The Jewish Community of the South Manchester suburb of Didsbury  1891-1914:

a socio-economic comparison with the Northern sector of the city's Jewry

INTRODUCTION

I chose to focus on this topic because of the surprising lack of published research in this specific area. The high influx of Jewish immigrants led Didsbury being nicknamed  'Yidsbury' and Palatine Road (a major road which runs through it), 'Palestine Road'. The Didsbury Jewry, I felt, deserves far more recognition than has so far received because of the distinctive rich character and diversity it has brought to the mainstream community.  

 

Palatine Road / Lapwing Lane Junction Tram / Bus Terminus -  West Didsbury
Tram terminus 1912	Bus terminus  2005

1912 image: Manchester Library & Information Service
 

For the purpose of this study ‘Didsbury’ will include the neighbouring suburb of Withington since many members of its Jewish community lived on major route ways such as Palatine Road and Wilmslow Road which ran through both areas. Besides the difficulty in determining the boundary line on these roads, it would be frustrating to exclude certain members of historical interest because they lived just over the Didsbury border.

1. AIMS AND STRATEGY

Following primarily the ‘hypotheses testing strategy’, the aim of this study is to identify, with reference to the work of other researchers, socio-economic divisions between the Manchester Jewish communities. By focusing on the Didsbury Jewish community during the period 1891-1914, divisions were expected to be found between the community and the northern sector of the city’s Jewry of which Williams (1976) focused his research.

The hypotheses tested is taken from Englander (1994, p.184), that ‘separation of classes affected the Manchester Jewish minority as much as the general population’ in that:

a) affluent Jews moved southward away from the city’s Jewish enclave, towards and into the middle-class suburb of Didsbury.

b) further social divisions within the Didsbury Jewish community existed between the Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews.

c) assimilation into mainstream middle-class society was prevalent amongst the more

affluent Didsbury Jewish figures, which created further social divisions between the community.

Due to time factors and word limitations for this study, no attempt was made to distinguish between orthodox and non-orthodox Jews.

2. RELATION TO THE WORK OF OTHER RESEARCHERS

Class divisions amongst Jewish communities are documented by Williams (1976), Englander (1994), Waterman (Pryce, 1994) and Price (1984). Although the time scale of the work of some of these researchers is different, they have nevertheless, conducted critical research in areas which is relevant to my work.

Reference to Williams’ book The Making of Manchester Jewry: 1740-1875 (1976) provided valuable statistical data for making quantitative socio-economic comparisons, which will be discussed in Section 3. It was also an excellent source base for information on the origins of the Manchester Jewish community. It shows that the greatest suburbia movement (beginning around 1815) was northward towards Broughton with a small southward movement to areas such as Chorlton-on-Medlock and Rusholme. This is significant to my research since trade directory and census data show that numerous Didsbury Jewish residents began their southward step-migration through these areas. Gustav Behrens (a wealthy Jewish merchant), for example, lived in Plymouth Grove, Chorlton-on-Medlock in 1881-86 before moving to Didsbury. Elizabeth Gaskell (novelist) also lived in Plymouth Grove until her death in 1865 and assimilation into mainstream middle-class society is evident amongst her Jewish neighbours who socialised at her house - it was a ‘social centre’ for ‘Jewish as well as non-Jewish’ (Williams, 1976, p 169).

Waterman and Englander’s research demonstrates similar patterns of Jewish suburbia movement from the central areas of other cities. Waterman’s research of Jewish settlement in Dublin found that this began with clustered segregation and gradually ‘prosperous families filtered out into the surrounding suburbs ... which themselves then became the focus of Jewish institutions and began to attract later immigrants’ (Pryce, 1994, p.166). As my findings will show, this mirrors the development of the Didsbury Jewish community which began around 1871 with only four Jewish households.

Englander’s study of East London Jews illustrates similar class divisions which he identified from the location of synagogal provision. Three new synagogues were established in the West End as a result of ‘the westward march of the wealthy’ (1994, p. 184). Similarly, new synagogues were founded in South Manchester from 1872 to cater for the growing south-suburbia Jewish middle-classes. By illustration of Mrs Brewer’s article (1892), Englander also points to the predominance of certain working-class ‘immigrant’ trades such as tailoring and cap making within the East End Jewry. Such trades also dominated the Manchester’s Jewry and contrasts with the Didsbury Jewish workers who were predominantly wealthy shipping merchants.

