A Manchester Alphabet - M for Motor Car

Roger Oldham 1871 - 1916

Summary

Black and white illustration, hand tinted in colour. Exterior, street scene. In the foreground, an open-topped car, billowing clouds of smoke or dust, one wheel appearing to fly off, careens toward the viewer. The driver and two passengers wear goggles, and the idea of speed is conveyed by the scarves of the passengers flying in the breeze. In the background, to the right, the tiny figure of a policeman appears to be waving to the oblivious occupants in the car; to the left, in the back ground, a horse kicks the carriage he is pulling, while his partner rears up on his hind legs. In the background, are a row of buildings; the central one is timbered, suggesting a pub. The accompanying poem reads 'M for Motor Car. The face and pace of Manchester/Have many changes seen,/From the grass of Angel Meadow/And the blades of Ardwick Green;/From the Pack Horse and the Pillion/And the "ancient Seven Stars,"/To the modern mammoth Midland/And the monstrous Motor Cars.'

Display Label

This is a laminated sheet or similar in side pockets of benches in G15 A Manchester Alphabet Roger Oldham’s book A Manchester Alphabet was published in 1906 by John Heywood. Oldham (1871-1916) spent most of his life in Manchester, and his Alphabet is an affectionate and humorous record of his home city at the beginning of the twentieth century. The works displayed here are a complete set of hand-tinted printer’s proofs for the book, coloured by the artist himself. Oldham attended Manchester Grammar School, leaving in 1887, age 16, to work in the architectural firm of Charles Heathcote. (The school is commemorated in ‘O is for Owl’, with the owl being the symbol of the school.) illustration of owl here: photography taking place June 1 2016 A Manchester Alphabet contains locations still recognisable today – the Town Hall, King Street and Manchester Art Gallery (depicted in the illustration ‘P is for Picture Gallery’) ¬¬ – as well as many areas now lost to history (Bellevue Zoo and Greenheys) or transformed beyond recognition (Ancoats and Shudehill). Oldham’s book is a celebration of Manchester, focussing on the city’s vitality (‘E for Exchange’; ‘X for Exodus’), its position at the forefront of technology (‘M for Motorcar’; ‘T for Tram’) and its illustrious past (‘D’ and ‘J’ refer to pioneering scientists John Dalton and James Prescott Joule, while painter Ford Madox Brown appears in ‘F for Fresco’). Yet it does not shy away from the city’s social ills, referencing, for example, poverty (‘A for Ancoats’), pollution (‘I for Irwell’) and the reality of many children’s lives in an industrial environment (alluded to in ‘H is for Heaton Park’). However, it is done with such a light touch that the social commentary slips by almost unnoticed. The artist’s close observation of dress documents many different social ‘types’ in the city. The clogs and shawl of the young girl, and the small boy accompanying her, in too-large boots and hat, in ‘A is for Ancoats’, are in stark contrast to the well- and warmly dressed folk in ‘C for Chorlton’; the market women in ‘S for Shudehill’ a world away from the fashionable family in ‘K for King Street’. Oldham’s satirical gaze can be found in smaller details still: the figure with his back to us in the bottom left of ‘P for Picture Gallery’ would have been recognised in his day as an example of an ‘aesthetic’ type, whose wide hat and knee britches mimicked the dress of the leading aesthete of the previous generation, Oscar Wilde. illustrate here with detail of the two figure groups from A and K Some details from the alphabet may need further explanation: B for Bowdon: The names of the different railway companies are abbreviated. In full they are the Cheshire Lines Committee, the Manchester South Junction and the Altrincham Railway. G for Guardian: Standing in front of the latest edition of the Guardian newspaper are the political rivals of the day, David Lloyd George and Joseph Chamberlain. J for Joule: The ‘old man in his dressing gown’ is scientist James Prescott Joule. His many achievements include work on the relationship between heat and energy, which led to the first law of thermodynamics. He was taught by John Dalton, known for his pioneering work in atomic theory and research into colour blindness, and whose statue stands opposite Joule’s in Manchester Town Hall. N: The vehicle registration plate does not conform to size regulations and so the policeman is making a note of it. Q for De Quincey: In his autobiographical novel, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Thomas de Quincey describes his childhood in Greenheys, Manchester. Further reading: Manchester Memories, George Mould (Terence Dalton Limited, Lavenham, Suffolk, 1972).