The Ashton Family at Ford Bank, 1858-98
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Thomas Ashton (1818-98)
Thomas Ashton was born in Hyde in 1818, the son of Thomas Ashton, a wealthy cotton manufacturer. He was educated at Liverpool Academy and Heidelberg University, as English universities were then closed to non-conformists. After a continental tour he joined his father and brother in the family business at their mills in Hyde, running mills that did both spinning and weaving.
In 1858, Thomas Ashton, pictured, was living in the Fallowfield area. In that year he bought Ford Bank from the Birleys, where he lived until his death in 1898. A Unitarian by religion, he was an employer who realised his responsibilities for the men and women who worked for him and he did much to improve their conditions in all sorts of ways. The Ashtons were known as providing good facilities for their workers. He was very much involved in social, political and philanthropic life. On his move to Ford Bank he soon became a figure of note in Manchester society. He funded many projects, and was also an active member of the Manchester branch of the National Educational League which did much to prepare the way for the passing of the 1870 Education Act.
Like so many successful businessmen in the 19th century, he was a man of liberal views and an ardent free trader. His life was one of public service. He was the principal agent in the foundation of the Victoria University of Manchester and for his services to education he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. In 1892, he was made a Freeman of the City.
It is said that Thomas Ashton would never refuse a helping hand to anyone down on his luck, but that he always insisted, in the Samuel Smiles spirit of self-help, that the recipient of his generosity should perform some task in return, even if it were only picking up stones from a flower bed.
Thomas Ashton was a model employer and during the cotton famine brought about by the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865, when supplies of raw cotton from the USA were greatly reduced, he kept his mills in Hyde running, despite the high price of cotton, subsidising the losses out of his personal funds. He gave full employment to his workpeople and he did much work on the Relief Committee.
As well as his many activities in Manchester, he served as Mayor of Hyde, High Sheriff of Lancashire and was also a magistrate for Cheshire and Lancashire. A leading member of the Liberal party in Manchester – it was commented that he was the Liberal party in Manchester – he nevertheless declined an invitation to become a Member of Parliament. In 1882, he declined a baronetcy from William Gladstone, the Prime Minister. In 1889, Gladstone stayed at his home, Ford Bank, when he came to Manchester to deliver a keynote speech to the National Liberal Foundation meeting at the Free Trade Hall.
Thomas married Elizabeth (1831-1914), daughter of Samuel Stillman Gair of Rhode Island, USA, and Liverpool. They had nine children – six daughters and three sons – all of whom lived at Ford Bank. Their eldest son, Thomas Gair Ashton, was elected the first Lord Ashton of Hyde in 1911. Elizabeth Marion married the Rt. Hon. James Bryce and eventually became Lady Bryce. Charlotte Jane married Edward Tootal Broadhurst. But it was Thomas Ashton’s daughter, Margaret, who became the best known. Their home would have hosted many of the most notable and influential people in and around Manchester throughout the second half of the nineteenth century.
Mr and Mrs Ashton’s son, Mark, and his wife Letitia, had a new house, called Hayescroft, built for themselves on the corner of Palatine Road, a footpath connecting them with Ford Bank.
The Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
He stayed at Ford Bank in 1889.
Hayescroft
Hayescroft was a substantial Victorian mansion with a drive-in from Palatine Road. It stood on high ground overlooking the current second hole on Withington golf course and was originally built for Mr Mark Ashton and his wife Letitia. At its rear the property had a commanding view over pasture land and the hills beyond. A private footpath connected them with Ford Bank and was used only by the Ashton family and staff. In later years its name was spelt Heyscroft.
Mr Ashton also had a town residence at Belgrave Mansions in London, S.W., which he visited from time to time. He died at Ford Bank in January 1898, aged 79. He left behind a “substantial mansion, surrounded by shrubberies, and standing in beautiful park-like grounds”, according to one writer at the time. There was also a farm on the estate.
After Mr Ashton’s death his widow, Elizabeth, decided to move to London. Bits of the estate were sold off in single plots and are now the sites of properties on the west side of Lancaster Road and the north side of Spath Road. The Ashtons, having moved out, let the house [Ford Bank] and gardens to the Gledhills, who were not interested in farming. At this time, therefore, the farm house stood empty – but not for long.
Margaret Ashton (1856-1937): Manchester’s ‘First Lady’
Margaret is pictured here aged about 50. She lived at Ford Bank for 40 years, from the age of two, in 1858, until the death of her father in 1898.
Margaret Ashton, local politician and philanthropist, was born in 1856, the third of the six daughters and three sons of Thomas Ashton, a wealthy cotton manufacturer, and his wife, Elizabeth. Thomas Gair Ashton, first Baron Ashton of Hyde, was her elder brother. She was educated at home and brought up in the family traditions of public service, Liberalism and nonconformity. She never married, and lived as the ‘daughter at home’ at Ford Bank, Didsbury, from the age of two until her father died in 1898. Her father, the major influence in her life, was a leading Manchester Liberal and Unitarian, renowned for his philanthropy (especially his contributions to the expansion of Manchester University during the 1870s). She was a remarkable woman and became Manchester’s ‘first lady’, having had a long career in public service. She is said to have resembled her father in many ways. It is certain that she inherited from him a deep concern for the welfare of her fellow men.
