IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 16 - 22 SEPTEMBER 1924
This week's many stories include the Thatto Heath shop used for gambling, the extraordinary Lowe House procession, the troublesome Eccleston Street mother-in-law, the motor car without a horn in Bridge Street, Rainford Potteries' new recreation club and the Reporter criticises the evils of sub-letting that allowed people to live in inhuman conditions.
Schools in the 1920s very rarely took their pupils out on trips and so it must have been a real treat for the scholars of three St Helens' schools to spend the whole of this week in London. The large party comprised staff and students from Cowley, Sacred Heart and Knowsley Road schools and they visited the Wembley Exhibition, the Houses of Parliament and other notable places.
The appeal to construct a new Lowe House Church had opened in January 1914 but due to the war the building would not be completed until 1930. But work was currently well underway and a memorial chapel that would be attached to the new church had already been dedicated. And this week on the 19th the Reporter described the remarkable scene when the new church grotto was unveiled:
"A bird's eye-view of the torchlight procession at Lowe House on Sunday evening revealed a sight both eerie, mystic and in some respects almost uncanny. Viewed from the vantage point of the rising walls of the new church, it was most impressive in its dignity and solemnity. Like a huge glow-worm it emerged from the portals of the old church, wound its way down North-road, and entered by the eastern gap of the grounds of the new edifice.
"The whole ceremony was highly spectacular – in brief, a pageant; the rosy glow from the shaded candles on the faces of the “torchbearers,” coupled with the red surplices and white cassocks of the altar-boys, lending a splash of colour to a scene that seemed as if it had emerged from the pages of bye-gone history, or one that, at all events, was more familiar to Rome and other Italian cities."
The paper explained how shortly after 8 o’clock, North Road had become impassable owing to what they called the "throng of sightseers". These mainly comprised worshippers who had been leaving other church services and stopping to watch the proceedings at the new Lowe House.
Before 1953 when mattresses and proper pillows were introduced to police cells in St Helens, prisoners had slept on two wooden planks with a block of wood for a pillow. When this week the magistrates in St Helens Police Court remanded Thomas Brown, he asked to be sent to Walton. He complained that he only got one blanket in St Helens Police Station and the beds, he said, were like boards. That seems largely because they were made of wood!
Not that Brown had actually been to Walton Gaol but he seemed to think that their cells couldn't be any worse than St Helens's. The man who had been lodging in Milton Street in Sutton Manor was charged with stealing a bag of clothing from Earlestown Station. His case was remanded for a week and as it was police policy to send prisoners put on remand for more than a day or two to Walton, Brown was able to get his wish. Although if he was expecting the Liverpool prison to provide him with a feather mattress with lots of blankets and a comfy pillow, I think he was in for a shock!
The Reporter also described how Rainford Potteries had opened their new recreation club for their workers. Francis Wilson Grundy who was also a Rainford councillor ran the firm and he and his staff committee that were charged with running the new club had found a suitable ground at School Brow.
This was the road from Pasture Lane to the Derby Arms that's now part of Church Road. The newly formed football club had joined the St Helens and District League and female employees of the firm had also formed a hockey club. The Reporter added: "Judging from the enthusiasm that is being infused into this section, the ladies are going to have a right merry time."
The poor old mother-in-law often got it in the neck! Sometimes defending her abused daughter from a brutal husband but other times interfering in the couple's squabble to the annoyance of her son-in-law. And with the present housing crisis in St Helens, the mother-in-law and the son-in-law often ended up in the same overcrowded house – which was a real recipe for rows!
This week in St Helens Police Court after being summoned for breaching the peace, James Kenny of Eccleston Street declared: "It was the mother-in-law that started it." A constable who was on point duty at the bottom of Croppers Hill gave evidence that he had heard a lot of bad language coming from no. 25 Eccleston Street.
Mrs Riley, the aforementioned mother-in-law, then asked for the officer's help and he found James Kenny "in a fighting attitude" with James Riley. The pair appeared to be brothers-in-law who lived together – along with the mother-in-law. Just what the fight had been about was not revealed but both men were bound over in the sum of £2 and two sureties of £1 to keep the peace for three months.
