IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (4th - 10th February 1919)
This week's stories include the identification of the Eccleston Hill skeleton, the Boundary Road man who asked for police protection from his wife, the woman given a "thump on the nose" in Ormskirk Street, the six women whose dole payments were stopped after refusing to work as housemaids, the Newton Road brick thrower returns to court, more on the borough's first council estate and why hundreds of benches in Lancots Lane were up for sale.
We begin on the 4th with news in the St Helens Reporter's Tuesday edition that the council were considering buying property in Elizabeth Street in Sutton to serve as a maternity centre. This was part of their plans to improve the health of the borough.
The paper also reported that the identity of the skeleton that had recently been found in a disused quarry on Eccleston Hill was now known. The remains were of soldier George Tisdall from Oldham who almost eighteen months earlier had returned to the military camp at Knowsley Park after a period of leave.
Tisdall went to post some letters but was never heard of again until some boys found his remains. They were so scared by what they'd seen that they immediately ran home and alerted the police. Although George's family now had the comfort of being able to bury his remains, they would never know how or why he came to die.
On the 5th there was a sequel to a court case from November in which Martin Towey from Newton Road had been fined £3 for "the pleasure of having shied a brick at the head of John Crohan", as the St Helens Reporter put it. The latter had moved from Towey's mother-in-law's house to new "diggings" in Glover Street and then returned to collect his possessions.
However the family of his former landlady refused to let Crohan take his accordion and a row developed that ended with the man receiving serious head injuries. The dispute now moved to the County Court in which John Crohan sought damages from Martin Towey for lost wages, as well as compensation for his pain and suffering.
He did well with Judge Shand awarding the man £16 10 shillings, the equivalent of over £1,000 in today's money. The Reporter's headline to the article was "Expensive Brick Throwing – £8 Per Shy".
A woman called Mary Westwell from Highfield Place in Prescot appeared in the St Helens Police Court on the 6th charged with drunkenness and assault. Special Constable Rathbone told the magistrates that at ten minutes past nine during the previous evening he had heard a great noise while on duty in Shaw Street.
Upon arriving at the disturbance he found a crowd congregated around the defendant who was shouting and using filthy language. He arrested Westwell for being drunk and while taking her to the station she "struggled hard to get away and began to throw money about."
Another witness was a young woman called Florence Dearden who told the court that at quarter to nine she had been walking in Ormskirk Street. She heard bad language being used behind her and turned around to see what was happening.
The woman Florence now knew as Westwell shouted: "You little hussy, what are you looking at?" and then gave her a "thump on the nose". Mary Westwell had a number of similar convictions and the Chief Constable described her as a "bad bargain". She was fined a total of forty shillings.
Also in court was labourer Michael Kiernan from Boundary Road who was charged with an aggravated assault on his wife – who appeared before the magistrates with a large bandage wrapped round her head. Elizabeth Kiernan told the Bench that after returning home from shopping her husband started cursing her and then struck her three times with a poker on her left arm.
She said she then took a couple of ornaments off the sideboard and smashed them on the floor, which led to her husband hitting her on the head with the poker. However Michael Kiernan claimed that it had been his wife who had been trying to hit him and as he wrested the poker from her grasp, it accidentally caught her.
A likely story you are probably thinking! But there is more to this tale than meets the eye. Inspector Anders took the stand and said the man was a "decent sort of fellow" but his wife had a violent temper.
Kiernan told the court that Elizabeth had a habit of becoming violent when drunk. She had been placed in Rainhill Asylum about five times and many times in the mental receiving ward at Whiston. The Chief Constable – who acted as prosecutor – said he could substantially support what the defendant had said and so the magistrates dismissed the case.
However Elizabeth Kiernan did not see the Bench come to this decision as she had been ordered out of court after making repeated interruptions. She also did not hear her husband asking the Chief Constable for police protection from his wife. "I will see you downstairs", was the reply Michael Kiernan received.
There was little sympathy for unmarried mothers with illegitimate children, no matter what the circumstances were. On the 7th Mary Jackson summoned a Blackpool soldier called James Hillstern to make maintenance payments for their illegitimate child.
St Helens Police Court was told that Mary was a widow with four children when the couple first met. This prompted Joseph Else on the Bench to say: "I think she ought to have had more sense". The magistrates awarded Mary 7/6 a week, although the clerk to the court pointed out (for reasons that weren't explained) that while the man was in the army the woman would only receive 3/6.
Also in court was Mary Winstanley from Warrington Road in Bold Heath who was making her 24th appearance. These had all been for minor breaches of the laws, often connected with her horse and cart. Vehicles whether powered by motor or by horse were required to have two front lamps and keep them continuously lit at night.
When stopped by the police in Peasley Cross Lane, Mary was found to be using a candle in a glass jar – about as rudimentary a light as could be imagined. One whiff of wind, of course, and it would go out.
