IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (13th - 19th DECEMBER 1921)
This week's many stories include the Higher Parr Street residents' complaints of vibrations from passing lorries shaking their walls, the West Park hens theft, a poor children's Christmas treat is planned for St Helens, more houses on the pioneering Windlehurst council estate are ready for occupation and the Parr girls being prepared for domesticity in the home.
We begin on the 13th with another motor accident on the narrow, overcrowded streets of St Helens. A heavy motor lorry coming into town smashed into a stationary tram at West Park. There were no injuries, although lots of glass was shattered, as, I expect, were the nerves of many passengers!
On January 1st of 1921, St Helens Corporation's new fleet of motor lorries had become operational. The wagons were administered by the council's Horses Committee, which changed its name to the Horses and Motors Committee to reflect both types of transport that the Corporation now employed. Although motorised vehicles were more efficient, they were capable of causing more problems than nags. At its meeting at the Town Hall on the 14th, the Borough Engineer reported that the residents of Higher Parr Street were complaining about vibrations from the heavy traffic on the road "shaking the ornaments on the furniture and the pictures on the walls, and causing the gas mantles to fall from their burners."
Of course, there was not much that the committee could do about that – apart from ask its own drivers to slow down a bit. But the discussion led to Ald. Phythian, the chairman of the committee, wondering whether some sort of device could be fitted to Corporation vehicles to prevent pedestrians being splashed by them. He reckoned that when visiting Ireland he had seen something of the sort in the form of brush heads on wheels. But Cllr. Collier commented that splashes were caused when wheels dropped suddenly into pools of water and he did not think that brushes on wheels would make the slightest difference.
The council's Health Committee also met on the 14th and heard that seven more houses at Windlehurst would be ready for occupation within days. That would bring the total of completed properties to thirty-three. Two years earlier St Helens Corporation had purchased Sir David Gamble's large estate at Windlehurst with the intention of building over 1,000 properties. These stretched between City Gardens and Windleshaw Road and became the first council homes in the town.
In March St Helens Corporation had been thwarted in its attempt to have a clause inserted in a new Bill designed to stop hens from wandering into people's homes. Many people kept hens or other fowl in St Helens and most were what we would call free-range birds – that is, allowed to wander about at will. Not that the welfare of the critters appears to have been uppermost in the minds of their keepers! Reasons for allowing hens to roam were more likely an inability to afford a pen; not having the space for one or not feeling the need if you only kept one or two birds.
If the council had been successful in making it compulsory for hen owners to keep their birds penned in, it might well have reduced the number of thefts that took place. These understandably tended to increase every December as Christmas approached. On the 14th Bernard Johnson from Silkstone Street appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with stealing fowl from West Park Nurseries. The theft had been in concert with a man called Calligan who was described by the police as a "notorious thief" but had done a runner leaving Johnson to face the music alone. He was fined £2 or 28 days in prison.
Compulsory driving tests were 14 years away but schools of motoring did exist to teach people how to drive – and develop technical know how. On the front page of the Reporter on the 16th, Geraghty's School of Motoring had an advert which said: "No blackboard drawings or book diagrams. We show you how to assemble the actual engine – and teach you to drive it."
It had been a difficult year for many families with much suffering through unemployment. However, under the headline "Great Day Promised For Needy Little Ones", the Reporter carried news of a Christmas treat being planned for the town's poorest children: "Provided the generous people of St. Helens will show their goodwill in a practical form, a thousand needy little boys and girls of St. Helens will enjoy all the delights of a Christmas tree and an entertainment in the Town Hall on Friday, the 23rd inst."
The Mayor, Richard Ellison, was leading a committee that was running the affair and his letter to the paper called for the citizens of St Helens to support their cause to "cheer some of the poor children who otherwise will look for Father Christmas in vain." People were encouraged to send their "subscriptions" to the Town Hall. Although more commonly used these days in the context of obtaining access to sport and entertainment channels, the term used to be almost exclusively used to describe one-off donations to charitable causes. And as a public acknowledgement of your largesse, you could expect to see your name printed in a newspaper.
It was also revealed in a separate piece that Melias large store in Bridge Street had donated 30cwt of foodstuffs for the families of the unemployed. Part of the donation would be used to feed needy children at the various school feeding centres and the rest would be distributed to their parents.
