IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (8th - 14th April 1919)
This week's many stories include the boys who dived down a fanlight to steal from a Park Road shop, the Sutton Manor miner's victim who lost his memory, Sherdley Colliery coal thefts by boys, the many child deaths in St Helens, the Prescot naval deserter bicycle thief, Easter adverts in the Reporter and the Ravenhead Boys Hostel shop thieves.
We begin on the 8th with the unusual headline in the Tuesday Reporter of "Sanitarians in St Helens". This was not about a society or even a religious group but coverage of a two-day event to discuss the elimination of insanitary areas in the town.
On the 9th James Dolan (15) from Back Park Road, Albert Rhind from Park Road, Robert Heyes (16), Albert Woodhead (16) and John Thomason (15) – all three from Merton Bank Road – appeared in court. All the lads were charged with stealing two bottles of wine from Frank Lennon's shop in Park Road.
After closing on the previous Saturday, his daughter had secured the premises but left a fanlight open for ventilation. James Dolan admitted having taken one bottle of wine by climbing onto Robert Heyes' back in order to get down into the shop. Then Heyes confessed to piggybacking on Dolan, so he could steal a second bottle.
All the lads drank the so-called "invalid wine" but Dolan had a bad record and was considered the ringleader. The 15-year-old was sent to a reformatory until the age of nineteen and the others were fined 20 shillings each.
At the same hearing Patrick Lavin made another appearance, after being on remand for a month accused of wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm. The miner from Milton Street worked at Sutton Manor Colliery and during the war had served with the Scots Guards and been wounded twice.
Lavin's legal counsel told the magistrates that at times his client "took a drop of drink, like most Irishmen." This, he said, had led to his assault on Thomas O’Brien, who had been unconscious for three weeks. The victim had been attacked in the Green Dragon (pictured above) and had now come round but had lost his memory and the Chief Constable requested a further remand until April 30th, which the magistrates granted.
The St Helens Medical Officer told a Health Committee meeting on the 9th that during four weeks in March, 43 children under the age of five had died in the town, compared with 63 in the same period last year.
Dr Joseph Cates said that of the 43 deaths, 32 had been of infants less than twelve months old. Can you imagine the outcry today if that many babies and toddlers had died in only a month? The Medical Officer also stated that the flu epidemic had disappeared from the borough but it had taken 58 lives in St Helens during March.
The St Helens Police Court was packed on the 10th with what we would call teenagers. Three batches of lads – 18 in total – were fined 5 shillings each for playing football in Boundary Road, Albion Street, Lewis Street and Borough Road – although a ten-year-old was let off.
Four others from College Street and Cotham Street were fined ten shillings each for obstructing the footpath in Church Street while the Sunday evening parading of young people took place.
Playing pitch and toss was considered a more serious offence than playing street football or obstructing the footpath. So six more lads were fined twenty shillings each and a sixth thirty shillings after being caught gambling with coins in Thatto Heath.
The activities of a deserter from the Royal Navy were told at a special session of Prescot Police Court on the 10th. James Townsend had obtained employment at the Prescot Wire Works but three days earlier had been sacked for neglecting his work.
Many boys and men went to work by bicycle a century ago and up to two hundred machines were stored in the factory's yard while the workers were busy inside. Townsend had helped himself to one of the bikes and rode it to Rainford, where he sold it for £4 10s. He then spent some of the money inside the Wheatsheaf Hotel and upon leaving nicked another bike.
The thief claimed that his second stolen bike was then stolen from him when he had been sleeping on a table in the waiting room at Lime Street Station. However Townsend had told a few tales during the last few days and so was remanded in custody for a week while his claims were checked.
Unlike today the borrowing of library books in St Helens was becoming increasingly popular. This was driven by improvements to literacy levels and few competing activities – no TV, radio etc.
So when the Library Service issued its report this week it revealed an increase of 1,771 books borrowed in March over the same month last year. In total 19,800 issues had been made and there had also been 160 new borrowers. However these improved figures would also have reflected the return home of many discharged and demobilised soldiers.
