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education from 1933-1938, Shena fought to end this division by campaigning for the raising of the leaving age. She ultimately had some success as the committee’s work laid the foundations for post-war universal secondary education. Angered by the government’s education policies Shena joined the Labour Party in 1935 and stood for election in the Moston ward in 1936. Whilst she did not win a place on the council, given her expertise on education she was co-opted to sit on the Education Committee of Manchester City Council. With economic crisis and the rise totalitarianism in Europe, education was also at the forefront of Ernest’s mind during the 1930s. Worried that British democracy was imperilled by these dangers, Ernest with Eva Hubback founded the Association for Education in Citizenship in 1934. The association campaigned for the introduction of civics education to teach people to respect the importance of democracy and freedom. Later in 1938 and 1939 Ernest explored Switzerland and Scandinavia to discover how democracy worked successfully there. We are to-day in the midst of one of the greatest crises of civilisation. A wave of barbarism is sweeping over the world, unparalleled in history, threatening to destroy everything that is best in human society. Are men to live as free citizens of democracies, or are they to be docile followers of a despot, forced to develop the servile mass mentality which dictators demand from their subjects? The opening remarks of Ernest’s book The Smaller Democracies (1939) on the battle between democracy and Lessonstotalitarianism.werenot only to be drawn from democracies however. In 1936 the Simons set out to study Communist Moscow. Shena examined education and was impressed by the provision of free schooling for all. The Communist Party’s tight control over schools and the propaganda children were subjected to, however, did not escape her critical notice. Ernest meanwhile investigated housing and local government in Moscow. Whilst the repressive nature of the regime was ubiquitous and levels of overcrowding were like nothing he had seen before, Ernest liked how collective ownership of the land facilitated bold town-planning schemes and prevented planning from being thwarted by private interests as had happened in Wythenshawe’s development.
(Above) Source: Manchester Archives+. (Above) Chamberlain House opened by Anne Chamberlain in 1937 provided flats for single women. It brought a sense of continental design to 1930s Wythenshawe. Source: Manchester Archives+.
STARTSWYTHENSHAWETOTAKESHAPE
1934-1939 BUILDING CONTINUES EDUCATION, DEMOCRACY AND TOTALITARIANISM WYTHENSHAWE STARTS TO TAKE SHAPE 1934-1939 BUILDING CONTINUES 22 23
(Map above) Zoning plan from the late 1930s.
(Above) Shena building a national profile as an educational reformer. The Teachers’ World 31st October 1934. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. (Right) The Simons recorded their investigation of the Soviet system in their 1937 book Moscow in the Making
Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
(Below) Source: Manchester Archives+. Royal Oak neighbourhood in the mid 1930s. Source: Historic England, ref. EPR000194.
In the latter half of the 1930s Wythenshawe started to take shape. The goal of housing 100,000 people edged closer into view as house building continued at a steady rate with over 8,000 new homes constructed by the eve of the Second World War. The health benefits of living in Wythenshawe were readily apparent for the new residents too; by 1935 children were already growing to be taller and weighed more than those living in the centre of the city. More factories had opened in designated industrial zones, with the council providing businesses with loans to encourage the emergence of industry. Better amenities for residents materialised too. Several new churches were built and Wythenshawe’s first modern cinema the Forum opened its doors to movie-goers in 1934. In 1937 Wythenshawe welcomed Anne Chamberlain, wife of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Arthur Greenwood, deputy leader of the Labour Party. They toured the estate and attended the opening of new bungalows for older residents as well as flats for single women which were named Chamberlain House in recognition of Neville Chamberlain’s earlier work in housing reform. Another major event for Wythenshawe was the opening of Manchester’s new airport at Ringway in 1938. The opening ceremony was massive, witnessing thousands of people flocking to see its accompanying RAF display. A few days later the first flights took off from Ringway to Bristol and WythenshaweAmsterdam. still faced some major challenges. Wythenshawe’s road network was to remain uncompleted until after the Second World War. Moreover, despite the emergence of some light industry in Wythenshawe, the area was not untouched by the dark shadow of unemployment which loomed over Britain. The lack of a nearby employment exchange led in 1939 to a parade of several hundred people organised by the Communist Party demanding better provision for the unemployed in Wythenshawe.
(Above) Shena in 1934. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
(Above) Source: The Manchester Guardian 3rd February 1943, p.3.
A zoning map from The City of Manchester Plan (1945) outlining how the area was to be developed after the Second World War.
Ernest inspecting American war planes. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.(Below) Pamphlet written by Shena on how to address the problems caused to education by evacuation.
The mass evacuation of children at the start of the war had a major disruptive effect on their education. Compulsory education was suspended in major cities and hundreds of schools simply closed. As such Shena was seriously concerned that 900,000 children were not only missing out on vital education, but that poorer children in particular were going without medical inspections or the provision of daily school meals and fresh milk which was jeopardising their longer-term wellbeing. Shena spent the early years of the war campaigning vigorously to ensure better schooling in reception areas for evacuated children and for more air raid shelters in schools in cities so that children could soon return to school. Following America’s entry into the war in 1941 the Simons were invited by the Ministry of Information to help forge better ties with Britain’s new ally. They travelled to the USA in September 1942 and lectured on local government and post-war reconstruction. Whilst they were there Ernest and Shena took the time to investigate American society. Shena visited American high schools and was impressed by their democratic ethos which stood in stark contrast to Britain’s class-ridden educational system. Meanwhile Ernest studied the Tennessee Valley Authority as well as town planning in great cities such as New York, viewing them as excellent examples of what assertive government could achieve. The Simons arrived back in January 1943 with their thoughts turning to how they could help to build a better and more equal society following the war.
