IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (21st - 27th MARCH 1922)
This week's stories include how a Sutton strike-breaker borrowed a revolver in case of bother, two prolific St Helens burglars appear in court, Gentle Annie's window smashing antics in the Swan Hotel, a massive rise in Poor Law relief payments and the new state-of-the-art car on sale with non-rattling windows and no hand-crank!
We begin in St Helens Police Court on the 21st when Samuel Millington was fined for being in possession of a revolver without a firearms certificate. The police had discovered the army service Webley revolver at his home in Mill Lane in Sutton. Millington told the Bench that he had borrowed the gun from his brother as he was expecting "bother" from some engineers who his employer had locked out. In other words, the men had gone or been forced on strike – but Millington was still going to work and being considered a "blackleg".
Millington had assured the police that all he would have done with the revolver was frighten the strikers by pointing the gun at them, adding: "If they came in close quarters, I would've used it as a club". The magistrates said it was a serious offence and he was fined £5 and ordered that his brother's revolver be forfeited.
What the Liverpool Echo described as an "extraordinary number of charges of housebreaking" were brought against George McLorie at St Helens Police Court on the 22nd. The police had raided the 23-year-old's home in Waterdale Crescent in Sutton and found much stolen property, along with 22 keys, some of them skeleton keys.
As a result he faced 15 charges and his lesser partner in crime, Walter Halliwell from Cooper Street, faced two. Superintendent Dunn said the men's operations had been carried on all over St Helens and they'd caused great trouble and inconvenience to the residents of the burgled houses. The two men were remanded in custody for further enquiries to be made.
I've written about Annie Murphy on numerous occasions and her activities will continue to make the news over the next few years when she is given the moniker of "Gentle Annie". Why, I cannot say – as I've written about her in the past bashing people with umbrellas and the like in a most ungentle fashion! And on the 23rd, the St Helens character made her 77th court appearance charged with breaking the windows of the Swan Hotel in Corporation Street. Damage to the extent of £15 was done and the police said it would have been much worse if not for the young man who had restrained her – and "Gentle Annie" was also charged with assaulting him!
On the previous day the prolific vagrant had made her 76th court appearance after being charged with sleeping out on the streets. Upon promising the magistrates that she would go to the workhouse, Annie was discharged from the courtroom. But she rarely kept her promises to the Bench and upon making her latest appearance in the Police Court, Annie was given 3 months in prison. She always liked to have the last word and before being taken down to the cells by the police, told the magistrates that she preferred gaol to the workhouse!
Men (and sometimes women) used to get so drunk in St Helens that it was a regular event for a person to be found lying unconscious in the street – or on the pavement. A charge of being drunk and incapable was a common one and that was what John Gartland of Waine Street in Fingerpost faced in St Helens Police Court on the 24th. PC Phillips had found the man stretched out in Park Road at 10:30pm on the previous Saturday night.
The constable told the court that as well as being in a drunken condition and quite incapable, Gartland's face was swollen and there had been a cut on his head. It did not take much detective work to figure out that Gartland had been fighting with another man and the magistrates fined him 7s 6d.
I suppose it's always been true that at times of severe economic downturn, some folk still do very well. And so in spite of many families in St Helens being in dire straits during the 1920s, those with good jobs could afford to buy expensive motor cars and motorbikes – often on HP. In the St Helens Reporter on the 24th, the St Helens Motor House published a very large advert for "the new all-weather Calthorpe" car.
The dealership at 44 Duke Street had previously been known as Caldwells and reckoned this "real all-purposes" vehicle had three outstanding features: a) Equipped with electric starter motor; b) Windows that won't rattle; c) Positively no draught. Clearly these must have been big issues at the time for those riding in the early motor vehicles. Many drivers would have needed to hand-crank their motors to get them started and put up with vibrating windows that were allowing unwanted ventilation.
The car was a convertible – although that term did not then appear to be in use. The ad said: "Everywhere, the superb new all-weather Calthorpe is pronounced the success of the year – an open or closed car at will, changed from one to the other in a minute, without getting out of the car. Note the extraordinary value!" And what was the price? A two-seater version cost £375 and a four-seater cost £395. To put those prices into some context, many in work were earning around £4 a week, while most single men on the dole had to live on 15 shillings a week.
The high rates of unemployment in St Helens also left an increasing number of tenants unable to pay their rent. Some made no attempt to pay their landlord even part of their rent and others felt that if they were out of work or on strike, they simply didn't need to cough up. That led to an increasing number of applications to the weekly sessions of the St Helens County Court in East Street (pictured above) to repossess homes. But with the financial situation and housing crisis in St Helens in mind, the court was less likely to grant applications for eviction than they had been before the war.
