IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (3rd - 9th APRIL 1923)
This week's many stories include the paranoid doctor from Cowley Hill Lane, the Ravenhead housekeeper's tragic suicide, St Helens Ladies footballers triumph against their old rivals, the Windle Motor Company's tractors and the pram stealer from Silkstone Street who did not want to spend Easter in a police cell.
We begin on the 3rd with the death of John Rigby of Billinge at the age of 90. He had worked down the pit for sixty years beginning at the age of 10 and at one time was said to be Lancashire's oldest coal miner. As a pit boy he had worked 12 hours a day for just 4½d. He once recalled how in his early days miners had to buy their own pit lamp, which they took home each day, kept cleaned and had to fill with oil. "Owd John" had been the father of thirteen children – only six of whom had survived him – and he had forty grandchildren.
It was usual for persons arrested for relatively minor crimes to appear before the magistrates on the following morning. Arrests made during the afternoon or evening normally led to the police keeping their prisoner locked in a cell overnight. You didn’t want to be pinched on a Saturday evening, as you would have two nights and all day Sunday in custody before going before the Bench. It could be even worse on bank holidays if the courts did not sit.
When William Rimmer of Silkstone Street appeared in St Helens Police Court on the 3rd he gave the additional time in custody over a bank holiday as his reason for doing a bunk. The 29-year-old had been accused of stealing a "perambulator" from the premises of a Miss Owen in Eccleston Street. Rimmer was known to have been in the store at 10pm on Good Friday and then fifty minutes later a policeman had seen him pushing the pram into his home.
When the police entered the property Rimmer insisted the pram was his and his wife Jerminna backed him up claiming they'd brought it down with them from Scotland. And while the police made further enquiries into the matter, Rimmer scarpered – but first thing on the following Tuesday handed himself into police. A couple of hours later he appeared in court and was fined 40 shillings, explaining to the Bench that he did not want to be locked up over the Easter holiday weekend.
In an advert for Dr. Cassell's tablets that was published in the Daily Mirror on the 4th, Joseph Green of Higher Parr Street in St Helens gave this testimonial:
"I am a practical watchmaker, and as a result of the strain of the war and overwork, I suffered a sudden collapse. I was more dead than alive. I can't describe my state of depression, but I felt as though my doom were sealed. Strength I had none, nor appetite, and my nerves were in a terribly weak state. I suffered from sleeplessness, indigestion, associated with pain and sickness, and I was so low-spirited that a funeral passing set my heart palpitating. I took plenty of medicine, but no good resulted. Then I started with Dr. Cassell's Tablets, and after a time began to feel better and brighter. My appetite improved. I pulled up lost weight, and now I am as fit and strong as ever I was in my life."
Also on the 4th a Ministry of Health inquiry was held in St Helens Town Hall to consider an application by the Corporation to borrow £2,500. The money would be used to purchase the site of the old Gerards Bridge Chemical Works and build a new council depot.
The monthly Town Council meeting was also held on that day and William Brooke headed a deputation that called for a greater rates reduction. The council's Finance Committee had recommended a decrease of 8d in the rates for the new financial year but the Eccleston Park estate agent said that was not enough.
"Owing to the critical times that tradesmen and others were experiencing," he said, "the council should give the town a lift by taking 1s 4d off the ratepayers' burden." However, it was pointed out that even with the 8p cut there was a risk of a £17,000 shortfall in the council's budget and so cutting any deeper was out of the question.
Dr Robinson Officer from Cowley Hill Lane seems to have been a rather difficult man. He'd previously fallen out with the St Helens Medical Officer of Health and been prosecuted for repeatedly failing to complete forms detailing patients with notifiable diseases. On the 6th Dr Officer was charged in St Helens Police Court with using abusive language to two police officers that had been standing outside his house.
Shortly after midnight the doctor had gone outside and abusively asked the policemen why they were continually watching his home and his Duke Street surgery. The constables told the doctor that they were simply on ordinary duty. Dr Officer did not put in an appearance in court and was fined £2 in his absence.