(Left) The key map charting Wythenshawe’s future in The City of Manchester Plan (1945).
With the outbreak of the Second World War the Simons set out immediately to help Britain’s effort to fight fascism. After a brief stint at the Ministry of Information, Ernest’s expertise as a leading industrialist was called upon and he began working as the Area Officer for the Ministry of Aircraft Production in the North-Western Region from 1940. Henry Simon Ltd also played a key role in fixing bomb-stricken facilities for the handling of grain in ports to ensure Britain’s supply of bread did not run out.
Shena with her grandson Alan in 1943 and her daughter-in-law Joan. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
Compulsory Education has vanished… Clearly this cannot be allowed to go on. Children are losing precious months of an already far too short educational career, and they are drifting back to a city which is not yet adequately provided against air raids Shena writing about the war’s toll on education. Manchester
Source: The
Guardian 1st November 1939, p.6. THE SIMONS AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR 1939-1945 THE SECOND WORLD WAR 2524
THE SIMONS AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR
JERUSALEMBUILDING
Excerpt from Rebuilding of Britain –A Twenty Year Plan (1945).
WARTIME WYTHENSHAWE AND THE 1945 CITY OF MANCHESTER PLAN 1939-1945 THE SECOND WORLD WAR BUILDING JERUSALEM 1939-1945 THE SECOND WORLD WAR 26 27
While Wythenshawe was not too badly bombed during the war, it was not untouched by Luftwaffe raids. In September 1940 a bomb crashed into the Mersey near Ford Lane, between Wythenshawe and the Simons’ home in Didsbury, and emergency repairs to the embankments had to be made to prevent flooding. Incendiary bombs also landed around Wythenshawe during the Manchester Christmas Blitz in December 1940, but fortunately did not cause significant damage. Given its peripheral position on the edge of Manchester, however, Wythenshawe was considered safe enough, unlike the rest of the city, for children to remain at school at the outbreak of the war after shelters for staff and pupils were installed. The war saw the landscape of Wythenshawe transformed. The park surrounding Wythenshawe Hall was ploughed to grow food in the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign and Anderson shelters were erected in residents’ back gardens. Meanwhile Ringway airport became a hive of military activity. Paratroopers trained and practiced jumps, and the Lancaster bomber was developed and tested at the airport. Factories in Wythenshawe’s industrial estates were also busily engaged in vital production for the war effort, manufacturing items such as parachutes, parts for machine guns and electrical components for aircraft. The big new bus garage in Sharston was used to assemble bomber planes.
(Left) Shena laid out her case for comprehensive education in her 1948 book.
(Above) The layout of a new residential neighbourhood in the City of Manchester Plan (1945).
If our great cities are not only allowed but encouraged to extend their borders and to purchase land, more Wythenshawes will grow up, and the twentieth century will be marked by the development of a series of satellite garden towns which will be one of its chief glories.
WARTIME WYTHENSHAWE AND THE 1945 CITY OF MANCHESTER PLAN
In 1945 Ernest was honoured with a portrait by celebrated artist T.C. Dugdale. The painting, presented by the shop stewards’ convenor, Mr J. Mallard, was given to him as a 65th birthday present by the companies of the Simon Group. It hung next to the portrait of his father, Henry Simon (top left). Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
Given the widespread destruction of cities during the Blitz, the need to rehouse tens of thousands of families was more pressing than ever and from 1941 Ernest began envisaging a great rebuilding effort for Britain. In the same year Ernest was called upon by Lord Reith, the Minister of Works, to examine how to best organise the building industry and reconstruction. Ernest’s task was to instruct the government about how to avoid the mistakes of house building following First World War when far too few dwellings were constructed in spite of the thousands of unemployed people who could have made them. In 1945 Ernest published Rebuilding Britain – A Twenty Year Plan. It represented the summation of his years of work on housing and town planning and laid out a detailed strategy to build millions of homes nationwide.
Key to realising this ambitious goal for Ernest was the democratic pressure citizens had to place upon the government to drive progress. With Ernest busy planning how Britain could be rebuilt, Shena became a leading voice for the introduction of comprehensive schools. Despite the raising of the school leaving age to 15 in 1944, the tripartite system of education in which children were selected at 11 to go into different schools still existed. For Shena this entrenched inequality and class division in Britain which did not correspond to the new democratic society many hoped to build after the war. For Shena working-class children were often denied the best education as performance at the 11+ examination was linked to a child’s environment. Moreover, Shena pointed to the fact that children were not uniform and should not be arbitrarily selected for a specific type of education. Shena believed instead that teaching all children together in comprehensive schools was a far better alternative. This would end the damaging segregation of children and would cater for individual children’s interests and aptitudes to help everyone realise their potential. In 1946 Ernest followed Shena’s lead and joined the Labour Party, and the next year he was chosen by Clement Attlee’s government to become a peer. Becoming ennobled required a title and for Ernest and Shena the choice was simple; in recognition of their proudest achievement they would become Lord and Lady Simon of Wythenshawe.
The end of the Second World War marked a new beginning for Wythenshawe. In 1945 Rowland Nicholas, Manchester’s city surveyor presented his ambitious City of Manchester Plan. A key aspect in his vision for a modern Manchester was to sweep away en masse the Victorian legacy of unsanitary housing in overcrowded districts around the city centre. To-day about 60 per cent of Manchester’s houses are built at densities in excess of 24 to the acre. Most of these 120,000 houses are old and must... be rebuilt in the comparatively near future… Is Manchester prepared once again to give the country a bold lead by adopting standards of reconstruction that will secure to every citizen the enjoyment of fresh air, of a reasonable ration of daylight, and of some relief from the barren bleakness of bricks and mortar? City of Manchester Plan, p.4.
