IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (12th - 18th JULY 1921)
This week's stories include the extraordinary Tennyson Street mine accident coincidence, the baby's body discovered floating in the St Helens canal at Parr, the inside job thefts at the old Sutton Bond munitions plant and why honesty was not the best policy for a Clock Face miner.
We begin on the 12th with the inaugural meeting of the St Helens & District Football Combination at the Stanley Inn in Peasley Cross Lane. Formed in 1917 as the St Helens & District Junior League, the competition would continue for 99 years. It lasted much longer than the venue for their meetings did, as the Stanley Arms or Stanley Inn would close in 1932.
I described in May how a group of men had appeared before St Helens Police Court charged with stealing or receiving £124 worth of Government property. It was alleged that the goods had been appropriated from the old Sutton Bond munitions plant in Lancots Lane, which was now being used as a Government stores. Some of the accused had been members of the Royal Defence Corps and had supposedly been guarding the stores in Sutton Oak during the miners' strike but had in fact been helping themselves.
All were committed to the Liverpool Assizes and I then wrote that the sentences handed out at the court in St George's Hall could be severe. Well they could but not on the 12th when the fourteen men and one woman appeared. With one or two slight exceptions all had no previous convictions and the Chairman felt they had been placed in "great temptation to which they had succumbed". The Bench also thought there had been great laxity in the management of the stores and despite only half of the stolen property having been recovered, all of the defendants were simply bound over.
On the 14th there was the sad discovery of a baby's body in the St Helens Canal at the bottom of Park Road. Dr Unsworth told the inquest that after undertaking a post-mortem, he had concluded that the male child's body had been in the water for too long to be able to say whether the child had lived or not. That was always an important distinction as to whether a deceased child had been stillborn or alive when born.
There were many hidden pregnancies and secret births by single women. If their child had been secretly stillborn (as many were), disposal of its body was against the law but it was not on the same scale as if the child had been born alive. Then investigations would take place to try and learn how the child had died – sometimes unintentionally by neglect from ignorant mothers giving birth without any parental or medical supervision.
During the evening of the 14th, Sutton's champion boxer Ernie Proudlove from Herbert Street fought what may well have been his final bout after a long career. The coal miner by day defeated Spank Turner from Goldthorpe at the Liverpool Pudsey Street Stadium. Other unusually-named boxers that Ernie had recently fought included Curly Kenyon, Cast Iron Hague and Young Sailor.
The Lowe House Carnival was in full swing this week on the Volunteer Field (aka Barracks Field) in the grounds of Lowe House church. The annual event was intended to raise cash for the new church building, which would not be completed until 1930. I haven't been able to find out this year's attractions, although two years ago the St Helens Reporter had written this about the carnival:
"Amongst recent arrivals has been Manders' American menagerie, where real lions ramp and rage, and where a real man goes into their cages and makes them go through most terrifying evolutions. Mr. Mitchell has won the hearts of the children by extending invitations to several schools in the town to come to the fair on certain afternoons “free, gratis and for nothing”. They came in droves with their teachers, and had the time of their lives." Mitchell was the organiser who as I wrote two years ago may have won the hearts of the children but probably not the hearts of the poor lions!
My '150 Years Ago' articles have regularly featured destitute individuals (often children) who have been sent to prison for a week or two for stealing coal – even bits of coal dug out of waste heaps that would never have been sold. By 1921 imprisonment for such an offence was rare but on the 14th Thomas Kenwright was sent to jail for a month. As stated last week, the 3-month-long coal strike that had just ended had left many pits in a poor condition and it would take some time to get them back into a safe working order.
Until then only a fraction of the labour force was required, leading to many workers no longer being on strike but simply unemployed and in poverty. Thomas Kenwright from Watery Lane in Sutton was one of these unfortunates, having been employed at Clock Face Colliery before the strike. He admitted taking coal from railway waggons in order to sell for food – although his honesty appears to have worked against him.
The Chairman of the Bench was aghast at his confession, as Kenwright had been fined 20 shillings for a similar offence in May. "Now you come here and deliberately say that you had done this with intent," said the magistrate as he sent the miner to prison. Honesty may not have always been the best policy.
