IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 23 FEBRUARY - 1 MARCH 1926
This week's many stories include the husband who refused to pay maintenance to his separated spouse, the sibling fight in Clock Face, the retirement of the head of St Helens police's detective department, the new brickworks in Parr, the dissatisfied punter who reported a Sutton lottery to the police and how the prospect of mining subsidence was affecting the council's house building plans.
We begin on the 23rd when what was described as a "massed snowball tea" was held in the Women's Conservative Club in Thatto Heath. The St Helens Reporter described the event as a "novel entertainment" and I had visions of the ladies chucking snowballs at each other. But instead, after enjoying an "excellent spread", the room was cleared and games and songs were enjoyed. Just where the snowballs fitted in, I have no idea!
"We are of the unanimous opinion that you are a bad lot." That was what the chairman of the St Helens magistrates told William Herbert in court this week. And few would disagree with that statement, as in February 1921 a court had ordered Herbert to make maintenance payments to his wife from whom he was separated.
But instead he fled to London and had never paid his wife a penny. Huge arrears of £378 were amassed and his wife had to go through the indignity of being placed on parish relief. Eventually, Herbert was tracked down and arrested and returned to St Helens and in court was sent to prison for three months.
An extraordinary fight between siblings was detailed in St Helens Police Court this week. PC Cunliffe said he had been first informed of the disturbance in Agnes Street in Clock Face at 11:20 pm on Friday night. The officer lived nearby and explained that when he arrived on the scene he learned that brothers Edward and Harry Edwards had set about their sister and "laid her out". She needed to be carried across the road to the safety of a neighbour's house.
PC Cunliffe described how the landlord of the lodging house where the siblings lived was out in the street terrified and asked the constable to go inside and pacify the boisterous brothers. They, the constable explained, were "fighting like two madmen" and he said he warned the pair that he would report them if their fighting continued. An hour later PC Cunliffe said he was again knocked up and found a crowd gathered outside the house.
As he went through the front door the brothers both rushed at him and attacked him. There was a struggle and PC Cunliffe fell to the ground but the constable's son, James, then came on the scene and tried to release his father from the fray. One of the brothers got hold of a large coal scuttle and was about to strike the officer with it when James grabbed his father's long truncheon and hit the man, sending him to the ground.
Then with more help from his son, PC Cunliffe managed to get the two brothers to the police station and safely locked up. Surprisingly, in court Edward and Harry Edwards were only bound over for six months with one fined £1 and the other 10 shillings. In the 1921 Census PC Daniel Cunliffe was living in Gartons Lane and had two sons, James and John. I expected to find that at least one had followed in their father's footsteps but instead of joining the police, James became a grocer and John a bricklayer. Far safer occupations!
At St Helens Council's Housing Committee meeting on the 23rd, it was decided that they would ask the government to build homes to accommodate the 100 persons that were being evicted from Abbotsfield Road. The War Department had become the landlord of the 16 houses and they had ordered their tenants to leave on what they claimed to be safety grounds. That was because of the homes' close proximity to the government's poison gas works, off Reginald Road.
Between the wars that became the UK's main centre for research, development and production of chemical warfare agents and later became known as the Sutton Oak Chemical Defence Research Establishment. But where the Housing Committee could build these and other houses was a conundrum. The government were subsidising the cost of new estates and they were objecting to most of the suggested locations due to the likelihood of mining subsidence.
A meeting had been held with the Ministry in London but it had not gone very well. However, the Ministry said they would consider granting permission to increase the number of houses that could be built per acre and promised to define the area around the poison gas factory where it would be considered unsafe to build.
St Helens police force does not appear to have as yet adopted the name Criminal Investigation Department for its detectives. In announcing the retirement of Chief Inspector Eli Roe, the newspapers called the police's investigative branch the "detective department".
Eli had been its head for many of the 21 years that he had served in St Helens and at a ceremony on the 24th, Chief Constable Arthur Ellerington presented him with a gold watch. The link between the police and pub landlords was set to be reinforced, as Eli – who was only 48 – was going to replace his mother-in-law as licensee of the British Lion Hotel in Thatto Heath.