(Above) Source: City of Manchester Plan (1945). Practice air raid drill, Sharston School (1939). Source: Manchester Local Image Collection, ref. m09907. The design for Wythenshawe’s civic centre in the City of Manchester Plan drawn by G. Noel Hill, the City Architect, was spacious, green and seen to be in keeping with the garden city ethos. Policeman inspecting bomb impact crater, perhaps near Pear Tree Farm, Wythenshawe. Source: Greater Manchester Police Museum.
The renewed development of Wythenshawe represented a significant element of Nicholas’ vision. In conjunction to outlining a goal to build thousands of new homes, Nicholas recognised the issue of the “anaemic social atmosphere” which had plagued Wythenshawe due to a lack of amenities for residents and he made it his priority to address this. Alongside local community centres being designated as core parts of new neighbourhoods, Nicholas envisaged a grand civic centre for Wythenshawe covering over sixty acres. The centre, where the Wythenshawe Forum now stands, was planned so that it would consist of 130 shopping units, two cinemas, public baths, a library, a health centre and wooded open spaces. While Nicholas’ 1945 Plan laid the basis for Manchester’s post-war forcivicWythenshawe’sdevelopment,long-demandedcentrewouldremainunbuiltmanymoreyearstocome.
Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
In 1955, invited by the Soviet Union’s Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, Shena returned to the USSR to uncover how education had progressed there since she lasted visited in 1936. Shena, whose visits made her a leading commentator on Soviet education, was impressed by its increased educational provision and its plans for further expansion in school and higher education. She was also captivated by the educational and recreational activities children enjoyed in the Young Pioneers, the Soviet Union’s equivalent of the Scout movement. Shena felt that citizens in the Soviet Union, where there was no educational segregation, were well on their way to becoming the most educated in the world. In the context of the Cold War Shena urged Britain to consider educational reform as important as military defence as she felt that for developing countries knowledge would soon ‘be indistinguishable from Communism’.
Source: Manchester Guardian 22nd March 1955, p.12
In the years following the war Shena kept up her campaign for equality of opportunity in education. For her, the promises of the 1944 Education Act had not been met. The act, instead of providing equal educational opportunities catered for the varying aptitudes of different children as many hoped it would, was continuing to lead to segregation and inequality in education. Furthermore, Shena was dismayed at the paucity of working-class students at university. On the Education Committee of Manchester City Council Shena pushed for the introduction of comprehensive schools in Wythenshawe. While the scheme was frustrated by the objections of the Minister of Education, she had some success with Yew Tree Comprehensive becoming Manchester’s first comprehensive school in 1956. Her active role on the Council’s Education Committee and public campaigning often led her into arguments with advocates of grammar schools and in 1951 Shena had a heated debate with Dr Eric James, headmaster of Manchester Grammar School. While Dr James believed that some people were born to be leaders and merited an elite education, Shena argued that everyone deserved equal educational opportunities as leadership had to spring from the people.
(Left) Source: GuardianManchester23rd January 1956, p.4 LORD SIMON BECOMES BBC CHAIRMAN The 1950s THE POST-WAR YEARS EDUCATION FOR THE MASSES The 1950s THE POST-WAR YEARS 28 29
In 1947 Ernest was chosen by the government to become the chairman of the BBC. Eager to get to grips with broadcasting from the outset, Ernest’s tenure was marked by his keenness to speak to members of staff regardless of how junior they were to learn about their duties in order to better understand how the BBC really worked. Ernest was very interested in broadcasting in other countries and travelled abroad to investigate how television and radio worked there. He spent the longest time investigating America in autumn 1948. In Britain all television was broadcast by the BBC, but in America commercial television was the rule. Here he met numerous experts on broadcasting from advertising tycoons, heads of networks, to professors, and spent hours listening to and watching American radio and television programmes. While he felt light entertainment was pretty good and was impressed by the prevalence of broadcast music, Ernest fervently disliked how the private profit motive underpinned broadcasting there. In his eyes it severely lowered the standard of programming, reducing it to sensationalism which was bad for children and did ‘nothing to make’ Americans ‘wiser or better citizens’.
(Below) The zoning of Wythenshawe in 1955. Source: © Garden City Collection (Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation), ref. Plan673.
LORD SIMON BECOMES BBC CHAIRMAN
Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. Architectural plan for a new primary school from the 1950s.
(Below) A planning map of Wythenshawe from 1951. Alongside showing new residential areas, it illustrates the large number of planned primary and secondary schools needed to facilitate the growing number of children as Wythenshawe expanded. Source: Archives+.Manchester (Above) Shena was pushing hard for Manchester to develop comprehensive schools in the mid-1950s and called for new schools in Wythenshawe to be trialled as comprehensives.
(Above) Typical of Ernest’s reflective and inquisitive character and his determination to seek improvement, he wrote The BBC From Within (1953) which represented the summation of his experience as chairman from 1947-1952.
(Above) Source: GuardianManchester22nd October 1955, p.6.
(Left) Source: The Courier and Advertiser 12th October 1950, p.3.
Source: Manchester Archives+, ref. M813/4.
