IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 10 - 16 FEBRRUARY 1925
This week's many stories include the hundreds queuing outside the Theatre Royal to see Shakespeare being performed, the shoals of scrap paper floating on to St Helens Cricket Ground, the neighbourly row in Crank, the railway trespassing in order to watch a solar eclipse, the Hall Street marriage bust up after only eight months and the lorry that was using string as part of its braking system.
We begin on the 10th when the staff of the St Helens Electricity Works held their first dinner party at the Fleece Hotel. The St Helens Reporter wrote: "It was a happy gathering, imbued with a spirit of unity and comradeship that speaks well for the relations prevailing among the men who run the town's electricity department."
One might have thought that Crank being such a quiet and sedate place would not have been troubled much by neighbourly fights. But on the 10th in the County Police Court, Sarah Green of Crank Hill summoned Mary Lomax on a charge of assault. Mrs Green said she had returned from shopping in St Helens to find her "two little babies crying in the lane". The children told their mother that a Mrs Smith had hit them and at that point the latter knocked on a window and told Mrs Green to keep her children away from her gate.
Mrs Smith was then accused of coming out of her house and knocking down Mrs Green and then Mrs Smith's mother, Mary Lomax, started hitting her as well. It was another case in which what clearly had been a long-standing rift between neighbours had been brought to the boil by some incident with both sides claiming to be the innocent parties. Mrs Lomax in her defence said Mrs Green had come to the front of her house and used bad language and threatened what she would do to her. In the end after hearing all the conflicting evidence, the magistrates dismissed the case.
This week in St Helens Police Court Elizabeth Peel charged her husband James of Hall Street (pictured above) with persistent cruelty. The couple had only been married for 8 months but the 22-year-old had a long list of violent acts that she claimed her husband had perpetrated against her. Elizabeth said about ten days after their wedding, James had struck her in the face causing it to swell and had then followed her into the pantry and knocked her into a washing machine.
Six weeks later Elizabeth said she had got her husband's dinner ready and then went to visit a neighbour. When her husband came home from work to find his wife absent, James went to the neighbour's house and asked her to move the furniture while he gave his wife a thrashing. The woman refused to allow any violence to take place in her house and so James waited until they got home and Elizabeth said she was so severely ill-treated by him that her skin was discoloured in many places.
Recently he was said to have kissed his wife in order to bite her lip. Upon Elizabeth asking him why he done such a thing, he had struck her in the face. James denied his wife's allegations and attempted to paint her as the difficult one in the marriage with what was described as an uncontrollable temper. That, of course, might possibly have been the case but it was a common tactic employed by wife beaters.
Much was made of the fact that James always gave his wife £2 a week as housekeeping money and that Elizabeth had once torn up their marriage certificate in a temper. James's solicitor accused her of going on to their bed with a knife in her hand and attempting to cut her husband's throat and that at one time she had tried to walk into the canal. Elizabeth, who said her husband had driven her desperate, replied: "If he has told you that he is telling lies."
In reality this case was an application for a separation order with maintenance. But many husbands would fight such an order as they did not want to have to pay money to their separated wife without getting any benefits in return and also did not want to be seen as a wife beater. And magistrates were very unlikely to sanction the separation of newlyweds. So they adjourned the case for a month and asked the court probation officer / social worker to involve himself in the case.
Walking on the railway was very common and very dangerous. It was often the shortest route to a destination, particularly for those working in coalmines and other industry. But because of the danger the police and railway company would prosecute offenders accusing them of trespassing. That was the charge facing William Houghton of Church Street and John Murphy of Peter Street this week.
While in plain clothes on January 24th, PCs Tinsley and White had caught the young men on the Eccleston branch siding while on the lookout for coal stealers. They had seen them enter the siding from Ravenhead Road and then walk along the railway towards the electricity works while engine shunting work was taking place. However, the excuse they offered to the undercover officers was a most unusual one. Houghton and Murphy claimed to have been walking on the railway in order to reach higher ground to view an eclipse of the sun.
