IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 15 - 21 JUNE 1926
This week's many stories include the acrobat who committed suicide in the Theatre Royal, the criticism of children who had chip shop teas, the two child scalding deaths, the judge that criticised widows for spending too much on gravestones, the scheme to fix the flooding at Peasley Cross bridge, thousands of St Helens miners march to Whiston and the market stall holder prosecuted for assaulting a boy who had been causing a nuisance.
Beecham's spent a fortune advertising in newspapers and magazines. Their brand was so well-known that counterfeiters would pass off their own pills as that of the St Helens pharmaceutical firm. At Belfast Summons Court on the 15th, Beecham's brought summonses against a Belfast dealer for selling pills falsely claiming them to have been made by the Westfield Street firm. A fine of £10 and costs was imposed and in a similar prosecution brought against another man, a further fine of £10 was levelled.
Upon being charged in St Helens Police Court on the 15th for an assault on a ten-year-old boy from Lyon Street, fruiterer Frank Conway complained of the great number of children that roamed the marketplace. "They are a nuisance picking things up", he said, "especially when the stalls are closing on Saturday evenings."
The stallholder said the unnamed boy had hidden under his stall on the previous Saturday night and to simply frighten off the lad and his mates, he had grabbed him "by his neck and his breeches". However, the boy had been hurt by his actions and Conway was ordered to pay a guinea, the doctor's bill and the court costs. St Helens Market did not close on Saturdays until very late – around about 11pm. And so it might be questioned why the 10-year-old had been allowed out so late, although I imagine it probably wasn't even mentioned in the hearing.
In April 1926 Judge Challenor Dowdall had declared in St Helens County Court, "The idea of workmen's compensation is not to provide a holiday at Blackpool". His Honour was laying down the law to a widow who wanted to take a seaside break using £8 of her own compensation money that had been awarded after her husband's death.
In the early days of compensation for industrial accidents, those awarded cash had to go cap in hand to the County Court in East Street for the right to spend some of it. The feeling was that such individuals, unused to having large cash, would waste it or have it conned out of them if given as a lump sum.
A typical award might be £200 to £300 but the widow would only be allowed a few pounds per week, with larger sums for specific purposes granted (or refused) upon request. Although well-meaning, the patronising, dictatorial attitude of the time did seem wrong in not allowing a widow to take a holiday or choose the type of gravestone that she wanted for her late husband.
The latter occurred on the 16th of this week in two separate County Court cases. In the first a widow who had spent £45 on a gravestone asked for her compensation allowance of £5 per week to be increased and also to be allowed to have £30 in order to purchase a crockery business. But Judge Dowdall refused both requests on the basis that there had been a waste of money on the gravestone.
In the second case a young widow wanted to be allowed to pay £38 for a memorial for her husband and to receive £1 per week maintenance. Although Judge Dowdall said the £1 was reasonable, he objected to the £38 for the gravestone claiming that the price of such memorials went up when it was learned that the money would be coming out of compensation awards. The widow was told to get another estimate for a cheaper gravestone.
On the 15th a circus acrobat called Archibald McKellar, who went by the stage name of Giro Sans, committed suicide in the Theatre Royal. The 40-year-old tight-rope walker had been with the Royal Italian Circus since 1913 and was found gassed in a dressing room. On the afternoon of his death, McKellar complained of being unwell with pains in his stomach and he had borrowed half-a-crown to buy some medicine.
At 6pm after the door to his dressing room was forced open, McKellar was discovered dead. One end of a length of tubing had been attached to a gas bracket and its other end lay by his head on a pillow. Archibald McKellar had been a heavy drinker who suffered from depression and a verdict of suicide was returned at the subsequent inquest. The Liverpool Daily Post said the man's death had caused a sensation and explained that his main feat in the act had been to ascend a rope by hand and foot from the stage to the gallery and then to slide down it quickly to the stage.
On the 16th two inquests were held on small children that had died from scalds. Jane McCullen, aged 21 months, had pulled a teapot full of hot tea over her chest and arms last week in her College Street home and she died in Providence Hospital two days later. And Joyce Pope, aged 20 months, had fatally scalded herself after knocking over a bath of hot water, which her mother had laid on a low stool in her home in Albion Street. The toddler had died just hours before her inquest took place and like in little Jane's case, a verdict of misadventure was returned.
