IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (10 - 16 JULY 1923)
This week's many stories include the gipsy woman accused of trickery in Sutton, the cheeky pawning of Water Street washing, a call for women to only be taught to swim at Boundary Road baths by married men, the Labour party's inaugural summer field day in Bishop Road and the huge crowd in Parr that watched an angry woman beat up her husband – and then a policeman.
We begin on the 10th when Horace Jackson was fatally injured at Sutton Manor Colliery (pictured above). The 16-year-old from Clock Face Road had worked as a haulage hand at the mine for nearly three years. Before dying in hospital Horace had told his father – who was a local newsagent – that the accident happened when the chain broke on a "journey" of boxes. These contained coal or materials and were transported round the mine by a system of haulage. As a consequence of the chain breaking, the boxes had struck the boy down – an all too common accident in coalmines.
On the 12th Frances Lynch of Water Street in St Helens appeared in the Police Court charged with the unlawful pledging of £2 worth of articles of wearing apparel – in other words taking clothes that weren't hers to a pawnshop. For some time the 48-year-old had an agreement with Mary Kelsall of Haswell Street that she would do her family wash. The garments were returned to Mrs Kelsall every Friday nice and clean. But what she did not know was that the clothes had often spent a few days in the pawnshop before being taken back.
On previous occasions Mrs Lynch had by the Friday got sufficient cash to redeem the items and had returned them to Mrs Kelsall without her being any the wiser. But not for some reason on Friday May 18th, when her scheme unravelled. Mrs Lynch did not have enough money to get the clothes out of the pawnshop; Mrs Kelsall demanded to know where her washing was and Mrs Lynch panicked and absconded. But she had now returned home to face the music and was fined 20 shillings. Her husband had already repaid part of the money obtained illegally from the pawnbroker and she was ordered to repay the rest.
Also on the 12th a professional boxer called Frank Phillips from Graham Street in Fingerpost was fined £5 and 7s 6d costs for assaulting Ralph Fairclough. The 12-year-old had been seriously injured at a fair in Parr in June when Phillips had kicked him in the lower part of his stomach while clearing away boys from outside of a boxing booth.
On the 13th Hannah Horsley was fined £15 for using her house in Fleet Lane for the purpose of betting. That was considered more serious than taking bets on the street for which the usual fine was £10.
During that evening a house in Lugsmore Lane in Thatto Heath was struck by lightning. The chimneystack and roof were described as practically destroyed but there were no injuries.
This is how the Reporter on the 13th described a recent hearing in St Helens Police Court: "A lively scene in Brown-street on Friday night was witnessed by a crowd of 300 people, who, as the saying goes, had value for their money." At the centre of the disturbance was Mary Shaughnessey who appeared in court charged with committing a breach of the peace. PC Tinsley said that at 10:30pm on the previous night he had found Mrs Shaughnessy standing outside her door in Brown Street in Parr shouting at the top of her voice in front of a large crowd.
He told her to go inside but the woman refused. And when her husband came down the street, "she went for him, hitting him right and left". The constable said that he managed to part the couple but Mrs Shaughnessy continued making a din – and so he had to take her into custody. However, she immediately began kicking, biting and scratching him and the bobby needed the help of civilians to subdue her. In court Mrs Shaughnessy blamed her husband, claiming he gave her little money and adding: "I am not going to sit down and let him ill-treat me." She was bound over for six months to keep the peace.
"The Art of Swimming In St. Helens – Are The Ladies Backward" was the headline to an article in the Reporter. It concerned an application that had been made to the council's Water Committee on behalf of the ladies section of St Helens Swimming Club. They were requesting the exclusive use of the baths at Boundary Road (pictured above) for a set time on a weekday evening. The letter pointed out that swimming among the ladies of St Helens was far behind the standard of other Lancashire boroughs and that the female facilities at Boundary Road were inadequate.
Women, they added, were reluctant to be taught swimming by an unmarried male instructor. And so their application also requested permission for three male instructors – who would be married men – to accompany the ladies in the baths on the night set for their exclusive use. Strange how they thought married men would not behave inappropriately in the baths as single instructors might. But the Swimming Club also insisted that they would be fully responsible "for the observance of strict propriety".
