IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (7th - 13th JUNE 1921)
This week's stories include the Knowsley policeman fired at by IRA wire-cutting desperadoes, a coroner's concern over the rising death toll on the roads, six drinkers cause a Parr club concern over losing its licence, the annual Prescot Show is held and the St Helens bigamy case returns to court.
It does seem a little strange to me that while a deadly war was taking place in Ireland – with daily reports of IRA / Sinn Fein gun battles with the police – that the tactics of the extremists on the mainland were largely to cause inconvenience. Last week I reported how telephone and telegraph wires had been cut around Liverpool, Knowsley and Collins Green in a series of coordinated actions to interfere with communications. That was a new tactic and late on the evening of the 7th, there were more "wire-cutting outrages", as described by the Liverpool Echo.
Just over 200 wires were cut this time, including at a place in between Carr Mill and Garswood, as well at other locations around Liverpool and the Wirral. As in the previous incidents, the wires were repaired within hours; so little more than annoyance was caused to those not being able to make trunk calls or send telegrams. However the men involved in the wire cutting carried revolvers and were not afraid to use them if challenged. One police officer was riding his bike along the road between Knowsley and St Helens and passed three men leaning against a wall.
As he rode on he noticed that some wires had been cut and so went back to where he'd seen the men. One of them drew a revolver and fired several times at the constable. All the shots missed him, although one grazed his face. The officer tackled the three men but they all managed to escape. There was also a brief exchange of gunfire between police and six Irishmen at Wheathill Wood, between Gateacre and Huyton. The Echo called them "desperadoes" as they related how the extremists had got clean away. On the following day twenty more lines were cut in Collins Green as the IRA / Sinn Fein campaign continued in the North West and in London.
On the 8th William Chisnall made his second appearance in St Helens Police Court to face a charge of bigamy. Chisnall had married Sarah Abbott at Haydock in 1912 and the couple had one child. However the couple had soon split up, with magistrates issuing a maintenance order against William in May 1913. In the following year Sarah decided to make a new life for herself and her son in New Zealand. Her husband joined the army and in November 1915, while training in Kent with the 5th South Lancs Regiment, William Chisnall met Alice Down.
After becoming pregnant, the young woman went to talk to the officers in Chisnall's regiment. Alice was told that he had enlisted as a single man and it was suggested that she should "make him" marry her. This appears to have been how Chisnall came to marry his lawful wife Sarah after getting her pregnant first – and his second bigamous marriage followed the same path, with the couple also quickly splitting up. In fact Alice said they had only lived together for six days and shortly after their son was born in March 1916, Chisnall told her that he had a wife and another son in New Zealand.
Upon being arrested by the St Helens police, the 30-year-old labourer said, "I want to clear the matter up" and the magistrates committed Chisnall to the next assizes hearing. He did not have long to wait for his trial as the Liverpool Summer Assizes took place on June 14th in St George's Hall and Chisnall was sentenced to serve nine months in prison. Many bigamous marriages made during the war were now coming to light and of the fourteen criminal cases heard at the assizes, five concerned bigamy.
The annual Prescot Show took place on the 9th at Knowsley Park with 1,300 entries and a record crowd in attendance. It was the 31st annual exhibition run by the Prescot and District Agricultural Society who had Lord Derby as its president and so had no difficulty in finding a venue. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the 17th earl did rather well with his own submissions in the show's horse and cattle sections, earning distinctions from the judges.
At the St Helens annual licensing sessions in February the St Helens Chief Constable had been highly critical of how clubs were being run in the town. These had expanded over the past year and now numbered about 30, of which some, he said, were simply "drinking and gambling dens" that followed few rules. Chief Constable Ellerington added: "The undesirable kind of club had to be cleared away at all costs, and the law should be amended so as to give the justices power to make the strictest investigation into the bona fides of these clubs."
Then a few days later the caretaker of the Discharged Sailors and Soldiers Club in Fisher Street in Sutton was charged with supplying drink during prohibited hours to two men from Robins Lane. So consequently it seems that the management of these clubs were now on their best behaviour being rather fearful of losing their licence. However it didn't follow that their clientele was similarly prepared to behave well.
On the 10th six men appeared in court charged with consuming intoxicating liquors during prohibited hours in the Discharged Sailors and Soldiers Club in Parr. The men had entered the club just after last orders at 10pm and after being refused service, one of them called Samuel Helsby proceeded to draw five pints of beer from a barrel. The solitary barman could not persuade the men to leave and so left the club to get help from its secretary. The police were informed and four days later the men were all arrested and fined 7s 6d in court.