In 1950 Ernest unwisely put himself at the centre of a small political scandal. In October, Ernest took the decision to stop a repeat of a televised comedic play called Party Manners by Val Gielgud, the villain of which was a corrupt Labour politician. Ernest, who had always stressed the importance of citizens having a strong attachment to democracy, felt his decision was justified as its cynical image of politicians seemed to him to severely undermine trust in democratic government. Uproar from right-leaning newspapers followed, with Ernest accused of censoring a play critical of a politician from his own party. Ernest, who did not anticipate the furore, went to the House of Lords to explain his actions and admit his decision to stop the repeat was a mistake. Ernest finished his tenure as chairman in 1952, writing an account of his experiences in a book entitled The BBC from Within the following year.
He has a great contempt for the mass of the people and thinks they can’t really have much in the way of taste or morals… He does not believe in the equality of educational opportunity– only in-asmuch as it gets children to the grammar schools… Every child must get an equal chance in education. Dr James despises the masses, but it’s the masses who settle who our leaders are going to be. Excerpts from Shena’s fierce debate with Dr Eric James headmaster of Manchester Grammar school in 1951. Source: News Chronicle, 20th December 1951.
FOREDUCATIONTHEMASSES
It was, perhaps, in his impact on the staff that Lord Simon of Wythenshawe made his chairmanship of the B.B.C. most memorable… The small parties in the [Simons’ London] flat became famous inside the Corporation; two of them sometimes going on simultaneously on different sides of the curtain, with Lord Simon of Wythenshawe eagerly canvassing some point with men producers in one room and Lady Simon of Wythenshawe getting the women producers to be equally frank and forthright in the other. Sir William Haley, Director General of the BBC 1944-1952, on the Simons at the BBC. Source: 80th Birthday Book for Ernest Darwin Simon, Lord Simon of Wythenshawe
(Above) The density of housing in parts of Wythenshawe was increasing in the 1950s in a shift from the building of cottages to blocks of three storey walk-up flats. Source: The Municipal Journal 30 July 1954. (Below) Source: Manchester Archives+.
The most architecturally striking new building in Wythenshawe in this period was St Anthony’s church designed by Adrian Gilbert Scott. Shown here nearing the end of construction in June 1960. Source: Manchester Archives+. The Greenwood Tree pub (1960). Source: Manchester Archives+. (Right) Source: Manchester Archives+. (Above) Source: Manchester Archives+.
3130
WYTHENSHAWE AFTER THE WAR The 1950s THE POST-WAR YEARS
From the late 1940s Wythenshawe had greatly surpassed its earlier garden city predecessors Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City and was now growing exponentially, with its population reaching 53,000 by 1953. A number of firms had made Wythenshawe their home too. In the same year there were twenty fully operational factories making products ranging from biscuits, scientific instruments, to insulation. A notable local employer was the high-tech manufacturing company Ferranti which opened a new factory on the Moss Nook industrial estate. The rush to build homes and the need to economise following the war had a detrimental effect on the garden city nature of Wythenshawe however. Some green spaces left for recreational purposes by Barry Parker were being built on to meet the demand for homes and grass verges by roads were omitted from plans. Despite this shortcoming, a sense of community which had struggled to come into existence when Wythenshawe was first being developed in the thirties had clearly emerged too. There were a number of youth, social and sports clubs; plays were put on by residents alongside evening dances, and Wythenshawe’s inhabitants even partook in Morris dancing. During the 1950s an annual Civic Week festival was organised that included scores of different events including a beauty pageant, a big parade, concerts, and a fun fair in Wythenshawe Park. There was also a realisation that more public houses were needed too and the planners and licensing officers in the Town Hall went to considerable effort to try to build new pubs in suitable locations. In 1953 the Town Hall published an illustrated leaflet entitled Wythenshawe: Plan and Reality, to promote the area. It claimed that “Wythenshawe is regarded as an outstanding example of planning”. According to the leaflet, the ultimate aim was to see 90,000 people living in Wythenshawe in 30,000 houses and flats.
A selection of covers of Wythenshawe Civic Week guide booklets illustrating the flourishing post-war community spirit.
WYTHENSHAWEAFTERTHEWAR
NUCLEARTHE AGE
If the ghosts of just men are allowed to walk the earth it is here that the ghost of Ernest Simon will walk.
I believe that an important reason for the failure of the people and the Government of Britain to realise the horror of hydrogen bomb warfare is that the human imagination is such that mass destruction is an idea that makes a weaker impact than one street accident actually witnessed. Excerpt from Speech on the Effects of the Hydrogen Bomb by Lord Simon at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, May 1958. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. Lady Simon had spied a strange structure towering over the delphiniums in the distance. There was no escape, an inspection was demanded… How much land did I occupy?– A few square Yards.–“Ernest do you hear that? Dr. Lovell has to get all this apparatus in a corner. He ought to have two hundred acres”… On the Monday morning at 9.30 a.m. I was summoned to the phone by a frantic Bursar… “Lovell what the d– went on at Jodrell yesterday afternoon?” – “A tea party. Why?” – “Only that Lady Simon has already been in my office and made me get out all the maps of Jodrell Bank. She says you want two hundred acres. Bernard Lovell’s account of his encounter with the Simons in 1946 in The Story of Jodrell Bank (1968).
THE NUCLEAR AGE The 1960s THE LAST YEARS OF THE SIMONS THE GHOST OF A JUST MAN The 1960s THE LAST YEARS OF THE SIMONS 32 33
(Above) Ernest in the Lake District in the late 1950s. Source: Mary Stocks, Ernest Simon of Manchester (1963).