In the days of motor horns that were externally mounted on the vehicle, the eagle-eyed police could tell if a driver was breaking the law by not having one fitted. A constable on point duty in Bridge Street had seen Albert McLean from Old Lane in Eccleston drive past him without such a horn. And so he stopped him and Mr McLean explained that his horn had got broken on the previous day and although he had obtained a replacement, he had forgotten to install it on his car.
A few minutes later he returned to show the bobby his new horn but by then he had been booked. In the Police Court this week the driver was asked how he would have given a warning if someone had been in his way. Mr McLean's response was, "Well, I could only shout to them." He was fined 10 shillings.
Anyone travelling north out of St Helens to places like Ormskirk and Southport needed to pass through Rainford village. That created a lot of business for firms such as the Star Inn Garage who had this advert in the Reporter: "Motorists! Motorists! When passing through Rainford fill up at the Star Inn Garage. Commercials supplied. Taxis for hire. Weddings a speciality." Their telephone number was listed as "12 Rainford", suggesting there were still not that many people in the village with a phone.
In the wake of the current typhus epidemic in St Helens, which so far had taken three lives, the Reporter considered the state of some of the town's homes in which people, they claimed, were forced to live in "inhuman conditions". Of particular concern were those that were profiteering from the housing crisis by subletting their houses to multiple families that were desperate to have a roof over their heads.
The paper spotlighted one house in a street "jutting off Liverpool-road" that demonstrated the "evils of sub-letting". The landlord had let the house to a person who lived elsewhere and there were a total of 18 persons – 10 children and 8 adults – crammed into six rooms. The property was also said to be in a bad way with the rain coming through the roof and the sanitary arrangements were described as being of a "primitive and deplorable character" with an "an evil smelling cellar".
Using homes for illegal gambling was quite common and usually resulted in a harsher penalty than conducting betting operations on the street. One problem for such individuals was that lots of people entering a house could attract suspicion. After all not many folk in St Helens would have 30 or 40 people separately visiting them each day! And so using his shop in Thatto Heath – where customers naturally came and went – must have seemed like a good idea to Robert Thomas.
He was a miner but his wife ran the shop from the front room of their home in Dorothy Street. But the police had been tipped off about the gambling and PCs Turner and Glover had kept observation on the premises on four separate days in August. During that time 251 persons had been seen to enter and leave the shop but many had not seemingly made any purchases.
On the final day of observation a raid was made on the premises and sat in the kitchen was Robert Thomas along with some other men. Lots of betting material – including hundreds of betting coupons and racing cards – were found. In court this week it was stated that Mr Thomas had fallen ill a couple of months ago and unable to work had been taking in betting slips to help keep his little shop going. Now he was fit again, his solicitor said he was returning to the pit. The magistrates must have liked that explanation as Thomas was only fined £2.
Income tax collection was conducted locally and as PAYE was not introduced until 1944, it was easy to get behind with your payments. On the 18th forty persons were summoned to St Helens Police Court for non-payment of their income tax. I haven't been able to learn what happened but usually court orders would be issued to enforce payment.
And finally, another anti-war demonstration took place on the 21st on the wasteland in Bridge Street. However, this demo was one of thousands that were being held on that day all over Europe and it was organised by the Labour Party and the TUC.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the attempted eviction of a bedridden man in Peckers Hill Road, the predictions of doom for the small shopkeeper, the opening of Providence Hospital's nurses home and a bravery award for a Parr miner.
Schools in the 1920s very rarely took their pupils out on trips and so it must have been a real treat for the scholars of three St Helens' schools to spend the whole of this week in London. The large party comprised staff and students from Cowley, Sacred Heart and Knowsley Road schools and they visited the Wembley Exhibition, the Houses of Parliament and other notable places.
The appeal to construct a new Lowe House Church had opened in January 1914 but due to the war the building would not be completed until 1930. But work was currently well underway and a memorial chapel that would be attached to the new church had already been dedicated. And this week on the 19th the Reporter described the remarkable scene when the new church grotto was unveiled:
"A bird's eye-view of the torchlight procession at Lowe House on Sunday evening revealed a sight both eerie, mystic and in some respects almost uncanny. Viewed from the vantage point of the rising walls of the new church, it was most impressive in its dignity and solemnity. Like a huge glow-worm it emerged from the portals of the old church, wound its way down North-road, and entered by the eastern gap of the grounds of the new edifice.
