IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 22 - 28 SEPTEMBER 1925
This week's many stories include the thieving bicycle brothers from Parr, the petty police prosecution of the Scala, criticism of the town's so-called doleites, the Parr lodging house assault, the new Church Street Arcade and the Sutton cyclist who said the road was so bad anyone falling off their bike would drown in pools of water.
We begin on the 23rd when the inquest took place on Ernest Appleton of Junction Lane in Sutton (pictured above). The 26-year-old ran his father's grocer’s shop while his dad concentrated on the bakery side of the business. But worries over reduced trade and depression through the death of his mother were believed to have led to Ernest committing suicide by taking poison.
Bicycle theft was very common with so many machines in use and little in the way of security gadgets available. Also on the 23rd, brothers Peter and John Meadowcroft from Parr Mill Cottages appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with stealing two bikes. Supt Dunn told the magistrates that on the previous day John Meadowcroft had gone to Murray's auction room with a bicycle to sell and said he would return later to collect the money that the sale had realised.
However, a man named Joseph Fenney recognised the machine as his property, saying it had been stolen from outside the Labour Exchange in Church Street in August. Enquiries revealed that John's brother Peter had been the one that had taken the bike and a second machine was also found at the brothers' house that John had stolen from Sutton Heath Colliery.
When charged with stealing the bicycle from outside the Labour Exchange, Peter had replied, "That is correct." The police asked for a remand to make further enquiries into another stolen bicycle, which the magistrates granted. At a further hearing, John was fined £5 and Peter £3 and they were also ordered to contribute to witness fees.
When a policeman collared Thomas Regan from Forest Road in Sutton Manor for riding his bicycle on the footpath, he explained that he was on his way home after being in court charged with riding his bike without a light. This week the unlucky Thomas returned to court where he claimed he had needed to ride on the footpath because the road was so bad that anyone falling off their bike would drown in pools of water. However, he was still fined 7s 6d.
"Fierce Struggle In A Room – St. Helens Man Committed For Trial – Old Man In Precarious Condition" was the headline in the St Helens Reporter on the 25th that summarised the major crime story of the week. The Police Court was told that Daniel Delaney had returned to the house in Brown Street in Parr where he was a lodger in a very drunken condition and began creating a disturbance in the kitchen.
61-year-old James Woodyer told him he must be quiet or clear out. That infuriated Delaney who replied: "You are not going to put me through the door, you are not boss here." The two men then came to grips and fell to the floor and it was claimed that Mr Woodyer was repeatedly kicked. Dr Eric Reid found the man's leg to be broken above the ankle and Mr Woodyer had been in so serious a condition that a dying deposition had been taken from him.
However, Woodyer was now in a slightly better state and the Bench committed Daniel Delaney for trial at the next quarter sessions. They also stated that if anything serious turned up, a fresh charge would be preferred against the prisoner. By that the magistrates meant if the victim died, a charge of murder or manslaughter could be brought.
Although a broken leg is unlikely to cause someone to die today, such injuries a century ago did quite often lead to death – particularly for elderly people – due to the shock to the body. But James Woodyer survived and at Liverpool on November 3rd 1925, Daniel Delaney was found guilty of common assault and sentenced to two months hard labour.
There used to be a recreation field at the bottom of Robins Lane in Sutton which was used by the Sutton Parish Football Club. The Reporter described how ground improvements had been made there, which included the installation of dressing rooms for both home and visiting teams and the playing area had also been completely boarded round.
Recently the Mayor of St Helens had given a rather farsighted speech in which he called for the creation of a living wage. In this week's Reporter a letter was published in which the writer adopting the pseudonym Mentor said rather cynically: "It is rather difficult to read the recent address by his worship without scenting the approach of November."
That was when the annual Council elections took place. The writer then said: "The workers might have more money with which to buy the nice things if less were taken from them in the way of rates and taxes, also if they were not made to keep so many loafers, wasters and doleites." The latter was a common criticism in spite of the low level of the unemployment pay that the jobless received and the shortages of job vacancies in St Helens.
