IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (11th - 17th NOVEMBER 1919)
This week's stories include the commemoration of the first Armistice Day in St Helens, a rare divorce is granted to a New Street couple, there's a bizarre Baldwin Street ejectment case, the St Helens Profiteering Committee investigate their first complaint and a Bold Colliery dispute over how a miner went to work.
We begin on the 11th with an unusual event – a divorce. In the 1911 census only one person in St Helens is classified as divorced. That, incidentally, was Mary Peters who ran a music shop in Hall Street. Perhaps the stigma led to some divorced people not putting their true status down on the census form? Whether that was true or not, divorce was still very rare in St Helens, despite it having been made easier over the last few years and Walter Naylor's petition was given prominent coverage in the Reporter.
The timekeeper at Liverpool docks had married his wife at Peasley Cross Congregational Church in October 1916 while on army leave and the couple set up home in New Street in Sutton. In September 1917 Walter became suspicious about his wife's condition and later discovered that she was pregnant. The man responsible was called North and he had previously lodged with Walter's in-laws.
Although the newspaper report did not actually state that Walter's wife had become pregnant while he'd been away in the army, that did happen to many men in the forces. Walter Naylor's petition was uncontested and the judge granted him a decree nisi.
The first Armistice Day was held in St Helens on the 11th as described by the St Helens Reporter: "At two minutes to eleven, works' hooters burst into a combined chorus with the church bells of the town, and this was maintained until the stroke of eleven. Then all business ceased, all work was suspended, excepting where it was impracticable; all locomotion in the streets came to a standstill as by the waving of a magic wand, people halted in the roadways and on the footpaths, just where they happened to be, and many remained bare-headed until the two minutes of solemn homage had expired. Flags were at half-mast."
In St Helens Police Court on the 11th two brothers from Appleton Street were charged with stealing coal from Sherdley Colliery. As a result of complaints from the colliery company, PCs Murrant and King had been keeping watch on the colliery yard in plain clothes. They witnessed 17-year-old Thomas Quinn and his 15-year-old brother Christopher get into the yard by walking down an embankment and then going across a siding.
The pair filled a bag of coal using a hammer to break large lumps into small pieces and they then ran away. However the two officers chased them down and made arrests. One brother worked at the colliery and the other at Clock Face Colliery and they both received fines of 20 shillings and probably the sack from their jobs.
A year on from the war and the country was still experiencing many shortages and during the summer a Profiteering Act had been passed. This allowed for the creation of local committees charged with investigating complaints from the public of inflated prices. On the 12th the St Helens Profiteering Committee investigated the first complaint that it had received.
It came from a Mrs Buckley of Chancery Lane who had complained of over-charging by Wood's Stores of Higher Parr Street. Mrs Buckley had sent her son to buy a small globe – as bulbs were then called – for her lamp. When the lad returned with the globe he said it had cost a shilling and his mother accused him of not telling the truth, as she thought the price was too high. Mrs Buckley found another shop that was selling the globe for 5½d and then went to Wood's Stores, which was owned by a Mr Allerton.
They confirmed the price but refused to give the woman her money back and so after visiting the Town Hall, Mrs Buckley put in her letter of complaint. However Mr Allerton showed to the committee members his invoice for the globe. This showed he was only making a 25% profit and so Mrs Buckley's complaint was dismissed.
The council's Health Committee also met on the 12th and heard a report from their medical officer on the threatened measles epidemic. Dr Cates said the number of notified cases in the town was now over 120 but there had been no deaths so far and nothing in the nature of a school epidemic.
In St Helens County Court on the 12th miner James Meadows sued the owners of Bold Colliery (shown above) for £1 9s 8d. In September, Henry Blacker, the under-manager at the pit, claimed he saw Meadows using the haulage road to get to his underground workplace rather than the travelling road. The latter was a safe pathway for the mineworkers to get to their designated coalface, while the haulage road was used to transport full and empty coal tubs. It was a more direct route but it could be dangerous and some miners had died after being struck down by tubs.
Blacker said Meadows had been with other men on the haulage road and when they saw him they all ran away. Sometime later the under-manager told James Meadows that running off on the haulage road was not a wise thing to do, as "you would likely have your brains knocked out". For breaking the colliery rules Meadows was told he would have to pay a fine of 2/6 and sign a document, which the miner refused to do. He was then sacked but after two days of discussions between miners' representatives and management, the fine was rescinded and Meadows was reinstated.
However the man wanted his two days' pay while the dispute was being settled – hence the court case. The under-manager swore positively that he had seen and heard Meadows on the haulage road. However the lighting had been poor and the miner had three witnesses that supported his case and so the judge awarded him his full claim of £1 9s 8d.
