By Paul Hurley
Murderer Harold Berry lived in Ledward Street, Wharton, pictured here in 1935 LET us start our story today in the office of a moneylender in Manchester in early 1946. With the end of the war, the moneylenders tried to ease the formalities of borrowing. But because of the following story, these more straightforward formalities were rescinded. One of the men employed as a moneylenders manager at the Refuge Lending Society in Walker Street, Manchester, was Bernard Phillips of Meade Hall Road, Prestwich who was 37 years old and married with one child. On January 3, 1946, a man came into the office to apply for a loan; he wanted £60, that would equate today as £2,529.43. He gave the name George Wood, the address he provided was Moss Side Farm in Tarporley and his wife’s name was Jessie.
Station Road 1916 A 21-year-old unemployed painter and local man James Phipps approached the children as it was getting dark. He asked if one of them could go to a nearby shop and get him some cigarettes, the volunteer would get 2d for going. Eliza being a helpful girl, volunteered. She went and bought the cigarettes, and when she returned with them, Phipps asked her to show him where a man called Hulse lived, Eliza knew Hulse as the local lamplighter from Ledward Street, again, the ever-friendly Eliza agreed. It was 7.30pm when they were last seen walking along the footpath in Ledward Street. The vibrant, fun-loving Eliza Warburton was last seen near Wharton church by a neighbour. She was not seen alive again.