In discussing the application the members of the Water Committee heard that there were very few female swimming instructors available and although they were willing to help the club, they said they could not grant women exclusive use of the baths for the whole of an evening. However, after a discussion they granted the request but for no more than ninety minutes on Monday evenings, the exact time to be fixed by a subcommittee.
The Reporter also wrote: "The sight of a gipsy has been sufficient to put Sutton shopkeepers on their guard during the past few weeks, owing, it was stated at the St. Helens Police Court, on Saturday, to their peculiar gifts in bargaining." A woman called Emily Lee had been accused of using "trickery" to go round shops asking for change, while at the same buying items in a way that caused shopkeepers confusion. But her solicitor that there had been no trickery, just mistakes and that no shopkeeper had lost anything. As a result the magistrates dismissed the case on payment of costs.
The St Helens Reporter was a Conservative supporting newspaper, although their prejudice against the Labour Party was only usually noticeable at election times. However, their report on the local party’s "demonstration and dance" last weekend gloated somewhat over what they said had been a low turnout. The event was held in the field at Bishop Road adjoining the cricket field and featured the Moss Bank Prize Band. The paper wrote:
"The crowd of enthusiasts that was enthusiastically anticipated forgot all about the event, and this first venture in the direction of the promotion of a summer field day was very disappointing. Counter attractions of the cricket field and the bowling green were evidently too strong for those of the Labour demonstration, and manifestly the Saturday afternoon feeling is not as conducive to the political feeling. So meagre was the attendance that neither the Borough Member [MP] (Mr. James Sexton) nor his distinguished colleague, the Right Hon. J. R. Clynes M.P., got up to speak." John Robert Clynes was the former leader of the Labour Party who had led it to its breakthrough at the 1922 general election.
On the morning of the 14th the body of an unknown man aged about 55 was found in the Eccleston Mill Dam. The body had seemingly been in the water about two or three days and was removed to the Griffin Inn. There'll be more on this story next week.
Although the grand new Lowe House Church would not be finished until 1930, its War Memorial Chapel was opened on the 15th of this week. Nearly 2,000 people attended the ceremony, which was conducted by Dr Frederick Keating, the Archbishop of Liverpool. The chapel dedicated to St George contained tablets bearing the names of 174 men of the Lowe House parish who had died during the war.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the huge crowd watching a fight in Water Street, the two young brothers that drowned at Blackbrook, the desperate need for a mortuary in Eccleston and the men causing a nuisance in Shaw Street.
On the 12th Frances Lynch of Water Street in St Helens appeared in the Police Court charged with the unlawful pledging of £2 worth of articles of wearing apparel – in other words taking clothes that weren't hers to a pawnshop. For some time the 48-year-old had an agreement with Mary Kelsall of Haswell Street that she would do her family wash. The garments were returned to Mrs Kelsall every Friday nice and clean. But what she did not know was that the clothes had often spent a few days in the pawnshop before being taken back.
On previous occasions Mrs Lynch had by the Friday got sufficient cash to redeem the items and had returned them to Mrs Kelsall without her being any the wiser. But not for some reason on Friday May 18th, when her scheme unravelled. Mrs Lynch did not have enough money to get the clothes out of the pawnshop; Mrs Kelsall demanded to know where her washing was and Mrs Lynch panicked and absconded. But she had now returned home to face the music and was fined 20 shillings. Her husband had already repaid part of the money obtained illegally from the pawnbroker and she was ordered to repay the rest.
Also on the 12th a professional boxer called Frank Phillips from Graham Street in Fingerpost was fined £5 and 7s 6d costs for assaulting Ralph Fairclough. The 12-year-old had been seriously injured at a fair in Parr in June when Phillips had kicked him in the lower part of his stomach while clearing away boys from outside of a boxing booth.
On the 13th Hannah Horsley was fined £15 for using her house in Fleet Lane for the purpose of betting. That was considered more serious than taking bets on the street for which the usual fine was £10.
During that evening a house in Lugsmore Lane in Thatto Heath was struck by lightning. The chimneystack and roof were described as practically destroyed but there were no injuries.
