On a crisp, biting February morning in Pendlebury in 1814, a frozen woman appeared on the banks of the River Irwell.
She was dressed in fawn-coloured gown, with a pink and yellow silk handkerchief draped around her neck.
Icicles twinkled in her hair.
Mr Goodier could barely believe his eyes.
The Eccles mill owner had caught sight of what appeared to be a body on the riverbank, but when he wandered over to take a closer look, he thought he had found a water maiden from another world.
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Temporarily entranced by this figure lying in “perfect form and perfect rest”, Mr Goodier eventually composed himself and decided to contact the police.
Frost had preserved the woman’s appearance, and it soon became clear that this was Lavinia Robinson – the bright, intelligent, beautiful 20-year-old woman who had mysteriously vanished from Manchester two months before.
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Miss Robinson was due to be married on December 7, but had gone missing on the eve of her nuptials.
The situation induced intense panic and concern in the community – with a reward of 30 guineas being advertised in exchange for information.
The Manchester Exchange Herald newspaper wrote at the time: “No event, for a long series of years, has occurred in Manchester, which has called forth so general an interest, as the sudden disappearance of Miss Lavinia Robinson.”
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On February 8, Miss Robinson’s family confirmed the identity of the body found at the riverside.
Locals who had spent weeks speculating what had happened to the young girl from Bridge Street finally had an answer.
Miss Robinson had tragically fallen into the River Irwell and frozen in sub-zero temperatures. But how she came to be there – encased in ice – remains a mystery to this day.
An inquest into Miss Robinson’s death offered no concrete conclusions or explanations, although one witness claims to have seen her arguing with her fiancé close to her home in the hours before she disappeared.
One theory is that Miss Robinson was compelled to take drastic action at the prospect of being publicly shamed – having been accused of adultery by her husband-to-be.
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In her blog, Naomi Clifford described Miss Robinson as someone “overwhelmed with despair and saw no way forward” – fearing her new status as a social pariah.
In fact, it was Miss Robinson’s partner, Mr Holroyd, who became persona non grata in Manchester during the winter of 1814.
The other line of inquiry was that Miss Robinson had been murdered, and when Mr Holroyd fell under a cloud of suspicion, he opted to flee the city – away from the “strong resentment” of his neighbours.
The story has continued to recirculate in Manchester folklore for over 200 years ever since – with speculation rife as to how this young woman met her demise.
Today, Miss Robinson is best known by the name of the character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet who descends into a state of madness and drowns.
The ‘Manchester’ Ophelia.
Feature
Football fans are debating whether Manchester City made a mistake selling Cole Palmer
Danny Jones
Football clubs are always going to have to roll the dice on players as we all know promising players who went on to become stars: Kevin de Bruyne, Gerard Pique, Mo Salah and so on just to name a few from the Premier League – but is that what Manchester City have done with Cole Palmer?
The 21-year-old from Wythenshawe was sold to Chelsea back in September 2023, having only managed to make a few scattered but impressive appearances for Man City, scoring crucial goals in the Community Shield and the UEFA Super Cup, but was still ultimately deemed surplus to requirements.
Shown the exit through nothing other than the sheer quality of Pep Guardiola‘s starting XI, not to mention plenty of strength in depth and quality off the bench already, the West London club paid what looked to be a handsome £42.5 million for the still relatively unproven youngster at the time.
However, with another hattrick to his name – a perfect one scored all inside half an hour, no less – and a fourth for good measure thanks to a penalty against Everton, he’s quickly become by far and away Chelsea‘s star man.
In the same breath, many are now naturally wondering why he was sold in the first place. It’s no secret that City are spoilt for choice when it comes to talent amongst their ranks and certainly didn’t need the money from his sale; it was simply a case that Palmer wanted more minutes that Pep couldn’t promise.
Shouldering the responsibility for the decision at the time, Guardiola said he completely understood the Manchester-born and bred star’s drive and ambition, admitting that “[With] young players, we always want them to stay but this is normal.
