IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (20th - 26th APRIL 1920)
This week's stories include the Langtree Street woman who said she had "the life of a dog" with her husband, the lodger that refused to quit his Stanhope Street home, St Helens Police receive praise from a prisoner, deadlock with the Windlehurst council house scheme and the Thatto Heath newsagent prosecuted for running a lottery.
We begin on the 20th with an inquiry at the Town Hall (pictured above c.1926) by a Ministry of Health inspector into the council's plans to extend their gasworks. Since taking over the trams last year, St Helens Corporation now had a near-monopoly on utilities, as it also owned and ran the electricity, gas and water supplies.
The Corporation had taken over the gasworks from a private company in 1875 and now wanted to increase their daily production of gas by one million feet. This would be achieved by investing £67,500 into the works (roughly £4m in today's money). The Corporation needed to borrow the money and they could not do so without sanction from the Government, hence the inquiry.
St Helens Police received a rare testimonial from a prisoner on the 20th when Thomas Hardy appeared in Liverpool County Quarter Sessions. The 50-year-old labourer said: "I have never come across a more humane police force and more gentlemanly detectives." Hardy had passed a dud cheque to John French, a butcher in Liverpool Road, and had done the same in Bangor and Chester. The man had plenty of experience of other police forces as he'd many previous convictions from all over the country and was sent to prison for two years.
The shortage of housing in St Helens was underlined by a possession case that was heard in the County Court on the 21st. A man called John Rogers had rented a house in Stanhope Street but in February had given a week's notice to his landlord, surrendered his door key and left. However Rogers had a lodger called John Smith who refused to get out because he had nowhere else to live. Smith had offered to take over the tenancy but the landlord had already promised the house to the caretaker of the Telephone Office.
There was now a stalemate with the lodger refusing to leave and so the landlord sought a court order to give him possession of his property and the sum of £2 7s 3d. That was demanded as compensation for the rent lost during the time Smith had been occupying the house. The man said he had been trying to find another home but could not obtain one and he did not want his family to be out on the street.
However the unsympathetic Judge Shand said: "You cannot stay in. You are a trespasser. You are not a tenant or anything else. You must go out." The judge granted the possession order and gave judgment for the £2 7 shillings but gave Smith and his family 7 days to leave.
In another similar case Pilkingtons sought possession of their house in Mill Place, which used to be near Canal Street. The tenant had died and Pilks wanted the house for one of their workers, however Mary Higgins had been lodging at the property. Some time ago the elderly woman had promised to get out within a week but she was still living there on her own. "I cannot get a place anywhere", Mary told Judge Shand. "You must be out in a week. You have no right there", was the judge's reply. However Pilkingtons were more sympathetic and said they would find the woman similar lodgings elsewhere.
The council's Parks Committee met in the Town Hall on the 21st and heard that there was a revival of interest in open-air swimming in Taylor Park (pictured above). A number of organisations – including the St Helens Swimming Club – had asked the committee to consider providing accommodation for bathers.
On the 22nd a Government Housing Commissioner met with the council's Health Committee in the Town Hall. Also present were a number of architects and builders, with the Corporation's house building plans on the agenda. There had been considerable delays in the building of the planned Windlehurst estate on land formerly owned by Sir David Gamble. This would be the first council estate in St Helens entailing 1,100 houses constructed from City Gardens to Windleshaw Road.
However the St Helens Reporter said the plans had reached a state of deadlock due to the spiralling cost of the scheme. The builders told the commissioner that the houses would each cost £1,000, which is around £50,000 in today's money. The Government was lending the money for the scheme but would not lend at such a high cost.
The Reporter said there had been "much frankness" in the discussions but the builders would not reduce their price below £1,000 – despite the commissioner saying he would accept a price of £950. However the council asked the builders to submit tenders and hoped that competition between them would bring down the price.
The St Helens Angling Association held their annual dinner at the Fleece Hotel on the 22nd and was able to report a big increase in membership since the war. The club founded in 1885 now had 280 members and was going strong.
