IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (17th - 23rd FEBRUARY 1920)
This week's stories include a burglary in a Liverpool Road clog shop, a tram and a lorry battle it out in Prescot Road, a new centre in North Road for disabled ex-soldiers, the first female guardian takes her seat and the case of the Rainford Road woman accused of telling fortunes by palmistry.
The St Helens Canal used to be so long and deep that it was common for bodies to only be found after they'd spent two or three weeks in the water. On the 17th the body of John Butler from Eldon Street, off Prescot Road, was discovered in the canal after he'd been reported missing on January 26th. The St Helens Reporter devoted only a couple of lines to the tragedy as such deaths were common.
The St Helens Parks Committee met on the 18th and decided after a long discussion to resume the playing of music in the parks. A budget of £100 was set and the various town bands would be invited to put in tenders.
Three men appeared in the Police Court on the same day charged with breaking and entering Samuel Rimmer's lock-up clog shop in Bridgewater Street – which used to be in the town centre near Liverpool Road. Those charged were miner Edwin Lea from Glover Street, haulage hand John Miskell from Haswell Street (which used to be off Mill Street) and Charles Roberts from Canal Street. They were accused of stealing five pairs of clogs, a quantity of brass and iron nails, a tin of blacking, a knife, a shoemaker's awl, two pairs of pincers and two shillings in copper.
The robbery had taken place on December 27th and the three men had seemingly got away with their crime. That was until the police received information that Edwin Lea was a deserter from the army. So Det. Sgt. Curren and PC Johnson proceeded to Glover Street to arrest him and upon searching his house found some of the stolen items. There was not much honour amongst these thieves. Lea said he would make a clean break of it all but demanded that Charles Roberts and John Miskell be arrested, saying: "They had as much to do with it as me." All three men were committed to the next Quarter Sessions in Liverpool, which were scheduled for April 10th, with only Miskell granted bail.
On the 19th Edward Roughley died in St Helens Hospital, one month after fracturing his spine in Bold Colliery (pictured above) after being struck by a falling stone. The 22-year-old from Bramwell Street in Parr had served in the St Helens 'Pals' from 1915 to February 1919, only receiving a slight arm wound. It took a return to mining at Bold, just six months before the accident, to take his life.
History was made on the 19th when the first "lady guardian" took her seat in the boardroom of the Prescot Union. The guardians administered the Poor Law in St Helens and Prescot, which included overseeing Whiston Workhouse. These were elected positions and Mary McFarlane had won her seat convincingly in a recent by-election in the Hardshaw Ward on behalf of the Labour party. Later this year Evelyn Pilkington representing the Conservatives would became the first female councillor in the town.
An inquest was held on the 20th on 16-month-old Alfred Walkey of Virgil Street (off Cambridge Road) who had died as a result of swallowing a rabbit bone. The coroner Samuel Brighouse asked the mother if she was in the habit of giving meat to a child of 16 months and she replied that she gave it to children before that age. Dr John Dow said that was a common thing and the Coroner added: "I have heard of them getting liver and bacon from the table", to which Dr Dow said: "Yes, and it is a very common thing to give them fish and chips."
Also on the 20th the St Helens Reporter wrote that the training centre for disabled ex-soldiers in North Road was now virtually complete. The centre run by the Ministry of Labour was at the works of building contractor Fred Brown, which he had placed at their disposal rent-free. Initially training would focus on building work but if there was sufficient interest, it would extend to cabinet making, upholstering and possibly shoe making.
There were an increasing number of motor vehicles in St Helens competing for space with trams and horse-driven vehicles on roads that were often narrow. At 5:30pm on the 20th the third accident in just a few days occurred in Prescot Road, which was fortunate not to have had more serious consequences. A tram travelling to Prescot took the wrong line at the loop near West Park Road and a motor lorry travelling in the opposite direction crashed into the tram with considerable force.
The lorry spun sharply round and struck a low wall along Prescot Road, demolishing eight feet of it and landing in a field. The lorry was raised against the wall at a steep angle with its bonnet stuck in the ground. Fortunately the driver and his mate had managed to jump clear and were uninjured. The vehicle was considerably damaged but the sturdily built tram suffered very little from the collision.