“After one season it is nice, and the second season, but the third season it is, ‘Oh guys, I want to play, I don’t want to sit on the bench’. It’s normal. We understand as a club. We got an offer from an incredible top club like Chelsea and I’m really happy for him. In all clubs these types of things happen.”
However, we dare say that if you were to tell the Catalan coach that same hungry prospect would end up being joint top-scorer with his Erling Haaland the following season and being, we think it’s fair to say he might at least hesitate before green-lighting his departure – and there are plenty more stats to boot.
Now, it’s impossible to know whether or not having the knowledge he has now would have made Pep second-guess his decision and take a chance on integrating Cole Palmer into City’s first team more regularly but put it this way, 25 goals and 13 assists in all competitions is hard to ignore.
That’s all inside what is for all intents and purposes his full debut season as a first-team starter (which isn’t even over yet), let’s not forget, and while they’ve had similar situations play out with the likes of Jadon Sancho in the past, it must be a little frustrating to see him playing this well in the same only league only in a darker shade of blue.
On the other hand, it’s still early days Palmer could also follow that same narrative even further and see that huge momentum trickle out depending on how his sophomore season goes. He’s also a boyhood Man United fan and not that we’re saying we can see him make that move down the line, but we all know how that switch sadly ended up for Sancho.
For many fans, City or otherwise, the logic seems to be that letting him go was the right decision for everyone, as it’s allowed him to get that crucial playing time and shine like he has this season, which may not have happened while waiting to grab his opportunity off the bench at the Etihad.
Moreover, it’s not like the treble-winners aren’t still looking like they could defend all three of their trophies this year – although it would be interesting to see what impact Palmer has when he comes up against his former club in the FA Cup semi-final this weekend.
What do you think, were City right to sell Cole Palmer or should they have held on to him and given him the minutes he was clearly more than ready for?
Remember when the Manchester Marathon used to be too short?
Danny Jones
One of the most popular runs in the UK returns this weekend as the 2024 Adidas Manchester Marathon gets underway on Sunday morning, but did you know the famous race was once too short to count as the full shebang?
Yes, it may very be one of the flattest and most accessible races anywhere in Europe but once upon a time the Manchester Marathon was technically a marathon, as those in charge of measuring the thing up didn’t quite nail it.
One job, guys. You had one job…
Here’s the story of for three whole years, tens of thousands of runners sadly didn’t technically complete the Manchester Marathon.
Manchester Marathon: The ‘ish’ years
As was widely publicised at the time, in 2016 it was found that roughly the three previous years of the race course that runs throughout Manchester city centre, into the likes of Trafford, Chorlton, Altrincham and beyond didn’t actually fulfil the complete distance needed to qualify as a marathon.
While the race route has to stretch for 26.2 miles, or approximately 42.195 kilometres if you prefer metric (always one that splits the crowd) to count as an official marathon, it turned out that in 2013, ’14 and ’15, Manchester’s biggest running event fell just short of that mark.
Due to a measuring error – for which blame was placed on the Association of UK Course Measurers (AUKCM), who said an accredited measurer had ridden the course in 2013 but fell foul to an error in the calibration of the bicycle wheel – those three years ended up being 380m too short.
As a result, roughly 24,000 runners who ran the Manchester Marathon during this three-year period essentially had their races voided, including plenty of elite athletes, as the official UK Athletics governing body simply could not recognise their times. How fuming would you be?
Speaking in an official statement at the time, AUKCM said they regretted the mistake, confessing: “Significant errors in measurement are rare – our procedures are designed to find them at the reporting or checking stages”.
Xtra Mile Events, who were still the organisers of the event at the time, went on to add: “We all understand the anguish and huge disappointment this creates and want to assure our runners that we share the upset and emotion from the AUKCM news regarding the race distance.”
Thankfully, such mistakes haven’t been suffered since and now under the umbrella of sporting giants Adidas, you won’t catch them making the same slips-ups.
Best of luck to all of you racing this Sunday and rest easy in the knowledge that while you might be absolutely dying by those last few miles, at least you can be sure those every one of those final yards is going to count. Now go and smash it!