When Catherine Felham was asked in St Helens Police Court on the 23rd whether she was guilty or not guilty of committing a breach of the peace, she replied: "Guilty in a certain manner". Two constables gave evidence of having been called to a disturbance in Langtree Street at 10 o’clock on the previous Sunday night.
They found Catherine Felham shouting at the top of her voice inside her home. The officers said they put her out of the house but she continued to shout in the street, which caused a crowd to assemble. Mrs Felham told the court that she had "the life of a dog" with her husband and he had caused all the bother. She was bound over to keep the peace for three months in her own surety of £5.
William Littler from Vista Lane in Earlestown was charged with interfering with an official at Ashtons Green Colliery in Parr and endangering the mine. Littler was among forty men being conveyed to the pit bottom in a series of wagons. Thomas Greenall was the gang rider in charge of the train and he rode at the front, adopting what the St Helens Reporter called a "perilous position". To ensure the road ahead in the darkness was clear, Greenall carried a safety lamp. Suddenly Littler started throwing stones at him, breaking his lamp and exposing the flame.
Ashtons Green was what was known as a "fiery mine", in which worked coal seams gave off a large amount of gas – so Littler's action could have caused a disastrous explosion. The pit undermanager claimed that Littler had told him that he had thrown the stones because the gangrider's lamp had been "blinking him". However in court the miner denied breaking the lamp but was fined the considerable amount of £9, including costs.
The St Helens Reporter on the 23rd wrote that Frank Plews, the headmaster of Sutton National School, was creating a list of old boys that had fought in the war. He was also hoping to obtain as many photographs of them as possible with the collection set to serve as a valuable historical record which would be placed on display at the school.
During the war the harsh rules against lotteries were partly relaxed as long as they benefitted war charities. But once peace was declared strict enforcement by St Helens Police resumed. Recently a Prescot man had been given a hefty fine of £15 for selling lottery tickets in St Helens. On the 26th Peter Twist from Cairne Street appeared in the Police Court charged with unlawfully publishing a lottery and selling tickets.
The Thatto Heath newsagent had had tickets printed by a firm in Derbyshire for a raffle on the Grand National. If all 2,000 tickets had been sold there would have been a profit of £54. However the draw was abandoned and the money for the tickets returned. Twist also claimed to have ordered the tickets for a customer and not for himself to sell. So the magistrates dismissed the charge of selling the tickets but imposed a fine of 40 shillings for publishing the lottery.
The Band of Hope Temperance Union met in the Town Hall on the 26th with Canon Baines, the Vicar of St Helens, calling for "total abstinence". The Reverend Colin Dawson addressed the children and told them the story of St George and the Dragon. He added that strong drink began in a small way, and "gradually grew into a big evil". It was this evil that the children had to fight under the Lord's banner – like St George, they must fight and win.
The acts performing at the Hippodrome Theatre from the 26th included: Fyn and Hurley ("Burlesque comedians"); Namur ("The singing mill girl"); Soga Trio ("The famous Jap wonders"); Arthur Stacey ("Comedian and eccentric dancer"); Cliff Dacre ("Character baritone") and Noble and Rea ("In a novel vocal and dancing act"). The Japanese Soga Trio offered a £100 challenge to anyone able to perform their balancing feat.
Next week's stories will include the St Helens policeman who had sex while on duty, the Albert Street man who threw his family onto the street at midnight in pouring rain, the fiery Dr O’Keefe threatens the St Helens MP, there's a claim of bigamy in Watery Lane and improvements to the Oxford cinema in Duke Street are proposed.
The Corporation had taken over the gasworks from a private company in 1875 and now wanted to increase their daily production of gas by one million feet. This would be achieved by investing £67,500 into the works (roughly £4m in today's money). The Corporation needed to borrow the money and they could not do so without sanction from the Government, hence the inquiry.
The shortage of housing in St Helens was underlined by a possession case that was heard in the County Court on the 21st. A man called John Rogers had rented a house in Stanhope Street but in February had given a week's notice to his landlord, surrendered his door key and left. However Rogers had a lodger called John Smith who refused to get out because he had nowhere else to live. Smith had offered to take over the tenancy but the landlord had already promised the house to the caretaker of the Telephone Office.
