IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (6 - 12 NOVEMBER 1923)
This week's many stories include the men sent to prison for sleeping in a brick kiln, a wholesale St Helens shop-breaker is brought to book, there's criticism of the train service between St Helens and Liverpool, the film dubbed the greatest ever comedy is shown at the Hippodrome and the Gerards Bridge man given 27 years to pay off his debt to his separated wife.
'Lady Assistant-Woman Officer of Health for St Helens' is a fair old job title to get your tongue around. But that is how the Liverpool Echo described the position on the 7th when they stated that Dr Eileen Dowling was one of the candidates for the job. She was the daughter of Dr Arthur Dowling, the Medical Officer of Health for Haydock.
On the 8th John Burke was sentenced to 9 months in prison at Liverpool Assizes after pleading guilty to four charges of housebreaking and asking for fourteen other cases to be taken into consideration. They were actually shop-breaking cases at various St Helens premises, including Corrins' pawnbrokers in Duke Street. John Burke had literally gone on the run when police went to his home in Sidney Street (off Rivington Road). Despite being pursued on foot by Detective Arthur Cust – who was considered one of the best sprinters in the force – the 20-year-old managed to shoot off towards Dentons Green and was not seen again for some months until arrested in Winchester.
The total value of the stolen property was £180, of which the police had recovered £101 worth. Burke has previously been sent to Borstal for breaking into schools and homes in St Helens and he told the judge: "After I came out of Borstal, I was sent back to St. Helens against my will, and some would-be shop-breakers came round and asked me to go on a shopbreaking expedition." Upon being sentenced Judge Salter told the now 21-year-old Burke: "You have had your chance. Unless you reform after this I see a sad future for you."
There were a number of music hall acts that visited St Helens that incorporated madness into their name. The Ten Loonies was one of these and the Echo on the 9th reported how the Mad Musician was another. In reality he was John Guy from Leigh and he and his band had been playing at the St Helens Hippodrome.
On the 9th Guy was summoned to appear in St Helens Police Court charged with not paying for health and unemployment stamps in respect of three members of his backing band. As he was currently performing in Scotland, Guy did not appear in court but had a solicitor to represent him and he was fined £6 and expenses. The St Helens Reporter in their account said his theatrical name was "Guy The Mad Conductor and his Famous Band".
The Echo reported on the 9th how a guard on the morning mail train at Huyton station had waved his green flag to start the train – but the driver had steamed off without giving the guard chance to board. That for me generates mental images of the guard running along the track shouting: "Wait for me!!!" And that seems to have been exactly what occurred. It was not until the train reached Prescot 2½ miles away that the driver realised what had happened and stopped his engine to wait for the, no doubt, panting guard to catch up. The train subsequently arrived at St Helens rather late, leading to a considerably delay in postal deliveries.
The incident was told as part of an article describing the poor St Helens railway service in which trains to and from Liverpool "very frequently" were said to take over an hour to make the 11-mile trip. The Echo quoted two examples from earlier in the week when the 6:13 pm train from St Helens arrived at Lime Street at 7:26 pm, taking seven minutes to travel each mile. And then passengers returning by the 10:40pm train from Lime Street arrived at St. Helens a few minutes before midnight.
No explanation was offered as to why the trains took so long but the article concluded with the words: "The [St Helens] Corporation have long since, apparently, given up as hopeless the idea of securing better train facilities for their 103,000 people." The train company later strongly repudiated the charges of a constantly late service.
St Helens Council met on the 9th and elected Ald. Peter Phythian for a second term as mayor. Ald. Henry Bates said no man could have done more on behalf of residents "of all classes", adding that the mayoress had endeared herself to the whole population. Peter Phythian, J.P., kept a tobacconist's shop in Westfield Street and was the town's first Labour mayor. His brother John was also an alderman on the council – but represented the Conservative party.
The Theatre Royal & Opera House was the official name of the Corporation Street venue and opera companies often performed there. On the 12th the D’oyly Carte Opera Company returned to St Helens for a week to present Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas. Different ones were performed each evening, including The Mikado, Iolanthe, The Gondoliers and HMS Pinafore.
