Street names

[castanea1985]

After working on my mum's tree for quite a while and finally printing a book through Ancestry.... she thinks that one of our family had a street named after them!

So can someone give me an idea of where to check it out. It's Minshull St. in Manchester.

Thanks

Tracy

[It_Is_I_Leclerc]

Just having a google for Minshull St and found this page with a Family Tree link, are they one of the family ?

Minshull.net
Rob Minshull, from Salford in the UK, now living in Brisbane, Australia. ... find there is a minshull street in manchester. anyway...hello..to all minshulls ...
minshull.net/WhatsNew/ -

Regards

L

[Little Nell]

I would guess that the Manchester Central Library, Manchester ARchives or Manchester council would have the answer somewhere in their records.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Um, it's not quite as straightforward as "having a street named after you".

Pre-census days, many streets didn't have an official name, and still didn't when the 1841 census was taken. To try to identify the street for census taking purposes, they would record the name by which it was locally referred, and that local referral would depend on a lot of things.

It might be called after the family who built or owned the houses - "Minshull St". It might be called after the most important or influential family living in the street - the Minshulls. It might have been called after a factory in the street - Minshull's factory.Or the street was largely occupied by families called Minshull. And so on.

I know of at least two very old streets in Manchester which took a name from a factory standing there. The streets presumably had no name before that.

I think it was late 1860s and 1870s, before the naming of roads etc was formalised, partly by the Post Office and partly by whatever local authority was in power at the time. Also be aware that many roads have had a change of name in Manchester, over the years.

OC