IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 27 JAN - 2 FEB 1925
This week's many stories include another suicide corner prosecution, the packed out Theatre Royal for a play promoting the British Empire, a Duke Street woman brings a breach of promise court action, the plans for a combined May Queen crowning and horse show in St Helens, the closure of Pilkington's Special Hospital and the crash between a tram and a coal cart at the junction of Duke Street and Talbot Street.
We begin on the 27th at a meeting of the council's Housing Committee. Amongst the announcements the Town Clerk reported that the Ministry of Health had approved plans to use a site on Scholes Lane to build a housing estate.
I think if breach of promise of marriage cases still took place today, the courts would be extremely busy! Not that all that many couples get married anymore but in the past if a man changed his mind over getting wed, the woman's future marriage prospects were seen as having been damaged and she needed compensating. On the 27th at Liverpool Assizes Lily Tickle from Duke Street in St Helens brought a breach of promise action against her next-door neighbour, John Burrows.
When Lily turned 21 she and John had become engaged. At a party to celebrate the occasion, he had made a speech in which he had promised to do everything he could to make his future wife happy. But then John became enamoured with a woman called Miss Kitts and at one point confessed to Lily of his feelings for her. Lily's counsel told the hearing: "He began to cry, fell on his knees, asked Miss Tickle to forgive him, and promised to forget the other girl."
But he couldn't forget her and a week later he took Miss Kitts to a Butchers Ball, which is not, perhaps, the most romantic sounding event but it led to his relationship with Lily ending. The young woman did not seem to have been particularly harmed by the break-up, at least not financially, as she had since spent time living in Canada where she held a position as a saleswoman and earned very good money. But the jury decided that Lily had suffered a breach of promise and she was awarded £75 damages.
The bulky trams travelling through the narrow and congested streets of St Helens were inevitably going to end up involved in many accidents. But, of course, the size of the vehicles meant that the cars, motorcycles and horse-drawn carts that the trams collided with were the ones that came off second best.
During the afternoon of the 27th, a tram came into contact with a coal cart at the junction of Duke Street and Talbot Street, opposite what was then the Oxford Picturedrome and which later became the Plaza. Although the front portion of the tramcar was caved in, the damage to the cart was far worse. It was described as having been turned into matchwood with its shafts and front wheels completely smashed and much coal was dumped on the pavement and road. Fortunately there were no injuries.
The May horse show and parade through the streets of St Helens town centre was a long-standing event. It used to be held on May Day but had shifted to the last Saturday in the month. That was seemingly because of the socialist connotations that May 1st had developed towards the end of the 19th century. The Reporter in its review of the 1922 event wrote:
"The horses were a magnificent lot, and it was difficult to realise that there were so many such handsome creatures in St. Helens. Splendidly groomed, their glossy coats shimmering in the sun, with their scrupulously clean and highly-polished harness, and their ornaments of rosettes and bouquets and ribbons and what not. Motor power has certainly made huge inroads in the sphere of horse traction, but there is something about the latter which appeals to the aesthetic side of mankind, and it is in a pageant of this description that we realise how much poorer the world would be if the horse were ousted entirely from its place in the scheme of things."
As the number of horses being worked in St Helens was reducing, so the nags participating in the annual show were seemingly getting less. And so to stimulate interest, a notice in the St Helens Reporter on the 30th explained that a meeting was being held at the Fleece Hotel to discuss a proposal that the 1925 event be combined with the crowning of a May Queen.
The Reporter described how the Theatre Royal had been packed out for a special performance of a children’s play called "The Masque of Empire". The paper said: "Some time before the doors opened a long queue was waiting for admission, and when the doors opened a continual stream of people – mostly women and children – poured in. When all the seats were occupied, many more watched the performance standing, taking up positions in all sorts of places, a privileged few even being behind the scenes.
"Many people, however, had to be refused admittance, and they lost much, for the play more than justified all expectations. It was a magnificent success. It was a great performance." One reason for the packed out nature of the theatre was that 100 local children performed in the play and so their mothers and siblings were likely to have comprised much of the audience. The subject of the show would, no doubt, be seen as distasteful today promoting the British Empire and presented under the auspices of the Women’s Guild of Empire.
In February 1917 it was announced that Pilkington's Special Hospital for Wounded Soldiers and Sailors had been completed and was ready to receive patients. The state-of-the-art infirmary with 100 beds was situated in Borough Road and specially designed for the "treatment of cases where the patient is in a broken-down state from shock, &c".
