Together Trust Archive

The following blog post has been written by Katie Royle, a student at Manchester Metropolitan University currently studying for a Master's in Public History and Heritage. As part of her course Katie is using the Together Trust Archive located at Manchester Central Library to undertake research on some of the young people emigrated to Canada. This is the first part of Katie's research into the Maddock family, detailing the circumstances behind how the family came into contact with the Charity. It was a happy day when Charlie Maddock stood proudly in the church awaiting his new bride in Kingston, Ontario, in 1899. Dressed in his smartest suit, with his younger brother smiling by his side, he was ready to settle down and start a family with his new Canadian wife. Outside the church, the snow was over a foot deep, the air crisp and clear - a world away from his life in smog-filled industrial Manchester; a life of hardship and squalor that had been transformed forever just over...

Somehow we find ourselves in 2017 and celebrating yet another birthday for the Together Trust. The 4 th of January saw us reach the grand old age of 147. In three years time we’ll hit 150 years and plans are already afoot to honour this momentous occasion. So let’s go back to the year it all began and explore Manchester as it used to be. PH.4.2.21 Boys on Steps

The vast majority of children who entered the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges and Homes were from Manchester and the surrounding areas. The charity began with the intention to take boys, and later girls, out of the city slums and give them safe, warm accommodation, where they could learn a trade and create a better life for themselves. A look at the admission books for the charity however, revealed that it was not just Mancunians who passed through the Refuge door.  Of course Manchester appealed to people from all over. The Industrial R evolution meant people had swarmed to the cities looking for work. Certain areas therefore became well known as settlements for different nationalities. Ancoats, for example, became well known as ‘ Little Italy ’, as poverty caused many Italians to move away from their homeland. Ancoats was also home to a large population of Irish workers, many of whom lived in the cellars of the small, cramped houses. Up in Salford and Prestwich,...