The Windle Motor Company had sales premises in Duke Street and a workshop in Rigby Street. In the Reporter on the 6th they were trying to persuade the rather conservative farmers in the district to invest in Fordson motor tractors. That was the tractor brand that Ford used up until the 1960s and which had first arrived in Britain in 1917 to boost production in agriculture. "The time for economy has arrived!" was the headline to their ad, which stated that the industrial Fordson ran on paraffin.
The Windle Motor Company said Fordson tractors were much more efficient than horse traction, adding: "…the only way a farmer can operate his holding and make profits, in view of the present low market prices [for crops], is to resort to power farming and intensive cultivation." The illustration of the industrial Fordson tractor was very similar to models of today, with the exception of the front wheels that were not particularly rugged as they were solid rubber.
When the FA had decided to ban women's football in December 1921, the Liverpool Echo had been all in favour, writing: "A deal of unnecessary fuss is being made over the fact that the Football Association has requested clubs under its control not to allow the use of their grounds for matches between women footballers. The opinion is general amongst the medical profession that football is not a suitable game for women…women footballers have attracted gates simply because they were an amusing novelty, and in the natural course they would soon have dropped into their right place.
"The majority of teams are hopeless. Even the crack team [Dick Kerrs] which has carried all before it would fall easy victims to a team of schoolboys under fourteen drawn from the elementary schools. Whether football is a suitable game for women or not, it has been clearly demonstrated that women will never become expert at the game."
The ban only applied to women that played football on grounds belonging to clubs that were members of the FA. Rugby League teams were not, of course, members of the FA and so there was nothing to stop female teams playing football on Saints' ground. And so despite the ban St Helens Ladies (pictured above) played their home matches at Knowsley Road or at other local venues, such as in Queen's Recreation Ground.
The Reporter described their latest game at what we call Queens Park in which the St Helens Ladies had achieved a rare victory against Dick Kerr's. The previous time the Preston side had visited St Helens it had been a scorching hot day. But on this latest occasion it rained heavily before the match and the pitch was very muddy. However, the conditions must have suited the home team as they won 5 - 1.
Women's football had now been played for some years but it was still common for journalists to refer to ladies' matches as being a "novelty". The Reporter wrote: "The novelty of the event drew a crowd of about two thousand spectators, despite the threatening outlook, but a much larger crowd would have been attracted had the weather been more promising."
However, their report did suggest that there had been some quality play, saying: "Sue Chorley, the Saints' centre, was the outstanding player. The way she got possession of the ball and ran down the field delighted the spectators. Besides being nippy and elusive, she was a powerful kicker, and easily beat Miss Rainford, the visitors' goalkeeper." Lily Parr – the St Helens woman that played for Dick Kerr's – scored the Preston side's only goal. The proceeds of the game went to the Mayor's Town Charity Fund.
And finally on the 9th Annie Pye died in hospital from a fractured rib and injured back. Her heart had also seemingly been broken. The Rev. Harry Bolton had recently died after forty years at St John's Church in Ravenhead and for twelve of those years Annie had been his dedicated housekeeper. The 35-year-old had become very depressed after the vicar's sudden demise and had seemingly thrown herself out of her bedroom window onto stone steps thirty feet below.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the Dunriding Lane dust up over a daughter's boyfriend, two more mining deaths, the theft at a Parr pawnbroker's, the formation of St Helens Rotary and the men that rose at 2am to try and find work.
We begin on the 3rd with the death of John Rigby of Billinge at the age of 90. He had worked down the pit for sixty years beginning at the age of 10 and at one time was said to be Lancashire's oldest coal miner. As a pit boy he had worked 12 hours a day for just 4½d. He once recalled how in his early days miners had to buy their own pit lamp, which they took home each day, kept cleaned and had to fill with oil. "Owd John" had been the father of thirteen children – only six of whom had survived him – and he had forty grandchildren.
It was usual for persons arrested for relatively minor crimes to appear before the magistrates on the following morning. Arrests made during the afternoon or evening normally led to the police keeping their prisoner locked in a cell overnight. You didn’t want to be pinched on a Saturday evening, as you would have two nights and all day Sunday in custody before going before the Bench. It could be even worse on bank holidays if the courts did not sit.