This week the Reporter announced that after eight years of service, the hospital would close at the end of February. Pilkingtons had paid for the erection and maintenance of the institution, which had catered not only for war patients but also for those with orthopaedic treatment needs from within the St Helens district. The paper said it had one of the best X-ray installations in the country and added: "By the use of a large number of ingenious mechanical exercisers, thousands of wonderful cures have been effected."
I wonder if in the light of events in America, the term "trumpery" will make a comeback? It has long since died out but means useless, worthless, all show etc. The word was used in a court case this week when an angry car driver was prosecuted for failing to stop at "suicide corner" after being signalled to do so by a point duty policeman.
Suicide corner was the nickname for the junction of Westfield Street, Cotham Street, Ormskirk Street and Baldwin Street in St Helens. Over one 12-hour period in 1923, a traffic census had counted 4,143 vehicles passing that point. The motorist Alfred Griffin was also charged with failing to display his road registration licence (tax disc) on his vehicle. It was the latter charge that Griffin – an accountant from Prescot Road – said was a "most trumpery and ridiculous thing".
The defendant chose to defend himself in court and subjected all the witnesses to a lengthy cross-examination. Griffin even challenged the right of Superintendent Dunn, who was prosecuting, to cross-examine or interfere in the case, as he put it. PC Hinchcliffe told the magistrates that while on point duty outside the Sefton Arms, Mr Griffin had been driving a car down Cotham Street and he had signalled him to stop.
The constable explained that he had stopped another car that was coming down Westfield Street and waved on another motor proceeding from Ormskirk Street into Baldwin Street. But Mr Griffin had ignored his stop signal and drove on. He said if the driver of the car going into Baldwin Street had not applied his brakes very promptly, there would have been a collision.
Herbert Jones from Cooper Street had been the driver in question and he gave evidence of seeing the constable signal Mr Griffin to pull up. Mr Jones added that if he had not had the presence of mind to apply the brakes quickly, there would have been an accident. Alfred Griffin said he had been driving for 12 years and angrily insisted that the constable had beckoned him to come on.
Point-duty policemen operated from a little island outside the Sefton where a lamppost was located. Griffin insisted that he had not seen the bobby until he had sounded his electric horn and then the constable suddenly appeared from behind the lamppost and waved his right hand. That he had taken as the signal for him to advance. The magistrates felt there had been a genuine misunderstanding over the hand signal and told Griffin to only pay the court costs and dismissed the "trumpery" tax disc charge.
When a man called Ashton from Platt Street was charged with being drunk and disorderly in Broad Oak Road, PC Drysdale told the magistrates that he had seen him outside the Oddfellows Hall where a dance was in progress. Ashton had shouted to the dancers "Come outside and I will blind you with science." He was then seen staggering along Broad Oak Road. Then Ashton started aiming blows at a lamp standard and the constable – apparently thinking that with the standard unable to fight back it was an unfair contest – placed him under arrest. Ashton was fined 7s 6d.
Another drunk in court was a chap called Prescott from Wall Street who had been celebrating his birthday too well. A constable had found him in a drunken condition at midnight in Parr Mount Street and decided to take him home. On the journey Prescott had said to the officer: "I have worked for the money and I have a right to spend it which way I like." One way was to use his wages to pay his fine of 7s 6d.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the lorry that crashed into a house in Kitchener Street, the break-in at the Hippodrome, the Saturday night disturbance in Silver Street, the council row over a carpet and a rebuff for Lowe House's cinema plans.
We begin on the 27th at a meeting of the council's Housing Committee. Amongst the announcements the Town Clerk reported that the Ministry of Health had approved plans to use a site on Scholes Lane to build a housing estate.
I think if breach of promise of marriage cases still took place today, the courts would be extremely busy! Not that all that many couples get married anymore but in the past if a man changed his mind over getting wed, the woman's future marriage prospects were seen as having been damaged and she needed compensating. On the 27th at Liverpool Assizes Lily Tickle from Duke Street in St Helens brought a breach of promise action against her next-door neighbour, John Burrows.
When Lily turned 21 she and John had become engaged. At a party to celebrate the occasion, he had made a speech in which he had promised to do everything he could to make his future wife happy. But then John became enamoured with a woman called Miss Kitts and at one point confessed to Lily of his feelings for her. Lily's counsel told the hearing: "He began to cry, fell on his knees, asked Miss Tickle to forgive him, and promised to forget the other girl."
