IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 22 - 28 JULY 1924
This week's many stories include the passing through Prescot of King George V, the strange prosecution of a tram conductor for not wearing his badge, the clouting in Liverpool Road, Rainford Council discuss the meaning of pleasure, the arrested man kicking, rolling and scratching in Hardshaw Street and the respectable husband who broke his wife's jaw returns to court.
We begin on the 22nd when John Myerscough of Lee Street in Sutton pleaded guilty in court to a charge of loitering in Gorsey Lane in Bold for the purpose of betting. PC Davies gave evidence that he had seen Myerscough near Clock Face Colliery waiting for the men to leave work. In the man's possession were found to be betting slips relating to 45 bets concerning that day's racing at Pontefract and Lingfield Park.
The defendant had not been in the police station long before someone paid in £10 to bail him out. Most bookmakers looked after their foot soldiers by paying their fines and their bail money if needed and although Myerscough received a fine of £5, his boss would, no doubt, have paid that as well.
On the 23rd at a St Helens Health Committee meeting there was a discussion over the allocation of Corporation houses on the Windlehurst estate. A number of new homes had recently been added to the first council estate to be built in St Helens but the demand for them had greatly outweighed their supply.
Cllr Dodd said there was much dissatisfaction with how the selection process had been handled. People, he said, felt it unfair and one person had remarked to him that the way the Corporation houses were being allocated meant they were getting "a fine collection of Tories at Windlehurst". That remark irritated Ald. Henry Bates, the Conservative Chairman of the committee.
He pointed out that the Labour Mayor of St Helens had to approve all lettings and said the allocation of homes at Windlehurst was fraught with difficulties but was based solely on need. Often a complicated series of moves had to be arranged. Those that were unable to afford the high rent at Windlehurst would take the smaller houses of others that were prepared to live in the so-called garden suburb that the council had recently built.
There was a lengthy discussion at the Rainford Council meeting this week as to whether their public recreation ground behind the parish church could be used for political purposes. Lord Derby had leased the ground to the council in 1922 with a rider that the field must only be used for "pleasure" and "recreation" by the public and for no other purpose. But as Rainford's blind councillor James Eden said at the meeting, "Pleasure is an elastic word that could be stretched from Rainford to Manchester."
He could see no reason why holding political meetings could not be included in a broad definition of a pleasurable event. However, Lord Derby's definitions were what mattered and as he was the chief landowner in Rainford, the council did not want to offend him. And so it was decided that the wisest course would be to write to Lord Derby for his opinion on whether so-called political demonstrations should be allowed.
On the 24th in St Helens Police Court a bottlehand from Salisbury Street called Michael Finn appeared in the dock sporting a black eye. The Reporter wrote: "Whether he received it as a present or had to fight for it was not revealed in evidence." Finn was charged with being drunk and disorderly after PC Parr had found him in Naylor Street in a very drunken condition.
Unusually, it was the middle of the afternoon when he was discovered shortly after the pubs had closed. The constable said there was a crowd gathered around him and Finn was challenging them to a fight. The officer told him to go home but Finn returned a few minutes later to tell PC Parr that he would do what he liked and at that point he was taken into custody.
As they walked into Hardshaw Street the arrested man threw himself to the ground and was said to have started kicking, rolling and scratching and then grabbed hold of the policeman by his legs. A passer-by went to assist the constable and they had great difficulty in getting Finn to the police station. The magistrates imposed a fine of 10 shillings and ordered Finn to pay the witness's fee of 2s 6d.
The Reporter on the 25th had extensive coverage of King George V's stay at Knowsley Hall as a guest of Lord Derby. The King's visit was in connection with the consecration of Liverpool Cathedral. But what the paper was particularly interested in was his arrival by train at Prescot Station and consequent journey through the town's streets to Knowsley. The Reporter set the scene before the Royal train arrived:
"Prescot was en fete and the station yard was surrounded by the inhabitants, while outside were thousands of persons patiently awaiting the arrival of the Royal visitors." Then as their motor vehicle began its journey to Knowsley Hall, the paper wrote: "The footpaths of the whole route were thronged with a cheering, hat-waving, enthusiastic crowd, while the windows of all the houses were filled with no less enthusiastic people. Aspinall and Atherton streets were gay with bunting, the Wesleyan Church being specially pretty looking.
