Our Proud History

We feel very fortunate to be members of a school that can trace its history over 350 years, a church that is over 450 years old and also to be part of a community that has such a long and fascinating story.

From the Romans to Manchester United; from the Norman conquest to the industrial revolution; from the upper classes to the working poor fighting for their rights; from war heroes to pacifists; from Empire builders to suffragettes; from a rural heath to a busy urban area.

Our school has been at the heart of Newton Heath for centuries, and served the children in all their spiritual and learning needs. Things have changed over the years, particularly over the last 150 years, and Newton Heath is transitioning from one identity to a new one, and it is a huge pleasure to be nurturing the next generation who will be part of it.

Newton Heath

Roman Times

A Roman road connecting Manchester and York ran straight through what is now Newton Heath. It is unmistakably a Roman road. The Roman agger (a type of ancient Roman rampart or embankment) on this road was huge and was too good a foundation to ignore for modern road builders.

Back Lane (now Briscoe Lane) and All Saints Church were actually built exactly on top of the old road. Roman Road in Failsworth, Briscoe Lane and Bradford Road were all part of one Roman road that eventually led to Deansgate and the fort in Castlefield.

This was part of a major inter-city highway for the Romans - Chester to York - and probably the most important road in northern England. The road features a long straight alignment from Store Street, Manchester, all the way to High Moor beyond Oldham. The route out of Manchester fort to join it perhaps would have been close to Whitworth Street.

An article in All Saints Parish magazine spoke of the road being made by laying large oak beams across the boggy parts along Briscoe Lane and in Gaskell Street, a farm labourer had found thirty oak logs so decayed that they could only be used for firewood.

Clayton Hall

Clayton Hall was an extremely important residence in the Newton Chapelry District for centuries, and was also linked to Culcheth Hall, which used to be at the southern end of Culcheth Lane near the present day Christ the King Church.

The Manchester Collegiate Church (now Manchester Cathedral) owned much of the land in medieval Newton Heath, but the owners of Clayton Hall were also important land and property owners.

When Cecilia Clayton married Robert de Byron in 1194 Clayton Hall passed to the Byron family, of which poet Lord Byron was a later member. The Byrons lived there for more than 400 years, and owned much land within the Newton Chapelry, of which Clayton Hall was part of. Robert de Byron was a descendant of Ralph de Buron, who came over with William the Conqueror in 1066, and was given lands in Nottinghamshire.

Clayton Hall is still in existence and can be visited.

There are definite records for Newton Chapel in 1556, and a chapel constructed in 1571.

See where the old ‘heath’ would have been

In 1773, the school building had fallen into decay and could no longer be used. Lessons were then taken in the church while funds were raised for a new building. This new building was a little further north of the chapel and across a lane (now All Saints’ Street). This area between the chapel and the canal constructed in 1804 would be for the “poor” and included a “Poor House”.

Before the 1814 church was constructed, the previous Newton chapels had earth floors and rushes were laid down on an annual basis to provide limited comfort to the congregation.

Fighting for Rights and Peterloo

The mass movement of people from the countryside to work and live in the rapidly expanding cities and towns like Newton Heath, brought with it opportunity and hardships.

A reduction in wages for cotton weavers in 1807 and 1808 led to riots and turnouts. In May 1808 the weavers of Manchester, Newton and other places visited Blackley and collected the shuttles to stop work, and carried the pieces unfinished back to the warehouses in Manchester.

Sadly, the events of 1819 would be even more tragic with the event that would become known as “Peterloo”.

The “Blanket Meeting’ was held in March 1817 and the Peter’s Field Meeting, commonly known called “Peterloo” occurred on August 16, 1819, and Newton and Failsworth were strongly represented on each of these occasions, the drillings which preceded Peterloo taking place close at hand on White Moss in Moston.

The following is an account from Joseph Barrett who was a Newton Heath manufacturer who kept a warehouse in Manchester, and he saw Peterloo from a vantage point close to that of the magistrates.

The following account was told to the Oldham Chronicle by a ‘veteran’ of Peterloo in 1884.

New Church

The previous chapel, before the church we know today, literally fell down shortly after a service. This led to the construction of a ‘new’ and rather grand stone church.

All Saints School Expands

In 1829, the School became a National Society School with a Deed of Union, still operative, 'that the Children are instructed in the liturgy and Catechism of the Established Church.' In 1833, the government were starting to take a greater interest and control of education, and provided grants to voluntary schools.