This was week 3 of the "Reporter Man's" unannounced visits to parts of St Helens to ask householders if they had a copy of the paper inside their home. If they were able to produce the latest edition of the Reporter, their reward would be a prize of five shillings. Five bob was a lot of cash during hard times and the "Reporter Man" described the joy that his gifts were creating: "I have received a tremendous welcome everywhere. It reached a climax on Wednesday morning, when I visited the Newton-road end of Parr. Even a case-hardened newspaper man like myself blushed at the generous and hearty ovation I received."
Under the headline "Social Work Among Girls", the Reporter also wrote that the Parr Girls' Club was celebrating its 21st birthday and commented on the good it did in preparing girls for lives of domesticity: "The coming of age of the Parr Girls' Club is an event of more than passing interest and importance. St. Helens, is a peculiar town in many respects, and especially in the sense that it provides no extensive works suitable for female labour, with the result that the finding of some means for the profitable utilisation of the girls' leisure, both during the day and in the evenings, is a problem beset with more than ordinary difficulties.
"Thanks, however, to such institutions as the Peter-street and Parr Girls' Clubs, much has been done to save the girls as much from themselves as from the dangers that surround them, not merely by inculcating lofty ideals of service and citizenship, but also by training them in various branches of domesticity, and thus preparing them for the home life in which their greatest interests and responsibilities be. St. Helens would really profit from the presence of more organisations of the type to which we refer."
During the flu pandemic, Ted Cawley, who ran the Wellington Hotel in Market Square in St Helens (pictured above), had run this ad in the Reporter: "To avoid the 'flu and never rue, Ted Cawley's port wine is the goods for you". This week in advertising brandy (18/6 a bottle) and whiskey (12/6 a bottle), he wrote: "Ted Cawley, he of the Wellington Hotel. The man who has the goods to sell." Not quite as catchy as the flu one and I think the children sending poems and limericks to the St Helens Reporter's Uncle Ben could have done a better job.
Edition number 37 of the 'Children's Reporter' was published this week in the paper with "Prizes for smart boys and girls" as its slogan. Of course, the days when kids were satisfied with winning pencils in competitions and had ambitions to win a fountain pen are long gone. Elsie Fairhurst from Marshalls Cross Road was one of the smart girls and her letter saying how pleased she was with the prizes that she'd recently won was printed:
"Dear Uncle Ben, I thank you very much for the two prizes I have been successful in winning. The playing cards come in quite useful for the winter evenings, and I appreciate the pencil very much, which I make use of both at home and at school. Although I have been successful in winning two prizes, I am going to keep on trying harder every week until I am lucky enough to win the engraved fountain pen, which is a most useful present."
Also in the Reporter was news of a concert that had been held in the Thatto Heath Empire to raise funds for the local old folks treat. This was not an excursion. Instead its organising committee handed over sums of 5 shillings or 2s 6d to those elderly people in Thatto Heath who were considered to be in need. £30 was raised from the concert, which also included a magician and some film screenings.
And finally, Thomas Schofield from Parr Street was sent to prison for 28 days with hard labour on the 19th for neglecting his daughter Catherine. The NSPCC told the magistrates in St Helens Police Court that Schofield was a "worthless fellow, who spent everything in drink." The occasional labourer in a coal mine rarely went to his work; had sold off most of the furniture in the home and rarely gave his wife any money to feed his family.
Next Week's article will be a Christmas special with many stories describing how the week was spent in St Helens – the crippled children's and poor children's Christmas parties are particular highlights.
We begin on the 13th with another motor accident on the narrow, overcrowded streets of St Helens. A heavy motor lorry coming into town smashed into a stationary tram at West Park. There were no injuries, although lots of glass was shattered, as, I expect, were the nerves of many passengers!
On January 1st of 1921, St Helens Corporation's new fleet of motor lorries had become operational. The wagons were administered by the council's Horses Committee, which changed its name to the Horses and Motors Committee to reflect both types of transport that the Corporation now employed. Although motorised vehicles were more efficient, they were capable of causing more problems than nags. At its meeting at the Town Hall on the 14th, the Borough Engineer reported that the residents of Higher Parr Street were complaining about vibrations from the heavy traffic on the road "shaking the ornaments on the furniture and the pictures on the walls, and causing the gas mantles to fall from their burners."