In her last court appearance a constable had described Mary as a "complete nuisance on the road" but this time she was hitting back, saying: "I don't know what to do, they have me if I stop to light my lamp. I travel through Earlestown and I am never pulled up anywhere, only here." A fine of ten shillings was imposed to which Mary said she could not pay and would have to "go down" instead.
On the 7th the St Helens Newspaper ran an article with the title "The House Famine – What Is The Remedy – Who Will Build And When?" The piece described proposals by St Helens Corporation to purchase Sir David Gamble's Windlehurst estate (pictured above) and build large numbers of badly needed houses between City Gardens and Windleshaw Road.
Two days earlier the council had elected to borrow the considerable sum of £45,000 to buy the land, which led the Newspaper to comment: "Their purchase, when accomplished, will make one of the most charming areas in the town the site for a model endeavour at providing a modern garden city, a little Port Sunlight or Bourneville within our town's geographical limits.
"Though many of those weary folks who are waiting for a house wherein to establish the home-nest, in a home “fit for heroes to live in”, may feel a little doubtful about the realisation of these rosy dreams, it may be taken for granted that the people of the town would never tolerate the expenditure of such a big sum of money unless they were sure that it would be used in a way that would be a credit to the town."
This was something new to St Helens. It wasn't just a really extensive housing estate of over 1,000 properties but these were to become the first council homes. Previously houses had been built in dribs and drabs by landlords and by some employers, who wanted to provide accommodation for their workers.
But this was on a different scale intended to help solve the housing crisis in the town. Windlehurst would become the first council estate, with one in Parr in 1926 being the second.
During the war the Ministry of Munitions (run for 18 months by Winston Churchill) had responsibility for getting as many weapons and military equipment made as possible. Now the war was over they had become second-hand salesmen flogging off all sorts of unwanted paraphernalia.
On the front page of the St Helens Reporter on the 7th the Ministry had nearly 300 wooden benches up for grabs. These had been used by the Sutton Bond munitions plant in Lancots Lane, probably to stack shells (see photo above).
Like many other munitions factories in St Helens, Sutton Bond was now closing down and large numbers of individuals were losing their jobs. At Christmas time the Reporter had revealed that 2,000 people in the town had so far "signed for the unemployment donation" since the signing of the armistice, with many more job losses since.
Many of those that were now out of work were women. On the 7th the Reporter described how six former munitions workers had been offered work in Kirkby Stephen as housemaids. However the women had refused to accept the job offers as they considered the wages on offer to be inadequate.
This was not surprising, as those employed in the various munitions works had been well paid, whereas those in domestic service were poorly paid. The response of the Ministry of Labour had been to cancel their unemployment benefits and the women were now submitting appeals against the decision.
Next week's stories will include the police raid against Church Street "obstructionists", the "deplorable" number of women that were going to the pub, a police union dispute in which four sergeants were disciplined, a dangerous dog in Parr, a Sutton divorce petition and the Clock Face bus gets stuck on the canal swing bridge in Church Street.
We begin on the 4th with news in the St Helens Reporter's Tuesday edition that the council were considering buying property in Elizabeth Street in Sutton to serve as a maternity centre. This was part of their plans to improve the health of the borough.
The paper also reported that the identity of the skeleton that had recently been found in a disused quarry on Eccleston Hill was now known. The remains were of soldier George Tisdall from Oldham who almost eighteen months earlier had returned to the military camp at Knowsley Park after a period of leave.
Tisdall went to post some letters but was never heard of again until some boys found his remains. They were so scared by what they'd seen that they immediately ran home and alerted the police. Although George's family now had the comfort of being able to bury his remains, they would never know how or why he came to die.
On the 5th there was a sequel to a court case from November in which Martin Towey from Newton Road had been fined £3 for "the pleasure of having shied a brick at the head of John Crohan", as the St Helens Reporter put it. The latter had moved from Towey's mother-in-law's house to new "diggings" in Glover Street and then returned to collect his possessions.
However the family of his former landlady refused to let Crohan take his accordion and a row developed that ended with the man receiving serious head injuries. The dispute now moved to the County Court in which John Crohan sought damages from Martin Towey for lost wages, as well as compensation for his pain and suffering.
He did well with Judge Shand awarding the man £16 10 shillings, the equivalent of over £1,000 in today's money. The Reporter's headline to the article was "Expensive Brick Throwing – £8 Per Shy".
A woman called Mary Westwell from Highfield Place in Prescot appeared in the St Helens Police Court on the 6th charged with drunkenness and assault. Special Constable Rathbone told the magistrates that at ten minutes past nine during the previous evening he had heard a great noise while on duty in Shaw Street.
Upon arriving at the disturbance he found a crowd congregated around the defendant who was shouting and using filthy language. He arrested Westwell for being drunk and while taking her to the station she "struggled hard to get away and began to throw money about."
Another witness was a young woman called Florence Dearden who told the court that at quarter to nine she had been walking in Ormskirk Street. She heard bad language being used behind her and turned around to see what was happening.