A major question raised in my research was what brought the Jews to Didsbury? Although there were numerous influential factors such as cleaner air and improved transport facilities, educational opportunities were particularly likely to have drawn them to the area which was distinctly academic. Williams’ research shows that the Jewish community placed stress on education as ‘an instrument of social change’ (1976, p.89), particularly for social mobility into the professions. ‘The movement of Jews into the professions had begun when Jacob Nathan sent his son, Lewis Henry to Manchester Grammar School ... and on to London to train as a surgeon’ (Williams, 1976, p.123). This project reveals similar aspirations of numerous Didsbury Jewish parents for their offspring. Elias Cannetti, Jewish author of The Tongue Set Free (1988), for instance, lived in Didsbury as a child and recalls his father’s response to his wish to become a doctor, ‘You don’t have to become a businessman like me and the uncles. You will go to the university and you will be what you want most’ (Canetti, 1988, p.42).

A less explicit factor that may have drawn the Jews to Didsbury could relate to Englander’s statement:

To the anxious leaders of Anglo-Jewry the degraded condition and rumbustious life styles of the Jewish populace were perceived as an embarrassment, and as major obstacles to their integration into British life (1994, p.185).

Williams echoes this argument stating that the earliest Jewish settlers to South Manchester moved southwards ‘to distance themselves from their social inferiors’ (1976, p. 313). The issue of snobbery is, however, difficult to establish within this study that is based primarily on quantitative data.

Looking at documentary evidence related to the socio-economic divisions within the Didsbury Jewish community itself, my findings support Price (1984), that such divisions were evident between the Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews in that the Sephardim clustered in the prestigious Palatine Road. (1984, p.44)

To compare the socio-economic divisions between the North and South Manchester Jewish communities, Armstrong (Drake and Finnegan, 1994) and Rau’s (1984) class indicators have been used which will be discussed under Section 3.


3. SOURCES AND METHODS

The main primary sources used were the Manchester Trade Directories. Working back from 1891 to 1869 at five yearly intervals, I extracted the names, addresses (including business address) and occupations of Jewish residents. The objective was to analyse Jewish migratory patterns and to classify the Didsbury residents’ socioeconomic status by occupation and type of residence occupied. The number of Jewish residents living in Didsbury at each time interval determined that the community began to become established during the late 1880s. Local amenities such as schools, transport and recreational facilities were also recorded. My search, however, for Jewish facilities proved less fruitful. Apart from a kosher butcher that opened in 1914, no synagogues or registered Jewish institutions appeared to have been established in the Didsbury area during this time.

A major limitation with the directories was that many of the residents were listed under the private resident section of which occupations were not listed. Many occupations therefore remain unidentified within this study. Another limitation was in my lack of familiarity with untypical Jewish surnames which presented problems in identifying them all. I therefore supplemented my data with the trade directory data of 1891-1914 complied by Price (1984). Although Price also encountered difficulties in tracing occupations, her data was invaluable as she identified additional Jewish names that I had overlooked, and differentiated between those which were of Ashkenazi and Sephardi origin.

Several methods were adopted to test the middle-class credentials of the Didsbury Jewish community. By comparing them with the northern sector of the city’s Jewry, I consulted the statistical data from Williams  (1976). From the Census Enumerators' Books for Manchester and Salford, he extracted individuals who belonged to the Jewish community of 1841-71. I focused on his data for 1871 since it was the closest year to my study period. A particularly useful set of data he provides from them is the occupations of 1,170 Jewish workers (1976, pp.358-360). I then used Armstrong’s classification (Drake and Finnegan, 1994, pp.48-49) to compare all known occupations of both communities.

Because the occupations of many Didsbury Jewish residents were unknown, and Armstrong’s classification did not always match those that were, I turned to the Census Enumerators' Books for 1891 for additional class indicators such as whether the householders were ‘employed’ or ‘employers’ and to fill in missing occupations. The keeping of servants was one middle-class indicator which Rau discusses in her article ‘Who Chose Chalcots?’ (Offprints 1, Article 2) and significant since the Census Enumerators' Books showed that Jewish householders kept an average of three servants. Another middle-class indicator identified by Rau was out-migration from the central areas of the city. The children’s place and date of birth were therefore recorded as indicators of the length of time the family had lived in the area, their previous area of residence and whether their move involved step migration to more desirable areas. The householders’ birthplace indicated whether they had migrated directly from another country or town. The names of male children were also cross-checked against the Manchester Grammar School (1965) register of old Mancunians (see below for objective).

Had the Census Enumerators' Books been accessible up to 1914, as were the directories, they would have been the most fruitful source because of their standardisation into categories which enables comparisons of statistical data to be made. Their limitations, however, were that the writing was not always legible and some occupants may not have been home on census night. The possibility of illiteracy or untruthfulness was also taken into consideration.

In order to gain insight into the social position of members of the community and of any possible assimilation into mainstream society, I consulted several primary literary sources in search of familiar names. Obituaries (from newspaper cuttings) of prominent Didsbury Jewish figures reported any outstanding achievements made by the deceased and active contributions made towards the wider community. The autobiography of Elias Canetti, The Tongue Set Free (1988), provided insight into the author’s childhood years as a member of the Didsbury Jewish community and referred to prominent Jewish figures with whom his family was connected. A Biographical Register of Old Mancunians 1888-1951 (1965) was consulted for the information it provides on former Manchester Grammar School pupils and because of the school’s long-standing tradition in attracting Jewish pupils. Identification of registered Didsbury Jewish pupils was taken as supportive evidence of their assimilation into mainstream society.

