IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 15 - 21 JANUARY 1924
This week's many stories include the violent husband who behaved like a madman, the young worker crushed to death by a machine at Prescot, the practical hatter from Church Street who was stung by a loan shark, the plans to install hard tennis courts in Sutton Park, the Eccleston Lane Ends biscuits fraud, the thieving Donkey Gang at St Helens Junction and the St Helens' MP complains about disabled and sick ex-soldiers from WW1 who had been denied an army pension.
We start on the 15th with William Nicholson's appearance at Liverpool Bankruptcy Court. Nicholson from Church Street had regularly advertised in the St Helens Reporter as "The Practical Hatter" using poetry in his adverts. Here are the first four lines of one ad:
"Should you require a neat Cravat,
A Trilby, Shirt, or Bowler Hat,
Call and see the writer, who forsooth
Has traded in these things from early youth."
Nicholson told the Official Receiver that he had done a "very foolish thing". That had been to go to a moneylender and be charged what was described in the hearing as "extravagant" rates of interest of about 100%. The term "loan shark" seems not to have yet become part of people's vocabulary.
"What is your business at home? Is it beating your wife?", asked the solicitor in a case heard in St Helens Police Court this week. "No", came the reply from the complainant. "I have only hit her twice in four years". It sounded as if Ambrose Wills felt he deserved a good conduct medal as a husband – but other members of his family knew better. According to Wills they had all set upon him at the house in Green Street (which used to be near Brook Street in St Helens) where they lived.
That led to Wills summoning to court his sister-in-law Katherine Keating – who the Reporter described as a "respectably dressed and prepossessing young married woman" – accusing her of assault. The 25-year-old Wills gave evidence that on the previous Friday afternoon he'd arrived home and asked for his dinner and immediately afterwards Mrs Keating had rushed in and given him a blow to the face. Two others had then got hold of Wills and hit him in the face with a sharp instrument and Mrs Keating then struck him again while he was being held over the sofa.
The defendant's solicitor, Mr Davies, said to Wills: "You do not treat your wife very well?" To that he replied: "We have differences between ourselves, but we don't want anyone to interfere. I have had my wife away from her mother twice and she coaxed me back. There are nine lodgers in the house, and that is not convenient for me; I am always in trouble there." By lodgers I think he meant family members connected to his mother-in-law who owned the house.
But as so often was the case, Ambrose Wills was highly selective in his evidence and his sister-in-law Katherine Keating told a quite different and appalling story. She described hearing a scream coming from the parlour where she found Wills beating her 25-year-old sister Teresa and there was blood on her face. Katherine explained how she went between the pair and for her trouble received a blow on the bridge of her nose. As a result she left the parlour to go into the kitchen but her brother-in-law followed her and hit her so heavily that her nose "bled in torrents".
In the ensuing struggle Wills fell against the latch of the door and that, she claimed, was how he was injured. Katherine added that Wills then left the house but soon returned and had acted so much "like a madman" that she had to lock herself in her room. She said her brother-in-law then attempted to burst the door open and in failing to do so called her foul names through it. Katherine also stated that her sister had been stretched out unconscious in the lobby of the house with her baby lying across her chest and her husband was threatening what he would do if anyone went to her assistance.
Clara Mooney was Ambrose Wills' mother-in-law and she corroborated Katherine's account, telling the Bench: "Every time Wills came in he thumped his wife and called her bad names. Gentlemen, I would not repeat the words he used to me. It was terrible and dreadful." There were other witnesses but the magistrates had heard enough and dismissed the charge against Katherine Keating. It is surprising that she and her family did not counter-sue Ambrose Wills for his violence.
An extraordinary number of young workers were sucked into machines at their work and killed. It often happened when they were making some adjustment to the machine and their clothing or hair got caught in it. On the 15th Albert Bullock was adjusting a rolling mill at the British Insulated and Helsby Cables Co in Prescot. The 21-year-old from Huyton slipped and his clothes entangled in the machinery and he was drawn between its heavy rollers and crushed to death.