Meanwhile the Hippodrome – further down Corporation Street – was showing Harold Lloyd's comedy film 'Safety Last'. It includes one of the most famous sequences of the silent film era, with Lloyd dangling from the outside of a skyscraper by holding on to the hands of a large clock. The theatre was moving away from music hall and heavily plugged the picture in the Reporter, saying:
"If you miss seeing this film you'll miss seeing the greatest comedy that has ever been produced, and you'll regret it ever afterwards. In climbing the side of a 12-storey building to make “Safety Last,” Harold Lloyd risked his life to give you a laugh and a thrill. Popular Prices of Admission."
When James Byrne of Oldfield Street was charged in St Helens Police Court with being drunk and disorderly he said: "I can prove that the constable’s statement is wrong because I never cursed in my life. Everyone knows that." He expected the magistrates to take his word that he had never sworn over the testimony of a policeman who provided two quotes for the Bench to consider.
One was "Get out of my _________ house" and the other was, "Where is that ________ policeman; I will kill him." The expletives were deleted by the Reporter in their account, which described how James Byrne's wife had summoned PC Taylor to her Oldfield Street home because of her husband's drunken behaviour. Surprisingly he was only fined 5 shillings.
In the past a husband defaulting on his court-ordered maintenance payments to his separated wife was given one or two chances to redeem himself and then sent to prison if he still wouldn't cough up. But that did not help the wife, as inside jail the husband could not be earning wages to pay her what he owed. By the 1920s the magistrates were almost bending over backwards to accommodate such defaulters.
It was not only a more pragmatic approach but also the levels of unemployment and short-time working in St Helens meant husbands were not always genuinely able to work to pay off their debt. This week the wife of Joseph Shiels of Victoria Street in Gerards Bridge summoned her spouse to St Helens Police Court after he had amassed over £140 of missed payments on his maintenance order.
The case had been before the court on three previous occasions. At the last hearing his order had been dropped from 25 to 15 shillings a week to comply with the man's reduced circumstances. Shiels now declared that he was earning an average of £2 5s 6d a week, along with occasional overtime payments.
Not always being able to count on her husband's maintenance had led to his wife taking a job and she was earning 20 shillings a week. That led to Shiels claiming that his wife's wages were enough for both her and their child to live on and the 15 shillings a week that she was currently receiving from him as maintenance was "all profit" for her.
That was a ridiculous claim to make with most men in full-time work earning at least £3 per week. Shiels's statement received short shrift from the Bench, with its Chairman saying it was to his wife's credit that she worked to support her child. But he did allow the man to pay off his huge £140 debt to his wife at just 2 shillings a week, giving Shiels 17 shillings a week in total to now find.
That was only about a third of his wages and as the St Helens Reporter pointed out it meant it would take 27 years for the debt to be repaid. Although the magistrates were being very generous, they did threaten the big stick as well. Shiels was warned that if he failed to make the payments, he would be sent to prison for two months.
Although justice in the 1920s was getting more sympathetic and pragmatic, some classes of offender were still treated harshly. This week William Owen was sent to prison for simply sleeping in a brick kiln in Sutton Road. When interrupted from his slumbers by a policeman and asked for an explanation, he said: "Where else could I go?"
Owen said he had been too late to obtain a bed in a lodging house and had to sleep wherever he could. This had been his 12th conviction this year and he was sentenced to 8 days in prison. Such kilns were warm places and popular with the homeless. Robert Dudley was also sent to prison for a fortnight on a charge of wandering abroad.
That was after being found sleeping in a brick kiln belonging to the Metallic Brick Company in Sutton. When woken by PC Tinsley, Mr Dudley had said: "I might as well get pinched, it makes no difference." In 1970 Alan Whalley profiled a Robert Dudley in the St Helens Reporter who was then living all winter with other homeless men in an old kiln. Mr Dudley was known as "Black Bob" and in his seventies and so it sounds like he was the same person.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include a boy's death in the Kimmicks, the sale of Scholes Hall, the pickpocket commotion at the City Road ground and the undercover policemen at the Gamble that nabbed a sweets thief.