Arrival of the Railway

The railway came to Newton Heath in 1839, only 10 years after Stephenson’s “Rocket” had won the ”Rainhill Trials” and became the first engine on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the first major railway in the world.

The railway would accelerate development in Newton Heath, and would also provide us with probably our most famous claim to fame - the birthplace of Manchester United Football Club.

New School

The school master in 1852 was James Worthington and a ‘new’ school, that stood within living memory in All Saints’ Street, was built in 1854. The previous school had become inadequate for the requirements of the neighbourhood, it was rebuilt by public subscription.

Birth of Manchester United

In 1878 the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company granted permission for the employees of its Carriage and Wagon department to start a football team, which was subsequently named Newton Heath LYR, with Frederick Attock appointed as this new club's president. LYR stood for "Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway" and was used to distinguish the team from their colleagues from the Motive Power Division, who were known as Newton Heath Loco. The team was funded by the railway company, who paid the lease on its first home ground, a field close to the railway yard on North Road. It is said that the players were "tough, diligent men who formed a powerful side"; they initially played games against other teams of railway workers, very few of which were recorded.

On the final night of a fund-raising bazaar in 1901 (Newton Heath FC were in financial trouble and had been relegated to the Second Division), the club’s mascot, a giant lemon and white-coloured St. Bernard dog called The Major, went missing.

The dog belonged to Newton Heath full-back and captain Harry Stafford and on match-days, it would be seen at the ground with a collection box around its neck. The dog’s disappearance started a chain of events that changed the course of history, turning an underperforming Second Division team on a brink of bankruptcy into the First Division champions in a space of just seven years.

Having wandered the streets of Manchester, The Major turned up at a restaurant, where he caught the attention of a wealthy local brewer and businessman, John Henry Davies. Eager to buy the dog for his daughter, Davies tracked down Stafford through an advert in the Manchester Evening News. The businessman's initial offer was rejected by the footballer, who refused to part with his beloved pet. However, with Newton Heath at severe risk of bankruptcy, Stafford eventually gave in and The Major became Davies’s dog, just in time for his daughter’s 12th birthday.

As a result, Davies became interested in the Heathens’ financial plight and together with four other investors, including Stafford, he rescued the club from bankruptcy and became its new chairman. On 26 April 1902, given that the team now had few ties with its origins; it was no longer based in Newton Heath, the new owners renamed the club Manchester United Football Club, after considering the alternative names "Manchester Celtic" and "Manchester Central". They also changed the team's colours to red and white.

Newton Heath Through the Victorian Era to the Present Day…

By the late 1800s and into the 20th Century, the government increased spending on schools. The school master in 1899 was Mr Joseph Priest, who very sadly tried to take his own life. He had been school master for many years, and this shows that mental health and wellbeing are not something new.

AVRO

See how the landscape of Newton Heath has changed

Leaving a Legacy

World War 2

The school archives show that the children of the school were evacuated on 1st September 1939 to Fulwood outside of Preston.

This first account is by Frank White who was a 12-year old chorister at All Saints Church in 1939, and is a very powerful account of the fateful day when our children were evacuated out of the city.

On September 3rd, two Sundays later, at noon, on leaving All Saints church, Newton Heath, Manchester, where I was a chorister, I walked to the place where my father had an allotment. On my way the information reached me that, during Matins, while we in the choir had been singing Psalm 18  (‘The earth trembled and quaked : the very foundations of the hills shook…’) war had been declared.

My father was in his greenhouse, side-shooting tomato plants, and I gave him the news. He’d been one of that first 80,000 professional soldiers who’d gone to France with the British Expeditionary Force at the beginning of the First World War and he’d fought on through Mons, Marne, Aisne, First Ypres, Festubert, Loos and the Somme, until wounds ended his war. He knew better than most what the news meant.  He sank on to the wall of the greenhouse trough and tears welled up in his eyes. 

The evacuation of the schools had taken place over the previous three days. Like the irresistible siren strains of the Pied Piper, it had emptied the streets of children. I was one of the very few who stayed behind. On a bright, cloudless morning, I went to the local primary school to see the evacuees off on their way.

Three red, Manchester Corporation Transport Department double decker buses waited at the kerb while their drivers stood together some distance off, smoking in silence.