The St Helens police had been busy recently making undercover visits to shops to buy cigarettes. Regulations had been brought in to prevent the late sale of certain products on certain days of the week in order to save on fuel, with coal production since the war still not back to normal levels. On most weekdays cigarettes could not be sold after 8pm, leading to several shop proprietors having a court summons served upon them.
The case of Alice Forrest was a particularly odd one. Sgt Lomas told the court that at 8:50pm he had been on duty in Tullis Street, off Prescot Road. He had sent PC Higgs in plain clothes into Alice Forrest's shop to buy some tobacco and matches. But when the constable returned he said Mrs Forrest had told him she had no cigarettes until the following morning but he had been able to buy from her a box of matches.
The shopkeeper disputed that statement, insisting that she had told the officer that although she had cigarettes, she was unable to sell him any and she claimed she had given him the matches for nothing: "The constable asked me if I would give him a box of matches and I said, ‘Aye, lad, I will give thee a box,’ and he never paid for them." Addressing PC Higgs in court, Mrs Forrest then said:
"I was shutting up the shop and you asked for a box of Capstans. I said I hadn't any and then you asked for a box of matches and I gave them to you without pay. I put them on the counter and you whipped them up and off you went. I went down the yard for a few minutes and when I came back the officers were knocking the door down. They had the street raised. When I asked them what all the bother was about, they said, ‘You have sold a box of matches after time’." A fine of 7s 6d was imposed.
There was an advert in the Reporter for businesses interested in renting one of the new shops and offices that would be available once the Church Street Arcade was completed. This was described as "the finest shopping site in the town", and was going to be erected on the premises that were presently numbered from 45 to 53 Church Street. In a separate article the paper explained that those premises were currently bounded by what was then known as Montague Burton on one side and the White Lion pub on the other and that 14 new shops would replace the present five.
The site had been acquired from Greenall Whitley and the paper said the arcade's construction would "effect the greatest improvement in Church-street within living memory, and as it will practically coincide with the completion of the new Parish Church, and, the widening of the road at that point, which the Arcade will practically face, it will add greatly to the value of that great improvement."
There was another example this week of the strict regulations that St Helens' cinemas and theatres were forced to observe, when the Scala was prosecuted for breaching the Cinematograph Act. The offence committed by the Ormskirk Street cinema was not to allow a full twenty-minute interval in between performances. And during that period no member of the public was allowed to be inside the building for longer than ten minutes. That rule was also said to have been broken.
Sgt Stevens and PC Gatley had been monitoring the comings and goings at the picture house and said that on September 8th, the last person who had been attending the first performance had departed at 8:22 pm and, four minutes later, several persons had been allowed to enter the cinema for the next performance.
The police admitted that the last persons out were stragglers and the main body of the cinemagoers had left some minutes before. The Scala's defence counsel claimed a technical breach, saying: "Courtesy has to be observed to customers, and no manager would go to a person and say, “You have seen the show, you must leave”."
The solicitor also stated that in some picture houses, particularly in Liverpool, there were continuous performances from two in the afternoon until late at night and no one there minded. He asked for the case to be dismissed upon payment of costs but the magistrates decided to convict and they imposed a fine of 10 shillings.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the heavy fine for taking bets in Brook Street, the Brynn Street woman who scalded a cat with hot water and the dreadful case of a starving family reliant on a 16-year-old boy's part-time earnings.
Bicycle theft was very common with so many machines in use and little in the way of security gadgets available. Also on the 23rd, brothers Peter and John Meadowcroft from Parr Mill Cottages appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with stealing two bikes. Supt Dunn told the magistrates that on the previous day John Meadowcroft had gone to Murray's auction room with a bicycle to sell and said he would return later to collect the money that the sale had realised.
However, a man named Joseph Fenney recognised the machine as his property, saying it had been stolen from outside the Labour Exchange in Church Street in August. Enquiries revealed that John's brother Peter had been the one that had taken the bike and a second machine was also found at the brothers' house that John had stolen from Sutton Heath Colliery.