On the 12th the residents of St Helens woke to find there was no mail – as the postal delivery service on the Sabbath had controversially been axed. People had long been used to 7-day-a week-deliveries (even on Christmas Day!) and the Liverpool Echo wrote on the following day:
"The abolition of the Sunday delivery of letters was brought home more or less unpleasantly to the domestic circle yesterday. There are some to whom a Sunday without letters has always seemed to be unthinkable. These people have now lived through such a Sunday, and are probably surprised to find themselves still physically sound to-day.
"Others, whose Sundays were invariably spoiled by a batch of business letters – business brimming over from the week just ended, or splashing ahead of the week to come – found yesterday a day of perfect rest, unless they were of a worrying nature. To-day, however, is the day when the real troubles began. Delayed deliveries, which do not count for much as regards domestic letters, may be and often are of serious consequence in business and there were many delays today."
County Coroner Samuel Brighouse presided over inquests in St Helens for 55 years and since the war had been increasingly concerned about the rising number of road fatalities caused by the increasing use of motor vehicles. On the 13th Brighouse held an inquest on Benjamin Leach, who had been killed on the road between Prescot and St Helens. The 70-year-old retired auctioneer and accountant had been struck down by a motor-lorry belonging to Emery and Partners of Speakman Street in Liverpool.
Benjamin Leach had been the brother of the late Sir Joseph B. Leach, the St Helens estate agent and founder of the annual New Year's Day poor children's breakfasts. The accident had occurred near Benjamin's Eccleston Park home as he attempted to board a tramcar to travel into St Helens. Although it appeared that the lorry had been travelling slowly and that Leach had suddenly stepped out into the road, the Ormskirk-based coroner expressed his great concern over the speed of lorries on the narrow streets:
"I have felt for a long time that there was a great deal of reckless driving by motor-drivers throughout the country. I am continually watching this heavy traffic going through Burscough-street, Ormskirk, at twelve, fourteen, and twenty miles an hour, and there is scarcely room for anybody to get on the footpath. Drivers are boxed up in front of the motor-lorry, and when a trailer is attached anything can happen, and no one on the lorry knows anything about it."
Referring to the possibility of criminal prosecutions of such cases, the coroner Samuel Brighouse (pictured below right) added: "These cases might come before some other court, but if I had to deal with cases of this kind, I am afraid I would be a very prejudiced person, as I feel so strongly about the dangers of this traffic."
And finally the non-St Helens item in the Liverpool Echo that caught my eye this week was an advert for a telephone rates map. Not long ago I described the new calling charges that were coming on stream in Liverpool and wrote that with the phone system being so convoluted and the call rates complex, the new charges needed a lengthy explanation in the Echo. Now a map was on sale allowing telephone subscribers the ability to see "at a glance" what the new charges were. However it was not a printed map of the country – as calling long distance was prohibitively expensive.
Instead the map only showed Liverpool and its surrounding area allowing people to see how much it cost to telephone from one district to another. The map cost 2 shillings and you could even pay 5 bob and have it printed on cloth. And, you could even go one step further and cough up fifteen shillings to have the call rates "mounted on cloth, rollers and varnished" for 15 shillings. What an ideal present!
Next week's stories will include the Sutton doctor's infidelity, the 1921 census is taken in St Helens, another crop coal court case, more reckless driving by motorists and the man who foolishly boasted that he knocked St Helens policemen about like skittles.
It does seem a little strange to me that while a deadly war was taking place in Ireland – with daily reports of IRA / Sinn Fein gun battles with the police – that the tactics of the extremists on the mainland were largely to cause inconvenience. Last week I reported how telephone and telegraph wires had been cut around Liverpool, Knowsley and Collins Green in a series of coordinated actions to interfere with communications. That was a new tactic and late on the evening of the 7th, there were more "wire-cutting outrages", as described by the Liverpool Echo.
Just over 200 wires were cut this time, including at a place in between Carr Mill and Garswood, as well at other locations around Liverpool and the Wirral. As in the previous incidents, the wires were repaired within hours; so little more than annoyance was caused to those not being able to make trunk calls or send telegrams. However the men involved in the wire cutting carried revolvers and were not afraid to use them if challenged. One police officer was riding his bike along the road between Knowsley and St Helens and passed three men leaning against a wall.