Under the headline "How Other Half Lives", the Reporter this week wrote of the difficulties both landlords and tenants were experiencing: "St. Helens County Court was engaged almost exclusively with possession cases on Wednesday, the ground of application of the landlords being in each case the failure of the tenants to keep up their payments for rent." A miner called John Thompson had racked up £10 of arrears and explained to the court that he was "on the club" after being injured at work.
Although the man's income would consequently have been considerably reduced, he had made no attempt whatsoever to pay any rent and so the landlord wanted him out of his property. However, Thompson had a wife and two children and Judge Dowdall ruled that he be given a second chance – but he would have to pay rent and arrears at the rate of 10 shillings a week, instead of 7/6.
Underlining the economic difficulties for many in St Helens, new figures were released this week concerning the number of persons in receipt of Poor Law relief. The Guardians of the Prescot Union at Whiston were responsible for distributing these small payments (usually in the form of food vouchers) to the destitute within the St Helens and Prescot communities. During the quarter ending December 31st 1921, there had been ten times as many claimants as in the same period in 1920. The figure of 14,040 had been a record and it represented 78.6 persons per 1,000 population.
And finally the text of the 'Seditious Teachings Bill To Prevent Perversion Of Children' was issued this week. There was nothing at all sexual in its nature. The legislation was simply a reflection of how concerned the authorities were of Communism and uprisings spreading to this country in the wake of the Russian Revolution and high levels of unemployment. The Liverpool Echo published this article about the new Bill:
"The text was issued to-day, of the Seditious Teachings Bill. The object is “to prevent the perversion of the minds of children under the age of sixteen by means of seditious teaching and revolutionary propaganda.” The Bill deals only with the teaching of children and matters connected therewith, and has no further or wider scope. The full definition reads:-
"(a) To bring into hatred or to incite dissatisfaction against the King and Constitution of the United Kingdom, or the administration of justice, or… (b) To incite the King's subjects to attempt, otherwise than by lawful means, the alteration of the form of government as by law established or… (c) To promote the feelings of ill-will and hostility between different classes of his Majesty's subjects."
Next week's stories will include the smashing of a Sutton crime syndicate, the manslaughter case in Eccleston Street, a welcome freeze in the St Helens rates, the unemployed ex-soldier's suicide and the Pudding Bag marriage break up.
We begin in St Helens Police Court on the 21st when Samuel Millington was fined for being in possession of a revolver without a firearms certificate. The police had discovered the army service Webley revolver at his home in Mill Lane in Sutton. Millington told the Bench that he had borrowed the gun from his brother as he was expecting "bother" from some engineers who his employer had locked out. In other words, the men had gone or been forced on strike – but Millington was still going to work and being considered a "blackleg".
Millington had assured the police that all he would have done with the revolver was frighten the strikers by pointing the gun at them, adding: "If they came in close quarters, I would've used it as a club". The magistrates said it was a serious offence and he was fined £5 and ordered that his brother's revolver be forfeited.
What the Liverpool Echo described as an "extraordinary number of charges of housebreaking" were brought against George McLorie at St Helens Police Court on the 22nd. The police had raided the 23-year-old's home in Waterdale Crescent in Sutton and found much stolen property, along with 22 keys, some of them skeleton keys.
As a result he faced 15 charges and his lesser partner in crime, Walter Halliwell from Cooper Street, faced two. Superintendent Dunn said the men's operations had been carried on all over St Helens and they'd caused great trouble and inconvenience to the residents of the burgled houses. The two men were remanded in custody for further enquiries to be made.
I've written about Annie Murphy on numerous occasions and her activities will continue to make the news over the next few years when she is given the moniker of "Gentle Annie". Why, I cannot say – as I've written about her in the past bashing people with umbrellas and the like in a most ungentle fashion! And on the 23rd, the St Helens character made her 77th court appearance charged with breaking the windows of the Swan Hotel in Corporation Street. Damage to the extent of £15 was done and the police said it would have been much worse if not for the young man who had restrained her – and "Gentle Annie" was also charged with assaulting him!
On the previous day the prolific vagrant had made her 76th court appearance after being charged with sleeping out on the streets. Upon promising the magistrates that she would go to the workhouse, Annie was discharged from the courtroom. But she rarely kept her promises to the Bench and upon making her latest appearance in the Police Court, Annie was given 3 months in prison. She always liked to have the last word and before being taken down to the cells by the police, told the magistrates that she preferred gaol to the workhouse!