Of course, there was not much that the committee could do about that – apart from ask its own drivers to slow down a bit. But the discussion led to Ald. Phythian, the chairman of the committee, wondering whether some sort of device could be fitted to Corporation vehicles to prevent pedestrians being splashed by them. He reckoned that when visiting Ireland he had seen something of the sort in the form of brush heads on wheels. But Cllr. Collier commented that splashes were caused when wheels dropped suddenly into pools of water and he did not think that brushes on wheels would make the slightest difference.
The council's Health Committee also met on the 14th and heard that seven more houses at Windlehurst would be ready for occupation within days. That would bring the total of completed properties to thirty-three. Two years earlier St Helens Corporation had purchased Sir David Gamble's large estate at Windlehurst with the intention of building over 1,000 properties. These stretched between City Gardens and Windleshaw Road and became the first council homes in the town.
In March St Helens Corporation had been thwarted in its attempt to have a clause inserted in a new Bill designed to stop hens from wandering into people's homes. Many people kept hens or other fowl in St Helens and most were what we would call free-range birds – that is, allowed to wander about at will. Not that the welfare of the critters appears to have been uppermost in the minds of their keepers! Reasons for allowing hens to roam were more likely an inability to afford a pen; not having the space for one or not feeling the need if you only kept one or two birds.
If the council had been successful in making it compulsory for hen owners to keep their birds penned in, it might well have reduced the number of thefts that took place. These understandably tended to increase every December as Christmas approached. On the 14th Bernard Johnson from Silkstone Street appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with stealing fowl from West Park Nurseries. The theft had been in concert with a man called Calligan who was described by the police as a "notorious thief" but had done a runner leaving Johnson to face the music alone. He was fined £2 or 28 days in prison.
Compulsory driving tests were 14 years away but schools of motoring did exist to teach people how to drive – and develop technical know how. On the front page of the Reporter on the 16th, Geraghty's School of Motoring had an advert which said: "No blackboard drawings or book diagrams. We show you how to assemble the actual engine – and teach you to drive it."
It had been a difficult year for many families with much suffering through unemployment. However, under the headline "Great Day Promised For Needy Little Ones", the Reporter carried news of a Christmas treat being planned for the town's poorest children: "Provided the generous people of St. Helens will show their goodwill in a practical form, a thousand needy little boys and girls of St. Helens will enjoy all the delights of a Christmas tree and an entertainment in the Town Hall on Friday, the 23rd inst."
The Mayor, Richard Ellison, was leading a committee that was running the affair and his letter to the paper called for the citizens of St Helens to support their cause to "cheer some of the poor children who otherwise will look for Father Christmas in vain." People were encouraged to send their "subscriptions" to the Town Hall. Although more commonly used these days in the context of obtaining access to sport and entertainment channels, the term used to be almost exclusively used to describe one-off donations to charitable causes. And as a public acknowledgement of your largesse, you could expect to see your name printed in a newspaper.
It was also revealed in a separate piece that Melias large store in Bridge Street had donated 30cwt of foodstuffs for the families of the unemployed. Part of the donation would be used to feed needy children at the various school feeding centres and the rest would be distributed to their parents.
This was week 3 of the "Reporter Man's" unannounced visits to parts of St Helens to ask householders if they had a copy of the paper inside their home. If they were able to produce the latest edition of the Reporter, their reward would be a prize of five shillings. Five bob was a lot of cash during hard times and the "Reporter Man" described the joy that his gifts were creating: "I have received a tremendous welcome everywhere. It reached a climax on Wednesday morning, when I visited the Newton-road end of Parr. Even a case-hardened newspaper man like myself blushed at the generous and hearty ovation I received."
Under the headline "Social Work Among Girls", the Reporter also wrote that the Parr Girls' Club was celebrating its 21st birthday and commented on the good it did in preparing girls for lives of domesticity: "The coming of age of the Parr Girls' Club is an event of more than passing interest and importance. St. Helens, is a peculiar town in many respects, and especially in the sense that it provides no extensive works suitable for female labour, with the result that the finding of some means for the profitable utilisation of the girls' leisure, both during the day and in the evenings, is a problem beset with more than ordinary difficulties.