An extraordinary court case took place on the 20th in which Marcia Jones of Rainford Road (shown above) was accused of telling fortunes by palmistry. This was usually legal if money did not change hands. The prosecution accepted that the woman had not personally profited from her activities and so had brought the case under the Vagrancy Act, complaining that Mrs Jones' actions were a nuisance.
Marcia Jones had hired Jeremiah Haslam Fox as her defending solicitor and he was furious about the whole affair. Haslam Fox was also a major in the Royal Engineer Volunteers and told the court that on Peace Day last year Mrs Jones had provided entertainment in the Engineer Hall in Croppers Hill. He added that the Rev. Thomas Dearnley – the Vicar of St Peter's in Parr – had also asked her to entertain his congregation and Mrs Jones' other notable clients included the wife of the mayor.
Ethel Reynolds and a Mrs Ridding were both wives of policemen on the St Helens force and they'd been asked to visit Mrs Jones' house to have their palms read. The women gave evidence of what had occurred and told how they'd been invited to make voluntary donations to a charity box. Mrs Ridding also mentioned that Mrs Jones had said she was a great friend of Haslam Fox and his wife, who also lived in Rainford Road. This led the solicitor to angrily accuse the St Helens Chief Constable of bringing the case to get at him because of his actions in defending people prosecuted by the police.
Haslam Fox claimed that he had been told that was the reason before the court summons against Marcia Jones had even been issued. In his closing submission to the magistrates Haslam Fox said: "To hit me this poor woman had been brought into the court. It was a dastardly, mean effort to get at a man that they could not look straight in the face." After the magistrates had conferred for a few moments the Chairman announced that they were dismissing the case.
The wartime regulations concerning the registration of foreigners were still in place and led to a strange prosecution on the 23rd. James and Catherine Goulding and their son James had originally lived in Lancashire but many years ago they had emigrated to America. A few months ago the family returned to their homeland and they came to St Helens where they moved in with Mary France, who was the sister of Mrs Goulding. James Goulding Jnr had gone to the Town Hall to obtain a driving licence and this appears to have led to the police visiting Mrs France's home.
She was prosecuted for failing to report the presence of aliens on her premises and for not keeping a register of aliens. The Gouldings for their part faced charges of not notifying their address to the police. The family's defence counsel was the aforementioned Haslam Fox who complained about the way the Gouldings had been treated after returning home. He added that Mary France considering the Gouldings their guests and not lodgers. The magistrates were also unimpressed and dismissed all the charges.
Also in the Police Court on the 23rd was John Jarvis of Johnson Street, off Merton Bank Road, who was charged with allowing a dog to be at large without a collar. PC Woods told the Bench that he had been in Park Road when the dog started following him round a field and he found it had no name and address. Rachel Jarvis caused amusement in the court when asked why the animal was not kept chained up. She said the dog's neck was thicker than his head so it could easily slip his collar off. The Bench fined the Jarvis's five shillings and advised the couple to get a fresh dog.
David McMaster from Salisbury Street also caused amusement in the court by asking the Bench if he could be given time to pay his fine "like last time". The bottlehand had yet to be sentenced for being drunk and incapable and inadvertently told the magistrates that he'd been in court before. The Chairman Joseph Else told McMaster "a man who came a second time could not expect to be treated as he had been on the first occasion". The fine was only 8 shillings, however.
Next week's stories will include the violent one-legged man on a tram, a great demonstration in favour of prohibition, the scandalous flooding in Penny Lane in Haydock, a move to play Sunday golf at Grange Park Golf Club, a big rate rise is on the cards, a boxer's tram obstruction in Thatto Heath and Pilks donate land for a children's playground.
The St Helens Canal used to be so long and deep that it was common for bodies to only be found after they'd spent two or three weeks in the water. On the 17th the body of John Butler from Eldon Street, off Prescot Road, was discovered in the canal after he'd been reported missing on January 26th. The St Helens Reporter devoted only a couple of lines to the tragedy as such deaths were common.
The St Helens Parks Committee met on the 18th and decided after a long discussion to resume the playing of music in the parks. A budget of £100 was set and the various town bands would be invited to put in tenders.