This is how the Reporter on the 13th described a recent hearing in St Helens Police Court: "A lively scene in Brown-street on Friday night was witnessed by a crowd of 300 people, who, as the saying goes, had value for their money." At the centre of the disturbance was Mary Shaughnessey who appeared in court charged with committing a breach of the peace. PC Tinsley said that at 10:30pm on the previous night he had found Mrs Shaughnessy standing outside her door in Brown Street in Parr shouting at the top of her voice in front of a large crowd.
He told her to go inside but the woman refused. And when her husband came down the street, "she went for him, hitting him right and left". The constable said that he managed to part the couple but Mrs Shaughnessy continued making a din – and so he had to take her into custody. However, she immediately began kicking, biting and scratching him and the bobby needed the help of civilians to subdue her. In court Mrs Shaughnessy blamed her husband, claiming he gave her little money and adding: "I am not going to sit down and let him ill-treat me." She was bound over for six months to keep the peace.
Women, they added, were reluctant to be taught swimming by an unmarried male instructor. And so their application also requested permission for three male instructors – who would be married men – to accompany the ladies in the baths on the night set for their exclusive use. Strange how they thought married men would not behave inappropriately in the baths as single instructors might. But the Swimming Club also insisted that they would be fully responsible "for the observance of strict propriety".
In discussing the application the members of the Water Committee heard that there were very few female swimming instructors available and although they were willing to help the club, they said they could not grant women exclusive use of the baths for the whole of an evening. However, after a discussion they granted the request but for no more than ninety minutes on Monday evenings, the exact time to be fixed by a subcommittee.
The Reporter also wrote: "The sight of a gipsy has been sufficient to put Sutton shopkeepers on their guard during the past few weeks, owing, it was stated at the St. Helens Police Court, on Saturday, to their peculiar gifts in bargaining." A woman called Emily Lee had been accused of using "trickery" to go round shops asking for change, while at the same buying items in a way that caused shopkeepers confusion. But her solicitor that there had been no trickery, just mistakes and that no shopkeeper had lost anything. As a result the magistrates dismissed the case on payment of costs.
The St Helens Reporter was a Conservative supporting newspaper, although their prejudice against the Labour Party was only usually noticeable at election times. However, their report on the local party’s "demonstration and dance" last weekend gloated somewhat over what they said had been a low turnout. The event was held in the field at Bishop Road adjoining the cricket field and featured the Moss Bank Prize Band. The paper wrote:
"The crowd of enthusiasts that was enthusiastically anticipated forgot all about the event, and this first venture in the direction of the promotion of a summer field day was very disappointing. Counter attractions of the cricket field and the bowling green were evidently too strong for those of the Labour demonstration, and manifestly the Saturday afternoon feeling is not as conducive to the political feeling. So meagre was the attendance that neither the Borough Member [MP] (Mr. James Sexton) nor his distinguished colleague, the Right Hon. J. R. Clynes M.P., got up to speak." John Robert Clynes was the former leader of the Labour Party who had led it to its breakthrough at the 1922 general election.
On the morning of the 14th the body of an unknown man aged about 55 was found in the Eccleston Mill Dam. The body had seemingly been in the water about two or three days and was removed to the Griffin Inn. There'll be more on this story next week.
Although the grand new Lowe House Church would not be finished until 1930, its War Memorial Chapel was opened on the 15th of this week. Nearly 2,000 people attended the ceremony, which was conducted by Dr Frederick Keating, the Archbishop of Liverpool. The chapel dedicated to St George contained tablets bearing the names of 174 men of the Lowe House parish who had died during the war.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the huge crowd watching a fight in Water Street, the two young brothers that drowned at Blackbrook, the desperate need for a mortuary in Eccleston and the men causing a nuisance in Shaw Street.
This week's many stories include the gipsy woman accused of trickery in Sutton, the cheeky pawning of Water Street washing, a call for women to only be taught to swim at Boundary Road baths by married men, the Labour party's inaugural summer field day in Bishop Road and the huge crowd in Parr that watched an angry woman beat up her husband – and then a policeman.
We begin on the 10th when Horace Jackson was fatally injured at Sutton Manor Colliery (pictured above).
