Salford Corner Shops

Sammy Hoffman's Corner

Salford City Reporter 1969

W. Stephenson, Tobacconist
268 Oldham Rd., Salford
circa 1910

Dauncey's Shop, Hulme Street

Photo credit: Salford_66

Edith Le Breton

Salford City Reporter circa 1965
To enlarge: right click on image, open in new window and click on image

                                                    

Photo credit: Salford Art Club

Edith Le Breton (1912-1992) 

"One of Altrincham's unsung talents is Edith Le Breton, an artist who lived and worked in the town and Dunham Massey for 50 years. Edith had a national profile and was best known for her paintings of northern scenes, many of them in Altrincham. They are representational paintings, usually oil on canvas, and generally chronicle post-war life in the north. She also worked in other crafts, painting china and textiles. Edith was friendly with Lowry who took an interest in her work. All of this was a remarkable achievement for a woman who also produced two children and ran a business during the difficult war and post-war years.

Edith Winifred Alice Sapple was born in 1912 at New Barns Farm, Weaste, Salford , just off Eccles New Road near the site of the old racecourse. She was the second of three talented sisters. the farm was large and ancient with a cobbled courtyard, gardens , a pond, and surrounded by fields. Her father Hugh was a policeman from Welshpool, Powys who served as a officer with the Manchester Dock Police. He was an excellent gardener and athlete and won many medals. Edith inherited her love of painting from her mother Edith Primrose (Tipping), who was a lady's maid to Lady Yarborough and then Lady Powys. Edith Sapple took her great grandmother's French name of le Breton to use as an artist.

Edith started painting at six and when she was nine she attended Seedley Council ( now Primary) School where her name and those of her sisters were on the school Roll of Honour board, now lost. Salford Artist Harold Riley also attended the school. In the lunch time all three sisters took private watercolour painting lessons. At the age of 11 Edith won a prize of money and a silver travelling case at Lewis's Art Exhibition in Manchester, for a portrait of Princess Elizabeth. At 13 she was awarded a scholarship to Salford School of Art and at 15 sold her first watercolour and obtained a first-class student shop to study for a further three years. Her older sister Doris and younger sister Mavis also won scholarships there. The family showed Edith's early artwork to artist Dame Laura Knight who advised Edith to " paint the people around you."

In 1933, at the age of 20, Edith married Cyril Jackson. In 1936 she was introduced Laurence Lowry by the director of Salford Art Gallery, Albert Frape, who gave her much support and encouragement. In 1937 Edith held and exhibition at Salford Art Gallery as an Artist of the Northern School.

Edith was always fascinated by the rows of Salford streets of cottages with donkey-stoned doorsteps and full of highly-polished furniture. the houses were always spotless, and the windows and curtains clean. She was interested in their sideboards full of ornaments with glass drops. The women folk were scrubbed clean with aprons tucked in and their sleeves rolled up. They were always busy, stirring a large pot on the range, laying the table or cleaning.

In 1939 Edith and Cyril were living in Langworthy Road, Salford and at the outbreak of the war Cyril joined the RAF as a Military Policeman. He was injured and was in hospital for a lengthy period so Edith had to provide for the family, which by then included their two young sons Peter and Dennis. She bought blank Royal Doulton china which she painted and sold to Kendal Milne's store on Deansgate, Manchester.

           The Move To Altrincham

The family was bombed out in Salford and Edith bought a provision shop and opp-licence on the corner of Pownall Street (now Road) and Rostherne Streeet in Newtown, Altrincham. After the war Cyril was able to help her with the long day in the shop, 8am to 10.30pm, and again she found time to paint, often in to the early hours.

In 1949 Frape asked Lowry to choose one of her paintings for Salford Art Gallery: he chose " A Salford Street". Edith clearly recognised interesting scenes which were worth preserving for posterity, working from memory , sketches and photos. Edith's figures are more detailed than Lowry's and her post-war pictures are often vivid colours. Edith and Lowry had both belonged to the Salford Arts Club and he wrote to her with encouragement to continue to paint despite setbacks and difficulties. They continued to correspond until his death in 1976.

Edith was a member of Manchester Academy of Fine Arts from 1952 to 1966, and her work was shown in their annual exhibitions. She was also a member of the Lancashire Group of Artists. She was awarded a fellowship in 1959 by the International Society of Arts and Letters and arranged an International Children's Art Exhibition in Manchester for the United Nations. On several occasions she organised international exhibitions of children's art for the Rotary Club of Altrincham, and she is said to be the first British artist to show and discuss her work on colour television.

Edith had exhibitions at the Medici Galleries, London, and group shows at the Manchester Academy of Arts, Lancashire Group Artists, and Altrincham Society of Artists. She exhibited nationally and sold at Sotherby's and Christies. She is represented in Salford City Art Gallery and in private collections in Europe, the United States, Central and South America, Australia and New Zealand. She judged children's exhibitions, contributed poems to literary journals and was associated with the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts. She painted a Manchester United match for Matt Busby and the 1972 Preston Guild.

In 1954 Edith and Cyril moved to High Street, Altrincham and 1959 retired to Magnolia Thatched Cottage at the back of the Axe & Cleaver public house in Dunham Massey and then to 1, Big Tree Cottages, Woodhouse Lane, Dunham Massey. During the 1970s Edith produced numerous paintings including some for Roger Grey, the last Lord Stamford. In1938 Edith was a guest at the Women of the Year Luncheon at the Savoy Hotel, in the company of many distinguished women. Edith and Cyril moved to Newtown, Altrincham into sheltered housing about 1990, to Williams Walk just two doors from where her Russell Street Shop had stood.