(Above) The propaganda map which Ernest unveiled at the Free Trade Hall CND meeting in 1958. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. (Above) Source: The Illustrated London News 6th July 1957, p. 24. (Left) A advertisingnoticethe CND meeting at the Free Trade Hall in 1958. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Archives+.Manchester (Left) The Simons in 1958. Ernest and Shena are sat either side of their daughter-in-law Joan, with their grandsons behind them. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. As the 1960s approached the spectre of nuclear war threatening to destroy civilisation itself was a widespread concern. Deeply worried, the Simons set out to contribute to the cause of abolishing of nuclear weapons. In 1958, alongside figures such as Michael Foot and J.B. Priestley, Ernest became part of the founding executive of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. In May the same year a packed CND meeting was held at the Manchester Free Trade Hall which Ernest chaired. Unveiling a map he had chartered illustrating the massive destruction a single hydrogen bomb would cause if dropped in the centre of Manchester, Ernest spoke at the meeting about how few people realised the horrendous nature of nuclear weapons. The meeting was packed and was a great fundraising success. The Manchester Guardian reported that “pound notes fell like confetti from the side balconies on to the platform of the Free Trade Hall”. In 1959 in the House of Lords Ernest called on the government to get non-nuclear powers to renounce atomic weapons in return for Britain abolishing hers and to persuade the Soviet Union and the USA to sponsor nonproliferation inspections by the United Nations.
(Above) Source: The Times 4th October 1960 (Left) Source: The Simon Magazine: Group Review,Vol XV, No. 5. Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
THE GHOST OF A JUST MAN
Excerpt from address by Lord Simon of Wythenshawe on the occasion of the presentation of the Freedom of the City of Manchester 25th November 1959.
(Above) Excerpt from the Freedom of the City certificate for Ernest. Source: Manchester Archives+.
Source: The Guardian 4th October 1960.
In May 1960 in the House of Lords Ernest undertook his last act of campaigning. Ernest organised a debate in which he called on the government to appoint a committee to inquire about the future of post-secondary education. Influenced by Ernest, the government appointed Lord Robbins in December 1960 to investigate higher education. The Robbins Report which followed in 1963 laid the groundwork for the modern expanded system of universities. Ernest’s last days were spent where he was happiest. Ernest loved the Lake District and the Simons had travelled there for holidays with their children. Ernest enjoyed walking in the hills there and even had a rustic stone cottage he stayed in. It was here that he suffered a stroke in September 1960. Ernest was rushed back to Manchester where he peacefully died in his sleep a few days before his 81st birthday with Shena beside him constantly. The next day the obituary notice in The Guardian commemorated his wide-ranging work for the public good and made a worthy tribute to his legacy: Wythenshawe is far from perfect; a major trouble is that we still have no civic centre. But thousands of families are living under housing conditions so good that if we could provide similar conditions for all our families, the housing problem would be satisfactorily and finally solved. In spite of serious difficulties, Wythenshawe is undoubtedly a very great achievement. It was certainly the best instance of a satellite garden town in the inter-war years. It set an example which had an important influence on the building of new towns; undoubtedly the best feature of the post-war planning development.
The post-war years were marked by major scientific advancements and the Simons were keen that the University of Manchester was at the vanguard of innovation. An opportunity to pursue this goal arose in 1946 when Ernest and Shena attended a tea party at Jodrell Bank and met the radio astronomer Bernard Lovell. Professor Lovell’s pioneering work was being hampered by limited equipment and when he was approached by Shena she was adamant that he should have far more resources. Subsequently the Simons used their positions on the Council of the University of Manchester, alongside much lobbying and fundraising efforts, to aid the construction of Lovell’s radio telescope, completed in 1957. The telescope trackingground-breakingconductedscience,Sputnikaswellas providing the first public images of the moon’s surface.
In November 1959 Ernest was bestowed the Freedom of the City of Manchester in recognition of his decades of public service. In his acceptance speech he praised the greatness of Manchester and its civic achievements such as the Ship Canal, Ringway airport and, of course, the development of Wythenshawe. Resonating with today’s contemporary debate about “levelling up” and regional devolution Ernest advocated passionately for Manchester to be recognised as the northern capital city of England. He firmly believed that people in Manchester had a better understanding of the challenges facing the city, notably the enduring problem of poor housing, and for this reason it had to be given the requisite powers to address its own issues without interference from London.
(Above) Part of the booklet celebrating Shena being awarded the Freedom of the City and her past achievements. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
(Below) The zoning of Wythenshawe in the early 1960s. Source: Manchester Archives+.
Source: The Listener, 29th November 1945.
Following Ernest’s death Shena considered moving back to London, but decided that her heart remained in Manchester. She moved to a smaller home next door to their old house Broomcroft in Didsbury. Their former home was given to the University of Manchester and used by Simon Fellows, visiting academics who were funded by Ernest’s bequest. In 1964 Shena was awarded the Freedom of the City of Manchester in recognition of her public work, becoming only the third woman to receive the honour. This accolade, however, did not spell the end of her career as a public servant, with Shena serving on the Education Committee of Manchester City Council until 1970, overseeing the city’s move to comprehensive education in 1967. Shena’s retirement from the council offered her a well-deserved opportunity to indulge in her favourite pastimes, going to the cinema and reading detective novels. Shena was not one to reminisce and instead looked forward to the challenges of the future in her older age. She stressed the important role of education in the revolutions in technology to come and continued to argue for married women to stay in the workforce as well as for the expansion of higher education and for the raising of the leaving age.
Dictators build tremendous monuments; the[y] ignore the needs of their overcrowded populace for decent housing, and try to make up for it by boastful propaganda. We in Britain carry out the world’s greatest achievement in working-class housing, and grumble because it is not better… I challenge the dictators to show a garden city which can rival in imaginative planning and in the provision of pleasant and healthy homes what Manchester has done in its satellite garden city of Wythenshawe. Excerpt from manuscript by Ernest on British Democracy, 19th December 1939. Source: Ernest Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
Source:(FarlocalForumWythenshaweSource:(Left)Librarystudies.left) The JournalArchitects’ 11th August 1960, p.27.