She and her five sisters had a governess and went to school for a period. Her sisters and brothers all married, and she was left the daughter at home. However, at the relatively late age of 44 this personification of middle-class affluence became involved in the Manchester Women’s Suffrage Society and the Women’s Liberal Association, rising to become a leading light in both associations, and eventually to become the first woman city councillor for Manchester.
To understand Margaret’s interest in education, politics and public service, it is worth remembering her family background and in particular her father, Thomas Ashton. Thomas’s status as a leading Manchester Liberal meant that Margaret was often allowed to attend party meetings and discussions held at Ford Bank, and it hardly surprising therefore, that in later life Margaret’s political views were predominantly Liberal.
Being the ‘daughter at home’, Margaret was very much the companion of her father up to his death in 1898. As such, she had the greatest affection and respect for him.
Throughout her home life at Ford Bank, Margaret enjoyed all the advantages of the best provincial society, meaning the intelligent, well-to-do and prosperous middle class, and her social life was full and varied. The Ashton circle included the staff of the growing Manchester University, C.P. Scott (editor of the Manchester Guardian) and his wife, the Gaskells and the Philips of Prestwich Park. Manchester’s émigrés were also included in the Ashton circle, notably Charles Hallé, the founder of the Hallé Orchestra. Her sisters had married leading businessmen and municipal leaders, connections through which Margaret became interested in municipal affairs. Margaret grew up and lived in an environment of lively and intelligent debate with some of the leading lights in Manchester society, thus shaping her views and giving her the desire and drive to make a contribution to public life. Her record of public service was quite phenomenal and is only briefly alluded to in this short description of her life.
From 1875 Margaret Ashton worked on a voluntary basis as the manager of the Flowery Fields School in Hyde, which had been founded by her grandfather, Thomas Ashton (1775-1845), for the children of mill workers.
In 1884, like many young Victorians, Margaret undertook a ‘Grand Tour’. However, her particular tour did not follow the oft-tread route to Europe. Instead, she and a companion, Elsie, armed with letters of introduction, set off for America, stopping first in Cork and then on to New York. Her letters home to her mother of the voyage, arrival in New York and subsequently her tour up to Niagara Falls and into Canada, the Rockies and West Coast America are full of social comment. She returned to her beloved Manchester in the early months of 1885.
Her first involvement in politics came in 1888, when she helped to found the Manchester Women’s Guardian Association, an organisation that encouraged women to become poor-law guardians and to take a more active role in local politics. In 1895, she joined the Women’s Liberal Association, and the following year became a founder member of the Women’s Trade Union League.
When her father died in 1898, and with her mother having moved to London, Margaret might have continued to live a leisured life in Manchester, doing conventional charitable work like her contemporaries. Instead, at the age of 44, she plunged into the career of a public woman, working zealously for women’s suffrage and for social reform (in the promotion of women’s interests, child welfare and education) for forty years. The long list of her achievements is not included here.
Although active for most of her life, she was hampered in her last years by poor vision and heart trouble. She died at her home on Kingston Road, Didsbury, in October 1937, aged 81.
Her obituary notice described her thus: “Curious, merry, and kind, she was an excellent playmate; hospitable and compassionate, a friend eager to serve. With a hot temper and a quick tongue, she was most placable, generous in thought and speech, a person good to disagree with.”
William Gladstone, the Prime Minister, and his wife at the Ashton family home, Ford Bank, Didsbury, 1889.
Margaret Ashton is standing in the doorway on the left. Thomas Gair Ashton, her elder brother, is believed to be on the far right.
Thomas Gair Ashton, 1st Baron Ashton of Hyde
Thomas Gair Ashton, the son of Thomas Ashton and Elizabeth Gair, was born in Fallowfield in 1855 and moved to Ford Bank in 1858 with his parents. As a child he would have been very familiar with the Ford Bank estate and farm. He was educated at Rugby and University College, Cambridge. Later he managed the family business before turning his attention to politics. He was a successful industrialist, noted philanthropist, Liberal politician and Peer. He was the first Mayor of Hyde, in 1881, and its Liberal MP. As with his father, he maintained the family tradition of combining business, politics and public service.
C.P. Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian
Sir Charles Hallé, founder of the Hallé Orchestra
Elizabeth Gaskell, author
These are just some of the leading lights of Victorian times who visited Ford Bank. It is reasonable to assume that many others, of both provincial and national renown, were also guests at Ford Bank during the time of the Ashtons’ occupation of the residence. Authors, politicians, academics, Unitarians, people from the Manchester business, art and music world – all these and many others would have been entertained at Ford Bank. It was one of the biggest houses in Didsbury and had the facilities to entertain on a grand scale.
Mr Ashton at Ford Bank when Mr Gladstone visited, 1889
Mr and Mrs Gladstone at Ford Bank, 1889
Early in December 1889, when William Ewart Gladstone had already been Prime Minister for three periods, he came to Manchester to speak to ‘a vast audience’ of Liberals in the Free Trade Hall. Whilst in Manchester he and his wife were guests of Thomas Ashton at Ford Bank, and they are seen here on the steps of the house.
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