HYDE CHESHIRE

Harry Rutherford's
Festival of Britain Mural




Monday 3 October 2011

The Robinson Family of Hyde.

The following was sent into us by email by Angela Robinson. It concerns her husband's family who were well known in Hyde, most famously for building Hyde Town Hall.





"JOSEPH ROBINSON was born in Litton near Tideswell in Derbyshire in 1804.   According to the obituary of his grandson John Robinson (in the North Cheshire Herald of 18 December 1925 page 8) and another article from the Herald about the building firm :
"Joseph Robinson came to work as a joiner at Slack Mills and ... afterwards built his first works where Messrs Berry and Sons still carry out cork manufacturing at Gee Cross.  There is evidence of the building of a row of cottages at Mount Pleasant, Gee Cross, in 1838.
After some years, another yard was taken, in Norfolk-street Hyde, which was placed in the charge of the late Mr. Samuel Robinson.  In 1850, Samuel, in conjunction with his elder brother William, obtained the land in Union-street and Travis-street, then known as Shepley Fields.  Then the present works were built and the business was continued with increasing success under the title of Joseph Robinson and Company until 1882 when it was taken over by the late Samuel Robinson who continued it till his death in 1893.  
It was then taken over by his sons John, Joseph and William, - Joseph withdrawing in 1897 and William in 1905 leaving John as the sole proprietor.



Tithe maps of 1836-51 shows the area where Shepley fields stood - The grey building ,top right,is possibly the Robinsons building works.



Samuel Robinson



"JOSEPH ROBINSON married Alice Whitehead in 1824. They had 9 (possibly 10) children including  Samuel (1827) pictured above and William (1824) mentioned above, plus Thomas (1829) who was my husband's gt gt grandfather.   Most of them are buried at Hyde Chapel.  Samuel's gravestone is a fancy tall one not far from the path round the church on the Stockport Rd side. 
The building firm (and the money) went down Samuel's line!  He lived in Kensington House, Thomas's descendants were on Albion Street! "



Samuel Robinson built and lived at Kensington House and was a friend of Joshua Bradley whom the bells in Hyde town Hall were named after - "Owd Joss"





An invoice from Samuel Robinson & Sons builders Merchants to the Rev H E Dowson of Hyde Chapel.
December 3rd 1894.

Thank you so much for sharing these with us, Angela and also Mike, for the photograph of Hyde Town Hall.
Without your generosity, and everyone else's, the site would be a poorer place

3 comments:

Tom said...

Great post Nancy, my thanks also go to Angela for such great information concerning the Town Hall and the Robinson family...

Nancy, I have got a series of pictures that Dave as been taking this last year of the outside of the town hall.. I think this is the time to post them.. They will fit in so well with this post.. I will post them tomorrow unless you have a post ready.

Tom said...

Just been looking over the last picture and noticed the supply of Plaster, Hair and Laths.. Having mixed plaster myself a few time I should well imagine the work would have been so much harder mixing it in..

Werneth Low said...

Thanks for this brilliant peep into the past. I was particularly interested in the mention of Kensington House which was opposite my childhood home at 3 Kensington Street. We were in awe of that house because it was so big, and I remember we used to deliberately throw our ball over the wall just so we could get into the garden to find it! The last people I remember living there were the Hadfields. Mr Hadfield was an optician and he ran his business from the house. All a long time ago!