"High-street and St. Helens-road also contained many lines of bunting crossing from one side to the other. At the nearly completed new Grammar School the boys assembled there gave the King and Queen a hearty reception." At Knowsley Hall there were thousands of children waiting for the monarch's arrival with most wearing white and carrying little flags that they waved "lustily" as the royal party arrived.
There were some curious prosecutions a century ago. The Reporter described how Samuel Owens from Worsley Brow in Sutton had appeared in the Police Court charged with not displaying his tram conductor badge in a conspicuous position. PC Griffin had been on point duty outside the Sefton Arms when he saw Owens on a tram that was about to begin its journey to Dentons Green.
When the constable asked the conductor where his badge was, he produced it from a pocket and attached it to his coat. But on the return journey from the Dentons Green terminus, Owens had the badge again concealed inside his pocket. Upon PC Griffin pointing it out to the conductor, he had replied: "I am wearing it. What more do you want?" He was fined 5 shillings.
A fortnight ago I described how the solicitor for James Freeman had told magistrates that his client was a "respectable young man, all his people living in St. Helens, and he had worked at Pilkington's since a boy." I then explained how the hard-working respectable husband had been charged with breaking his wife's jaw!
The couple lived in Barton Street in St Helens but due to his wife Sarah's "confinement", she was staying with her mother at her home in Arthur Street. The pair had had a row over money and Freeman claimed that his wife had thrown a teapot at him and in the heat of the moment he'd retaliated by striking her on the jaw. Sarah Freeman had been in hospital since the assault but this week was considered well enough to appear in court, "with her face wrapped in bandages, and giving her evidence in a very faint voice" – as the Reporter put it.
Many a husband upon receiving their weekly wages headed straight for the pub. James Freeman's local was the Saddle Inn in Westfield Street and Mrs Freeman told the court that she had sent a message to the Saddle asking her husband to come and see her. Her purpose was to get some of his wages off him but when he arrived James said he had no money.
A row began and after Sarah's mother intervened James assaulted her and then after being got outside of the house, Freeman struck his wife on the jaw. He repeated his claim that Sarah had thrown a teapot at him and also said he had offered to give her 30 shillings out of his wages – both of which his wife strongly denied. Freeman said he regretted what had happened and insisted that he had not had any intention of causing such injury but was sent to prison for a month with hard labour.
And finally, brothers Michael and James Ryan from Arthur Street and Edward Keaton of Anne Street appeared in court this week accused of committing a breach of the peace in Liverpool Road. The trio had been fighting and James Ryan gave this explanation for what had occurred: "Me and my brother were going home when Keaton came up behind us and gave me a clout. And so I seized hold of him and gave him a clout back." The threesome was bound over to keep the peace for 6 months.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the bobby who pretended to be a miner in Parr to catch gamblers, the family of eight sleeping in one bed in Prescot, the stealing by finding of an engagement ring and the Parr man's craze for other people's bicycles.
We begin on the 22nd when John Myerscough of Lee Street in Sutton pleaded guilty in court to a charge of loitering in Gorsey Lane in Bold for the purpose of betting. PC Davies gave evidence that he had seen Myerscough near Clock Face Colliery waiting for the men to leave work. In the man's possession were found to be betting slips relating to 45 bets concerning that day's racing at Pontefract and Lingfield Park.
The defendant had not been in the police station long before someone paid in £10 to bail him out. Most bookmakers looked after their foot soldiers by paying their fines and their bail money if needed and although Myerscough received a fine of £5, his boss would, no doubt, have paid that as well.