"Thanks, however, to such institutions as the Peter-street and Parr Girls' Clubs, much has been done to save the girls as much from themselves as from the dangers that surround them, not merely by inculcating lofty ideals of service and citizenship, but also by training them in various branches of domesticity, and thus preparing them for the home life in which their greatest interests and responsibilities be. St. Helens would really profit from the presence of more organisations of the type to which we refer."
Edition number 37 of the 'Children's Reporter' was published this week in the paper with "Prizes for smart boys and girls" as its slogan. Of course, the days when kids were satisfied with winning pencils in competitions and had ambitions to win a fountain pen are long gone. Elsie Fairhurst from Marshalls Cross Road was one of the smart girls and her letter saying how pleased she was with the prizes that she'd recently won was printed:
"Dear Uncle Ben, I thank you very much for the two prizes I have been successful in winning. The playing cards come in quite useful for the winter evenings, and I appreciate the pencil very much, which I make use of both at home and at school. Although I have been successful in winning two prizes, I am going to keep on trying harder every week until I am lucky enough to win the engraved fountain pen, which is a most useful present."
Also in the Reporter was news of a concert that had been held in the Thatto Heath Empire to raise funds for the local old folks treat. This was not an excursion. Instead its organising committee handed over sums of 5 shillings or 2s 6d to those elderly people in Thatto Heath who were considered to be in need. £30 was raised from the concert, which also included a magician and some film screenings.
And finally, Thomas Schofield from Parr Street was sent to prison for 28 days with hard labour on the 19th for neglecting his daughter Catherine. The NSPCC told the magistrates in St Helens Police Court that Schofield was a "worthless fellow, who spent everything in drink." The occasional labourer in a coal mine rarely went to his work; had sold off most of the furniture in the home and rarely gave his wife any money to feed his family.
Next Week's article will be a Christmas special with many stories describing how the week was spent in St Helens – the crippled children's and poor children's Christmas parties are particular highlights.
This week's many stories include the Higher Parr Street residents' complaints of vibrations from passing lorries shaking their walls, the West Park hens theft, a poor children's Christmas treat is planned for St Helens, more houses on the pioneering Windlehurst council estate are ready for occupation and the Parr girls being prepared for domesticity in the home.
We begin on the 13th with another motor accident on the narrow, overcrowded streets of St Helens.
A heavy motor lorry coming into town smashed into a stationary tram at West Park. There were no injuries, although lots of glass was shattered, as, I expect, were the nerves of many passengers!
On January 1st of 1921, St Helens Corporation's new fleet of motor lorries had become operational.
The wagons were administered by the council's Horses Committee, which changed its name to the Horses and Motors Committee to reflect both types of transport that the Corporation now employed.
Although motorised vehicles were more efficient, they were capable of causing more problems than nags.
At its meeting at the Town Hall on the 14th, the Borough Engineer reported that the residents of Higher Parr Street were complaining about vibrations from the heavy traffic on the road "shaking the ornaments on the furniture and the pictures on the walls, and causing the gas mantles to fall from their burners."
Of course, there was not much that the committee could do about that – apart from ask its own drivers to slow down a bit.
But the discussion led to Ald. Phythian, the chairman of the committee, wondering whether some sort of device could be fitted to Corporation vehicles to prevent pedestrians being splashed by them.
He reckoned that when visiting Ireland he had seen something of the sort in the form of brush heads on wheels.
But Cllr. Collier commented that splashes were caused when wheels dropped suddenly into pools of water and he did not think that brushes on wheels would make the slightest difference.
The council's Health Committee also met on the 14th and heard that seven more houses at Windlehurst would be ready for occupation within days. That would bring the total of completed properties to thirty-three.
Two years earlier St Helens Corporation had purchased Sir David Gamble's large estate at Windlehurst with the intention of building over 1,000 properties.
These stretched between City Gardens and Windleshaw Road and became the first council homes in the town.
In March St Helens Corporation had been thwarted in its attempt to have a clause inserted in a new Bill designed to stop hens from wandering into people's homes.
Many people kept hens or other fowl in St Helens and most were what we would call free-range birds – that is, allowed to wander about at will.
Not that the welfare of the critters appears to have been uppermost in the minds of their keepers!
Reasons for allowing hens to roam were more likely an inability to afford a pen; not having the space for one or not feeling the need if you only kept one or two birds.