'Lady Assistant-Woman Officer of Health for St Helens' is a fair old job title to get your tongue around. But that is how the Liverpool Echo described the position on the 7th when they stated that Dr Eileen Dowling was one of the candidates for the job. She was the daughter of Dr Arthur Dowling, the Medical Officer of Health for Haydock.
On the 8th John Burke was sentenced to 9 months in prison at Liverpool Assizes after pleading guilty to four charges of housebreaking and asking for fourteen other cases to be taken into consideration. They were actually shop-breaking cases at various St Helens premises, including Corrins' pawnbrokers in Duke Street. John Burke had literally gone on the run when police went to his home in Sidney Street (off Rivington Road). Despite being pursued on foot by Detective Arthur Cust – who was considered one of the best sprinters in the force – the 20-year-old managed to shoot off towards Dentons Green and was not seen again for some months until arrested in Winchester.
The total value of the stolen property was £180, of which the police had recovered £101 worth. Burke has previously been sent to Borstal for breaking into schools and homes in St Helens and he told the judge: "After I came out of Borstal, I was sent back to St. Helens against my will, and some would-be shop-breakers came round and asked me to go on a shopbreaking expedition." Upon being sentenced Judge Salter told the now 21-year-old Burke: "You have had your chance. Unless you reform after this I see a sad future for you."
There were a number of music hall acts that visited St Helens that incorporated madness into their name. The Ten Loonies was one of these and the Echo on the 9th reported how the Mad Musician was another. In reality he was John Guy from Leigh and he and his band had been playing at the St Helens Hippodrome.
On the 9th Guy was summoned to appear in St Helens Police Court charged with not paying for health and unemployment stamps in respect of three members of his backing band. As he was currently performing in Scotland, Guy did not appear in court but had a solicitor to represent him and he was fined £6 and expenses. The St Helens Reporter in their account said his theatrical name was "Guy The Mad Conductor and his Famous Band".
The Echo reported on the 9th how a guard on the morning mail train at Huyton station had waved his green flag to start the train – but the driver had steamed off without giving the guard chance to board. That for me generates mental images of the guard running along the track shouting: "Wait for me!!!" And that seems to have been exactly what occurred. It was not until the train reached Prescot 2½ miles away that the driver realised what had happened and stopped his engine to wait for the, no doubt, panting guard to catch up. The train subsequently arrived at St Helens rather late, leading to a considerably delay in postal deliveries.
The incident was told as part of an article describing the poor St Helens railway service in which trains to and from Liverpool "very frequently" were said to take over an hour to make the 11-mile trip. The Echo quoted two examples from earlier in the week when the 6:13 pm train from St Helens arrived at Lime Street at 7:26 pm, taking seven minutes to travel each mile. And then passengers returning by the 10:40pm train from Lime Street arrived at St. Helens a few minutes before midnight.
No explanation was offered as to why the trains took so long but the article concluded with the words: "The [St Helens] Corporation have long since, apparently, given up as hopeless the idea of securing better train facilities for their 103,000 people." The train company later strongly repudiated the charges of a constantly late service.
St Helens Council met on the 9th and elected Ald. Peter Phythian for a second term as mayor. Ald. Henry Bates said no man could have done more on behalf of residents "of all classes", adding that the mayoress had endeared herself to the whole population. Peter Phythian, J.P., kept a tobacconist's shop in Westfield Street and was the town's first Labour mayor. His brother John was also an alderman on the council – but represented the Conservative party.
The Theatre Royal & Opera House was the official name of the Corporation Street venue and opera companies often performed there. On the 12th the D’oyly Carte Opera Company returned to St Helens for a week to present Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas. Different ones were performed each evening, including The Mikado, Iolanthe, The Gondoliers and HMS Pinafore.