On the 23rd at a St Helens Health Committee meeting there was a discussion over the allocation of Corporation houses on the Windlehurst estate. A number of new homes had recently been added to the first council estate to be built in St Helens but the demand for them had greatly outweighed their supply.
Cllr Dodd said there was much dissatisfaction with how the selection process had been handled. People, he said, felt it unfair and one person had remarked to him that the way the Corporation houses were being allocated meant they were getting "a fine collection of Tories at Windlehurst". That remark irritated Ald. Henry Bates, the Conservative Chairman of the committee.
He pointed out that the Labour Mayor of St Helens had to approve all lettings and said the allocation of homes at Windlehurst was fraught with difficulties but was based solely on need. Often a complicated series of moves had to be arranged. Those that were unable to afford the high rent at Windlehurst would take the smaller houses of others that were prepared to live in the so-called garden suburb that the council had recently built.
There was a lengthy discussion at the Rainford Council meeting this week as to whether their public recreation ground behind the parish church could be used for political purposes. Lord Derby had leased the ground to the council in 1922 with a rider that the field must only be used for "pleasure" and "recreation" by the public and for no other purpose. But as Rainford's blind councillor James Eden said at the meeting, "Pleasure is an elastic word that could be stretched from Rainford to Manchester."
He could see no reason why holding political meetings could not be included in a broad definition of a pleasurable event. However, Lord Derby's definitions were what mattered and as he was the chief landowner in Rainford, the council did not want to offend him. And so it was decided that the wisest course would be to write to Lord Derby for his opinion on whether so-called political demonstrations should be allowed.
On the 24th in St Helens Police Court a bottlehand from Salisbury Street called Michael Finn appeared in the dock sporting a black eye. The Reporter wrote: "Whether he received it as a present or had to fight for it was not revealed in evidence." Finn was charged with being drunk and disorderly after PC Parr had found him in Naylor Street in a very drunken condition.
Unusually, it was the middle of the afternoon when he was discovered shortly after the pubs had closed. The constable said there was a crowd gathered around him and Finn was challenging them to a fight. The officer told him to go home but Finn returned a few minutes later to tell PC Parr that he would do what he liked and at that point he was taken into custody.
The Reporter on the 25th had extensive coverage of King George V's stay at Knowsley Hall as a guest of Lord Derby. The King's visit was in connection with the consecration of Liverpool Cathedral. But what the paper was particularly interested in was his arrival by train at Prescot Station and consequent journey through the town's streets to Knowsley. The Reporter set the scene before the Royal train arrived:
"Prescot was en fete and the station yard was surrounded by the inhabitants, while outside were thousands of persons patiently awaiting the arrival of the Royal visitors." Then as their motor vehicle began its journey to Knowsley Hall, the paper wrote: "The footpaths of the whole route were thronged with a cheering, hat-waving, enthusiastic crowd, while the windows of all the houses were filled with no less enthusiastic people. Aspinall and Atherton streets were gay with bunting, the Wesleyan Church being specially pretty looking.
"High-street and St. Helens-road also contained many lines of bunting crossing from one side to the other. At the nearly completed new Grammar School the boys assembled there gave the King and Queen a hearty reception." At Knowsley Hall there were thousands of children waiting for the monarch's arrival with most wearing white and carrying little flags that they waved "lustily" as the royal party arrived.
When the constable asked the conductor where his badge was, he produced it from a pocket and attached it to his coat. But on the return journey from the Dentons Green terminus, Owens had the badge again concealed inside his pocket. Upon PC Griffin pointing it out to the conductor, he had replied: "I am wearing it. What more do you want?" He was fined 5 shillings.
A fortnight ago I described how the solicitor for James Freeman had told magistrates that his client was a "respectable young man, all his people living in St. Helens, and he had worked at Pilkington's since a boy." I then explained how the hard-working respectable husband had been charged with breaking his wife's jaw!