When charged with stealing the bicycle from outside the Labour Exchange, Peter had replied, "That is correct." The police asked for a remand to make further enquiries into another stolen bicycle, which the magistrates granted. At a further hearing, John was fined £5 and Peter £3 and they were also ordered to contribute to witness fees.
When a policeman collared Thomas Regan from Forest Road in Sutton Manor for riding his bicycle on the footpath, he explained that he was on his way home after being in court charged with riding his bike without a light. This week the unlucky Thomas returned to court where he claimed he had needed to ride on the footpath because the road was so bad that anyone falling off their bike would drown in pools of water. However, he was still fined 7s 6d.
"Fierce Struggle In A Room – St. Helens Man Committed For Trial – Old Man In Precarious Condition" was the headline in the St Helens Reporter on the 25th that summarised the major crime story of the week. The Police Court was told that Daniel Delaney had returned to the house in Brown Street in Parr where he was a lodger in a very drunken condition and began creating a disturbance in the kitchen.
61-year-old James Woodyer told him he must be quiet or clear out. That infuriated Delaney who replied: "You are not going to put me through the door, you are not boss here." The two men then came to grips and fell to the floor and it was claimed that Mr Woodyer was repeatedly kicked. Dr Eric Reid found the man's leg to be broken above the ankle and Mr Woodyer had been in so serious a condition that a dying deposition had been taken from him.
However, Woodyer was now in a slightly better state and the Bench committed Daniel Delaney for trial at the next quarter sessions. They also stated that if anything serious turned up, a fresh charge would be preferred against the prisoner. By that the magistrates meant if the victim died, a charge of murder or manslaughter could be brought.
Although a broken leg is unlikely to cause someone to die today, such injuries a century ago did quite often lead to death – particularly for elderly people – due to the shock to the body. But James Woodyer survived and at Liverpool on November 3rd 1925, Daniel Delaney was found guilty of common assault and sentenced to two months hard labour.
There used to be a recreation field at the bottom of Robins Lane in Sutton which was used by the Sutton Parish Football Club. The Reporter described how ground improvements had been made there, which included the installation of dressing rooms for both home and visiting teams and the playing area had also been completely boarded round.
Recently the Mayor of St Helens had given a rather farsighted speech in which he called for the creation of a living wage. In this week's Reporter a letter was published in which the writer adopting the pseudonym Mentor said rather cynically: "It is rather difficult to read the recent address by his worship without scenting the approach of November."
That was when the annual Council elections took place. The writer then said: "The workers might have more money with which to buy the nice things if less were taken from them in the way of rates and taxes, also if they were not made to keep so many loafers, wasters and doleites." The latter was a common criticism in spite of the low level of the unemployment pay that the jobless received and the shortages of job vacancies in St Helens.
The St Helens police had been busy recently making undercover visits to shops to buy cigarettes. Regulations had been brought in to prevent the late sale of certain products on certain days of the week in order to save on fuel, with coal production since the war still not back to normal levels. On most weekdays cigarettes could not be sold after 8pm, leading to several shop proprietors having a court summons served upon them.
The case of Alice Forrest was a particularly odd one. Sgt Lomas told the court that at 8:50pm he had been on duty in Tullis Street, off Prescot Road. He had sent PC Higgs in plain clothes into Alice Forrest's shop to buy some tobacco and matches. But when the constable returned he said Mrs Forrest had told him she had no cigarettes until the following morning but he had been able to buy from her a box of matches.
The shopkeeper disputed that statement, insisting that she had told the officer that although she had cigarettes, she was unable to sell him any and she claimed she had given him the matches for nothing: "The constable asked me if I would give him a box of matches and I said, ‘Aye, lad, I will give thee a box,’ and he never paid for them." Addressing PC Higgs in court, Mrs Forrest then said:
"I was shutting up the shop and you asked for a box of Capstans. I said I hadn't any and then you asked for a box of matches and I gave them to you without pay. I put them on the counter and you whipped them up and off you went. I went down the yard for a few minutes and when I came back the officers were knocking the door down. They had the street raised. When I asked them what all the bother was about, they said, ‘You have sold a box of matches after time’." A fine of 7s 6d was imposed.