That was due to take place that afternoon and they were not happy about being stopped by the police. Houghton had said: "I think you are exceeding your duty. It is only a trumped-up affair. Do I look like a trespasser?" Whether he looked like a trespasser or not didn't matter as they were standing near notices warning that trespassers would be prosecuted! Both men were fined 7s 6d.
There were some peculiar set-ups in many of the early motor vehicles. Lighting connections, in particular, could be both primitive and convoluted with acetylene gas lamps often used that could easily go out during a journey. In 1916 the defence solicitor for a lorry driver accused of driving his vehicle without a red rear light said his client's lamp had been out when he arrived at the Lingholme through an "act of God" – i.e. a bumpy road or puff of wind. And in 1920 Claude Fillingham told a St Helens court that the reason for not illuminating his motorcycle and sidecar with a red rear light was because his lady passenger "must have sat on the gas connecting tube".
When Alfred Brooks appeared in St Helens Police Court this week charged with not having the brake of his lorry trailer in full working order, PC Griffin said he had stopped the man's vehicle in Borough Road. He found that the driver had been using string with a piece of wire tied round it for his brake. Hardly surprising it wasn't working properly and Brooks from Manchester was fined 10 shillings.
Last week I reported how Henry Baynton, considered the top Shakespearean actor of his day, had returned to the St Helens Theatre Royal to perform a number of the Bard's plays. And he was clearly very popular in the town as an advert in the St Helens Reporter on the 13th stated that two days earlier when 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' was performed hundreds had been turned away. As a result Mr Baynton had decided to perform a "special matinee" of the play on Saturday 14th with a large "Fairy Ballet" and the music of Mendelssohn included in the performance.
The Reporter stated that the St Helens Cricket Club in Dentons Green had been experiencing problems with the adjacent Bishop Road field. That was often used for fetes and similar events with only a dilapidated wire fence separating the two grounds. With Sunday sports and other recreation not permitted, both cricket matches and fetes tended to take place on Saturday afternoons. Last season that had led to the cricket ground being overrun with non-paying spectators and at the end of the match "shoals" of scrap paper needed to be collected.
These had blown from the Bishop Road field onto the cricket field with the Reporter writing, "…for fete days notoriously leave flocks of waste paper behind them to fly about in the breeze." Interesting that crowds 100 years ago would throw unwanted paper on the ground like today. But a new tall wooden fence was being installed which was expected to resolve the problems.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Sutton boy playing football who went through a shop window, the Pilkington boys who denied fighting in Church Street, the plans to widen two bridges in St Helens and the motorbike accident in Dentons Green.
One might have thought that Crank being such a quiet and sedate place would not have been troubled much by neighbourly fights. But on the 10th in the County Police Court, Sarah Green of Crank Hill summoned Mary Lomax on a charge of assault. Mrs Green said she had returned from shopping in St Helens to find her "two little babies crying in the lane". The children told their mother that a Mrs Smith had hit them and at that point the latter knocked on a window and told Mrs Green to keep her children away from her gate.
Mrs Smith was then accused of coming out of her house and knocking down Mrs Green and then Mrs Smith's mother, Mary Lomax, started hitting her as well. It was another case in which what clearly had been a long-standing rift between neighbours had been brought to the boil by some incident with both sides claiming to be the innocent parties. Mrs Lomax in her defence said Mrs Green had come to the front of her house and used bad language and threatened what she would do to her. In the end after hearing all the conflicting evidence, the magistrates dismissed the case.
Six weeks later Elizabeth said she had got her husband's dinner ready and then went to visit a neighbour. When her husband came home from work to find his wife absent, James went to the neighbour's house and asked her to move the furniture while he gave his wife a thrashing. The woman refused to allow any violence to take place in her house and so James waited until they got home and Elizabeth said she was so severely ill-treated by him that her skin was discoloured in many places.
Recently he was said to have kissed his wife in order to bite her lip. Upon Elizabeth asking him why he done such a thing, he had struck her in the face. James denied his wife's allegations and attempted to paint her as the difficult one in the marriage with what was described as an uncontrollable temper. That, of course, might possibly have been the case but it was a common tactic employed by wife beaters.