The couple lived in Barton Street in St Helens but due to his wife Sarah's "confinement", she was staying with her mother at her home in Arthur Street. The pair had had a row over money and Freeman claimed that his wife had thrown a teapot at him and in the heat of the moment he'd retaliated by striking her on the jaw. Sarah Freeman had been in hospital since the assault but this week was considered well enough to appear in court, "with her face wrapped in bandages, and giving her evidence in a very faint voice" – as the Reporter put it.
Many a husband upon receiving their weekly wages headed straight for the pub. James Freeman's local was the Saddle Inn in Westfield Street and Mrs Freeman told the court that she had sent a message to the Saddle asking her husband to come and see her. Her purpose was to get some of his wages off him but when he arrived James said he had no money.
A row began and after Sarah's mother intervened James assaulted her and then after being got outside of the house, Freeman struck his wife on the jaw. He repeated his claim that Sarah had thrown a teapot at him and also said he had offered to give her 30 shillings out of his wages – both of which his wife strongly denied. Freeman said he regretted what had happened and insisted that he had not had any intention of causing such injury but was sent to prison for a month with hard labour.
And finally, brothers Michael and James Ryan from Arthur Street and Edward Keaton of Anne Street appeared in court this week accused of committing a breach of the peace in Liverpool Road. The trio had been fighting and James Ryan gave this explanation for what had occurred: "Me and my brother were going home when Keaton came up behind us and gave me a clout. And so I seized hold of him and gave him a clout back." The threesome was bound over to keep the peace for 6 months.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the bobby who pretended to be a miner in Parr to catch gamblers, the family of eight sleeping in one bed in Prescot, the stealing by finding of an engagement ring and the Parr man's craze for other people's bicycles.
This week's many stories include the passing through Prescot of King George V, the strange prosecution of a tram conductor for not wearing his badge, the clouting in Liverpool Road, Rainford Council discuss the meaning of pleasure, the arrested man kicking, rolling and scratching in Hardshaw Street and the respectable husband who broke his wife's jaw returns to court.
We begin on the 22nd when John Myerscough of Lee Street in Sutton pleaded guilty in court to a charge of loitering in Gorsey Lane in Bold for the purpose of betting.
PC Davies gave evidence that he had seen Myerscough near Clock Face Colliery waiting for the men to leave work.
In the man's possession were found to be betting slips relating to 45 bets concerning that day's racing at Pontefract and Lingfield Park.
The defendant had not been in the police station long before someone paid in £10 to bail him out.
Most bookmakers looked after their foot soldiers by paying their fines and their bail money if needed and although Myerscough received a fine of £5, his boss would, no doubt, have paid that as well.
On the 23rd at a St Helens Health Committee meeting there was a discussion over the allocation of Corporation houses on the Windlehurst estate.
A number of new homes had recently been added to the first council estate to be built in St Helens but the demand for them had greatly outweighed their supply.
Cllr Dodd said there was much dissatisfaction with how the selection process had been handled.
People, he said, felt it unfair and one person had remarked to him that the way the Corporation houses were being allocated meant they were getting "a fine collection of Tories at Windlehurst".
That remark irritated Ald. Henry Bates, the Conservative Chairman of the committee. He pointed out that the Labour Mayor of St Helens had to approve all lettings and said the allocation of homes at Windlehurst was fraught with difficulties but was based solely on need.
Often a complicated series of moves had to be arranged. Those that were unable to afford the high rent at Windlehurst would take the smaller houses of others that were prepared to live in the so-called garden suburb that the council had recently built.
There was a lengthy discussion at the Rainford Council meeting this week as to whether their public recreation ground behind the parish church could be used for political purposes.
Lord Derby had leased the ground to the council in 1922 with a rider that the field must only be used for "pleasure" and "recreation" by the public and for no other purpose.
But as Rainford's blind councillor James Eden said at the meeting, "Pleasure is an elastic word that could be stretched from Rainford to Manchester."