Also on the 15th six boys living at St Helens Junction appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with breaking into the shop of Councillor Bell in Peckers Hill Road and stealing money and cigarettes valued at £1 7s 6d. The lads were led by 17-year-old John Davies of Hoghton Road and they called themselves the 'Donkey Gang', for reasons that were not explained.
Two of them had previous convictions and in the past they could have expected birching as the default punishment. But times were becoming more enlightened – some might say soft – and John Davies and Francis Yates were both fined 10 shillings and each ordered to pay 8s 6d restitution. The other four boys – Thomas Travis, William Thomas, William Whalin and Alfred Davies – were bound over for twelve months.
On the 16th the council's Parks Committee decided to install tennis courts in Sutton Park (pictured above) and after a discussion over surfaces plumped for what the Reporter called "swanky green-tinted hard tennis courts". That was an innovation for St Helens and it would have the advantage of coping better with wet weather.
On the 17th James Sexton, the St Helens MP, complained in the Commons about the "considerable" number of disabled or sick ex-servicemen in the town that had been denied army pensions or had them "reduced to vanishing point". That had been on the ground that their condition had not actually been caused by their military service. One man called Pinnock from Sutton had lost his sight. However, the authorities had said his affliction could not be directly attributed to army service and Sexton complained that he was now destitute.
Many grocers allowed their customers credit or "tick" until their next pay day, which encouraged customer loyalty to the shop. But they didn't all pay up and that led to larger shops like Lennons styling themselves "cash grocers" or "cash butchers". They claimed being cash only meant they were cheaper than shops that allowed goods to be put "on the slate", as bad debts did not have to be made up through higher prices.
The grocers that did allow tick had another problem. Sometimes persons would fraudulently take goods supposedly on behalf of someone else who, they claimed, would pay for them. A brainless crime as usually the deception would quickly be realised and the fraudster arrested. On the 18th a 14-year-old boy named Beesley appeared in court charged with obtaining goods from a shopkeeper by false pretences.
The boy had entered Stringfellow's shop at Eccleston Lane Ends and obtained half-a-pound of biscuits, which he claimed was for a farmer called Swisk. That proved to be false but Beesley's father told the Bench that this had been his son's first offence, although there had been occasions when he had taken things belonging to him. The boy's father was bound over under a surety of £2 to look after the lad who himself was placed on probation for a year.
On the 21st workers at Clock Face Colliery found notices posted saying the mine was closing until further notice. That was through a national railway strike that had led to a shortage of wagons.
The Bridge Street Picturedrome had in 1920 changed its name to the Savoy and fourteen years later it would be demolished to make way for the "new super Savoy". From the 21st the cinema had a "special attraction" in the latest Jackie Coogan film called 'Daddy'. That must be one of the few films where the script was written by the star's parents.
And at the Hippodrome Theatre the Ten Loonies were back. In a review of their show in Corporation Street in 1920, the Reporter wrote: "The madhouse instrumentalists, the eccentric musicians, brought down the house with a glorious medley of the choicest band music and the most preposterous foolery that man ever devised."
Other turns this week included: Fred Masters ("The Whistling and Laughing comedian, mimic and farmyard delineator"); Vittoria ("Dainty little lady in her speciality"); Southwood and Pink Lady ("A vaudeville act of distinction") and Stewart & Ray ("In a comedy concoction, ‘Various Doings’").
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the body of a baby that was dumped in Silkstone Street, the one-eyed coal miner's compensation payment, the new Globe Hotel and the man that shot himself in the heart because of a furniture row.
We start on the 15th with William Nicholson's appearance at Liverpool Bankruptcy Court. Nicholson from Church Street had regularly advertised in the St Helens Reporter as "The Practical Hatter" using poetry in his adverts. Here are the first four lines of one ad:
"Should you require a neat Cravat,
A Trilby, Shirt, or Bowler Hat,
Call and see the writer, who forsooth
Has traded in these things from early youth."
Nicholson told the Official Receiver that he had done a "very foolish thing". That had been to go to a moneylender and be charged what was described in the hearing as "extravagant" rates of interest of about 100%. The term "loan shark" seems not to have yet become part of people's vocabulary.
