The Hodkinson home at 45 Welbeck Street was more spacious than their previous home on Church Street. The part of Welbeck Street where the Hodkinsons lived is now Welbeck St South. See below for the photograph as indicated for the map.

This extract from an Ordnance Survey Map, revised in 1896-97 and published in 1898, shows the short block of back-to-back houses where the Hodkinson/Kenyon family lived. (The light-yellow edges around some parts of the map are OS markings indicating parcels of land which have been grouped together, rather than being recorded separately.)

This extract from an Ordnance Survey map is the same as the one used above for Bower Row. John William Hodkinson married in April 1896, while still living at 11 Bower Row. He and his wife most likely moved to 11 St Paul's Street straight after their marriage. Their first child was born at the new address in 1897.  With a revised date on the map of 1896-97, but no.11 not yet built, then it seems likely that the map of this part of Stalybridge was revised in early 1896, before the house was completed and before the Hodkinsons moved in.  Interestingly, this indicates that John William Hodkinson and his wife were the first occupants of the new house. What a change from 11 Bower Row!

This extract is from an Ordnance Survey map which has a revised date of 1907 and a publication date of 1910. The house occupied by the Hodkinsons at 22 Combermere Street was demolished many decades ago. The short arrow on the map indicates the direction of the photograph.

For some of the second half of 1899 and maybe a bit of 1900, the Hodkinsons lived at 76 Old Road, Stockport. The location of the home is marked in red on the above map which has a revised date of 1917. Next to the Hodkinsons at no. 74, on the corner of Old Road and Gordon Street, was a grocery shop – that was handy! In 1901, the shop was run by 53-year-old Elizabeth Parker, assisted by daughter Ada, who was 20. Elizabeth’s husband was also 53 and was a school caretaker.  All Victorian housing on Old Road was demolished and replaced by new stuff many decades ago; only a section of Old Road itself remains. The green fencing on the modern photograph is roughly where the front doors of the houses were, as shown on the black and white photograph.

The OS maps I like to use are those with a scale of 25 inches to one mile, and with a survey or revised date which relates closely to whatever the text is about. In this case, with the Hodkinsons living at 4 Hurst Street from at least 1903 to at least 1906, no date-relevant OS map is available that does not split Hurst Street between two maps. Acknowledgements, therefore, go to OpenStreetMap.org for the modern main map. The closer view of part of Hurst Street is from one of the OS maps which splits the street, and which has a revised date of 1916.

The Hodkinsons lived at 174 Gorton Road, Reddish, Stockport, from June or July 1906 for an unknown length of time up to no later than July 1907. The OS map was revised in 1916 and published in 1922.

174 Gorton Road has white and black panelling above the bay window. The arrow on the map above shows the direction of the image. (The photograph was taken on a cold winter's morning by Samuel Hodkinson.)

The Hodkinsons lived at 207 Shaw Heath, Stockport (the house with railings) for an unknown length of time between July 1907 and July 1908. The stone plaque which is just below the roof line to the left of the satellite dish has the inscription for this row of six terraced houses as “Heath Hill Terrace 1869”.   1869 … this was the year that John William Hodkinson was born, so he might have been pleased to live in a row of houses with a plaque  which displayed his year of birth.  There are still some large sections of nice original Flemish bond brickwork on the houses, while other areas have suffered from decades of weathering, extensive repointing, and replacement of bricks which do not tie in with the original “colour scheme”. (Photograph: Samuel Hodkinson.)

The Hodkinsons lived at 78 Osborne Road for at least some of 1909. Maybe they stayed there until they moved to Adswood Lane West in about 1911, which is their next known address. The first photograph is looking north up Osborne Road from Adswood Lane East, which is indicated by the long arrow on the map. The shorter arrow on the map relates to the second photograph, with the house with the blue door being the Hodkinsons' home. (Photographs: Samuel Hodkinson.)

The first photograph dates from 1973 and is looking west along Adswood Lane West, as indicated by the long arrow on the map. The short arrow on the map shows the direction of the second photograph which was taken over 50 years later. 61 Adswood Lane West is the house immediately to the right of the drainpipe, and, at the time of writing this, has the bright yellow door as seen in the newer photograph. As with many terraced houses, this set of six houses was given a name – Hulse Terrace – which is on the plaque on the wall above the yellow and white doors. The garden wall was largely rebuilt in the 1930s by John William's youngest son who had finished a bricklaying course. The corner shop – demolished a long time ago – was often frequented by the Hodkinsons.  (The 1973 photograph is the property of Samuel Hodkinson who took the second image.)

Eighteen homes
I had a quick look at a few websites which give data about house moves and they state that the average number of homes that a 21st century UK citizen will occupy in his/her lifetime as eight ... or 11 ... or 16 ... and so on. Another site said that on average people move every 23 years. I also had a quick look for information about the frequency of house moves in Victorian Britain. One AI generated response was that families moved relatively frequently, sometimes every few years. Doubtless there is some research somewhere which has definite figures for specific years, and which takes into account variables such as location, social class, and occupation.

With John William’s 18 homes, it needs to kept in mind that he lived in 17 of those homes in the first 40 years of his life, which meant that, on average, he moved house every 28 months. To me, that does not seem excessive, but I have nothing to compare that information against – except for my history of house moves. I have a trail, so far, of 20 different addresses. From that point of view, John William’s frequency of moving home was not unusual!

This page was originally published on 24th March 2018.  The latest updates were completed by 9th June 2025.