He could see no reason why holding political meetings could not be included in a broad definition of a pleasurable event.
However, Lord Derby's definitions were what mattered and as he was the chief landowner in Rainford, the council did not want to offend him.
And so it was decided that the wisest course would be to write to Lord Derby for his opinion on whether so-called political demonstrations should be allowed.
On the 24th in St Helens Police Court a bottlehand from Salisbury Street called Michael Finn appeared in the dock sporting a black eye. The Reporter wrote:
"Whether he received it as a present or had to fight for it was not revealed in evidence."
Finn was charged with being drunk and disorderly after PC Parr had found him in Naylor Street in a very drunken condition.
Unusually, it was the middle of the afternoon when he was discovered shortly after the pubs had closed.
The constable said there was a crowd gathered around him and Finn was challenging them to a fight.
The officer told him to go home but Finn returned a few minutes later to tell PC Parr that he would do what he liked and at that point he was taken into custody.
As they walked into Hardshaw Street the arrested man threw himself to the ground and was said to have started kicking, rolling and scratching and then grabbed hold of the policeman by his legs.
A passer-by went to assist the constable and they had great difficulty in getting Finn to the police station.
The magistrates imposed a fine of 10 shillings and ordered Finn to pay the witness's fee of 2s 6d.
The Reporter on the 25th had extensive coverage of King George V's stay at Knowsley Hall as a guest of Lord Derby.
The King's visit was in connection with the consecration of Liverpool Cathedral.
But what the paper was particularly interested in was his arrival by train at Prescot Station and consequent journey through the town's streets to Knowsley. The Reporter set the scene before the Royal train arrived:
"Prescot was en fete and the station yard was surrounded by the inhabitants, while outside were thousands of persons patiently awaiting the arrival of the Royal visitors."
Then as their motor vehicle began its journey to Knowsley Hall, the paper wrote:
"The footpaths of the whole route were thronged with a cheering, hat-waving, enthusiastic crowd, while the windows of all the houses were filled with no less enthusiastic people.
"Aspinall and Atherton streets were gay with bunting, the Wesleyan Church being specially pretty looking.
"High-street and St. Helens-road also contained many lines of bunting crossing from one side to the other. At the nearly completed new Grammar School the boys assembled there gave the King and Queen a hearty reception."
At Knowsley Hall there were thousands of children waiting for the monarch's arrival with most wearing white and carrying little flags that they waved "lustily" as the royal party arrived.
There were some curious prosecutions a century ago. The Reporter described how Samuel Owens from Worsley Brow in Sutton had appeared in the Police Court charged with not displaying his tram conductor badge in a conspicuous position.
PC Griffin had been on point duty outside the Sefton Arms when he saw Owens on a tram that was about to begin its journey to Dentons Green.
When the constable asked the conductor where his badge was, he produced it from a pocket and attached it to his coat.
But on the return journey from the Dentons Green terminus, Owens had the badge again concealed inside his pocket.
Upon PC Griffin pointing it out to the conductor, he had replied: "I am wearing it. What more do you want?" He was fined 5 shillings.
A fortnight ago I described how the solicitor for James Freeman had told magistrates that his client was a "respectable young man, all his people living in St. Helens, and he had worked at Pilkington's since a boy."
I then explained how the hard-working respectable husband had been charged with breaking his wife's jaw!
The couple lived in Barton Street in St Helens but due to his wife Sarah's "confinement", she was staying with her mother at her home in Arthur Street.
The pair had had a row over money and Freeman claimed that his wife had thrown a teapot at him and in the heat of the moment he'd retaliated by striking her on the jaw.
Sarah Freeman had been in hospital since the assault but this week was considered well enough to appear in court, "with her face wrapped in bandages, and giving her evidence in a very faint voice" – as the Reporter put it.
Many a husband upon receiving their weekly wages headed straight for the pub.