When William Rimmer of Silkstone Street appeared in St Helens Police Court on the 3rd he gave the additional time in custody over a bank holiday as his reason for doing a bunk. The 29-year-old had been accused of stealing a "perambulator" from the premises of a Miss Owen in Eccleston Street. Rimmer was known to have been in the store at 10pm on Good Friday and then fifty minutes later a policeman had seen him pushing the pram into his home.
When the police entered the property Rimmer insisted the pram was his and his wife Jerminna backed him up claiming they'd brought it down with them from Scotland. And while the police made further enquiries into the matter, Rimmer scarpered – but first thing on the following Tuesday handed himself into police. A couple of hours later he appeared in court and was fined 40 shillings, explaining to the Bench that he did not want to be locked up over the Easter holiday weekend.
In an advert for Dr. Cassell's tablets that was published in the Daily Mirror on the 4th, Joseph Green of Higher Parr Street in St Helens gave this testimonial:
"I am a practical watchmaker, and as a result of the strain of the war and overwork, I suffered a sudden collapse. I was more dead than alive. I can't describe my state of depression, but I felt as though my doom were sealed. Strength I had none, nor appetite, and my nerves were in a terribly weak state. I suffered from sleeplessness, indigestion, associated with pain and sickness, and I was so low-spirited that a funeral passing set my heart palpitating. I took plenty of medicine, but no good resulted. Then I started with Dr. Cassell's Tablets, and after a time began to feel better and brighter. My appetite improved. I pulled up lost weight, and now I am as fit and strong as ever I was in my life."
Also on the 4th a Ministry of Health inquiry was held in St Helens Town Hall to consider an application by the Corporation to borrow £2,500. The money would be used to purchase the site of the old Gerards Bridge Chemical Works and build a new council depot.
The monthly Town Council meeting was also held on that day and William Brooke headed a deputation that called for a greater rates reduction. The council's Finance Committee had recommended a decrease of 8d in the rates for the new financial year but the Eccleston Park estate agent said that was not enough.
"Owing to the critical times that tradesmen and others were experiencing," he said, "the council should give the town a lift by taking 1s 4d off the ratepayers' burden." However, it was pointed out that even with the 8p cut there was a risk of a £17,000 shortfall in the council's budget and so cutting any deeper was out of the question.
Dr Robinson Officer from Cowley Hill Lane seems to have been a rather difficult man. He'd previously fallen out with the St Helens Medical Officer of Health and been prosecuted for repeatedly failing to complete forms detailing patients with notifiable diseases. On the 6th Dr Officer was charged in St Helens Police Court with using abusive language to two police officers that had been standing outside his house.
Shortly after midnight the doctor had gone outside and abusively asked the policemen why they were continually watching his home and his Duke Street surgery. The constables told the doctor that they were simply on ordinary duty. Dr Officer did not put in an appearance in court and was fined £2 in his absence.
The Windle Motor Company had sales premises in Duke Street and a workshop in Rigby Street. In the Reporter on the 6th they were trying to persuade the rather conservative farmers in the district to invest in Fordson motor tractors. That was the tractor brand that Ford used up until the 1960s and which had first arrived in Britain in 1917 to boost production in agriculture. "The time for economy has arrived!" was the headline to their ad, which stated that the industrial Fordson ran on paraffin.
The Windle Motor Company said Fordson tractors were much more efficient than horse traction, adding: "…the only way a farmer can operate his holding and make profits, in view of the present low market prices [for crops], is to resort to power farming and intensive cultivation." The illustration of the industrial Fordson tractor was very similar to models of today, with the exception of the front wheels that were not particularly rugged as they were solid rubber.
When the FA had decided to ban women's football in December 1921, the Liverpool Echo had been all in favour, writing: "A deal of unnecessary fuss is being made over the fact that the Football Association has requested clubs under its control not to allow the use of their grounds for matches between women footballers. The opinion is general amongst the medical profession that football is not a suitable game for women…women footballers have attracted gates simply because they were an amusing novelty, and in the natural course they would soon have dropped into their right place.
