IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (15th - 21st July 1919)
This week's stories include the first regular aeroplane flights from Southport to St Helens, a new bank for Sutton, the huge St Helens Peace Day parade, the ban on Sunday music in the town's parks, the Park Road woman who said her hair was pulled out like feathers and the biggest ever fair takes place in St Helens.
At the beginning of the month the Town Council was told that the Victoria Park conservatories (pictured above) were opening on Sunday evenings between 7pm and 9pm. This would be an experiment to test demand and the Parks Superintendent was told to report on the number of visitors. At the council's Parks Committee meeting on July 16th it was stated that an average of 43 adults and 35 children had visited on each of the five Sundays that the conservatories had been open. Councillor Wood declared that the figures were far better than expected and it was decided to keep them open for the rest of the season.
The councillors also considered a letter from the Sutton Traffic Band who expressed disappointment at the committee's attitude to Sunday music in the parks. A decision had been taken to only permit park music on weekday evenings during the summer. Lack of funds meant bands would not be paid but would be permitted to ask their audiences for a donation.
Sutton Traffic Band quoted places like Wigan where Sunday music was allowed in their parks and the bands regularly attracted large audiences. They wrote that the timing of Sunday concerts would not interfere with church services and it was the only day of the week when all their members were available. After a discussion Councillor Richard Waring from Parr proposed that Sunday music be allowed but his motion was defeated by four votes to three.
The religious lobby meant that there was precious little that you could do on a Sunday and selling newspapers was on a long list of banned activities. There were a handful of Sunday papers in existence (such as the Sunday Pictorial, which became the Sunday Mirror) and so they were clearly available for sale in some places – but not in St Helens. On the 17th in the Police Court 15-year-old Samuel Ashton was fined 5 shillings for selling papers on a Sunday and his mother Margaret Ashton was fined 10 shillings for aiding and abetting.
The 17th was a big day for the people of Sutton as what appears to have been their first bank opened for business in Ellamsbridge Road. These days the bank is the TSB but in 1919 it was a branch of the Manchester and County Bank, which in the 1960s because part of what we now call NatWest. The manager was Harold Ormwood Cowper who in the 1911 census was a humble cashier living in King Edward Road.
It's interesting comparing the opening hours of banks over the years. In 1869 with few customers and few services most banks only opened for two or three hours a week. The Sutton bank in 1919 was only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30am to 2pm and on Saturdays from 9:45am to 12 noon. Fifty years later many people in St Helens were complaining bitterly about the banks closing on Saturday mornings, although today, of course, many branches are closing for good.
The St Helens' schoolchildren broke up on the 17th for their annual four-week summer holidays, returning to their desks on August 18th. I don't yet know when the decision was made to extend the break to six weeks.
What was claimed to be the biggest fair that had ever visited St Helens was in full swing this week on the Queen's Recreation Ground – or Queens Park, as we know it. It was described as an old-English fair with swings, roundabouts, aunt sallies, shows of various types, "little incidental amusements" and a circus. The ten-day fair was being "very largely frequented" with some of the proceeds going to the St Helens Heroes Fund. This would make a small payment to every decorated soldier in the town.
On the 18th the St Helens Reporter wrote that the first regular aeroplane flights from Southport to St Helens had started at the weekend. It was the initiative of County Carriers of Boundary Road who each week was giving away two free seats on Sopwith planes. The names of passengers that had booked charabanc trips with the company would be entered into a weekly raffle with the winners taking to the skies. The Reporter wrote:
"The popular feeling of reticence at the thought of engaging in a mid-air flight is gradually passing away, and many who, but a comparatively short time ago, would have at once dismissed the idea of their participating in one, would to-day have no scruples at all in doing so." However there was no aerodrome in St Helens and so the planes would only fly over the town and then return to Southport – although it was hoped to soon have a suitable place for them to land.
Two planes had flown on the inaugural service last weekend, with one performing a double loop over St Helens, which "caused many persons to hold their breath at the sight of it." County Carriers' personnel were the passengers on the first flights that took seven minutes to travel from Southport to St Helens. However this weekend the first customers would be flying, with a Miss Lowe of Parr Stocks Road and Miss Fisher of Ramford Street set to receive a birds-eye view of their home town. Norman Pilkington of Pilkington Brothers also became an aviator this week, as he was the first fare-paying passenger on a flight from London to Paris.
The Reporter also wrote of plans for the training of disabled ex-soldiers in aspects of the building trade. A centre run by the Ministry of Labour was expected to open shortly at the North Road works of building contractor Fred Brown, which he had placed at their disposal rent-free.