James Freeman's local was the Saddle Inn in Westfield Street and Mrs Freeman told the court that she had sent a message to the Saddle asking her husband to come and see her.
Her purpose was to get some of his wages off him but when he arrived James said he had no money.
A row began and after Sarah's mother intervened James assaulted her and then after being got outside of the house, Freeman struck his wife on the jaw.
He repeated his claim that Sarah had thrown a teapot at him and also said he had offered to give her 30 shillings out of his wages – both of which his wife strongly denied.
Freeman said he regretted what had happened and insisted that he had not had any intention of causing such injury but was sent to prison for a month with hard labour.
And finally, brothers Michael and James Ryan from Arthur Street and Edward Keaton of Anne Street appeared in court this week accused of committing a breach of the peace in Liverpool Road.
The trio had been fighting and James Ryan gave this explanation for what had occurred:
"Me and my brother were going home when Keaton came up behind us and gave me a clout. And so I seized hold of him and gave him a clout back."
The threesome was bound over to keep the peace for 6 months.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the bobby who pretended to be a miner in Parr to catch gamblers, the family of eight sleeping in one bed in Prescot, the stealing by finding of an engagement ring and the Parr man's craze for other people's bicycles.
We begin on the 22nd when John Myerscough of Lee Street in Sutton pleaded guilty in court to a charge of loitering in Gorsey Lane in Bold for the purpose of betting.
PC Davies gave evidence that he had seen Myerscough near Clock Face Colliery waiting for the men to leave work.
In the man's possession were found to be betting slips relating to 45 bets concerning that day's racing at Pontefract and Lingfield Park.
The defendant had not been in the police station long before someone paid in £10 to bail him out.
Most bookmakers looked after their foot soldiers by paying their fines and their bail money if needed and although Myerscough received a fine of £5, his boss would, no doubt, have paid that as well.
On the 23rd at a St Helens Health Committee meeting there was a discussion over the allocation of Corporation houses on the Windlehurst estate.
A number of new homes had recently been added to the first council estate to be built in St Helens but the demand for them had greatly outweighed their supply.
Cllr Dodd said there was much dissatisfaction with how the selection process had been handled.
People, he said, felt it unfair and one person had remarked to him that the way the Corporation houses were being allocated meant they were getting "a fine collection of Tories at Windlehurst".
That remark irritated Ald. Henry Bates, the Conservative Chairman of the committee. He pointed out that the Labour Mayor of St Helens had to approve all lettings and said the allocation of homes at Windlehurst was fraught with difficulties but was based solely on need.
Often a complicated series of moves had to be arranged. Those that were unable to afford the high rent at Windlehurst would take the smaller houses of others that were prepared to live in the so-called garden suburb that the council had recently built.
There was a lengthy discussion at the Rainford Council meeting this week as to whether their public recreation ground behind the parish church could be used for political purposes.
Lord Derby had leased the ground to the council in 1922 with a rider that the field must only be used for "pleasure" and "recreation" by the public and for no other purpose.
But as Rainford's blind councillor James Eden said at the meeting, "Pleasure is an elastic word that could be stretched from Rainford to Manchester."
He could see no reason why holding political meetings could not be included in a broad definition of a pleasurable event.
However, Lord Derby's definitions were what mattered and as he was the chief landowner in Rainford, the council did not want to offend him.
And so it was decided that the wisest course would be to write to Lord Derby for his opinion on whether so-called political demonstrations should be allowed.
On the 24th in St Helens Police Court a bottlehand from Salisbury Street called Michael Finn appeared in the dock sporting a black eye. The Reporter wrote:
"Whether he received it as a present or had to fight for it was not revealed in evidence."
Finn was charged with being drunk and disorderly after PC Parr had found him in Naylor Street in a very drunken condition.
Unusually, it was the middle of the afternoon when he was discovered shortly after the pubs had closed.
The constable said there was a crowd gathered around him and Finn was challenging them to a fight.