But he couldn't forget her and a week later he took Miss Kitts to a Butchers Ball, which is not, perhaps, the most romantic sounding event but it led to his relationship with Lily ending. The young woman did not seem to have been particularly harmed by the break-up, at least not financially, as she had since spent time living in Canada where she held a position as a saleswoman and earned very good money. But the jury decided that Lily had suffered a breach of promise and she was awarded £75 damages.
The bulky trams travelling through the narrow and congested streets of St Helens were inevitably going to end up involved in many accidents. But, of course, the size of the vehicles meant that the cars, motorcycles and horse-drawn carts that the trams collided with were the ones that came off second best.
The May horse show and parade through the streets of St Helens town centre was a long-standing event. It used to be held on May Day but had shifted to the last Saturday in the month. That was seemingly because of the socialist connotations that May 1st had developed towards the end of the 19th century. The Reporter in its review of the 1922 event wrote:
"The horses were a magnificent lot, and it was difficult to realise that there were so many such handsome creatures in St. Helens. Splendidly groomed, their glossy coats shimmering in the sun, with their scrupulously clean and highly-polished harness, and their ornaments of rosettes and bouquets and ribbons and what not. Motor power has certainly made huge inroads in the sphere of horse traction, but there is something about the latter which appeals to the aesthetic side of mankind, and it is in a pageant of this description that we realise how much poorer the world would be if the horse were ousted entirely from its place in the scheme of things."
As the number of horses being worked in St Helens was reducing, so the nags participating in the annual show were seemingly getting less. And so to stimulate interest, a notice in the St Helens Reporter on the 30th explained that a meeting was being held at the Fleece Hotel to discuss a proposal that the 1925 event be combined with the crowning of a May Queen.
The Reporter described how the Theatre Royal had been packed out for a special performance of a children’s play called "The Masque of Empire". The paper said: "Some time before the doors opened a long queue was waiting for admission, and when the doors opened a continual stream of people – mostly women and children – poured in. When all the seats were occupied, many more watched the performance standing, taking up positions in all sorts of places, a privileged few even being behind the scenes.
"Many people, however, had to be refused admittance, and they lost much, for the play more than justified all expectations. It was a magnificent success. It was a great performance." One reason for the packed out nature of the theatre was that 100 local children performed in the play and so their mothers and siblings were likely to have comprised much of the audience. The subject of the show would, no doubt, be seen as distasteful today promoting the British Empire and presented under the auspices of the Women’s Guild of Empire.
In February 1917 it was announced that Pilkington's Special Hospital for Wounded Soldiers and Sailors had been completed and was ready to receive patients. The state-of-the-art infirmary with 100 beds was situated in Borough Road and specially designed for the "treatment of cases where the patient is in a broken-down state from shock, &c".
This week the Reporter announced that after eight years of service, the hospital would close at the end of February. Pilkingtons had paid for the erection and maintenance of the institution, which had catered not only for war patients but also for those with orthopaedic treatment needs from within the St Helens district. The paper said it had one of the best X-ray installations in the country and added: "By the use of a large number of ingenious mechanical exercisers, thousands of wonderful cures have been effected."
I wonder if in the light of events in America, the term "trumpery" will make a comeback? It has long since died out but means useless, worthless, all show etc. The word was used in a court case this week when an angry car driver was prosecuted for failing to stop at "suicide corner" after being signalled to do so by a point duty policeman.
The defendant chose to defend himself in court and subjected all the witnesses to a lengthy cross-examination. Griffin even challenged the right of Superintendent Dunn, who was prosecuting, to cross-examine or interfere in the case, as he put it. PC Hinchcliffe told the magistrates that while on point duty outside the Sefton Arms, Mr Griffin had been driving a car down Cotham Street and he had signalled him to stop.
The constable explained that he had stopped another car that was coming down Westfield Street and waved on another motor proceeding from Ormskirk Street into Baldwin Street. But Mr Griffin had ignored his stop signal and drove on. He said if the driver of the car going into Baldwin Street had not applied his brakes very promptly, there would have been a collision.
Herbert Jones from Cooper Street had been the driver in question and he gave evidence of seeing the constable signal Mr Griffin to pull up. Mr Jones added that if he had not had the presence of mind to apply the brakes quickly, there would have been an accident. Alfred Griffin said he had been driving for 12 years and angrily insisted that the constable had beckoned him to come on.
Point-duty policemen operated from a little island outside the Sefton where a lamppost was located. Griffin insisted that he had not seen the bobby until he had sounded his electric horn and then the constable suddenly appeared from behind the lamppost and waved his right hand. That he had taken as the signal for him to advance. The magistrates felt there had been a genuine misunderstanding over the hand signal and told Griffin to only pay the court costs and dismissed the "trumpery" tax disc charge.
