Anna Connell

Excellent work, mate. You should contact Gary James to see/share any info which he may have on the subject. I am amazed that James hasn't found her grave by now. He comes on here from time to time and I'm sure he has read this thread - so, Gary, how about it?
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Together with a guy called Peter Lupson we tried to find the grave. The latest, which I'm sure you'll find somewhere on the Internet because Peter got the story in the Independent, was that we believed the site of her grave was now covered by the car park for Dixon's church at the time of Anna's death.

However, we don 't now believe she was buried there as there was no record when Peter investigated further.

I know where her father and mother are buried and that is in Manchester (Rusholme), but Anna wasn't buried with them for some unknown reason.

A word of caution on all the Anna Connell stuff... Paul Toovey's new book on City's birth includes some factual evidence that Anna did not have any involvement in the creation of the football club as that evolved out of the cricket club. The cricket club was in existence AT LEAST 4 years before Annaa started the men's meetings. Obviously the Connell family (and I would argue that Arthur's place is very significant as he set the tone and was the club's first president) are very important, but the real and most influential person behind the creation of the football club is probably William Beastow.

An awful lot has been written on the Connells, Beastow, Goodbehere and the others and it realy is worth checking out a few books. Manchester A Football History & Manchester City The Complete Record (latest version) do carry a lot of the story and it'd be well worth borrowing those from the library. This thread has given a lot of info but there's so much more that appears in those books including profiles of the Connells.
 
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/03/2007_17_thu.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/ ... _thu.shtml</a> - this is a woman's Hour (radio 4) show that Lupson and I were interviewed for. Obviously they only focused on the 'Anna as founder' story and not the factual evidence. I wasn't too happy with this.
 
bluejue said:
Someone was asking about ancestry.com entries for Anna Connell - I've found some census info if anyone is interested:

1891 Census 17 North Road - Civil Parish Newton
Arthur Connell born abt 1821 Mallow, Ireland Head Residence Newton, Lancashire Rector of St Mark's Gorton

Anne Connell born abt 1823 Longford, Ireland Wife Newton, Lancashire

Anna Connell born abt 1851 Clones, Ireland Daughter Newton, Lancashire
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17 North Road is now demolished but was the rectory for St. Mark's and is possibly the place where the Club's first match reports were written up and sent from. The mention of Newton may confuse a few... back in the 1870s/80s part of the area we currently know as Longsight (the area just off the ring road near the old back entrance to Belle Vue), was known in some official records as Newton Detached. So all census and similar documentation records this as Newton or Newton Detached. North Road still exists, and is fairly close to a couple of the club's old pitches - Pink Bank Lane & Kirkmanshulme C. Some of our earliest match reports say things like: "the Longsight club" or "We hear from Longsight that St. Mark's..." - and this has confused some who think the ground was in Longsight. More likely the reports were submitted from the rectory with its Longsight address.

There are lots of confusing bits to City's early history - even Manchester City Council have incorrectly placed the blue plaque marking the site of our birth! It's only wrong by a few hundred yards, but it wouldn't take much to put it right (I tried to get support to put this right while at City).
 
jfmaille said:
Gary -

Are Rev. Arthur Connell and his wife buried at St James in Rusholme?
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/LAN/Rusholme/StJames.shtml


thanks

JF
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Spot on. I have a phot of their grave, but this is now private property and it's difficult to get agreement to do anything. I had hoped to get this place cleaned up as part of a project at City but obviously can't now.
 
Gary and everyone else involved, spot on. Excellent thread. As a history undergrad and a Blue I've followed this thread with interest (when I probably should be revising for my finals!).

Gary, are there any portraits or pictures of Anna, Arthur, William Beastow and all the influential figures in City's formative years?

I emailed the club a while back to ask them if they had plans to build more murals, similar to the ones of Micah and Martin Petrov on the entrance to the South Stand, and whether they might use players from City's history; I can't think of a better way to commemorate the Connells and those figures than with some visible memorial, particularly as the club's going through so many huge changes. Or perhaps a banner in the South and East stands? a la Celtic fans' flag of Brother Walfrid, their founder.
 
This is a great thread, and a really interesting story that has developed the longer the thread continues.

I agree with Owain and the earlier posters who have said that we should pay tribute in some way to our founding mother and / or father(s).

Problem is we are not sure who to honour now. At the start of the thread it was Anna..........

Still, I quite like the idea that our club was the only "major soccer [football] club" to be founded by a woman, don't know why. And just think of the marketing potential to entice more of the fair sex to the game.

Whoever our founders turn out to be ............................. thank you
 
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