Local History - music written for Queen Victoria on her visit to Worsley

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Personal Finance Tips for your Local Personal Financial Adviser For many people, the new wealth is freedom. Be that time, location or financial freedom: it doesn’talways mean having millions in the bank, it’s just having enough to live the life you want.I am sharing six of my favourite tips on how to get there. Have a Financial PlanA clear plan and budget can help you to speed up reaching your financial goals. When you become more conscious of your spending, it’s amazing what you can achieve. Having a plan isn’t about deprivingyourself, it’s about living with a little discipline to avoid a life of deprivation. My job is to help you figure out how to live the life you want. Build Good HabitsHow we think about money can have a huge impact on how we manage it. Many of our money habitsare subconscious. Building good financial habits isn’t necessarily about the things you’re doing butmore the person you’re becoming. You don’t need a wealthy background to create wealth. Have an Opportunity FundLife throws up surprises. An opportunity fund is 3-6 months worth of expenditure in cash savings which you can rely upon if needed. Emergencies do happen, so having this fund allows you to deal with them. Spending money on emergencies isn’t fun but it is better to have it than need it. Make Sure you are ProtectedProtection (i.e. life insurance, critical illness and income protection) is often overlooked but in my opinion it’s the base of any financial plan. You can save as much as you like but if you become ill or a loved one passes, it’s crazy how fast savings can deplete and your life can change. I make sure that you protect what matters the most. PensionsContributing to a pension is one of the most effective forms of savings. Not only do you receive valuable tax benefits but if you are employed, you receive extra contributions from your employer. If you own a Limited Company, pension contributions are an allowable business expense and can reduce your corporation tax bill. Start InvestingInvesting should be for your long term savings and you can start small at any point in your life. The power of time & compound interest can be so impactful. Investing is one of the best ways to build wealth. It is my job to ensure that you are choosing the right investments for you whilst investing in the most tax efficient way. Make sure you are on the right path to achieve financial freedom. Hannah Whiteley DipPFSFinancial AdviserE: hannah.whiteley@sjpp.co.ukT: 07521 154377  

The coin above is an example of a Conder token. Conder coins (also known as provincial tokens) were produced in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and were privately minted by business owners, partly due to the lack of small denomination coinage in circulation. The government made little effort to stop the practice and thousands of designs were produced. Conder tokens are named after James Conder who was an early collector and cataloguer of the tokens.The 10g copper coin pictured shows a man carrying a load on his back, with the lettering “ManchesterHalfpenny 1793”. The reverse bears the words “Success to Navigation” and a coat of arms. The coatof arms clearly shows the Bridgewater coat of arms with the lion rampant, crested by a crown. The‘navigation’ refers to the Bridgewater Canal. There is also an inscription around the edge with differenttypes produced. This presumably prevented ‘clipping’ - the taking of a small amount of metal off the edge of hand-struck coins to be melted and sold or used to make new coins. Does anyone know anything further about these coins? Who produced them and where were they used?In later years the private production of such coins was clamped down upon as it could be used by unscrupulous employers to force workers to use their shops (this is known as the ‘truck system’). Private token coinage was banned in 1817 and the truck system came to an end (supposedly) with theTruck Act of 1831. Thank you to Mark Charnley for supplying information for this article. Other sources include Wikipedia. If you are interested in local history you will be very welcome at Eccles & District History Society.Meetings run from September to May. For details of their programme, go tohttps://edhs.chessck.co.uk​  

Many places have heritage trails, including a number of areas in Salford. Some are very prominent and hard to miss but when I speak to people about ours in Swinton, very often they are unaware of its existence. The reason for this is probably because the eleven bronze plaques that make up the trail are at ground level and people tend to walk over or past them without even realising they are there.  The trail was conceived by the Swinton Heritage Task Group, which is a community group of council representatives and local historians who currently meet quarterly online. Financing the trail was down to Section 106 money from Asda. When they built a car park for their new Swinton store, which opened in 2014, their development included building on the site of the burial ground of the former Unitarian Chapel that had been on Swinton Hall Road and for the privilege they were required to provide 106 money for community use. Although people might overlook the plaques, there is a very prominent pink notice board near the Lancastrian Hall facing Salford Civic Centre that shows the locations of all the eleven plaques on the trail. The plaques are located at the sites (or former sites) of: • Swinton Industrial School• St. Peter’s Church• Swinton Public Gardens*• Station Road Rugby Ground• Unitarian Church• Swinton Hall• St. Augustine’s Church• Clifton Hall Tunnel Collapse (Temple Drive)• Victoria Park• White Lion Pub• Chorley Road Rugby Ground*The Swinton Public Gardens plaque is at the Garden’s entrance, which is on Chorley Road on the opposite side to the Police Station.  In the Gardens is a memorial to Noah Robinson (1826-1907) who has been referred to as the “founding father” of modern Swinton in a local history pamphlet written by Derek Antrobus, a member of Swinton Heritage Task Group. Noah, who occupied a number of key posts in our area, including being a Poor Law Guardian, a Chairman of Swinton Local Board and a Churchwarden at St. Peter’s Church, is also commemorated in several features of that church, including on its Lych Gate. Sometimes there are opportunities to undertake guided tours of the trail, when further information relating to each of the locations can be shared,although each plaque has sufficient information on it to encourage people to start to research our local Swinton heritage for themselves. There will be an opportunity for people to learn more about the heritage of this area, prior to its incorporation into the City of Salford in 1974, when Derek Antrobus mounts a free exhibition entitled “Celebrating Swinton and Pendlebury’s Story” at Swinton Gateway. This will commence 24th June and continue for about three months. Written by Paul SherlockAgeUk SWINTON & Irwell Valley History group