I wonder what the chances are for two next-door neighbours to receive almost identical injuries within hours of each other in separate accidents down different pits – especially as the workforce in both mines were highly depleted? But early on the 15th, 49-year-old Thomas Sidwell from 26 Tennyson Street in Sutton Manor broke his leg and received scalp wounds in an accident at Sherdley Colliery. Then some hours later Charles Spriggs from 28 Tennyson Street suffered a fractured leg and other injuries at Sutton Manor Colliery. Both were taken to St Helens Hospital and perhaps had beds next to each so they could compare notes.
Class division could be quite complex a century ago with various sub-divisions within the working, middle and upper class brackets. However as far as the police and the magistrates were concerned defendants were often defined solely in terms of their respectability. A working-class man who worked hard and looked after his family and didn't fritter his money away on drink was seen as respectable and could be treated better in court than those who weren't. The fifteen defendants in the Sutton Oak stores thefts earlier in this article clearly passed the respectability test and were simply bound over at the assizes.
On the 18th two joiners appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with being drunk and disorderly in a passage near the YMCA. After being arrested and taken to the police station the pair then became abusive. The Chairman of the Bench told James Keenan of New Cross Street and William Dolan from City Road:
"It is very sad to see two respectable men here on a charge of this sort. I understand that one of you had no less than £30 in his possession. The wonder is how he managed to escaped being robbed of it; he has to thank the police for taking care of him." The men were only fined ten shillings. Those not deemed respectable who were less well off might well have been told to pay more.
And finally the other big issue in the Liverpool Echo was the hot weather. The above cartoon had been published by the paper in June and this week there were two articles that attracted my attention. This first piece was published under the headline: "‘Eat, ‘Olidays, Hapathy – What The Country Really Is Suffering From":
"“What this country is suffering from,” said a Fat Man in the Southport train this morning, “is ‘eat, ‘olidays, and hapathy.” Saying which, and without bothering to beg anybody's pardon, he peeled off a limp and sticky stand up collar, and replaced it with a brand new one of silky texture. His remark had the tired agreement of everybody who heard him. They showed their acquiescence by nodding gravely. It was much too hot to say “yes”.
"Only one man was stirred to speech. Under cover of his newspaper he softly whispered to his neighbour: “And what he is suffering from is alliteration, perspiration, and haspiration.” Evidence in support of the Fat Man's epigram was everywhere for the eye to see. Everywhere was listless, everybody was hot, and everybody was in the lightest summer clothes. Those who did not look as if they going for their holidays looked as if they wished they were."
The second article was published under the headline: "Heaven-Sent Moisture – Showers That Herald End of the Drought" and underlined the public health benefits of the miners strike which had led to far less smoke being pumped into the atmosphere:
"After many weeks of drought, rainfall is reported at several points. To-morrow is St. Swithin's Day. A sharp thunderstorm passed over the Isle of Man last night, and there was a welcome fall of rain. A few minutes before 9.30 this morning a few spots fell in the city, and at a quarter to 1 the drought broke in Liverpool. It was a proper shower of rain, like an old friend well met. Some ungrateful people actually put up their umbrellas, but most us left our raincoats in the office and walked out to enjoy the fine weather – new style.
"While the summer of 1921 is the hottest for quite thirty years no summer of recent years can show such a clean bill of health. One cause of this is the continuity of the sunshine. Hot spells with intermittent wet periods are the more likely to bring about conditions favourable to the spread of disease, says the Liverpool medical officer of health. Calamitous as was the coal strike industrially, it has contributed to the good health of the community. But above all this healthy summer is a tribute to the value of up-to-date sanitation."
Next week's stories will include the Parr boy who died after eating a poisonous plant, a St Helens miner's comic poem about paper boys, the new licensing law and why the will of the late chairman of Pilkington's had broken new ground.
We begin on the 12th with the inaugural meeting of the St Helens & District Football Combination at the Stanley Inn in Peasley Cross Lane. Formed in 1917 as the St Helens & District Junior League, the competition would continue for 99 years. It lasted much longer than the venue for their meetings did, as the Stanley Arms or Stanley Inn would close in 1932.
I described in May how a group of men had appeared before St Helens Police Court charged with stealing or receiving £124 worth of Government property. It was alleged that the goods had been appropriated from the old Sutton Bond munitions plant in Lancots Lane, which was now being used as a Government stores. Some of the accused had been members of the Royal Defence Corps and had supposedly been guarding the stores in Sutton Oak during the miners' strike but had in fact been helping themselves.
