IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 25 - 31 AUGUST 1925
This week's many stories include the sound of a noisy motorbike in Dentons Green that was called evil, why strings of motor-coaches were parked around St Anne's Church in Sutton, the apple stealing from the grounds of Rainhill Asylum, the stealing of planks of wood from the United Alkali Company, the dangerous dog from Park Road that was biting passers-by and the police's Marshalls Cross motor trap.
The word "evil" was banded about very freely in the past. It still is today, of course, but a century ago newspapers could use it to describe a nuisance. "The Motor Silencer Evil" was the St Helens Reporter's headline to a description of how James Robinson of Tudor Mount in Rainford Road had been charged with driving a motorcycle without an efficient silencer and failing to have brakes in good working order.
In reality the debate seemed more about how loud motorbikes should be on public roads, which, of course, like many things, can be subjective. PC Griffin told St Helens Police Court that he had been on point duty at the tram terminus at the top of Dentons Green when he heard the sound of a Norton motorcycle coming up Kiln Lane making "an exceptionally loud noise".
I don't know anything about motorbikes but I would not have thought that inserting a stick up an exhaust was the best way to determine the efficiency of a silencer! But that's what the constable did to James Robinson's machine and he said he had detected some distortion. Mr Robinson told the court that since the summons had been issued he had taken his bike to Norton in Birmingham who made the machine and said "the people that I went to with it thought it was a terrific joke".
Superintendent Dunn asked the defendant if he did not regularly have a group of what we would call bikers assembling near his home on Sunday afternoons? Mr Robinson agreed that was so but insisted it was not a regular thing and he denied the superintendent’s charge that they made an unearthly noise. "Why, the residents have complained bitterly about you", insisted Supt Dunn.
To that remark Mr Robinson's defence solicitor stated that the names of the complainants should be given in court. The magistrates decided to go outside and have a demonstration of the machine and when they returned said they felt it could be ridden with only a reasonable noise. But they added it was a powerful machine and they believed it could also make a very unreasonable noise. However, the Bench was not satisfied that the case had been sufficiently proved and so dismissed it.
The annual Sunday pilgrimage to the tomb of the Blessed Dominic Barberi at St Anne & Blessed Dominic Church in Sutton still takes place today, usually in August. But in the past vast numbers of pilgrims would visit what was then called St Anne's to honour the Venerable father.
The Reporter on the 28th described how a large gathering had attended the vigil on the previous Sunday afternoon, with "strings of motor-coaches" parked around the precincts of the church. There were visitors from Bolton, Widnes, Leigh, Warrington and other towns, as well as St Helens. The paper said:
"During the afternoon and evening thousands took the opportunity of visiting the tomb. The procession through the grounds was dignified and picturesque. The little flower strewers looked particularly graceful in their spotless white dresses, crimson sashes and wreaths and veils. The band of St. Edward's Orphanage, Liverpool, accompanied the choir with the hymns."
A youth called Thomas Cunliffe from High Street in Prescot was summoned to the Police Court this week charged with stealing growing apples from the Rainhill Asylum grounds in Elton Head Road. William Webster, the prosecuting counsel, told the magistrates:
"There seems to be an idea growing up in young people that growing produce is anybody's property, and they can walk into anybody's garden, pull up growing produce by the roots and take flowers. Apple stealing is very prevalent, and seems to be growing."
Sometimes, the police would hide in gardens to nab fruit stealers who nicked them on their way home after working a night shift. That appears to have been what happened in this case as Sgt Latham told the court that he had seen Cunliffe at six in the morning go over the garden wall and help himself to some apples. The young man had a previous conviction for stealing pears and damaging growing peas and was fined 20 shillings.
Also in court was Gilbert Lewis from Ramford Street who was charged with stealing three 10 ft-long planks of wood from the United Alkali Company. Lewis's defence was that he had found the planks floating in the brook and had decided to use them as supports for a shed in his yard. They had ended up in the brook, he claimed, because boys had damaged a pump house higher up the stream and he had assumed the wood was no good. Lewis was fined 10 shillings.
