IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (14 - 20 AUGUST 1923)
This week's many stories include the death of a haemophiliac bleeder boy from Charles Street, the inaugural Sutton Manor Colliery Sports Festival, the strict sanctions on hand-outs for unemployed men, the dog that chased cars in Liverpool Road and the five goats wandering in Hammond Street that had a liking for aspidistras.
In 1922 leisure facilities for workers at Sutton Manor Colliery (pictured above) had greatly improved when their Miners Institute was opened. The corrugated iron building in Jubits Lane, opposite Bell Lane, became the entertainment centre of the village. It had a bar room, a games room with billiard / snooker tables and a larger room that was used for dances and brass band practice.
Once the miners had their own clubhouse they could begin to organise events and the St Helens Reporter described this week how the institute's inaugural Sports Festival had taken place. Fine weather had contributed to a large turnout of spectators and as well as races, there was a tug-of-war that the paper said had developed into an "exciting affair, with a tendency to roughness, which gave the umpires some worry and anxiety in keeping order." In the evening three-round boxing matches took place and the Sutton Manor Colliery Band also played.
The police in St Helens regularly nicked people for allowing their horses to wander on the street and place other road users in danger. But it probably was not that often that they brought a charge of allowing goats to stray on the highway. And goats with a liking for aspidistras! But James Sweetlove, an engine driver from Peasley View in Sutton Road, appeared in court this week to face such a charge.
PC Shepherd explained how he had found five goats wandering about in Hammond Street in Parr. He saw them enter a front garden and gobble up two aspidistras that had been placed outside in the rain. Mr Sweetlove had done the right thing and compensated the owner for the loss of his plants. He also explained to the court that the young goats had been securely tied up but that children had released them. In the circumstances he was simply ordered to pay 6 shillings costs.
Like today there were complaints in the 1920s that some unemployed men that received handouts were shirkers. In April while conducting an inquest on a Liverpool man that had died after rising at 2:30am to find work in St Helens, the Coroner, Samuel Brighouse, had said: "I think the case ought to come to the notice of the gentleman who writes about the dole in the “Daily Mail.” It not only shows that you [the unemployed] are not all wrong, but that there are genuine, honest, working men who are very anxious to get work if there is only work for them to do."
But isolated examples of claimants wasting their small allowances on drink increased pressure on the authorities to crack down on abuse and reduce such payments. Financial support for the jobless came in two forms. Initially the unemployed could claim the dole – but entitlement to that State-supplied cash did not last long.
After that there was the unemployment "relief" or "parish relief" that was administered in the St Helens district by a relieving committee that was funded by ratepayers and overseen by the Guardians of the Prescot Union. On the 16th the Guardians were asked to adopt this ruling from their General Relief Committee, which placed a time limit on the backstop relief for single men:
1) That no unemployment relief be granted to single men who'd been out of employment for over a year. 2) That married men with children who had been out of work for over twelve months be not granted unemployment relief. However, their wives and children could be relieved at the discretion of the local district relief committee. 3) That no relief be given to men refusing work or voluntarily leaving work – but that the wives and children of such could again be relieved at the committee's discretion.
Those tough rules meant single men after a year had no income whatsoever and they empowered irresponsible employers who knew their workers could not leave without suffering great financial hardship.
Many holidaymakers drowned in the inviting sea at Blackpool with some making their first trip to the seaside and underestimating the dangers. On the 16th Douglas Wilson from Leeds drowned while bathing in the sea at Bispham. The 19-year-old could not swim and Peter Frayne gave evidence at the man's inquest of watching the tragedy unfold. The plumber from Eccleston Street in St Helens had been walking on the cliffs and dashed to the nearby tram shed to raise the alarm. A policeman and a doctor said they had attempted artificial respiration for as long as 3 hours 20 minutes but it had been to no avail.
Kids messing about on the railway used to be very common in St Helens. The same applies today to some extent – but access is far more restricted and there are not the industrial sidings to play in. On the 16th in St Helens Police Court an unnamed 14-year-old boy was charged with trespassing on the railway. The lad had jumped into a brake-van in a siding at Ravenhead and released the brake. The van travelled 80 yards over the points but fortunately came safely to a stop.