As he rode on he noticed that some wires had been cut and so went back to where he'd seen the men. One of them drew a revolver and fired several times at the constable. All the shots missed him, although one grazed his face. The officer tackled the three men but they all managed to escape. There was also a brief exchange of gunfire between police and six Irishmen at Wheathill Wood, between Gateacre and Huyton. The Echo called them "desperadoes" as they related how the extremists had got clean away. On the following day twenty more lines were cut in Collins Green as the IRA / Sinn Fein campaign continued in the North West and in London.
On the 8th William Chisnall made his second appearance in St Helens Police Court to face a charge of bigamy. Chisnall had married Sarah Abbott at Haydock in 1912 and the couple had one child. However the couple had soon split up, with magistrates issuing a maintenance order against William in May 1913. In the following year Sarah decided to make a new life for herself and her son in New Zealand. Her husband joined the army and in November 1915, while training in Kent with the 5th South Lancs Regiment, William Chisnall met Alice Down.
After becoming pregnant, the young woman went to talk to the officers in Chisnall's regiment. Alice was told that he had enlisted as a single man and it was suggested that she should "make him" marry her. This appears to have been how Chisnall came to marry his lawful wife Sarah after getting her pregnant first – and his second bigamous marriage followed the same path, with the couple also quickly splitting up. In fact Alice said they had only lived together for six days and shortly after their son was born in March 1916, Chisnall told her that he had a wife and another son in New Zealand.
Upon being arrested by the St Helens police, the 30-year-old labourer said, "I want to clear the matter up" and the magistrates committed Chisnall to the next assizes hearing. He did not have long to wait for his trial as the Liverpool Summer Assizes took place on June 14th in St George's Hall and Chisnall was sentenced to serve nine months in prison. Many bigamous marriages made during the war were now coming to light and of the fourteen criminal cases heard at the assizes, five concerned bigamy.
The annual Prescot Show took place on the 9th at Knowsley Park with 1,300 entries and a record crowd in attendance. It was the 31st annual exhibition run by the Prescot and District Agricultural Society who had Lord Derby as its president and so had no difficulty in finding a venue. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the 17th earl did rather well with his own submissions in the show's horse and cattle sections, earning distinctions from the judges.
At the St Helens annual licensing sessions in February the St Helens Chief Constable had been highly critical of how clubs were being run in the town. These had expanded over the past year and now numbered about 30, of which some, he said, were simply "drinking and gambling dens" that followed few rules. Chief Constable Ellerington added: "The undesirable kind of club had to be cleared away at all costs, and the law should be amended so as to give the justices power to make the strictest investigation into the bona fides of these clubs."
Then a few days later the caretaker of the Discharged Sailors and Soldiers Club in Fisher Street in Sutton was charged with supplying drink during prohibited hours to two men from Robins Lane. So consequently it seems that the management of these clubs were now on their best behaviour being rather fearful of losing their licence. However it didn't follow that their clientele was similarly prepared to behave well.
On the 10th six men appeared in court charged with consuming intoxicating liquors during prohibited hours in the Discharged Sailors and Soldiers Club in Parr. The men had entered the club just after last orders at 10pm and after being refused service, one of them called Samuel Helsby proceeded to draw five pints of beer from a barrel. The solitary barman could not persuade the men to leave and so left the club to get help from its secretary. The police were informed and four days later the men were all arrested and fined 7s 6d in court.
On the 12th the residents of St Helens woke to find there was no mail – as the postal delivery service on the Sabbath had controversially been axed. People had long been used to 7-day-a week-deliveries (even on Christmas Day!) and the Liverpool Echo wrote on the following day:
"The abolition of the Sunday delivery of letters was brought home more or less unpleasantly to the domestic circle yesterday. There are some to whom a Sunday without letters has always seemed to be unthinkable. These people have now lived through such a Sunday, and are probably surprised to find themselves still physically sound to-day.
"Others, whose Sundays were invariably spoiled by a batch of business letters – business brimming over from the week just ended, or splashing ahead of the week to come – found yesterday a day of perfect rest, unless they were of a worrying nature. To-day, however, is the day when the real troubles began. Delayed deliveries, which do not count for much as regards domestic letters, may be and often are of serious consequence in business and there were many delays today."