All were committed to the Liverpool Assizes and I then wrote that the sentences handed out at the court in St George's Hall could be severe. Well they could but not on the 12th when the fourteen men and one woman appeared. With one or two slight exceptions all had no previous convictions and the Chairman felt they had been placed in "great temptation to which they had succumbed". The Bench also thought there had been great laxity in the management of the stores and despite only half of the stolen property having been recovered, all of the defendants were simply bound over.
On the 14th there was the sad discovery of a baby's body in the St Helens Canal at the bottom of Park Road. Dr Unsworth told the inquest that after undertaking a post-mortem, he had concluded that the male child's body had been in the water for too long to be able to say whether the child had lived or not. That was always an important distinction as to whether a deceased child had been stillborn or alive when born.
There were many hidden pregnancies and secret births by single women. If their child had been secretly stillborn (as many were), disposal of its body was against the law but it was not on the same scale as if the child had been born alive. Then investigations would take place to try and learn how the child had died – sometimes unintentionally by neglect from ignorant mothers giving birth without any parental or medical supervision.
During the evening of the 14th, Sutton's champion boxer Ernie Proudlove from Herbert Street fought what may well have been his final bout after a long career. The coal miner by day defeated Spank Turner from Goldthorpe at the Liverpool Pudsey Street Stadium. Other unusually-named boxers that Ernie had recently fought included Curly Kenyon, Cast Iron Hague and Young Sailor.
"Amongst recent arrivals has been Manders' American menagerie, where real lions ramp and rage, and where a real man goes into their cages and makes them go through most terrifying evolutions. Mr. Mitchell has won the hearts of the children by extending invitations to several schools in the town to come to the fair on certain afternoons “free, gratis and for nothing”. They came in droves with their teachers, and had the time of their lives." Mitchell was the organiser who as I wrote two years ago may have won the hearts of the children but probably not the hearts of the poor lions!
My '150 Years Ago' articles have regularly featured destitute individuals (often children) who have been sent to prison for a week or two for stealing coal – even bits of coal dug out of waste heaps that would never have been sold. By 1921 imprisonment for such an offence was rare but on the 14th Thomas Kenwright was sent to jail for a month. As stated last week, the 3-month-long coal strike that had just ended had left many pits in a poor condition and it would take some time to get them back into a safe working order.
Until then only a fraction of the labour force was required, leading to many workers no longer being on strike but simply unemployed and in poverty. Thomas Kenwright from Watery Lane in Sutton was one of these unfortunates, having been employed at Clock Face Colliery before the strike. He admitted taking coal from railway waggons in order to sell for food – although his honesty appears to have worked against him.
The Chairman of the Bench was aghast at his confession, as Kenwright had been fined 20 shillings for a similar offence in May. "Now you come here and deliberately say that you had done this with intent," said the magistrate as he sent the miner to prison. Honesty may not have always been the best policy.
I wonder what the chances are for two next-door neighbours to receive almost identical injuries within hours of each other in separate accidents down different pits – especially as the workforce in both mines were highly depleted? But early on the 15th, 49-year-old Thomas Sidwell from 26 Tennyson Street in Sutton Manor broke his leg and received scalp wounds in an accident at Sherdley Colliery. Then some hours later Charles Spriggs from 28 Tennyson Street suffered a fractured leg and other injuries at Sutton Manor Colliery. Both were taken to St Helens Hospital and perhaps had beds next to each so they could compare notes.
Class division could be quite complex a century ago with various sub-divisions within the working, middle and upper class brackets. However as far as the police and the magistrates were concerned defendants were often defined solely in terms of their respectability. A working-class man who worked hard and looked after his family and didn't fritter his money away on drink was seen as respectable and could be treated better in court than those who weren't. The fifteen defendants in the Sutton Oak stores thefts earlier in this article clearly passed the respectability test and were simply bound over at the assizes.
On the 18th two joiners appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with being drunk and disorderly in a passage near the YMCA. After being arrested and taken to the police station the pair then became abusive. The Chairman of the Bench told James Keenan of New Cross Street and William Dolan from City Road:
"It is very sad to see two respectable men here on a charge of this sort. I understand that one of you had no less than £30 in his possession. The wonder is how he managed to escaped being robbed of it; he has to thank the police for taking care of him." The men were only fined ten shillings. Those not deemed respectable who were less well off might well have been told to pay more.