There was an advert in the Reporter for businesses interested in renting one of the new shops and offices that would be available once the Church Street Arcade was completed. This was described as "the finest shopping site in the town", and was going to be erected on the premises that were presently numbered from 45 to 53 Church Street. In a separate article the paper explained that those premises were currently bounded by what was then known as Montague Burton on one side and the White Lion pub on the other and that 14 new shops would replace the present five.
The site had been acquired from Greenall Whitley and the paper said the arcade's construction would "effect the greatest improvement in Church-street within living memory, and as it will practically coincide with the completion of the new Parish Church, and, the widening of the road at that point, which the Arcade will practically face, it will add greatly to the value of that great improvement."
Sgt Stevens and PC Gatley had been monitoring the comings and goings at the picture house and said that on September 8th, the last person who had been attending the first performance had departed at 8:22 pm and, four minutes later, several persons had been allowed to enter the cinema for the next performance.
The police admitted that the last persons out were stragglers and the main body of the cinemagoers had left some minutes before. The Scala's defence counsel claimed a technical breach, saying: "Courtesy has to be observed to customers, and no manager would go to a person and say, “You have seen the show, you must leave”."
The solicitor also stated that in some picture houses, particularly in Liverpool, there were continuous performances from two in the afternoon until late at night and no one there minded. He asked for the case to be dismissed upon payment of costs but the magistrates decided to convict and they imposed a fine of 10 shillings.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the heavy fine for taking bets in Brook Street, the Brynn Street woman who scalded a cat with hot water and the dreadful case of a starving family reliant on a 16-year-old boy's part-time earnings.
This week's many stories include the thieving bicycle brothers from Parr, the petty police prosecution of the Scala, criticism of the town's so-called doleites, the Parr lodging house assault, the new Church Street Arcade and the Sutton cyclist who said the road was so bad anyone falling off their bike would drown in pools of water.
We begin on the 23rd when the inquest took place on Ernest Appleton of Junction Lane in Sutton (pictured above).
The 26-year-old ran his father's grocer’s shop while his dad concentrated on the bakery side of the business.
But worries over reduced trade and depression through the death of his mother were believed to have led to Ernest committing suicide by taking poison.
Bicycle theft was very common with so many machines in use and little in the way of security gadgets available.
Also on the 23rd, brothers Peter and John Meadowcroft from Parr Mill Cottages appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with stealing two bikes.
Supt Dunn told the magistrates that on the previous day John Meadowcroft had gone to Murray's auction room with a bicycle to sell and said he would return later to collect the money that the sale had realised.
However, a man named Joseph Fenney recognised the machine as his property, saying it had been stolen from outside the Labour Exchange in Church Street in August.
Enquiries revealed that John's brother Peter had been the one that had taken the bike and a second machine was also found at the brothers' house that John had stolen from Sutton Heath Colliery.
When charged with stealing the bicycle from outside the Labour Exchange, Peter had replied, "That is correct."
The police asked for a remand to make further enquiries into another stolen bicycle, which the magistrates granted.
At a further hearing, John was fined £5 and Peter £3 and they were also ordered to contribute to witness fees.
When a policeman collared Thomas Regan from Forest Road in Sutton Manor for riding his bicycle on the footpath, he explained that he was on his way home after being in court charged with riding his bike without a light.
This week the unlucky Thomas returned to court where he claimed he had needed to ride on the footpath because the road was so bad that anyone falling off their bike would drown in pools of water. However, he was still fined 7s 6d.
"Fierce Struggle In A Room – St. Helens Man Committed For Trial – Old Man In Precarious Condition" was the headline in the St Helens Reporter on the 25th that summarised the major crime story of the week.
The Police Court was told that Daniel Delaney had returned to the house in Brown Street in Parr where he was a lodger in a very drunken condition and began creating a disturbance in the kitchen.