"What is your business at home? Is it beating your wife?", asked the solicitor in a case heard in St Helens Police Court this week. "No", came the reply from the complainant. "I have only hit her twice in four years". It sounded as if Ambrose Wills felt he deserved a good conduct medal as a husband – but other members of his family knew better. According to Wills they had all set upon him at the house in Green Street (which used to be near Brook Street in St Helens) where they lived.
That led to Wills summoning to court his sister-in-law Katherine Keating – who the Reporter described as a "respectably dressed and prepossessing young married woman" – accusing her of assault. The 25-year-old Wills gave evidence that on the previous Friday afternoon he'd arrived home and asked for his dinner and immediately afterwards Mrs Keating had rushed in and given him a blow to the face. Two others had then got hold of Wills and hit him in the face with a sharp instrument and Mrs Keating then struck him again while he was being held over the sofa.
The defendant's solicitor, Mr Davies, said to Wills: "You do not treat your wife very well?" To that he replied: "We have differences between ourselves, but we don't want anyone to interfere. I have had my wife away from her mother twice and she coaxed me back. There are nine lodgers in the house, and that is not convenient for me; I am always in trouble there." By lodgers I think he meant family members connected to his mother-in-law who owned the house.
But as so often was the case, Ambrose Wills was highly selective in his evidence and his sister-in-law Katherine Keating told a quite different and appalling story. She described hearing a scream coming from the parlour where she found Wills beating her 25-year-old sister Teresa and there was blood on her face. Katherine explained how she went between the pair and for her trouble received a blow on the bridge of her nose. As a result she left the parlour to go into the kitchen but her brother-in-law followed her and hit her so heavily that her nose "bled in torrents".
In the ensuing struggle Wills fell against the latch of the door and that, she claimed, was how he was injured. Katherine added that Wills then left the house but soon returned and had acted so much "like a madman" that she had to lock herself in her room. She said her brother-in-law then attempted to burst the door open and in failing to do so called her foul names through it. Katherine also stated that her sister had been stretched out unconscious in the lobby of the house with her baby lying across her chest and her husband was threatening what he would do if anyone went to her assistance.
Clara Mooney was Ambrose Wills' mother-in-law and she corroborated Katherine's account, telling the Bench: "Every time Wills came in he thumped his wife and called her bad names. Gentlemen, I would not repeat the words he used to me. It was terrible and dreadful." There were other witnesses but the magistrates had heard enough and dismissed the charge against Katherine Keating. It is surprising that she and her family did not counter-sue Ambrose Wills for his violence.
An extraordinary number of young workers were sucked into machines at their work and killed. It often happened when they were making some adjustment to the machine and their clothing or hair got caught in it. On the 15th Albert Bullock was adjusting a rolling mill at the British Insulated and Helsby Cables Co in Prescot. The 21-year-old from Huyton slipped and his clothes entangled in the machinery and he was drawn between its heavy rollers and crushed to death.
Also on the 15th six boys living at St Helens Junction appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with breaking into the shop of Councillor Bell in Peckers Hill Road and stealing money and cigarettes valued at £1 7s 6d. The lads were led by 17-year-old John Davies of Hoghton Road and they called themselves the 'Donkey Gang', for reasons that were not explained.
Two of them had previous convictions and in the past they could have expected birching as the default punishment. But times were becoming more enlightened – some might say soft – and John Davies and Francis Yates were both fined 10 shillings and each ordered to pay 8s 6d restitution. The other four boys – Thomas Travis, William Thomas, William Whalin and Alfred Davies – were bound over for twelve months.
On the 17th James Sexton, the St Helens MP, complained in the Commons about the "considerable" number of disabled or sick ex-servicemen in the town that had been denied army pensions or had them "reduced to vanishing point". That had been on the ground that their condition had not actually been caused by their military service. One man called Pinnock from Sutton had lost his sight. However, the authorities had said his affliction could not be directly attributed to army service and Sexton complained that he was now destitute.
Many grocers allowed their customers credit or "tick" until their next pay day, which encouraged customer loyalty to the shop. But they didn't all pay up and that led to larger shops like Lennons styling themselves "cash grocers" or "cash butchers". They claimed being cash only meant they were cheaper than shops that allowed goods to be put "on the slate", as bad debts did not have to be made up through higher prices.