There was now a stalemate with the lodger refusing to leave and so the landlord sought a court order to give him possession of his property and the sum of £2 7s 3d. That was demanded as compensation for the rent lost during the time Smith had been occupying the house. The man said he had been trying to find another home but could not obtain one and he did not want his family to be out on the street.
However the unsympathetic Judge Shand said: "You cannot stay in. You are a trespasser. You are not a tenant or anything else. You must go out." The judge granted the possession order and gave judgment for the £2 7 shillings but gave Smith and his family 7 days to leave.
In another similar case Pilkingtons sought possession of their house in Mill Place, which used to be near Canal Street. The tenant had died and Pilks wanted the house for one of their workers, however Mary Higgins had been lodging at the property. Some time ago the elderly woman had promised to get out within a week but she was still living there on her own. "I cannot get a place anywhere", Mary told Judge Shand. "You must be out in a week. You have no right there", was the judge's reply. However Pilkingtons were more sympathetic and said they would find the woman similar lodgings elsewhere.
On the 22nd a Government Housing Commissioner met with the council's Health Committee in the Town Hall. Also present were a number of architects and builders, with the Corporation's house building plans on the agenda. There had been considerable delays in the building of the planned Windlehurst estate on land formerly owned by Sir David Gamble. This would be the first council estate in St Helens entailing 1,100 houses constructed from City Gardens to Windleshaw Road.
However the St Helens Reporter said the plans had reached a state of deadlock due to the spiralling cost of the scheme. The builders told the commissioner that the houses would each cost £1,000, which is around £50,000 in today's money. The Government was lending the money for the scheme but would not lend at such a high cost.
The Reporter said there had been "much frankness" in the discussions but the builders would not reduce their price below £1,000 – despite the commissioner saying he would accept a price of £950. However the council asked the builders to submit tenders and hoped that competition between them would bring down the price.
The St Helens Angling Association held their annual dinner at the Fleece Hotel on the 22nd and was able to report a big increase in membership since the war. The club founded in 1885 now had 280 members and was going strong.
When Catherine Felham was asked in St Helens Police Court on the 23rd whether she was guilty or not guilty of committing a breach of the peace, she replied: "Guilty in a certain manner". Two constables gave evidence of having been called to a disturbance in Langtree Street at 10 o’clock on the previous Sunday night.
They found Catherine Felham shouting at the top of her voice inside her home. The officers said they put her out of the house but she continued to shout in the street, which caused a crowd to assemble. Mrs Felham told the court that she had "the life of a dog" with her husband and he had caused all the bother. She was bound over to keep the peace for three months in her own surety of £5.
William Littler from Vista Lane in Earlestown was charged with interfering with an official at Ashtons Green Colliery in Parr and endangering the mine. Littler was among forty men being conveyed to the pit bottom in a series of wagons. Thomas Greenall was the gang rider in charge of the train and he rode at the front, adopting what the St Helens Reporter called a "perilous position". To ensure the road ahead in the darkness was clear, Greenall carried a safety lamp. Suddenly Littler started throwing stones at him, breaking his lamp and exposing the flame.
Ashtons Green was what was known as a "fiery mine", in which worked coal seams gave off a large amount of gas – so Littler's action could have caused a disastrous explosion. The pit undermanager claimed that Littler had told him that he had thrown the stones because the gangrider's lamp had been "blinking him". However in court the miner denied breaking the lamp but was fined the considerable amount of £9, including costs.
The St Helens Reporter on the 23rd wrote that Frank Plews, the headmaster of Sutton National School, was creating a list of old boys that had fought in the war. He was also hoping to obtain as many photographs of them as possible with the collection set to serve as a valuable historical record which would be placed on display at the school.
During the war the harsh rules against lotteries were partly relaxed as long as they benefitted war charities. But once peace was declared strict enforcement by St Helens Police resumed. Recently a Prescot man had been given a hefty fine of £15 for selling lottery tickets in St Helens. On the 26th Peter Twist from Cairne Street appeared in the Police Court charged with unlawfully publishing a lottery and selling tickets.