Three men appeared in the Police Court on the same day charged with breaking and entering Samuel Rimmer's lock-up clog shop in Bridgewater Street – which used to be in the town centre near Liverpool Road. Those charged were miner Edwin Lea from Glover Street, haulage hand John Miskell from Haswell Street (which used to be off Mill Street) and Charles Roberts from Canal Street. They were accused of stealing five pairs of clogs, a quantity of brass and iron nails, a tin of blacking, a knife, a shoemaker's awl, two pairs of pincers and two shillings in copper.
The robbery had taken place on December 27th and the three men had seemingly got away with their crime. That was until the police received information that Edwin Lea was a deserter from the army. So Det. Sgt. Curren and PC Johnson proceeded to Glover Street to arrest him and upon searching his house found some of the stolen items. There was not much honour amongst these thieves. Lea said he would make a clean break of it all but demanded that Charles Roberts and John Miskell be arrested, saying: "They had as much to do with it as me." All three men were committed to the next Quarter Sessions in Liverpool, which were scheduled for April 10th, with only Miskell granted bail.
History was made on the 19th when the first "lady guardian" took her seat in the boardroom of the Prescot Union. The guardians administered the Poor Law in St Helens and Prescot, which included overseeing Whiston Workhouse. These were elected positions and Mary McFarlane had won her seat convincingly in a recent by-election in the Hardshaw Ward on behalf of the Labour party. Later this year Evelyn Pilkington representing the Conservatives would became the first female councillor in the town.
An inquest was held on the 20th on 16-month-old Alfred Walkey of Virgil Street (off Cambridge Road) who had died as a result of swallowing a rabbit bone. The coroner Samuel Brighouse asked the mother if she was in the habit of giving meat to a child of 16 months and she replied that she gave it to children before that age. Dr John Dow said that was a common thing and the Coroner added: "I have heard of them getting liver and bacon from the table", to which Dr Dow said: "Yes, and it is a very common thing to give them fish and chips."
Also on the 20th the St Helens Reporter wrote that the training centre for disabled ex-soldiers in North Road was now virtually complete. The centre run by the Ministry of Labour was at the works of building contractor Fred Brown, which he had placed at their disposal rent-free. Initially training would focus on building work but if there was sufficient interest, it would extend to cabinet making, upholstering and possibly shoe making.
There were an increasing number of motor vehicles in St Helens competing for space with trams and horse-driven vehicles on roads that were often narrow. At 5:30pm on the 20th the third accident in just a few days occurred in Prescot Road, which was fortunate not to have had more serious consequences. A tram travelling to Prescot took the wrong line at the loop near West Park Road and a motor lorry travelling in the opposite direction crashed into the tram with considerable force.
The lorry spun sharply round and struck a low wall along Prescot Road, demolishing eight feet of it and landing in a field. The lorry was raised against the wall at a steep angle with its bonnet stuck in the ground. Fortunately the driver and his mate had managed to jump clear and were uninjured. The vehicle was considerably damaged but the sturdily built tram suffered very little from the collision.
Marcia Jones had hired Jeremiah Haslam Fox as her defending solicitor and he was furious about the whole affair. Haslam Fox was also a major in the Royal Engineer Volunteers and told the court that on Peace Day last year Mrs Jones had provided entertainment in the Engineer Hall in Croppers Hill. He added that the Rev. Thomas Dearnley – the Vicar of St Peter's in Parr – had also asked her to entertain his congregation and Mrs Jones' other notable clients included the wife of the mayor.
Ethel Reynolds and a Mrs Ridding were both wives of policemen on the St Helens force and they'd been asked to visit Mrs Jones' house to have their palms read. The women gave evidence of what had occurred and told how they'd been invited to make voluntary donations to a charity box. Mrs Ridding also mentioned that Mrs Jones had said she was a great friend of Haslam Fox and his wife, who also lived in Rainford Road. This led the solicitor to angrily accuse the St Helens Chief Constable of bringing the case to get at him because of his actions in defending people prosecuted by the police.
Haslam Fox claimed that he had been told that was the reason before the court summons against Marcia Jones had even been issued. In his closing submission to the magistrates Haslam Fox said: "To hit me this poor woman had been brought into the court. It was a dastardly, mean effort to get at a man that they could not look straight in the face." After the magistrates had conferred for a few moments the Chairman announced that they were dismissing the case.