On the 16th the Liverpool Echo described the current situation as regards coal stocks in the St Helens glass and bottlemaking industries. Although all firms were presently well supplied with coal and in no imminent danger of shutting down their production lines, the Echo said short-time working was being introduced to conserve coal stocks.
On the 17th the St Helens Highways Committee approved a £30,000 scheme to fix the flooding problem at Peasley Cross bridge. The Borough Engineer had identified the cause as Hardshaw Brook not being able to carry off all the extra water created during storms and it would, instead, overflow into the road. And so his solution was to clean out and deepen the brook.
The committee decided to apply to the Unemployed Grants Committee to see if they would be prepared to make a contribution to the cost of the project if men on the dole were employed in the work. When the scheme was finally completed in 1934 at a cost of £35,000, the Borough Engineer optimistically claimed that the problem had "gone for ever" – but we know that that is certainly not the case.
On the 17th thousands of miners and their supporters, accompanied by four brass bands, marched to the Whiston Institution / Workhouse (pictured above) to demand more Poor Law relief, with the Daily Express writing: "Fifteen thousand miners, women, and girls, some of them wearing carnival hats, marched seven miles, from St. Helen's to the Whiston Workhouse, near Prescot, and back this afternoon to demonstrate in favour of the granting of additional relief."
If you thought that children being sent to the chip shop for their tea was a fairly recent trend, think again! It was so prevalent 100 years ago that the School Medical Officer, Dr Frank Hauxwell, had to warn against the practice in his annual report. This extract was reprinted in the St Helens Newspaper on the 18th:
"Improper feeding is not confined to either the poor or to the badly housed, but it is certainly more common amongst such families, and in these circumstances the effects are more damaging. The pernicious but common and growing practice of making “chips” and tea the staple items of a school child's diet may save the mother labour but undermines the child's health. Neither “chips” nor tea are evils in themselves, but nitrogenous foods are essentially the body builders, and a growing child especially has need of an adequate supply."
The Newspaper also wrote: "A spectacle rivalling for thrill those engineered in the movie world was enacted at Sutton Heath Colliery on Tuesday, and two people were very fortunate to escape serious injury." The accident happened above ground after a man called Lyon, who worked in the coal sales department, had driven his car into the colliery yard where it came to a halt with its front wheels on the rails.
A train of wagons was approaching at the time and before anything could be done to remedy the problem, the engine crashed into the front of the car, which was twisted round and smashed into a wall. The vehicle was badly smashed but in the nick of time Mr Lyon and a clerk called Fogg had managed to leap clear and they escaped serious injury.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the opening of the new maternity unit at St Helens Hospital, the two miners who spent their strike pay on booze and the blind former Lea Green Colliery miner who was denied compensation by the County Court.
Upon being charged in St Helens Police Court on the 15th for an assault on a ten-year-old boy from Lyon Street, fruiterer Frank Conway complained of the great number of children that roamed the marketplace. "They are a nuisance picking things up", he said, "especially when the stalls are closing on Saturday evenings."
The stallholder said the unnamed boy had hidden under his stall on the previous Saturday night and to simply frighten off the lad and his mates, he had grabbed him "by his neck and his breeches". However, the boy had been hurt by his actions and Conway was ordered to pay a guinea, the doctor's bill and the court costs. St Helens Market did not close on Saturdays until very late – around about 11pm. And so it might be questioned why the 10-year-old had been allowed out so late, although I imagine it probably wasn't even mentioned in the hearing.
In April 1926 Judge Challenor Dowdall had declared in St Helens County Court, "The idea of workmen's compensation is not to provide a holiday at Blackpool". His Honour was laying down the law to a widow who wanted to take a seaside break using £8 of her own compensation money that had been awarded after her husband's death.
In the early days of compensation for industrial accidents, those awarded cash had to go cap in hand to the County Court in East Street for the right to spend some of it. The feeling was that such individuals, unused to having large cash, would waste it or have it conned out of them if given as a lump sum.
A typical award might be £200 to £300 but the widow would only be allowed a few pounds per week, with larger sums for specific purposes granted (or refused) upon request. Although well-meaning, the patronising, dictatorial attitude of the time did seem wrong in not allowing a widow to take a holiday or choose the type of gravestone that she wanted for her late husband.
The latter occurred on the 16th of this week in two separate County Court cases. In the first a widow who had spent £45 on a gravestone asked for her compensation allowance of £5 per week to be increased and also to be allowed to have £30 in order to purchase a crockery business. But Judge Dowdall refused both requests on the basis that there had been a waste of money on the gravestone.