Much was made of the fact that James always gave his wife £2 a week as housekeeping money and that Elizabeth had once torn up their marriage certificate in a temper. James's solicitor accused her of going on to their bed with a knife in her hand and attempting to cut her husband's throat and that at one time she had tried to walk into the canal. Elizabeth, who said her husband had driven her desperate, replied: "If he has told you that he is telling lies."
In reality this case was an application for a separation order with maintenance. But many husbands would fight such an order as they did not want to have to pay money to their separated wife without getting any benefits in return and also did not want to be seen as a wife beater. And magistrates were very unlikely to sanction the separation of newlyweds. So they adjourned the case for a month and asked the court probation officer / social worker to involve himself in the case.
Walking on the railway was very common and very dangerous. It was often the shortest route to a destination, particularly for those working in coalmines and other industry. But because of the danger the police and railway company would prosecute offenders accusing them of trespassing. That was the charge facing William Houghton of Church Street and John Murphy of Peter Street this week.
While in plain clothes on January 24th, PCs Tinsley and White had caught the young men on the Eccleston branch siding while on the lookout for coal stealers. They had seen them enter the siding from Ravenhead Road and then walk along the railway towards the electricity works while engine shunting work was taking place. However, the excuse they offered to the undercover officers was a most unusual one. Houghton and Murphy claimed to have been walking on the railway in order to reach higher ground to view an eclipse of the sun.
That was due to take place that afternoon and they were not happy about being stopped by the police. Houghton had said: "I think you are exceeding your duty. It is only a trumped-up affair. Do I look like a trespasser?" Whether he looked like a trespasser or not didn't matter as they were standing near notices warning that trespassers would be prosecuted! Both men were fined 7s 6d.
There were some peculiar set-ups in many of the early motor vehicles. Lighting connections, in particular, could be both primitive and convoluted with acetylene gas lamps often used that could easily go out during a journey. In 1916 the defence solicitor for a lorry driver accused of driving his vehicle without a red rear light said his client's lamp had been out when he arrived at the Lingholme through an "act of God" – i.e. a bumpy road or puff of wind. And in 1920 Claude Fillingham told a St Helens court that the reason for not illuminating his motorcycle and sidecar with a red rear light was because his lady passenger "must have sat on the gas connecting tube".
When Alfred Brooks appeared in St Helens Police Court this week charged with not having the brake of his lorry trailer in full working order, PC Griffin said he had stopped the man's vehicle in Borough Road. He found that the driver had been using string with a piece of wire tied round it for his brake. Hardly surprising it wasn't working properly and Brooks from Manchester was fined 10 shillings.
Last week I reported how Henry Baynton, considered the top Shakespearean actor of his day, had returned to the St Helens Theatre Royal to perform a number of the Bard's plays. And he was clearly very popular in the town as an advert in the St Helens Reporter on the 13th stated that two days earlier when 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' was performed hundreds had been turned away. As a result Mr Baynton had decided to perform a "special matinee" of the play on Saturday 14th with a large "Fairy Ballet" and the music of Mendelssohn included in the performance.
The Reporter stated that the St Helens Cricket Club in Dentons Green had been experiencing problems with the adjacent Bishop Road field. That was often used for fetes and similar events with only a dilapidated wire fence separating the two grounds. With Sunday sports and other recreation not permitted, both cricket matches and fetes tended to take place on Saturday afternoons. Last season that had led to the cricket ground being overrun with non-paying spectators and at the end of the match "shoals" of scrap paper needed to be collected.
These had blown from the Bishop Road field onto the cricket field with the Reporter writing, "…for fete days notoriously leave flocks of waste paper behind them to fly about in the breeze." Interesting that crowds 100 years ago would throw unwanted paper on the ground like today. But a new tall wooden fence was being installed which was expected to resolve the problems.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Sutton boy playing football who went through a shop window, the Pilkington boys who denied fighting in Church Street, the plans to widen two bridges in St Helens and the motorbike accident in Dentons Green.
This week's many stories include the hundreds queuing outside the Theatre Royal to see Shakespeare being performed, the shoals of scrap paper floating on to St Helens Cricket Ground, the neighbourly row in Crank, the railway trespassing in order to watch a solar eclipse, the Hall Street marriage bust up after only eight months and the lorry that was using string as part of its braking system.