County Coroner Samuel Brighouse presided over inquests in St Helens for 55 years and since the war had been increasingly concerned about the rising number of road fatalities caused by the increasing use of motor vehicles. On the 13th Brighouse held an inquest on Benjamin Leach, who had been killed on the road between Prescot and St Helens. The 70-year-old retired auctioneer and accountant had been struck down by a motor-lorry belonging to Emery and Partners of Speakman Street in Liverpool.
Benjamin Leach had been the brother of the late Sir Joseph B. Leach, the St Helens estate agent and founder of the annual New Year's Day poor children's breakfasts. The accident had occurred near Benjamin's Eccleston Park home as he attempted to board a tramcar to travel into St Helens. Although it appeared that the lorry had been travelling slowly and that Leach had suddenly stepped out into the road, the Ormskirk-based coroner expressed his great concern over the speed of lorries on the narrow streets:
"I have felt for a long time that there was a great deal of reckless driving by motor-drivers throughout the country. I am continually watching this heavy traffic going through Burscough-street, Ormskirk, at twelve, fourteen, and twenty miles an hour, and there is scarcely room for anybody to get on the footpath. Drivers are boxed up in front of the motor-lorry, and when a trailer is attached anything can happen, and no one on the lorry knows anything about it."
Referring to the possibility of criminal prosecutions of such cases, the coroner Samuel Brighouse (pictured below right) added: "These cases might come before some other court, but if I had to deal with cases of this kind, I am afraid I would be a very prejudiced person, as I feel so strongly about the dangers of this traffic."
Instead the map only showed Liverpool and its surrounding area allowing people to see how much it cost to telephone from one district to another. The map cost 2 shillings and you could even pay 5 bob and have it printed on cloth. And, you could even go one step further and cough up fifteen shillings to have the call rates "mounted on cloth, rollers and varnished" for 15 shillings. What an ideal present!
Next week's stories will include the Sutton doctor's infidelity, the 1921 census is taken in St Helens, another crop coal court case, more reckless driving by motorists and the man who foolishly boasted that he knocked St Helens policemen about like skittles.
This week's stories include the Knowsley policeman fired at by IRA wire-cutting desperadoes, a coroner's concern over the rising death toll on the roads, six drinkers cause a Parr club concern over losing its licence, the annual Prescot Show is held and the St Helens bigamy case returns to court.
It does seem a little strange to me that while a deadly war was taking place in Ireland – with daily reports of IRA / Sinn Fein gun battles with the police – that the tactics of the extremists on the mainland were largely to cause inconvenience.
Last week I reported how telephone and telegraph wires had been cut around Liverpool, Knowsley and Collins Green in a series of coordinated actions to interfere with communications.
That was a new tactic and late on the evening of the 7th, there were more "wire-cutting outrages", as described by the Liverpool Echo.
Just over 200 wires were cut this time, including at a place in between Carr Mill and Garswood, as well at other locations around Liverpool and the Wirral.
As in the previous incidents, the wires were repaired within hours; so little more than annoyance was caused to those not being able to make trunk calls or send telegrams.
However the men involved in the wire cutting carried revolvers and were not afraid to use them if challenged.
One police officer was riding his bike along the road between Knowsley and St Helens and passed three men leaning against a wall.
As he rode on he noticed that some wires had been cut and so went back to where he'd seen the men.
One of them drew a revolver and fired several times at the constable. All the shots missed him, although one grazed his face. The officer tackled the three men but they all managed to escape.
There was also a brief exchange of gunfire between police and six Irishmen at Wheathill Wood, between Gateacre and Huyton.
The Echo called them "desperadoes" as they related how the extremists had got clean away.
On the following day twenty more lines were cut in Collins Green as the IRA / Sinn Fein campaign continued in the North West and in London.
On the 8th William Chisnall made his second appearance in St Helens Police Court to face a charge of bigamy.
Chisnall had married Sarah Abbott at Haydock in 1912 and the couple had one child. However the couple had soon split up, with magistrates issuing a maintenance order against William in May 1913.
In the following year Sarah decided to make a new life for herself and her son in New Zealand.
Her husband joined the army and in November 1915, while training in Kent with the 5th South Lancs Regiment, William Chisnall met Alice Down.
After becoming pregnant, the young woman went to talk to the officers in Chisnall's regiment.
Alice was told that he had enlisted as a single man and it was suggested that she should "make him" marry her.