"“What this country is suffering from,” said a Fat Man in the Southport train this morning, “is ‘eat, ‘olidays, and hapathy.” Saying which, and without bothering to beg anybody's pardon, he peeled off a limp and sticky stand up collar, and replaced it with a brand new one of silky texture. His remark had the tired agreement of everybody who heard him. They showed their acquiescence by nodding gravely. It was much too hot to say “yes”.
"Only one man was stirred to speech. Under cover of his newspaper he softly whispered to his neighbour: “And what he is suffering from is alliteration, perspiration, and haspiration.” Evidence in support of the Fat Man's epigram was everywhere for the eye to see. Everywhere was listless, everybody was hot, and everybody was in the lightest summer clothes. Those who did not look as if they going for their holidays looked as if they wished they were."
The second article was published under the headline: "Heaven-Sent Moisture – Showers That Herald End of the Drought" and underlined the public health benefits of the miners strike which had led to far less smoke being pumped into the atmosphere:
"After many weeks of drought, rainfall is reported at several points. To-morrow is St. Swithin's Day. A sharp thunderstorm passed over the Isle of Man last night, and there was a welcome fall of rain. A few minutes before 9.30 this morning a few spots fell in the city, and at a quarter to 1 the drought broke in Liverpool. It was a proper shower of rain, like an old friend well met. Some ungrateful people actually put up their umbrellas, but most us left our raincoats in the office and walked out to enjoy the fine weather – new style.
"While the summer of 1921 is the hottest for quite thirty years no summer of recent years can show such a clean bill of health. One cause of this is the continuity of the sunshine. Hot spells with intermittent wet periods are the more likely to bring about conditions favourable to the spread of disease, says the Liverpool medical officer of health. Calamitous as was the coal strike industrially, it has contributed to the good health of the community. But above all this healthy summer is a tribute to the value of up-to-date sanitation."
Next week's stories will include the Parr boy who died after eating a poisonous plant, a St Helens miner's comic poem about paper boys, the new licensing law and why the will of the late chairman of Pilkington's had broken new ground.
This week's stories include the extraordinary Tennyson Street mine accident coincidence, the baby's body discovered floating in the St Helens canal at Parr, the inside job thefts at the old Sutton Bond munitions plant and why honesty was not the best policy for a Clock Face miner.
We begin on the 12th with the inaugural meeting of the St Helens & District Football Combination at the Stanley Inn in Peasley Cross Lane.
Formed in 1917 as the St Helens & District Junior League, the competition would continue for 99 years.
It lasted much longer than the venue for their meetings did, as the Stanley Arms or Stanley Inn would close in 1932.
I described in May how a group of men had appeared before St Helens Police Court charged with stealing or receiving £124 worth of Government property.
It was alleged that the goods had been appropriated from the old Sutton Bond munitions plant in Lancots Lane, which was now being used as a Government stores.
Some of the accused had been members of the Royal Defence Corps and had supposedly been guarding the stores in Sutton Oak during the miners' strike but had in fact been helping themselves.
All were committed to the Liverpool Assizes and I then wrote that the sentences handed out at the court in St George's Hall could be severe.
Well they could but not on the 12th when the fourteen men and one woman appeared.
With one or two slight exceptions all had no previous convictions and the Chairman felt they had been placed in "great temptation to which they had succumbed".
The Bench also thought there had been great laxity in the management of the stores and despite only half of the stolen property having been recovered, all of the defendants were simply bound over.
On the 14th there was the sad discovery of a baby's body in the St Helens Canal at the bottom of Park Road.
Dr Unsworth told the inquest that after undertaking a post-mortem, he had concluded that the male child's body had been in the water for too long to be able to say whether the child had lived or not.
That was always an important distinction as to whether a deceased child had been stillborn or alive when born.
There were many hidden pregnancies and secret births by single women.
If their child had been secretly stillborn (as many were), disposal of its body was against the law but it was not on the same scale as if the child had been born alive.
Then investigations would take place to try and learn how the child had died – sometimes unintentionally by neglect from ignorant mothers giving birth without any parental or medical supervision.
During the evening of the 14th, Sutton's champion boxer Ernie Proudlove from Herbert Street fought what may well have been his final bout after a long career.
The coal miner by day defeated Spank Turner from Goldthorpe at the Liverpool Pudsey Street Stadium.
Other unusually-named boxers that Ernie had recently fought included Curly Kenyon, Cast Iron Hague and Young Sailor.
