Christopher George Bentham Corbett

• Born: 24 June 1848 at Pendleton (Salford)
• Died : 11 April 1900 at 71 Cecil Street Greenheys, Manchester
• Funeral: Manchester Crematorium

Designation        Architect, surveyor, valuer

 The son of Edward Corbett and Margaret Benham.

He married Sarah Woodhead (1851-1908) in 1875. Two children – John Rooke Corbett ad Catherine Louisa Corbett (1879-1960). Christopher Corbett. He had been educated at Sidcot School, and was then successively pupil, assistant, and partner in the firm of Corbett and Raby (dissolved in 1874), and afterwards partner with his father and brother as E. Corbett and Sons. He was valuer to the Overseers of Manchester and the Chorlton Union, and, had valued the Manchester waterworks.  Joseph Corbett, the borough surveyor of Salford was his brother.

In 1875 he married Sarah Woodhead, the daughter of a Manchester grocer and a member of the Society of Friends. Described as a girl of charming looks and refined character, she had been well-educated at a Quaker school and in 1869 she was one of the first women to enrol at the College for Women in Benslow House, Hitchin the forerunner of Girton College, Cambridge and was the youngest of the Girton Pioneers, On leaving the college Sarah Woodhead returned to Manchester where she joined the staff of the newly established Manchester High School for Girls as the school’s first Mathematical mistress.  A formidable woman, quite prepared to defy the conventions of the day, Sarah Woodward was unwilling to give up her professional career and sink gracefully into the role of wife and mother. After her marriage, she continued as a visiting mistress at Manchester High School until July 1876; this only two months before the birth of her first child, John Rooke Corbett, on 27 September of that year.

The family then moved to Bolton where Sarah established her own school at Silverwell House.  At about the same time Bolton Girls’ Day School, later renamed Bolton High School for Girls was established with an intake of 22 girls and a schoolroom in the Mechanics Institute.  In 1880 Mrs Sarah Corbett, then aged 29, was appointed the second headmistress, amalgamating the school with her own and moving to new premises at 39 Chorley New Road. By the time of her appointment the Corbetts had a second child, Catherine Louisa Corbett, born in 1878, and one of the first women to qualify as a doctor at Manchester University Medical School.

 Partnerships

• -1874 :    Corbett and Raby
• 1874-1892 : E Corbett and Sons

Address

• 1900       Christopher Corbett. Scottish Provident Building, 9 Albert Square (Slater’s Directory)

Residence

• 1881       9 Silverwell Yard, Bolton (Census)
• 1891       Christopher G.B. Corbett; estate agent etc. Residence: 3, Circular Road, Withington
• 1900       71, Cecil Street, Greenheys