This appears to have been how Chisnall came to marry his lawful wife Sarah after getting her pregnant first – and his second bigamous marriage followed the same path, with the couple also quickly splitting up.
In fact Alice said they had only lived together for six days and shortly after their son was born in March 1916, Chisnall told her that he had a wife and another son in New Zealand.
Upon being arrested by the St Helens police, the 30-year-old labourer said, "I want to clear the matter up" and the magistrates committed Chisnall to the next assizes hearing.
He did not have long to wait for his trial as the Liverpool Summer Assizes took place on June 14th in St George's Hall and Chisnall was sentenced to serve nine months in prison.
Many bigamous marriages made during the war were now coming to light and of the fourteen criminal cases heard at the assizes, five concerned bigamy.
The annual Prescot Show took place on the 9th at Knowsley Park with 1,300 entries and a record crowd in attendance.
It was the 31st annual exhibition run by the Prescot and District Agricultural Society who had Lord Derby as its president and so had no difficulty in finding a venue.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the 17th earl did rather well with his own submissions in the show's horse and cattle sections, earning distinctions from the judges.
At the St Helens annual licensing sessions in February the St Helens Chief Constable had been highly critical of how clubs were being run in the town.
These had expanded over the past year and now numbered about 30, of which some, he said, were simply "drinking and gambling dens" that followed few rules.
Chief Constable Ellerington added: "The undesirable kind of club had to be cleared away at all costs, and the law should be amended so as to give the justices power to make the strictest investigation into the bona fides of these clubs."
Then a few days later the caretaker of the Discharged Sailors and Soldiers Club in Fisher Street in Sutton was charged with supplying drink during prohibited hours to two men from Robins Lane.
So consequently it seems that the management of these clubs were now on their best behaviour being rather fearful of losing their licence.
However it didn't follow that their clientele was similarly prepared to behave well.
On the 10th six men appeared in court charged with consuming intoxicating liquors during prohibited hours in the Discharged Sailors and Soldiers Club in Parr.
The men had entered the club just after last orders at 10pm and after being refused service, one of them called Samuel Helsby proceeded to draw five pints of beer from a barrel.
The solitary barman could not persuade the men to leave and so left the club to get help from its secretary.
The police were informed and four days later the men were all arrested and fined 7s 6d in court.
On the 12th the residents of St Helens woke to find there was no mail – as the postal delivery service on the Sabbath had controversially been axed.
People had long been used to 7-day-a week-deliveries (even on Christmas Day!) and the Liverpool Echo wrote on the following day:
"The abolition of the Sunday delivery of letters was brought home more or less unpleasantly to the domestic circle yesterday.
"There are some to whom a Sunday without letters has always seemed to be unthinkable.
"These people have now lived through such a Sunday, and are probably surprised to find themselves still physically sound to-day.
"Others, whose Sundays were invariably spoiled by a batch of business letters – business brimming over from the week just ended, or splashing ahead of the week to come – found yesterday a day of perfect rest, unless they were of a worrying nature.
"To-day, however, is the day when the real troubles began. Delayed deliveries, which do not count for much as regards domestic letters, may be and often are of serious consequence in business and there were many delays today."
Coroner Samuel Brighouse (pictured above) presided over inquests in St Helens for 55 years and since the war had been increasingly concerned about the rising number of road fatalities caused by the increasing use of motor vehicles.
On the 13th Brighouse held an inquest on Benjamin Leach, who had been killed on the road between Prescot and St Helens.
The 70-year-old retired auctioneer and accountant had been struck down by a motor-lorry belonging to Emery and Partners of Speakman Street in Liverpool.
Benjamin Leach had been the brother of the late Sir Joseph B. Leach, the St Helens estate agent and founder of the annual New Year's Day poor children's breakfasts.
The accident had occurred near Benjamin's Eccleston Park home as he attempted to board a tramcar to travel into St Helens.
Although it appeared that the lorry had been travelling slowly and that Leach had suddenly stepped out into the road, the Ormskirk-based coroner expressed his great concern over the speed of lorries on the narrow streets:
"I have felt for a long time that there was a great deal of reckless driving by motor-drivers throughout the country.
"I am continually watching this heavy traffic going through Burscough-street, Ormskirk, at twelve, fourteen, and twenty miles an hour, and there is scarcely room for anybody to get on the footpath.