If the council had been successful in making it compulsory for hen owners to keep their birds penned in, it might well have reduced the number of thefts that took place.
These understandably tended to increase every December as Christmas approached.
On the 14th Bernard Johnson from Silkstone Street appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with stealing fowl from West Park Nurseries.
The theft had been in concert with a man called Calligan who was described by the police as a "notorious thief" but had done a runner leaving Johnson to face the music alone. He was fined £2 or 28 days in prison.
Compulsory driving tests were 14 years away but schools of motoring did exist to teach people how to drive – and develop technical know how.
On the front page of the Reporter on the 16th, Geraghty's School of Motoring had an advert which said:
"No blackboard drawings or book diagrams. We show you how to assemble the actual engine – and teach you to drive it."
It had been a difficult year for many families with much suffering through unemployment.
However, under the headline "Great Day Promised For Needy Little Ones", the Reporter carried news of a Christmas treat being planned for the town's poorest children:
"Provided the generous people of St. Helens will show their goodwill in a practical form, a thousand needy little boys and girls of St. Helens will enjoy all the delights of a Christmas tree and an entertainment in the Town Hall on Friday, the 23rd inst."
The Mayor, Richard Ellison, was leading a committee that was running the affair and his letter to the paper called for the citizens of St Helens to support their cause to "cheer some of the poor children who otherwise will look for Father Christmas in vain."
People were encouraged to send their "subscriptions" to the Town Hall. Although more commonly used these days in the context of obtaining access to sport and entertainment channels, the term used to be almost exclusively used to describe one-off donations to charitable causes.
And as a public acknowledgement of your largesse, you could expect to see your name printed in a newspaper.
It was also revealed in a separate piece that Melias large store in Bridge Street had donated 30cwt of foodstuffs for the families of the unemployed.
Part of the donation would be used to feed needy children at the various school feeding centres and the rest would be distributed to their parents.
This was week 3 of the "Reporter Man's" unannounced visits to parts of St Helens to ask householders if they had a copy of the paper inside their home.
If they were able to produce the latest edition of the Reporter, their reward would be a prize of five shillings.
Five bob was a lot of cash during hard times and the "Reporter Man" described the joy that his gifts were creating:
"I have received a tremendous welcome everywhere. It reached a climax on Wednesday morning, when I visited the Newton-road end of Parr. Even a case-hardened newspaper man like myself blushed at the generous and hearty ovation I received."
Under the headline "Social Work Among Girls", the Reporter also wrote that the Parr Girls' Club was celebrating its 21st birthday and commented on the good it did in preparing girls for lives of domesticity:
"The coming of age of the Parr Girls' Club is an event of more than passing interest and importance.
"St. Helens, is a peculiar town in many respects, and especially in the sense that it provides no extensive works suitable for female labour, with the result that the finding of some means for the profitable utilisation of the girls' leisure, both during the day and in the evenings, is a problem beset with more than ordinary difficulties.
"Thanks, however, to such institutions as the Peter-street and Parr Girls' Clubs, much has been done to save the girls as much from themselves as from the dangers that surround them, not merely by inculcating lofty ideals of service and citizenship, but also by training them in various branches of domesticity, and thus preparing them for the home life in which their greatest interests and responsibilities be.
"St. Helens would really profit from the presence of more organisations of the type to which we refer."
During the flu pandemic, Ted Cawley, who ran the Wellington Hotel in Market Square in St Helens (pictured above), had run this ad in the Reporter:
"To avoid the 'flu and never rue, Ted Cawley's port wine is the goods for you".
This week in advertising brandy (18/6 a bottle) and whiskey (12/6 a bottle), he wrote: "Ted Cawley, he of the Wellington Hotel. The man who has the goods to sell."
Not quite as catchy as the flu one and I think the children sending poems and limericks to the St Helens Reporter's Uncle Ben could have done a better job.
Edition number 37 of the 'Children's Reporter' was published this week in the paper with "Prizes for smart boys and girls" as its slogan.
Of course, the days when kids were satisfied with winning pencils in competitions and had ambitions to win a fountain pen are long gone.
Elsie Fairhurst from Marshalls Cross Road was one of the smart girls and her letter saying how pleased she was with the prizes that she'd recently won was printed:
"Dear Uncle Ben, I thank you very much for the two prizes I have been successful in winning. The playing cards come in quite useful for the winter evenings, and I appreciate the pencil very much, which I make use of both at home and at school.