In the second case a young widow wanted to be allowed to pay £38 for a memorial for her husband and to receive £1 per week maintenance. Although Judge Dowdall said the £1 was reasonable, he objected to the £38 for the gravestone claiming that the price of such memorials went up when it was learned that the money would be coming out of compensation awards. The widow was told to get another estimate for a cheaper gravestone.
On the 15th a circus acrobat called Archibald McKellar, who went by the stage name of Giro Sans, committed suicide in the Theatre Royal. The 40-year-old tight-rope walker had been with the Royal Italian Circus since 1913 and was found gassed in a dressing room. On the afternoon of his death, McKellar complained of being unwell with pains in his stomach and he had borrowed half-a-crown to buy some medicine.
At 6pm after the door to his dressing room was forced open, McKellar was discovered dead. One end of a length of tubing had been attached to a gas bracket and its other end lay by his head on a pillow. Archibald McKellar had been a heavy drinker who suffered from depression and a verdict of suicide was returned at the subsequent inquest. The Liverpool Daily Post said the man's death had caused a sensation and explained that his main feat in the act had been to ascend a rope by hand and foot from the stage to the gallery and then to slide down it quickly to the stage.
On the 16th two inquests were held on small children that had died from scalds. Jane McCullen, aged 21 months, had pulled a teapot full of hot tea over her chest and arms last week in her College Street home and she died in Providence Hospital two days later. And Joyce Pope, aged 20 months, had fatally scalded herself after knocking over a bath of hot water, which her mother had laid on a low stool in her home in Albion Street. The toddler had died just hours before her inquest took place and like in little Jane's case, a verdict of misadventure was returned.
On the 16th the Liverpool Echo described the current situation as regards coal stocks in the St Helens glass and bottlemaking industries. Although all firms were presently well supplied with coal and in no imminent danger of shutting down their production lines, the Echo said short-time working was being introduced to conserve coal stocks.
On the 17th the St Helens Highways Committee approved a £30,000 scheme to fix the flooding problem at Peasley Cross bridge. The Borough Engineer had identified the cause as Hardshaw Brook not being able to carry off all the extra water created during storms and it would, instead, overflow into the road. And so his solution was to clean out and deepen the brook.
The committee decided to apply to the Unemployed Grants Committee to see if they would be prepared to make a contribution to the cost of the project if men on the dole were employed in the work. When the scheme was finally completed in 1934 at a cost of £35,000, the Borough Engineer optimistically claimed that the problem had "gone for ever" – but we know that that is certainly not the case.
If you thought that children being sent to the chip shop for their tea was a fairly recent trend, think again! It was so prevalent 100 years ago that the School Medical Officer, Dr Frank Hauxwell, had to warn against the practice in his annual report. This extract was reprinted in the St Helens Newspaper on the 18th:
"Improper feeding is not confined to either the poor or to the badly housed, but it is certainly more common amongst such families, and in these circumstances the effects are more damaging. The pernicious but common and growing practice of making “chips” and tea the staple items of a school child's diet may save the mother labour but undermines the child's health. Neither “chips” nor tea are evils in themselves, but nitrogenous foods are essentially the body builders, and a growing child especially has need of an adequate supply."
The Newspaper also wrote: "A spectacle rivalling for thrill those engineered in the movie world was enacted at Sutton Heath Colliery on Tuesday, and two people were very fortunate to escape serious injury." The accident happened above ground after a man called Lyon, who worked in the coal sales department, had driven his car into the colliery yard where it came to a halt with its front wheels on the rails.
A train of wagons was approaching at the time and before anything could be done to remedy the problem, the engine crashed into the front of the car, which was twisted round and smashed into a wall. The vehicle was badly smashed but in the nick of time Mr Lyon and a clerk called Fogg had managed to leap clear and they escaped serious injury.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the opening of the new maternity unit at St Helens Hospital, the two miners who spent their strike pay on booze and the blind former Lea Green Colliery miner who was denied compensation by the County Court.
This week's many stories include the acrobat who committed suicide in the Theatre Royal, the criticism of children who had chip shop teas, the two child scalding deaths, the judge that criticised widows for spending too much on gravestones, the scheme to fix the flooding at Peasley Cross bridge, thousands of St Helens miners march to Whiston and the market stall holder prosecuted for assaulting a boy who had been causing a nuisance.