The Bench warned the boy of the potential disastrous consequences that could have arisen from his action if the van had run onto the main line. He was fined ten shillings and his father was told to keep his son under better control or he would be sent to a reformatory, adding if the wagon had got onto the main line someone might have been killed.
Haemophilia was barely understood in the 1920s – although the fact that children could bleed to death from trivial injuries had long been known. I say "children" because if your blood would not clot then you did not grow up to become an adult. But back in 1923 sufferers of the condition do not appear to have been known as haemophiliacs. At the inquest of Arthur Melling of Charles Street in St Helens on the 17th, the 4-year-old was described simply as a "bleeder". The Liverpool Echo described the great difficulty that Arthur's mother and doctor had in attempting to stem the bleeding:
"The child was what is known as a “bleeder,” and it was the second inquest during the week on such a case. The boy was subjected to excessive bleeding, and when he was cut or scratched himself his mother said she always had great difficulty in stopping the flow of blood. On August 10 he went to play with another boy in a yard and came back home bleeding from the mouth, caused by a fall. She applied cold-water bandages but could not stop the bleeding. The following morning she took him to the doctor, but the child died on Monday afternoon [13th].
"Dr. Donnellan said he attended the boy twice previously and found it impossible to stop the bleeding in this case. The cut on the inside of the upper lip was very inaccessible, and every time he put a pack in the boy pulled it out. Being only four years of age, it was difficult to make him understand the importance of it. He could not stitch the place or do anything with it, and the loss of blood caused death."
The Reporter was published on the 17th and described how Janet Newbury had celebrated her 101st birthday with a tea party. She had been a resident of the Whiston Institution – as the workhouse was now known – for sixteen years and despite her age was still a bit of a fiery character. The Reporter wrote: "She is not even now averse from a “scrap,” for it is not many months ago when she went in front of the House Committee for assaulting another woman inmate."
When she was a girl and travelling from London to Prescot by stagecoach, Miss Newbury said she was held up by highwaymen and robbed of all her possessions. During the Crimean War she had served as a nurse under Florence Nightingale and also acted as nurse during the Indian Mutiny and the American Civil War.
Dogs chasing cars was not uncommon in St Helens. This week when William Rogers appeared in court for not having a dog licence, PC Higgs explained that the prosecution had arisen from the animal's car chasing proclivities. The constable said Rogers' large dog had been running after cars in Liverpool Road (pictured above) and when he had asked its owner to keep his mutt under proper control, Mr Rogers said once his dog got out, he could not get it back in again. Upon asking to see the man's dog licence, he found that he didn't have one and so instigated a prosecution. He was fined 15 shillings but the car-chasing dog, sadly, had already been put down.
Charles Morgan was this week's unfortunate victim of St Helens' strict interpretation of the begging laws. "I was only singing," he told Sergeant Lomas when collared in Brook Street. The officer told St Helens Police Court this week that Morgan had been singing a hymn in the street and he had seen several children run out of houses and give him something.
That somewhat passive act qualified as begging and was a crime – but the man appealed to the court to be dealt with leniently. Morgan said he was 59 and an ex-serviceman. He promised never to come to St Helens again and on that undertaking, was discharged by the Bench. After being prosecuted for simply singing a hymn in the street, you can't blame the man for never wanting to return to the town again!
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the abused wife that stabbed her husband, the Thatto Heath ghost, the unwanted dog thrown down an old Whiston mineshaft and the contortionist's horse that went walkies in George Street in the middle of the night.
Once the miners had their own clubhouse they could begin to organise events and the St Helens Reporter described this week how the institute's inaugural Sports Festival had taken place. Fine weather had contributed to a large turnout of spectators and as well as races, there was a tug-of-war that the paper said had developed into an "exciting affair, with a tendency to roughness, which gave the umpires some worry and anxiety in keeping order." In the evening three-round boxing matches took place and the Sutton Manor Colliery Band also played.
The police in St Helens regularly nicked people for allowing their horses to wander on the street and place other road users in danger. But it probably was not that often that they brought a charge of allowing goats to stray on the highway. And goats with a liking for aspidistras! But James Sweetlove, an engine driver from Peasley View in Sutton Road, appeared in court this week to face such a charge.