"Drivers are boxed up in front of the motor-lorry, and when a trailer is attached anything can happen, and no one on the lorry knows anything about it."
Referring to the possibility of criminal prosecutions of such cases, the coroner added:
"These cases might come before some other court, but if I had to deal with cases of this kind, I am afraid I would be a very prejudiced person, as I feel so strongly about the dangers of this traffic."
And finally the non-St Helens item in the Liverpool Echo that caught my eye this week was an advert for a telephone rates map.
Not long ago I described the new calling charges that were coming on stream in Liverpool and wrote that with the phone system being so convoluted and the call rates complex, the new charges needed a lengthy explanation in the Echo.
Now a map was on sale allowing telephone subscribers the ability to see "at a glance" what the new charges were.
However it was not a printed map of the country – as calling long distance was prohibitively expensive.
Instead the map only showed Liverpool and its surrounding area allowing people to see how much it cost to telephone from one district to another.
The map cost 2 shillings and you could even pay 5 bob and have it printed on cloth.
And, you could even go one step further and cough up fifteen shillings to have the call rates "mounted on cloth, rollers and varnished" for 15 shillings. What an ideal present!
Next week's stories will include the Sutton doctor's infidelity, the 1921 census is taken in St Helens, another crop coal court case, more reckless driving by motorists and the man who foolishly boasted that he knocked St Helens policemen about like skittles.
It does seem a little strange to me that while a deadly war was taking place in Ireland – with daily reports of IRA / Sinn Fein gun battles with the police – that the tactics of the extremists on the mainland were largely to cause inconvenience.
Last week I reported how telephone and telegraph wires had been cut around Liverpool, Knowsley and Collins Green in a series of coordinated actions to interfere with communications.
That was a new tactic and late on the evening of the 7th, there were more "wire-cutting outrages", as described by the Liverpool Echo.
Just over 200 wires were cut this time, including at a place in between Carr Mill and Garswood, as well at other locations around Liverpool and the Wirral.
As in the previous incidents, the wires were repaired within hours; so little more than annoyance was caused to those not being able to make trunk calls or send telegrams.
However the men involved in the wire cutting carried revolvers and were not afraid to use them if challenged.
One police officer was riding his bike along the road between Knowsley and St Helens and passed three men leaning against a wall.
As he rode on he noticed that some wires had been cut and so went back to where he'd seen the men.
One of them drew a revolver and fired several times at the constable. All the shots missed him, although one grazed his face. The officer tackled the three men but they all managed to escape.
There was also a brief exchange of gunfire between police and six Irishmen at Wheathill Wood, between Gateacre and Huyton.
The Echo called them "desperadoes" as they related how the extremists had got clean away.
On the following day twenty more lines were cut in Collins Green as the IRA / Sinn Fein campaign continued in the North West and in London.
On the 8th William Chisnall made his second appearance in St Helens Police Court to face a charge of bigamy.
Chisnall had married Sarah Abbott at Haydock in 1912 and the couple had one child. However the couple had soon split up, with magistrates issuing a maintenance order against William in May 1913.
In the following year Sarah decided to make a new life for herself and her son in New Zealand.
Her husband joined the army and in November 1915, while training in Kent with the 5th South Lancs Regiment, William Chisnall met Alice Down.
After becoming pregnant, the young woman went to talk to the officers in Chisnall's regiment.
Alice was told that he had enlisted as a single man and it was suggested that she should "make him" marry her.
This appears to have been how Chisnall came to marry his lawful wife Sarah after getting her pregnant first – and his second bigamous marriage followed the same path, with the couple also quickly splitting up.
In fact Alice said they had only lived together for six days and shortly after their son was born in March 1916, Chisnall told her that he had a wife and another son in New Zealand.
Upon being arrested by the St Helens police, the 30-year-old labourer said, "I want to clear the matter up" and the magistrates committed Chisnall to the next assizes hearing.
He did not have long to wait for his trial as the Liverpool Summer Assizes took place on June 14th in St George's Hall and Chisnall was sentenced to serve nine months in prison.
Many bigamous marriages made during the war were now coming to light and of the fourteen criminal cases heard at the assizes, five concerned bigamy.
The annual Prescot Show took place on the 9th at Knowsley Park with 1,300 entries and a record crowd in attendance.
It was the 31st annual exhibition run by the Prescot and District Agricultural Society who had Lord Derby as its president and so had no difficulty in finding a venue.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the 17th earl did rather well with his own submissions in the show's horse and cattle sections, earning distinctions from the judges.