To gain deeper insight into the community, an interview was conducted with a Jewish husband and wife (Mr and Mrs 'A') whose parents lived in the Didsbury area in 1914-15. Since I had a specific set of questions in mind to test the hypotheses and to fill in gaps, I chose to conduct a structured interview with pre-set, open-ended questions. This approach was particularly beneficial due to the limited time available to both interviewer and interviewees. Numerous field studies of the area were also undertaken, with the aid of ordinance survey maps and lists of relevant addresses taken from the Census Enumerators' Books.  These included examination of surviving houses for class identification, and examination of the local Jewish burial ground (situated in Southern Cemetery) for any relevant evidence.

Because of the workload involved with such a large collection of data, this was input into a database (see Table 1 sample) which proved to be a valuable aid in analysing the community’s southward suburbia movement. It also enabled me to isolate the Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews and residents of individual suburbs and streets at various time intervals.

The online publication of this project report (nine years after conducting the main research) has given me the opportunity to extend it should any visitors to this site be kind enough to contact me with additional information. Much to my pleasure, I have been contacted by Kirsten Beach from the Netherlands who is researching her family connections of Seigmund Oppenheim, an Ashkenazi Jew who lived in Didsbury from around 1911. Whilst searching the internet, she came across a reference on this site (Table 1 below) to Frederick Oppenheim, the son of Seigmund. Kirsten has very kindly provided us with a wealth of valuable historical information on the Oppenheim family which I felt deserves it own webpage for Kirsten to record her findings and extend her search. Any references to the Oppenheims in my own extended report will therefore be linked to the Oppenheim page.

Table 1 - Sample database of Didsbury Jewish residents in 1905

Origin	Surname	First Name	Address	* Area	Occupation
S	Abdela	Suvi	17 Clyde Rd	AP
S	Arditti	Joseph	55 Clyde Rd	AP
S	Arditti	Samuel	144 Barlow Moor Rd	WD	Shipping merchant S. Arditti Bros.
A	Aronsberg	Aaron	3 Rathen Rd	W
S	Ascoli	Ephraim	26 Wilmslow Rd	W	Shipping merchant
A	Baerlein	Max	131 Wilmslow Rd	W	Merchant & engineer
A	Behrens	Gustav	30 Palatine Rd	W	Shipping merchant Sir Jacob & Son
A	Behrens	Henry	Darley Ave	WD	Merchant Beatty, Altgelt & Co.
S	Bezazienne	David	19 Cresswell Gr	AP
A	Cobe	Myer	195 Burton Rd	WD	Manufacturer
A	Cohen	Barnet	28 Palatine Rd	W
A	Cohen	Max	7 Amhurst St	W
A	Cohen	Samuel J.	2 Mauldeth Rd	W
A	Goldberg	Abraham	134 Wilmslow Rd	D
A	Goldschmidt	Herman J.	200 Wilmslow Rd	W	Contractor & merchant / Alderman
A	Hesse	Frank R.	135 Barlow Moor Rd	W	Don Jewish board of guardians
S	Isaacs	Isaac Judah	75 Palatine Rd	W
A	Israels	Herman	29 Goulden Rd	W
A	Karnofski	Joseph	11 Pattern St	W	Householder
S	Klein	Joseph	33 Clyde Rd	AP	Manager
A	Lazarus	Julius	1 Wilmslow Rd	AP
A	Levy	Henry	84 Wilmslow Rd	AP	Clerk
S	Menasce	Nessim A.	154 Clyde Rd	WD
A	Meyer	Adolph	60 Egerton Rd	W
A	Morreau	Marcus	139 Lapwing Ln	D
A	Oppenheim	Frederick	11 Elm Rd	D	Solicitor
A	Potasch	Jacob B.	80 Clyde Rd	AP
A	Rapaport	Isidor	7 Atwood Rd	D
S	Rofe	David	20 Palatine Rd	W
A	Rothkof	Jacob	63 Clyde Rd	AP
A	Saul BA LSA	Barnett	42 Wilmslow Rd	W	Physician BA LSA
A	Saul LSA	Helen Mrs	42 Wilmslow Rd	W	Physician LSA
A	Schloss	Elkin	7 Stanton Av	WD	Merchant
A	Simmons	Samuel	14 Cooper St	W
A	Simonsen	Lionel	15 Circular Rd	W	Merchant (?)
S	Somech	David	43 Parsonage Rd	W
A	Steinthal	Arthur	38 Landsdown Rd