PC Shepherd explained how he had found five goats wandering about in Hammond Street in Parr. He saw them enter a front garden and gobble up two aspidistras that had been placed outside in the rain. Mr Sweetlove had done the right thing and compensated the owner for the loss of his plants. He also explained to the court that the young goats had been securely tied up but that children had released them. In the circumstances he was simply ordered to pay 6 shillings costs.
Like today there were complaints in the 1920s that some unemployed men that received handouts were shirkers. In April while conducting an inquest on a Liverpool man that had died after rising at 2:30am to find work in St Helens, the Coroner, Samuel Brighouse, had said: "I think the case ought to come to the notice of the gentleman who writes about the dole in the “Daily Mail.” It not only shows that you [the unemployed] are not all wrong, but that there are genuine, honest, working men who are very anxious to get work if there is only work for them to do."
But isolated examples of claimants wasting their small allowances on drink increased pressure on the authorities to crack down on abuse and reduce such payments. Financial support for the jobless came in two forms. Initially the unemployed could claim the dole – but entitlement to that State-supplied cash did not last long.
After that there was the unemployment "relief" or "parish relief" that was administered in the St Helens district by a relieving committee that was funded by ratepayers and overseen by the Guardians of the Prescot Union. On the 16th the Guardians were asked to adopt this ruling from their General Relief Committee, which placed a time limit on the backstop relief for single men:
1) That no unemployment relief be granted to single men who'd been out of employment for over a year. 2) That married men with children who had been out of work for over twelve months be not granted unemployment relief. However, their wives and children could be relieved at the discretion of the local district relief committee. 3) That no relief be given to men refusing work or voluntarily leaving work – but that the wives and children of such could again be relieved at the committee's discretion.
Those tough rules meant single men after a year had no income whatsoever and they empowered irresponsible employers who knew their workers could not leave without suffering great financial hardship.
Many holidaymakers drowned in the inviting sea at Blackpool with some making their first trip to the seaside and underestimating the dangers. On the 16th Douglas Wilson from Leeds drowned while bathing in the sea at Bispham. The 19-year-old could not swim and Peter Frayne gave evidence at the man's inquest of watching the tragedy unfold. The plumber from Eccleston Street in St Helens had been walking on the cliffs and dashed to the nearby tram shed to raise the alarm. A policeman and a doctor said they had attempted artificial respiration for as long as 3 hours 20 minutes but it had been to no avail.
Kids messing about on the railway used to be very common in St Helens. The same applies today to some extent – but access is far more restricted and there are not the industrial sidings to play in. On the 16th in St Helens Police Court an unnamed 14-year-old boy was charged with trespassing on the railway. The lad had jumped into a brake-van in a siding at Ravenhead and released the brake. The van travelled 80 yards over the points but fortunately came safely to a stop.
The Bench warned the boy of the potential disastrous consequences that could have arisen from his action if the van had run onto the main line. He was fined ten shillings and his father was told to keep his son under better control or he would be sent to a reformatory, adding if the wagon had got onto the main line someone might have been killed.
Haemophilia was barely understood in the 1920s – although the fact that children could bleed to death from trivial injuries had long been known. I say "children" because if your blood would not clot then you did not grow up to become an adult. But back in 1923 sufferers of the condition do not appear to have been known as haemophiliacs. At the inquest of Arthur Melling of Charles Street in St Helens on the 17th, the 4-year-old was described simply as a "bleeder". The Liverpool Echo described the great difficulty that Arthur's mother and doctor had in attempting to stem the bleeding:
"The child was what is known as a “bleeder,” and it was the second inquest during the week on such a case. The boy was subjected to excessive bleeding, and when he was cut or scratched himself his mother said she always had great difficulty in stopping the flow of blood. On August 10 he went to play with another boy in a yard and came back home bleeding from the mouth, caused by a fall. She applied cold-water bandages but could not stop the bleeding. The following morning she took him to the doctor, but the child died on Monday afternoon [13th].