"If you miss seeing this film you'll miss seeing the greatest comedy that has ever been produced, and you'll regret it ever afterwards. In climbing the side of a 12-storey building to make “Safety Last,” Harold Lloyd risked his life to give you a laugh and a thrill. Popular Prices of Admission."
When James Byrne of Oldfield Street was charged in St Helens Police Court with being drunk and disorderly he said: "I can prove that the constable’s statement is wrong because I never cursed in my life. Everyone knows that." He expected the magistrates to take his word that he had never sworn over the testimony of a policeman who provided two quotes for the Bench to consider.
One was "Get out of my _________ house" and the other was, "Where is that ________ policeman; I will kill him." The expletives were deleted by the Reporter in their account, which described how James Byrne's wife had summoned PC Taylor to her Oldfield Street home because of her husband's drunken behaviour. Surprisingly he was only fined 5 shillings.
In the past a husband defaulting on his court-ordered maintenance payments to his separated wife was given one or two chances to redeem himself and then sent to prison if he still wouldn't cough up. But that did not help the wife, as inside jail the husband could not be earning wages to pay her what he owed. By the 1920s the magistrates were almost bending over backwards to accommodate such defaulters.
It was not only a more pragmatic approach but also the levels of unemployment and short-time working in St Helens meant husbands were not always genuinely able to work to pay off their debt. This week the wife of Joseph Shiels of Victoria Street in Gerards Bridge summoned her spouse to St Helens Police Court after he had amassed over £140 of missed payments on his maintenance order.
The case had been before the court on three previous occasions. At the last hearing his order had been dropped from 25 to 15 shillings a week to comply with the man's reduced circumstances. Shiels now declared that he was earning an average of £2 5s 6d a week, along with occasional overtime payments.
Not always being able to count on her husband's maintenance had led to his wife taking a job and she was earning 20 shillings a week. That led to Shiels claiming that his wife's wages were enough for both her and their child to live on and the 15 shillings a week that she was currently receiving from him as maintenance was "all profit" for her.
That was a ridiculous claim to make with most men in full-time work earning at least £3 per week. Shiels's statement received short shrift from the Bench, with its Chairman saying it was to his wife's credit that she worked to support her child. But he did allow the man to pay off his huge £140 debt to his wife at just 2 shillings a week, giving Shiels 17 shillings a week in total to now find.
That was only about a third of his wages and as the St Helens Reporter pointed out it meant it would take 27 years for the debt to be repaid. Although the magistrates were being very generous, they did threaten the big stick as well. Shiels was warned that if he failed to make the payments, he would be sent to prison for two months.
Although justice in the 1920s was getting more sympathetic and pragmatic, some classes of offender were still treated harshly. This week William Owen was sent to prison for simply sleeping in a brick kiln in Sutton Road. When interrupted from his slumbers by a policeman and asked for an explanation, he said: "Where else could I go?"
Owen said he had been too late to obtain a bed in a lodging house and had to sleep wherever he could. This had been his 12th conviction this year and he was sentenced to 8 days in prison. Such kilns were warm places and popular with the homeless. Robert Dudley was also sent to prison for a fortnight on a charge of wandering abroad.
That was after being found sleeping in a brick kiln belonging to the Metallic Brick Company in Sutton. When woken by PC Tinsley, Mr Dudley had said: "I might as well get pinched, it makes no difference." In 1970 Alan Whalley profiled a Robert Dudley in the St Helens Reporter who was then living all winter with other homeless men in an old kiln. Mr Dudley was known as "Black Bob" and in his seventies and so it sounds like he was the same person.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include a boy's death in the Kimmicks, the sale of Scholes Hall, the pickpocket commotion at the City Road ground and the undercover policemen at the Gamble that nabbed a sweets thief.
This week's many stories include the men sent to prison for sleeping in a brick kiln, a wholesale St Helens shop-breaker is brought to book, there's criticism of the train service between St Helens and Liverpool, the film dubbed the greatest ever comedy is shown at the Hippodrome and the Gerards Bridge man given 27 years to pay off his debt to his separated wife.