The Thatto Heath newsagent had had tickets printed by a firm in Derbyshire for a raffle on the Grand National. If all 2,000 tickets had been sold there would have been a profit of £54. However the draw was abandoned and the money for the tickets returned. Twist also claimed to have ordered the tickets for a customer and not for himself to sell. So the magistrates dismissed the charge of selling the tickets but imposed a fine of 40 shillings for publishing the lottery.
The Band of Hope Temperance Union met in the Town Hall on the 26th with Canon Baines, the Vicar of St Helens, calling for "total abstinence". The Reverend Colin Dawson addressed the children and told them the story of St George and the Dragon. He added that strong drink began in a small way, and "gradually grew into a big evil". It was this evil that the children had to fight under the Lord's banner – like St George, they must fight and win.
The acts performing at the Hippodrome Theatre from the 26th included: Fyn and Hurley ("Burlesque comedians"); Namur ("The singing mill girl"); Soga Trio ("The famous Jap wonders"); Arthur Stacey ("Comedian and eccentric dancer"); Cliff Dacre ("Character baritone") and Noble and Rea ("In a novel vocal and dancing act"). The Japanese Soga Trio offered a £100 challenge to anyone able to perform their balancing feat.
Next week's stories will include the St Helens policeman who had sex while on duty, the Albert Street man who threw his family onto the street at midnight in pouring rain, the fiery Dr O’Keefe threatens the St Helens MP, there's a claim of bigamy in Watery Lane and improvements to the Oxford cinema in Duke Street are proposed.
This week's stories include the Langtree Street woman who said she had "the life of a dog" with her husband, the lodger that refused to quit his Stanhope Street home, St Helens Police receive praise from a prisoner, deadlock with the Windlehurst council house scheme and the Thatto Heath newsagent prosecuted for running a lottery.
We begin on the 20th with an inquiry at the Town Hall (pictured above c.1926) by a Ministry of Health inspector into the council's plans to extend their gasworks.
Since taking over the trams last year, St Helens Corporation now had a near-monopoly on utilities, as it also owned and ran the electricity, gas and water supplies.
The Corporation had taken over the gasworks from a private company in 1875 and now wanted to increase their daily production of gas by one million feet.
This would be achieved by investing £67,500 into the works (roughly £4m in today's money).
The Corporation needed to borrow the money and they could not do so without sanction from the Government, hence the inquiry.
St Helens Police received a rare testimonial from a prisoner on the 20th when Thomas Hardy appeared in Liverpool County Quarter Sessions.
The 50-year-old labourer said: "I have never come across a more humane police force and more gentlemanly detectives."
Hardy had passed a dud cheque to John French, a butcher in Liverpool Road, and had done the same in Bangor and Chester.
The man had plenty of experience of other police forces as he'd many previous convictions from all over the country and was sent to prison for two years.
The shortage of housing in St Helens was underlined by a possession case that was heard in the County Court on the 21st.
A man called John Rogers had rented a house in Stanhope Street but in February had given a week's notice to his landlord, surrendered his door key and left.
However Rogers had a lodger called John Smith who refused to get out because he had nowhere else to live.
Smith had offered to take over the tenancy but the landlord had already promised the house to the caretaker of the Telephone Office.
There was now a stalemate with the lodger refusing to leave and so the landlord sought a court order to give him possession of his property and the sum of £2 7s 3d.
That was demanded as compensation for the rent lost during the time Smith had been occupying the house.
The man said he had been trying to find another home but could not obtain one and he did not want his family to be out on the street.
However the unsympathetic Judge Shand said: "You cannot stay in. You are a trespasser. You are not a tenant or anything else. You must go out."
The judge granted the possession order and gave judgment for the £2 7 shillings but gave Smith and his family 7 days to leave.
In another similar case Pilkingtons sought possession of their house in Mill Place, which used to be near Canal Street.