"Although I have been successful in winning two prizes, I am going to keep on trying harder every week until I am lucky enough to win the engraved fountain pen, which is a most useful present."
Also in the Reporter was news of a concert that had been held in the Thatto Heath Empire to raise funds for the local old folks treat.
This was not an excursion. Instead its organising committee handed over sums of 5 shillings or 2s 6d to those elderly people in Thatto Heath who were considered to be in need.
£30 was raised from the concert, which also included a magician and some film screenings.
And finally, Thomas Schofield from Parr Street was sent to prison for 28 days with hard labour on the 19th for neglecting his daughter Catherine.
The NSPCC told the magistrates in St Helens Police Court that Schofield was a "worthless fellow, who spent everything in drink."
The occasional labourer in a coal mine rarely went to his work; had sold off most of the furniture in the home and rarely gave his wife any money to feed his family.
Next Week's article will be a Christmas special with many stories describing how the week was spent in St Helens – the crippled children's and poor children's Christmas parties are particular highlights.
We begin on the 13th with another motor accident on the narrow, overcrowded streets of St Helens.
A heavy motor lorry coming into town smashed into a stationary tram at West Park. There were no injuries, although lots of glass was shattered, as, I expect, were the nerves of many passengers!
On January 1st of 1921, St Helens Corporation's new fleet of motor lorries had become operational.
The wagons were administered by the council's Horses Committee, which changed its name to the Horses and Motors Committee to reflect both types of transport that the Corporation now employed.
Although motorised vehicles were more efficient, they were capable of causing more problems than nags.
At its meeting at the Town Hall on the 14th, the Borough Engineer reported that the residents of Higher Parr Street were complaining about vibrations from the heavy traffic on the road "shaking the ornaments on the furniture and the pictures on the walls, and causing the gas mantles to fall from their burners."
Of course, there was not much that the committee could do about that – apart from ask its own drivers to slow down a bit.
But the discussion led to Ald. Phythian, the chairman of the committee, wondering whether some sort of device could be fitted to Corporation vehicles to prevent pedestrians being splashed by them.
He reckoned that when visiting Ireland he had seen something of the sort in the form of brush heads on wheels.
But Cllr. Collier commented that splashes were caused when wheels dropped suddenly into pools of water and he did not think that brushes on wheels would make the slightest difference.
The council's Health Committee also met on the 14th and heard that seven more houses at Windlehurst would be ready for occupation within days. That would bring the total of completed properties to thirty-three.
Two years earlier St Helens Corporation had purchased Sir David Gamble's large estate at Windlehurst with the intention of building over 1,000 properties.
These stretched between City Gardens and Windleshaw Road and became the first council homes in the town.
In March St Helens Corporation had been thwarted in its attempt to have a clause inserted in a new Bill designed to stop hens from wandering into people's homes.
Many people kept hens or other fowl in St Helens and most were what we would call free-range birds – that is, allowed to wander about at will.
Not that the welfare of the critters appears to have been uppermost in the minds of their keepers!
Reasons for allowing hens to roam were more likely an inability to afford a pen; not having the space for one or not feeling the need if you only kept one or two birds.
If the council had been successful in making it compulsory for hen owners to keep their birds penned in, it might well have reduced the number of thefts that took place.
These understandably tended to increase every December as Christmas approached.
On the 14th Bernard Johnson from Silkstone Street appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with stealing fowl from West Park Nurseries.
The theft had been in concert with a man called Calligan who was described by the police as a "notorious thief" but had done a runner leaving Johnson to face the music alone. He was fined £2 or 28 days in prison.
Compulsory driving tests were 14 years away but schools of motoring did exist to teach people how to drive – and develop technical know how.
On the front page of the Reporter on the 16th, Geraghty's School of Motoring had an advert which said:
"No blackboard drawings or book diagrams. We show you how to assemble the actual engine – and teach you to drive it."
It had been a difficult year for many families with much suffering through unemployment.
However, under the headline "Great Day Promised For Needy Little Ones", the Reporter carried news of a Christmas treat being planned for the town's poorest children:
"Provided the generous people of St. Helens will show their goodwill in a practical form, a thousand needy little boys and girls of St. Helens will enjoy all the delights of a Christmas tree and an entertainment in the Town Hall on Friday, the 23rd inst."