'Lady Assistant-Woman Officer of Health for St Helens' is a fair old job title to get your tongue around.
But that is how the Liverpool Echo described the position on the 7th when they stated that Dr Eileen Dowling was one of the candidates for the job.
She was the daughter of Dr Arthur Dowling, the Medical Officer of Health for Haydock.
On the 8th John Burke was sentenced to 9 months in prison at Liverpool Assizes after pleading guilty to four charges of housebreaking and asking for fourteen other cases to be taken into consideration.
They were actually shop-breaking cases at various St Helens premises, including Corrins' pawnbrokers in Duke Street.
John Burke had literally gone on the run when police went to his home in Sidney Street (off Rivington Road).
Despite being pursued on foot by Detective Arthur Cust – who was considered one of the best sprinters in the force – the 20-year-old managed to shoot off towards Dentons Green and was not seen again for some months until arrested in Winchester.
The total value of the stolen property was £180, of which the police had recovered £101 worth.
Burke has previously been sent to Borstal for breaking into schools and homes in St Helens and he told the judge:
"After I came out of Borstal, I was sent back to St. Helens against my will, and some would-be shop-breakers came round and asked me to go on a shopbreaking expedition."
Upon being sentenced Judge Salter told the now 21-year-old Burke: "You have had your chance. Unless you reform after this I see a sad future for you."
There were a number of music hall acts that visited St Helens that incorporated madness into their name.
The Ten Loonies was one of these and the Echo on the 9th reported how the Mad Musician was another.
In reality he was John Guy from Leigh and he and his band had been playing at the St Helens Hippodrome.
On the 9th Guy was summoned to appear in St Helens Police Court charged with not paying for health and unemployment stamps in respect of three members of his backing band.
As he was currently performing in Scotland, Guy did not appear in court but had a solicitor to represent him and he was fined £6 and expenses.
The St Helens Reporter in their account said his theatrical name was "Guy The Mad Conductor and his Famous Band".
The Echo reported on the 9th how a guard on the morning mail train at Huyton station had waved his green flag to start the train – but the driver had steamed off without giving the guard chance to board.
That for me generates mental images of the guard running along the track shouting: "Wait for me!!!" And that seems to have been exactly what occurred.
It was not until the train reached Prescot 2½ miles away that the driver realised what had happened and stopped his engine to wait for the, no doubt, panting guard to catch up.
The train subsequently arrived at St Helens rather late, leading to a considerably delay in postal deliveries.
The incident was told as part of an article describing the poor St Helens railway service in which trains to and from Liverpool "very frequently" were said to take over an hour to make the 11-mile trip.
The Echo quoted two examples from earlier in the week when the 6:13 pm train from St Helens arrived at Lime Street at 7:26 pm, taking seven minutes to travel each mile.
And then passengers returning by the 10:40pm train from Lime Street arrived at St. Helens a few minutes before midnight.
No explanation was offered as to why the trains took so long but the article concluded with the words:
"The [St Helens] Corporation have long since, apparently, given up as hopeless the idea of securing better train facilities for their 103,000 people."
The train company later strongly repudiated the charges of a constantly late service.
St Helens Council met on the 9th and elected Ald. Peter Phythian for a second term as mayor.
Ald. Henry Bates said no man could have done more on behalf of residents "of all classes", adding that the mayoress had endeared herself to the whole population.
Peter Phythian, J.P., kept a tobacconist's shop in Westfield Street and was the town's first Labour mayor.
His brother John was also an alderman on the council – but represented the Conservative party.
The Theatre Royal & Opera House was the official name of the Corporation Street venue and opera companies often performed there.
On the 12th the D’oyly Carte Opera Company returned to St Helens for a week to present Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas.
Different ones were performed each evening, including The Mikado, Iolanthe, The Gondoliers and HMS Pinafore.