The officer told him to go home but Finn returned a few minutes later to tell PC Parr that he would do what he liked and at that point he was taken into custody.
A passer-by went to assist the constable and they had great difficulty in getting Finn to the police station.
The magistrates imposed a fine of 10 shillings and ordered Finn to pay the witness's fee of 2s 6d.
The Reporter on the 25th had extensive coverage of King George V's stay at Knowsley Hall as a guest of Lord Derby.
The King's visit was in connection with the consecration of Liverpool Cathedral.
But what the paper was particularly interested in was his arrival by train at Prescot Station and consequent journey through the town's streets to Knowsley. The Reporter set the scene before the Royal train arrived:
"Prescot was en fete and the station yard was surrounded by the inhabitants, while outside were thousands of persons patiently awaiting the arrival of the Royal visitors."
Then as their motor vehicle began its journey to Knowsley Hall, the paper wrote:
"The footpaths of the whole route were thronged with a cheering, hat-waving, enthusiastic crowd, while the windows of all the houses were filled with no less enthusiastic people.
"Aspinall and Atherton streets were gay with bunting, the Wesleyan Church being specially pretty looking.
"High-street and St. Helens-road also contained many lines of bunting crossing from one side to the other. At the nearly completed new Grammar School the boys assembled there gave the King and Queen a hearty reception."
At Knowsley Hall there were thousands of children waiting for the monarch's arrival with most wearing white and carrying little flags that they waved "lustily" as the royal party arrived.
PC Griffin had been on point duty outside the Sefton Arms when he saw Owens on a tram that was about to begin its journey to Dentons Green.
When the constable asked the conductor where his badge was, he produced it from a pocket and attached it to his coat.
But on the return journey from the Dentons Green terminus, Owens had the badge again concealed inside his pocket.
Upon PC Griffin pointing it out to the conductor, he had replied: "I am wearing it. What more do you want?" He was fined 5 shillings.
A fortnight ago I described how the solicitor for James Freeman had told magistrates that his client was a "respectable young man, all his people living in St. Helens, and he had worked at Pilkington's since a boy."
I then explained how the hard-working respectable husband had been charged with breaking his wife's jaw!
The couple lived in Barton Street in St Helens but due to his wife Sarah's "confinement", she was staying with her mother at her home in Arthur Street.
The pair had had a row over money and Freeman claimed that his wife had thrown a teapot at him and in the heat of the moment he'd retaliated by striking her on the jaw.
Sarah Freeman had been in hospital since the assault but this week was considered well enough to appear in court, "with her face wrapped in bandages, and giving her evidence in a very faint voice" – as the Reporter put it.
Many a husband upon receiving their weekly wages headed straight for the pub.
James Freeman's local was the Saddle Inn in Westfield Street and Mrs Freeman told the court that she had sent a message to the Saddle asking her husband to come and see her.
Her purpose was to get some of his wages off him but when he arrived James said he had no money.
A row began and after Sarah's mother intervened James assaulted her and then after being got outside of the house, Freeman struck his wife on the jaw.
He repeated his claim that Sarah had thrown a teapot at him and also said he had offered to give her 30 shillings out of his wages – both of which his wife strongly denied.
Freeman said he regretted what had happened and insisted that he had not had any intention of causing such injury but was sent to prison for a month with hard labour.
And finally, brothers Michael and James Ryan from Arthur Street and Edward Keaton of Anne Street appeared in court this week accused of committing a breach of the peace in Liverpool Road.
The trio had been fighting and James Ryan gave this explanation for what had occurred:
"Me and my brother were going home when Keaton came up behind us and gave me a clout. And so I seized hold of him and gave him a clout back."
The threesome was bound over to keep the peace for 6 months.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the bobby who pretended to be a miner in Parr to catch gamblers, the family of eight sleeping in one bed in Prescot, the stealing by finding of an engagement ring and the Parr man's craze for other people's bicycles.