"The majority of teams are hopeless. Even the crack team [Dick Kerrs] which has carried all before it would fall easy victims to a team of schoolboys under fourteen drawn from the elementary schools. Whether football is a suitable game for women or not, it has been clearly demonstrated that women will never become expert at the game."
The Reporter described their latest game at what we call Queens Park in which the St Helens Ladies had achieved a rare victory against Dick Kerr's. The previous time the Preston side had visited St Helens it had been a scorching hot day. But on this latest occasion it rained heavily before the match and the pitch was very muddy. However, the conditions must have suited the home team as they won 5 - 1.
Women's football had now been played for some years but it was still common for journalists to refer to ladies' matches as being a "novelty". The Reporter wrote: "The novelty of the event drew a crowd of about two thousand spectators, despite the threatening outlook, but a much larger crowd would have been attracted had the weather been more promising."
However, their report did suggest that there had been some quality play, saying: "Sue Chorley, the Saints' centre, was the outstanding player. The way she got possession of the ball and ran down the field delighted the spectators. Besides being nippy and elusive, she was a powerful kicker, and easily beat Miss Rainford, the visitors' goalkeeper." Lily Parr – the St Helens woman that played for Dick Kerr's – scored the Preston side's only goal. The proceeds of the game went to the Mayor's Town Charity Fund.
And finally on the 9th Annie Pye died in hospital from a fractured rib and injured back. Her heart had also seemingly been broken. The Rev. Harry Bolton had recently died after forty years at St John's Church in Ravenhead and for twelve of those years Annie had been his dedicated housekeeper. The 35-year-old had become very depressed after the vicar's sudden demise and had seemingly thrown herself out of her bedroom window onto stone steps thirty feet below.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the Dunriding Lane dust up over a daughter's boyfriend, two more mining deaths, the theft at a Parr pawnbroker's, the formation of St Helens Rotary and the men that rose at 2am to try and find work.
This week's many stories include the paranoid doctor from Cowley Hill Lane, the Ravenhead housekeeper's tragic suicide, St Helens Ladies footballers triumph against their old rivals, the Windle Motor Company's tractors and the pram stealer from Silkstone Street who did not want to spend Easter in a police cell.
We begin on the 3rd with the death of John Rigby of Billinge at the age of 90. He had worked down the pit for sixty years beginning at the age of 10 and at one time was said to be Lancashire's oldest coal miner. As a pit boy he had worked 12 hours a day for just 4½d.
He once recalled how in his early days miners had to buy their own pit lamp, which they took home each day, kept cleaned and had to fill with oil.
"Owd John" had been the father of thirteen children – only six of whom had survived him – and he had forty grandchildren.
It was usual for persons arrested for relatively minor crimes to appear before the magistrates on the following morning.
Arrests made during the afternoon or evening normally led to the police keeping their prisoner locked in a cell overnight.
You didn’t want to be pinched on a Saturday evening, as you would have two nights and all day Sunday in custody before going before the Bench. It could be even worse on bank holidays if the courts did not sit.
When William Rimmer of Silkstone Street appeared in St Helens Police Court on the 3rd he gave the additional time in custody over a bank holiday as his reason for doing a bunk.
The 29-year-old had been accused of stealing a "perambulator" from the premises of a Miss Owen in Eccleston Street.
Rimmer was known to have been in the store at 10pm on Good Friday and then fifty minutes later a policeman had seen him pushing the pram into his home.
When the police entered the property Rimmer insisted the pram was his and his wife Jerminna backed him up claiming they'd brought it down with them from Scotland.
And while the police made further enquiries into the matter, Rimmer scarpered – but first thing on the following Tuesday handed himself into police.
A couple of hours later he appeared in court and was fined 40 shillings, explaining to the Bench that he did not want to be locked up over the Easter holiday weekend.
In an advert for Dr. Cassell's tablets that was published in the Daily Mirror on the 4th, Joseph Green of Higher Parr Street in St Helens gave this testimonial:
"I am a practical watchmaker, and as a result of the strain of the war and overwork, I suffered a sudden collapse. I was more dead than alive. I can't describe my state of depression, but I felt as though my doom were sealed. Strength I had none, nor appetite, and my nerves were in a terribly weak state.
