MCFChistory wrote:You raise some good points, and yes, spelling in Victorian times was not standardised as it is today. It's also worth noting that in 1876 the official name of the road as recognised by the Moss Side Local Board was different to the official name used in the Ordnance Survey map.
As someone who has to regularly scrutinise old maps, I can tell you that place names on official publications are rarely up-to-date. This is due to two things:
i) Creating a map is a long arduous process, and can take several years. For an 1876 map, the data could have been collected at some point in the (late) 1850s.
ii) Creating a map is a long arduous process, and people often 'cut corners' by copying older sources (especially in cadastral surveys, where mistakes may not be picked up for 50+ years).
Due to social changes in the latter half of the 19th century leading to quite rapid street name changing, especially in urban areas, no 'primary' source for a street name change could be taken as 100% reliable, barring a newspaper announcement or official municipal document.
Census information can be found here: http://www.1901censusonline.com/main.asp?wci=welcome
Go to 'search census', and you have options from 1841 to 1911. You can try something like 'search location' for both 'Main' and 'Maine' Road, on the 1871, 81 and 91 censuses, with location as 'ch*' (that's what I did, for 'Manchester', but the district is actually registered as 'Chorlton'). Maine Road pops up from 1881. I haven't had a look for Dog Kennel or Domain/Demain.