The grocers that did allow tick had another problem. Sometimes persons would fraudulently take goods supposedly on behalf of someone else who, they claimed, would pay for them. A brainless crime as usually the deception would quickly be realised and the fraudster arrested. On the 18th a 14-year-old boy named Beesley appeared in court charged with obtaining goods from a shopkeeper by false pretences.
The boy had entered Stringfellow's shop at Eccleston Lane Ends and obtained half-a-pound of biscuits, which he claimed was for a farmer called Swisk. That proved to be false but Beesley's father told the Bench that this had been his son's first offence, although there had been occasions when he had taken things belonging to him. The boy's father was bound over under a surety of £2 to look after the lad who himself was placed on probation for a year.
On the 21st workers at Clock Face Colliery found notices posted saying the mine was closing until further notice. That was through a national railway strike that had led to a shortage of wagons.
The Bridge Street Picturedrome had in 1920 changed its name to the Savoy and fourteen years later it would be demolished to make way for the "new super Savoy". From the 21st the cinema had a "special attraction" in the latest Jackie Coogan film called 'Daddy'. That must be one of the few films where the script was written by the star's parents.
And at the Hippodrome Theatre the Ten Loonies were back. In a review of their show in Corporation Street in 1920, the Reporter wrote: "The madhouse instrumentalists, the eccentric musicians, brought down the house with a glorious medley of the choicest band music and the most preposterous foolery that man ever devised."
Other turns this week included: Fred Masters ("The Whistling and Laughing comedian, mimic and farmyard delineator"); Vittoria ("Dainty little lady in her speciality"); Southwood and Pink Lady ("A vaudeville act of distinction") and Stewart & Ray ("In a comedy concoction, ‘Various Doings’").
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the body of a baby that was dumped in Silkstone Street, the one-eyed coal miner's compensation payment, the new Globe Hotel and the man that shot himself in the heart because of a furniture row.
This week's many stories include the violent husband who behaved like a madman, the young worker crushed to death by a machine at Prescot, the practical hatter from Church Street who was stung by a loan shark, the plans to install hard tennis courts in Sutton Park, the Eccleston Lane Ends biscuits fraud, the thieving Donkey Gang at St Helens Junction and the St Helens' MP complains about disabled and sick ex-soldiers from WW1 who had been denied an army pension.
We start on the 15th with William Nicholson's appearance at Liverpool Bankruptcy Court.
Nicholson from Church Street had regularly advertised in the St Helens Reporter as "The Practical Hatter" using poetry in his adverts. Here are the first four lines of one ad:
"Should you require a neat Cravat,
A Trilby, Shirt, or Bowler Hat,
Call and see the writer, who forsooth
Has traded in these things from early youth."
Nicholson told the Official Receiver that he had done a "very foolish thing".
That had been to go to a moneylender and be charged what was described in the hearing as "extravagant" rates of interest of about 100%. The term "loan shark" seems not to have yet become part of people's vocabulary.
"What is your business at home? Is it beating your wife?", asked the solicitor in a case heard in St Helens Police Court this week. "No", came the reply from the complainant. "I have only hit her twice in four years".
It sounded as if Ambrose Wills felt he deserved a good conduct medal as a husband – but other members of his family knew better.
According to Wills they had all set upon him at the house in Green Street (which used to be near Brook Street in St Helens) where they lived.
That led to Wills summoning to court his sister-in-law Katherine Keating – who the Reporter described as a "respectably dressed and prepossessing young married woman" – accusing her of assault.
The 25-year-old Wills gave evidence that on the previous Friday afternoon he'd arrived home and asked for his dinner and immediately afterwards Mrs Keating had rushed in and given him a blow to the face.
Two others had then got hold of Wills and hit him in the face with a sharp instrument and Mrs Keating then struck him again while he was being held over the sofa.
The defendant's solicitor, Mr Davies, said to Wills: "You do not treat your wife very well?"
To that he replied: "We have differences between ourselves, but we don't want anyone to interfere. I have had my wife away from her mother twice and she coaxed me back.