"I suffered from sleeplessness, indigestion, associated with pain and sickness, and I was so low-spirited that a funeral passing set my heart palpitating. I took plenty of medicine, but no good resulted. Then I started with Dr. Cassell's Tablets, and after a time began to feel better and brighter. My appetite improved. I pulled up lost weight, and now I am as fit and strong as ever I was in my life."
Also on the 4th a Ministry of Health inquiry was held in St Helens Town Hall to consider an application by the Corporation to borrow £2,500.
The money would be used to purchase the site of the old Gerards Bridge Chemical Works and build a new council depot.
The monthly Town Council meeting was also held on that day and William Brooke headed a deputation that called for a greater rates reduction.
The council's Finance Committee had recommended a decrease of 8d in the rates for the new financial year but the Eccleston Park estate agent said that was not enough.
"Owing to the critical times that tradesmen and others were experiencing," he said, "the council should give the town a lift by taking 1s 4d off the ratepayers' burden."
However, it was pointed out that even with the 8p cut there was a risk of a £17,000 shortfall in the council's budget and so cutting any deeper was out of the question.
Dr Robinson Officer from Cowley Hill Lane seems to have been a rather difficult man. He'd previously fallen out with the St Helens Medical Officer of Health and been prosecuted for repeatedly failing to complete forms detailing patients with notifiable diseases.
On the 6th Dr Officer was charged in St Helens Police Court with using abusive language to two police officers that had been standing outside his house.
Shortly after midnight the doctor had gone outside and abusively asked the policemen why they were continually watching his home and his Duke Street surgery.
The constables told the doctor that they were simply on ordinary duty. Dr Officer did not put in an appearance in court and was fined £2 in his absence.
The Windle Motor Company had sales premises in Duke Street and a workshop in Rigby Street.
In the Reporter on the 6th they were trying to persuade the rather conservative farmers in the district to invest in Fordson motor tractors.
That was the tractor brand that Ford used up until the 1960s and which had first arrived in Britain in 1917 to boost production in agriculture.
"The time for economy has arrived!" was the headline to their ad, which stated that the industrial Fordson ran on paraffin.
The Windle Motor Company said Fordson tractors were much more efficient than horse traction, adding:
"…the only way a farmer can operate his holding and make profits, in view of the present low market prices [for crops], is to resort to power farming and intensive cultivation."
The illustration of the industrial Fordson tractor was very similar to models of today, with the exception of the front wheels that were not particularly rugged as they were solid rubber.
When the FA had decided to ban women's football in December 1921, the Liverpool Echo had been all in favour, writing:
"A deal of unnecessary fuss is being made over the fact that the Football Association has requested clubs under its control not to allow the use of their grounds for matches between women footballers. The opinion is general amongst the medical profession that football is not a suitable game for women…women footballers have attracted gates simply because they were an amusing novelty, and in the natural course they would soon have dropped into their right place.
"The majority of teams are hopeless. Even the crack team [Dick Kerrs] which has carried all before it would fall easy victims to a team of schoolboys under fourteen drawn from the elementary schools. Whether football is a suitable game for women or not, it has been clearly demonstrated that women will never become expert at the game."
The ban only applied to women that played football on grounds belonging to clubs that were members of the FA.
Rugby League teams were not, of course, members of the FA and so there was nothing to stop female teams playing football on Saints' ground.
And so despite the ban St Helens Ladies (pictured above) played their home matches at Knowsley Road or at other local venues, such as in Queen's Recreation Ground.
The Reporter described their latest game at what we call Queens Park in which the St Helens Ladies had achieved a rare victory against Dick Kerr's.
The previous time the Preston side had visited St Helens it had been a scorching hot day.
But on this latest occasion it rained heavily before the match and the pitch was very muddy. However, the conditions must have suited the home team as they won 5 - 1.
Women's football had now been played for some years but it was still common for journalists to refer to ladies' matches as being a "novelty". The Reporter wrote:
"The novelty of the event drew a crowd of about two thousand spectators, despite the threatening outlook, but a much larger crowd would have been attracted had the weather been more promising."
