Altrincham - Needhams Butchers

Needhams Family Butchers was a long established business in central Altrincham for many years but the shop’s location changed several times in a relatively short space of time.  The earliest record we have found of Needhams’ butcher is the 1888 Slater’s street directory, which lists the shop at 26 Railway Street.

In the late 1800s, Railway Street was a hub of Altrincham, as it is still now. Trams ran along the road, alongside horse drawn cabs and a number of cars. The street was lined with shops, with Needhams listed at number 26, sandwiched on either side by a toy dealer and a seed merchant owned by J. & H. Dean.

Needhams was managed by John Hewson Needham, born 1853, and his wife Anne Needham (nee Wakefield). The 1891 Census lists them as living at 15 Lyme Grove, Altrincham with their seven children - John, Louis, Chirstina, William, Arthur, Septimus and George, and with Anne working as a butcher’s bookkeeper. Sadly in 1898, Anne died.

In the 1899 street directory, Needhams had moved up the street to Number 34, alongside the same seed (and now also wine) merchant and a fruiterer and florist run by Benjamin Battman.

The photograph displays the traditional method of hanging carcasses on the outside of the shop and a man who we could suppose to be John Needham, holding a butchers knife in the doorway.

The shop’s final move came in 1905, with plans drawn up by Wm. Parnall & Co for premises at 40 Railway Street. The plans we have discovered in our Brick by Brick project show detail for a smart, tiled shop frontage and internal alterations. Wm. Parnall & Co were established shop fitting specialists based in Manchester, who had been trading since at least 1880.

On the front elevation we can note the ‘s’ and apostrophe had been missed off but added in with a different pen at a later date.  The plan specifies mosaic tiling to the front step and also a drainage grill in the pavement. We can see that the plan has been stamped for approval on 6 June 1905.

The plan also shows the present and altered floor plans, with the staircase being moved from the middle of the shop to the back, allowing more space within the body of the shop.  The doorway has also been moved from the centre to the right hand side of the shop front to allow a large window for display.

The 1906 street directory tells us that Needhams was flanked at no.40 by William Okell & co., a drapers, and William Grogan, a jeweller at no.42. By this time John had married again to Elizabeth Stott.

This photograph below from 1908 looking down Railway Street from its junction with The Downs and Lloyd Street, shows a view of Needhams. You can just make out the tiled frontage and large awning behind two of the boys and the lamppost in the centre of the image.

John Needham died in 1916, however we can get a sense of the family nature of the business through the 1921 Census, which lists John and Anne’s youngest son,

William, as living at ‘Ellesmere’, Market Street, Altrincham and his place of work as a butcher at 40 Railway Street.

The 1938 North Western Counties of England Trade Directory lists Needhams as operating from 40 Railway Street as a butcher, but in the 1942 Kelly’s Directory, the premises is still a butcher but run by H.Singleton. William would have been 58 by this point, and died aged 62 in Bucklow.

Railway Street is still a busy thoroughfare and houses a variety of businesses. Needhams’ three premises now house a local store at number 26, County Galleries at number 34 and The Circle Bar at number 40.

Further Research

You can find more building plans and archival records using the Trafford Local Studies catalogue

Sources

Ancestry Library Edition

Needhams Butchers, Railway Street, Altrincham, 1905. Trafford Local Studies Collection cat.ref. PLA/2/ALT/1905/2/173

Railway street, Altrincham, 1890. Trafford Local Studies cat.ref. TL3501

Railway Street, Altrincham, 1899. Trafford Local Studies cat.ref. TP/11775

Railway Street, Altrincham, 1908. Trafford Local Studies cat.ref. TL3498

1938 North Western Counties of England Trade Directory

1899 & 1906 Slater’s street directory of Altrincham, Sale, Bowdon, Brooklands and Dunham Massey.

1942 Kelly’s Street directory.of Manchester, Salford and Suburbs.