Men (and sometimes women) used to get so drunk in St Helens that it was a regular event for a person to be found lying unconscious in the street – or on the pavement. A charge of being drunk and incapable was a common one and that was what John Gartland of Waine Street in Fingerpost faced in St Helens Police Court on the 24th. PC Phillips had found the man stretched out in Park Road at 10:30pm on the previous Saturday night.
The constable told the court that as well as being in a drunken condition and quite incapable, Gartland's face was swollen and there had been a cut on his head. It did not take much detective work to figure out that Gartland had been fighting with another man and the magistrates fined him 7s 6d.
I suppose it's always been true that at times of severe economic downturn, some folk still do very well. And so in spite of many families in St Helens being in dire straits during the 1920s, those with good jobs could afford to buy expensive motor cars and motorbikes – often on HP. In the St Helens Reporter on the 24th, the St Helens Motor House published a very large advert for "the new all-weather Calthorpe" car.
The dealership at 44 Duke Street had previously been known as Caldwells and reckoned this "real all-purposes" vehicle had three outstanding features: a) Equipped with electric starter motor; b) Windows that won't rattle; c) Positively no draught. Clearly these must have been big issues at the time for those riding in the early motor vehicles. Many drivers would have needed to hand-crank their motors to get them started and put up with vibrating windows that were allowing unwanted ventilation.
The car was a convertible – although that term did not then appear to be in use. The ad said: "Everywhere, the superb new all-weather Calthorpe is pronounced the success of the year – an open or closed car at will, changed from one to the other in a minute, without getting out of the car. Note the extraordinary value!" And what was the price? A two-seater version cost £375 and a four-seater cost £395. To put those prices into some context, many in work were earning around £4 a week, while most single men on the dole had to live on 15 shillings a week.
Under the headline "How Other Half Lives", the Reporter this week wrote of the difficulties both landlords and tenants were experiencing: "St. Helens County Court was engaged almost exclusively with possession cases on Wednesday, the ground of application of the landlords being in each case the failure of the tenants to keep up their payments for rent." A miner called John Thompson had racked up £10 of arrears and explained to the court that he was "on the club" after being injured at work.
Although the man's income would consequently have been considerably reduced, he had made no attempt whatsoever to pay any rent and so the landlord wanted him out of his property. However, Thompson had a wife and two children and Judge Dowdall ruled that he be given a second chance – but he would have to pay rent and arrears at the rate of 10 shillings a week, instead of 7/6.
Underlining the economic difficulties for many in St Helens, new figures were released this week concerning the number of persons in receipt of Poor Law relief. The Guardians of the Prescot Union at Whiston were responsible for distributing these small payments (usually in the form of food vouchers) to the destitute within the St Helens and Prescot communities. During the quarter ending December 31st 1921, there had been ten times as many claimants as in the same period in 1920. The figure of 14,040 had been a record and it represented 78.6 persons per 1,000 population.
And finally the text of the 'Seditious Teachings Bill To Prevent Perversion Of Children' was issued this week. There was nothing at all sexual in its nature. The legislation was simply a reflection of how concerned the authorities were of Communism and uprisings spreading to this country in the wake of the Russian Revolution and high levels of unemployment. The Liverpool Echo published this article about the new Bill:
"The text was issued to-day, of the Seditious Teachings Bill. The object is “to prevent the perversion of the minds of children under the age of sixteen by means of seditious teaching and revolutionary propaganda.” The Bill deals only with the teaching of children and matters connected therewith, and has no further or wider scope. The full definition reads:-
"(a) To bring into hatred or to incite dissatisfaction against the King and Constitution of the United Kingdom, or the administration of justice, or… (b) To incite the King's subjects to attempt, otherwise than by lawful means, the alteration of the form of government as by law established or… (c) To promote the feelings of ill-will and hostility between different classes of his Majesty's subjects."
Next week's stories will include the smashing of a Sutton crime syndicate, the manslaughter case in Eccleston Street, a welcome freeze in the St Helens rates, the unemployed ex-soldier's suicide and the Pudding Bag marriage break up.
This week's stories include how a Sutton strike-breaker borrowed a revolver in case of bother, two prolific St Helens burglars appear in court, Gentle Annie's window smashing antics in the Swan Hotel, a massive rise in Poor Law relief payments and the new state-of-the-art car on sale with non-rattling windows and no hand-crank!