"There are nine lodgers in the house, and that is not convenient for me; I am always in trouble there."
By lodgers I think he meant family members connected to his mother-in-law who owned the house.
But as so often was the case, Ambrose Wills was highly selective in his evidence and his sister-in-law Katherine Keating told a quite different and appalling story.
She described hearing a scream coming from the parlour where she found Wills beating her 25-year-old sister Teresa and there was blood on her face.
Katherine explained how she went between the pair and for her trouble received a blow on the bridge of her nose.
As a result she left the parlour to go into the kitchen but her brother-in-law followed her and hit her so heavily that her nose "bled in torrents".
In the ensuing struggle Wills fell against the latch of the door and that, she claimed, was how he was injured.
Katherine added that Wills then left the house but soon returned and had acted so much "like a madman" that she had to lock herself in her room.
She said her brother-in-law then attempted to burst the door open and in failing to do so called her foul names through it.
Katherine also stated that her sister had been stretched out unconscious in the lobby of the house with her baby lying across her chest and her husband was threatening what he would do if anyone went to her assistance.
Clara Mooney was Ambrose Wills' mother-in-law and she corroborated Katherine's account, telling the Bench:
"Every time Wills came in he thumped his wife and called her bad names. Gentlemen, I would not repeat the words he used to me. It was terrible and dreadful."
There were other witnesses but the magistrates had heard enough and dismissed the charge against Katherine Keating.
It is surprising that she and her family did not counter-sue Ambrose Wills for his violence.
An extraordinary number of young workers were sucked into machines at their work and killed.
It often happened when they were making some adjustment to the machine and their clothing or hair got caught in it.
On the 15th Albert Bullock was adjusting a rolling mill at the British Insulated and Helsby Cables Co in Prescot.
The 21-year-old from Huyton slipped and his clothes entangled in the machinery and he was drawn between its heavy rollers and crushed to death.
Also on the 15th six boys living at St Helens Junction appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with breaking into the shop of Councillor Bell in Peckers Hill Road and stealing money and cigarettes valued at £1 7s 6d.
The lads were led by 17-year-old John Davies of Hoghton Road and they called themselves the 'Donkey Gang', for reasons that were not explained.
Two of them had previous convictions and in the past they could have expected birching as the default punishment.
But times were becoming more enlightened – some might say soft – and John Davies and Francis Yates were both fined 10 shillings and each ordered to pay 8s 6d restitution.
The other four boys – Thomas Travis, William Thomas, William Whalin and Alfred Davies – were bound over for twelve months.
On the 16th the council's Parks Committee decided to install tennis courts in Sutton Park (pictured above) and after a discussion over surfaces plumped for what the Reporter called "swanky green-tinted hard tennis courts".
That was an innovation for St Helens and it would have the advantage of coping better with wet weather.
On the 17th James Sexton, the St Helens MP, complained in the Commons about the "considerable" number of disabled or sick ex-servicemen in the town that had been denied army pensions or had them "reduced to vanishing point".
That had been on the ground that their condition had not actually been caused by their military service.
One man called Pinnock from Sutton had lost his sight. However, the authorities had said his affliction could not be directly attributed to army service and Sexton complained that he was now destitute.
Many grocers allowed their customers credit or "tick" until their next pay day, which encouraged customer loyalty to the shop.
But they didn't all pay up and that led to larger shops like Lennons styling themselves "cash grocers" or "cash butchers".
They claimed being cash only meant they were cheaper than shops that allowed goods to be put "on the slate", as bad debts did not have to be made up through higher prices.
The grocers that did allow tick had another problem. Sometimes persons would fraudulently take goods supposedly on behalf of someone else who, they claimed, would pay for them.
A brainless crime as usually the deception would quickly be realised and the fraudster arrested.
On the 18th a 14-year-old boy named Beesley appeared in court charged with obtaining goods from a shopkeeper by false pretences.
The boy had entered Stringfellow's shop at Eccleston Lane Ends and obtained half-a-pound of biscuits, which he claimed was for a farmer called Swisk.
That proved to be false but Beesley's father told the Bench that this had been his son's first offence, although there had been occasions when he had taken things belonging to him.