Dogs were often running round the streets of St Helens, usually keeping fairly close to their home. The ones that went round in packs and those that dashed across roads causing traffic accidents were the most problematic. Most did no real harm, although occasionally an application to put down one that was deemed dangerous was made to the court.
In this week's Reporter the paper wrote: "A dog that showed too pronounced a tendency to dine off human limbs was ordered to be destroyed." The animal belonged to Basil Morris of Park Road and Annie Griffiths from Merton Bank Road told the magistrates that the dog had bit her in an entry and made a deep wound on her leg.
Ellen Fisher said the dog had also bitten her son and she'd had to poultice him every hour to prevent him going into hospital. And a third witness said the animal had jumped on her shoulder and a man who was passing had to beat it off with stones.
The St Helens Reporter often pointed out if a female defendant in court had dressed up for the occasion, something that didn't always happen. This week they wrote: "A neatly dressed and rather attractive Irish girl, Margaret Tierney, 26, Market-place, was summoned for committing a breach of the peace."
The police had seen her come from a house in Tontine Street (pictured above) and commence shouting and making a disturbance and she had ignored their advice to go indoors and be quiet. In her defence Margaret said: "Someone had been calling me names and I was upset. The bother was over when the police came." She was bound over for six months but needed to find two sureties of £1.
There was a similar excuse given by Eliza Jones of Tolver Street who had been seen by a bobby in Naylor Street following a man, woman and child and using threatening and abusive language to them. The policeman told her to be quiet but she ignored him and attempted to take the child off its mother, as a crowd began to assemble. Eliza told the Bench: "I was upset after what my husband had said to me. I have had a dog's life."
And Donald Eccleshall from Burtonwood was one of several people who were fined 10 shillings for exceeding the speed limit. He had been caught driving his motorbike at 30 mph through what was described as the Marshalls Cross motor trap. That did not, of course, involve radar, which was many years away, but meant two constables armed with stop watches a set distance apart would time when a vehicle passed them both and from their readings calculate its speed.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Croppers Hill collision between a pop wagon and a car, the confusing female fight in Bold Street, the silk works that was coming to Sutton and the curious Parr prosecution for sitting on a doorstep.
The word "evil" was banded about very freely in the past. It still is today, of course, but a century ago newspapers could use it to describe a nuisance. "The Motor Silencer Evil" was the St Helens Reporter's headline to a description of how James Robinson of Tudor Mount in Rainford Road had been charged with driving a motorcycle without an efficient silencer and failing to have brakes in good working order.
In reality the debate seemed more about how loud motorbikes should be on public roads, which, of course, like many things, can be subjective. PC Griffin told St Helens Police Court that he had been on point duty at the tram terminus at the top of Dentons Green when he heard the sound of a Norton motorcycle coming up Kiln Lane making "an exceptionally loud noise".
I don't know anything about motorbikes but I would not have thought that inserting a stick up an exhaust was the best way to determine the efficiency of a silencer! But that's what the constable did to James Robinson's machine and he said he had detected some distortion. Mr Robinson told the court that since the summons had been issued he had taken his bike to Norton in Birmingham who made the machine and said "the people that I went to with it thought it was a terrific joke".
Superintendent Dunn asked the defendant if he did not regularly have a group of what we would call bikers assembling near his home on Sunday afternoons? Mr Robinson agreed that was so but insisted it was not a regular thing and he denied the superintendent’s charge that they made an unearthly noise. "Why, the residents have complained bitterly about you", insisted Supt Dunn.
To that remark Mr Robinson's defence solicitor stated that the names of the complainants should be given in court. The magistrates decided to go outside and have a demonstration of the machine and when they returned said they felt it could be ridden with only a reasonable noise. But they added it was a powerful machine and they believed it could also make a very unreasonable noise. However, the Bench was not satisfied that the case had been sufficiently proved and so dismissed it.
