Page 69 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

The Society Still Goes Forward.

contracted cost of £4,040, of the six-storey building that still occupies
the corner of Balloon Street and Garden Street. A special building
committee was formed and the work pushed forward. Difficulties
with an owner of neighbouring property led to legal action on the
part of the latter. Their hght and air " were being encroached upon
by the vastness of the new building." But, rather than waste
time and money upon going into court, the Committee offered
" reparation," which was accepted. Without further delay the work
proceeded, and, early in 1869, the six-storey, sky-scraping new
warehouse, perilously huge and ambitious as it seemed, was ready
for business.
Balloon Street since then has become entirely a possession of
the "Wholesale;" and, as the formal address of the Society's
headquarters, the street is now known far and wide. It is worth
remembering, therefore, that the name is not meaningless, nor does
it preserve incongruously the memory of some private speculator.
History is in it, even though of a mild character. Hereabouts, on
May 12th, 1785, a certain James Sadler made one of the first balloon
ascents witnessed in England. At that date—obviously—the area
formed an open field. Very shortly afterwards the ground was
covered with small houses ; but the feat that astonished Manchester
was properly commemorated in the name since associated with the
rise of the C.W.S. When the federation came to make its home in
the street, all the vicinity had become, or was rapidly becoming, a
slum. Garden Street, now chiefly a siding for co-operative wagons,
retained nothing pleasant but its name, and a fading memory of the
Royal Infirmary of Manchester origmally having been housed in it.
Clock Alley existed, sinceobliteratedby theC.W.S. ; while Corporation
Street only recently had been driven from Withy Grove through a
maze of byways. The way to a small and congested Victoria
Station went down and up the banks of the Irk, the stream (which
now needs searching for) being crossed by a wooden footbridge.
The Committee contemplated a ceremonial opening of the
Society's first property, in the presence of a galaxy of statesmen,
peers, professors, and philanthropists ; but of the great men invited
only such tried friends as J. M. Ludlow, Hugh Birley, M.P., the Rev.
W. N. Molesworth (Vicar of Rochdale), G. J. Holyoake, Lloyd Jones,
and others were present. The author of Tom Brown's Schooldays,
however, wrote rejoicing in the success of the " Wholesale," and
hoping great things in the future. Mr. Walter Morrison, whose
recent gifts to the Oxford University have witnessed to a pubhc
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