The tenant had died and Pilks wanted the house for one of their workers, however Mary Higgins had been lodging at the property.
Some time ago the elderly woman had promised to get out within a week but she was still living there on her own.
"I cannot get a place anywhere", Mary told Judge Shand. "You must be out in a week. You have no right there", was the judge's reply.
However Pilkingtons were more sympathetic and said they would find the woman similar lodgings elsewhere.
The council's Parks Committee met in the Town Hall on the 21st and heard that there was a revival of interest in open-air swimming in Taylor Park (pictured above).
A number of organisations – including the St Helens Swimming Club – had asked the committee to consider providing accommodation for bathers.
On the 22nd a Government Housing Commissioner met with the council's Health Committee in the Town Hall.
Also present were a number of architects and builders, with the Corporation's house building plans on the agenda.
There had been considerable delays in the building of the planned Windlehurst estate on land formerly owned by Sir David Gamble.
This would be the first council estate in St Helens entailing 1,100 houses constructed from City Gardens to Windleshaw Road.
However the St Helens Reporter said the plans had reached a state of deadlock due to the spiralling cost of the scheme.
The builders told the commissioner that the houses would each cost £1,000, which is around £50,000 in today's money.
The Government was lending the money for the scheme but would not lend at such a high cost.
The Reporter said there had been "much frankness" in the discussions but the builders would not reduce their price below £1,000 – despite the commissioner saying he would accept a price of £950.
However the council asked the builders to submit tenders and hoped that competition between them would bring down the price.
The St Helens Angling Association held their annual dinner at the Fleece Hotel on the 22nd and was able to report a big increase in membership since the war.
The club founded in 1885 now had 280 members and was going strong.
When Catherine Felham was asked in St Helens Police Court on the 23rd whether she was guilty or not guilty of committing a breach of the peace, she replied: "Guilty in a certain manner".
Two constables gave evidence of having been called to a disturbance in Langtree Street at 10 o’clock on the previous Sunday night.
They found Catherine Felham shouting at the top of her voice inside her home.
The officers said they put her out of the house but she continued to shout in the street, which caused a crowd to assemble.
Mrs Felham told the court that she had "the life of a dog" with her husband and he had caused all the bother.
She was bound over to keep the peace for three months in her own surety of £5.
William Littler from Vista Lane in Earlestown was charged with interfering with an official at Ashtons Green Colliery in Parr and endangering the mine.
Littler was among forty men being conveyed to the pit bottom in a series of wagons.
Thomas Greenall was the gang rider in charge of the train and he rode at the front, adopting what the St Helens Reporter called a "perilous position".
To ensure the road ahead in the darkness was clear, Greenall carried a safety lamp.
Suddenly Littler started throwing stones at him, breaking his lamp and exposing the flame.
Ashtons Green was what was known as a "fiery mine", in which worked coal seams gave off a large amount of gas – so Littler's action could have caused a disastrous explosion.
The pit undermanager claimed that Littler had told him that he had thrown the stones because the gangrider's lamp had been "blinking him".
However in court the miner denied breaking the lamp but was fined the considerable amount of £9, including costs.
The St Helens Reporter on the 23rd wrote that Frank Plews, the headmaster of Sutton National School, was creating a list of old boys that had fought in the war.
He was also hoping to obtain as many photographs of them as possible with the collection set to serve as a valuable historical record which would be placed on display at the school.
During the war the harsh rules against lotteries were partly relaxed as long as they benefitted war charities.
But once peace was declared strict enforcement by St Helens Police resumed. Recently a Prescot man had been given a hefty fine of £15 for selling lottery tickets in St Helens.
On the 26th Peter Twist from Cairne Street appeared in the Police Court charged with unlawfully publishing a lottery and selling tickets.
The Thatto Heath newsagent had had tickets printed by a firm in Derbyshire for a raffle on the Grand National.
If all 2,000 tickets had been sold there would have been a profit of £54. However the draw was abandoned and the money for the tickets returned.
Twist also claimed to have ordered the tickets for a customer and not for himself to sell.