The annual Sunday pilgrimage to the tomb of the Blessed Dominic Barberi at St Anne & Blessed Dominic Church in Sutton still takes place today, usually in August. But in the past vast numbers of pilgrims would visit what was then called St Anne's to honour the Venerable father.
The Reporter on the 28th described how a large gathering had attended the vigil on the previous Sunday afternoon, with "strings of motor-coaches" parked around the precincts of the church. There were visitors from Bolton, Widnes, Leigh, Warrington and other towns, as well as St Helens. The paper said:
"During the afternoon and evening thousands took the opportunity of visiting the tomb. The procession through the grounds was dignified and picturesque. The little flower strewers looked particularly graceful in their spotless white dresses, crimson sashes and wreaths and veils. The band of St. Edward's Orphanage, Liverpool, accompanied the choir with the hymns."
A youth called Thomas Cunliffe from High Street in Prescot was summoned to the Police Court this week charged with stealing growing apples from the Rainhill Asylum grounds in Elton Head Road. William Webster, the prosecuting counsel, told the magistrates:
"There seems to be an idea growing up in young people that growing produce is anybody's property, and they can walk into anybody's garden, pull up growing produce by the roots and take flowers. Apple stealing is very prevalent, and seems to be growing."
Sometimes, the police would hide in gardens to nab fruit stealers who nicked them on their way home after working a night shift. That appears to have been what happened in this case as Sgt Latham told the court that he had seen Cunliffe at six in the morning go over the garden wall and help himself to some apples. The young man had a previous conviction for stealing pears and damaging growing peas and was fined 20 shillings.
Also in court was Gilbert Lewis from Ramford Street who was charged with stealing three 10 ft-long planks of wood from the United Alkali Company. Lewis's defence was that he had found the planks floating in the brook and had decided to use them as supports for a shed in his yard. They had ended up in the brook, he claimed, because boys had damaged a pump house higher up the stream and he had assumed the wood was no good. Lewis was fined 10 shillings.
Dogs were often running round the streets of St Helens, usually keeping fairly close to their home. The ones that went round in packs and those that dashed across roads causing traffic accidents were the most problematic. Most did no real harm, although occasionally an application to put down one that was deemed dangerous was made to the court.
In this week's Reporter the paper wrote: "A dog that showed too pronounced a tendency to dine off human limbs was ordered to be destroyed." The animal belonged to Basil Morris of Park Road and Annie Griffiths from Merton Bank Road told the magistrates that the dog had bit her in an entry and made a deep wound on her leg.
Ellen Fisher said the dog had also bitten her son and she'd had to poultice him every hour to prevent him going into hospital. And a third witness said the animal had jumped on her shoulder and a man who was passing had to beat it off with stones.
The St Helens Reporter often pointed out if a female defendant in court had dressed up for the occasion, something that didn't always happen. This week they wrote: "A neatly dressed and rather attractive Irish girl, Margaret Tierney, 26, Market-place, was summoned for committing a breach of the peace."
There was a similar excuse given by Eliza Jones of Tolver Street who had been seen by a bobby in Naylor Street following a man, woman and child and using threatening and abusive language to them. The policeman told her to be quiet but she ignored him and attempted to take the child off its mother, as a crowd began to assemble. Eliza told the Bench: "I was upset after what my husband had said to me. I have had a dog's life."
And Donald Eccleshall from Burtonwood was one of several people who were fined 10 shillings for exceeding the speed limit. He had been caught driving his motorbike at 30 mph through what was described as the Marshalls Cross motor trap. That did not, of course, involve radar, which was many years away, but meant two constables armed with stop watches a set distance apart would time when a vehicle passed them both and from their readings calculate its speed.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Croppers Hill collision between a pop wagon and a car, the confusing female fight in Bold Street, the silk works that was coming to Sutton and the curious Parr prosecution for sitting on a doorstep.