The 19th was St Helens Peace Day when the town joined the rest of the country in formally commemorating the end of the war. The St Helens Reporter summarised the event as the "joy day" and its centrepiece was a long parade comprising schoolchildren, discharged and demobilised soldiers, old age pensioners and friendly societies, with the latter having provided much support during the war for soldiers and their families back home. Entertainment was provided by a number of bands. If I tell you that it took the section featuring the school kids around an hour to pass the Town Hall, then you get an idea of just how long the procession was!
The Reporter said: "Memories of this day will, as they should do, live as long as life animates the present generation of men, and the children, on whose welfare so much special care was bestowed, will always look back upon the 19th of July, 1919, as a Red Letter Day." The St Helens Newspaper for their part described the scene as the children walked through Victoria Square as "one not soon to be forgotten" with the youngsters "decked in the neatest and brightest attire, adorned with gay ribbons, carrying flowers and waving flags and banners."
The route through the town was from the Town Hall into Corporation Street, Shaw Street, Church Street, Bridge Street, Liverpool Road, Eccleston Street, Boundary Road, Duke Street and then back to the Town Hall where a "dense multitude" had assembled. The Newspaper wrote: "For the children it was a great day. And they sang amid scenes of gaiety and happiness. Everywhere flags and banners were flying; everywhere there was evidence of the people's gladness. From the topmost height of Beecham's tower, visible in every part of the town, there floated freely in the breeze the Union Jack; and it was that it might float freely that the fathers and brothers of the children had gone out to fight the foe, while mothers and sisters remained behind to make the shells and provide other necessities for carrying on the war."
The town was well decorated for the day with Church Street and Westfield Street bearing the most flags and bunting. The Town Hall was bedecked with British and Allied flags and floral decorations with '19-Peace-19' emblazoned over its entrance. However women were not well represented in the parade, with only a small party of land girls. The Newspaper said these were dressed in "white smocks, breeches, and stout boots. They were smiling and happy, and were frequently cheered by the watching crowds."
Some of the walkers were in fancy dress, with prizes awarded for the best dressed in certain categories. The wives of Sutton soldiers won the award for best comic tableaux and according to the Newspaper, "caused much merriment en route". The wife of Superintendent Dunn won the prize for best-dressed lady, wearing a Welsh costume that included a 200-year-old hat. Her little daughter Kathleen accompanied her mother and mimicked her father being dressed as a policeman in full uniform. The St Helens Newspaper also described the hundreds of ex-soldiers in the parade, with many of them "quaintly-attired characters, who added considerably to the hilarity of the occasion. They were truly a merry throng."
The term "old age pensioner" was a fairly recent invention with ungenerous pensions for the over 70s having only been introduced in 1909. The OAPs were well represented in the procession "driven along in style in motor chars-a-banc and wagonettes". Over the leading vehicle there was a banner with the inscription: "Old age pensioners, the backbone of the British Empire. We went to school together."
Various centres in the town provided tea for the elderly with each man given a packet of tobacco to take home and each woman received ¼ lb. of tea. Entertainment was also provided for patients at the various hospitals and about 150 crippled children were entertained at a field near the Vicarage in Rainford Road. On the morning of Peace Day blind persons in St Helens had received a postal order for 2s 6d and the Mayoress planted an oak tree in each of the town's parks.
During the evening the Town Hall was bathed in electric light, which the Newspaper described as "strikingly picturesque". At Highfield in Thatto Heath, an effigy of the Kaiser was tried and found guilty to the great delight of a huge crowd that included many discharged soldiers and sailors. And to cap a memorable day, a beacon was lit on Billinge Hill, described as "one of the great chain of beacon fires extending from north to south, east to west, proclaiming the celebration of the great Peace."
On the 21st there was another silly neighbours' quarrel in the Police Court with one woman bringing a summons against another and behaving as if she was whiter than white, when in reality she was just as bad. Katie Roberts from 24 Park Road was charged with assaulting Rebecca Fazakerley at no. 20 by grabbing hold of her hair in her backyard and – according to her solicitor – "nearly pulling it all out".
Rebecca said her hair flew about "like feathers" and added that two weeks earlier Katie had threatened to cut her heart out with a knife. She denied any provocation but, of course, when Katie gave evidence a different tale was told. The magistrates were informed that she had not had five minutes peace from her neighbour from the moment she moved into her house.