We begin in St Helens Police Court on the 21st when Samuel Millington was fined for being in possession of a revolver without a firearms certificate.
The police had discovered the army service Webley revolver at his home in Mill Lane in Sutton.
Millington told the Bench that he had borrowed the gun from his brother as he was expecting "bother" from some engineers who his employer had locked out.
In other words, the men had gone or been forced on strike – but Millington was still going to work and being considered a "blackleg".
Millington had assured the police that all he would have done with the revolver was frighten the strikers by pointing the gun at them, adding: "If they came in close quarters, I would've used it as a club".
The magistrates said it was a serious offence and he was fined £5 and ordered that his brother's revolver be forfeited.
What the Liverpool Echo described as an "extraordinary number of charges of housebreaking" were brought against George McLorie at St Helens Police Court on the 22nd.
The police had raided the 23-year-old's home in Waterdale Crescent in Sutton and found much stolen property, along with 22 keys, some of them skeleton keys.
As a result he faced 15 charges and his lesser partner in crime, Walter Halliwell from Cooper Street, faced two.
Superintendent Dunn said the men's operations had been carried on all over St Helens and they'd caused great trouble and inconvenience to the residents of the burgled houses.
The two men were remanded in custody for further enquiries to be made.
I've written about Annie Murphy on numerous occasions and her activities will continue to make the news over the next few years when she is given the moniker of "Gentle Annie".
Why, I cannot say – as I've written about her in the past bashing people with umbrellas and the like in a most ungentle fashion!
And on the 23rd the St Helens character made her 77th court appearance charged with breaking the windows of the Swan Hotel in Corporation Street.
Damage to the extent of £15 was done and the police said it would have been much worse if not for the young man who had restrained her – and "Gentle Annie" was also charged with assaulting him!
On the previous day, the prolific vagrant had made her 76th court appearance after being charged with sleeping out on the streets.
Upon promising the magistrates that she would go to the workhouse, Annie was discharged from the courtroom.
But she rarely kept her promises to the Bench and upon making her latest appearance in the Police Court, Annie was given 3 months in prison.
She always liked to have the last word and before being taken down to the cells by the police, told the magistrates that she preferred gaol to the workhouse!
Men (and sometimes women) used to get so drunk in St Helens that it was a regular event for a person to be found lying unconscious in the street – or on the pavement.
A charge of being drunk and incapable was a common one and that was what John Gartland of Waine Street in Fingerpost faced in St Helens Police Court on the 24th.
PC Phillips had found the man stretched out in Park Road at 10:30pm on the previous Saturday night.
The constable told the court that as well as being in a drunken condition and quite incapable, Gartland's face was swollen and there had been a cut on his head.
It did not take much detective work to figure out that Gartland had been fighting with another man and the magistrates fined him 7s 6d.
I suppose it's always been true that at times of severe economic downturn, some folk still do very well.
And so in spite of many families in St Helens being in dire straits during the 1920s, those with good jobs could afford to buy expensive motor cars and motorbikes – often on HP.
In the St Helens Reporter on the 24th, the St Helens Motor House published a very large advert for "the new all-weather Calthorpe" car.
The dealership at 44 Duke Street had previously been known as Caldwells and reckoned this "real all-purposes" vehicle had three outstanding features:
a) Equipped with electric starter motor; b) Windows that won't rattle; c) Positively no draught.
Clearly these must have been big issues at the time for those riding in the early motor vehicles.
Many drivers would have needed to hand-crank their motors to get them started and put up with vibrating windows that were allowing unwanted ventilation.
The car was a convertible – although that term did not then appear to be in use. The ad said:
"Everywhere, the superb new all-weather Calthorpe is pronounced the success of the year – an open or closed car at will, changed from one to the other in a minute, without getting out of the car. Note the extraordinary value!"
And what was the price? A two-seater version cost £375 and a four-seater cost £395.
To put those prices into some context, many in work were earning around £4 a week, while most single men on the dole had to live on 15 shillings a week.
The high rates of unemployment in St Helens also left an increasing number of tenants unable to pay their rent.
Some made no attempt to pay their landlord even part of their rent and others felt that if they were out of work or on strike, they simply didn't need to cough up.
That led to an increasing number of applications to the weekly sessions of the St Helens County Court in East Street (pictured above) to repossess homes.
But with the financial situation and housing crisis in St Helens in mind, the court was less likely to grant applications for eviction than they had been before the war.