On the pavement, huddled together,  jostled the evacuees, over a hundred of them, all aged  eleven or under, with their cardboard gas mask boxes slung by string over their shoulders, their name tags pinned to their chests, and, here and there, paper carrier bangs dangling from their hands, containing, no doubt, emergency provisions for the journey.

Among them, fussing, straightening children’s caps, fastening buttons, staring into children’s faces, milled their parents, some fathers, many mothers. At the periphery, and sometimes elbowing their way into the crowd, half a dozen agitated teachers with lists in their hands and tense faces, called out names and tried to shepherd this group or that out of the crowd, but the noise was such that for a while no-one appeared to hear them. Onlookers, with arms folded, stood at their garden gates, and shopkeepers had come to their doors, to watch it all.

The din, the confusion, went on for a good ten minutes longer until, mysteriously, in little spasms, as if someone with a volume control was slowly turning down the knob, silence began to spread. Last minute doubts, uncertainty and reluctance, were fading and a sad sense of inevitability was setting in.

For a while no-one seemed to move. Then, galvanizing themselves again, the teachers, with outspread arms and loud shouts, began to gather their charges, parting them from the tearful hugs of their parents, lining them up in three shuffling columns, and feeding them at last on to the buses.

Many younger ones were crying. Others moved as if in a trance, baffled and uncomprehending. Others, older boys, unwilling to show emotion in the sight of their mates, grinned, rocked their shoulders, and refused to look back. Two sisters had been selected for different buses. They themselves didn’t seem to care, but their mother screamed and ran about hysterically until she saw them sitting side by side

A boy I knew, thin, long haired, Jim,  a ragged lad whom I sometimes found trailing after me for no reason, saying nothing, had neither father or mother with him. But I had the distinct impression that he was enjoying this, looking forward, glad to be going. On the platform of the bus he turned to offer me a cheerful smile and a wide wave goodbye. From both decks of all three buses, the children gazed out.  With drawn faces and fluttering hands, the parents gazed back, mouthing last messages. Others, whose children were on the other sides of the buses, crossed the road and waved from there. And at last the buses drew away.

“Tarra! Tarra! Tarra!’ called the parents, with crumpled faces and wet eyes. “Tarra, love, tarra, tarra tarra…!’

And the buses, like a squadron of battleships in line astern, sailed out of sight down Briscoe Lane.

For a while yet the parents lingered, sometimes conversing in quiet voices, sharing their misery, sometimes merely standing there unable to move away. But at last they all drifted off, leaving me sitting on the low wall under the privet hedge. Just as I got up the caretaker of the school came to close the gates. I watched him fix them firmly together with chain and padlock. Then I tramped away.

The next account is by James, who was a pupil at the school who evacuated to Fulwood. One can only imagine the trauma the parents and the children felt.

My memories start when I was ten years old and lived in Manchester. Two days before war broke out we were evacuated. 

We moved from All Saints School to a school in Fulwood, Preston. Some of our teachers also went along with us. Three of my family were evacuated - myself, my younger brother and my elder sister. We arrived at the school in Fulwood, where we were divided among families. The three of us were kept together and went to a family with the name Nye. 

We stayed with them for six months. After this we were split up. I went to a family who lived in a large farmhouse and had seven other evacuees. We all did our share of the chores and were very well looked after. I stayed with this family for three years although I did go home and visit my own parents about three times. Even after the war ended, I visited the family and stayed with them for a couple of days.

I went to school, mornings one week, afternoons another. A Methodist chapel was converted into school rooms for us. I remember the school produced a school magazine called 'The Evacuee'. We put our own words to popular songs and they were printed in the magazine. We also wrote articles in it telling of our own personal experiences. Also, while at the school in Preston, we were joined by evacuees from South London. We soon realised that we talked differently but got on very well together. 

I remember in Preston there was a large aircraft factory and during the war it regularly got bombed and we'd been moved there for our own safety!!

The next account is from Fulwood Methodist Church, who did so much to look after the needs of the children whilst evacuated.

War was declared in 1939 and there were dark days ahead. Mothers and children were evacuated from London and Manchester and billeted in Fulwood homes. Our premises were used as a day school and the evacuees also attended Church and Sunday School. 

Lancashire County Council established a Library in the room alongside the kitchen which still bears the title today. The room on the left of the entrance porch was “The Firewatching Room”. Six bunks were installed and there was a firewatching rota. Six young ladies from Fulwood kept watch every Friday night after the dustmen on Thursday night. The A.R.P. Wardens on duty would call in for supper at 10 o’clock. 

