Nothing to do with a race horse!

   "In the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the greater part of the property in this area of Manchester was acquired by the Mynshull family. Barbara Nabb, the widow of Thomas Samuel Mynshull, became the sole heiress of this estate upon his death in 1755. One fateful day in 1769, she attended the fashionable Kersal races and met Roger Aytoun. 'Spanking Roger' (after his pugnacious manners, and not a reference to some personal habit!), six foot four inches of a handsome physique in military uniform, swept the lady off her feet. Less than one month after this meeting, the young Scotsman and the sixty-five year old widow were married in the Collegiate Church.
    Aytoun nourished a military career. With some financial assistance from his wife, he raised his own regiment, the 72nd Regiment of Foot (Manchester Volunteers) to serve in the latter stages of the American War of Independence. He paraded the Manchester streets with a watch pinned to a banner, promising it to the day's first recruit. Other times he would challenge likely candidates to a fight – on the understanding that they would enlist if he won! The local archive still preserves a poster advertising a football match as a recruiting ploy. The Manchester Volunteers never went to America. Instead, they formed part of the garrison of Gibraltar, which was then besieged by the Spanish. The long siege produced conditions of great privation, and members of the regiment were driven to desertion and suicide. Nevertheless, Gibraltar was held.
    Aytoun returned to Manchester as a hero, but then revealed a dark side to his nature. Barbara died in 1783. Roger had squandered the entire family fortune by 1792, and had mortgaged the landed property. His debts were reduced (!) to over £11,000 by 1797, and finally cleared by the sale of Chorlton Hall. But Aytoun had already left Manchester for pastures new. He married another heiress in his native Scotland in 1794, and died a rich man in 1810! His entangled affairs resulted in land sales that led to a rash of speculative building on the south side of the town."

    I've pasted a passage from 'Discovering Manchester', a guide book 'wot i wrote', and available from Sigma leisure.

   Hurry while stocks last!

Regards,
   Train Guard