61-year-old James Woodyer told him he must be quiet or clear out. That infuriated Delaney who replied: "You are not going to put me through the door, you are not boss here."
The two men then came to grips and fell to the floor and it was claimed that Mr Woodyer was repeatedly kicked.
Dr Eric Reid found the man's leg to be broken above the ankle and Mr Woodyer had been in so serious a condition that a dying deposition had been taken from him.
However, Woodyer was now in a slightly better state and the Bench committed Daniel Delaney for trial at the next quarter sessions.
They also stated that if anything serious turned up, a fresh charge would be preferred against the prisoner.
By that the magistrates meant if the victim died, a charge of murder or manslaughter could be brought.
Although a broken leg is unlikely to cause someone to die today, such injuries a century ago did quite often lead to death – particularly for elderly people – due to the shock to the body.
But James Woodyer survived and at Liverpool on November 3rd 1925, Daniel Delaney was found guilty of common assault and sentenced to two months hard labour.
There used to be a recreation field at the bottom of Robins Lane in Sutton which was used by the Sutton Parish Football Club.
The Reporter described how ground improvements had been made there, which included the installation of dressing rooms for both home and visiting teams and the playing area had also been completely boarded round.
Recently the Mayor of St Helens had given a rather farsighted speech in which he called for the creation of a living wage.
In this week's Reporter a letter was published in which the writer adopting the pseudonym Mentor said rather cynically: "It is rather difficult to read the recent address by his worship without scenting the approach of November."
That was when the annual Council elections took place. The writer then said:
"The workers might have more money with which to buy the nice things if less were taken from them in the way of rates and taxes, also if they were not made to keep so many loafers, wasters and doleites."
The latter was a common criticism in spite of the low level of the unemployment pay that the jobless received and the shortages of job vacancies in St Helens.
The St Helens police had been busy recently making undercover visits to shops to buy cigarettes.
Regulations had been brought in to prevent the late sale of certain products on certain days of the week in order to save on fuel, with coal production since the war still not back to normal levels.
On most weekdays cigarettes could not be sold after 8pm, leading to several shop proprietors having a court summons served upon them.
The case of Alice Forrest was a particularly odd one. Sgt Lomas told the court that at 8:50pm he had been on duty in Tullis Street, off Prescot Road.
He had sent PC Higgs in plain clothes into Alice Forrest's shop to buy some tobacco and matches.
But when the constable returned he said Mrs Forrest had told him she had no cigarettes until the following morning but he had been able to buy from her a box of matches.
The shopkeeper disputed that statement, insisting that she had told the officer that although she had cigarettes, she was unable to sell him any and she claimed she had given him the matches for nothing:
"The constable asked me if I would give him a box of matches and I said, ‘Aye, lad, I will give thee a box,’ and he never paid for them." Addressing PC Higgs in court, Mrs Forrest then said:
"I was shutting up the shop and you asked for a box of Capstans. I said I hadn't any and then you asked for a box of matches and I gave them to you without pay. I put them on the counter and you whipped them up and off you went.
"I went down the yard for a few minutes and when I came back the officers were knocking the door down. They had the street raised. When I asked them what all the bother was about, they said, ‘You have sold a box of matches after time’." A fine of 7s 6d was imposed.
There was an advert in the Reporter for businesses interested in renting one of the new shops and offices that would be available once the Church Street Arcade was completed.
This was described as "the finest shopping site in the town", and was going to be erected on the premises that were presently numbered from 45 to 53 Church Street.
In a separate article the paper explained that those premises were currently bounded by what was then known as Montague Burton on one side and the White Lion pub on the other and that 14 new shops would replace the present five.
The site had been acquired from Greenall Whitley and the paper said the arcade's construction would "effect the greatest improvement in Church-street within living memory, and as it will practically coincide with the completion of the new Parish Church, and, the widening of the road at that point, which the Arcade will practically face, it will add greatly to the value of that great improvement."
There was another example this week of the strict regulations that St Helens' cinemas and theatres were forced to observe, when the Scala was prosecuted for breaching the Cinematograph Act.
