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1851 - 1880

Robert's Grocers and Tea Shop

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Building

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YBirt

After getting married to Emma Meredith at the age of 19, Robert set up a grocers and tea shop with her in the centre of the growing town of Stalybridge, the first of which is listed in the 1851 Census. During the Lancashire Cotton Famine of 1861‒5, where thousands and thousands of workers in Lancashire faced starvation when the abolitionist North in the American Civil War blockaded the progress of the slaver’s cotton ships to Manchester, the centre of Stalybridge saw major bread riots in 1863, which took place right outside of Robert's home and business. To keep the rioters at bay from destroying the shop, Robert threw all the food out of the top window.

It is probably through his work as a tea trader that Robert first met Muslims and other Ottoman citizens at Manchester's Old Corn Exchange. At the time, a significant amount of the supply routes for tea came through Ottoman traders.

Robert and Emma Stanley and their family of 11 children (ten living into childhood) lived above their grocers and tea shop during the period of 1848 to the 1880s, living in just three rooms. 

The first location was 27 Melbourne St, SK15 2JE, which was attacked during the bread riots, while the second location was just down the road at 5 Melbourne St SK15 2JE (pictured) which adjoins the south bank of the River Tame.

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Christina Longden, His Own Man: A Victorian ‘Hidden’ Muslim, The Life and Times of Robert ‘Reschid’ Stanley (Past Truisms CIC: 2019).

Christina Longden, Imagining Robert: Scenes from the life of Robert ‘Reschid’ Stanley 1828–1911 (Past Truisms CIC: 2019).

Email correspondence with Christina Longden, 2023.

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