The Lowe House Carnival was in full swing this week on the Volunteer Field (aka Barracks Field) in the grounds of Lowe House church.
The annual event was intended to raise cash for the new church building, which would not be completed until 1930.
I haven't been able to find out this year's attractions, although two years ago the St Helens Reporter had written this about the carnival:
"Amongst recent arrivals has been Manders' American menagerie, where real lions ramp and rage, and where a real man goes into their cages and makes them go through most terrifying evolutions.
"Mr. Mitchell has won the hearts of the children by extending invitations to several schools in the town to come to the fair on certain afternoons “free, gratis and for nothing”. They came in droves with their teachers, and had the time of their lives."
Mitchell was the organiser who as I wrote two years ago may have won the hearts of the children but probably not the hearts of the poor lions!
My '150 Years Ago' articles have regularly featured destitute individuals (often children) who have been sent to prison for a week or two for stealing coal – even bits of coal dug out of waste heaps that would never have been sold.
By 1921 imprisonment for such an offence was rare but on the 14th Thomas Kenwright was sent to jail for a month.
As stated last week, the 3-month-long coal strike that had just ended had left many pits in a poor condition and it would take some time to get them back into a safe working order.
Until then only a fraction of the labour force was required, leading to many workers no longer being on strike but simply unemployed and in poverty.
Thomas Kenwright from Watery Lane in Sutton was one of these unfortunates, having been employed at Clock Face Colliery before the strike.
He admitted taking coal from railway waggons in order to sell for food – although his honesty appears to have worked against him.
The Chairman of the Bench was aghast at his confession, as Kenwright had been fined 20 shillings for a similar offence in May.
"Now you come here and deliberately say that you had done this with intent," said the magistrate as he sent the miner to prison. Honesty may not have always been the best policy.
I wonder what the chances are for two next-door neighbours to receive almost identical injuries within hours of each other in separate accidents down different pits – especially as the workforce in both mines were highly depleted?
But early on the 15th, 49-year-old Thomas Sidwell from 26 Tennyson Street in Sutton Manor broke his leg and received scalp wounds in an accident at Sherdley Colliery.
Then some hours later Charles Spriggs from 28 Tennyson Street suffered a fractured leg and other injuries at Sutton Manor Colliery.
Both were taken to St Helens Hospital and perhaps had beds next to each so they could compare notes.
Class division could be quite complex a century ago with various sub-divisions within the working, middle and upper class brackets.
However as far as the police and the magistrates were concerned defendants were often defined solely in terms of their respectability.
A working-class man who worked hard and looked after his family and didn't fritter his money away on drink was seen as respectable and could be treated better in court than those who weren't.
The fifteen defendants in the Sutton Oak stores thefts earlier in this article clearly passed the respectability test and were simply bound over at the assizes.
On the 18th two joiners appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with being drunk and disorderly in a passage near the YMCA.
After being arrested and taken to the police station the pair then became abusive.
The Chairman of the Bench told James Keenan of New Cross Street and William Dolan from City Road:
"It is very sad to see two respectable men here on a charge of this sort. I understand that one of you had no less than £30 in his possession. The wonder is how he managed to escaped being robbed of it; he has to thank the police for taking care of him."
The men were only fined ten shillings. Those not deemed respectable who were less well off might well have been told to pay more.
And finally the other big issue in the Liverpool Echo was the hot weather. The above cartoon had been published by the paper in June and this week there were two articles that attracted my attention.
This first piece was published under the headline: "‘Eat, ‘Olidays, Hapathy – What The Country Really Is Suffering From":
"“What this country is suffering from,” said a Fat Man in the Southport train this morning, “is ‘eat, ‘olidays, and hapathy.”
"Saying which, and without bothering to beg anybody's pardon, he peeled off a limp and sticky stand up collar, and replaced it with a brand new one of silky texture.
"His remark had the tired agreement of everybody who heard him. They showed their acquiescence by nodding gravely. It was much too hot to say “yes”.
"Only one man was stirred to speech. Under cover of his newspaper he softly whispered to his neighbour:
"“And what he is suffering from is alliteration, perspiration, and haspiration.”
"Evidence in support of the Fat Man's epigram was everywhere for the eye to see.
"Everywhere was listless, everybody was hot, and everybody was in the lightest summer clothes. Those who did not look as if they going for their holidays looked as if they wished they were."
