Boslam Street, Ancoats, 1902

 

Boslam street was just one of many streets George and Charlotte lived in during their married life together, which might suggest they were members of the 'midnight flit society' - a club to which many families of this age belonged. Though from the amount of addresses George and Charlotte lived at, they may even have qualified as honorary members. There was much 'flitting around' in those days. If a family fancied a vacant house, it was merely a matter of getting the O.K. from the rent man. Children would arrive home from school to find strangers sitting down to tea.  Below is a list of just some of the streets and houses I found George and Charlotte resident in whilst searching through various records for the births and baptisms of their nine children.

2 Shakespeare Street, Bradford - 19 Shakespeare Street, Bradford - Beaumont Street, Beswick - Parker Place, Bradford - Ashton New Road, Bradford (over a shop) - 8 Forrest Street, Beswick - 9 Boslam Street, Ancoats - 31 Boslam Street, Ancoats - Beswick Street, Ancoats - 81 Bradford Road, Ancoats - 81 Cobden Street, Miles Platting - 147 Cobden Street, Miles Platting.

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Many streets in Ancoats were filled with the type of property on view in Boslam street, and during the nineteenth century, as well as the usual two-up-two-down accommodation, entire families also occupied the cellars. This was considered to be unsanitary and squalid and many of the diseases that were rife in Manchester initially started in these damp and dirty cellars. So numerous were these places of inhabitation, in fact, that Manchester rapidly became known as a city of cave-dwellers.

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