Meanwhile the Hippodrome – further down Corporation Street – was showing Harold Lloyd's comedy film 'Safety Last'.
It includes one of the most famous sequences of the silent film era, with Lloyd dangling from the outside of a skyscraper by holding on to the hands of a large clock.
The theatre was moving away from music hall and heavily plugged the picture in the Reporter, saying:
"If you miss seeing this film you'll miss seeing the greatest comedy that has ever been produced, and you'll regret it ever afterwards.
"In climbing the side of a 12-storey building to make “Safety Last,” Harold Lloyd risked his life to give you a laugh and a thrill. Popular Prices of Admission."
When James Byrne of Oldfield Street was charged in St Helens Police Court with being drunk and disorderly he said:
"I can prove that the constable’s statement is wrong because I never cursed in my life. Everyone knows that."
He expected the magistrates to take his word that he had never sworn over the testimony of a policeman who provided two quotes for the Bench to consider.
One was "Get out of my _________ house" and the other was, "Where is that ________ policeman; I will kill him."
The expletives were deleted by the Reporter in their account, which described how James Byrne's wife had summoned PC Taylor to her Oldfield Street home because of her husband's drunken behaviour. Surprisingly he was only fined 5 shillings.
In the past a husband defaulting on his court-ordered maintenance payments to his separated wife was given one or two chances to redeem himself and then sent to prison if he still wouldn't cough up.
But that did not help the wife, as inside jail the husband could not be earning wages to pay her what he owed.
By the 1920s the magistrates were almost bending over backwards to accommodate such defaulters.
It was not only a more pragmatic approach but also the levels of unemployment and short-time working in St Helens meant husbands were not always genuinely able to work to pay off their debt.
This week the wife of Joseph Shiels of Victoria Street in Gerards Bridge summoned her spouse to St Helens Police Court after he had amassed over £140 of missed payments on his maintenance order.
The case had been before the court on three previous occasions. At the last hearing his order had been dropped from 25 to 15 shillings a week to comply with the man's reduced circumstances.
Shiels now declared that he was earning an average of £2 5s 6d a week, along with occasional overtime payments.
Not always being able to count on her husband's maintenance had led to his wife taking a job and she was earning 20 shillings a week.
That led to Shiels claiming that his wife's wages were enough for both her and their child to live on and the 15 shillings a week that she was currently receiving from him as maintenance was "all profit" for her.
That was a ridiculous claim to make with most men in full-time work earning at least £3 per week.
Shiels's statement received short shrift from the Bench, with its Chairman saying it was to his wife's credit that she worked to support her child.
But he did allow the man to pay off his huge £140 debt to his wife at just 2 shillings a week, giving Shiels 17 shillings a week in total to now find.
That was only about a third of his wages and as the St Helens Reporter pointed out it meant it would take 27 years for the debt to be repaid.
Although the magistrates were being very generous, they did threaten the big stick as well.
Shiels was warned that if he failed to make the payments, he would be sent to prison for two months.
Although justice in the 1920s was getting more sympathetic and pragmatic, some classes of offender were still treated harshly.
This week William Owen was sent to prison for simply sleeping in a brick kiln in Sutton Road.
When interrupted from his slumbers by a policeman and asked for an explanation, he said: "Where else could I go?"
Owen said he had been too late to obtain a bed in a lodging house and had to sleep wherever he could. This had been his 12th conviction this year and he was sentenced to 8 days in prison.
Such kilns were warm places and popular with the homeless. Robert Dudley was also sent to prison for a fortnight on a charge of wandering abroad.
That was after being found sleeping in a brick kiln belonging to the Metallic Brick Company in Sutton. When woken by PC Tinsley, Mr Dudley had said: "I might as well get pinched, it makes no difference."
In 1970 Alan Whalley profiled a Robert Dudley in the St Helens Reporter who was then living all winter with other homeless men in an old kiln.
Mr Dudley was known as "Black Bob" and in his seventies and so it sounds like he was the same person.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include a boy's death in the Kimmicks, the sale of Scholes Hall, the pickpocket commotion at the City Road ground and the undercover policemen at the Gamble that nabbed a sweets thief.