The wartime regulations concerning the registration of foreigners were still in place and led to a strange prosecution on the 23rd. James and Catherine Goulding and their son James had originally lived in Lancashire but many years ago they had emigrated to America. A few months ago the family returned to their homeland and they came to St Helens where they moved in with Mary France, who was the sister of Mrs Goulding. James Goulding Jnr had gone to the Town Hall to obtain a driving licence and this appears to have led to the police visiting Mrs France's home.
She was prosecuted for failing to report the presence of aliens on her premises and for not keeping a register of aliens. The Gouldings for their part faced charges of not notifying their address to the police. The family's defence counsel was the aforementioned Haslam Fox who complained about the way the Gouldings had been treated after returning home. He added that Mary France considering the Gouldings their guests and not lodgers. The magistrates were also unimpressed and dismissed all the charges.
Also in the Police Court on the 23rd was John Jarvis of Johnson Street, off Merton Bank Road, who was charged with allowing a dog to be at large without a collar. PC Woods told the Bench that he had been in Park Road when the dog started following him round a field and he found it had no name and address. Rachel Jarvis caused amusement in the court when asked why the animal was not kept chained up. She said the dog's neck was thicker than his head so it could easily slip his collar off. The Bench fined the Jarvis's five shillings and advised the couple to get a fresh dog.
David McMaster from Salisbury Street also caused amusement in the court by asking the Bench if he could be given time to pay his fine "like last time". The bottlehand had yet to be sentenced for being drunk and incapable and inadvertently told the magistrates that he'd been in court before. The Chairman Joseph Else told McMaster "a man who came a second time could not expect to be treated as he had been on the first occasion". The fine was only 8 shillings, however.
Next week's stories will include the violent one-legged man on a tram, a great demonstration in favour of prohibition, the scandalous flooding in Penny Lane in Haydock, a move to play Sunday golf at Grange Park Golf Club, a big rate rise is on the cards, a boxer's tram obstruction in Thatto Heath and Pilks donate land for a children's playground.
This week's stories include a burglary in a Liverpool Road clog shop, a tram and a lorry battle it out in Prescot Road, a new centre in North Road for disabled ex-soldiers, the first female guardian takes her seat and the case of the Rainford Road woman accused of telling fortunes by palmistry.
The St Helens Canal used to be so long and deep that it was common for bodies to only be found after they'd spent two or three weeks in the water.
On the 17th the body of John Butler from Eldon Street, off Prescot Road, was discovered in the canal after he'd been reported missing on January 26th.
The St Helens Reporter devoted only a couple of lines to the tragedy as such deaths were common.
The St Helens Parks Committee met on the 18th and decided after a long discussion to resume the playing of music in the parks.
A budget of £100 was set and the various town bands would be invited to put in tenders.
Three men appeared in the Police Court on the same day charged with breaking and entering Samuel Rimmer's lock-up clog shop in Bridgewater Street – which used to be in the town centre near Liverpool Road.
Those charged were miner Edwin Lea from Glover Street, haulage hand John Miskell from Haswell Street (which used to be off Mill Street) and Charles Roberts from Canal Street.
They were accused of stealing five pairs of clogs, a quantity of brass and iron nails, a tin of blacking, a knife, a shoemaker's awl, two pairs of pincers and two shillings in copper.
The robbery had taken place on December 27th and the three men had seemingly got away with their crime.
That was until the police received information that Edwin Lea was a deserter from the army.
So Det. Sgt. Curren and PC Johnson proceeded to Glover Street to arrest him and upon searching his house found some of the stolen items. There was not much honour amongst these thieves.
Lea said he would make a clean break of it all but demanded that Charles Roberts and John Miskell be arrested, saying: "They had as much to do with it as me."
All three men were committed to the next Quarter Sessions in Liverpool, which were scheduled for April 10th, with only Miskell granted bail.
On the 19th Edward Roughley died in St Helens Hospital, one month after fracturing his spine in Bold Colliery (pictured above) after being struck by a falling stone.
The 22-year-old from Bramwell Street in Parr had served in the St Helens 'Pals' from 1915 to February 1919, only receiving a slight arm wound.
It took a return to mining at Bold, just six months before the accident, to take his life.
History was made on the 19th when the first "lady guardian" took her seat in the boardroom of the Prescot Union.
The guardians administered the Poor Law in St Helens and Prescot, which included overseeing Whiston Workhouse.
