The Midland Hotel

 Manchester's grand hotel is famed as the place where on 4th May 1904 C.S.Rolls and F.H.Royce took lunch together and as a result formed the iconic motor company. The Midland however, has been host to many notable people during it's history; monarchy; aristocracy; prime ministers; businessmen and celebrities. The hotel was also the informal home of "The Old Colony Club" a group of American cotton dealers who regularly visited Manchester to sell their goods and alway stayed at the Midland.




Central Station in Manchester opened in 1880 and became the terminus for the Midland Railway's route from St. Pancras in London. The railway commissioned their architect Charles Trubshaw to design the adjacent Midland Hotel.

Gentlemen's Concert Hall

  Trubshaw's career had involved work on numerous railway projects including many stations and railway hotels. A number of properties were purchased including the Lower Mosley Street School and the Gentlemen's Concert Hall the 1831 home of the Gentlemen's Concert Orchestra. .Demolition of the hall was regretted as it was described in The Manchester Guardian as "not only one of the most elegant rooms in Manchester, but it has interesting music traditions such as attach to no other place in the district"

Construction started in 1898 and the cost was  over £1 million.

The Winter Garden

 When the hoted opened in September 1903   

 there were 300 bedrooms, many with private bathrooms. Each room had a bedside telephone and an electric wall clock illuminated by a switch. The public rooms included a glass roofed winter garden adorned with palms and flowers "where the guests of the hotel will be able to take their ease and their coffee, purchase their newspapers or their chocolates and smoke an after-dinner cigar". The Winter Garden led into the marble columned "Octagonal Court". A grand staircase led to a theatre which seated 850 and became the new home of the Gentlemen's Concerts. The style of the sumptuous decor was described as Louis XIV and the balconies were illustrated with scenes from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Tennyson's "King Arthur". The oval French Restaurant was also richly decorated in Louis XIV style. There was also a main dining room, panelled  in mahogany and a tearoom finished in sycamore and light blue. The reading and writing rooms were equally luxurious. The smoking and billiard rooms were exclusively for male patronage whilst other facilities were reserved for the ladies including a foyer in the Octagon and a suite of rooms where milliners, dressmakers, hairdressers and servants could be consulted.

The Roof Garden

There was originally a post office, the only one in a British hotel and a business centre.
The basement accommodated a turkish bath and the roof garden where an orchestra played was then the largest in the world.
Windows were double glazed and the polluted Manchester air was washed and filtered before being supplied to the rooms and corridors of the hotel; an early form of air conditioning. 23 lifts served the 7 floors.

The theatre was only short lived and was 

The Midland Theatre

demolished in 1914. Apart from concerts, a  wide variety of entertainment was offered including performances by Mrs Horniman's troupe, the first repertory company in England.




Alterations in 1936 saw the removal of the Winter Gardens and demolition of the covered walkway which led from the rear of the hotel into Central Station. Further modifications have seen removal of the dome above the octagon and many other changes; many features of the building have however, been preserved.

There is a legend that the Midland and the nearby Town Hall were spared from German bombing on the orders of Hitler. It is said that the hotel had been earmarked as the Fuhrer's British headquarters. Whether true or not, it was certainly spared the ravages of the blitz.  
1944 saw the convertion of the grillroom by the Y.M.C.A. into an officers dormitory. The room contained 65 beds each with a wardrobe and chair. Bed and breakfast was four shillings a night. This accommodation complimented that at the main Association building next door. The quick lunch bar also found a new wartime use as the Allied Officer's Club.

A wyvern surmounted the Midland Railway arms and this mythical bird is still represented throughout the hotel.

The Royal Suite prepared for the 1928 visit of the King and Queen of Afghanistan

 
A mysterious death was reported in May 1906.  James Storey, a chemical manufacturer from Lancaster was a guest at the Midland. He was in good health and fine spirits; had no business nor personal worries and appeared to be mentally stable. On the evening of his arrival he met Mr Whelan, a wine and spirit merchant from Surrey. They dined together, had a game of billiards and then went out for a stroll. On returning they sat in the lounge together until midnight when they took the lift to their respective floors.  They arranged to meet for breakfast the following morning and when Storey did not appear, Whelan went up to the room on the 6th floor to enquire. The chamber-maid had not seen the guest and the room had not been slept in that night. Storey had not been seen that morning and had not paid his bill. Investigations revealed that a maid had seen the missing man at midnight leaning against a wall near his room. When spoken to, he replied in a strange manner and seemed undecided whether to go into his room. Another maid had seen him shortly after 5am on the 6th floor landing, looking through a window; he wore nothing but a shirt and tie. Searching the hotel, Police Detective Lingard discovered his body at the foot of a 52 foot deep air shaft. It appeared that he had fallen over a parapet. Finger prints and scratches at the top suggested that he had tried to save himself.  The coroner's inquest returned an open verdict.