Katie said Rebecca had repeatedly accused her of not being married to her husband and would come out "in a fighting attitude" and she was simply acting in self-defence with the hair pulling. A comic moment in the case was when another neighbour gave evidence of what she had seen of the assault. The woman was asked what she had been doing in the yard and replied: "When anyone hears a scuffle they will run to see the fun." That was probably the only truthful thing that was told in the case, which the magistrates dismissed.
Next week's stories will include the running of horses down Crab Street, a shocking case of wife beating, a little boy drowns in the St Helens Canal, the fifty-year-old Moss Bank suit, fears of a coal crisis in St Helens, the young women robbed on the street for a joke, the Vicar of Sutton is prosecuted and German guns are reprised in Rainford.
The councillors also considered a letter from the Sutton Traffic Band who expressed disappointment at the committee's attitude to Sunday music in the parks. A decision had been taken to only permit park music on weekday evenings during the summer. Lack of funds meant bands would not be paid but would be permitted to ask their audiences for a donation.
Sutton Traffic Band quoted places like Wigan where Sunday music was allowed in their parks and the bands regularly attracted large audiences. They wrote that the timing of Sunday concerts would not interfere with church services and it was the only day of the week when all their members were available. After a discussion Councillor Richard Waring from Parr proposed that Sunday music be allowed but his motion was defeated by four votes to three.
The religious lobby meant that there was precious little that you could do on a Sunday and selling newspapers was on a long list of banned activities. There were a handful of Sunday papers in existence (such as the Sunday Pictorial, which became the Sunday Mirror) and so they were clearly available for sale in some places – but not in St Helens. On the 17th in the Police Court 15-year-old Samuel Ashton was fined 5 shillings for selling papers on a Sunday and his mother Margaret Ashton was fined 10 shillings for aiding and abetting.
The 17th was a big day for the people of Sutton as what appears to have been their first bank opened for business in Ellamsbridge Road. These days the bank is the TSB but in 1919 it was a branch of the Manchester and County Bank, which in the 1960s because part of what we now call NatWest. The manager was Harold Ormwood Cowper who in the 1911 census was a humble cashier living in King Edward Road.
It's interesting comparing the opening hours of banks over the years. In 1869 with few customers and few services most banks only opened for two or three hours a week. The Sutton bank in 1919 was only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30am to 2pm and on Saturdays from 9:45am to 12 noon. Fifty years later many people in St Helens were complaining bitterly about the banks closing on Saturday mornings, although today, of course, many branches are closing for good.
The St Helens' schoolchildren broke up on the 17th for their annual four-week summer holidays, returning to their desks on August 18th. I don't yet know when the decision was made to extend the break to six weeks.
What was claimed to be the biggest fair that had ever visited St Helens was in full swing this week on the Queen's Recreation Ground – or Queens Park, as we know it. It was described as an old-English fair with swings, roundabouts, aunt sallies, shows of various types, "little incidental amusements" and a circus. The ten-day fair was being "very largely frequented" with some of the proceeds going to the St Helens Heroes Fund. This would make a small payment to every decorated soldier in the town.
On the 18th the St Helens Reporter wrote that the first regular aeroplane flights from Southport to St Helens had started at the weekend. It was the initiative of County Carriers of Boundary Road who each week was giving away two free seats on Sopwith planes. The names of passengers that had booked charabanc trips with the company would be entered into a weekly raffle with the winners taking to the skies. The Reporter wrote:
"The popular feeling of reticence at the thought of engaging in a mid-air flight is gradually passing away, and many who, but a comparatively short time ago, would have at once dismissed the idea of their participating in one, would to-day have no scruples at all in doing so." However there was no aerodrome in St Helens and so the planes would only fly over the town and then return to Southport – although it was hoped to soon have a suitable place for them to land.
Two planes had flown on the inaugural service last weekend, with one performing a double loop over St Helens, which "caused many persons to hold their breath at the sight of it." County Carriers' personnel were the passengers on the first flights that took seven minutes to travel from Southport to St Helens. However this weekend the first customers would be flying, with a Miss Lowe of Parr Stocks Road and Miss Fisher of Ramford Street set to receive a birds-eye view of their home town. Norman Pilkington of Pilkington Brothers also became an aviator this week, as he was the first fare-paying passenger on a flight from London to Paris.
The Reporter also wrote of plans for the training of disabled ex-soldiers in aspects of the building trade. A centre run by the Ministry of Labour was expected to open shortly at the North Road works of building contractor Fred Brown, which he had placed at their disposal rent-free.