We begin on the 10th when the staff of the St Helens Electricity Works held their first dinner party at the Fleece Hotel. The St Helens Reporter wrote:
"It was a happy gathering, imbued with a spirit of unity and comradeship that speaks well for the relations prevailing among the men who run the town's electricity department."
One might have thought that Crank being such a quiet and sedate place would not have been troubled much by neighbourly fights.
But on the 10th in the County Police Court, Sarah Green of Crank Hill summoned Mary Lomax on a charge of assault.
Mrs Green said she had returned from shopping in St Helens to find her "two little babies crying in the lane".
The children told their mother that a Mrs Smith had hit them and at that point the latter knocked on a window and told Mrs Green to keep her children away from her gate.
Mrs Smith was then accused of coming out of her house and knocking down Mrs Green and then Mrs Smith's mother, Mary Lomax, started hitting her as well.
It was another case in which what clearly had been a long-standing rift between neighbours had been brought to the boil by some incident with both sides claiming to be the innocent parties.
Mrs Lomax in her defence said Mrs Green had come to the front of her house and used bad language and threatened what she would do to her.
In the end after hearing all the conflicting evidence, the magistrates dismissed the case.
This week in St Helens Police Court Elizabeth Peel charged her husband James of Hall Street (pictured above) with persistent cruelty.
The couple had only been married for 8 months but the 22-year-old had a long list of violent acts that she claimed her husband had perpetrated against her.
Elizabeth said about ten days after their wedding, James had struck her in the face causing it to swell and had then followed her into the pantry and knocked her into a washing machine.
Six weeks later Elizabeth said she had got her husband's dinner ready and then went to visit a neighbour.
When her husband came home from work to find his wife absent, James went to the neighbour's house and asked her to move the furniture while he gave his wife a thrashing.
The woman refused to allow any violence to take place in her house and so James waited until they got home and Elizabeth said she was so severely ill-treated by him that her skin was discoloured in many places.
Recently he was said to have kissed his wife in order to bite her lip. Upon Elizabeth asking him why he done such a thing, he had struck her in the face.
James denied his wife's allegations and attempted to paint her as the difficult one in the marriage with what was described as an uncontrollable temper.
That, of course, might possibly have been the case but it was a common tactic employed by wife beaters.
Much was made of the fact that James always gave his wife £2 a week as housekeeping money and that Elizabeth had once torn up their marriage certificate in a temper.
James's solicitor accused her of going on to their bed with a knife in her hand and attempting to cut her husband's throat and that at one time she had tried to walk into the canal.
Elizabeth, who said her husband had driven her desperate, replied: "If he has told you that he is telling lies."
In reality this case was an application for a separation order with maintenance.
But many husbands would fight such an order as they did not want to have to pay money to their separated wife without getting any benefits in return and also did not want to be seen as a wife beater.
And magistrates were very unlikely to sanction the separation of newlyweds. So they adjourned the case for a month and asked the court probation officer / social worker to involve himself in the case.
Walking on the railway was very common and very dangerous. It was often the shortest route to a destination, particularly for those working in coal mines and other industry.
But because of the danger the police and railway company would prosecute offenders accusing them of trespassing.
That was the charge facing William Houghton of Church Street and John Murphy of Peter Street this week.
While in plain clothes on January 24th, PCs Tinsley and White had caught the young men on the Eccleston branch siding while on the lookout for coal stealers.
They had seen them enter the siding from Ravenhead Road and then walk along the railway towards the electricity works while engine shunting work was taking place.
However, the excuse they offered to the undercover officers was a most unusual one. Houghton and Murphy claimed to have been walking on the railway in order to reach higher ground to view an eclipse of the sun.
That was due to take place that afternoon and they were not happy about being stopped by the police.
Houghton had said: "I think you are exceeding your duty. It is only a trumped-up affair. Do I look like a trespasser?"
Whether he looked like a trespasser or not didn't matter as they were standing near notices warning that trespassers would be prosecuted! Both men were fined 7s 6d.