'Lady Assistant-Woman Officer of Health for St Helens' is a fair old job title to get your tongue around.
But that is how the Liverpool Echo described the position on the 7th when they stated that Dr Eileen Dowling was one of the candidates for the job.
She was the daughter of Dr Arthur Dowling, the Medical Officer of Health for Haydock.
On the 8th John Burke was sentenced to 9 months in prison at Liverpool Assizes after pleading guilty to four charges of housebreaking and asking for fourteen other cases to be taken into consideration.
They were actually shop-breaking cases at various St Helens premises, including Corrins' pawnbrokers in Duke Street.
John Burke had literally gone on the run when police went to his home in Sidney Street (off Rivington Road).
Despite being pursued on foot by Detective Arthur Cust – who was considered one of the best sprinters in the force – the 20-year-old managed to shoot off towards Dentons Green and was not seen again for some months until arrested in Winchester.
The total value of the stolen property was £180, of which the police had recovered £101 worth.
Burke has previously been sent to Borstal for breaking into schools and homes in St Helens and he told the judge:
"After I came out of Borstal, I was sent back to St. Helens against my will, and some would-be shop-breakers came round and asked me to go on a shopbreaking expedition."
Upon being sentenced Judge Salter told the now 21-year-old Burke: "You have had your chance. Unless you reform after this I see a sad future for you."
There were a number of music hall acts that visited St Helens that incorporated madness into their name.
The Ten Loonies was one of these and the Echo on the 9th reported how the Mad Musician was another.
In reality he was John Guy from Leigh and he and his band had been playing at the St Helens Hippodrome.
On the 9th Guy was summoned to appear in St Helens Police Court charged with not paying for health and unemployment stamps in respect of three members of his backing band.
As he was currently performing in Scotland, Guy did not appear in court but had a solicitor to represent him and he was fined £6 and expenses.
The St Helens Reporter in their account said his theatrical name was "Guy The Mad Conductor and his Famous Band".
The Echo reported on the 9th how a guard on the morning mail train at Huyton station had waved his green flag to start the train – but the driver had steamed off without giving the guard chance to board.
That for me generates mental images of the guard running along the track shouting: "Wait for me!!!" And that seems to have been exactly what occurred.
It was not until the train reached Prescot 2½ miles away that the driver realised what had happened and stopped his engine to wait for the, no doubt, panting guard to catch up.
The train subsequently arrived at St Helens rather late, leading to a considerably delay in postal deliveries.
The incident was told as part of an article describing the poor St Helens railway service in which trains to and from Liverpool "very frequently" were said to take over an hour to make the 11-mile trip.
The Echo quoted two examples from earlier in the week when the 6:13 pm train from St Helens arrived at Lime Street at 7:26 pm, taking seven minutes to travel each mile.
And then passengers returning by the 10:40pm train from Lime Street arrived at St. Helens a few minutes before midnight.
No explanation was offered as to why the trains took so long but the article concluded with the words:
"The [St Helens] Corporation have long since, apparently, given up as hopeless the idea of securing better train facilities for their 103,000 people."
The train company later strongly repudiated the charges of a constantly late service.
St Helens Council met on the 9th and elected Ald. Peter Phythian for a second term as mayor.
Ald. Henry Bates said no man could have done more on behalf of residents "of all classes", adding that the mayoress had endeared herself to the whole population.
Peter Phythian, J.P., kept a tobacconist's shop in Westfield Street and was the town's first Labour mayor.
His brother John was also an alderman on the council – but represented the Conservative party.
The Theatre Royal & Opera House was the official name of the Corporation Street venue and opera companies often performed there.
On the 12th the D’oyly Carte Opera Company returned to St Helens for a week to present Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas.
Different ones were performed each evening, including The Mikado, Iolanthe, The Gondoliers and HMS Pinafore.