Under the headline "How Other Half Lives", the Reporter this week wrote of the difficulties both landlords and tenants were experiencing:
"St. Helens County Court was engaged almost exclusively with possession cases on Wednesday, the ground of application of the landlords being in each case the failure of the tenants to keep up their payments for rent."
A miner called John Thompson had racked up £10 of arrears and explained to the court that he was "on the club" after being injured at work.
Although the man's income would consequently have been considerably reduced, he had made no attempt whatsoever to pay any rent and so the landlord wanted him out of his property.
However, Thompson had a wife and two children and Judge Dowdall ruled that he be given a second chance – but he would have to pay rent and arrears at the rate of 10 shillings a week, instead of 7/6.
Underlining the economic difficulties for many in St Helens, new figures were released this week concerning the number of persons in receipt of Poor Law relief.
The Guardians of the Prescot Union at Whiston were responsible for distributing these small payments (usually in the form of food vouchers) to the destitute within the St Helens and Prescot communities.
During the quarter ending December 31st 1921, there had been ten times as many claimants as in the same period in 1920.
The figure of 14,040 had been a record and it represented 78.6 persons per 1,000 population.
And finally the text of the 'Seditious Teachings Bill To Prevent Perversion Of Children' was issued this week.
There was nothing at all sexual in its nature. The legislation was simply a reflection of how concerned the authorities were of Communism and uprisings spreading to this country in the wake of the Russian Revolution and high levels of unemployment.
The Liverpool Echo published this article about the new Bill:
"The text was issued to-day, of the Seditious Teachings Bill. The object is “to prevent the perversion of the minds of children under the age of sixteen by means of seditious teaching and revolutionary propaganda.”
"The Bill deals only with the teaching of children and matters connected therewith, and has no further or wider scope. The full definition reads:-
"(a) To bring into hatred or to incite dissatisfaction against the King and Constitution of the United Kingdom, or the administration of justice, or…
"(b) To incite the King's subjects to attempt, otherwise than by lawful means, the alteration of the form of government as by law established or…
"(c) To promote the feelings of ill-will and hostility between different classes of his Majesty's subjects."
Next week's stories will include the smashing of a Sutton crime syndicate, the manslaughter case in Eccleston Street, a welcome freeze in the St Helens rates, the unemployed ex-soldier's suicide and the Pudding Bag marriage break up.
We begin in St Helens Police Court on the 21st when Samuel Millington was fined for being in possession of a revolver without a firearms certificate.
The police had discovered the army service Webley revolver at his home in Mill Lane in Sutton.
Millington told the Bench that he had borrowed the gun from his brother as he was expecting "bother" from some engineers who his employer had locked out.
In other words, the men had gone or been forced on strike – but Millington was still going to work and being considered a "blackleg".
Millington had assured the police that all he would have done with the revolver was frighten the strikers by pointing the gun at them, adding: "If they came in close quarters, I would've used it as a club".
The magistrates said it was a serious offence and he was fined £5 and ordered that his brother's revolver be forfeited.
What the Liverpool Echo described as an "extraordinary number of charges of housebreaking" were brought against George McLorie at St Helens Police Court on the 22nd.
The police had raided the 23-year-old's home in Waterdale Crescent in Sutton and found much stolen property, along with 22 keys, some of them skeleton keys.
As a result he faced 15 charges and his lesser partner in crime, Walter Halliwell from Cooper Street, faced two.
Superintendent Dunn said the men's operations had been carried on all over St Helens and they'd caused great trouble and inconvenience to the residents of the burgled houses.
The two men were remanded in custody for further enquiries to be made.
I've written about Annie Murphy on numerous occasions and her activities will continue to make the news over the next few years when she is given the moniker of "Gentle Annie".
Why, I cannot say – as I've written about her in the past bashing people with umbrellas and the like in a most ungentle fashion!
And on the 23rd the St Helens character made her 77th court appearance charged with breaking the windows of the Swan Hotel in Corporation Street.
Damage to the extent of £15 was done and the police said it would have been much worse if not for the young man who had restrained her – and "Gentle Annie" was also charged with assaulting him!
On the previous day, the prolific vagrant had made her 76th court appearance after being charged with sleeping out on the streets.
Upon promising the magistrates that she would go to the workhouse, Annie was discharged from the courtroom.
But she rarely kept her promises to the Bench and upon making her latest appearance in the Police Court, Annie was given 3 months in prison.
She always liked to have the last word and before being taken down to the cells by the police, told the magistrates that she preferred gaol to the workhouse!
