A slice of history ........

Two images, two buildings, same site, different times.

Exhibit A is the bottom pic, looking South, taken at lunchtime today. It is where I spend much of my day. It was built in the 1930’s, as part of a scheme to give people work during the Great Depression. It started life as Swinton and Pendlebury Council’s Town Hall, before it became the HQ of Salford City Council in 1974. But it was not the first building on this site ................

Exhibit B is the top image, and we are looking West. This building sits on the footprint of the 1930’s Building, and a lot more. It was built following changes to the Poor Laws in the 1830’s, which made life even more difficult for the poor. If you were poor then it was your fault, and your responsibility. Working people lived in fear of ending up at the workhouse. The building was the Manchester Moral and Industrial School, built by the Manchester Poor School Union. It housed pauper children, with nearly 1000 there at it’s peak. Charles Dickens visited in the 1850’s, and described it as the Pauper’s Palace. The building closed in the 1920’s, and was demolished in the 1930’s to be replaced by Exhibit A. Apart from St Peter’s church, few other buildings in this image survive - a lesson in impermanence.

Different times. Although poverty is still very much with us. And we appear to be going backwards. Let’s hope not as far back as to be familiar to Charles Dickens, but 2018 is not a good time to be poor.