Story of a Manchester Locksmith
This is a photograph I could so easily have flicked past…
I came across it in the basement of the Science and Industry Museum’s archives. A man in a work apron, standing in a doorway, with possibly his family. No obvious landmark to tell me where it was, or who these people were.
Then I turned it over. A few handwritten lines gave him a name, a place… and the beginnings of a story.
Enos Corkindale was a locksmith at 8 Byrom Street, Manchester. The surname on the back wasn’t quite right, but old trade directories helped put that straight.
His birth was registered in Wolverhampton in 1867, and he married Amy Parsons in 1890. By 1909, he had his Byrom Street shop and a home on Ashton Old Road. In 1911, he appears under “Locksmiths and Bellhangers”.
Another detail on the back caught my attention: “He was also locksmith to the Police.” Unfortunately, I haven’t yet found any records confirming that connection, but it makes me wonder what work came through that doorway, and what stories Enos might have told.
He died in Manchester in 1920, aged 52.
Old maps and a 1947 photograph have helped locate the shop. The row of shops made way for the huge Magistrates’ Court, opened in 1971. Then, just over 30 years later, it too was demolished as Spinningfields took shape.
Enos’s shop site is now occupied by The Ivy - from lock repairs to cocktails and à la carte dining.
The print itself is a later copy. Where is the original, and does it still survive? How did this copy find its way into the museum?
I could so easily have put it back in its box without a moment’s thought. Who knows when someone might next have stopped to look, or turned it over?
Perhaps someone has already researched Enos’s life. Perhaps a relative has other photographs, or stories passed down through the family. Maybe the original photo is in someone’s loft?
For now, those few handwritten words have connected a face to a name, and a name to a place we can still stand in today. Perhaps sharing it will help another piece of his story find its way back.
1947 photograph: Manchester Libraries Archives.