Last month Whiston Rural District Council had discussed the filthy state of the privies and ashpits containing human waste in Bold and Clock Face and decided they should be converted to water closets. At a meeting of the council's sub-committee on the 13th it was revealed that there were 94 homes that needed converting.
The St Helens Reporter on the following day described a court case in which Mary Howe had summoned Samuel Welsby for assault. The woman said Welsby from Park Road had punched her in the face while she was scrubbing the floor of his grandmother's house where she lived.
However Welsby claimed that Mary had thrown a wet floor cloth into his face and then rushed at him and all he did was push her onto a rocking chair. She then took a poker to him and the pair ended up wrestling on the kitchen floor. Welsby's grandmother described to the court what she had seen of the unedifying spectacle but confirmed that Samuel did not actually hit Mary and so the case was dismissed.
On the 14th The Times published a review of the Olympia Motor Exhibition in London. It described how Pilkingtons was the only company in the country that could supply in any quantity the 3/16" polished plate glass that was normally used for car windows. However war inflation had increased the cost of the glass from about 1s 8d to 4 shillings per square foot.
On the 15th the second annual show of the St Helens and District Cage Bird Society was held at the Fleece Hotel (pictured above). There were over 300 canaries and British birds on exhibition, which were judged in 56 classes.
The music hall acts that were appearing at the Hippodrome Theatre from the 17th were: Mlle. Cameo and M. D’Airgor ("Presenting tableaux in living marble"); The 2 Selbinos ("Cycling novelty"); Tom Mullen, ("Impressionist comedian"); Jean Duncan ("The Scottish soprano"); Fred Edwards assisted by Bertha Northern ("In Kleptomaniacs") and J. B. Strain ("Favourite Irish comedian").
A woman who wouldn't sleep in her own bedroom for fear of mice and rats appeared in St Helens Police Court on the 17th. The case concerned an application by Mrs Frances Littler to obtain a so-called ejectment order against a Mrs McManus of Baldwin Street. It was another hearing in which a landlord wanted possession of their house but the tenant claimed the homes' shortage in St Helens meant they couldn't find anywhere else to live.
But this case was quite unusual as Frances Littler was also renting her own home and her landlord had told her to quit. So she and her husband John wanted to move into the house that they owned in Baldwin Street. This was a four-bedroom property that was shared by three families of eleven people. However Mrs McManus preferred to sleep in the parlour because of the vermin in her bedroom.
Bizarrely Mrs McManus owned seven cottages herself but her tenants would not leave because they could not find anywhere else to live! It was a rental chain comparable to present-day house-buying chains. The magistrates granted the ejectment order giving Mrs McManus and the other occupiers of the house in Baldwin Street thirty days to leave.
Next week's stories will include a claim of baby farming in Westfield Street, the woman from Shaw Street prosecuted for taking her child into a pub, the work of the St Agnes Home in Nutgrove for fallen women and why the town's Electricity Committee was "between the devil and the deep sea" over a Swiss generator.
We begin on the 11th with an unusual event – a divorce. In the 1911 census only one person in St Helens is classified as divorced. That, incidentally, was Mary Peters who ran a music shop in Hall Street. Perhaps the stigma led to some divorced people not putting their true status down on the census form? Whether that was true or not, divorce was still very rare in St Helens, despite it having been made easier over the last few years and Walter Naylor's petition was given prominent coverage in the Reporter.
The timekeeper at Liverpool docks had married his wife at Peasley Cross Congregational Church in October 1916 while on army leave and the couple set up home in New Street in Sutton. In September 1917 Walter became suspicious about his wife's condition and later discovered that she was pregnant. The man responsible was called North and he had previously lodged with Walter's in-laws.
Although the newspaper report did not actually state that Walter's wife had become pregnant while he'd been away in the army, that did happen to many men in the forces. Walter Naylor's petition was uncontested and the judge granted him a decree nisi.
The first Armistice Day was held in St Helens on the 11th as described by the St Helens Reporter: "At two minutes to eleven, works' hooters burst into a combined chorus with the church bells of the town, and this was maintained until the stroke of eleven. Then all business ceased, all work was suspended, excepting where it was impracticable; all locomotion in the streets came to a standstill as by the waving of a magic wand, people halted in the roadways and on the footpaths, just where they happened to be, and many remained bare-headed until the two minutes of solemn homage had expired. Flags were at half-mast."
In St Helens Police Court on the 11th two brothers from Appleton Street were charged with stealing coal from Sherdley Colliery. As a result of complaints from the colliery company, PCs Murrant and King had been keeping watch on the colliery yard in plain clothes. They witnessed 17-year-old Thomas Quinn and his 15-year-old brother Christopher get into the yard by walking down an embankment and then going across a siding.