The Reporter said: "Memories of this day will, as they should do, live as long as life animates the present generation of men, and the children, on whose welfare so much special care was bestowed, will always look back upon the 19th of July, 1919, as a Red Letter Day." The St Helens Newspaper for their part described the scene as the children walked through Victoria Square as "one not soon to be forgotten" with the youngsters "decked in the neatest and brightest attire, adorned with gay ribbons, carrying flowers and waving flags and banners."
The route through the town was from the Town Hall into Corporation Street, Shaw Street, Church Street, Bridge Street, Liverpool Road, Eccleston Street, Boundary Road, Duke Street and then back to the Town Hall where a "dense multitude" had assembled. The Newspaper wrote: "For the children it was a great day. And they sang amid scenes of gaiety and happiness. Everywhere flags and banners were flying; everywhere there was evidence of the people's gladness. From the topmost height of Beecham's tower, visible in every part of the town, there floated freely in the breeze the Union Jack; and it was that it might float freely that the fathers and brothers of the children had gone out to fight the foe, while mothers and sisters remained behind to make the shells and provide other necessities for carrying on the war."
The town was well decorated for the day with Church Street and Westfield Street bearing the most flags and bunting. The Town Hall was bedecked with British and Allied flags and floral decorations with '19-Peace-19' emblazoned over its entrance. However women were not well represented in the parade, with only a small party of land girls. The Newspaper said these were dressed in "white smocks, breeches, and stout boots. They were smiling and happy, and were frequently cheered by the watching crowds."
Some of the walkers were in fancy dress, with prizes awarded for the best dressed in certain categories. The wives of Sutton soldiers won the award for best comic tableaux and according to the Newspaper, "caused much merriment en route". The wife of Superintendent Dunn won the prize for best-dressed lady, wearing a Welsh costume that included a 200-year-old hat. Her little daughter Kathleen accompanied her mother and mimicked her father being dressed as a policeman in full uniform. The St Helens Newspaper also described the hundreds of ex-soldiers in the parade, with many of them "quaintly-attired characters, who added considerably to the hilarity of the occasion. They were truly a merry throng."
The term "old age pensioner" was a fairly recent invention with ungenerous pensions for the over 70s having only been introduced in 1909. The OAPs were well represented in the procession "driven along in style in motor chars-a-banc and wagonettes". Over the leading vehicle there was a banner with the inscription: "Old age pensioners, the backbone of the British Empire. We went to school together."
Various centres in the town provided tea for the elderly with each man given a packet of tobacco to take home and each woman received ¼ lb. of tea. Entertainment was also provided for patients at the various hospitals and about 150 crippled children were entertained at a field near the Vicarage in Rainford Road. On the morning of Peace Day blind persons in St Helens had received a postal order for 2s 6d and the Mayoress planted an oak tree in each of the town's parks.
During the evening the Town Hall was bathed in electric light, which the Newspaper described as "strikingly picturesque". At Highfield in Thatto Heath, an effigy of the Kaiser was tried and found guilty to the great delight of a huge crowd that included many discharged soldiers and sailors. And to cap a memorable day, a beacon was lit on Billinge Hill, described as "one of the great chain of beacon fires extending from north to south, east to west, proclaiming the celebration of the great Peace."
On the 21st there was another silly neighbours' quarrel in the Police Court with one woman bringing a summons against another and behaving as if she was whiter than white, when in reality she was just as bad. Katie Roberts from 24 Park Road was charged with assaulting Rebecca Fazakerley at no. 20 by grabbing hold of her hair in her backyard and – according to her solicitor – "nearly pulling it all out".
Rebecca said her hair flew about "like feathers" and added that two weeks earlier Katie had threatened to cut her heart out with a knife. She denied any provocation but, of course, when Katie gave evidence a different tale was told. The magistrates were informed that she had not had five minutes peace from her neighbour from the moment she moved into her house.
Katie said Rebecca had repeatedly accused her of not being married to her husband and would come out "in a fighting attitude" and she was simply acting in self-defence with the hair pulling. A comic moment in the case was when another neighbour gave evidence of what she had seen of the assault. The woman was asked what she had been doing in the yard and replied: "When anyone hears a scuffle they will run to see the fun." That was probably the only truthful thing that was told in the case, which the magistrates dismissed.
Next week's stories will include the running of horses down Crab Street, a shocking case of wife beating, a little boy drowns in the St Helens Canal, the fifty-year-old Moss Bank suit, fears of a coal crisis in St Helens, the young women robbed on the street for a joke, the Vicar of Sutton is prosecuted and German guns are reprised in Rainford.