Final Days

Tailoring class at the Manchester Industrial School, Ardwick, 1920

Note how the boys are in the time-honoured position of sitting cross-legged on the tables.

The Manchester Certified Industrial School, 1921

This was probably one of the last photographs taken of the Industrial School before its closure the following year. This scene would have been very similar to that which faced the first pupils and staff in 1923. Note the houses to the right. Left of the school, and next door to the former home of John Rylands, stood the old Ardwick Town Hall. Horse-drawn carts, cobbled streets, iron railings, ornamental lamp standards and high chimneys were common features of this period. The street cobbles were known as ‘petrified kidneys’ and when you were on a conveyance you were jolted about from side to side, “rattling your bones over the stones”, so the saying went.

Houses at the corner of Ardwick Green North and Higher Ardwick, 1921

The three stylish houses, dating from the previous century, stood at the eastern end of Ardwick Green North near the junction with Higher Ardwick, with the Industrial School to the left. The houses were later demolished, paving the way for St Gregory’s to extend on that site and on the brick croft on Higher Ardwick in 1958-60. Note the railings, cobbled road and cast-iron lamp standard. The street sign reads: ‘Ardwick Green North’.