Beecham's spent a fortune advertising in newspapers and magazines. Their brand was so well-known that counterfeiters would pass off their own pills as that of the St Helens pharmaceutical firm.
At Belfast Summons Court on the 15th, Beecham's brought summonses against a Belfast dealer for selling pills falsely claiming them to have been made by the Westfield Street firm.
A fine of £10 and costs was imposed and in a similar prosecution brought against another man, a further fine of £10 was levelled.
Upon being charged in St Helens Police Court on the 15th for an assault on a ten-year-old boy from Lyon Street, fruiterer Frank Conway complained of the great number of children that roamed the marketplace.
"They are a nuisance picking things up", he said, "especially when the stalls are closing on Saturday evenings."
The stallholder said the unnamed boy had hidden under his stall on the previous Saturday night and to simply frighten off the lad and his mates, he had grabbed him "by his neck and his breeches".
However, the boy had been hurt by his actions and Conway was ordered to pay a guinea, the doctor's bill and the court costs.
St Helens Market did not close on Saturdays until very late – around about 11pm. And so it might be questioned why the 10-year-old had been allowed out so late, although I imagine it probably wasn't even mentioned in the hearing.
In April 1926 Judge Challenor Dowdall had declared in St Helens County Court, "The idea of workmen's compensation is not to provide a holiday at Blackpool".
His Honour was laying down the law to a widow who wanted to take a seaside break using £8 of her own compensation money that had been awarded after her husband's death.
In the early days of compensation for industrial accidents, those awarded cash had to go cap in hand to the County Court in East Street for the right to spend some of it.
The feeling was that such individuals, unused to having large cash, would waste it or have it conned out of them if given as a lump sum.
A typical award might be £200 to £300 but the widow would only be allowed a few pounds per week, with larger sums for specific purposes granted (or refused) upon request.
Although well-meaning, the patronising, dictatorial attitude of the time did seem wrong in not allowing a widow to take a holiday or choose the type of gravestone that she wanted for her late husband.
The latter occurred on the 16th of this week in two separate County Court cases.
In the first a widow who had spent £45 on a gravestone asked for her compensation allowance of £5 per week to be increased and also to be allowed to have £30 in order to purchase a crockery business.
But Judge Dowdall refused both requests on the basis that there had been a waste of money on the gravestone.
In the second case a young widow wanted to be allowed to pay £38 for a memorial for her husband and to receive £1 per week maintenance.
Although Judge Dowdall said the £1 was reasonable, he objected to the £38 for the gravestone claiming that the price of such memorials went up when it was learned that the money would be coming out of compensation awards.
The widow was told to get another estimate for a cheaper gravestone.
On the 15th a circus acrobat called Archibald McKellar, who went by the stage name of Giro Sans, committed suicide in the Theatre Royal.
The 40-year-old tight-rope walker had been with the Royal Italian Circus since 1913 and was found gassed in a dressing room.
On the afternoon of his death, McKellar complained of being unwell with pains in his stomach and he had borrowed half-a-crown to buy some medicine.
At 6pm after the door to his dressing room was forced open, McKellar was discovered dead.
One end of a length of tubing had been attached to a gas bracket and its other end lay by his head on a pillow.
Archibald McKellar had been a heavy drinker who suffered from depression and a verdict of suicide was returned at the subsequent inquest.
The Liverpool Daily Post said the man's death had caused a sensation and explained that his main feat in the act had been to ascend a rope by hand and foot from the stage to the gallery and then to slide down it quickly to the stage.
On the 16th two inquests were held on small children that had died from scalds.
Jane McCullen, aged 21 months, had pulled a teapot full of hot tea over her chest and arms last week in her College Street home and she died in Providence Hospital two days later.
And Joyce Pope, aged 20 months, had fatally scalded herself after knocking over a bath of hot water, which her mother had laid on a low stool in her home in Albion Street.
The toddler had died just hours before her inquest took place and like in little Jane's case, a verdict of misadventure was returned.
On the 16th the Liverpool Echo described the current situation as regards coal stocks in the St Helens glass and bottlemaking industries.
Although all firms were presently well supplied with coal and in no imminent danger of shutting down their production lines, the Echo said short-time working was being introduced to conserve coal stocks.
On the 17th the St Helens Highways Committee approved a £30,000 scheme to fix the flooding problem at Peasley Cross bridge.