These were elected positions and Mary McFarlane had won her seat convincingly in a recent by-election in the Hardshaw Ward on behalf of the Labour party.
Later this year Evelyn Pilkington representing the Conservatives would became the first female councillor in the town.
An inquest was held on the 20th on 16-month-old Alfred Walkey of Virgil Street (off Cambridge Road) who had died as a result of swallowing a rabbit bone.
The coroner Samuel Brighouse asked the mother if she was in the habit of giving meat to a child of 16 months and she replied that she gave it to children before that age.
Dr John Dow said that was a common thing and the Coroner added: "I have heard of them getting liver and bacon from the table", to which Dr Dow said: "Yes, and it is a very common thing to give them fish and chips."
Also on the 20th the St Helens Reporter wrote that the training centre for disabled ex-soldiers in North Road was now virtually complete.
The centre run by the Ministry of Labour was at the works of building contractor Fred Brown, which he had placed at their disposal rent-free.
Initially training would focus on building work but if there was sufficient interest, it would extend to cabinet making, upholstering and possibly shoe making.
There were an increasing number of motor vehicles in St Helens competing for space with trams and horse-driven vehicles on roads that were often narrow.
At 5:30pm on the 20th the third accident in just a few days occurred in Prescot Road, which was fortunate not to have had more serious consequences.
A tram travelling to Prescot took the wrong line at the loop near West Park Road and a motor lorry travelling in the opposite direction crashed into the tram with considerable force.
The lorry spun sharply round and struck a low wall along Prescot Road, demolishing eight feet of it and landing in a field.
The lorry was raised against the wall at a steep angle with its bonnet stuck in the ground.
Fortunately the driver and his mate had managed to jump clear and were uninjured.
The vehicle was considerably damaged but the sturdily built tram suffered very little from the collision.
An extraordinary court case took place on the 20th in which Marcia Jones of Rainford Road (shown above) was accused of telling fortunes by palmistry. This was usually legal if money did not change hands.
The prosecution accepted that the woman had not personally profited from her activities and so had brought the case under the Vagrancy Act, complaining that Mrs Jones' actions were a nuisance.
Marcia Jones had hired Jeremiah Haslam Fox as her defending solicitor and he was furious about the whole affair.
Haslam Fox was also a major in the Royal Engineer Volunteers and told the court that on Peace Day last year Mrs Jones had provided entertainment in the Engineer Hall in Croppers Hill.
He added that the Rev. Thomas Dearnley – the Vicar of St Peter's in Parr – had also asked her to entertain his congregation and Mrs Jones' other notable clients included the wife of the mayor.
Ethel Reynolds and a Mrs Ridding were both wives of policemen on the St Helens force and they'd been asked to visit Mrs Jones' house to have their palms read.
The women gave evidence of what had occurred and told how they'd been invited to make voluntary donations to a charity box.
Mrs Ridding also mentioned that Mrs Jones had said she was a great friend of Haslam Fox and his wife, who also lived in Rainford Road.
This led the solicitor to angrily accuse the St Helens Chief Constable of bringing the case to get at him because of his actions in defending people prosecuted by the police.
Haslam Fox claimed that he had been told that was the reason before the court summons against Marcia Jones had even been issued.
In his closing submission to the magistrates Haslam Fox said: "To hit me this poor woman had been brought into the court. It was a dastardly, mean effort to get at a man that they could not look straight in the face."
After the magistrates had conferred for a few moments the Chairman announced that they were dismissing the case.
The wartime regulations concerning the registration of foreigners were still in place and led to a strange prosecution on the 23rd.
James and Catherine Goulding and their son James had originally lived in Lancashire but many years ago they had emigrated to America.
A few months ago the family returned to their homeland and they came to St Helens where they moved in with Mary France, who was the sister of Mrs Goulding.
James Goulding Jnr had gone to the Town Hall to obtain a driving licence and this appears to have led to the police visiting Mrs France's home.
She was prosecuted for failing to report the presence of aliens on her premises and for not keeping a register of aliens.
The Gouldings for their part faced charges of not notifying their address to the police.
The family's defence counsel was the aforementioned Haslam Fox who complained about the way the Gouldings had been treated after returning home.
He added that Mary France considering the Gouldings their guests and not lodgers.