The boy's father was bound over under a surety of £2 to look after the lad who himself was placed on probation for a year.
On the 21st workers at Clock Face Colliery found notices posted saying the mine was closing until further notice. That was through a national railway strike that had led to a shortage of wagons.
The Bridge Street Picturedrome had in 1920 changed its name to the Savoy and fourteen years later it would be demolished to make way for the "new super Savoy".
From the 21st the cinema had a "special attraction" in the latest Jackie Coogan film called 'Daddy'. That must be one of the few films where the script was written by the star's parents.
And at the Hippodrome Theatre the Ten Loonies were back. In a review of their show in Corporation Street in 1920, the Reporter wrote:
"The madhouse instrumentalists, the eccentric musicians, brought down the house with a glorious medley of the choicest band music and the most preposterous foolery that man ever devised."
Other turns this week included: Fred Masters ("The Whistling and Laughing comedian, mimic and farmyard delineator"); Vittoria ("Dainty little lady in her speciality"); Southwood and Pink Lady ("A vaudeville act of distinction") and Stewart & Ray ("In a comedy concoction, ‘Various Doings’").
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the body of a baby that was dumped in Silkstone Street, the one-eyed coal miner's compensation payment, the new Globe Hotel and the man that shot himself in the heart because of a furniture row.
We start on the 15th with William Nicholson's appearance at Liverpool Bankruptcy Court.
Nicholson from Church Street had regularly advertised in the St Helens Reporter as "The Practical Hatter" using poetry in his adverts. Here are the first four lines of one ad:
"Should you require a neat Cravat,
A Trilby, Shirt, or Bowler Hat,
Call and see the writer, who forsooth
Has traded in these things from early youth."
Nicholson told the Official Receiver that he had done a "very foolish thing".
That had been to go to a moneylender and be charged what was described in the hearing as "extravagant" rates of interest of about 100%. The term "loan shark" seems not to have yet become part of people's vocabulary.
"What is your business at home? Is it beating your wife?", asked the solicitor in a case heard in St Helens Police Court this week. "No", came the reply from the complainant. "I have only hit her twice in four years".
It sounded as if Ambrose Wills felt he deserved a good conduct medal as a husband – but other members of his family knew better.
According to Wills they had all set upon him at the house in Green Street (which used to be near Brook Street in St Helens) where they lived.
That led to Wills summoning to court his sister-in-law Katherine Keating – who the Reporter described as a "respectably dressed and prepossessing young married woman" – accusing her of assault.
The 25-year-old Wills gave evidence that on the previous Friday afternoon he'd arrived home and asked for his dinner and immediately afterwards Mrs Keating had rushed in and given him a blow to the face.
Two others had then got hold of Wills and hit him in the face with a sharp instrument and Mrs Keating then struck him again while he was being held over the sofa.
The defendant's solicitor, Mr Davies, said to Wills: "You do not treat your wife very well?"
To that he replied: "We have differences between ourselves, but we don't want anyone to interfere. I have had my wife away from her mother twice and she coaxed me back.
"There are nine lodgers in the house, and that is not convenient for me; I am always in trouble there."
By lodgers I think he meant family members connected to his mother-in-law who owned the house.
But as so often was the case, Ambrose Wills was highly selective in his evidence and his sister-in-law Katherine Keating told a quite different and appalling story.
She described hearing a scream coming from the parlour where she found Wills beating her 25-year-old sister Teresa and there was blood on her face.
Katherine explained how she went between the pair and for her trouble received a blow on the bridge of her nose.
As a result she left the parlour to go into the kitchen but her brother-in-law followed her and hit her so heavily that her nose "bled in torrents".
In the ensuing struggle Wills fell against the latch of the door and that, she claimed, was how he was injured.
Katherine added that Wills then left the house but soon returned and had acted so much "like a madman" that she had to lock herself in her room.
She said her brother-in-law then attempted to burst the door open and in failing to do so called her foul names through it.
Katherine also stated that her sister had been stretched out unconscious in the lobby of the house with her baby lying across her chest and her husband was threatening what he would do if anyone went to her assistance.