Shena receiving the Freedom of the City of Manchester. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
CITIZEN SHENA The 1960s THE LAST YEARS OF THE SIMONS ERNEST SIMON (1879-1960) –CITIZEN OF MANCHESTER Epilogue REFLECTIONS 34 35
(Left) Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. (Abover) Source: The Guardian 28th July 1962, p.6
CITIZEN SHENA
Where’s there’s muck there’s brass” was the answer not only of the mill-owner but the mill-workers to any attempt to abate the smoke nuisance, until the overpowering energy and personality of Sir Ernest Simon–a great Lancashire engineer– really got busy in the years between the wars on the job of cleaning the skies of our northern cities. Ellen Wilkinson, Manchester-born Labour politician commenting on Ernest’s campaign to combat air pollution.
The millionaire industrialist posing for a publicity photograph with a working-class person in Withington during the 1922 General Election. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. Shena and Ernest Simon at the time of the 1931 General Election. Source: Western Morning News 27th October 1931. Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. (Above) News of the World 16th April 1926. Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. Born nearly 150 years ago Ernest Simon was a dedicated public servant. Ernest like Shena had a prodigious work ethic and could never understand how people who did not care for the welfare of others remained happy. He combined his work as a successful industrialist with decades of campaigning and progressive politics. He wrote scores of articles and reports, and authored a number of influential books. Housing was Ernest’s abiding concern throughout his life, and he became one of Britain’s leading authorities on housing reform. Ernest’s work for the public good can be seen as him following in the steps of his German parents and thus is demonstrative of the rich contribution immigrants and their offspring have made to Britain. The Simons have always been subject to somewhat unfair criticisms that they were out of touch upper middle-class technocrats who did not understand the needs of the poor. While their wealth undoubtedly isolated them from the disadvantaged people they sought to help, they were adamant in their desire to repay the world for their ‘great good fortune’ and to rectify Britain’s unequal society. Ernest despite his busy work regularly took the time to visit Manchester’s slums to remind himself of the terrible conditions people had to live in. Despite his own admission that he was an ‘autocratic employer’, Ernest was a democrat and believed that educated citizens were vital in not only protecting democracy and freedom, but were also central to driving progressive reforms particularly when it came to housing. Indeed, he that felt that Wythenshawe was a triumph of democracy.
Shena continued to stay in close touch with developments in Wythenshawe. In 1961 she opened Simon Court, a block of flats for older residents named in honour of Shena and Ernest. Shena became the first president of its residents’ association. The nature of parts of Wythenshawe was changing and by the early 1960s several new residential tower blocks were built, at odds in many respects to original garden city ideals. Plans were made for better amenities including a long-promised swimming pool, but the overdue civic centre would still take another decade to complete. Houses Constructed by Manchester Corporation 1961: 21,000 Ernest Simon hard at work. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. Ernest in 1922. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
Ernest was proud of Manchester, and the Simons’ gift of Wythenshawe Hall and park exemplified their dedication to the city; it was for Ernest ‘a unique opportunity to do something for Manchester’. Indeed, Ernest’s first venture into social reform was to address the awful air pollution which plagued his city. Ernest actively engaged in civic boosterism and dreamed that Wythenshawe, as a grand municipal project, could inspire Manchester’s citizens to dedicate themselves to the good of the city. He was nevertheless a hard-headed realist and was always ready to point out Manchester’s shortcomings and crucially offered practical solutions to make it a better place.
ERNEST SIMON (1879-1960) CITIZEN OF MANCHESTER
Ernest and Shena’s epitaph on the Simon family memorial. Photo courtesy of John McCrory
The Simon family memorial at Manchester Crematorium. Photo by John Ayshford. Shena at the Manchester and Salford Women Citizens Association garden fete, July 1922. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. News Chronicle 15th November 1932. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
Source: Obituary in The Times, 18th July 1972.
Shena spent her entire adult life as a social reformer. She was hardworking, scrupulous in preparation and was truly a force to be reckoned with for opponents. She thus built up a formidable public image as a tough operator but her private personality was marked by her kindness and charm. Shena played an instrumental part in Wythenshawe’s early development. She established a strong rapport with Barry Parker and ensured that the council retained his services in order to preserve Wythenshawe’s garden city design. Shena stayed in close touch with developments on the estate and in 1969 she was there to witness the laying of the foundation stone for Wythenshawe’s long overdue civic centre.
Wythenshawe Park and surrounding housing (2021). Source: Historic England, ref. 35015_039. Wythenshawe housing (2021). Source: Historic England, ref.
map of Cheshire from 1780 showing the Wythenshawe area before the industrial revolution. Source: University of Manchester Library.