One of the problems of running an illegal gambling ring of any description was that dissatisfied customers could easily get their revenge by going to the police. On the 26th when five men appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with publishing and selling tickets for a lottery in Sutton, it was revealed that a man called Jones had paid 3d for a ticket in a lottery called the Gypsy Nap.
That entitled him to a racing tip for the Grand National and what was called a free double on football matches connected to the scorer of the most goals. Jones believed he had won a share of the prize money but when he went for his cash he was refused on the basis that his ticket had been tampered with.
Furious at the refusal he reported the illegal lottery to the police and the end result was that Dennis Robinson of Berrys Lane, Peter Taylor of Taylors Row, George Lacey of Woodcock Street and Horace Pendlebury of Morris Street, along with a printer from Wigan, were fined a total of £7 10s. Running a lottery was not considered as serious as other forms of gambling, such as betting on horse racing, and the fines were consequently much lower.
Also on the 26th, William Taylor, the manager of the St Helens Co-operative Society, was fined 5 shillings for having unjust scales. Tests conducted in their Hardshaw Street premises revealed that the scales were two ounces against the purchaser after being used for the weighing of potatoes. The Co-op claimed that soil had affected the accuracy of the scales, which had mistakenly not been cleaned for several days.
The St Helens Reporter described on the 26th how a new brickworks was being established in Parr. A Manchester firm had taken over the former Alkali Epsom Salt works, which was situated near Parr St Peter's churchyard, and it was expected that the brickworks would be operating within a few weeks.
"Your Pound Becomes 30/- at Tyrer & Sons", claimed their ad in the Reporter. "More men are wearing Tyrer's shirts, suits and underwear every week", was another of their straplines. The firm was then based in Liverpool Road in St Helens (pictured above) and also in Prescot and was selling "high grade underwear, all wool" for 5 shillings, men's whipcord suits for 50 shillings and men's shirts for 3s 11½d. "These are genuine offers. No bluff", said their advert.
And finally, it was revealed this week that the St Helens Cenotaph – as the war memorial was then generally known – would be formally unveiled on Easter Sunday. It had been first erected in Victoria Square in August 1923 but it had taken three years for the names of the 2,267 men that had died in the war to be collated and inscribed and additional panels and corner pieces installed.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the injured Haydock miner's failed attempt at extending his compensation, the many motor vehicle dealers in St Helens, the ex-soldier's suicide and it’s last orders at the Black Horse, Mill Stone and Red Rat.
We begin on the 23rd when what was described as a "massed snowball tea" was held in the Women's Conservative Club in Thatto Heath. The St Helens Reporter described the event as a "novel entertainment" and I had visions of the ladies chucking snowballs at each other. But instead, after enjoying an "excellent spread", the room was cleared and games and songs were enjoyed. Just where the snowballs fitted in, I have no idea!
"We are of the unanimous opinion that you are a bad lot." That was what the chairman of the St Helens magistrates told William Herbert in court this week. And few would disagree with that statement, as in February 1921 a court had ordered Herbert to make maintenance payments to his wife from whom he was separated.
But instead he fled to London and had never paid his wife a penny. Huge arrears of £378 were amassed and his wife had to go through the indignity of being placed on parish relief. Eventually, Herbert was tracked down and arrested and returned to St Helens and in court was sent to prison for three months.
An extraordinary fight between siblings was detailed in St Helens Police Court this week. PC Cunliffe said he had been first informed of the disturbance in Agnes Street in Clock Face at 11:20 pm on Friday night. The officer lived nearby and explained that when he arrived on the scene he learned that brothers Edward and Harry Edwards had set about their sister and "laid her out". She needed to be carried across the road to the safety of a neighbour's house.
PC Cunliffe described how the landlord of the lodging house where the siblings lived was out in the street terrified and asked the constable to go inside and pacify the boisterous brothers. They, the constable explained, were "fighting like two madmen" and he said he warned the pair that he would report them if their fighting continued. An hour later PC Cunliffe said he was again knocked up and found a crowd gathered outside the house.
As he went through the front door the brothers both rushed at him and attacked him. There was a struggle and PC Cunliffe fell to the ground but the constable's son, James, then came on the scene and tried to release his father from the fray. One of the brothers got hold of a large coal scuttle and was about to strike the officer with it when James grabbed his father's long truncheon and hit the man, sending him to the ground.