At the St Helens annual licensing sessions in February the St Helens Chief Constable had been highly critical of how clubs were being run in the town.
These had expanded over the past year and now numbered about 30, of which some, he said, were simply "drinking and gambling dens" that followed few rules.
Chief Constable Ellerington added: "The undesirable kind of club had to be cleared away at all costs, and the law should be amended so as to give the justices power to make the strictest investigation into the bona fides of these clubs."
Then a few days later the caretaker of the Discharged Sailors and Soldiers Club in Fisher Street in Sutton was charged with supplying drink during prohibited hours to two men from Robins Lane.
So consequently it seems that the management of these clubs were now on their best behaviour being rather fearful of losing their licence.
However it didn't follow that their clientele was similarly prepared to behave well.
On the 10th six men appeared in court charged with consuming intoxicating liquors during prohibited hours in the Discharged Sailors and Soldiers Club in Parr.
The men had entered the club just after last orders at 10pm and after being refused service, one of them called Samuel Helsby proceeded to draw five pints of beer from a barrel.
The solitary barman could not persuade the men to leave and so left the club to get help from its secretary.
The police were informed and four days later the men were all arrested and fined 7s 6d in court.
On the 12th the residents of St Helens woke to find there was no mail – as the postal delivery service on the Sabbath had controversially been axed.
People had long been used to 7-day-a week-deliveries (even on Christmas Day!) and the Liverpool Echo wrote on the following day:
"The abolition of the Sunday delivery of letters was brought home more or less unpleasantly to the domestic circle yesterday.
"There are some to whom a Sunday without letters has always seemed to be unthinkable.
"These people have now lived through such a Sunday, and are probably surprised to find themselves still physically sound to-day.
"Others, whose Sundays were invariably spoiled by a batch of business letters – business brimming over from the week just ended, or splashing ahead of the week to come – found yesterday a day of perfect rest, unless they were of a worrying nature.
"To-day, however, is the day when the real troubles began. Delayed deliveries, which do not count for much as regards domestic letters, may be and often are of serious consequence in business and there were many delays today."
On the 13th Brighouse held an inquest on Benjamin Leach, who had been killed on the road between Prescot and St Helens.
The 70-year-old retired auctioneer and accountant had been struck down by a motor-lorry belonging to Emery and Partners of Speakman Street in Liverpool.
Benjamin Leach had been the brother of the late Sir Joseph B. Leach, the St Helens estate agent and founder of the annual New Year's Day poor children's breakfasts.
The accident had occurred near Benjamin's Eccleston Park home as he attempted to board a tramcar to travel into St Helens.
Although it appeared that the lorry had been travelling slowly and that Leach had suddenly stepped out into the road, the Ormskirk-based coroner expressed his great concern over the speed of lorries on the narrow streets:
"I have felt for a long time that there was a great deal of reckless driving by motor-drivers throughout the country.
"I am continually watching this heavy traffic going through Burscough-street, Ormskirk, at twelve, fourteen, and twenty miles an hour, and there is scarcely room for anybody to get on the footpath.
"Drivers are boxed up in front of the motor-lorry, and when a trailer is attached anything can happen, and no one on the lorry knows anything about it."
Referring to the possibility of criminal prosecutions of such cases, the coroner added:
"These cases might come before some other court, but if I had to deal with cases of this kind, I am afraid I would be a very prejudiced person, as I feel so strongly about the dangers of this traffic."
Not long ago I described the new calling charges that were coming on stream in Liverpool and wrote that with the phone system being so convoluted and the call rates complex, the new charges needed a lengthy explanation in the Echo.
Now a map was on sale allowing telephone subscribers the ability to see "at a glance" what the new charges were.
However it was not a printed map of the country – as calling long distance was prohibitively expensive.
Instead the map only showed Liverpool and its surrounding area allowing people to see how much it cost to telephone from one district to another.
The map cost 2 shillings and you could even pay 5 bob and have it printed on cloth.
And, you could even go one step further and cough up fifteen shillings to have the call rates "mounted on cloth, rollers and varnished" for 15 shillings. What an ideal present!
Next week's stories will include the Sutton doctor's infidelity, the 1921 census is taken in St Helens, another crop coal court case, more reckless driving by motorists and the man who foolishly boasted that he knocked St Helens policemen about like skittles.