"The whole ceremony was highly spectacular – in brief, a pageant; the rosy glow from the shaded candles on the faces of the “torchbearers,” coupled with the red surplices and white cassocks of the altar-boys, lending a splash of colour to a scene that seemed as if it had emerged from the pages of bye-gone history, or one that, at all events, was more familiar to Rome and other Italian cities."
The paper explained how shortly after 8 o’clock, North Road had become impassable owing to what they called the "throng of sightseers". These mainly comprised worshippers who had been leaving other church services and stopping to watch the proceedings at the new Lowe House.
Before 1953 when mattresses and proper pillows were introduced to police cells in St Helens, prisoners had slept on two wooden planks with a block of wood for a pillow. When this week the magistrates in St Helens Police Court remanded Thomas Brown, he asked to be sent to Walton. He complained that he only got one blanket in St Helens Police Station and the beds, he said, were like boards. That seems largely because they were made of wood!
Not that Brown had actually been to Walton Gaol but he seemed to think that their cells couldn't be any worse than St Helens's. The man who had been lodging in Milton Street in Sutton Manor was charged with stealing a bag of clothing from Earlestown Station. His case was remanded for a week and as it was police policy to send prisoners put on remand for more than a day or two to Walton, Brown was able to get his wish. Although if he was expecting the Liverpool prison to provide him with a feather mattress with lots of blankets and a comfy pillow, I think he was in for a shock!
The Reporter also described how Rainford Potteries had opened their new recreation club for their workers. Francis Wilson Grundy who was also a Rainford councillor ran the firm and he and his staff committee that were charged with running the new club had found a suitable ground at School Brow.
This was the road from Pasture Lane to the Derby Arms that's now part of Church Road. The newly formed football club had joined the St Helens and District League and female employees of the firm had also formed a hockey club. The Reporter added: "Judging from the enthusiasm that is being infused into this section, the ladies are going to have a right merry time."
The poor old mother-in-law often got it in the neck! Sometimes defending her abused daughter from a brutal husband but other times interfering in the couple's squabble to the annoyance of her son-in-law. And with the present housing crisis in St Helens, the mother-in-law and the son-in-law often ended up in the same overcrowded house – which was a real recipe for rows!
This week in St Helens Police Court after being summoned for breaching the peace, James Kenny of Eccleston Street declared: "It was the mother-in-law that started it." A constable who was on point duty at the bottom of Croppers Hill gave evidence that he had heard a lot of bad language coming from no. 25 Eccleston Street.
Mrs Riley, the aforementioned mother-in-law, then asked for the officer's help and he found James Kenny "in a fighting attitude" with James Riley. The pair appeared to be brothers-in-law who lived together – along with the mother-in-law. Just what the fight had been about was not revealed but both men were bound over in the sum of £2 and two sureties of £1 to keep the peace for three months.
A few minutes later he returned to show the bobby his new horn but by then he had been booked. In the Police Court this week the driver was asked how he would have given a warning if someone had been in his way. Mr McLean's response was, "Well, I could only shout to them." He was fined 10 shillings.
Anyone travelling north out of St Helens to places like Ormskirk and Southport needed to pass through Rainford village. That created a lot of business for firms such as the Star Inn Garage who had this advert in the Reporter: "Motorists! Motorists! When passing through Rainford fill up at the Star Inn Garage. Commercials supplied. Taxis for hire. Weddings a speciality." Their telephone number was listed as "12 Rainford", suggesting there were still not that many people in the village with a phone.
In the wake of the current typhus epidemic in St Helens, which so far had taken three lives, the Reporter considered the state of some of the town's homes in which people, they claimed, were forced to live in "inhuman conditions". Of particular concern were those that were profiteering from the housing crisis by subletting their houses to multiple families that were desperate to have a roof over their heads.
The paper spotlighted one house in a street "jutting off Liverpool-road" that demonstrated the "evils of sub-letting". The landlord had let the house to a person who lived elsewhere and there were a total of 18 persons – 10 children and 8 adults – crammed into six rooms. The property was also said to be in a bad way with the rain coming through the roof and the sanitary arrangements were described as being of a "primitive and deplorable character" with an "an evil smelling cellar".