Wythenshawe was an archetype for ambitious municipal housing along garden city lines and delivered on much of its aims. It was seen as a model with national significance, in part because it was promoted so diligently by the Simons! It also achieved wide notoriety for its imperfections and later failings around deprivation. It still remains one of best, but ultimately incomplete realisations of Ebenezer Howard’s ethos for new urban Wythenshawecivilisation.Hall itself was not always well cared for by the City Council and slipped into decay after the Second World War and subsequently some elements were simply demolished or unsympathetically reconstructed. Wythenshawe Hall suffered a dreadful arson attack in 2016 and a great effort was taken to rebuild it. The surrounding park – gifted to the people of Manchester by Ernest and Shena Simon in an “act of imaginative statesmanship” – remains intact and firmly at the heart of Wythenshawe. During the early 1970s the Princess Parkway was shorn of its bucolic origins and became a much busier noisy motorway that now forms a significant bisection of the area. The M60 too effectively cuts off Wythenshawe from Manchester much more strongly than the River Mersey ever did. The great growth of the airport and associated businesses to the south since the 1960s has provided an economic base, but has diminished the peaceful notion of the garden city. The areas around Wythenshawe have also experienced tremendous suburban expansion, from Altrincham in the west to Cheadle and Gatley in the east, such that the estate is much less distinct, rather lost within the vast sprawl of Greater Manchester housing. But a genuine sense of community and belonging is still retained by the second and third generations that were born and grew up in the neighbourhoods of Wythenshawe.
Her moral courage, and her gift for marshalling statistical data made her a powerful adversary to those too ready to look to education for the imposed “cuts”. She never hesitated to stand up for her convictions, however formidable the odds.
Shena in 1962. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.
The story of Wythenshawe remains very important for us today. The history of Manchester’s bold project in developing a garden city to house those suffering in the slums can help to inform us about devolution for England’s regions and cities as well as how we might solve the housing problems that still bedevil Britain.
A LONG LIFE SPENT CAMPAIGNING
DOWNWYTHENSHAWETHEYEARS
Excerpt35015_026.fromBurdett’s
SHENA SIMON (1883-1972)
SHENA SIMON (1883-1972) –A LONG LIFE SPENT CAMPAIGNING Epilogue REFLECTIONS WYTHENSHAWE DOWN THE YEARS Epilogue REFLECTIONS 36 37
Her devotion to the cause of women’s emancipation was not merely a matter of enabling women to make their contribution to social and political life but resulted from a deep-seated belief that women were possessed of distinctive qualities and a set of values of their own which urgently needed expression in order to redress the balance of male forces in society. Excerpt from a speech delivered by Mabel Tylecote: The Work of Lady Simon of Wythenshawe for Education in Manchester, 28th November 1974.
The plaque at Wythenshawe Hall commemorating the Simons’ purchase of Wythenshawe Hall and Park. Photo by John Ayshford.
Shena’s passion was education. Her interest started when she was Lady Mayoress and she made a career out of her work on Manchester City Council’s Education Committee which she served on for over forty years. Such was the long nature of her service that, according to Mabel Tylecote, “no member of the Education Committee knew the schools as intimately as she did. Over many years she systematically visited them, knowing children as well as teachers”. Her contribution to education in Manchester was recognized in 1982 with the opening of the Shena Simon College. Nationally, she played a key role in raising the leaving age and laying the groundwork for the introduction of comprehensive education. Her work reflected her deep desire to democratize education in order to improve the chances of children from poorer families and to overhaul the existing education system which served the privileged. The Simons’ son Brian would later follow in her footsteps as a leading progressive Shenaeducationalist.wasalifelong advocate for women’s equality and forged a strong friendship with the feminist writer Virginia Woolf. The emancipation of women could only spring from women themselves and Shena therefore urged women to take an active role in public affairs. In 1922 as Lady Mayoress Shena hoped that there would be at least one female prime minister by 2022 and that women would compose half the representatives in Parliament and Manchester City Council, a goal which has sadly only been partially met. Shena Simon died in July 1972 leaving behind the Simons’ greatest achievement a fullyfledged Wythenshawe of 100,000 people. Her ashes are interned alongside Ernest’s at Manchester Crematorium.
Each
M14/6 Scrapbooks, especially M14/6/11 on Wythenshawe M14/7/13 Memorial Lecture by Dame Mabel Tylecote on ‘The Work of Lady Simon of Wythenshawe for Education in Manchester’ A word document catalogue of the papers of both Ernest and Shena Simon can be requested from the Central Library.
represents 100 dwellings 1947: 8,351 Houses Constructed by
Archival Sources The Papers of Lord Simon, First Baron of Wythenshawe, GB127 M11 (Held by Archives+ at Manchester Central Library) See in particular: M11/11/5 addnl (Diaries 1907-1944) M11/11/15 (Various Pamphlets, Reports and Hansard Records)
The Papers of Lady Simon of Wythenshawe GB127 M14 (Held by Archives+ at Manchester Central Library) See in particular: M14/1 Material relating to Wythenshawe estate, especially M14/1/1; M14/1/2; M14/1/22 M14/2/3 Articles, key pamphlets, and clippings relating to Shena’s work in education.
