I had thought that I would sit this week out, since I didn't think I had any school stories in my ancestry. Instead of putting together a blog post, I decided to work on the Edgill branch of my family; the first part of my family history that I researched, many moons ago. I started on rechecking my original research, and looking through any new records that were now available online. It was while I was doing this work that I stumbled upon the perfect story for this week's writing prompt, from #52Ancestors.
Etholwyn (sometimes spelled Ethelwyn) Nicholson Edgill was my great grandfather's sister. She was born, according to her adult baptismal record, on 4th July 1869, in Stockport, Cheshire. Just like her older siblings, and like my great grandfather, I've not been able to locate her in the 1871 census, and have not found any birth record for her, so cannot confirm her parentage. She does, however, appear in the 1881 census, where her parents were recorded as Hannah Standring and William Nicholson Edgill, the clerk to the guardians of the Chorlton Poor Law Union, and superintendent registrar. She lived at home with her family in the 1891 census, but by 1901 Etholwyn was no longer living at home.
With such an interesting name it was fairly easy to find Etholwyn in the 1901 Census, living as a boarder with Henrietta Jane MacMillan, on Hawthorne Grove, Wilmslow, Cheshire. Henrietta was the Head Mistress at the Styal Cottage Homes, and Etholwyn was her assistant. The record was poorly written, and I thought it must have been a misspelled word; Styal seemed an unlikely name. I googled "Styal Cottage Homes" and would you believe? It was a real place!!
 |
| The entrance, gateway, and lodge. |
Styal Cottage Homes was built by the Chorlton Poor Law Union (the same union for whom Etholwyn's father had worked) at the turn of the century, to house destitute children from the Chorlton/Manchester area. It was a forward thinking endeavour, where not just a traditional orphanage was created, but an entire village consisting of 12 cottage homes, each with 20 beds, 4 smaller homes, each with 10 beds, plus a church, a hospital, and a school. Building work started in 1896, and was mostly completed by 1903, although some additional buildings were added in 1905, and 1928, which included a farm, used as an agricultural training school.
 |
| The school at Styal Cottage Homes |
Children lived in the village in one of the 'cottage' homes, which were actually quite large houses. Each 'cottage' had a house mother, and assistant house mother, and there were other staff, of course, to run the school, hospital, and other facilities, obviously including a head mistress and her assistant! All in all the population of Styal Cottage Homes village was approximately 310, when it opened in 1898, but would have capacity to accommodate 500-600 staff and students.
Prior to the creation of Styal Cottage Homes the orphaned and destitute children of Chorlton had been housed at first in the workhouse, along with the adults. In 1880, in an attempt to do better for the children, the Chorlton Union built new schools and a children's home across the road from the workhouse, on Nell Lane, Chorlton. The homes consisted of two 6 storey buildings, one for the boys and the other for the girls. They were connected by a single storey block which housed the dining hall, laundry and such like. The school was to the north of these buildings, and formed the entrance to the overall site. This allowed the guardians to move 271 children, and 70 infants out of the workhouse, making room for 200 adults to take their place.
 |
| Nell Lane School and Orphanage, designed by architects Mangnall & Littlewoods, in 1880. |
Styal Cottage Homes was an idea that sprang from a desire to do better for the destitute and orphaned children in the Chorlton Union workhouse. It was felt that the country air would be beneficial for them, and the village community aspect was very en vogue for the time.
The industrial era had many examples of mill and factory owners building workers accommodation in a model village style. Bourneville is one famous example of such an endeavour, where the Quaker Cadbury family built a model village for the workers of their Cadbury chocolate factory. The idea behind model villages was partly rooted in the need to attract labourers to a part of the country where there was little accommodation, but where the land was ideal for a mill (often with a good head of water for a source of power.) But it was also rooted in the Victorian principles of morality, and health.
Most model villages came, not just with a job and a nice home, but also conditions regarding how a worker and resident should live. In Bourneville, for instance, the sale of alcohol within the village was strictly forbidden. Textile mill owner Titus Salt developed a model village in Yorkshire, named Saltaire. His rules included the prohibition of hanging out laundry to dry, the prohibition of any animals being kept in the village, and insisting that cleanliness, cheerfulness, and order should reign supreme, to name but three. Imagine having a condition of housing that insisted that you be constantly cheerful!!
 |
| Saltaire is now a World Heritage site. |
Styal already possessed such a model village, built and maintained by the Gregg family who owned and ran the Quarry Bank mill. They built what is now called the Styal Estate in 1784, so by the time the Chorlton Union was building Styal Cottage Homes, the philosophy regarding model villages was well understood, and ready to be extrapolated to fit an orphanage model.
 |
| Quarry Bank, now known as the Styal Estate, was gifted to the National Trust in 1939. |
Whilst we might imagine a village of, and for children, as a sort of adventurous child utopia, it seems like the reality was closer to prison life. The windows of the houses in which the children lived were all clearly visible from the street, whilst the superintendent's house was shielded by shrubs, bushes and trees. The school had a beautiful playground for the children to use at recess, which was contained by a wall, railings, and wrought iron gate. This was not to protect the children from unwanted visitors; there would be none such people within the village grounds. It was instead, to stop the children from using the playground outside of school hours, which was strictly prohibited. Church attendance was mandatory, but only Anglican children were accepted. Catholic children were sent elsewhere. As with the model villages developed for working people of the industrial era, Styal Cottage Homes was designed to ensure that control over the children was constantly maintained, and that the children were upheld to the highest standards of morality, common to Victorian society.
 |
| An unusual subject for a picture postcard! |
Etholwyn worked at Styal Cottage Homes for over a decade. She was recorded as working as an assistant to the head school mistress, Henrietta J MacMillan in 1901, and again in 1911. At both times they were living together, away from the Styal campus, at River Views, Hawthorne Grove, Wilmslow, Cheshire. It's not clear what work Etholwyn would have undertaken; secretarial, or teaching assistant type work or perhaps a mix of the two. But when I saw this picture, and the date, I imagined that she would have known these children!
 |
| Styal Nursery children, circa 1908. |
Etholwyn married late in life (for the era) in 1916. On June 10th of that year she married Arthur Howard Davies, a solicitor, and widower, at St Clement's, Chorlton- cum- Hardy, Lancashire, close to her family home. Her mother Hannah Edgill, and her roommate, and colleague from her days at Styal Cottage Homes, Henrietta Jane MacMillan, were witnesses. Both Etholwyn and Arthur were 46 years old. Etholwyn never had any children and died at the age of 75, on 11th September 1944, at Chester Nursing Home, Chester, Cheshire.
As for Styal Cottage Homes; the village was taken over by the Manchester Education Committee in 1930, and was used by them for a number of years as an outdoor school. Children were often sent to school there for residential schooling if they were unwell from the effects of city living (asthma, for example). Styal Open Air School eventually closed on the 20th July 1956. The village was used to house Hungarian refugees from December 1956- September 1959, and in 1960 the Prison Commission took over the site. The buildings now form part of HM Prison Styal, a closed category women's prison.
 |
| This modern day aerial view of HM Prison Styal, shows that the original village layout is still visible. |
**************************************************************
https://www.workhouses.org.uk/Chorlton/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styal_Cottage_Homes
https://www.wilmslow.org.uk/wilmslow/styal-cottage-homes/styalcottagehomes.html
https://pure.manchester.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/54517312/FULL_TEXT.PDF
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bournville#Governance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarry_Bank_Mill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltaire
No comments:
Post a Comment