Using homes for illegal gambling was quite common and usually resulted in a harsher penalty than conducting betting operations on the street. One problem for such individuals was that lots of people entering a house could attract suspicion. After all not many folk in St Helens would have 30 or 40 people separately visiting them each day! And so using his shop in Thatto Heath – where customers naturally came and went – must have seemed like a good idea to Robert Thomas.
He was a miner but his wife ran the shop from the front room of their home in Dorothy Street. But the police had been tipped off about the gambling and PCs Turner and Glover had kept observation on the premises on four separate days in August. During that time 251 persons had been seen to enter and leave the shop but many had not seemingly made any purchases.
On the final day of observation a raid was made on the premises and sat in the kitchen was Robert Thomas along with some other men. Lots of betting material – including hundreds of betting coupons and racing cards – were found. In court this week it was stated that Mr Thomas had fallen ill a couple of months ago and unable to work had been taking in betting slips to help keep his little shop going. Now he was fit again, his solicitor said he was returning to the pit. The magistrates must have liked that explanation as Thomas was only fined £2.
Income tax collection was conducted locally and as PAYE was not introduced until 1944, it was easy to get behind with your payments. On the 18th forty persons were summoned to St Helens Police Court for non-payment of their income tax. I haven't been able to learn what happened but usually court orders would be issued to enforce payment.
And finally, another anti-war demonstration took place on the 21st on the wasteland in Bridge Street. However, this demo was one of thousands that were being held on that day all over Europe and it was organised by the Labour Party and the TUC.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the attempted eviction of a bedridden man in Peckers Hill Road, the predictions of doom for the small shopkeeper, the opening of Providence Hospital's nurses home and a bravery award for a Parr miner.
This week's many stories include the Thatto Heath shop used for gambling, the extraordinary Lowe House procession, the troublesome Eccleston Street mother-in-law, the motor car without a horn in Bridge Street, Rainford Potteries' new recreation club and the Reporter criticises the evils of sub-letting that allowed people to live in inhuman conditions.
Schools in the 1920s very rarely took their pupils out on trips and so it must have been a real treat for the scholars of three St Helens' schools to spend the whole of this week in London.
The large party comprised staff and students from Cowley, Sacred Heart and Knowsley Road schools and they visited the Wembley Exhibition, the Houses of Parliament and other notable places.
The appeal to construct a new Lowe House Church had opened in January 1914 but due to the war the building would not be completed until 1930.
But work was currently well underway and a memorial chapel that would be attached to the new church had already been dedicated.
And this week on the 19th the Reporter described the remarkable scene when the new church grotto was unveiled:
"A bird's eye-view of the torchlight procession at Lowe House on Sunday evening revealed a sight both eerie, mystic and in some respects almost uncanny.
"Viewed from the vantage point of the rising walls of the new church, it was most impressive in its dignity and solemnity.
"Like a huge glow-worm it emerged from the portals of the old church, wound its way down North-road, and entered by the eastern gap of the grounds of the new edifice.
"The whole ceremony was highly spectacular – in brief, a pageant; the rosy glow from the shaded candles on the faces of the “torchbearers,” coupled with the red surplices and white cassocks of the altar-boys, lending a splash of colour to a scene that seemed as if it had emerged from the pages of bye-gone history, or one that, at all events, was more familiar to Rome and other Italian cities."
The paper explained how shortly after 8 o’clock, North Road had become impassable owing to what they called the "throng of sightseers".
These mainly comprised worshippers who had been leaving other church services and stopping to watch the proceedings at the new Lowe House.
Before 1953 when mattresses and proper pillows were introduced to police cells in St Helens, prisoners had slept on two wooden planks with a block of wood for a pillow.
When this week the magistrates in St Helens Police Court remanded Thomas Brown, he asked to be sent to Walton.
He complained that he only got one blanket in St Helens Police Station and the beds, he said, were like boards. That seems largely because they were made of wood!
Not that Brown had actually been to Walton Gaol but he seemed to think that their cells couldn't be any worse than St Helens's.