There were some peculiar set-ups in many of the early motor vehicles. Lighting connections, in particular, could be both primitive and convoluted with acetylene gas lamps often used that could easily go out during a journey.
In 1916 the defence solicitor for a lorry driver accused of driving his vehicle without a red rear light said his client's lamp had been out when he arrived at the Lingholme through an "act of God" – i.e. a bumpy road or puff of wind.
And in 1920 Claude Fillingham told a St Helens court that the reason for not illuminating his motorcycle and sidecar with a red rear light was because his lady passenger "must have sat on the gas connecting tube".
When Alfred Brooks appeared in St Helens Police Court this week charged with not having the brake of his lorry trailer in full working order, PC Griffin said he had stopped the man's vehicle in Borough Road.
He found that the driver had been using string with a piece of wire tied round it for his brake.
Hardly surprising it wasn't working properly and Brooks from Manchester was fined 10 shillings.
Last week I reported how Henry Baynton, considered the top Shakespearean actor of his day, had returned to the St Helens Theatre Royal to perform a number of the Bard's plays.
And he was clearly very popular in the town as an advert in the St Helens Reporter on the 13th stated that two days earlier when 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' was performed hundreds had been turned away.
As a result Mr Baynton had decided to perform a "special matinee" of the play on Saturday 14th with a large "Fairy Ballet" and the music of Mendelssohn included in the performance.
The Reporter stated that the St Helens Cricket Club in Dentons Green had been experiencing problems with the adjacent Bishop Road field.
That was often used for fetes and similar events with only a dilapidated wire fence separating the two grounds.
With Sunday sports and other recreation not permitted, both cricket matches and fetes tended to take place on Saturday afternoons.
Last season that had led to the cricket ground being overrun with non-paying spectators and at the end of the match "shoals" of scrap paper needed to be collected.
These had blown from the Bishop Road field onto the cricket field with the Reporter writing, "…for fete days notoriously leave flocks of waste paper behind them to fly about in the breeze."
Interesting that crowds 100 years ago would throw unwanted paper on the ground like today.
But a new tall wooden fence was being installed which was expected to resolve the problems.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Sutton boy playing football who went through a shop window, the Pilkington boys who denied fighting in Church Street, the plans to widen two bridges in St Helens and the motorbike accident in Dentons Green.
"It was a happy gathering, imbued with a spirit of unity and comradeship that speaks well for the relations prevailing among the men who run the town's electricity department."
One might have thought that Crank being such a quiet and sedate place would not have been troubled much by neighbourly fights.
But on the 10th in the County Police Court, Sarah Green of Crank Hill summoned Mary Lomax on a charge of assault.
Mrs Green said she had returned from shopping in St Helens to find her "two little babies crying in the lane".
The children told their mother that a Mrs Smith had hit them and at that point the latter knocked on a window and told Mrs Green to keep her children away from her gate.
Mrs Smith was then accused of coming out of her house and knocking down Mrs Green and then Mrs Smith's mother, Mary Lomax, started hitting her as well.
It was another case in which what clearly had been a long-standing rift between neighbours had been brought to the boil by some incident with both sides claiming to be the innocent parties.
Mrs Lomax in her defence said Mrs Green had come to the front of her house and used bad language and threatened what she would do to her.
In the end after hearing all the conflicting evidence, the magistrates dismissed the case.
The couple had only been married for 8 months but the 22-year-old had a long list of violent acts that she claimed her husband had perpetrated against her.
Elizabeth said about ten days after their wedding, James had struck her in the face causing it to swell and had then followed her into the pantry and knocked her into a washing machine.
Six weeks later Elizabeth said she had got her husband's dinner ready and then went to visit a neighbour.
When her husband came home from work to find his wife absent, James went to the neighbour's house and asked her to move the furniture while he gave his wife a thrashing.
The woman refused to allow any violence to take place in her house and so James waited until they got home and Elizabeth said she was so severely ill-treated by him that her skin was discoloured in many places.
Recently he was said to have kissed his wife in order to bite her lip. Upon Elizabeth asking him why he done such a thing, he had struck her in the face.
James denied his wife's allegations and attempted to paint her as the difficult one in the marriage with what was described as an uncontrollable temper.
