Jumping on the Titantic bandwagon

With this weekend heralding 100 years since the catastrophic sinking of the RMS Titanic, my mind wandered towards the 2,129 of our children who made the similar long journey across the ocean to start a better lift elsewhere. Like many on board the Titanic, the journey was seen as a means to improve circumstances and leave behind the crowded smoky cities of England to the spacious lands of Canada and America.

In the open fields of Canada c.1900 (PH/5/4)

However you’ve heard about the crossings before in this blog, the seasickness, the endless miles of water. So I thought I’d pick up on one of the stories (or myths) of Titanic and very tenuously bring it back to the Manchester Refuge (well it is Friday after all!)

The ‘band’ which famously played throughout the Titanic’s final hours reminded me of this wonderful photograph we hold in the archives.

Refuge Brass Band at Strangeways, c.1910. (PH/4/9)

It shows boys from the Central Refuge during brass band practice in the Strangeways grounds. From the very beginning the charity encouraged music as an honourable skill and hobby and the Manchester boys could often be seen as part of a ‘fife and drum band’ in the city centre. They’d take part in concerts and the annual Whitsuntide Sunday School procession through Manchester.

The Old Refuge Yard, 1873. The Fife and Drum Band can be seen in the front of the photograph. (PH/4/15)

We must be grateful that all 2,129 children that crossed the seas from the Refuge to Canada suffered no mishap on board the great ships of old. Their ships my not have been know as the ‘ship of dreams’ but they were seen as a giving the children a brighter future.