Panel 10: “The Gift” (1922-1931) The Battle for Wythenshawe

WARTIME WYTHENSHAWE AND THE 1945 CITY OF MANCHESTER PLAN

Practice air raid drill, Sharston School (1939). Source: Manchester Local Image Collection, ref. m09907.

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 fl ooding. Incendiary bombs also landed around Wythenshawe during the Manchester Christmas Blitz in December 1940, but fortunately did not cause signifi cant 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.

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.

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.

(Above) Source: City of Manchester Plan (1945).

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. The renewed development of Wythenshawe represented a signifi cant 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 development, Wythenshawe’s long-demanded civic centre would remain unbuilt for many more years to come.

BUILDING JERUSALEM

(Above) The layout of a new residential neighbourhood in the City of Manchester Plan (1945).

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.

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. Excerpt from Rebuilding of Britain – A Twenty Year Plan (1945).

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+.

(Left) Shena laid out her case for comprehensive education in her 1948 book.

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 specifi c 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.