That, of course, might possibly have been the case but it was a common tactic employed by wife beaters.
Much was made of the fact that James always gave his wife £2 a week as housekeeping money and that Elizabeth had once torn up their marriage certificate in a temper.
James's solicitor accused her of going on to their bed with a knife in her hand and attempting to cut her husband's throat and that at one time she had tried to walk into the canal.
Elizabeth, who said her husband had driven her desperate, replied: "If he has told you that he is telling lies."
In reality this case was an application for a separation order with maintenance.
But many husbands would fight such an order as they did not want to have to pay money to their separated wife without getting any benefits in return and also did not want to be seen as a wife beater.
And magistrates were very unlikely to sanction the separation of newlyweds. So they adjourned the case for a month and asked the court probation officer / social worker to involve himself in the case.
Walking on the railway was very common and very dangerous. It was often the shortest route to a destination, particularly for those working in coal mines and other industry.
But because of the danger the police and railway company would prosecute offenders accusing them of trespassing.
That was the charge facing William Houghton of Church Street and John Murphy of Peter Street this week.
While in plain clothes on January 24th, PCs Tinsley and White had caught the young men on the Eccleston branch siding while on the lookout for coal stealers.
They had seen them enter the siding from Ravenhead Road and then walk along the railway towards the electricity works while engine shunting work was taking place.
However, the excuse they offered to the undercover officers was a most unusual one. Houghton and Murphy claimed to have been walking on the railway in order to reach higher ground to view an eclipse of the sun.
That was due to take place that afternoon and they were not happy about being stopped by the police.
Houghton had said: "I think you are exceeding your duty. It is only a trumped-up affair. Do I look like a trespasser?"
Whether he looked like a trespasser or not didn't matter as they were standing near notices warning that trespassers would be prosecuted! Both men were fined 7s 6d.
There were some peculiar set-ups in many of the early motor vehicles. Lighting connections, in particular, could be both primitive and convoluted with acetylene gas lamps often used that could easily go out during a journey.
In 1916 the defence solicitor for a lorry driver accused of driving his vehicle without a red rear light said his client's lamp had been out when he arrived at the Lingholme through an "act of God" – i.e. a bumpy road or puff of wind.
And in 1920 Claude Fillingham told a St Helens court that the reason for not illuminating his motorcycle and sidecar with a red rear light was because his lady passenger "must have sat on the gas connecting tube".
When Alfred Brooks appeared in St Helens Police Court this week charged with not having the brake of his lorry trailer in full working order, PC Griffin said he had stopped the man's vehicle in Borough Road.
He found that the driver had been using string with a piece of wire tied round it for his brake.
Hardly surprising it wasn't working properly and Brooks from Manchester was fined 10 shillings.
Last week I reported how Henry Baynton, considered the top Shakespearean actor of his day, had returned to the St Helens Theatre Royal to perform a number of the Bard's plays.
And he was clearly very popular in the town as an advert in the St Helens Reporter on the 13th stated that two days earlier when 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' was performed hundreds had been turned away.
As a result Mr Baynton had decided to perform a "special matinee" of the play on Saturday 14th with a large "Fairy Ballet" and the music of Mendelssohn included in the performance.
The Reporter stated that the St Helens Cricket Club in Dentons Green had been experiencing problems with the adjacent Bishop Road field.
That was often used for fetes and similar events with only a dilapidated wire fence separating the two grounds.
With Sunday sports and other recreation not permitted, both cricket matches and fetes tended to take place on Saturday afternoons.
Last season that had led to the cricket ground being overrun with non-paying spectators and at the end of the match "shoals" of scrap paper needed to be collected.
These had blown from the Bishop Road field onto the cricket field with the Reporter writing, "…for fete days notoriously leave flocks of waste paper behind them to fly about in the breeze."
Interesting that crowds 100 years ago would throw unwanted paper on the ground like today.
But a new tall wooden fence was being installed which was expected to resolve the problems.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Sutton boy playing football who went through a shop window, the Pilkington boys who denied fighting in Church Street, the plans to widen two bridges in St Helens and the motorbike accident in Dentons Green.