The woman Florence now knew as Westwell shouted: "You little hussy, what are you looking at?" and then gave her a "thump on the nose". Mary Westwell had a number of similar convictions and the Chief Constable described her as a "bad bargain". She was fined a total of forty shillings.
Also in court was labourer Michael Kiernan from Boundary Road who was charged with an aggravated assault on his wife – who appeared before the magistrates with a large bandage wrapped round her head. Elizabeth Kiernan told the Bench that after returning home from shopping her husband started cursing her and then struck her three times with a poker on her left arm.
She said she then took a couple of ornaments off the sideboard and smashed them on the floor, which led to her husband hitting her on the head with the poker. However Michael Kiernan claimed that it had been his wife who had been trying to hit him and as he wrested the poker from her grasp, it accidentally caught her.
A likely story you are probably thinking! But there is more to this tale than meets the eye. Inspector Anders took the stand and said the man was a "decent sort of fellow" but his wife had a violent temper.
Kiernan told the court that Elizabeth had a habit of becoming violent when drunk. She had been placed in Rainhill Asylum about five times and many times in the mental receiving ward at Whiston. The Chief Constable – who acted as prosecutor – said he could substantially support what the defendant had said and so the magistrates dismissed the case.
However Elizabeth Kiernan did not see the Bench come to this decision as she had been ordered out of court after making repeated interruptions. She also did not hear her husband asking the Chief Constable for police protection from his wife. "I will see you downstairs", was the reply Michael Kiernan received.
There was little sympathy for unmarried mothers with illegitimate children, no matter what the circumstances were. On the 7th Mary Jackson summoned a Blackpool soldier called James Hillstern to make maintenance payments for their illegitimate child.
St Helens Police Court was told that Mary was a widow with four children when the couple first met. This prompted Joseph Else on the Bench to say: "I think she ought to have had more sense". The magistrates awarded Mary 7/6 a week, although the clerk to the court pointed out (for reasons that weren't explained) that while the man was in the army the woman would only receive 3/6.
Also in court was Mary Winstanley from Warrington Road in Bold Heath who was making her 24th appearance. These had all been for minor breaches of the laws, often connected with her horse and cart. Vehicles whether powered by motor or by horse were required to have two front lamps and keep them continuously lit at night.
When stopped by the police in Peasley Cross Lane, Mary was found to be using a candle in a glass jar – about as rudimentary a light as could be imagined. One whiff of wind, of course, and it would go out.
In her last court appearance a constable had described Mary as a "complete nuisance on the road" but this time she was hitting back, saying: "I don't know what to do, they have me if I stop to light my lamp. I travel through Earlestown and I am never pulled up anywhere, only here." A fine of ten shillings was imposed to which Mary said she could not pay and would have to "go down" instead.
Two days earlier the council had elected to borrow the considerable sum of £45,000 to buy the land, which led the Newspaper to comment: "Their purchase, when accomplished, will make one of the most charming areas in the town the site for a model endeavour at providing a modern garden city, a little Port Sunlight or Bourneville within our town's geographical limits.
"Though many of those weary folks who are waiting for a house wherein to establish the home-nest, in a home “fit for heroes to live in”, may feel a little doubtful about the realisation of these rosy dreams, it may be taken for granted that the people of the town would never tolerate the expenditure of such a big sum of money unless they were sure that it would be used in a way that would be a credit to the town."
This was something new to St Helens. It wasn't just a really extensive housing estate of over 1,000 properties but these were to become the first council homes. Previously houses had been built in dribs and drabs by landlords and by some employers, who wanted to provide accommodation for their workers.
But this was on a different scale intended to help solve the housing crisis in the town. Windlehurst would become the first council estate, with one in Parr in 1926 being the second.
During the war the Ministry of Munitions (run for 18 months by Winston Churchill) had responsibility for getting as many weapons and military equipment made as possible. Now the war was over they had become second-hand salesmen flogging off all sorts of unwanted paraphernalia.
Like many other munitions factories in St Helens, Sutton Bond was now closing down and large numbers of individuals were losing their jobs. At Christmas time the Reporter had revealed that 2,000 people in the town had so far "signed for the unemployment donation" since the signing of the armistice, with many more job losses since.
Many of those that were now out of work were women. On the 7th the Reporter described how six former munitions workers had been offered work in Kirkby Stephen as housemaids. However the women had refused to accept the job offers as they considered the wages on offer to be inadequate.
This was not surprising, as those employed in the various munitions works had been well paid, whereas those in domestic service were poorly paid. The response of the Ministry of Labour had been to cancel their unemployment benefits and the women were now submitting appeals against the decision.
Next week's stories will include the police raid against Church Street "obstructionists", the "deplorable" number of women that were going to the pub, a police union dispute in which four sergeants were disciplined, a dangerous dog in Parr, a Sutton divorce petition and the Clock Face bus gets stuck on the canal swing bridge in Church Street.