Edith's sister Mavis Hermione Sapple wrote a book in 1982 covering their early life entitled " A Salford Childhood", which is in Salford Public Library.

Some of her street scenes have a shop called "Jacksons" and include her sons or grandchildren and her dog, often in a Salford or Altrincham or Salford context. Many of her paintings have a short poem on the reverse

Edith Le Breton, MAFA (1952), FIAL (1959), died in 1992, painting right up to the end. Cyril was a valued member of Altrincham Court Leet from the 1970s and was still attending in his 90s until his death in 2004."  Source: Clark Art Ltd., Hale, Cheshire [1]

Selection of Works

Busy street scene with snow,
band playing for carol singers  1971
oil on canvas  46 x 56 cm

)

Local derby fans going to the football match
1973-74  oil on canvas 40.8 x 51 cm

Hey Ho Come to the Fair , 1971
oil on canvas 46 x 56 cm. (18.1 x 22 in.)

A Salford Street
Oil on canvas 29.5 x 39.5 cm

Forty Winks
Oil on hardboard  39 x 49 cm

The Pensioner  1972
oil on canvas  45.8 x  55.8 cm

Street Party 1977

A wintry scene: Stamford Park
oil on canvas 35.5 x 46 cm

Newtown, Old Altrincham  1962
Oil on canvas  54.5 x 59.5 cm

Street scene
Oil on canvas  44 x 59 cm

Notes

[1] Further biographical information can be found at Salford Art Club

Bygone Salford Churches

The Victorian church-building boom

"One wonders how many buildings from this church building boom of staggering
proportions actually survive and how many in 2003 are still in use as places of worship. Having lived in a city with a declining population, Salford, for a number of years, it is apparent that no longer can the various churches afford the upkeep of all their places of worship.  Between 1945 and 1986, the Anglican Diocese of Manchester closed no fewer than fifty Anglican churches in the twin cities of Manchester and Salford. Proportionately, there were similar levels of closure by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salford. Nonconformist places of worship had even greater losses. Same of the cIosures were forced by the wholesale re-development of large areas ..."  David H. Kennett

1. Salford Reporter ca. 1976
click on images to enlarge

1.  Unitarian Free Church, Pendleton  (Cross Lane) was founded on 20 January 1861 as a mission, and operated from a small chapel on Ford Street, Pendleton,  As the congregation grew, it was decided to build a new church on Cross Lane, which opened on 2 June 1874. Its first minister was Robert Laird Collier, an American. It was built to accommodate about 400 people.  Budgetary constraints demanded that its red-brick construction did not exceed  £3,000,    The church was designed by the local architect, Thomas Worthington, himself a Unitarian. It had a semi-circular chancel, and contained a First World War memorial.  The Victorian church was demolished in 1976, eventually to make room for a more modern icon. 

• Records

Source: The British Architect 1877

2.  St John Methodist Church, Weaste was located on the corner of Langworthy Road and Liverpool Street. Pevsner (1969) dates it to 1891/2, but the church registers show that baptisms were conducted there as early as 1878.  It was demolished in the late 1970s.  The church contained a stained-glass memorial window and bronze plaque to the First World War dead -- lest we forget?

• Archives

Photo credit: SWARM

St. John's, Seedley: final days
Photo credit: Salford_66

3. Brunswick Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, Broad Street, Pendleton, The opening service of the newly built chapel took place on 15 April 1881, and it closed in 1977.  A petition to have the building listed, so that it might be preserved, was rejected by the Department of Environment. It has since been demolished.

• Archives

2. Brunswick Chapel, Pendleton

 3. British Architect 11 April 1879

Caption: Selected Design for Brunswick Chapel, Pendleton

This design, submitted under the motto "Bona Fides",

has been chosen in a limited competition. The plan of chapel

accommodates 1,100 persons, as follows - Ground floor, 610;

gallery, 302; fall seats, 70; scholars seats, 150, and choir 40.

Three class-rooms or vestries, with choir vestry over, with lavatories

& c, are provided. A lecture hall at the back accommodates 162, and has

direct communication with the chapel. It is provided with vestry,

lavatory, & c. A wagon-shaped ceiling is shown in section for the 

chapel roof. Yorkshire stone dressings, with parpoints from Southowram,

are proposed for general walling. The estimated cost is £8,584. The architect is 

Mr. R. Knill Freeman, of Bolton.

The church seen above was preceded by a more modest structure, which was opened on 28 August 1814 by the Primitive Methodist congregation. James Butterworth describes it in the following"

"Pendleton, a very beautiful village now adjoining to Salford, is Brunswick-Row Chapel, belonging to the Old Methodists' Connection [1], built by subscription. It is small and neat, and has a cemetery attached to it." [2] 

The chapel was built of brick and stone, and modelled on the Oldham Street Chapel in Manchester, Brunswick Chapel was enlarged twice before it was demolished to make way for the new building. By 1836 it could accommodate 600 worshippers.  The chapel also operated a Sunday school. 

Salford City Reporter 1976

Of Interest

History of Brunswick Chapel, Pendleton: With Notices of Early Methodism in Manchester and Salford (1880)

Notes
[1] See also Cornish (1857)
[2] The cemetery of the chapel was closed, and its bodies exhumed and moved in 1879 in preparation for the construction of the new church.