"Dr. Donnellan said he attended the boy twice previously and found it impossible to stop the bleeding in this case. The cut on the inside of the upper lip was very inaccessible, and every time he put a pack in the boy pulled it out. Being only four years of age, it was difficult to make him understand the importance of it. He could not stitch the place or do anything with it, and the loss of blood caused death."
The Reporter was published on the 17th and described how Janet Newbury had celebrated her 101st birthday with a tea party. She had been a resident of the Whiston Institution – as the workhouse was now known – for sixteen years and despite her age was still a bit of a fiery character. The Reporter wrote: "She is not even now averse from a “scrap,” for it is not many months ago when she went in front of the House Committee for assaulting another woman inmate."
When she was a girl and travelling from London to Prescot by stagecoach, Miss Newbury said she was held up by highwaymen and robbed of all her possessions. During the Crimean War she had served as a nurse under Florence Nightingale and also acted as nurse during the Indian Mutiny and the American Civil War.
Charles Morgan was this week's unfortunate victim of St Helens' strict interpretation of the begging laws. "I was only singing," he told Sergeant Lomas when collared in Brook Street. The officer told St Helens Police Court this week that Morgan had been singing a hymn in the street and he had seen several children run out of houses and give him something.
That somewhat passive act qualified as begging and was a crime – but the man appealed to the court to be dealt with leniently. Morgan said he was 59 and an ex-serviceman. He promised never to come to St Helens again and on that undertaking, was discharged by the Bench. After being prosecuted for simply singing a hymn in the street, you can't blame the man for never wanting to return to the town again!
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the abused wife that stabbed her husband, the Thatto Heath ghost, the unwanted dog thrown down an old Whiston mineshaft and the contortionist's horse that went walkies in George Street in the middle of the night.
This week's many stories include the death of a haemophiliac bleeder boy from Charles Street, the inaugural Sutton Manor Colliery Sports Festival, the strict sanctions on hand-outs for unemployed men, the dog that chased cars in Liverpool Road and the five goats wandering in Hammond Street that had a liking for aspidistras.
In 1922 leisure facilities for workers at Sutton Manor Colliery (pictured above) had greatly improved when their Miners Institute was opened.
The corrugated iron building in Jubits Lane, opposite Bell Lane, became the entertainment centre of the village.
It had a bar room, a games room with billiard / snooker tables and a larger room that was used for dances and brass band practice.
Once the miners had their own clubhouse they could begin to organise events and the St Helens Reporter described this week how the institute's inaugural Sports Festival had taken place.
Fine weather had contributed to a large turnout of spectators and as well as races, there was a tug-of-war that the paper said had developed into an "exciting affair, with a tendency to roughness, which gave the umpires some worry and anxiety in keeping order."
In the evening three-round boxing matches took place and the Sutton Manor Colliery Band also played.
The police in St Helens regularly nicked people for allowing their horses to wander on the street and place other road users in danger.
But it probably was not that often that they brought a charge of allowing goats to stray on the highway. And goats with a liking for aspidistras!
But James Sweetlove, an engine driver from Peasley View in Sutton Road, appeared in court this week to face such a charge.
PC Shepherd explained how he had found five goats wandering about in Hammond Street in Parr.
He saw them enter a front garden and gobble up two aspidistras that had been placed outside in the rain.
Mr Sweetlove had done the right thing and compensated the owner for the loss of his plants.
He also explained to the court that the young goats had been securely tied up but that children had released them. In the circumstances he was simply ordered to pay 6 shillings costs.
Like today there were complaints in the 1920s that some unemployed men that received handouts were shirkers.
In April while conducting an inquest on a Liverpool man that had died after rising at 2:30am to find work in St Helens, the Coroner, Samuel Brighouse, had said:
"I think the case ought to come to the notice of the gentleman who writes about the dole in the “Daily Mail.”
"It not only shows that you [the unemployed] are not all wrong, but that there are genuine, honest, working men who are very anxious to get work if there is only work for them to do."
But isolated examples of claimants wasting their small allowances on drink increased pressure on the authorities to crack down on abuse and reduce such payments.
Financial support for the jobless came in two forms. Initially the unemployed could claim the dole – but entitlement to that State-supplied cash did not last long.
