Description: Originally thought to show The Liberal Club. It now appears that this is not any part of the facade of the Liberal club. The west face of the Club, now the Partington Theatre, is flat and not faceted as in the photo. It might be the Convalescent Home/Maternity Hospital.
On August 1st, 1914 Sir Edward Partington MP, Baron Doverdale of Westwood laid the foundation stone of a fine building in Norfolk Square, which was to become the Liberal Club. The photographer who took this picture was Ernest Battey. Ernest Battey was born in 1883 at Market Street, Hollingworth, Cheshire, the fourth of six sons and two daughters of John William Battey, a cotton weaver, and his wife Ann, a card room hand in a cotton mill. In the late 1880s, the family moved to nearby Glossop, where they lived on Market Street in April 1891. The four oldest sons, by then in their teens, were all working as calico weavers, but Ernest and his sister Gertrude were still at school. Over the next ten years, however, the family fortunes appear to have changed as John was described in the 1901 census as a 'hat dealer shopkeeper'. The three older sons still living at home, Joseph, Albert and Ernest, were described respectively as painter artist, picture framer and picture manufacturer. However, it appears that Ernest had already taken up the 'art' of photography. By 1912 (Kelly) Ernest had set up the 'Art Studio' at 8 Norfolk Street, Glossop, and was practising as a photographer. He was still working at that address when the 1926-1927 Midland Counties directory was compiled. A post card photo by Battey dated tentatively at c. 1910-1912 has an embossed mark suggesting that his studio may initially have been located in neighbouring Hadfield township. By 1932 (Kelly) he appears to have been no longer in business. (information from Derbyshire Photographers and Photographic Studios website)