The second article was published under the headline: "Heaven-Sent Moisture – Showers That Herald End of the Drought" and underlined the public health benefits of the miners strike which had led to far less smoke being pumped into the atmosphere:
"After many weeks of drought, rainfall is reported at several points. To-morrow is St. Swithin's Day.
"A sharp thunderstorm passed over the Isle of Man last night, and there was a welcome fall of rain.
"A few minutes before 9.30 this morning a few spots fell in the city, and at a quarter to 1 the drought broke in Liverpool.
"It was a proper shower of rain, like an old friend well met. Some ungrateful people actually put up their umbrellas, but most us left our raincoats in the office and walked out to enjoy the fine weather – new style.
"While the summer of 1921 is the hottest for quite thirty years no summer of recent years can show such a clean bill of health. One cause of this is the continuity of the sunshine.
"Hot spells with intermittent wet periods are the more likely to bring about conditions favourable to the spread of disease, says the Liverpool medical officer of health.
"Calamitous as was the coal strike industrially, it has contributed to the good health of the community. But above all this healthy summer is a tribute to the value of up-to-date sanitation."
Next week's stories will include the Parr boy who died after eating a poisonous plant, a St Helens miner's comic poem about paper boys, the new licensing law and why the will of the late chairman of Pilkington's had broken new ground.
We begin on the 12th with the inaugural meeting of the St Helens & District Football Combination at the Stanley Inn in Peasley Cross Lane.
Formed in 1917 as the St Helens & District Junior League, the competition would continue for 99 years.
It lasted much longer than the venue for their meetings did, as the Stanley Arms or Stanley Inn would close in 1932.
I described in May how a group of men had appeared before St Helens Police Court charged with stealing or receiving £124 worth of Government property.
It was alleged that the goods had been appropriated from the old Sutton Bond munitions plant in Lancots Lane, which was now being used as a Government stores.
Some of the accused had been members of the Royal Defence Corps and had supposedly been guarding the stores in Sutton Oak during the miners' strike but had in fact been helping themselves.
All were committed to the Liverpool Assizes and I then wrote that the sentences handed out at the court in St George's Hall could be severe.
Well they could but not on the 12th when the fourteen men and one woman appeared.
With one or two slight exceptions all had no previous convictions and the Chairman felt they had been placed in "great temptation to which they had succumbed".
The Bench also thought there had been great laxity in the management of the stores and despite only half of the stolen property having been recovered, all of the defendants were simply bound over.
On the 14th there was the sad discovery of a baby's body in the St Helens Canal at the bottom of Park Road.
Dr Unsworth told the inquest that after undertaking a post-mortem, he had concluded that the male child's body had been in the water for too long to be able to say whether the child had lived or not.
That was always an important distinction as to whether a deceased child had been stillborn or alive when born.
There were many hidden pregnancies and secret births by single women.
If their child had been secretly stillborn (as many were), disposal of its body was against the law but it was not on the same scale as if the child had been born alive.
Then investigations would take place to try and learn how the child had died – sometimes unintentionally by neglect from ignorant mothers giving birth without any parental or medical supervision.
During the evening of the 14th, Sutton's champion boxer Ernie Proudlove from Herbert Street fought what may well have been his final bout after a long career.
The coal miner by day defeated Spank Turner from Goldthorpe at the Liverpool Pudsey Street Stadium.
Other unusually-named boxers that Ernie had recently fought included Curly Kenyon, Cast Iron Hague and Young Sailor.
The annual event was intended to raise cash for the new church building, which would not be completed until 1930.
I haven't been able to find out this year's attractions, although two years ago the St Helens Reporter had written this about the carnival:
"Amongst recent arrivals has been Manders' American menagerie, where real lions ramp and rage, and where a real man goes into their cages and makes them go through most terrifying evolutions.
"Mr. Mitchell has won the hearts of the children by extending invitations to several schools in the town to come to the fair on certain afternoons “free, gratis and for nothing”. They came in droves with their teachers, and had the time of their lives."
Mitchell was the organiser who as I wrote two years ago may have won the hearts of the children but probably not the hearts of the poor lions!
My '150 Years Ago' articles have regularly featured destitute individuals (often children) who have been sent to prison for a week or two for stealing coal – even bits of coal dug out of waste heaps that would never have been sold.
By 1921 imprisonment for such an offence was rare but on the 14th Thomas Kenwright was sent to jail for a month.