Then with more help from his son, PC Cunliffe managed to get the two brothers to the police station and safely locked up. Surprisingly, in court Edward and Harry Edwards were only bound over for six months with one fined £1 and the other 10 shillings. In the 1921 Census PC Daniel Cunliffe was living in Gartons Lane and had two sons, James and John. I expected to find that at least one had followed in their father's footsteps but instead of joining the police, James became a grocer and John a bricklayer. Far safer occupations!
At St Helens Council's Housing Committee meeting on the 23rd, it was decided that they would ask the government to build homes to accommodate the 100 persons that were being evicted from Abbotsfield Road. The War Department had become the landlord of the 16 houses and they had ordered their tenants to leave on what they claimed to be safety grounds. That was because of the homes' close proximity to the government's poison gas works, off Reginald Road.
Between the wars that became the UK's main centre for research, development and production of chemical warfare agents and later became known as the Sutton Oak Chemical Defence Research Establishment. But where the Housing Committee could build these and other houses was a conundrum. The government were subsidising the cost of new estates and they were objecting to most of the suggested locations due to the likelihood of mining subsidence.
A meeting had been held with the Ministry in London but it had not gone very well. However, the Ministry said they would consider granting permission to increase the number of houses that could be built per acre and promised to define the area around the poison gas factory where it would be considered unsafe to build.
St Helens police force does not appear to have as yet adopted the name Criminal Investigation Department for its detectives. In announcing the retirement of Chief Inspector Eli Roe, the newspapers called the police's investigative branch the "detective department".
Eli had been its head for many of the 21 years that he had served in St Helens and at a ceremony on the 24th, Chief Constable Arthur Ellerington presented him with a gold watch. The link between the police and pub landlords was set to be reinforced, as Eli – who was only 48 – was going to replace his mother-in-law as licensee of the British Lion Hotel in Thatto Heath.
One of the problems of running an illegal gambling ring of any description was that dissatisfied customers could easily get their revenge by going to the police. On the 26th when five men appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with publishing and selling tickets for a lottery in Sutton, it was revealed that a man called Jones had paid 3d for a ticket in a lottery called the Gypsy Nap.
That entitled him to a racing tip for the Grand National and what was called a free double on football matches connected to the scorer of the most goals. Jones believed he had won a share of the prize money but when he went for his cash he was refused on the basis that his ticket had been tampered with.
Furious at the refusal he reported the illegal lottery to the police and the end result was that Dennis Robinson of Berrys Lane, Peter Taylor of Taylors Row, George Lacey of Woodcock Street and Horace Pendlebury of Morris Street, along with a printer from Wigan, were fined a total of £7 10s. Running a lottery was not considered as serious as other forms of gambling, such as betting on horse racing, and the fines were consequently much lower.
Also on the 26th, William Taylor, the manager of the St Helens Co-operative Society, was fined 5 shillings for having unjust scales. Tests conducted in their Hardshaw Street premises revealed that the scales were two ounces against the purchaser after being used for the weighing of potatoes. The Co-op claimed that soil had affected the accuracy of the scales, which had mistakenly not been cleaned for several days.
The St Helens Reporter described on the 26th how a new brickworks was being established in Parr. A Manchester firm had taken over the former Alkali Epsom Salt works, which was situated near Parr St Peter's churchyard, and it was expected that the brickworks would be operating within a few weeks.
And finally, it was revealed this week that the St Helens Cenotaph – as the war memorial was then generally known – would be formally unveiled on Easter Sunday. It had been first erected in Victoria Square in August 1923 but it had taken three years for the names of the 2,267 men that had died in the war to be collated and inscribed and additional panels and corner pieces installed.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the injured Haydock miner's failed attempt at extending his compensation, the many motor vehicle dealers in St Helens, the ex-soldier's suicide and it’s last orders at the Black Horse, Mill Stone and Red Rat.
This week's many stories include the husband who refused to pay maintenance to his separated spouse, the sibling fight in Clock Face, the retirement of the head of St Helens police's detective department, the new brickworks in Parr, the dissatisfied punter who reported a Sutton lottery to the police and how the prospect of mining subsidence was affecting the council's house building plans.