The 16-year-old from Clock Face Road had worked as a haulage hand at the mine for nearly three years.
Before dying in hospital Horace had told his father – who was a local newsagent – that the accident happened when the chain broke on a "journey" of boxes.
These contained coal or materials and were transported round the mine by a system of haulage.
As a consequence of the chain breaking, the boxes had struck the boy down – an all too common accident in coalmines.
On the 12th Frances Lynch of Water Street in St Helens appeared in the Police Court charged with the unlawful pledging of £2 worth of articles of wearing apparel – in other words taking clothes that weren't hers to a pawnshop.
For some time the 48-year-old had an agreement with Mary Kelsall of Haswell Street that she would do her family wash.
The garments were returned to Mrs Kelsall every Friday nice and clean. But what she did not know was that the clothes had often spent a few days in the pawnshop before being taken back.
On previous occasions Mrs Lynch had by the Friday got sufficient cash to redeem the items and had returned them to Mrs Kelsall without her being any the wiser.
But not for some reason on Friday May 18th, when her scheme unravelled.
Mrs Lynch did not have enough money to get the clothes out of the pawnshop; Mrs Kelsall demanded to know where her washing was and Mrs Lynch panicked and absconded.
But she had now returned home to face the music and was fined 20 shillings. Her husband had already repaid part of the money obtained illegally from the pawnbroker and she was ordered to repay the rest.
Also on the 12th a professional boxer called Frank Phillips from Graham Street in Fingerpost was fined £5 and 7s 6d costs for assaulting Ralph Fairclough.
The 12-year-old had been seriously injured at a fair in Parr in June when Phillips had kicked him in the lower part of his stomach while clearing away boys from outside of a boxing booth.
On the 13th Hannah Horsley was fined £15 for using her house in Fleet Lane for the purpose of betting.
That was considered more serious than taking bets on the street for which the usual fine was £10.
During that evening a house in Lugsmore Lane in Thatto Heath was struck by lightning. The chimneystack and roof were described as practically destroyed but there were no injuries.
This is how the Reporter on the 13th described a recent hearing in St Helens Police Court:
"A lively scene in Brown-street on Friday night was witnessed by a crowd of 300 people, who, as the saying goes, had value for their money."
At the centre of the disturbance was Mary Shaughnessey who appeared in court charged with committing a breach of the peace.
PC Tinsley said that at 10:30pm on the previous night he had found Mrs Shaughnessy standing outside her door in Brown Street in Parr shouting at the top of her voice in front of a large crowd.
He told her to go inside but the woman refused. And when her husband came down the street, "she went for him, hitting him right and left".
The constable said that he managed to part the couple but Mrs Shaughnessy continued making a din – and so he had to take her into custody.
However, she immediately began kicking, biting and scratching him and the bobby needed the help of civilians to subdue her.
In court Mrs Shaughnessy blamed her husband, claiming he gave her little money and adding: "I am not going to sit down and let him ill-treat me." She was bound over for six months to keep the peace.
"The Art of Swimming In St. Helens – Are The Ladies Backward" was the headline to an article in the Reporter.
It concerned an application that had been made to the council's Water Committee on behalf of the ladies section of St Helens Swimming Club.
They were requesting the exclusive use of the baths at Boundary Road for a set time on a weekday evening.
The letter pointed out that swimming among the ladies of St Helens was far behind the standard of other Lancashire boroughs and that the female facilities at Boundary Road were inadequate.
Women, they added, were reluctant to be taught swimming by an unmarried male instructor.
And so their application also requested permission for three male instructors – who would be married men – to accompany the ladies in the baths on the night set for their exclusive use.
Strange how they thought married men would not behave inappropriately in the baths as single instructors might.
But the Swimming Club also insisted that they would be fully responsible "for the observance of strict propriety".
In discussing the application the members of the Water Committee heard that there were very few female swimming instructors available and although they were willing to help the club, they said they could not grant women exclusive use of the baths for the whole of an evening.
However, after a discussion they granted the request but for no more than ninety minutes on Monday evenings, the exact time to be fixed by a subcommittee.