However, their report did suggest that there had been some quality play, saying:
"Sue Chorley, the Saints' centre, was the outstanding player. The way she got possession of the ball and ran down the field delighted the spectators. Besides being nippy and elusive, she was a powerful kicker, and easily beat Miss Rainford, the visitors' goalkeeper."
Lily Parr – the St Helens woman that played for Dick Kerr's – scored the Preston side's only goal. The proceeds of the game went to the Mayor's Town Charity Fund.
And finally on the 9th Annie Pye died in hospital from a fractured rib and injured back. Her heart had also seemingly been broken.
The Rev. Harry Bolton had recently died after forty years at St John's Church in Ravenhead and for twelve of those years Annie had been his dedicated housekeeper.
The 35-year-old had become very depressed after the vicar's sudden demise and had seemingly thrown herself out of her bedroom window onto stone steps thirty feet below.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the Dunriding Lane dust up over a daughter's boyfriend, two more mining deaths, the theft at a Parr pawnbroker's, the formation of St Helens Rotary and the men that rose at 2am to try and find work.
We begin on the 3rd with the death of John Rigby of Billinge at the age of 90. He had worked down the pit for sixty years beginning at the age of 10 and at one time was said to be Lancashire's oldest coal miner. As a pit boy he had worked 12 hours a day for just 4½d.
He once recalled how in his early days miners had to buy their own pit lamp, which they took home each day, kept cleaned and had to fill with oil.
"Owd John" had been the father of thirteen children – only six of whom had survived him – and he had forty grandchildren.
It was usual for persons arrested for relatively minor crimes to appear before the magistrates on the following morning.
Arrests made during the afternoon or evening normally led to the police keeping their prisoner locked in a cell overnight.
You didn’t want to be pinched on a Saturday evening, as you would have two nights and all day Sunday in custody before going before the Bench. It could be even worse on bank holidays if the courts did not sit.
When William Rimmer of Silkstone Street appeared in St Helens Police Court on the 3rd he gave the additional time in custody over a bank holiday as his reason for doing a bunk.
The 29-year-old had been accused of stealing a "perambulator" from the premises of a Miss Owen in Eccleston Street.
Rimmer was known to have been in the store at 10pm on Good Friday and then fifty minutes later a policeman had seen him pushing the pram into his home.
When the police entered the property Rimmer insisted the pram was his and his wife Jerminna backed him up claiming they'd brought it down with them from Scotland.
And while the police made further enquiries into the matter, Rimmer scarpered – but first thing on the following Tuesday handed himself into police.
A couple of hours later he appeared in court and was fined 40 shillings, explaining to the Bench that he did not want to be locked up over the Easter holiday weekend.
In an advert for Dr. Cassell's tablets that was published in the Daily Mirror on the 4th, Joseph Green of Higher Parr Street in St Helens gave this testimonial:
"I am a practical watchmaker, and as a result of the strain of the war and overwork, I suffered a sudden collapse. I was more dead than alive. I can't describe my state of depression, but I felt as though my doom were sealed. Strength I had none, nor appetite, and my nerves were in a terribly weak state.
"I suffered from sleeplessness, indigestion, associated with pain and sickness, and I was so low-spirited that a funeral passing set my heart palpitating. I took plenty of medicine, but no good resulted. Then I started with Dr. Cassell's Tablets, and after a time began to feel better and brighter. My appetite improved. I pulled up lost weight, and now I am as fit and strong as ever I was in my life."
Also on the 4th a Ministry of Health inquiry was held in St Helens Town Hall to consider an application by the Corporation to borrow £2,500.
The money would be used to purchase the site of the old Gerards Bridge Chemical Works and build a new council depot.
The monthly Town Council meeting was also held on that day and William Brooke headed a deputation that called for a greater rates reduction.
The council's Finance Committee had recommended a decrease of 8d in the rates for the new financial year but the Eccleston Park estate agent said that was not enough.
"Owing to the critical times that tradesmen and others were experiencing," he said, "the council should give the town a lift by taking 1s 4d off the ratepayers' burden."