We begin on the 23rd when what was described as a "massed snowball tea" was held in the Women's Conservative Club in Thatto Heath.
The St Helens Reporter described the event as a "novel entertainment" and I had visions of the ladies chucking snowballs at each other.
But instead, after enjoying an "excellent spread", the room was cleared and games and songs were enjoyed. Just where the snowballs fitted in, I have no idea!
"We are of the unanimous opinion that you are a bad lot." That was what the chairman of the St Helens magistrates told William Herbert in court this week.
And few would disagree with that statement, as in February 1921 a court had ordered Herbert to make maintenance payments to his wife from whom he was separated.
But instead he fled to London and had never paid his wife a penny.
Huge arrears of £378 were amassed and his wife had to go through the indignity of being placed on parish relief.
Eventually, Herbert was tracked down and arrested and returned to St Helens and in court was sent to prison for three months.
An extraordinary fight between siblings was detailed in St Helens Police Court this week.
PC Cunliffe said he had been first informed of the disturbance in Agnes Street in Clock Face at 11:20 pm on Friday night.
The officer lived nearby and explained that when he arrived on the scene he learned that brothers Edward and Harry Edwards had set about their sister and "laid her out".
She needed to be carried across the road to the safety of a neighbour's house.
PC Cunliffe described how the landlord of the lodging house where the siblings lived was out in the street terrified and asked the constable to go inside and pacify the boisterous brothers.
They, the constable explained, were "fighting like two madmen" and he said he warned the pair that he would report them if their fighting continued.
An hour later PC Cunliffe said he was again knocked up and found a crowd gathered outside the house.
As he went through the front door the brothers both rushed at him and attacked him.
There was a struggle and PC Cunliffe fell to the ground but the constable's son, James, then came on the scene and tried to release his father from the fray.
One of the brothers got hold of a large coal scuttle and was about to strike the officer with it when James grabbed his father's long truncheon and hit the man, sending him to the ground.
Then with more help from his son, PC Cunliffe managed to get the two brothers to the police station and safely locked up.
Surprisingly, in court Edward and Harry Edwards were only bound over for six months with one fined £1 and the other 10 shillings.
In the 1921 Census PC Daniel Cunliffe was living in Gartons Lane and had two sons, James and John.
I expected to find that at least one had followed in their father's footsteps but instead of joining the police, James became a grocer and John a bricklayer. Far safer occupations!
At St Helens Council's Housing Committee meeting on the 23rd, it was decided that they would ask the government to build homes to accommodate the 100 persons that were being evicted from Abbotsfield Road.
The War Department had become the landlord of the 16 houses and they had ordered their tenants to leave on what they claimed to be safety grounds.
That was because of the homes' close proximity to the government's poison gas works, off Reginald Road.
Between the wars that became the UK's main centre for research, development and production of chemical warfare agents and later became known as the Sutton Oak Chemical Defence Research Establishment.
But where the Housing Committee could build these and other houses was a conundrum.
The government were subsidising the cost of new estates and they were objecting to most of the suggested locations due to the likelihood of mining subsidence.
A meeting had been held with the Ministry in London but it had not gone very well.
However, the Ministry said they would consider granting permission to increase the number of houses that could be built per acre and promised to define the area around the poison gas factory where it would be considered unsafe to build.
St Helens police force does not appear to have as yet adopted the name Criminal Investigation Department for its detectives.
In announcing the retirement of Chief Inspector Eli Roe, the newspapers called the police's investigative branch the "detective department".
Eli had been its head for many of the 21 years that he had served in St Helens and at a ceremony on the 24th, Chief Constable Arthur Ellerington presented him with a gold watch.
The link between the police and pub landlords was set to be reinforced, as Eli – who was only 48 – was going to replace his mother-in-law as licensee of the British Lion Hotel in Thatto Heath.
One of the problems of running an illegal gambling ring of any description was that dissatisfied customers could easily get their revenge by going to the police.
On the 26th when five men appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with publishing and selling tickets for a lottery in Sutton, it was revealed that a man called Jones had paid 3d for a ticket in a lottery called the Gypsy Nap.