Men (and sometimes women) used to get so drunk in St Helens that it was a regular event for a person to be found lying unconscious in the street – or on the pavement.
A charge of being drunk and incapable was a common one and that was what John Gartland of Waine Street in Fingerpost faced in St Helens Police Court on the 24th.
PC Phillips had found the man stretched out in Park Road at 10:30pm on the previous Saturday night.
The constable told the court that as well as being in a drunken condition and quite incapable, Gartland's face was swollen and there had been a cut on his head.
It did not take much detective work to figure out that Gartland had been fighting with another man and the magistrates fined him 7s 6d.
I suppose it's always been true that at times of severe economic downturn, some folk still do very well.
And so in spite of many families in St Helens being in dire straits during the 1920s, those with good jobs could afford to buy expensive motor cars and motorbikes – often on HP.
In the St Helens Reporter on the 24th, the St Helens Motor House published a very large advert for "the new all-weather Calthorpe" car.
The dealership at 44 Duke Street had previously been known as Caldwells and reckoned this "real all-purposes" vehicle had three outstanding features:
a) Equipped with electric starter motor; b) Windows that won't rattle; c) Positively no draught.
Clearly these must have been big issues at the time for those riding in the early motor vehicles.
Many drivers would have needed to hand-crank their motors to get them started and put up with vibrating windows that were allowing unwanted ventilation.
The car was a convertible – although that term did not then appear to be in use. The ad said:
"Everywhere, the superb new all-weather Calthorpe is pronounced the success of the year – an open or closed car at will, changed from one to the other in a minute, without getting out of the car. Note the extraordinary value!"
And what was the price? A two-seater version cost £375 and a four-seater cost £395.
To put those prices into some context, many in work were earning around £4 a week, while most single men on the dole had to live on 15 shillings a week.
Some made no attempt to pay their landlord even part of their rent and others felt that if they were out of work or on strike, they simply didn't need to cough up.
That led to an increasing number of applications to the weekly sessions of the St Helens County Court in East Street (pictured above) to repossess homes.
But with the financial situation and housing crisis in St Helens in mind, the court was less likely to grant applications for eviction than they had been before the war.
Under the headline "How Other Half Lives", the Reporter this week wrote of the difficulties both landlords and tenants were experiencing:
"St. Helens County Court was engaged almost exclusively with possession cases on Wednesday, the ground of application of the landlords being in each case the failure of the tenants to keep up their payments for rent."
A miner called John Thompson had racked up £10 of arrears and explained to the court that he was "on the club" after being injured at work.
Although the man's income would consequently have been considerably reduced, he had made no attempt whatsoever to pay any rent and so the landlord wanted him out of his property.
However, Thompson had a wife and two children and Judge Dowdall ruled that he be given a second chance – but he would have to pay rent and arrears at the rate of 10 shillings a week, instead of 7/6.
Underlining the economic difficulties for many in St Helens, new figures were released this week concerning the number of persons in receipt of Poor Law relief.
The Guardians of the Prescot Union at Whiston were responsible for distributing these small payments (usually in the form of food vouchers) to the destitute within the St Helens and Prescot communities.
During the quarter ending December 31st 1921, there had been ten times as many claimants as in the same period in 1920.
The figure of 14,040 had been a record and it represented 78.6 persons per 1,000 population.
And finally the text of the 'Seditious Teachings Bill To Prevent Perversion Of Children' was issued this week.
There was nothing at all sexual in its nature. The legislation was simply a reflection of how concerned the authorities were of Communism and uprisings spreading to this country in the wake of the Russian Revolution and high levels of unemployment.
The Liverpool Echo published this article about the new Bill:
"The text was issued to-day, of the Seditious Teachings Bill. The object is “to prevent the perversion of the minds of children under the age of sixteen by means of seditious teaching and revolutionary propaganda.”
"The Bill deals only with the teaching of children and matters connected therewith, and has no further or wider scope. The full definition reads:-
"(a) To bring into hatred or to incite dissatisfaction against the King and Constitution of the United Kingdom, or the administration of justice, or…
"(b) To incite the King's subjects to attempt, otherwise than by lawful means, the alteration of the form of government as by law established or…
"(c) To promote the feelings of ill-will and hostility between different classes of his Majesty's subjects."
Next week's stories will include the smashing of a Sutton crime syndicate, the manslaughter case in Eccleston Street, a welcome freeze in the St Helens rates, the unemployed ex-soldier's suicide and the Pudding Bag marriage break up.