This week's many stories include the sound of a noisy motorbike in Dentons Green that was called evil, why strings of motor-coaches were parked around St Anne's Church in Sutton, the apple stealing from the grounds of Rainhill Asylum, the stealing of planks of wood from the United Alkali Company, the dangerous dog from Park Road that was biting passers-by and the police's Marshalls Cross motor trap.
The word "evil" was banded about very freely in the past. It still is today, of course, but a century ago newspapers could use it to describe a nuisance.
"The Motor Silencer Evil" was the St Helens Reporter's headline to a description of how James Robinson of Tudor Mount in Rainford Road had been charged with driving a motorcycle without an efficient silencer and failing to have brakes in good working order.
In reality the debate seemed more about how loud motorbikes should be on public roads, which, of course, like many things, can be subjective.
PC Griffin told St Helens Police Court that he had been on point duty at the tram terminus at the top of Dentons Green when he heard the sound of a Norton motorcycle coming up Kiln Lane making "an exceptionally loud noise".
I don't know anything about motorbikes but I would not have thought that inserting a stick up an exhaust was the best way to determine the efficiency of a silencer!
But that's what the constable did to James Robinson's machine and he said he had detected some distortion.
Mr Robinson told the court that since the summons had been issued he had taken his bike to Norton in Birmingham who made the machine and said "the people that I went to with it thought it was a terrific joke".
Superintendent Dunn asked the defendant if he did not regularly have a group of what we would call bikers assembling near his home on Sunday afternoons?
Mr Robinson agreed that was so but insisted it was not a regular thing and he denied the superintendent’s charge that they made an "unearthly noise".
"Why, the residents have complained bitterly about you", insisted Supt Dunn.
To that remark Mr Robinson's defence solicitor stated that the names of the complainants should be given in court.
The magistrates decided to go outside and have a demonstration of the machine and when they returned said they felt it could be ridden with only a reasonable noise.
But they added it was a powerful machine and they believed it could also make a very unreasonable noise.
However, the Bench was not satisfied that the case had been sufficiently proved and so dismissed it.
The annual Sunday pilgrimage to the tomb of the Blessed Dominic Barberi at St Anne & Blessed Dominic Church in Sutton still takes place today, usually in August.
But in the past vast numbers of pilgrims would visit what was then called St Anne's to honour the Venerable father.
The Reporter on the 28th described how a large gathering had attended the vigil on the previous Sunday afternoon, with "strings of motor-coaches" parked around the precincts of the church.
There were visitors from Bolton, Widnes, Leigh, Warrington and other towns, as well as St Helens. The paper said:
"During the afternoon and evening thousands took the opportunity of visiting the tomb. The procession through the grounds was dignified and picturesque.
"The little flower strewers looked particularly graceful in their spotless white dresses, crimson sashes and wreaths and veils. The band of St. Edward's Orphanage, Liverpool, accompanied the choir with the hymns."
A youth called Thomas Cunliffe from High Street in Prescot was summoned to the Police Court this week charged with stealing growing apples from the Rainhill Asylum grounds in Elton Head Road.
William Webster, the prosecuting counsel, told the magistrates:
"There seems to be an idea growing up in young people that growing produce is anybody's property, and they can walk into anybody's garden, pull up growing produce by the roots and take flowers. Apple stealing is very prevalent, and seems to be growing."
Sometimes, the police would hide in gardens to nab fruit stealers who nicked them on their way home after working a night shift.
That appears to have been what happened in this case as Sgt Latham told the court that he had seen Cunliffe at six in the morning go over the garden wall and help himself to some apples.
The young man had a previous conviction for stealing pears and damaging growing peas and was fined 20 shillings.
Also in court was Gilbert Lewis from Ramford Street who was charged with stealing three 10 ft-long planks of wood from the United Alkali Company.
Lewis's defence was that he had found the planks floating in the brook and had decided to use them as supports for a shed in his yard.
They had ended up in the brook, he claimed, because boys had damaged a pump house higher up the stream and he had assumed the wood was no good. Lewis was fined 10 shillings.
