When Richard Cottam (1797) arrived with his family in Ancoats in the early 1830s he must have found a very different world to that where he was born in rural Lancashire.  Back to back overcrowded slum dwellings in the shadow of large textile mills and hat factories, narrow streets and canals.  Their neighbours had arrived there not only from Lancashire, Cheshire and other English counties but from Ireland, Poland and Italy.  Every fourth or fifth house sold beer and there was a great deal of criminality and drunkenness.  The family were living at 8, Back Lime Street in 1841 and by that time they had seven children four boys and three girls.  Richard was a Weaver in one of the mills and when ready to work three of his boys and at least one of the girls followed him into the trade.  The youngest son George was born on the 11^th of September 1837 in Lime Street but unlike his father and brothers on leaving school he became a Tinplate Worker.  In 1851 the family were living at 38, Beswick Street in Ancoats, Richard had become a Cotton Beamer and George (1837) at the tender age of thirteen was already learning the Tinplate trade.  By 1861 Richard at 64 was still working in the mill as a Cotton Beamer and George was the only one of the children still at home and following his trade as a Tinplate Worker.

In the Manchester Directory of 1869/70/71 Richard is shown as living at 91, Canal Street, Ancoats and on the 10^th of March 1872 he died of ‘Senile Decay’ at No. 7 High Burton Street.

The mills where our ancestors earned their living are now being converted into upmarket loft apartments.  A £200m regeneration project is taking place in what is known as ‘Ancoats Urban Village’ and the area around the Ashton & Rochdale Canals is now being referred to as New Islington, a name taking us right back to the 19^th Century.