It includes one of the most famous sequences of the silent film era, with Lloyd dangling from the outside of a skyscraper by holding on to the hands of a large clock.
The theatre was moving away from music hall and heavily plugged the picture in the Reporter, saying:
"If you miss seeing this film you'll miss seeing the greatest comedy that has ever been produced, and you'll regret it ever afterwards.
"In climbing the side of a 12-storey building to make “Safety Last,” Harold Lloyd risked his life to give you a laugh and a thrill. Popular Prices of Admission."
When James Byrne of Oldfield Street was charged in St Helens Police Court with being drunk and disorderly he said:
"I can prove that the constable’s statement is wrong because I never cursed in my life. Everyone knows that."
He expected the magistrates to take his word that he had never sworn over the testimony of a policeman who provided two quotes for the Bench to consider.
One was "Get out of my _________ house" and the other was, "Where is that ________ policeman; I will kill him."
The expletives were deleted by the Reporter in their account, which described how James Byrne's wife had summoned PC Taylor to her Oldfield Street home because of her husband's drunken behaviour. Surprisingly he was only fined 5 shillings.
In the past a husband defaulting on his court-ordered maintenance payments to his separated wife was given one or two chances to redeem himself and then sent to prison if he still wouldn't cough up.
But that did not help the wife, as inside jail the husband could not be earning wages to pay her what he owed.
By the 1920s the magistrates were almost bending over backwards to accommodate such defaulters.
It was not only a more pragmatic approach but also the levels of unemployment and short-time working in St Helens meant husbands were not always genuinely able to work to pay off their debt.
This week the wife of Joseph Shiels of Victoria Street in Gerards Bridge summoned her spouse to St Helens Police Court after he had amassed over £140 of missed payments on his maintenance order.
The case had been before the court on three previous occasions. At the last hearing his order had been dropped from 25 to 15 shillings a week to comply with the man's reduced circumstances.
Shiels now declared that he was earning an average of £2 5s 6d a week, along with occasional overtime payments.
Not always being able to count on her husband's maintenance had led to his wife taking a job and she was earning 20 shillings a week.
That led to Shiels claiming that his wife's wages were enough for both her and their child to live on and the 15 shillings a week that she was currently receiving from him as maintenance was "all profit" for her.
That was a ridiculous claim to make with most men in full-time work earning at least £3 per week.
Shiels's statement received short shrift from the Bench, with its Chairman saying it was to his wife's credit that she worked to support her child.
But he did allow the man to pay off his huge £140 debt to his wife at just 2 shillings a week, giving Shiels 17 shillings a week in total to now find.
That was only about a third of his wages and as the St Helens Reporter pointed out it meant it would take 27 years for the debt to be repaid.
Although the magistrates were being very generous, they did threaten the big stick as well.
Shiels was warned that if he failed to make the payments, he would be sent to prison for two months.
Although justice in the 1920s was getting more sympathetic and pragmatic, some classes of offender were still treated harshly.
This week William Owen was sent to prison for simply sleeping in a brick kiln in Sutton Road.
When interrupted from his slumbers by a policeman and asked for an explanation, he said: "Where else could I go?"
Owen said he had been too late to obtain a bed in a lodging house and had to sleep wherever he could. This had been his 12th conviction this year and he was sentenced to 8 days in prison.
Such kilns were warm places and popular with the homeless. Robert Dudley was also sent to prison for a fortnight on a charge of wandering abroad.
That was after being found sleeping in a brick kiln belonging to the Metallic Brick Company in Sutton. When woken by PC Tinsley, Mr Dudley had said: "I might as well get pinched, it makes no difference."
In 1970 Alan Whalley profiled a Robert Dudley in the St Helens Reporter who was then living all winter with other homeless men in an old kiln.
Mr Dudley was known as "Black Bob" and in his seventies and so it sounds like he was the same person.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include a boy's death in the Kimmicks, the sale of Scholes Hall, the pickpocket commotion at the City Road ground and the undercover policemen at the Gamble that nabbed a sweets thief.