Dogs were often running round the streets of St Helens, usually keeping fairly close to their home.
The ones that went round in packs and those that dashed across roads causing traffic accidents were the most problematic.
Most did no real harm, although occasionally an application to put down one that was deemed dangerous was made to the court.
In this week's Reporter the paper wrote: "A dog that showed too pronounced a tendency to dine off human limbs was ordered to be destroyed."
The animal belonged to Basil Morris of Park Road and Annie Griffiths from Merton Bank Road told the magistrates that the dog had bit her in an entry and made a deep wound on her leg.
Ellen Fisher said the dog had also bitten her son and she'd had to poultice him every hour to prevent him going into hospital.
And a third witness said the animal had jumped on her shoulder and a man who was passing had to beat it off with stones.
The St Helens Reporter often pointed out if a female defendant in court had dressed up for the occasion, something that didn't always happen. This week they wrote:
"A neatly dressed and rather attractive Irish girl, Margaret Tierney, 26, Market-place, was summoned for committing a breach of the peace."
The police had seen her come from a house in Tontine Street (pictured above) and commence shouting and making a disturbance and she had ignored their advice to go indoors and be quiet.
In her defence Margaret said: "Someone had been calling me names and I was upset. The bother was over when the police came."
She was bound over for six months but needed to find two sureties of £1.
There was a similar excuse given by Eliza Jones of Tolver Street who had been seen by a bobby in Naylor Street following a man, woman and child and using threatening and abusive language to them.
The policeman told her to be quiet but she ignored him and attempted to take the child off its mother, as a crowd began to assemble.
Eliza told the Bench: "I was upset after what my husband had said to me. I have had a dog's life."
And Donald Eccleshall from Burtonwood was one of several people who were fined 10 shillings for exceeding the speed limit.
He had been caught driving his motorbike at 30 mph through what was described as the Marshalls Cross motor trap.
That did not, of course, involve radar, which was many years away, but meant two constables armed with stop watches a set distance apart would time when a vehicle passed them both and from their readings calculate its speed.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Croppers Hill collision between a pop wagon and a car, the confusing female fight in Bold Street, the silk works that was coming to Sutton and the curious Parr prosecution for sitting on a doorstep.
The word "evil" was banded about very freely in the past. It still is today, of course, but a century ago newspapers could use it to describe a nuisance.
"The Motor Silencer Evil" was the St Helens Reporter's headline to a description of how James Robinson of Tudor Mount in Rainford Road had been charged with driving a motorcycle without an efficient silencer and failing to have brakes in good working order.
In reality the debate seemed more about how loud motorbikes should be on public roads, which, of course, like many things, can be subjective.
PC Griffin told St Helens Police Court that he had been on point duty at the tram terminus at the top of Dentons Green when he heard the sound of a Norton motorcycle coming up Kiln Lane making "an exceptionally loud noise".
I don't know anything about motorbikes but I would not have thought that inserting a stick up an exhaust was the best way to determine the efficiency of a silencer!
But that's what the constable did to James Robinson's machine and he said he had detected some distortion.
Mr Robinson told the court that since the summons had been issued he had taken his bike to Norton in Birmingham who made the machine and said "the people that I went to with it thought it was a terrific joke".
Superintendent Dunn asked the defendant if he did not regularly have a group of what we would call bikers assembling near his home on Sunday afternoons?
Mr Robinson agreed that was so but insisted it was not a regular thing and he denied the superintendent’s charge that they made an "unearthly noise".
"Why, the residents have complained bitterly about you", insisted Supt Dunn.
To that remark Mr Robinson's defence solicitor stated that the names of the complainants should be given in court.
The magistrates decided to go outside and have a demonstration of the machine and when they returned said they felt it could be ridden with only a reasonable noise.
But they added it was a powerful machine and they believed it could also make a very unreasonable noise.
However, the Bench was not satisfied that the case had been sufficiently proved and so dismissed it.
The annual Sunday pilgrimage to the tomb of the Blessed Dominic Barberi at St Anne & Blessed Dominic Church in Sutton still takes place today, usually in August.