The magistrates were also unimpressed and dismissed all the charges.
Also in the Police Court on the 23rd was John Jarvis of Johnson Street, off Merton Bank Road, who was charged with allowing a dog to be at large without a collar.
PC Woods told the Bench that he had been in Park Road when the dog started following him round a field and he found it had no name and address.
Rachel Jarvis caused amusement in the court when asked why the animal was not kept chained up.
She said the dog's neck was thicker than his head so it could easily slip his collar off.
The Bench fined the Jarvis's five shillings and advised the couple to get a fresh dog.
David McMaster from Salisbury Street also caused amusement in the court by asking the Bench if he could be given time to pay his fine "like last time".
The bottlehand had yet to be sentenced for being drunk and incapable and inadvertently told the magistrates that he'd been in court before.
The Chairman Joseph Else told McMaster "a man who came a second time could not expect to be treated as he had been on the first occasion". The fine was only 8 shillings, however.
Next week's stories will include the violent one-legged man on a tram, a great demonstration in favour of prohibition, the scandalous flooding in Penny Lane in Haydock, a move to play Sunday golf at Grange Park Golf Club, a big rate rise is on the cards, a boxer's tram obstruction in Thatto Heath and Pilks donate land for a children's playground.
The St Helens Canal used to be so long and deep that it was common for bodies to only be found after they'd spent two or three weeks in the water.
On the 17th the body of John Butler from Eldon Street, off Prescot Road, was discovered in the canal after he'd been reported missing on January 26th.
The St Helens Reporter devoted only a couple of lines to the tragedy as such deaths were common.
The St Helens Parks Committee met on the 18th and decided after a long discussion to resume the playing of music in the parks.
A budget of £100 was set and the various town bands would be invited to put in tenders.
Three men appeared in the Police Court on the same day charged with breaking and entering Samuel Rimmer's lock-up clog shop in Bridgewater Street – which used to be in the town centre near Liverpool Road.
Those charged were miner Edwin Lea from Glover Street, haulage hand John Miskell from Haswell Street (which used to be off Mill Street) and Charles Roberts from Canal Street.
They were accused of stealing five pairs of clogs, a quantity of brass and iron nails, a tin of blacking, a knife, a shoemaker's awl, two pairs of pincers and two shillings in copper.
The robbery had taken place on December 27th and the three men had seemingly got away with their crime.
That was until the police received information that Edwin Lea was a deserter from the army.
So Det. Sgt. Curren and PC Johnson proceeded to Glover Street to arrest him and upon searching his house found some of the stolen items. There was not much honour amongst these thieves.
Lea said he would make a clean break of it all but demanded that Charles Roberts and John Miskell be arrested, saying: "They had as much to do with it as me."
All three men were committed to the next Quarter Sessions in Liverpool, which were scheduled for April 10th, with only Miskell granted bail.
The 22-year-old from Bramwell Street in Parr had served in the St Helens 'Pals' from 1915 to February 1919, only receiving a slight arm wound.
It took a return to mining at Bold, just six months before the accident, to take his life.
History was made on the 19th when the first "lady guardian" took her seat in the boardroom of the Prescot Union.
The guardians administered the Poor Law in St Helens and Prescot, which included overseeing Whiston Workhouse.
These were elected positions and Mary McFarlane had won her seat convincingly in a recent by-election in the Hardshaw Ward on behalf of the Labour party.
Later this year Evelyn Pilkington representing the Conservatives would became the first female councillor in the town.
An inquest was held on the 20th on 16-month-old Alfred Walkey of Virgil Street (off Cambridge Road) who had died as a result of swallowing a rabbit bone.
The coroner Samuel Brighouse asked the mother if she was in the habit of giving meat to a child of 16 months and she replied that she gave it to children before that age.
Dr John Dow said that was a common thing and the Coroner added: "I have heard of them getting liver and bacon from the table", to which Dr Dow said: "Yes, and it is a very common thing to give them fish and chips."
Also on the 20th the St Helens Reporter wrote that the training centre for disabled ex-soldiers in North Road was now virtually complete.
The centre run by the Ministry of Labour was at the works of building contractor Fred Brown, which he had placed at their disposal rent-free.
Initially training would focus on building work but if there was sufficient interest, it would extend to cabinet making, upholstering and possibly shoe making.