represents 100 dwellings 1934: 4,797 Houses Constructed
Books about the Simons 80th Birthday Book for Ernest Darwin Simon (1959) Anthony Simon, The Simon Engineering Group (1947 and 1953) With foreword by Ernest Simon Brian Simon, In Search of a Grandfather: Henry Simon of Manchester (1997) Joan Simon, Shena Simon Educationist and Feminist (1986) (Unpublished manuscript available at the University of Manchester Main Library) Mary Stocks, Ernest Simon of Manchester (1963) Works about Planning, Garden Cities and Wythenshawe Walter L. Creese, The Search for Environment: The Garden City Before and After (1966/1992) Derek Deakin, Wythenshawe: The Story of a Garden City (1989) Dugald Macfayden, Sir Ebenezer Howard and The Town Planning Movement (1933) (Includes short chapter by Shena Simon on Wythenshawe) Arthur Redford, The History of Manchester, Vol 3 The Last Half Century (1940) Stephen Ward, The Peaceful Path: Building Garden Cities and New Towns (2016) Wythenshawe: The Report of an Investigation made by the Manchester and Salford Better Housing Council (1935) (Copies available in public libraries across Manchester, including Wythenshawe Forum Library) of housing Wythenshawein by Manchester Corporation none house Manchester Corporation house by Manchester Corporation house Manchester Corporation house Manchester Corporation Wythenshawe house Manchester Corporation Manchester Corporation
1920s:
Each house represents 100 dwellings 1953: 12,382 Further Reading 3938
represents 100 dwellings Houses Constructed by
represents 100 dwellings Houses Constructed by
Growth
represents 100 dwellings 1961: 21,000 Houses Constructed by
Books by the Simons Ernest Simon and Marion Fitzgerald, The Smokeless City (1922) Ernest Simon, A City Council from Within (1926) Ernest Simon, How to Abolish the Slums (1929) Ernest Simon, The Anti-Slum Campaign (1931) Ernest Simon and J. Inman, The Rebuilding of Manchester (1935) Ernest and Shena Simon et al., Moscow in the Making (1937) Shena Simon, A Century of City Government (1938) Ernest Simon, The Smaller Democracies (1939) Ernest Simon, Rebuilding Britain – A Twenty Year Plan (1945) Shena Simon, Three Schools or One? (1948) Ernest Simon, The BBC from Within (1953)
Each
1932: 142 Each
Each
in
Each
Houses Constructed
Each house represents 100 dwellings 1939: 8,145 Houses Constructed by
4. Introducing the life of Ernest Simon – John Ayshford [10 minutes]
1. Welcome and why Wythenshawe matters – Martin Dodge [5 minutes]
8. Film clip – Simons home movie (c.1928) [3 minutes] (commentary by John Ayshford)
THE FORGOTTEN STORY OF ERNEST & SHENA SIMON AND THE CREATION OF MANCHESTER’S GARDEN CITY Exhibition Launch Workshop
7. Introducing the life of Shena Simon – Martin Dodge [10 minutes]
5. Film clip – Land of Promise (1945) [3 minutes]
6. Wythenshawe Hall in the 1920s – Libby Edwards [10 minutes]
3. From the ‘slums’ to Wythenshawe – John McCrory [10 minutes]
9. Questions and comments
10. Browse display of books by Ernest and Shena and reproduction photographs and some reproduction maps and plans of Wythenshawe from the period 11. Go see the Exhibition!! This exhibition has been curated by John Ayshford and Martin Dodge, University of Manchester. Acknowledgments: The exhibition was developed with the generous help of John McCrory, Janet Wolff, as well as Ingrid Holden and Libby Edwards from the Friends of Wythenshawe Hall.We also extend our gratitude to Margaret Simon (granddaughter of Ernest and Shena Simon) for her help and her permission to reproduce photographs of her family.We would also like to thank Bernard Flynn from the Wythenshawe History Group.The enthusiastic support of Elena Kretinina and Jane Ayrton at Wythenshawe Forum library has been most welcome. Programme SUPPORTED BY courtesy of John Ayshford.
Photographs
Wythenshawe Forum Library, Saturday 21st May 2022. 11am
2. Film clip – A City Speaks (1947) [3/4 minutes]
4140
We also extend our gratitude to Margaret Simon (granddaughter of Ernest and Shena Simon) for her help and her permission to reproduce photographs of her family. The support of Sarah Hobbs, Larysa Bolton and the Archives+ team at Manchester Central Library in facilitating access to Ernest and Shena Simon’s papers on multiple visits over many months was indispensable for research and for the collection of original material displayed in the exhibition. Other vital historic material was helpfully and speedily provided by Josh Tidy and Sophie Baxter-Jones at the Garden City Collection (Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation), as well as by Phil Madeley at the Legal Records Centre, Manchester City Council.
Contact: johnayshford@hotmail.co.uk
This exhibition catalogue booklet is released under a Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. 25 July 2022.
Dr Martin Dodge is Senior Lecturer in the Geography Department at the University of Manchester. Much of his current research focuses on the historical geography 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 Contact:(2019).m.dodge@manchester.ac.uk
Curator’s bios
4342
John Ayshford has a master’s degree in History from the University of Manchester. As well as being fascinated by the lives of the Simons, John is primarily interested in the history of political thought. He hopes to continue his studies at the University of Manchester in the near future.
Acknowledgements
The enthusiastic support of Elena Kretinina, Daksha Nayee, Nikcola Rigby and Jane Ayrton at Wythenshawe Forum library was essential to delivery. Excellent design for all exhibition material was provided by David Webb.
The exhibition was developed with the generous help of John McCrory, Janet Wolff, as well as Ingrid Holden and Libby Edwards from the Friends of Wythenshawe Hall.
We would also like to acknowledge the support of the following people for their help in promoting the exhibition: Emily Jones, Andrew Simpson, Andrew Frazer, Bernard Flynn, Cheshire Military Museum, Carole Bond from Wythenshawe Forum and Your Local Voice, Damon Wilkinson from the Manchester Evening News, Misha Farlowe from the People’s History Museum, Kerry McCall from The Manchester Historian, Karen Shannon and Ted Harris from Manchester Histories, Eddy Rhead and Simon Hadfield at the Modernist Society, Grant Collier, Heritage Officer at the University of Manchester, Sue Good and Diana Leitch from Didsbury Civic Society.
Financial support from the Social Responsibility Catalyst Fund of the University of Manchester’s School of Environment, Education and Development, and the Manchester Geographical Society was vital for the production of materials for the exhibition.
whobuiltwythenshawe.wordpress.com Source: Manchester – City of Achievements, 1947