The Borough Engineer had identified the cause as Hardshaw Brook not being able to carry off all the extra water created during storms and it would, instead, overflow into the road.
And so his solution was to clean out and deepen the brook.
The committee decided to apply to the Unemployed Grants Committee to see if they would be prepared to make a contribution to the cost of the project if men on the dole were employed in the work.
When the scheme was finally completed in 1934 at a cost of £35,000, the Borough Engineer optimistically claimed that the problem had "gone for ever" – but we know that that is certainly not the case.
On the 17th thousands of miners and their supporters, accompanied by four brass bands, marched to the Whiston Institution / Workhouse (pictured above) to demand more Poor Law relief, with the Daily Express writing:
"Fifteen thousand miners, women, and girls, some of them wearing carnival hats, marched seven miles, from St. Helen's to the Whiston Workhouse, near Prescot, and back this afternoon to demonstrate in favour of the granting of additional relief."
If you thought that children being sent to the chip shop for their tea was a fairly recent trend, think again!
It was so prevalent 100 years ago that the School Medical Officer, Dr Frank Hauxwell, had to warn against the practice in his annual report. This extract was reprinted in the St Helens Newspaper on the 18th:
"Improper feeding is not confined to either the poor or to the badly housed, but it is certainly more common amongst such families, and in these circumstances the effects are more damaging.
"The pernicious but common and growing practice of making “chips” and tea the staple items of a school child's diet may save the mother labour but undermines the child's health.
"Neither “chips” nor tea are evils in themselves, but nitrogenous foods are essentially the body builders, and a growing child especially has need of an adequate supply."
The Newspaper also wrote: "A spectacle rivalling for thrill those engineered in the movie world was enacted at Sutton Heath Colliery on Tuesday, and two people were very fortunate to escape serious injury."
The accident happened above ground after a man called Lyon, who worked in the coal sales department, had driven his car into the colliery yard where it came to a halt with its front wheels on the rails.
A train of wagons was approaching at the time and before anything could be done to remedy the problem, the engine crashed into the front of the car, which was twisted round and smashed into a wall.
The vehicle was badly smashed but in the nick of time Mr Lyon and a clerk called Fogg had managed to leap clear and they escaped serious injury.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the opening of the new maternity unit at St Helens Hospital, the two miners who spent their strike pay on booze and the blind former Lea Green Colliery miner who was denied compensation by the County Court.
At Belfast Summons Court on the 15th, Beecham's brought summonses against a Belfast dealer for selling pills falsely claiming them to have been made by the Westfield Street firm.
A fine of £10 and costs was imposed and in a similar prosecution brought against another man, a further fine of £10 was levelled.
Upon being charged in St Helens Police Court on the 15th for an assault on a ten-year-old boy from Lyon Street, fruiterer Frank Conway complained of the great number of children that roamed the marketplace.
"They are a nuisance picking things up", he said, "especially when the stalls are closing on Saturday evenings."
The stallholder said the unnamed boy had hidden under his stall on the previous Saturday night and to simply frighten off the lad and his mates, he had grabbed him "by his neck and his breeches".
However, the boy had been hurt by his actions and Conway was ordered to pay a guinea, the doctor's bill and the court costs.
St Helens Market did not close on Saturdays until very late – around about 11pm. And so it might be questioned why the 10-year-old had been allowed out so late, although I imagine it probably wasn't even mentioned in the hearing.
In April 1926 Judge Challenor Dowdall had declared in St Helens County Court, "The idea of workmen's compensation is not to provide a holiday at Blackpool".
His Honour was laying down the law to a widow who wanted to take a seaside break using £8 of her own compensation money that had been awarded after her husband's death.
In the early days of compensation for industrial accidents, those awarded cash had to go cap in hand to the County Court in East Street for the right to spend some of it.
The feeling was that such individuals, unused to having large cash, would waste it or have it conned out of them if given as a lump sum.
A typical award might be £200 to £300 but the widow would only be allowed a few pounds per week, with larger sums for specific purposes granted (or refused) upon request.
Although well-meaning, the patronising, dictatorial attitude of the time did seem wrong in not allowing a widow to take a holiday or choose the type of gravestone that she wanted for her late husband.
The latter occurred on the 16th of this week in two separate County Court cases.
In the first a widow who had spent £45 on a gravestone asked for her compensation allowance of £5 per week to be increased and also to be allowed to have £30 in order to purchase a crockery business.