So the magistrates dismissed the charge of selling the tickets but imposed a fine of 40 shillings for publishing the lottery.
The Band of Hope Temperance Union met in the Town Hall on the 26th with Canon Baines, the Vicar of St Helens, calling for "total abstinence".
The Reverend Colin Dawson addressed the children and told them the story of St George and the Dragon.
He added that strong drink began in a small way, and "gradually grew into a big evil".
It was this evil that the children had to fight under the Lord's banner – like St George, they must fight and win.
The acts performing at the Hippodrome Theatre from the 26th included:
Fyn and Hurley ("Burlesque comedians"); Namur ("The singing mill girl"); Soga Trio ("The famous Jap wonders"); Arthur Stacey ("Comedian and eccentric dancer"); Cliff Dacre ("Character baritone") and Noble and Rea ("In a novel vocal and dancing act").
The Japanese Soga Trio offered a £100 challenge to anyone able to perform their balancing feat.
Next week's stories will include the St Helens policeman who had sex while on duty, the Albert Street man who threw his family onto the street at midnight in pouring rain, the fiery Dr O’Keefe threatens the St Helens MP, there's a claim of bigamy in Watery Lane and improvements to the Oxford cinema in Duke Street are proposed.
Since taking over the trams last year, St Helens Corporation now had a near-monopoly on utilities, as it also owned and ran the electricity, gas and water supplies.
The Corporation had taken over the gasworks from a private company in 1875 and now wanted to increase their daily production of gas by one million feet.
This would be achieved by investing £67,500 into the works (roughly £4m in today's money).
The Corporation needed to borrow the money and they could not do so without sanction from the Government, hence the inquiry.
The 50-year-old labourer said: "I have never come across a more humane police force and more gentlemanly detectives."
Hardy had passed a dud cheque to John French, a butcher in Liverpool Road, and had done the same in Bangor and Chester.
The man had plenty of experience of other police forces as he'd many previous convictions from all over the country and was sent to prison for two years.
The shortage of housing in St Helens was underlined by a possession case that was heard in the County Court on the 21st.
A man called John Rogers had rented a house in Stanhope Street but in February had given a week's notice to his landlord, surrendered his door key and left.
However Rogers had a lodger called John Smith who refused to get out because he had nowhere else to live.
Smith had offered to take over the tenancy but the landlord had already promised the house to the caretaker of the Telephone Office.
There was now a stalemate with the lodger refusing to leave and so the landlord sought a court order to give him possession of his property and the sum of £2 7s 3d.
That was demanded as compensation for the rent lost during the time Smith had been occupying the house.
The man said he had been trying to find another home but could not obtain one and he did not want his family to be out on the street.
However the unsympathetic Judge Shand said: "You cannot stay in. You are a trespasser. You are not a tenant or anything else. You must go out."
The judge granted the possession order and gave judgment for the £2 7 shillings but gave Smith and his family 7 days to leave.
In another similar case Pilkingtons sought possession of their house in Mill Place, which used to be near Canal Street.
The tenant had died and Pilks wanted the house for one of their workers, however Mary Higgins had been lodging at the property.
Some time ago the elderly woman had promised to get out within a week but she was still living there on her own.
"I cannot get a place anywhere", Mary told Judge Shand. "You must be out in a week. You have no right there", was the judge's reply.
However Pilkingtons were more sympathetic and said they would find the woman similar lodgings elsewhere.
A number of organisations – including the St Helens Swimming Club – had asked the committee to consider providing accommodation for bathers.
On the 22nd a Government Housing Commissioner met with the council's Health Committee in the Town Hall.
Also present were a number of architects and builders, with the Corporation's house building plans on the agenda.
There had been considerable delays in the building of the planned Windlehurst estate on land formerly owned by Sir David Gamble.
This would be the first council estate in St Helens entailing 1,100 houses constructed from City Gardens to Windleshaw Road.
However the St Helens Reporter said the plans had reached a state of deadlock due to the spiralling cost of the scheme.
The builders told the commissioner that the houses would each cost £1,000, which is around £50,000 in today's money.