The man who had been lodging in Milton Street in Sutton Manor was charged with stealing a bag of clothing from Earlestown Station.
His case was remanded for a week and as it was police policy to send prisoners put on remand for more than a day or two to Walton, Brown was able to get his wish.
Although if he was expecting the Liverpool prison to provide him with a feather mattress with lots of blankets and a comfy pillow, I think he was in for a shock!
The Reporter also described how Rainford Potteries had opened their new recreation club for their workers.
Francis Wilson Grundy who was also a Rainford councillor ran the firm and he and his staff committee that were charged with running the new club had found a suitable ground at School Brow.
This was the road from Pasture Lane to the Derby Arms that's now part of Church Road.
The newly formed football club had joined the St Helens and District League and female employees of the firm had also formed a hockey club.
The Reporter added: "Judging from the enthusiasm that is being infused into this section, the ladies are going to have a right merry time."
The poor old mother-in-law often got it in the neck! Sometimes defending her abused daughter from a brutal husband but other times interfering in the couple's squabble to the annoyance of her son-in-law.
And with the present housing crisis in St Helens, the mother-in-law and the son-in-law often ended up in the same overcrowded house – which was a real recipe for rows!
This week in St Helens Police Court after being summoned for breaching the peace, James Kenny of Eccleston Street declared: "It was the mother-in-law that started it."
A constable who was on point duty at the bottom of Croppers Hill gave evidence that he had heard a lot of bad language coming from no. 25 Eccleston Street.
Mrs Riley, the aforementioned mother-in-law, then asked for the officer's help and he found James Kenny "in a fighting attitude" with James Riley.
The pair appeared to be brothers-in-law who lived together – along with the mother-in-law.
Just what the fight had been about was not revealed but both men were bound over in the sum of £2 and two sureties of £1 to keep the peace for three months.
In the days of motor horns that were externally mounted on the vehicle, the eagle-eyed police could tell if a driver was breaking the law by not having one fitted.
A constable on point duty in Bridge Street had seen Albert McLean from Old Lane in Eccleston drive past him without such a horn.
And so he stopped him and Mr McLean explained that his horn had got broken on the previous day and although he had obtained a replacement, he had forgotten to install it on his car.
A few minutes later he returned to show the bobby his new horn but by then he had been booked.
In the Police Court this week the driver was asked how he would have given a warning if someone had been in his way.
Mr McLean's response was, "Well, I could only shout to them." He was fined 10 shillings.
Anyone travelling north out of St Helens to places like Ormskirk and Southport needed to pass through Rainford village.
That created a lot of business for firms such as the Star Inn Garage who had this advert in the Reporter:
"Motorists! Motorists! When passing through Rainford fill up at the Star Inn Garage. Commercials supplied. Taxis for hire. Weddings a speciality."
Their telephone number was listed as "12 Rainford", suggesting there were still not that many people in the village with a phone.
In the wake of the current typhus epidemic in St Helens, which so far had taken three lives, the Reporter considered the state of some of the town's homes in which people, they claimed, were forced to live in "inhuman conditions".
Of particular concern were those that were profiteering from the housing crisis by subletting their houses to multiple families that were desperate to have a roof over their heads.
The paper spotlighted one house in a street "jutting off Liverpool-road" that demonstrated the "evils of sub-letting".
The landlord had let the house to a person who lived elsewhere and there were a total of 18 persons – 10 children and 8 adults – crammed into six rooms.
The property was also said to be in a bad way with the rain coming through the roof and the sanitary arrangements were described as being of a "primitive and deplorable character" with an "an evil smelling cellar".
Using homes for illegal gambling was quite common and usually resulted in a harsher penalty than conducting betting operations on the street.
One problem for such individuals was that lots of people entering a house could attract suspicion.
After all not many folk in St Helens would have 30 or 40 people separately visiting them each day!
And so using his shop in Thatto Heath – where customers naturally came and went – must have seemed like a good idea to Robert Thomas.
He was a miner but his wife ran the shop from the front room of their home in Dorothy Street.
But the police had been tipped off about the gambling and PCs Turner and Glover had kept observation on the premises on four separate days in August.