The chief librarian also reported that the widow of Colonel Richard Pilkington from Rainford Hall had donated a collection of books, which were in "good clean condition". Good to know that the glassmaking family in Crank (who had 8 servants in the 1911 census) weren't donating dirty books!
The St Helens Reporter on the 11th said that four new councillors had been appointed to Rainford Urban District Council. One of them, James Eden, was blind as a result of a mining accident.
It would be Easter in a week's time and Rudd's Bicycle Shop in Baldwin Street was encouraging folk to buy a bike for the Easter holidays. They had fifty cycles in stock, as well as motorbikes and sidecars. The bottom of the ad read: "Bernard Rudd. 4½ years in Army as Dispatch Rider, should know a Motor Bicycle. Come and consult him."
Swales & Son of 41 Church Street was promoting "useful marmalade jars in choice designs" as Easter wedding gifts, writing in their ad: "A marmalade jar is often acceptable as, besides being ornamental, it keeps marmalade fresh and clean and therefore in good condition when offered to friends."
Last week a woman charged with being drunk and disorderly in North Road said she had only drunk port. The Chairman of the Bench replied that port was one of the worst drinks as it "sticks in your body".
However Ted Cawley who ran the Wellington Hotel in Market Square believed that drinking port could stop you getting influenza. He was also a terrible poet! Ted's ad in the Reporter said: "To avoid the 'flu and never rue, Ted Cawley's port wine is the goods for you". His advert also had a Kitchener-like finger pointed at the reader to emphasise the point.
J. Martin of 99 Church Street said in his advert that now his assistants had been released from the forces, he was able to uphold his reputation as the "no waiting hairdresser".
Also on the 11th two more lads from the Ravenhead Boys' Hostel were before the court. There were around 170 youngsters employed at Pilkingtons that lived at the hostel. Many had troubled backgrounds and some had been in reformatories. The boys received supervision at the hostel, which had excellent facilities – including recreation and billiard rooms and a gym.
However some of them were not prepared to change their ways and William Powell and Ernest Taylor had admitted stealing a purse containing £8 2s. This was said to have "mysteriously disappeared" from a bag attached to the till in Elizabeth Smith's small general shop in Campbell Street.
With shop doors often left open, lads would sometimes crawl into premises while the shopkeeper was in the back. Within seconds they could be away with their loot before the owner was any the wiser. The police did not think that this had been the only occasion when the boys had stolen from shops and requested a remand of eight days while they made further investigations.
Three other boys from the hostel appeared in court charged with gaming with coins. The police did go to extraordinary lengths to catch those playing pitch and toss and similar games. A constable told the hearing that he and another officer had concealed themselves in a disused house at the Greengate brickfields.
They watched the boys go into an outhouse and commence tossing with coins and then arrested them. Robert Taber, John Healey and Herbert Power pleaded guilty and were fined 5 shillings each.
Commenting on a court case that took place on the 14th, the Reporter wrote: "How forty pounds of coal which was to have been thrown away was valued at ten pence was unexplained." It concerned a case of theft in which eleven-year-old Percy Clarke from Clarence Court in Peasley Cross had been charged with taking the coal from a "stuff wagon" at Sherdley Colliery.
This was largely waste material that contained some pieces of coal and the boy's father told the Bench that Percy had had to half empty the wagon to collect forty pounds worth. If the offence had taken place fifty years earlier the boy would almost certainly have been sent to prison. Instead Percy was fined five shillings and warned to be more careful in future.
A few days earlier a boy called Thomas Swift from Cleveland Street had been fined 20 shillings in St Helens Police Court for stealing coal from Sherdley Colliery. The mine's manager William Kirk told the court that a lot of their coal was being stolen and they were receiving many complaints from customers that wagons had been short upon arrival.
