This is actually my family’s story. I had only heard the version told to my sister and me as children. Are there any more stories about Horowitch - Our aunty Rosie Horowitch was in Manchester newspaper as she was attacked in her house in Brunswick Street by someone looking for her brother Morris Horowitch. Thanks a childhood remembered
quote author=cheethamgirl link=topic=13127.msg311622#msg311622 date=1545571337]
I've been greatly enjoying my subscription to the British Newspaper Archive. It's great for research. But I came across a snippet which Oldron and others might find interesting.
In August 1956, four schoolboys - Brothers David (12) and John (10) Lucas of Boyle St., Cheetham and brothers Leonard (9) and Eric Stapleton (6) of Temple Square, were playing on Barney's Croft when they came across and old sofa dumped there. They jumped up and down on it and out fell a bank pass book containing banknotes amounting to £1,300. They dutifully handed these over to the police.
Investigation revealed that the bank book belonged to a gentleman named Mr Myer Horowitch. Horowitch was a Russian émigré who had come to Manchester at the turn of the 20th century and had never learned English or become naturalised but had made a small fortune running a scrap rag and metal business at 25-31 Mary Street, Strangeways. He had gone missing from his home, 1 Brunswick St., Cheetham in 1939 whilst his family were out at the theatre, and he was never found. He was declared dead in 1954 and his estate, valued at £10,000, was inherited by his three children. Following his disappearance, his children had sold the sofa for £6. It had passed through several owners until eventually, it had been bought by a Mrs Webster who lived in a caravan parked on Barney's Croft. She had subsequently bought a new sofa and chucked out the old one onto the croft. She was kicking herself to think she'd been sitting on £1,300 for six months and hadn't known anything about it!