After that there was the unemployment "relief" or "parish relief" that was administered in the St Helens district by a relieving committee that was funded by ratepayers and overseen by the Guardians of the Prescot Union.
On the 16th the Guardians were asked to adopt this ruling from their General Relief Committee, which placed a time limit on the backstop relief for single men:
1) That no unemployment relief be granted to single men who'd been out of employment for over a year.
2) That married men with children who had been out of work for over twelve months be not granted unemployment relief. However, their wives and children could be relieved at the discretion of the local district relief committee.
3) That no relief be given to men refusing work or voluntarily leaving work – but that the wives and children of such could again be relieved at the committee's discretion.
Those tough rules meant single men after a year had no income whatsoever and they empowered irresponsible employers who knew their workers could not leave without suffering great financial hardship.
Many holidaymakers drowned in the inviting sea at Blackpool with some making their first trip to the seaside and underestimating the dangers.
On the 16th Douglas Wilson from Leeds drowned while bathing in the sea at Bispham. The 19-year-old could not swim and Peter Frayne gave evidence at the man's inquest of watching the tragedy unfold.
The plumber from Eccleston Street in St Helens had been walking on the cliffs and dashed to the nearby tram shed to raise the alarm.
A policeman and a doctor said they had attempted artificial respiration for as long as 3 hours 20 minutes but it had been to no avail.
Kids messing about on the railway used to be very common in St Helens. The same applies today to some extent – but access is far more restricted and there are not the industrial sidings to play in.
On the 16th in St Helens Police Court an unnamed 14-year-old boy was charged with trespassing on the railway.
The lad had jumped into a brake-van in a siding at Ravenhead and released the brake. The van travelled 80 yards over the points but fortunately came safely to a stop.
The Bench warned the boy of the potential disastrous consequences that could have arisen from his action if the van had run onto the main line.
He was fined ten shillings and his father was told to keep his son under better control or he would be sent to a reformatory, adding if the wagon had got onto the main line someone might have been killed.
Haemophilia was barely understood in the 1920s – although the fact that children could bleed to death from trivial injuries had long been known.
I say "children" because if your blood would not clot then you did not grow up to become an adult.
But back in 1923 sufferers of the condition do not appear to have been known as haemophiliacs.
At the inquest of Arthur Melling of Charles Street in St Helens on the 17th, the 4-year-old was described simply as a "bleeder".
The Liverpool Echo described the great difficulty that Arthur's mother and doctor had in attempting to stem the bleeding:
"The child was what is known as a “bleeder,” and it was the second inquest during the week on such a case.
"The boy was subjected to excessive bleeding, and when he was cut or scratched himself his mother said she always had great difficulty in stopping the flow of blood.
"On August 10 he went to play with another boy in a yard and came back home bleeding from the mouth, caused by a fall. She applied cold-water bandages but could not stop the bleeding.
"The following morning she took him to the doctor, but the child died on Monday afternoon [13th].
"Dr. Donnellan said he attended the boy twice previously and found it impossible to stop the bleeding in this case.
"The cut on the inside of the upper lip was very inaccessible, and every time he put a pack in the boy pulled it out.
"Being only four years of age, it was difficult to make him understand the importance of it.
“He could not stitch the place or do anything with it, and the loss of blood caused death."
The Reporter was published on the 17th and described how Janet Newbury had celebrated her 101st birthday with a tea party.
She had been a resident of the Whiston Institution – as the workhouse was now known – for sixteen years and despite her age was still a bit of a fiery character.
The Reporter wrote: "She is not even now averse from a “scrap,” for it is not many months ago when she went in front of the House Committee for assaulting another woman inmate."
When she was a girl and travelling from London to Prescot by stagecoach, Miss Newbury said she was held up by highwaymen and robbed of all her possessions.
During the Crimean War she had served as a nurse under Florence Nightingale and also acted as nurse during the Indian Mutiny and the American Civil War.
Dogs chasing cars was not uncommon in St Helens. This week when William Rogers appeared in court for not having a dog licence, PC Higgs explained that the prosecution had arisen from the animal's car chasing proclivities.
The constable said Rogers' large dog had been running after cars in Liverpool Road and when he had asked its owner to keep his mutt under proper control, Mr Rogers said once his dog got out, he could not get it back in again.