The coal rationing that had been in place in St Helens for some time led to many such thefts. Some people had not registered or they had been allocated less coal than they needed to cook and keep warm.
Next week's stories include Easter in St Helens, the man from Thatto Heath who refused to work, an allegation of rape of a married woman, why St Helens' councillors chose not to raise the school leaving age, a proposal to ban Sunday funerals and why there had been a big improvement in school attendance in the town.
We begin on the 8th with the unusual headline in the Tuesday Reporter of "Sanitarians in St Helens". This was not about a society or even a religious group but coverage of a two-day event to discuss the elimination of insanitary areas in the town.
On the 9th James Dolan (15) from Back Park Road, Albert Rhind from Park Road, Robert Heyes (16), Albert Woodhead (16) and John Thomason (15) – all three from Merton Bank Road – appeared in court. All the lads were charged with stealing two bottles of wine from Frank Lennon's shop in Park Road.
After closing on the previous Saturday, his daughter had secured the premises but left a fanlight open for ventilation. James Dolan admitted having taken one bottle of wine by climbing onto Robert Heyes' back in order to get down into the shop. Then Heyes confessed to piggybacking on Dolan, so he could steal a second bottle.
All the lads drank the so-called "invalid wine" but Dolan had a bad record and was considered the ringleader. The 15-year-old was sent to a reformatory until the age of nineteen and the others were fined 20 shillings each.
At the same hearing Patrick Lavin made another appearance, after being on remand for a month accused of wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm. The miner from Milton Street worked at Sutton Manor Colliery and during the war had served with the Scots Guards and been wounded twice.
The St Helens Medical Officer told a Health Committee meeting on the 9th that during four weeks in March, 43 children under the age of five had died in the town, compared with 63 in the same period last year.
Dr Joseph Cates said that of the 43 deaths, 32 had been of infants less than twelve months old. Can you imagine the outcry today if that many babies and toddlers had died in only a month? The Medical Officer also stated that the flu epidemic had disappeared from the borough but it had taken 58 lives in St Helens during March.
The St Helens Police Court was packed on the 10th with what we would call teenagers. Three batches of lads – 18 in total – were fined 5 shillings each for playing football in Boundary Road, Albion Street, Lewis Street and Borough Road – although a ten-year-old was let off.
Four others from College Street and Cotham Street were fined ten shillings each for obstructing the footpath in Church Street while the Sunday evening parading of young people took place.
Playing pitch and toss was considered a more serious offence than playing street football or obstructing the footpath. So six more lads were fined twenty shillings each and a sixth thirty shillings after being caught gambling with coins in Thatto Heath.
The activities of a deserter from the Royal Navy were told at a special session of Prescot Police Court on the 10th. James Townsend had obtained employment at the Prescot Wire Works but three days earlier had been sacked for neglecting his work.
Many boys and men went to work by bicycle a century ago and up to two hundred machines were stored in the factory's yard while the workers were busy inside. Townsend had helped himself to one of the bikes and rode it to Rainford, where he sold it for £4 10s. He then spent some of the money inside the Wheatsheaf Hotel and upon leaving nicked another bike.
The thief claimed that his second stolen bike was then stolen from him when he had been sleeping on a table in the waiting room at Lime Street Station. However Townsend had told a few tales during the last few days and so was remanded in custody for a week while his claims were checked.
Unlike today the borrowing of library books in St Helens was becoming increasingly popular. This was driven by improvements to literacy levels and few competing activities – no TV, radio etc.
So when the Library Service issued its report this week it revealed an increase of 1,771 books borrowed in March over the same month last year. In total 19,800 issues had been made and there had also been 160 new borrowers. However these improved figures would also have reflected the return home of many discharged and demobilised soldiers.
The chief librarian also reported that the widow of Colonel Richard Pilkington from Rainford Hall had donated a collection of books, which were in "good clean condition". Good to know that the glassmaking family in Crank (who had 8 servants in the 1911 census) weren't donating dirty books!