There were an increasing number of motor vehicles in St Helens competing for space with trams and horse-driven vehicles on roads that were often narrow.
At 5:30pm on the 20th the third accident in just a few days occurred in Prescot Road, which was fortunate not to have had more serious consequences.
A tram travelling to Prescot took the wrong line at the loop near West Park Road and a motor lorry travelling in the opposite direction crashed into the tram with considerable force.
The lorry spun sharply round and struck a low wall along Prescot Road, demolishing eight feet of it and landing in a field.
The lorry was raised against the wall at a steep angle with its bonnet stuck in the ground.
Fortunately the driver and his mate had managed to jump clear and were uninjured.
The vehicle was considerably damaged but the sturdily built tram suffered very little from the collision.
The prosecution accepted that the woman had not personally profited from her activities and so had brought the case under the Vagrancy Act, complaining that Mrs Jones' actions were a nuisance.
Marcia Jones had hired Jeremiah Haslam Fox as her defending solicitor and he was furious about the whole affair.
Haslam Fox was also a major in the Royal Engineer Volunteers and told the court that on Peace Day last year Mrs Jones had provided entertainment in the Engineer Hall in Croppers Hill.
He added that the Rev. Thomas Dearnley – the Vicar of St Peter's in Parr – had also asked her to entertain his congregation and Mrs Jones' other notable clients included the wife of the mayor.
Ethel Reynolds and a Mrs Ridding were both wives of policemen on the St Helens force and they'd been asked to visit Mrs Jones' house to have their palms read.
The women gave evidence of what had occurred and told how they'd been invited to make voluntary donations to a charity box.
Mrs Ridding also mentioned that Mrs Jones had said she was a great friend of Haslam Fox and his wife, who also lived in Rainford Road.
This led the solicitor to angrily accuse the St Helens Chief Constable of bringing the case to get at him because of his actions in defending people prosecuted by the police.
Haslam Fox claimed that he had been told that was the reason before the court summons against Marcia Jones had even been issued.
In his closing submission to the magistrates Haslam Fox said: "To hit me this poor woman had been brought into the court. It was a dastardly, mean effort to get at a man that they could not look straight in the face."
After the magistrates had conferred for a few moments the Chairman announced that they were dismissing the case.
The wartime regulations concerning the registration of foreigners were still in place and led to a strange prosecution on the 23rd.
James and Catherine Goulding and their son James had originally lived in Lancashire but many years ago they had emigrated to America.
A few months ago the family returned to their homeland and they came to St Helens where they moved in with Mary France, who was the sister of Mrs Goulding.
James Goulding Jnr had gone to the Town Hall to obtain a driving licence and this appears to have led to the police visiting Mrs France's home.
She was prosecuted for failing to report the presence of aliens on her premises and for not keeping a register of aliens.
The Gouldings for their part faced charges of not notifying their address to the police.
The family's defence counsel was the aforementioned Haslam Fox who complained about the way the Gouldings had been treated after returning home.
He added that Mary France considering the Gouldings their guests and not lodgers.
The magistrates were also unimpressed and dismissed all the charges.
Also in the Police Court on the 23rd was John Jarvis of Johnson Street, off Merton Bank Road, who was charged with allowing a dog to be at large without a collar.
PC Woods told the Bench that he had been in Park Road when the dog started following him round a field and he found it had no name and address.
Rachel Jarvis caused amusement in the court when asked why the animal was not kept chained up.
She said the dog's neck was thicker than his head so it could easily slip his collar off.
The Bench fined the Jarvis's five shillings and advised the couple to get a fresh dog.
David McMaster from Salisbury Street also caused amusement in the court by asking the Bench if he could be given time to pay his fine "like last time".
The bottlehand had yet to be sentenced for being drunk and incapable and inadvertently told the magistrates that he'd been in court before.
The Chairman Joseph Else told McMaster "a man who came a second time could not expect to be treated as he had been on the first occasion". The fine was only 8 shillings, however.
Next week's stories will include the violent one-legged man on a tram, a great demonstration in favour of prohibition, the scandalous flooding in Penny Lane in Haydock, a move to play Sunday golf at Grange Park Golf Club, a big rate rise is on the cards, a boxer's tram obstruction in Thatto Heath and Pilks donate land for a children's playground.