But in the past vast numbers of pilgrims would visit what was then called St Anne's to honour the Venerable father.
The Reporter on the 28th described how a large gathering had attended the vigil on the previous Sunday afternoon, with "strings of motor-coaches" parked around the precincts of the church.
There were visitors from Bolton, Widnes, Leigh, Warrington and other towns, as well as St Helens. The paper said:
"During the afternoon and evening thousands took the opportunity of visiting the tomb. The procession through the grounds was dignified and picturesque.
"The little flower strewers looked particularly graceful in their spotless white dresses, crimson sashes and wreaths and veils. The band of St. Edward's Orphanage, Liverpool, accompanied the choir with the hymns."
A youth called Thomas Cunliffe from High Street in Prescot was summoned to the Police Court this week charged with stealing growing apples from the Rainhill Asylum grounds in Elton Head Road.
William Webster, the prosecuting counsel, told the magistrates:
"There seems to be an idea growing up in young people that growing produce is anybody's property, and they can walk into anybody's garden, pull up growing produce by the roots and take flowers. Apple stealing is very prevalent, and seems to be growing."
Sometimes, the police would hide in gardens to nab fruit stealers who nicked them on their way home after working a night shift.
That appears to have been what happened in this case as Sgt Latham told the court that he had seen Cunliffe at six in the morning go over the garden wall and help himself to some apples.
The young man had a previous conviction for stealing pears and damaging growing peas and was fined 20 shillings.
Also in court was Gilbert Lewis from Ramford Street who was charged with stealing three 10 ft-long planks of wood from the United Alkali Company.
Lewis's defence was that he had found the planks floating in the brook and had decided to use them as supports for a shed in his yard.
They had ended up in the brook, he claimed, because boys had damaged a pump house higher up the stream and he had assumed the wood was no good. Lewis was fined 10 shillings.
Dogs were often running round the streets of St Helens, usually keeping fairly close to their home.
The ones that went round in packs and those that dashed across roads causing traffic accidents were the most problematic.
Most did no real harm, although occasionally an application to put down one that was deemed dangerous was made to the court.
In this week's Reporter the paper wrote: "A dog that showed too pronounced a tendency to dine off human limbs was ordered to be destroyed."
The animal belonged to Basil Morris of Park Road and Annie Griffiths from Merton Bank Road told the magistrates that the dog had bit her in an entry and made a deep wound on her leg.
Ellen Fisher said the dog had also bitten her son and she'd had to poultice him every hour to prevent him going into hospital.
And a third witness said the animal had jumped on her shoulder and a man who was passing had to beat it off with stones.
The St Helens Reporter often pointed out if a female defendant in court had dressed up for the occasion, something that didn't always happen. This week they wrote:
"A neatly dressed and rather attractive Irish girl, Margaret Tierney, 26, Market-place, was summoned for committing a breach of the peace."
In her defence Margaret said: "Someone had been calling me names and I was upset. The bother was over when the police came."
She was bound over for six months but needed to find two sureties of £1.
There was a similar excuse given by Eliza Jones of Tolver Street who had been seen by a bobby in Naylor Street following a man, woman and child and using threatening and abusive language to them.
The policeman told her to be quiet but she ignored him and attempted to take the child off its mother, as a crowd began to assemble.
Eliza told the Bench: "I was upset after what my husband had said to me. I have had a dog's life."
And Donald Eccleshall from Burtonwood was one of several people who were fined 10 shillings for exceeding the speed limit.
He had been caught driving his motorbike at 30 mph through what was described as the Marshalls Cross motor trap.
That did not, of course, involve radar, which was many years away, but meant two constables armed with stop watches a set distance apart would time when a vehicle passed them both and from their readings calculate its speed.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Croppers Hill collision between a pop wagon and a car, the confusing female fight in Bold Street, the silk works that was coming to Sutton and the curious Parr prosecution for sitting on a doorstep.