The St Helens Reporter on the 11th said that four new councillors had been appointed to Rainford Urban District Council. One of them, James Eden, was blind as a result of a mining accident.
It would be Easter in a week's time and Rudd's Bicycle Shop in Baldwin Street was encouraging folk to buy a bike for the Easter holidays. They had fifty cycles in stock, as well as motorbikes and sidecars. The bottom of the ad read: "Bernard Rudd. 4½ years in Army as Dispatch Rider, should know a Motor Bicycle. Come and consult him."
Swales & Son of 41 Church Street was promoting "useful marmalade jars in choice designs" as Easter wedding gifts, writing in their ad: "A marmalade jar is often acceptable as, besides being ornamental, it keeps marmalade fresh and clean and therefore in good condition when offered to friends."
Last week a woman charged with being drunk and disorderly in North Road said she had only drunk port. The Chairman of the Bench replied that port was one of the worst drinks as it "sticks in your body".
However Ted Cawley who ran the Wellington Hotel in Market Square believed that drinking port could stop you getting influenza. He was also a terrible poet! Ted's ad in the Reporter said: "To avoid the 'flu and never rue, Ted Cawley's port wine is the goods for you". His advert also had a Kitchener-like finger pointed at the reader to emphasise the point.
J. Martin of 99 Church Street said in his advert that now his assistants had been released from the forces, he was able to uphold his reputation as the "no waiting hairdresser".
Also on the 11th two more lads from the Ravenhead Boys' Hostel were before the court. There were around 170 youngsters employed at Pilkingtons that lived at the hostel. Many had troubled backgrounds and some had been in reformatories. The boys received supervision at the hostel, which had excellent facilities – including recreation and billiard rooms and a gym.
However some of them were not prepared to change their ways and William Powell and Ernest Taylor had admitted stealing a purse containing £8 2s. This was said to have "mysteriously disappeared" from a bag attached to the till in Elizabeth Smith's small general shop in Campbell Street.
With shop doors often left open, lads would sometimes crawl into premises while the shopkeeper was in the back. Within seconds they could be away with their loot before the owner was any the wiser. The police did not think that this had been the only occasion when the boys had stolen from shops and requested a remand of eight days while they made further investigations.
Three other boys from the hostel appeared in court charged with gaming with coins. The police did go to extraordinary lengths to catch those playing pitch and toss and similar games. A constable told the hearing that he and another officer had concealed themselves in a disused house at the Greengate brickfields.
They watched the boys go into an outhouse and commence tossing with coins and then arrested them. Robert Taber, John Healey and Herbert Power pleaded guilty and were fined 5 shillings each.
Commenting on a court case that took place on the 14th, the Reporter wrote: "How forty pounds of coal which was to have been thrown away was valued at ten pence was unexplained." It concerned a case of theft in which eleven-year-old Percy Clarke from Clarence Court in Peasley Cross had been charged with taking the coal from a "stuff wagon" at Sherdley Colliery.
This was largely waste material that contained some pieces of coal and the boy's father told the Bench that Percy had had to half empty the wagon to collect forty pounds worth. If the offence had taken place fifty years earlier the boy would almost certainly have been sent to prison. Instead Percy was fined five shillings and warned to be more careful in future.
A few days earlier a boy called Thomas Swift from Cleveland Street had been fined 20 shillings in St Helens Police Court for stealing coal from Sherdley Colliery. The mine's manager William Kirk told the court that a lot of their coal was being stolen and they were receiving many complaints from customers that wagons had been short upon arrival.
The coal rationing that had been in place in St Helens for some time led to many such thefts. Some people had not registered or they had been allocated less coal than they needed to cook and keep warm.
Next week's stories include Easter in St Helens, the man from Thatto Heath who refused to work, an allegation of rape of a married woman, why St Helens' councillors chose not to raise the school leaving age, a proposal to ban Sunday funerals and why there had been a big improvement in school attendance in the town.