But Judge Dowdall refused both requests on the basis that there had been a waste of money on the gravestone.
In the second case a young widow wanted to be allowed to pay £38 for a memorial for her husband and to receive £1 per week maintenance.
Although Judge Dowdall said the £1 was reasonable, he objected to the £38 for the gravestone claiming that the price of such memorials went up when it was learned that the money would be coming out of compensation awards.
The widow was told to get another estimate for a cheaper gravestone.
On the 15th a circus acrobat called Archibald McKellar, who went by the stage name of Giro Sans, committed suicide in the Theatre Royal.
The 40-year-old tight-rope walker had been with the Royal Italian Circus since 1913 and was found gassed in a dressing room.
On the afternoon of his death, McKellar complained of being unwell with pains in his stomach and he had borrowed half-a-crown to buy some medicine.
At 6pm after the door to his dressing room was forced open, McKellar was discovered dead.
One end of a length of tubing had been attached to a gas bracket and its other end lay by his head on a pillow.
Archibald McKellar had been a heavy drinker who suffered from depression and a verdict of suicide was returned at the subsequent inquest.
The Liverpool Daily Post said the man's death had caused a sensation and explained that his main feat in the act had been to ascend a rope by hand and foot from the stage to the gallery and then to slide down it quickly to the stage.
On the 16th two inquests were held on small children that had died from scalds.
Jane McCullen, aged 21 months, had pulled a teapot full of hot tea over her chest and arms last week in her College Street home and she died in Providence Hospital two days later.
And Joyce Pope, aged 20 months, had fatally scalded herself after knocking over a bath of hot water, which her mother had laid on a low stool in her home in Albion Street.
The toddler had died just hours before her inquest took place and like in little Jane's case, a verdict of misadventure was returned.
On the 16th the Liverpool Echo described the current situation as regards coal stocks in the St Helens glass and bottlemaking industries.
Although all firms were presently well supplied with coal and in no imminent danger of shutting down their production lines, the Echo said short-time working was being introduced to conserve coal stocks.
On the 17th the St Helens Highways Committee approved a £30,000 scheme to fix the flooding problem at Peasley Cross bridge.
The Borough Engineer had identified the cause as Hardshaw Brook not being able to carry off all the extra water created during storms and it would, instead, overflow into the road.
And so his solution was to clean out and deepen the brook.
The committee decided to apply to the Unemployed Grants Committee to see if they would be prepared to make a contribution to the cost of the project if men on the dole were employed in the work.
When the scheme was finally completed in 1934 at a cost of £35,000, the Borough Engineer optimistically claimed that the problem had "gone for ever" – but we know that that is certainly not the case.
"Fifteen thousand miners, women, and girls, some of them wearing carnival hats, marched seven miles, from St. Helen's to the Whiston Workhouse, near Prescot, and back this afternoon to demonstrate in favour of the granting of additional relief."
If you thought that children being sent to the chip shop for their tea was a fairly recent trend, think again!
It was so prevalent 100 years ago that the School Medical Officer, Dr Frank Hauxwell, had to warn against the practice in his annual report. This extract was reprinted in the St Helens Newspaper on the 18th:
"Improper feeding is not confined to either the poor or to the badly housed, but it is certainly more common amongst such families, and in these circumstances the effects are more damaging.
"The pernicious but common and growing practice of making “chips” and tea the staple items of a school child's diet may save the mother labour but undermines the child's health.
"Neither “chips” nor tea are evils in themselves, but nitrogenous foods are essentially the body builders, and a growing child especially has need of an adequate supply."
The Newspaper also wrote: "A spectacle rivalling for thrill those engineered in the movie world was enacted at Sutton Heath Colliery on Tuesday, and two people were very fortunate to escape serious injury."
The accident happened above ground after a man called Lyon, who worked in the coal sales department, had driven his car into the colliery yard where it came to a halt with its front wheels on the rails.
A train of wagons was approaching at the time and before anything could be done to remedy the problem, the engine crashed into the front of the car, which was twisted round and smashed into a wall.
The vehicle was badly smashed but in the nick of time Mr Lyon and a clerk called Fogg had managed to leap clear and they escaped serious injury.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the opening of the new maternity unit at St Helens Hospital, the two miners who spent their strike pay on booze and the blind former Lea Green Colliery miner who was denied compensation by the County Court.