Wigan Album

Fascinating! I love old Wigan adverts and the old directories are amazing! If anyone isn't aware, there are Ince and Hindley directories for 1925 under "stuff" on Wigan World, showing where people lived and what their occupations were, and also a "Wigan Residents of 1968", featuring every street in Wigan, (you have to access that one alphabetically) and who lived there, as well as separate ones for Appley Bridge, Hindley, Ince, Orrell and Standish. They are truly fascinating. I bet the 1903 one is equally fascinating, Ron....look forward to seeing more examples!

I WAS TRYING TO WORK OUT WHERE THE PREMISES ACTUALLY WERE? IT MUST HAVE BEEN QUITE LARGE LOOKING AT HE ADDRESS. BUT THERE AREN'T MANY PHOTOGRAPHS THAT WERE TAKEN OF CHAPEL LANE AT THAT TIME

102 Chapel Lane is the old HM Revenue Office now Estate Research on the corner of Chapel Lane and Bradford Street, so the evens are on that side, so could 44 to 54 have been around where the old WCs were or maybe just before the railway bridge?
In 1869 John Worswick was a Billposter: Worswick John, billposter, 42 Chapel lane. https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/stuff/townduvwy.php

By 1881 he had moved up three premises and expanded his business into doing other work, Worswick John, Bill poster, furniture remover, storer, dealer, and general commission agent, 50 & 54 Chapel lane. https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/stuff/townd1881uvwy.php

They were quite an industrious family, and I was thinking with the name of their works being 'The Boro' then was the chippy on Millgate anything to do with them?

There is also this by AB seems they'd expanded the bill posting business to advertising hoardings:
Comment by: AB on 27th November 2012 at 19:19
The hoardings on the left were at the the end of the enntry between the court Cinema and the Court Hall and were the front of Worswicks Yard . J Worswick & Co operated most of the advertising hoardings in and around Wigan from there.
They also owned Wigan Entrtainments Co who operated the Court Cinema,the Court Hall, the Pavilion Cinema and the Hippodrome.A big business in the forties From here. https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=4&id=22015&gallery=LIBRARY+STREET&offset=0

There's also this extract (link below) from a book by John Jackson, it is an interesting read and though mostly about Scholes and Wallgate areas it does mention areas around Chapel Lane, though nothing about Worsick's, but maybe of some interest to Veronica and Maureen. I never knew that the Queen - Princess St areas was known as Markland and later Markland's Fields.
https://www.hslc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/129-8-Jackson.pdf

62 Chapel Lane was next door to the Derby Arms, if that assists with location.

Further to the above, Item #: 32404, a pic from 1978 of the Derby Arms and Chapel Lane - shows a long two storey building a short distance to the right of 62 Chapel Lane.
Perhaps it housed the premises in question.

Appears the premises where next door to the Presbyterian church. More or less opposite the fire station. Just checked the listing for residents in the Directory. The DOUGLAS TAVERN was Number 2 Chapel Lane, next to Douglas St. and then WIGAN PRINTING Co. Nos. 4 & 6. Which was still there in the 1970's

I can't remember those buildings before or just after the church, though I can vaguely remember much further along being council offices before they were demolished in the 1980s, but it's surprising how high the numbering goes up between a church, in a road we once lived the last house before the church was 21 and we lived at the second house after the church which was 51, and I couldn't imagine them then having got that number of houses to fit into the space the church took up.

I'd imagine working at Worswick's was one of those start on the Monday and then finish on the Friday jobs too, as operating and working alongside the carpet beating machines is not a job I'd like to have done. It wouldn't be just the vast amount of dust to contend with either, as there would be lots of fleas and other biting nasties coming from some of the carpets too. When you got home the mother or the wife would be getting out the Flit and be giving you a good spray of it before you got through the door.

If you look at item 1027 on the Chapel Lane topic. It shows the Presbyterian church and the buildings next door. Which would have been the part of the premises Wosrwick and Sons

There's a video on you tube of a company doing Electric Carpet Beating in 2022, I suppose the basics are the same as they would have been in 1903, though a lot more safety features I'm sure. Also in 1903 they wouldn't have had a vacuum removing the fine dust as it was wafting up.

https://youtu.be/c2kl3r6EzO0

Here he is washing the rug, if you wish to view it.

https://youtu.be/2V6QFcok5K0

Ron, I was also going to say that those buildings on the photo next to the church looked to be a very nice Georgian or early Victorian Terrace, and there's not many left around town, there's Dicconson St and Newmarket St, that I can think of.

Anyone watch him wash his rug? With all the soapy suds, scrubbing and scraping he was doing to the carpet I was sure there'd be no pile left on it, but it did come out a lot cleaner, though I'd stick to the Bissel or the Vax, and those Rug Doctors have good reviews too.

On the internet there are photos of mobile carpet beaters operated by bicycles and were located in the Netherlands, I don't know about anyone else but I never saw any around our way with bike operated carpet beaters, all we got were those tramp like men with a grit stone wheel on their bikes and offering to sharpen knifes etc.,.

The old PEG RUGS would take some cleaning. I can remember cutting up old jackets, trousers, etc. into strips, then using a pegging tool to push the material through a piece of hessian. I still have a pegging tool. Happy days sat in front of the fire 'pegging a rug' Kids these days don't know they are born..

My grandmother and my mother would make them too Ron, and I always got roped in to cut strips of material with a resulting sore thumb with skin rubbed off from the scissors, they wouldn't let me peg because I didn't put the strips in close or tight enough. Some fancy and colourful patterns could be made into the rug depending on the coloured materials to hand. In the 1990s mother was after a pegging tool after losing hers but had no joy and folks didn't know what she was on about, she'd got her last one from Tickles years ago, in the end she was using a sharpened broken clothes peg, but said it wasn't as good.