However, it was pointed out that even with the 8p cut there was a risk of a £17,000 shortfall in the council's budget and so cutting any deeper was out of the question.
Dr Robinson Officer from Cowley Hill Lane seems to have been a rather difficult man. He'd previously fallen out with the St Helens Medical Officer of Health and been prosecuted for repeatedly failing to complete forms detailing patients with notifiable diseases.
On the 6th Dr Officer was charged in St Helens Police Court with using abusive language to two police officers that had been standing outside his house.
Shortly after midnight the doctor had gone outside and abusively asked the policemen why they were continually watching his home and his Duke Street surgery.
The constables told the doctor that they were simply on ordinary duty. Dr Officer did not put in an appearance in court and was fined £2 in his absence.
The Windle Motor Company had sales premises in Duke Street and a workshop in Rigby Street.
In the Reporter on the 6th they were trying to persuade the rather conservative farmers in the district to invest in Fordson motor tractors.
That was the tractor brand that Ford used up until the 1960s and which had first arrived in Britain in 1917 to boost production in agriculture.
"The time for economy has arrived!" was the headline to their ad, which stated that the industrial Fordson ran on paraffin.
The Windle Motor Company said Fordson tractors were much more efficient than horse traction, adding:
"…the only way a farmer can operate his holding and make profits, in view of the present low market prices [for crops], is to resort to power farming and intensive cultivation."
The illustration of the industrial Fordson tractor was very similar to models of today, with the exception of the front wheels that were not particularly rugged as they were solid rubber.
When the FA had decided to ban women's football in December 1921, the Liverpool Echo had been all in favour, writing:
"A deal of unnecessary fuss is being made over the fact that the Football Association has requested clubs under its control not to allow the use of their grounds for matches between women footballers. The opinion is general amongst the medical profession that football is not a suitable game for women…women footballers have attracted gates simply because they were an amusing novelty, and in the natural course they would soon have dropped into their right place.
"The majority of teams are hopeless. Even the crack team [Dick Kerrs] which has carried all before it would fall easy victims to a team of schoolboys under fourteen drawn from the elementary schools. Whether football is a suitable game for women or not, it has been clearly demonstrated that women will never become expert at the game."
The ban only applied to women that played football on grounds belonging to clubs that were members of the FA.
Rugby League teams were not, of course, members of the FA and so there was nothing to stop female teams playing football on Saints' ground.
The Reporter described their latest game at what we call Queens Park in which the St Helens Ladies had achieved a rare victory against Dick Kerr's.
The previous time the Preston side had visited St Helens it had been a scorching hot day.
But on this latest occasion it rained heavily before the match and the pitch was very muddy. However, the conditions must have suited the home team as they won 5 - 1.
Women's football had now been played for some years but it was still common for journalists to refer to ladies' matches as being a "novelty". The Reporter wrote:
"The novelty of the event drew a crowd of about two thousand spectators, despite the threatening outlook, but a much larger crowd would have been attracted had the weather been more promising."
However, their report did suggest that there had been some quality play, saying:
"Sue Chorley, the Saints' centre, was the outstanding player. The way she got possession of the ball and ran down the field delighted the spectators. Besides being nippy and elusive, she was a powerful kicker, and easily beat Miss Rainford, the visitors' goalkeeper."
Lily Parr – the St Helens woman that played for Dick Kerr's – scored the Preston side's only goal. The proceeds of the game went to the Mayor's Town Charity Fund.
And finally on the 9th Annie Pye died in hospital from a fractured rib and injured back. Her heart had also seemingly been broken.
The Rev. Harry Bolton had recently died after forty years at St John's Church in Ravenhead and for twelve of those years Annie had been his dedicated housekeeper.
The 35-year-old had become very depressed after the vicar's sudden demise and had seemingly thrown herself out of her bedroom window onto stone steps thirty feet below.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the Dunriding Lane dust up over a daughter's boyfriend, two more mining deaths, the theft at a Parr pawnbroker's, the formation of St Helens Rotary and the men that rose at 2am to try and find work.