The Reporter also wrote: "The sight of a gipsy has been sufficient to put Sutton shopkeepers on their guard during the past few weeks, owing, it was stated at the St. Helens Police Court, on Saturday, to their peculiar gifts in bargaining."
A woman called Emily Lee had been accused of using "trickery" to go round shops asking for change, while at the same buying items in a way that caused shopkeepers confusion.
But her solicitor that there had been no trickery, just mistakes and that no shopkeeper had lost anything. As a result the magistrates dismissed the case on payment of costs.
The St Helens Reporter was a Conservative supporting newspaper, although their prejudice against the Labour Party was only usually noticeable at election times.
However, their report on the local party’s "demonstration and dance" last weekend gloated somewhat over what they said had been a low turnout.
The event was held in the field at Bishop Road adjoining the cricket field and featured the Moss Bank Prize Band. The paper wrote:
"The crowd of enthusiasts that was enthusiastically anticipated forgot all about the event, and this first venture in the direction of the promotion of a summer field day was very disappointing.
"Counter attractions of the cricket field and the bowling green were evidently too strong for those of the Labour demonstration, and manifestly the Saturday afternoon feeling is not as conducive to the political feeling.
"So meagre was the attendance that neither the Borough Member [MP] (Mr. James Sexton) nor his distinguished colleague, the Right Hon. J. R. Clynes M.P., got up to speak."
John Robert Clynes was the former leader of the Labour Party who had led it to its breakthrough at the 1922 general election.
On the morning of the 14th the body of an unknown man aged about 55 was found in the Eccleston Mill Dam.
The body had seemingly been in the water about two or three days and was removed to the Griffin Inn. There'll be more on this story next week.
Although the grand new Lowe House Church would not be finished until 1930, its War Memorial Chapel was opened on the 15th of this week.
Nearly 2,000 people attended the ceremony, which was conducted by Dr Frederick Keating, the Archbishop of Liverpool.
The chapel dedicated to St George contained tablets bearing the names of 174 men of the Lowe House parish who had died during the war.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the huge crowd watching a fight in Water Street, the two young brothers that drowned at Blackbrook, the desperate need for a mortuary in Eccleston and the men causing a nuisance in Shaw Street.
The 16-year-old from Clock Face Road had worked as a haulage hand at the mine for nearly three years.
Before dying in hospital Horace had told his father – who was a local newsagent – that the accident happened when the chain broke on a "journey" of boxes.
These contained coal or materials and were transported round the mine by a system of haulage.
As a consequence of the chain breaking, the boxes had struck the boy down – an all too common accident in coalmines.
On the 12th Frances Lynch of Water Street in St Helens appeared in the Police Court charged with the unlawful pledging of £2 worth of articles of wearing apparel – in other words taking clothes that weren't hers to a pawnshop.
For some time the 48-year-old had an agreement with Mary Kelsall of Haswell Street that she would do her family wash.
The garments were returned to Mrs Kelsall every Friday nice and clean. But what she did not know was that the clothes had often spent a few days in the pawnshop before being taken back.
On previous occasions Mrs Lynch had by the Friday got sufficient cash to redeem the items and had returned them to Mrs Kelsall without her being any the wiser.
But not for some reason on Friday May 18th, when her scheme unravelled.
Mrs Lynch did not have enough money to get the clothes out of the pawnshop; Mrs Kelsall demanded to know where her washing was and Mrs Lynch panicked and absconded.
But she had now returned home to face the music and was fined 20 shillings. Her husband had already repaid part of the money obtained illegally from the pawnbroker and she was ordered to repay the rest.
Also on the 12th a professional boxer called Frank Phillips from Graham Street in Fingerpost was fined £5 and 7s 6d costs for assaulting Ralph Fairclough.
The 12-year-old had been seriously injured at a fair in Parr in June when Phillips had kicked him in the lower part of his stomach while clearing away boys from outside of a boxing booth.
On the 13th Hannah Horsley was fined £15 for using her house in Fleet Lane for the purpose of betting.
That was considered more serious than taking bets on the street for which the usual fine was £10.
During that evening a house in Lugsmore Lane in Thatto Heath was struck by lightning. The chimneystack and roof were described as practically destroyed but there were no injuries.