That entitled him to a racing tip for the Grand National and what was called a free double on football matches connected to the scorer of the most goals.
Jones believed he had won a share of the prize money but when he went for his cash he was refused on the basis that his ticket had been tampered with.
Furious at the refusal he reported the illegal lottery to the police and the end result was that Dennis Robinson of Berrys Lane, Peter Taylor of Taylors Row, George Lacey of Woodcock Street and Horace Pendlebury of Morris Street, along with a printer from Wigan, were fined a total of £7 10s.
Running a lottery was not considered as serious as other forms of gambling, such as betting on horse racing, and the fines were consequently much lower.
Also on the 26th, William Taylor, the manager of the St Helens Co-operative Society, was fined 5 shillings for having unjust scales.
Tests conducted in their Hardshaw Street premises revealed that the scales were two ounces against the purchaser after being used for the weighing of potatoes.
The Co-op claimed that soil had affected the accuracy of the scales, which had mistakenly not been cleaned for several days.
The St Helens Reporter described on the 26th how a new brickworks was being established in Parr.
A Manchester firm had taken over the former Alkali Epsom Salt works, which was situated near Parr St Peter's churchyard, and it was expected that the brickworks would be operating within a few weeks.
"Your Pound Becomes 30/- at Tyrer & Sons", claimed their ad in the Reporter.
"More men are wearing Tyrer's shirts, suits and underwear every week", was another of their straplines.
The firm was then based in Liverpool Road in St Helens (pictured above) and also in Prescot and was selling "high grade underwear, all wool" for 5 shillings, men's whipcord suits for 50 shillings and men's shirts for 3s 11½d.
"These are genuine offers. No bluff", said their advert.
And finally, it was revealed this week that the St Helens Cenotaph – as the war memorial was then generally known – would be formally unveiled on Easter Sunday.
It had been first erected in Victoria Square in August 1923 but it had taken three years for the names of the 2,267 men that had died in the war to be collated and inscribed and additional panels and corner pieces installed.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the injured Haydock miner's failed attempt at extending his compensation, the many motor vehicle dealers in St Helens, the ex-soldier's suicide and it’s last orders at the Black Horse, Mill Stone and Red Rat.
We begin on the 23rd when what was described as a "massed snowball tea" was held in the Women's Conservative Club in Thatto Heath.
The St Helens Reporter described the event as a "novel entertainment" and I had visions of the ladies chucking snowballs at each other.
But instead, after enjoying an "excellent spread", the room was cleared and games and songs were enjoyed. Just where the snowballs fitted in, I have no idea!
"We are of the unanimous opinion that you are a bad lot." That was what the chairman of the St Helens magistrates told William Herbert in court this week.
And few would disagree with that statement, as in February 1921 a court had ordered Herbert to make maintenance payments to his wife from whom he was separated.
But instead he fled to London and had never paid his wife a penny.
Huge arrears of £378 were amassed and his wife had to go through the indignity of being placed on parish relief.
Eventually, Herbert was tracked down and arrested and returned to St Helens and in court was sent to prison for three months.
An extraordinary fight between siblings was detailed in St Helens Police Court this week.
PC Cunliffe said he had been first informed of the disturbance in Agnes Street in Clock Face at 11:20 pm on Friday night.
The officer lived nearby and explained that when he arrived on the scene he learned that brothers Edward and Harry Edwards had set about their sister and "laid her out".
She needed to be carried across the road to the safety of a neighbour's house.
PC Cunliffe described how the landlord of the lodging house where the siblings lived was out in the street terrified and asked the constable to go inside and pacify the boisterous brothers.
They, the constable explained, were "fighting like two madmen" and he said he warned the pair that he would report them if their fighting continued.
An hour later PC Cunliffe said he was again knocked up and found a crowd gathered outside the house.
As he went through the front door the brothers both rushed at him and attacked him.
There was a struggle and PC Cunliffe fell to the ground but the constable's son, James, then came on the scene and tried to release his father from the fray.
One of the brothers got hold of a large coal scuttle and was about to strike the officer with it when James grabbed his father's long truncheon and hit the man, sending him to the ground.