Upon asking to see the man's dog licence, he found that he didn't have one and so instigated a prosecution. He was fined 15 shillings but the car-chasing dog, sadly, had already been put down.
Charles Morgan was this week's unfortunate victim of St Helens' strict interpretation of the begging laws. "I was only singing," he told Sergeant Lomas when collared in Brook Street.
The officer told St Helens Police Court this week that Morgan had been singing a hymn in the street and he had seen several children run out of houses and give him something.
That somewhat passive act qualified as begging and was a crime – but the man appealed to the court to be dealt with leniently.
Morgan said he was 59 and an ex-serviceman. He promised never to come to St Helens again and on that undertaking, was discharged by the Bench.
After being prosecuted for simply singing a hymn in the street, you can't blame the man for never wanting to return to the town again!
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the abused wife that stabbed her husband, the Thatto Heath ghost, the unwanted dog thrown down an old Whiston mineshaft and the contortionist's horse that went walkies in George Street in the middle of the night.
The corrugated iron building in Jubits Lane, opposite Bell Lane, became the entertainment centre of the village.
It had a bar room, a games room with billiard / snooker tables and a larger room that was used for dances and brass band practice.
Once the miners had their own clubhouse they could begin to organise events and the St Helens Reporter described this week how the institute's inaugural Sports Festival had taken place.
Fine weather had contributed to a large turnout of spectators and as well as races, there was a tug-of-war that the paper said had developed into an "exciting affair, with a tendency to roughness, which gave the umpires some worry and anxiety in keeping order."
In the evening three-round boxing matches took place and the Sutton Manor Colliery Band also played.
The police in St Helens regularly nicked people for allowing their horses to wander on the street and place other road users in danger.
But it probably was not that often that they brought a charge of allowing goats to stray on the highway. And goats with a liking for aspidistras!
But James Sweetlove, an engine driver from Peasley View in Sutton Road, appeared in court this week to face such a charge.
PC Shepherd explained how he had found five goats wandering about in Hammond Street in Parr.
He saw them enter a front garden and gobble up two aspidistras that had been placed outside in the rain.
Mr Sweetlove had done the right thing and compensated the owner for the loss of his plants.
He also explained to the court that the young goats had been securely tied up but that children had released them. In the circumstances he was simply ordered to pay 6 shillings costs.
Like today there were complaints in the 1920s that some unemployed men that received handouts were shirkers.
In April while conducting an inquest on a Liverpool man that had died after rising at 2:30am to find work in St Helens, the Coroner, Samuel Brighouse, had said:
"I think the case ought to come to the notice of the gentleman who writes about the dole in the “Daily Mail.”
"It not only shows that you [the unemployed] are not all wrong, but that there are genuine, honest, working men who are very anxious to get work if there is only work for them to do."
But isolated examples of claimants wasting their small allowances on drink increased pressure on the authorities to crack down on abuse and reduce such payments.
Financial support for the jobless came in two forms. Initially the unemployed could claim the dole – but entitlement to that State-supplied cash did not last long.
After that there was the unemployment "relief" or "parish relief" that was administered in the St Helens district by a relieving committee that was funded by ratepayers and overseen by the Guardians of the Prescot Union.
On the 16th the Guardians were asked to adopt this ruling from their General Relief Committee, which placed a time limit on the backstop relief for single men:
1) That no unemployment relief be granted to single men who'd been out of employment for over a year.
2) That married men with children who had been out of work for over twelve months be not granted unemployment relief. However, their wives and children could be relieved at the discretion of the local district relief committee.
3) That no relief be given to men refusing work or voluntarily leaving work – but that the wives and children of such could again be relieved at the committee's discretion.
Those tough rules meant single men after a year had no income whatsoever and they empowered irresponsible employers who knew their workers could not leave without suffering great financial hardship.
Many holidaymakers drowned in the inviting sea at Blackpool with some making their first trip to the seaside and underestimating the dangers.
On the 16th Douglas Wilson from Leeds drowned while bathing in the sea at Bispham. The 19-year-old could not swim and Peter Frayne gave evidence at the man's inquest of watching the tragedy unfold.