The Mayor, Richard Ellison, was leading a committee that was running the affair and his letter to the paper called for the citizens of St Helens to support their cause to "cheer some of the poor children who otherwise will look for Father Christmas in vain."
People were encouraged to send their "subscriptions" to the Town Hall. Although more commonly used these days in the context of obtaining access to sport and entertainment channels, the term used to be almost exclusively used to describe one-off donations to charitable causes.
And as a public acknowledgement of your largesse, you could expect to see your name printed in a newspaper.
It was also revealed in a separate piece that Melias large store in Bridge Street had donated 30cwt of foodstuffs for the families of the unemployed.
Part of the donation would be used to feed needy children at the various school feeding centres and the rest would be distributed to their parents.
This was week 3 of the "Reporter Man's" unannounced visits to parts of St Helens to ask householders if they had a copy of the paper inside their home.
If they were able to produce the latest edition of the Reporter, their reward would be a prize of five shillings.
Five bob was a lot of cash during hard times and the "Reporter Man" described the joy that his gifts were creating:
"I have received a tremendous welcome everywhere. It reached a climax on Wednesday morning, when I visited the Newton-road end of Parr. Even a case-hardened newspaper man like myself blushed at the generous and hearty ovation I received."
Under the headline "Social Work Among Girls", the Reporter also wrote that the Parr Girls' Club was celebrating its 21st birthday and commented on the good it did in preparing girls for lives of domesticity:
"The coming of age of the Parr Girls' Club is an event of more than passing interest and importance.
"St. Helens, is a peculiar town in many respects, and especially in the sense that it provides no extensive works suitable for female labour, with the result that the finding of some means for the profitable utilisation of the girls' leisure, both during the day and in the evenings, is a problem beset with more than ordinary difficulties.
"Thanks, however, to such institutions as the Peter-street and Parr Girls' Clubs, much has been done to save the girls as much from themselves as from the dangers that surround them, not merely by inculcating lofty ideals of service and citizenship, but also by training them in various branches of domesticity, and thus preparing them for the home life in which their greatest interests and responsibilities be.
"St. Helens would really profit from the presence of more organisations of the type to which we refer."
"To avoid the 'flu and never rue, Ted Cawley's port wine is the goods for you".
This week in advertising brandy (18/6 a bottle) and whiskey (12/6 a bottle), he wrote: "Ted Cawley, he of the Wellington Hotel. The man who has the goods to sell."
Not quite as catchy as the flu one and I think the children sending poems and limericks to the St Helens Reporter's Uncle Ben could have done a better job.
Edition number 37 of the 'Children's Reporter' was published this week in the paper with "Prizes for smart boys and girls" as its slogan.
Of course, the days when kids were satisfied with winning pencils in competitions and had ambitions to win a fountain pen are long gone.
Elsie Fairhurst from Marshalls Cross Road was one of the smart girls and her letter saying how pleased she was with the prizes that she'd recently won was printed:
"Dear Uncle Ben, I thank you very much for the two prizes I have been successful in winning. The playing cards come in quite useful for the winter evenings, and I appreciate the pencil very much, which I make use of both at home and at school.
"Although I have been successful in winning two prizes, I am going to keep on trying harder every week until I am lucky enough to win the engraved fountain pen, which is a most useful present."
Also in the Reporter was news of a concert that had been held in the Thatto Heath Empire to raise funds for the local old folks treat.
This was not an excursion. Instead its organising committee handed over sums of 5 shillings or 2s 6d to those elderly people in Thatto Heath who were considered to be in need.
£30 was raised from the concert, which also included a magician and some film screenings.
And finally, Thomas Schofield from Parr Street was sent to prison for 28 days with hard labour on the 19th for neglecting his daughter Catherine.
The NSPCC told the magistrates in St Helens Police Court that Schofield was a "worthless fellow, who spent everything in drink."
The occasional labourer in a coal mine rarely went to his work; had sold off most of the furniture in the home and rarely gave his wife any money to feed his family.
Next Week's article will be a Christmas special with many stories describing how the week was spent in St Helens – the crippled children's and poor children's Christmas parties are particular highlights.