The pair filled a bag of coal using a hammer to break large lumps into small pieces and they then ran away. However the two officers chased them down and made arrests. One brother worked at the colliery and the other at Clock Face Colliery and they both received fines of 20 shillings and probably the sack from their jobs.
A year on from the war and the country was still experiencing many shortages and during the summer a Profiteering Act had been passed. This allowed for the creation of local committees charged with investigating complaints from the public of inflated prices. On the 12th the St Helens Profiteering Committee investigated the first complaint that it had received.
It came from a Mrs Buckley of Chancery Lane who had complained of over-charging by Wood's Stores of Higher Parr Street. Mrs Buckley had sent her son to buy a small globe – as bulbs were then called – for her lamp. When the lad returned with the globe he said it had cost a shilling and his mother accused him of not telling the truth, as she thought the price was too high. Mrs Buckley found another shop that was selling the globe for 5½d and then went to Wood's Stores, which was owned by a Mr Allerton.
They confirmed the price but refused to give the woman her money back and so after visiting the Town Hall, Mrs Buckley put in her letter of complaint. However Mr Allerton showed to the committee members his invoice for the globe. This showed he was only making a 25% profit and so Mrs Buckley's complaint was dismissed.
The council's Health Committee also met on the 12th and heard a report from their medical officer on the threatened measles epidemic. Dr Cates said the number of notified cases in the town was now over 120 but there had been no deaths so far and nothing in the nature of a school epidemic.
Blacker said Meadows had been with other men on the haulage road and when they saw him they all ran away. Sometime later the under-manager told James Meadows that running off on the haulage road was not a wise thing to do, as "you would likely have your brains knocked out". For breaking the colliery rules Meadows was told he would have to pay a fine of 2/6 and sign a document, which the miner refused to do. He was then sacked but after two days of discussions between miners' representatives and management, the fine was rescinded and Meadows was reinstated.
However the man wanted his two days' pay while the dispute was being settled – hence the court case. The under-manager swore positively that he had seen and heard Meadows on the haulage road. However the lighting had been poor and the miner had three witnesses that supported his case and so the judge awarded him his full claim of £1 9s 8d.
Last month Whiston Rural District Council had discussed the filthy state of the privies and ashpits containing human waste in Bold and Clock Face and decided they should be converted to water closets. At a meeting of the council's sub-committee on the 13th it was revealed that there were 94 homes that needed converting.
The St Helens Reporter on the following day described a court case in which Mary Howe had summoned Samuel Welsby for assault. The woman said Welsby from Park Road had punched her in the face while she was scrubbing the floor of his grandmother's house where she lived.
However Welsby claimed that Mary had thrown a wet floor cloth into his face and then rushed at him and all he did was push her onto a rocking chair. She then took a poker to him and the pair ended up wrestling on the kitchen floor. Welsby's grandmother described to the court what she had seen of the unedifying spectacle but confirmed that Samuel did not actually hit Mary and so the case was dismissed.
On the 14th The Times published a review of the Olympia Motor Exhibition in London. It described how Pilkingtons was the only company in the country that could supply in any quantity the 3/16" polished plate glass that was normally used for car windows. However war inflation had increased the cost of the glass from about 1s 8d to 4 shillings per square foot.
The music hall acts that were appearing at the Hippodrome Theatre from the 17th were: Mlle. Cameo and M. D’Airgor ("Presenting tableaux in living marble"); The 2 Selbinos ("Cycling novelty"); Tom Mullen, ("Impressionist comedian"); Jean Duncan ("The Scottish soprano"); Fred Edwards assisted by Bertha Northern ("In Kleptomaniacs") and J. B. Strain ("Favourite Irish comedian").
But this case was quite unusual as Frances Littler was also renting her own home and her landlord had told her to quit. So she and her husband John wanted to move into the house that they owned in Baldwin Street. This was a four-bedroom property that was shared by three families of eleven people. However Mrs McManus preferred to sleep in the parlour because of the vermin in her bedroom.
Bizarrely Mrs McManus owned seven cottages herself but her tenants would not leave because they could not find anywhere else to live! It was a rental chain comparable to present-day house-buying chains. The magistrates granted the ejectment order giving Mrs McManus and the other occupiers of the house in Baldwin Street thirty days to leave.
Next week's stories will include a claim of baby farming in Westfield Street, the woman from Shaw Street prosecuted for taking her child into a pub, the work of the St Agnes Home in Nutgrove for fallen women and why the town's Electricity Committee was "between the devil and the deep sea" over a Swiss generator.