As stated last week, the 3-month-long coal strike that had just ended had left many pits in a poor condition and it would take some time to get them back into a safe working order.
Until then only a fraction of the labour force was required, leading to many workers no longer being on strike but simply unemployed and in poverty.
Thomas Kenwright from Watery Lane in Sutton was one of these unfortunates, having been employed at Clock Face Colliery before the strike.
He admitted taking coal from railway waggons in order to sell for food – although his honesty appears to have worked against him.
The Chairman of the Bench was aghast at his confession, as Kenwright had been fined 20 shillings for a similar offence in May.
"Now you come here and deliberately say that you had done this with intent," said the magistrate as he sent the miner to prison. Honesty may not have always been the best policy.
I wonder what the chances are for two next-door neighbours to receive almost identical injuries within hours of each other in separate accidents down different pits – especially as the workforce in both mines were highly depleted?
But early on the 15th, 49-year-old Thomas Sidwell from 26 Tennyson Street in Sutton Manor broke his leg and received scalp wounds in an accident at Sherdley Colliery.
Then some hours later Charles Spriggs from 28 Tennyson Street suffered a fractured leg and other injuries at Sutton Manor Colliery.
Both were taken to St Helens Hospital and perhaps had beds next to each so they could compare notes.
Class division could be quite complex a century ago with various sub-divisions within the working, middle and upper class brackets.
However as far as the police and the magistrates were concerned defendants were often defined solely in terms of their respectability.
A working-class man who worked hard and looked after his family and didn't fritter his money away on drink was seen as respectable and could be treated better in court than those who weren't.
The fifteen defendants in the Sutton Oak stores thefts earlier in this article clearly passed the respectability test and were simply bound over at the assizes.
On the 18th two joiners appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with being drunk and disorderly in a passage near the YMCA.
After being arrested and taken to the police station the pair then became abusive.
The Chairman of the Bench told James Keenan of New Cross Street and William Dolan from City Road:
"It is very sad to see two respectable men here on a charge of this sort. I understand that one of you had no less than £30 in his possession. The wonder is how he managed to escaped being robbed of it; he has to thank the police for taking care of him."
The men were only fined ten shillings. Those not deemed respectable who were less well off might well have been told to pay more.
This first piece was published under the headline: "‘Eat, ‘Olidays, Hapathy – What The Country Really Is Suffering From":
"“What this country is suffering from,” said a Fat Man in the Southport train this morning, “is ‘eat, ‘olidays, and hapathy.”
"Saying which, and without bothering to beg anybody's pardon, he peeled off a limp and sticky stand up collar, and replaced it with a brand new one of silky texture.
"His remark had the tired agreement of everybody who heard him. They showed their acquiescence by nodding gravely. It was much too hot to say “yes”.
"Only one man was stirred to speech. Under cover of his newspaper he softly whispered to his neighbour:
"“And what he is suffering from is alliteration, perspiration, and haspiration.”
"Evidence in support of the Fat Man's epigram was everywhere for the eye to see.
"Everywhere was listless, everybody was hot, and everybody was in the lightest summer clothes. Those who did not look as if they going for their holidays looked as if they wished they were."
The second article was published under the headline: "Heaven-Sent Moisture – Showers That Herald End of the Drought" and underlined the public health benefits of the miners strike which had led to far less smoke being pumped into the atmosphere:
"After many weeks of drought, rainfall is reported at several points. To-morrow is St. Swithin's Day.
"A sharp thunderstorm passed over the Isle of Man last night, and there was a welcome fall of rain.
"A few minutes before 9.30 this morning a few spots fell in the city, and at a quarter to 1 the drought broke in Liverpool.
"It was a proper shower of rain, like an old friend well met. Some ungrateful people actually put up their umbrellas, but most us left our raincoats in the office and walked out to enjoy the fine weather – new style.
"While the summer of 1921 is the hottest for quite thirty years no summer of recent years can show such a clean bill of health. One cause of this is the continuity of the sunshine.
"Hot spells with intermittent wet periods are the more likely to bring about conditions favourable to the spread of disease, says the Liverpool medical officer of health.
"Calamitous as was the coal strike industrially, it has contributed to the good health of the community. But above all this healthy summer is a tribute to the value of up-to-date sanitation."
Next week's stories will include the Parr boy who died after eating a poisonous plant, a St Helens miner's comic poem about paper boys, the new licensing law and why the will of the late chairman of Pilkington's had broken new ground.