The offence committed by the Ormskirk Street cinema was not to allow a full twenty-minute interval in between performances.
And during that period no member of the public was allowed to be inside the building for longer than ten minutes. That rule was also said to have been broken.
Sgt Stevens and PC Gatley had been monitoring the comings and goings at the picture house and said that on September 8th, the last person who had been attending the first performance had departed at 8:22 pm and, four minutes later, several persons had been allowed to enter the cinema for the next performance.
The police admitted that the last persons out were stragglers and the main body of the cinemagoers had left some minutes before. The Scala's defence counsel claimed a technical breach, saying:
"Courtesy has to be observed to customers, and no manager would go to a person and say, “You have seen the show, you must leave”."
The solicitor also stated that in some picture houses, particularly in Liverpool, there were continuous performances from two in the afternoon until late at night and no one there minded.
He asked for the case to be dismissed upon payment of costs but the magistrates decided to convict and they imposed a fine of 10 shillings.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the heavy fine for taking bets in Brook Street, the Brynn Street woman who scalded a cat with hot water and the dreadful case of a starving family reliant on a 16-year-old boy's part-time earnings.
The 26-year-old ran his father's grocer’s shop while his dad concentrated on the bakery side of the business.
But worries over reduced trade and depression through the death of his mother were believed to have led to Ernest committing suicide by taking poison.
Bicycle theft was very common with so many machines in use and little in the way of security gadgets available.
Also on the 23rd, brothers Peter and John Meadowcroft from Parr Mill Cottages appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with stealing two bikes.
Supt Dunn told the magistrates that on the previous day John Meadowcroft had gone to Murray's auction room with a bicycle to sell and said he would return later to collect the money that the sale had realised.
However, a man named Joseph Fenney recognised the machine as his property, saying it had been stolen from outside the Labour Exchange in Church Street in August.
Enquiries revealed that John's brother Peter had been the one that had taken the bike and a second machine was also found at the brothers' house that John had stolen from Sutton Heath Colliery.
When charged with stealing the bicycle from outside the Labour Exchange, Peter had replied, "That is correct."
The police asked for a remand to make further enquiries into another stolen bicycle, which the magistrates granted.
At a further hearing, John was fined £5 and Peter £3 and they were also ordered to contribute to witness fees.
When a policeman collared Thomas Regan from Forest Road in Sutton Manor for riding his bicycle on the footpath, he explained that he was on his way home after being in court charged with riding his bike without a light.
This week the unlucky Thomas returned to court where he claimed he had needed to ride on the footpath because the road was so bad that anyone falling off their bike would drown in pools of water. However, he was still fined 7s 6d.
"Fierce Struggle In A Room – St. Helens Man Committed For Trial – Old Man In Precarious Condition" was the headline in the St Helens Reporter on the 25th that summarised the major crime story of the week.
The Police Court was told that Daniel Delaney had returned to the house in Brown Street in Parr where he was a lodger in a very drunken condition and began creating a disturbance in the kitchen.
61-year-old James Woodyer told him he must be quiet or clear out. That infuriated Delaney who replied: "You are not going to put me through the door, you are not boss here."
The two men then came to grips and fell to the floor and it was claimed that Mr Woodyer was repeatedly kicked.
Dr Eric Reid found the man's leg to be broken above the ankle and Mr Woodyer had been in so serious a condition that a dying deposition had been taken from him.
However, Woodyer was now in a slightly better state and the Bench committed Daniel Delaney for trial at the next quarter sessions.
They also stated that if anything serious turned up, a fresh charge would be preferred against the prisoner.
By that the magistrates meant if the victim died, a charge of murder or manslaughter could be brought.
Although a broken leg is unlikely to cause someone to die today, such injuries a century ago did quite often lead to death – particularly for elderly people – due to the shock to the body.
But James Woodyer survived and at Liverpool on November 3rd 1925, Daniel Delaney was found guilty of common assault and sentenced to two months hard labour.
There used to be a recreation field at the bottom of Robins Lane in Sutton which was used by the Sutton Parish Football Club.