The Government felt that something must be done to occupy the children and young people in Wartime. At Fulwood it was decided to start the uniformed organisations and Brownies, Cubs, Guides and Scouts met for the first time in 1942. The Rev. A.E. Foley vigorously encouraged these activities and brought the Youth Centre into being. Classes for Folk Dancing, Drama, Handicrafts, Badminton and Table Tennis were held each night of the week. The Sunday School which met on Sunday afternoon decided to start the “Order of the Morning Star” to encourage the children to attend Church on Sunday mornings. The Junior and Senior Guilds had ceased to meet in the mid 30’s and although there was an “Inters” Guild for a short time it was not until 1945 that the Wesley Guild was re-established. 

After the first few months of the war, some children returned to All Saints but to a very different school. The lower floor, which usually housed the infant department, had bed been converted into an air raid shelter which was not removed until 1945. Some of the teachers were employed to teach the children, and some of them also went to Fulwood with the children for a period of time. What dedication!

At the end of the war, the school archives show that teachers returned from ‘active duty’, but to a different school to the one they left.

After the Education Act of 1944, the school would become All Saints Primary School, and replaced the infant and mixed schools, and Miss Taylor who had been the headmistress of the infant school, would become the first Head Teacher of the primary school and would be in post for over another 20 years.

Harry Thorneycroft MP

Harry Thorneycroft was born in Newton Heath in 1892 and attended our school around the turn of the 20th century while living in Ballantine Street.

He worked as a hairdresser from the age of 9 near the entrance to Brookdale Park on Droylsden Road. He later became President of the National Federation of Hairdressers.

During the First World War, he served overseas with the Royal Field Artillery, and while living in King Street, Newton Heath (near where Lastingham Street is now) he was elected as a councillor to Manchester City Council in 1923, and became an alderman in 1939.

Education Expands Again

In 1947, under the Education (Butler) Act of 1944, All Saints became a Voluntary Aided Maintained Primary School associated with Manchester City Council Local Education Authority. This brought voluntary schools further under the control of government, but allowed them to keep certain ‘freedoms’ such as their religious character, admissions criteria etc. It also left them responsible for the cost of maintaining the buildings and grounds (although grants would be provided).

It also marked the end of the school having two Head Masters/Mistresses, one for the infants and one for the mixed school. The leaving age was brought down to 11 and the school became one primary school. Miss D. Taylor, who had been the Head Mistress of the infant school since 1934, was appointed the first Head Teacher of the primary school and would continue in this role until 1965.

School photos through the years

400 Years of All Saints Church

The images above show the changes between 1958 and today. The land owned by the church, which used to be the graveyard and the rectory and garden, was used for the school building and KS2 playgrounds (leased to Manchester City Council). After the building was opened, Manchester City Council bought one half of Church Avenue and demolished the houses to make way for what is now the KS1 playground.

Councillor Kathleen Ollerenshaw laid the Foundation Stone on 25th July 1963. This can be seen today opposite our office in the main entrance.

Goodbye to the 1854 School

The new school opened to the children in 1964, and at a later date, houses in church terrace were demolished to make way for what is now the KS1 playground.

Photographs from the 1960s and 1970s after the current school building opened.

Redevelopment

Reflection

This evaluation from 1904 gives a very good example of the divide at the time between the well-educated and privileged wealthy, compared with the limited education and opportunities for the poor.

It still has some relevance today with the disconnect between people brought up in totally different circumstances, not even aware of those of others, never mind understanding them.

The rather patronising tone of this piece from over 100 years ago, does give some clues to the problem within its descriptions. It actually describes hard-working, resilient, smart and inquisitive people, whose work contributed to Manchester being a world city. What it doesn’t describe are the reasons for poverty and the control held by the wealthy. When you rent a house from the people who also employ you, and who also fund and influence the limited services in the area, opportunities are extremely limited.

Newton Heath has changed beyond recognition on a number of occasions, and certainly since 1904. The old industries have pretty much gone, housing has changed a number of times, families have left the area and new ones have made it their home.

How lucky the children are today that education, health, medicines, housing control, sewers, social security etc are provided and that the limits to their success are their own ambition and hard work.

There are still challenges to overcome, and the next generations can definitely overcome them and shape a new identity for Newton Heath.

To the future…