The Government was lending the money for the scheme but would not lend at such a high cost.
The Reporter said there had been "much frankness" in the discussions but the builders would not reduce their price below £1,000 – despite the commissioner saying he would accept a price of £950.
However the council asked the builders to submit tenders and hoped that competition between them would bring down the price.
The St Helens Angling Association held their annual dinner at the Fleece Hotel on the 22nd and was able to report a big increase in membership since the war.
The club founded in 1885 now had 280 members and was going strong.
When Catherine Felham was asked in St Helens Police Court on the 23rd whether she was guilty or not guilty of committing a breach of the peace, she replied: "Guilty in a certain manner".
Two constables gave evidence of having been called to a disturbance in Langtree Street at 10 o’clock on the previous Sunday night.
They found Catherine Felham shouting at the top of her voice inside her home.
The officers said they put her out of the house but she continued to shout in the street, which caused a crowd to assemble.
Mrs Felham told the court that she had "the life of a dog" with her husband and he had caused all the bother.
She was bound over to keep the peace for three months in her own surety of £5.
William Littler from Vista Lane in Earlestown was charged with interfering with an official at Ashtons Green Colliery in Parr and endangering the mine.
Littler was among forty men being conveyed to the pit bottom in a series of wagons.
Thomas Greenall was the gang rider in charge of the train and he rode at the front, adopting what the St Helens Reporter called a "perilous position".
To ensure the road ahead in the darkness was clear, Greenall carried a safety lamp.
Suddenly Littler started throwing stones at him, breaking his lamp and exposing the flame.
Ashtons Green was what was known as a "fiery mine", in which worked coal seams gave off a large amount of gas – so Littler's action could have caused a disastrous explosion.
The pit undermanager claimed that Littler had told him that he had thrown the stones because the gangrider's lamp had been "blinking him".
However in court the miner denied breaking the lamp but was fined the considerable amount of £9, including costs.
The St Helens Reporter on the 23rd wrote that Frank Plews, the headmaster of Sutton National School, was creating a list of old boys that had fought in the war.
He was also hoping to obtain as many photographs of them as possible with the collection set to serve as a valuable historical record which would be placed on display at the school.
During the war the harsh rules against lotteries were partly relaxed as long as they benefitted war charities.
But once peace was declared strict enforcement by St Helens Police resumed. Recently a Prescot man had been given a hefty fine of £15 for selling lottery tickets in St Helens.
On the 26th Peter Twist from Cairne Street appeared in the Police Court charged with unlawfully publishing a lottery and selling tickets.
The Thatto Heath newsagent had had tickets printed by a firm in Derbyshire for a raffle on the Grand National.
If all 2,000 tickets had been sold there would have been a profit of £54. However the draw was abandoned and the money for the tickets returned.
Twist also claimed to have ordered the tickets for a customer and not for himself to sell.
So the magistrates dismissed the charge of selling the tickets but imposed a fine of 40 shillings for publishing the lottery.
The Band of Hope Temperance Union met in the Town Hall on the 26th with Canon Baines, the Vicar of St Helens, calling for "total abstinence".
The Reverend Colin Dawson addressed the children and told them the story of St George and the Dragon.
He added that strong drink began in a small way, and "gradually grew into a big evil".
It was this evil that the children had to fight under the Lord's banner – like St George, they must fight and win.
The acts performing at the Hippodrome Theatre from the 26th included:
Fyn and Hurley ("Burlesque comedians"); Namur ("The singing mill girl"); Soga Trio ("The famous Jap wonders"); Arthur Stacey ("Comedian and eccentric dancer"); Cliff Dacre ("Character baritone") and Noble and Rea ("In a novel vocal and dancing act").
The Japanese Soga Trio offered a £100 challenge to anyone able to perform their balancing feat.
Next week's stories will include the St Helens policeman who had sex while on duty, the Albert Street man who threw his family onto the street at midnight in pouring rain, the fiery Dr O’Keefe threatens the St Helens MP, there's a claim of bigamy in Watery Lane and improvements to the Oxford cinema in Duke Street are proposed.