The plumber from Eccleston Street in St Helens had been walking on the cliffs and dashed to the nearby tram shed to raise the alarm.
A policeman and a doctor said they had attempted artificial respiration for as long as 3 hours 20 minutes but it had been to no avail.
Kids messing about on the railway used to be very common in St Helens. The same applies today to some extent – but access is far more restricted and there are not the industrial sidings to play in.
On the 16th in St Helens Police Court an unnamed 14-year-old boy was charged with trespassing on the railway.
The lad had jumped into a brake-van in a siding at Ravenhead and released the brake. The van travelled 80 yards over the points but fortunately came safely to a stop.
The Bench warned the boy of the potential disastrous consequences that could have arisen from his action if the van had run onto the main line.
He was fined ten shillings and his father was told to keep his son under better control or he would be sent to a reformatory, adding if the wagon had got onto the main line someone might have been killed.
Haemophilia was barely understood in the 1920s – although the fact that children could bleed to death from trivial injuries had long been known.
I say "children" because if your blood would not clot then you did not grow up to become an adult.
But back in 1923 sufferers of the condition do not appear to have been known as haemophiliacs.
At the inquest of Arthur Melling of Charles Street in St Helens on the 17th, the 4-year-old was described simply as a "bleeder".
The Liverpool Echo described the great difficulty that Arthur's mother and doctor had in attempting to stem the bleeding:
"The child was what is known as a “bleeder,” and it was the second inquest during the week on such a case.
"The boy was subjected to excessive bleeding, and when he was cut or scratched himself his mother said she always had great difficulty in stopping the flow of blood.
"On August 10 he went to play with another boy in a yard and came back home bleeding from the mouth, caused by a fall. She applied cold-water bandages but could not stop the bleeding.
"The following morning she took him to the doctor, but the child died on Monday afternoon [13th].
"Dr. Donnellan said he attended the boy twice previously and found it impossible to stop the bleeding in this case.
"The cut on the inside of the upper lip was very inaccessible, and every time he put a pack in the boy pulled it out.
"Being only four years of age, it was difficult to make him understand the importance of it.
“He could not stitch the place or do anything with it, and the loss of blood caused death."
The Reporter was published on the 17th and described how Janet Newbury had celebrated her 101st birthday with a tea party.
She had been a resident of the Whiston Institution – as the workhouse was now known – for sixteen years and despite her age was still a bit of a fiery character.
The Reporter wrote: "She is not even now averse from a “scrap,” for it is not many months ago when she went in front of the House Committee for assaulting another woman inmate."
When she was a girl and travelling from London to Prescot by stagecoach, Miss Newbury said she was held up by highwaymen and robbed of all her possessions.
During the Crimean War she had served as a nurse under Florence Nightingale and also acted as nurse during the Indian Mutiny and the American Civil War.
Dogs chasing cars was not uncommon in St Helens. This week when William Rogers appeared in court for not having a dog licence, PC Higgs explained that the prosecution had arisen from the animal's car chasing proclivities.
The constable said Rogers' large dog had been running after cars in Liverpool Road and when he had asked its owner to keep his mutt under proper control, Mr Rogers said once his dog got out, he could not get it back in again.
Upon asking to see the man's dog licence, he found that he didn't have one and so instigated a prosecution. He was fined 15 shillings but the car-chasing dog, sadly, had already been put down.
Charles Morgan was this week's unfortunate victim of St Helens' strict interpretation of the begging laws. "I was only singing," he told Sergeant Lomas when collared in Brook Street.
The officer told St Helens Police Court this week that Morgan had been singing a hymn in the street and he had seen several children run out of houses and give him something.
That somewhat passive act qualified as begging and was a crime – but the man appealed to the court to be dealt with leniently.
Morgan said he was 59 and an ex-serviceman. He promised never to come to St Helens again and on that undertaking, was discharged by the Bench.
After being prosecuted for simply singing a hymn in the street, you can't blame the man for never wanting to return to the town again!
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the abused wife that stabbed her husband, the Thatto Heath ghost, the unwanted dog thrown down an old Whiston mineshaft and the contortionist's horse that went walkies in George Street in the middle of the night.