Haydon Perry (1865-1914)

Haydon Perry was a journalist who lived and worked in Manchester and specialised in writing about cycling.  So much is true.  But he was many other things; listing his career may be too long for a feature of this kind, but we'll try.

He was born Frederick Haydon Perry in 1865 in Oakhill, near Shepton Mallet, Somerset. His father the Reverend Frederick Jacob Perry was an Independent Christian Minister and tutor, born in Watlington, Norfolk; his mother Jane hailed from Dorset and his eldest sister was born in Lynton, Devon.  It was standard practice that such Ministers moved around in this way.

By 1881 the family were in Manchester at 26 Yarburgh Street , Moss Side (then a fashionable suburb) and Frederick gave his occupation as 'Secretary'.   Frederick died in Manchester in 1882, and Haydon, now aged 25 and working as a journalist) stayed with his mother Jane ( 'living on own means') and a General Servant, Isabella Murray at 144 Chorlton Road, Stretford.  He was paying his mother 'six shillings per week for sole use of the back bedroom and joint use of sitting room'.

Haydon never married.  His mother Jane left Manchester to live with her father-in-law's family in Gloucestershire, where she died in July 1911. She is buried, with her husband and a grandson who died in infancy, in a family grave (section F, non-conformist, no. 1080) in Southern Cemetery. The black marble headstone stands out clearly among many stone ones. 

Haydon took to living in boarding houses, like many single businessmen. In 1898 he moved to London to edit a short-lived  Liberal newspaper, the Enfield Chronicle, while retaining his links with Manchester.  A 1900 electoral register lists him a boarder in Enfield, with two rooms in the home of Mrs Ellen Chandler, 'Ladywood', Little Park, Enfield. (At the time, Enfield a market town was in Middlesex north of London; today it is a London Borough.) However the 1901 Census list him as a boarder at  53 Bishop Street, Whaley Range, Manchester.

In 1911 he was living above a shop at 22 Derby Street, with the shopkeeper, Elizabeth Knight Edwards, and her half-sister Mary Knight.  To Elizabeth fell  the  task, as executrix, of dealing with Haydon's estate after he died at 22 Derby Street on 11 November 1914, but she died in hospital a few weeks later on 24 December 1914.  He is buried in a common grave (H Consecrated 3160), with his name spelt 'Hayden',  in Manchester's Southern Cemetery. Elizabeth Knight Edwards is interred in the same plot. How she came from wealthy South Kensington to in a shop in Manchester is a mystery. 

Career

After studying at Owens College, Heydon Perry found a job on the Manchester Examiner , a liberal-leaning newspaper then edited by Henry Dunckley, in 1886.  He stayed until 1891,  when he left to find his own way, making money from his hobby by writing pieces on cycling for the Manchester Guardian, The Clarion and other periodicals.  At the time, the unwieldy 'penny-farthing' was giving way to the bicycles in a design basically the same as today's machines. 

To Perry and his readers, 'cycling' meant trips of up to 30-50 miles in the countryside around Manchester.  His Manchester Guardian output, mostly written anonymously - not always by him - under the heading 'Cycling Notes' was phenomenal, often filling most of a large-format page each week with the expansive text often found in Edwardian writings.  His obituary in the Manchester Guardian tells us :

Mr Perry's local knowledge and quaint humour were happy ingredients in a column which, under the inspiration of the late W.T.Arnold, became a special feature of this paper in the years when then the "safety" bicycle first gave cycling an enormous popularity.

In addition to his newspaper items which reduced in frequency from around 1906,  he compiled  two pocket-sized books: Road and Lane, A handbook for Manchester cyclists and tourists. (1896) and The Second Book of Road and Lane (1897) published by Abel Heywood.  They contain suggestions for rides, based on his newspaper articles.

An article about him (source of the photographic portrait at the top of the page) in the magazine Cycling of 4 March 1899. We read that as a journalist during the cotton strike of 1892-93 he became an expert on the cotton industry, and  wrote a pamphlet The Story of the Manchester Ship Canal, but we cannot at present trace  a copy. He was also said in 1899 to be preparing a book for Harrods entitled The Highroads of Cheshire there is no record of this being published.

He travelled extensively in Europe - on one occasion acting as secretary on a visit to France for  Manchester banker Sir William Cunliffe Brookes - and also visited the USA.

Cycling and its Future

A very large audience was presided over by Mr. Charles Hughes. Before and after the lecture Miss Edith Robinson and Miss N. Wilkinson gave violin and piano selections, and Mr. Louis Calvert recited from "Henry V." and the "Bab Ballads".

    Mr. Perry, in the course of his lecture, said with regard to the bicycle itself he thought that something very near to perfection had been reached, although there were novelties in small details which were sure to be generally adapted.

    There were some who expected much in the future from the application of various motive powers to the cycle. For those who were cripples or infirm a "mechanical" motor would no doubt be a great boon, and he could imagine the ordinary tourist carrying it as a reserve, although not in any of its present forms, to use as an auxiliary in mountainous districts or at the end of along day's journey. But he did not believe it would ever take the place of the healthy muscular action without which cycling would cease to be the grand game it is.

    Mr Perry referred to the future of English roads, and predicted that the time when the wayside inns would have their own again. With it was fast coming too the revival of the in art of Telford and Macadam, an art which was so dormant as to be in danger at being lost in the days which followed the railway fever of the "Forties".

    Mr. Perry's remark that the bicycle is the most potent force for the maintenance and improvement of man's  physical strength and beauty that has been at work since the age when the majority of mankind were constantly engaged in war was was met with applause. This new force was even more powerful than the old one in one very important respect, namely that its action was extended to girls and women, and would become more and more so.