During that time 251 persons had been seen to enter and leave the shop but many had not seemingly made any purchases.
On the final day of observation a raid was made on the premises and sat in the kitchen was Robert Thomas along with some other men.
Lots of betting material – including hundreds of betting coupons and racing cards – were found.
In court this week it was stated that Mr Thomas had fallen ill a couple of months ago and unable to work had been taking in betting slips to help keep his little shop going. Now he was fit again, his solicitor said he was returning to the pit.
The magistrates must have liked that explanation as Thomas was only fined £2.
Income tax collection was conducted locally and as PAYE was not introduced until 1944, it was easy to get behind with your payments.
On the 18th forty persons were summoned to St Helens Police Court for non-payment of their income tax.
I haven't been able to learn what happened but usually court orders would be issued to enforce payment.
And finally, another anti-war demonstration took place on the 21st on the wasteland in Bridge Street.
However, this demo was one of thousands that were being held on that day all over Europe and it was organised by the Labour Party and the TUC.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the attempted eviction of a bedridden man in Peckers Hill Road, the predictions of doom for the small shopkeeper, the opening of Providence Hospital's nurses home and a bravery award for a Parr miner.
Schools in the 1920s very rarely took their pupils out on trips and so it must have been a real treat for the scholars of three St Helens' schools to spend the whole of this week in London.
The large party comprised staff and students from Cowley, Sacred Heart and Knowsley Road schools and they visited the Wembley Exhibition, the Houses of Parliament and other notable places.
The appeal to construct a new Lowe House Church had opened in January 1914 but due to the war the building would not be completed until 1930.
But work was currently well underway and a memorial chapel that would be attached to the new church had already been dedicated.
And this week on the 19th the Reporter described the remarkable scene when the new church grotto was unveiled:
"A bird's eye-view of the torchlight procession at Lowe House on Sunday evening revealed a sight both eerie, mystic and in some respects almost uncanny.
"Viewed from the vantage point of the rising walls of the new church, it was most impressive in its dignity and solemnity.
"Like a huge glow-worm it emerged from the portals of the old church, wound its way down North-road, and entered by the eastern gap of the grounds of the new edifice.
"The whole ceremony was highly spectacular – in brief, a pageant; the rosy glow from the shaded candles on the faces of the “torchbearers,” coupled with the red surplices and white cassocks of the altar-boys, lending a splash of colour to a scene that seemed as if it had emerged from the pages of bye-gone history, or one that, at all events, was more familiar to Rome and other Italian cities."
The paper explained how shortly after 8 o’clock, North Road had become impassable owing to what they called the "throng of sightseers".
These mainly comprised worshippers who had been leaving other church services and stopping to watch the proceedings at the new Lowe House.
Before 1953 when mattresses and proper pillows were introduced to police cells in St Helens, prisoners had slept on two wooden planks with a block of wood for a pillow.
When this week the magistrates in St Helens Police Court remanded Thomas Brown, he asked to be sent to Walton.
He complained that he only got one blanket in St Helens Police Station and the beds, he said, were like boards. That seems largely because they were made of wood!
Not that Brown had actually been to Walton Gaol but he seemed to think that their cells couldn't be any worse than St Helens's.
The man who had been lodging in Milton Street in Sutton Manor was charged with stealing a bag of clothing from Earlestown Station.
His case was remanded for a week and as it was police policy to send prisoners put on remand for more than a day or two to Walton, Brown was able to get his wish.
Although if he was expecting the Liverpool prison to provide him with a feather mattress with lots of blankets and a comfy pillow, I think he was in for a shock!
The Reporter also described how Rainford Potteries had opened their new recreation club for their workers.
Francis Wilson Grundy who was also a Rainford councillor ran the firm and he and his staff committee that were charged with running the new club had found a suitable ground at School Brow.
This was the road from Pasture Lane to the Derby Arms that's now part of Church Road.
The newly formed football club had joined the St Helens and District League and female employees of the firm had also formed a hockey club.
The Reporter added: "Judging from the enthusiasm that is being infused into this section, the ladies are going to have a right merry time."
The poor old mother-in-law often got it in the neck! Sometimes defending her abused daughter from a brutal husband but other times interfering in the couple's squabble to the annoyance of her son-in-law.