The Reporter described how ground improvements had been made there, which included the installation of dressing rooms for both home and visiting teams and the playing area had also been completely boarded round.
Recently the Mayor of St Helens had given a rather farsighted speech in which he called for the creation of a living wage.
In this week's Reporter a letter was published in which the writer adopting the pseudonym Mentor said rather cynically: "It is rather difficult to read the recent address by his worship without scenting the approach of November."
That was when the annual Council elections took place. The writer then said:
"The workers might have more money with which to buy the nice things if less were taken from them in the way of rates and taxes, also if they were not made to keep so many loafers, wasters and doleites."
The latter was a common criticism in spite of the low level of the unemployment pay that the jobless received and the shortages of job vacancies in St Helens.
The St Helens police had been busy recently making undercover visits to shops to buy cigarettes.
Regulations had been brought in to prevent the late sale of certain products on certain days of the week in order to save on fuel, with coal production since the war still not back to normal levels.
On most weekdays cigarettes could not be sold after 8pm, leading to several shop proprietors having a court summons served upon them.
The case of Alice Forrest was a particularly odd one. Sgt Lomas told the court that at 8:50pm he had been on duty in Tullis Street, off Prescot Road.
He had sent PC Higgs in plain clothes into Alice Forrest's shop to buy some tobacco and matches.
But when the constable returned he said Mrs Forrest had told him she had no cigarettes until the following morning but he had been able to buy from her a box of matches.
The shopkeeper disputed that statement, insisting that she had told the officer that although she had cigarettes, she was unable to sell him any and she claimed she had given him the matches for nothing:
"The constable asked me if I would give him a box of matches and I said, ‘Aye, lad, I will give thee a box,’ and he never paid for them." Addressing PC Higgs in court, Mrs Forrest then said:
"I was shutting up the shop and you asked for a box of Capstans. I said I hadn't any and then you asked for a box of matches and I gave them to you without pay. I put them on the counter and you whipped them up and off you went.
"I went down the yard for a few minutes and when I came back the officers were knocking the door down. They had the street raised. When I asked them what all the bother was about, they said, ‘You have sold a box of matches after time’." A fine of 7s 6d was imposed.
There was an advert in the Reporter for businesses interested in renting one of the new shops and offices that would be available once the Church Street Arcade was completed.
This was described as "the finest shopping site in the town", and was going to be erected on the premises that were presently numbered from 45 to 53 Church Street.
In a separate article the paper explained that those premises were currently bounded by what was then known as Montague Burton on one side and the White Lion pub on the other and that 14 new shops would replace the present five.
The site had been acquired from Greenall Whitley and the paper said the arcade's construction would "effect the greatest improvement in Church-street within living memory, and as it will practically coincide with the completion of the new Parish Church, and, the widening of the road at that point, which the Arcade will practically face, it will add greatly to the value of that great improvement."
The offence committed by the Ormskirk Street cinema was not to allow a full twenty-minute interval in between performances.
And during that period no member of the public was allowed to be inside the building for longer than ten minutes. That rule was also said to have been broken.
Sgt Stevens and PC Gatley had been monitoring the comings and goings at the picture house and said that on September 8th, the last person who had been attending the first performance had departed at 8:22 pm and, four minutes later, several persons had been allowed to enter the cinema for the next performance.
The police admitted that the last persons out were stragglers and the main body of the cinemagoers had left some minutes before. The Scala's defence counsel claimed a technical breach, saying:
"Courtesy has to be observed to customers, and no manager would go to a person and say, “You have seen the show, you must leave”."
The solicitor also stated that in some picture houses, particularly in Liverpool, there were continuous performances from two in the afternoon until late at night and no one there minded.
He asked for the case to be dismissed upon payment of costs but the magistrates decided to convict and they imposed a fine of 10 shillings.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the heavy fine for taking bets in Brook Street, the Brynn Street woman who scalded a cat with hot water and the dreadful case of a starving family reliant on a 16-year-old boy's part-time earnings.