This is how the Reporter on the 13th described a recent hearing in St Helens Police Court:
"A lively scene in Brown-street on Friday night was witnessed by a crowd of 300 people, who, as the saying goes, had value for their money."
At the centre of the disturbance was Mary Shaughnessey who appeared in court charged with committing a breach of the peace.
PC Tinsley said that at 10:30pm on the previous night he had found Mrs Shaughnessy standing outside her door in Brown Street in Parr shouting at the top of her voice in front of a large crowd.
He told her to go inside but the woman refused. And when her husband came down the street, "she went for him, hitting him right and left".
The constable said that he managed to part the couple but Mrs Shaughnessy continued making a din – and so he had to take her into custody.
However, she immediately began kicking, biting and scratching him and the bobby needed the help of civilians to subdue her.
In court Mrs Shaughnessy blamed her husband, claiming he gave her little money and adding: "I am not going to sit down and let him ill-treat me." She was bound over for six months to keep the peace.
It concerned an application that had been made to the council's Water Committee on behalf of the ladies section of St Helens Swimming Club.
They were requesting the exclusive use of the baths at Boundary Road for a set time on a weekday evening.
The letter pointed out that swimming among the ladies of St Helens was far behind the standard of other Lancashire boroughs and that the female facilities at Boundary Road were inadequate.
Women, they added, were reluctant to be taught swimming by an unmarried male instructor.
And so their application also requested permission for three male instructors – who would be married men – to accompany the ladies in the baths on the night set for their exclusive use.
Strange how they thought married men would not behave inappropriately in the baths as single instructors might.
But the Swimming Club also insisted that they would be fully responsible "for the observance of strict propriety".
In discussing the application the members of the Water Committee heard that there were very few female swimming instructors available and although they were willing to help the club, they said they could not grant women exclusive use of the baths for the whole of an evening.
However, after a discussion they granted the request but for no more than ninety minutes on Monday evenings, the exact time to be fixed by a subcommittee.
The Reporter also wrote: "The sight of a gipsy has been sufficient to put Sutton shopkeepers on their guard during the past few weeks, owing, it was stated at the St. Helens Police Court, on Saturday, to their peculiar gifts in bargaining."
A woman called Emily Lee had been accused of using "trickery" to go round shops asking for change, while at the same buying items in a way that caused shopkeepers confusion.
But her solicitor that there had been no trickery, just mistakes and that no shopkeeper had lost anything. As a result the magistrates dismissed the case on payment of costs.
The St Helens Reporter was a Conservative supporting newspaper, although their prejudice against the Labour Party was only usually noticeable at election times.
However, their report on the local party’s "demonstration and dance" last weekend gloated somewhat over what they said had been a low turnout.
The event was held in the field at Bishop Road adjoining the cricket field and featured the Moss Bank Prize Band. The paper wrote:
"The crowd of enthusiasts that was enthusiastically anticipated forgot all about the event, and this first venture in the direction of the promotion of a summer field day was very disappointing.
"Counter attractions of the cricket field and the bowling green were evidently too strong for those of the Labour demonstration, and manifestly the Saturday afternoon feeling is not as conducive to the political feeling.
"So meagre was the attendance that neither the Borough Member [MP] (Mr. James Sexton) nor his distinguished colleague, the Right Hon. J. R. Clynes M.P., got up to speak."
John Robert Clynes was the former leader of the Labour Party who had led it to its breakthrough at the 1922 general election.
On the morning of the 14th the body of an unknown man aged about 55 was found in the Eccleston Mill Dam.
The body had seemingly been in the water about two or three days and was removed to the Griffin Inn. There'll be more on this story next week.
Although the grand new Lowe House Church would not be finished until 1930, its War Memorial Chapel was opened on the 15th of this week.
Nearly 2,000 people attended the ceremony, which was conducted by Dr Frederick Keating, the Archbishop of Liverpool.
The chapel dedicated to St George contained tablets bearing the names of 174 men of the Lowe House parish who had died during the war.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the huge crowd watching a fight in Water Street, the two young brothers that drowned at Blackbrook, the desperate need for a mortuary in Eccleston and the men causing a nuisance in Shaw Street.