Clara Mooney was Ambrose Wills' mother-in-law and she corroborated Katherine's account, telling the Bench:
"Every time Wills came in he thumped his wife and called her bad names. Gentlemen, I would not repeat the words he used to me. It was terrible and dreadful."
There were other witnesses but the magistrates had heard enough and dismissed the charge against Katherine Keating.
It is surprising that she and her family did not counter-sue Ambrose Wills for his violence.
An extraordinary number of young workers were sucked into machines at their work and killed.
It often happened when they were making some adjustment to the machine and their clothing or hair got caught in it.
On the 15th Albert Bullock was adjusting a rolling mill at the British Insulated and Helsby Cables Co in Prescot.
The 21-year-old from Huyton slipped and his clothes entangled in the machinery and he was drawn between its heavy rollers and crushed to death.
Also on the 15th six boys living at St Helens Junction appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with breaking into the shop of Councillor Bell in Peckers Hill Road and stealing money and cigarettes valued at £1 7s 6d.
The lads were led by 17-year-old John Davies of Hoghton Road and they called themselves the 'Donkey Gang', for reasons that were not explained.
Two of them had previous convictions and in the past they could have expected birching as the default punishment.
But times were becoming more enlightened – some might say soft – and John Davies and Francis Yates were both fined 10 shillings and each ordered to pay 8s 6d restitution.
The other four boys – Thomas Travis, William Thomas, William Whalin and Alfred Davies – were bound over for twelve months.
That was an innovation for St Helens and it would have the advantage of coping better with wet weather.
On the 17th James Sexton, the St Helens MP, complained in the Commons about the "considerable" number of disabled or sick ex-servicemen in the town that had been denied army pensions or had them "reduced to vanishing point".
That had been on the ground that their condition had not actually been caused by their military service.
One man called Pinnock from Sutton had lost his sight. However, the authorities had said his affliction could not be directly attributed to army service and Sexton complained that he was now destitute.
Many grocers allowed their customers credit or "tick" until their next pay day, which encouraged customer loyalty to the shop.
But they didn't all pay up and that led to larger shops like Lennons styling themselves "cash grocers" or "cash butchers".
They claimed being cash only meant they were cheaper than shops that allowed goods to be put "on the slate", as bad debts did not have to be made up through higher prices.
The grocers that did allow tick had another problem. Sometimes persons would fraudulently take goods supposedly on behalf of someone else who, they claimed, would pay for them.
A brainless crime as usually the deception would quickly be realised and the fraudster arrested.
On the 18th a 14-year-old boy named Beesley appeared in court charged with obtaining goods from a shopkeeper by false pretences.
The boy had entered Stringfellow's shop at Eccleston Lane Ends and obtained half-a-pound of biscuits, which he claimed was for a farmer called Swisk.
That proved to be false but Beesley's father told the Bench that this had been his son's first offence, although there had been occasions when he had taken things belonging to him.
The boy's father was bound over under a surety of £2 to look after the lad who himself was placed on probation for a year.
On the 21st workers at Clock Face Colliery found notices posted saying the mine was closing until further notice. That was through a national railway strike that had led to a shortage of wagons.
The Bridge Street Picturedrome had in 1920 changed its name to the Savoy and fourteen years later it would be demolished to make way for the "new super Savoy".
From the 21st the cinema had a "special attraction" in the latest Jackie Coogan film called 'Daddy'. That must be one of the few films where the script was written by the star's parents.
And at the Hippodrome Theatre the Ten Loonies were back. In a review of their show in Corporation Street in 1920, the Reporter wrote:
"The madhouse instrumentalists, the eccentric musicians, brought down the house with a glorious medley of the choicest band music and the most preposterous foolery that man ever devised."
Other turns this week included: Fred Masters ("The Whistling and Laughing comedian, mimic and farmyard delineator"); Vittoria ("Dainty little lady in her speciality"); Southwood and Pink Lady ("A vaudeville act of distinction") and Stewart & Ray ("In a comedy concoction, ‘Various Doings’").
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the body of a baby that was dumped in Silkstone Street, the one-eyed coal miner's compensation payment, the new Globe Hotel and the man that shot himself in the heart because of a furniture row.