And with the present housing crisis in St Helens, the mother-in-law and the son-in-law often ended up in the same overcrowded house – which was a real recipe for rows!
This week in St Helens Police Court after being summoned for breaching the peace, James Kenny of Eccleston Street declared: "It was the mother-in-law that started it."
A constable who was on point duty at the bottom of Croppers Hill gave evidence that he had heard a lot of bad language coming from no. 25 Eccleston Street.
Mrs Riley, the aforementioned mother-in-law, then asked for the officer's help and he found James Kenny "in a fighting attitude" with James Riley.
The pair appeared to be brothers-in-law who lived together – along with the mother-in-law.
Just what the fight had been about was not revealed but both men were bound over in the sum of £2 and two sureties of £1 to keep the peace for three months.
In the days of motor horns that were externally mounted on the vehicle, the eagle-eyed police could tell if a driver was breaking the law by not having one fitted.
A constable on point duty in Bridge Street had seen Albert McLean from Old Lane in Eccleston drive past him without such a horn.
A few minutes later he returned to show the bobby his new horn but by then he had been booked.
In the Police Court this week the driver was asked how he would have given a warning if someone had been in his way.
Mr McLean's response was, "Well, I could only shout to them." He was fined 10 shillings.
Anyone travelling north out of St Helens to places like Ormskirk and Southport needed to pass through Rainford village.
That created a lot of business for firms such as the Star Inn Garage who had this advert in the Reporter:
"Motorists! Motorists! When passing through Rainford fill up at the Star Inn Garage. Commercials supplied. Taxis for hire. Weddings a speciality."
Their telephone number was listed as "12 Rainford", suggesting there were still not that many people in the village with a phone.
In the wake of the current typhus epidemic in St Helens, which so far had taken three lives, the Reporter considered the state of some of the town's homes in which people, they claimed, were forced to live in "inhuman conditions".
Of particular concern were those that were profiteering from the housing crisis by subletting their houses to multiple families that were desperate to have a roof over their heads.
The paper spotlighted one house in a street "jutting off Liverpool-road" that demonstrated the "evils of sub-letting".
The landlord had let the house to a person who lived elsewhere and there were a total of 18 persons – 10 children and 8 adults – crammed into six rooms.
The property was also said to be in a bad way with the rain coming through the roof and the sanitary arrangements were described as being of a "primitive and deplorable character" with an "an evil smelling cellar".
Using homes for illegal gambling was quite common and usually resulted in a harsher penalty than conducting betting operations on the street.
One problem for such individuals was that lots of people entering a house could attract suspicion.
After all not many folk in St Helens would have 30 or 40 people separately visiting them each day!
And so using his shop in Thatto Heath – where customers naturally came and went – must have seemed like a good idea to Robert Thomas.
He was a miner but his wife ran the shop from the front room of their home in Dorothy Street.
But the police had been tipped off about the gambling and PCs Turner and Glover had kept observation on the premises on four separate days in August.
During that time 251 persons had been seen to enter and leave the shop but many had not seemingly made any purchases.
On the final day of observation a raid was made on the premises and sat in the kitchen was Robert Thomas along with some other men.
Lots of betting material – including hundreds of betting coupons and racing cards – were found.
In court this week it was stated that Mr Thomas had fallen ill a couple of months ago and unable to work had been taking in betting slips to help keep his little shop going. Now he was fit again, his solicitor said he was returning to the pit.
The magistrates must have liked that explanation as Thomas was only fined £2.
Income tax collection was conducted locally and as PAYE was not introduced until 1944, it was easy to get behind with your payments.
On the 18th forty persons were summoned to St Helens Police Court for non-payment of their income tax.
I haven't been able to learn what happened but usually court orders would be issued to enforce payment.
And finally, another anti-war demonstration took place on the 21st on the wasteland in Bridge Street.
However, this demo was one of thousands that were being held on that day all over Europe and it was organised by the Labour Party and the TUC.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the attempted eviction of a bedridden man in Peckers Hill Road, the predictions of doom for the small shopkeeper, the opening of Providence Hospital's nurses home and a bravery award for a Parr miner.