Then with more help from his son, PC Cunliffe managed to get the two brothers to the police station and safely locked up.
Surprisingly, in court Edward and Harry Edwards were only bound over for six months with one fined £1 and the other 10 shillings.
In the 1921 Census PC Daniel Cunliffe was living in Gartons Lane and had two sons, James and John.
I expected to find that at least one had followed in their father's footsteps but instead of joining the police, James became a grocer and John a bricklayer. Far safer occupations!
At St Helens Council's Housing Committee meeting on the 23rd, it was decided that they would ask the government to build homes to accommodate the 100 persons that were being evicted from Abbotsfield Road.
The War Department had become the landlord of the 16 houses and they had ordered their tenants to leave on what they claimed to be safety grounds.
That was because of the homes' close proximity to the government's poison gas works, off Reginald Road.
Between the wars that became the UK's main centre for research, development and production of chemical warfare agents and later became known as the Sutton Oak Chemical Defence Research Establishment.
But where the Housing Committee could build these and other houses was a conundrum.
The government were subsidising the cost of new estates and they were objecting to most of the suggested locations due to the likelihood of mining subsidence.
A meeting had been held with the Ministry in London but it had not gone very well.
However, the Ministry said they would consider granting permission to increase the number of houses that could be built per acre and promised to define the area around the poison gas factory where it would be considered unsafe to build.
St Helens police force does not appear to have as yet adopted the name Criminal Investigation Department for its detectives.
In announcing the retirement of Chief Inspector Eli Roe, the newspapers called the police's investigative branch the "detective department".
Eli had been its head for many of the 21 years that he had served in St Helens and at a ceremony on the 24th, Chief Constable Arthur Ellerington presented him with a gold watch.
The link between the police and pub landlords was set to be reinforced, as Eli – who was only 48 – was going to replace his mother-in-law as licensee of the British Lion Hotel in Thatto Heath.
One of the problems of running an illegal gambling ring of any description was that dissatisfied customers could easily get their revenge by going to the police.
On the 26th when five men appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with publishing and selling tickets for a lottery in Sutton, it was revealed that a man called Jones had paid 3d for a ticket in a lottery called the Gypsy Nap.
That entitled him to a racing tip for the Grand National and what was called a free double on football matches connected to the scorer of the most goals.
Jones believed he had won a share of the prize money but when he went for his cash he was refused on the basis that his ticket had been tampered with.
Furious at the refusal he reported the illegal lottery to the police and the end result was that Dennis Robinson of Berrys Lane, Peter Taylor of Taylors Row, George Lacey of Woodcock Street and Horace Pendlebury of Morris Street, along with a printer from Wigan, were fined a total of £7 10s.
Running a lottery was not considered as serious as other forms of gambling, such as betting on horse racing, and the fines were consequently much lower.
Also on the 26th, William Taylor, the manager of the St Helens Co-operative Society, was fined 5 shillings for having unjust scales.
Tests conducted in their Hardshaw Street premises revealed that the scales were two ounces against the purchaser after being used for the weighing of potatoes.
The Co-op claimed that soil had affected the accuracy of the scales, which had mistakenly not been cleaned for several days.
The St Helens Reporter described on the 26th how a new brickworks was being established in Parr.
A Manchester firm had taken over the former Alkali Epsom Salt works, which was situated near Parr St Peter's churchyard, and it was expected that the brickworks would be operating within a few weeks.
"Your Pound Becomes 30/- at Tyrer & Sons", claimed their ad in the Reporter.
"More men are wearing Tyrer's shirts, suits and underwear every week", was another of their straplines.
"These are genuine offers. No bluff", said their advert.
And finally, it was revealed this week that the St Helens Cenotaph – as the war memorial was then generally known – would be formally unveiled on Easter Sunday.
It had been first erected in Victoria Square in August 1923 but it had taken three years for the names of the 2,267 men that had died in the war to be collated and inscribed and additional panels and corner pieces installed.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the injured Haydock miner's failed attempt at extending his compensation, the many motor vehicle dealers in St Helens, the ex-soldier's suicide and it’s last orders at the Black Horse, Mill Stone and Red Rat.