In the 1851 census we have for the first time reasonably detailed information on a minority who were to become within a short time a majority in Strangeways - the Jews. There are approximately eighty people in the 1851 census whom we may reasonably surmise to be Jewish, and these included the Rabbi, the Reader at the Synagogue and his father, and, of course, the famous Frederick Engels, one of many merchants from abroad then living in Strangeways. The Synagogue was at this time situated across the Irk in Ainsworth's Court, off Long Millgate, and Strangeways was conveniently near for several Jewish immigrants who stayed as lodgers with gentile families. An analysis of their occupations as recorded in the census gives some indication of the nature of early Jewish settlement in Strangeways.

Merchants 9

Merchants' Clerks 6

Travellers 2

Watchmakers 3

Clerics 3

Cloth cap makers 7

Tailors and Dressmakers 6

Indiarubber waterproofer 3

Hawker 3

Carver 1

Bookkeeper 1

Lodging House Keeper 1

Teacher of Hebrew 1

The mercantile class consisted, in this small sample, of German and Levantine Jews. Tailors and watchmakers were also German in origin, whilst clergymen and clothcap makers were predominantly Polish. The solitary indiarubber waterproofer is the earliest person recorded to have carried on this trade in Manchester, a process for which Strangeways Jewry later became renowned, and which is still continued to this day. The Mr Marcus Friedlander who bears this honour may have discovered the process himself, or learnt it in his native Poland.

Perhaps the most important feature of this nuclear Jewish community was the presence of its religious leaders. Rabbi Salomon Szinessy lived in New Bridge Street, and Jacob Kantrowitz, the Reader, lived in Julia Street, a neighbour of the Teacher of Hebrew. It was thus natural, when the old synagogue succumbed to an Improvement Act, for the Trustees to turn to the land across the Irk for a site on which to found their new synagogue, and in January, 1857, land was purchased from the Earl of Derby for that purpose, using some of the £1500 compensation received from the Corporation. Services were held temporarily in the recently opened Jews' School House in Cheetham Hill Road, while the reform Jews set about building their own synagogue in Park Place, Strangeways. (129) The Jewish community was now firmly entrenched in Strangeways, and it was natural for new immigrants to settle in the vicinity of the new synagogue in accordance with the tenets of their religion, and from the natural inclination of all immigrants to seek members of their own community.

During the 1860s the rate of immigration from the continent of Europe was appreciably increasing, and although its peak had yet to come in the '80s and '90s with the Russian pogroms, the demands for aid made upon the congregation were reaching proportions that called for the creation of an organisation devoted entirely to the work of relief. In April 1865 a scheme was mooted to form a Board of Guardians and on March 30th, 1867, it finally came into being and its laws were approved. A grant of £25 was received from the Congregation of British Jews for the Passover Relief Fund which in that year had to deal with two hundred and thirty applications for matzos by 330 adults and 400 children.

Records of the Benevolent Relief Fund in fact survive for the years 5625-7 C. E. (1864-1867) and supply a wealth of detail about the poorest Jewish immigrants, including addresses, length of residence in England, occupation, number of children and the nature and quantity of the relief given. The records of Passover Relief for the year 5628 and 5629 provide less detailed information, but include nearly twice as many applicants than applied for Winter relief. (130)

It is quite clear from these records that Fermie Street and Verdon Street formed the poorest part of Strangeways, and where there was the highest concentration of immigrant Jews. Occupations were restricted to a fairly small range, and included large numbers of hawkers and glaziers, young men who came to Manchester and adopted the only way of making a living available to them. They clustered into the houses in Verdon Street and Fermie Street, extremely small, cramped dwellings overlooking the unsavoury tannery. Overcrowding was appalling; there were at least twenty-six people living at 25 Verdon Street in 1868, for example, and such cases abounded. Many people were only temporary residents, and moved on as soon as they could to America, often with assistance from the Board of Guardians.

By the end of the century Strangeways had a population almost exclusively Jewish; many of the old churches and chapels became synagogues, often for different national groups. The Strangeways ghetto became second home for many thousands of Jews displaced from their own countries.

The 1860s certainly saw the end of the old Strangeways. Not only was the population rapidly changing in character, Strangeways itself was changing physically. The rest of the estate was now developed, covering all the area where the pond had once lain with row upon row of stock brick. In 1864 the Hall itself was demolished, thus finally severing the link with the past, and in its place was built Alfred Waterhouse's masterpiece, the Venetian Gothic Assize Courts, with the now notorious prison behind.

Assize Courts, Great Ducie Street, 1859

We have seen the development of Strangeways, how it gradually changed from fields, to residential estate, to ghetto; and some of the people who helped to make Strangeways. What they so painstakingly created has already gone; what enemy action spared the bulldozer has since removed. The people too have gone, and although one may occasionally sight the Jewish gabardine, Strangeways is now designated a light industrial area. To most people the name is synonymous with the prison, built after the period covered by this study, and the days when Strangeways was a community have already been forgotten.

1865 1866 1867 1868 1869

Hawker 11 7 6 4 5

Glazier 11 13 20 65 52

Tailor 7 13 12 30 31

Hatter 1

Teacher 2 1 1 1

Dealer 2 3 2 1

Capmaker 4 2 2 3 2

Tassel maker 1 1

Fishmonger 1 1 1 1

Shoemaker 2 2 5 3

Stonemason 1 1

Picture dealer 1

Joiner 1 2 1

Lodging keeper 1

Shopkeeper 1

Porzer 1

Smith 1

Cane trimmer 1

Gives out bills 1

No trade 1

WR WR WR PR PR

5625 5626 5627 5628 5629

1865 1866 1867 1868 1869

 

2 (x2)

4 4(x2) 4(x6)

10 10

14 14(x2) 14(x3) 14(x2) 14

16 16 16(x2)

18

20(x3) 20 20 20

22

24(x3) 24(x2) 24(x3) 24(x10) 24(x2)

26(x5) 26(x6)

28(x10) 28(x3)

32(x2)

34(x2)

36

40 40

42

44(x2)

46

48

Even numbers only. Numbers in parentheses indicate number of households in each house that received relief.