When a man called Ashton from Platt Street was charged with being drunk and disorderly in Broad Oak Road, PC Drysdale told the magistrates that he had seen him outside the Oddfellows Hall where a dance was in progress. Ashton had shouted to the dancers "Come outside and I will blind you with science." He was then seen staggering along Broad Oak Road. Then Ashton started aiming blows at a lamp standard and the constable – apparently thinking that with the standard unable to fight back it was an unfair contest – placed him under arrest. Ashton was fined 7s 6d.
Another drunk in court was a chap called Prescott from Wall Street who had been celebrating his birthday too well. A constable had found him in a drunken condition at midnight in Parr Mount Street and decided to take him home. On the journey Prescott had said to the officer: "I have worked for the money and I have a right to spend it which way I like." One way was to use his wages to pay his fine of 7s 6d.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the lorry that crashed into a house in Kitchener Street, the break-in at the Hippodrome, the Saturday night disturbance in Silver Street, the council row over a carpet and a rebuff for Lowe House's cinema plans.
This week's many stories include another suicide corner prosecution, the packed out Theatre Royal for a play promoting the British Empire, a Duke Street woman brings a breach of promise court action, the plans for a combined May Queen crowning and horse show in St Helens, the closure of Pilkington's Special Hospital and the crash between a tram and a coal cart at the junction of Duke Street and Talbot Street.
We begin on the 27th at a meeting of the council's Housing Committee. Amongst the announcements the Town Clerk reported that the Ministry of Health had approved plans to use a site on Scholes Lane to build a housing estate.
I think if breach of promise of marriage cases still took place today, the courts would be extremely busy!
Not that all that many couples get married anymore but in the past if a man changed his mind over getting wed, the woman's future marriage prospects were seen as having been damaged and she needed compensating.
On the 27th at Liverpool Assizes, Lily Tickle from Duke Street in St Helens brought a breach of promise action against her next-door neighbour, John Burrows.
When Lily turned 21 she and John had become engaged. At a party to celebrate the occasion, he had made a speech in which he had promised to do everything he could to make his future wife happy.
But then John became enamoured with a woman called Miss Kitts and at one point confessed to Lily of his feelings for her.
Lily's counsel told the hearing: "He began to cry, fell on his knees, asked Miss Tickle to forgive him, and promised to forget the other girl."
But he couldn't forget her and a week later he took Miss Kitts to a Butchers Ball, which is not, perhaps, the most romantic sounding event but it led to his relationship with Lily ending.
The young woman did not seem to have been particularly harmed by the break-up, at least not financially, as she had since spent time living in Canada where she held a position as a saleswoman and earned very good money.
But the jury decided that Lily had suffered a breach of promise and she was awarded £75 damages.
The bulky trams travelling through the narrow and congested streets of St Helens were inevitably going to end up involved in many accidents.
But, of course, the size of the vehicles meant that the cars, motorcycles and horse-drawn carts that the trams collided with were the ones that came off second best.
During the afternoon of the 27th a tram came into contact with a coal cart at the junction of Duke Street and Talbot Street, opposite what was then the Oxford Picturedrome and which later became the Plaza.
Although the front portion of the tramcar was caved in, the damage to the cart was far worse.
It was described as having been turned into matchwood with its shafts and front wheels completely smashed and much coal was dumped on the pavement and road. Fortunately there were no injuries.
The May horse show and parade through the streets of St Helens town centre was a long-standing event.
It used to be held on May Day but had shifted to the last Saturday in the month. That was seemingly because of the socialist connotations that May 1st had developed towards the end of the 19th century. The Reporter in its review of the 1922 event wrote:
"The horses were a magnificent lot, and it was difficult to realise that there were so many such handsome creatures in St. Helens. Splendidly groomed, their glossy coats shimmering in the sun, with their scrupulously clean and highly-polished harness, and their ornaments of rosettes and bouquets and ribbons and what not.
"Motor power has certainly made huge inroads in the sphere of horse traction, but there is something about the latter which appeals to the aesthetic side of mankind, and it is in a pageant of this description that we realise how much poorer the world would be if the horse were ousted entirely from its place in the scheme of things."
As the number of horses being worked in St Helens was reducing, so the nags participating in the annual show were seemingly getting less.
And so to stimulate interest, a notice in the St Helens Reporter on the 30th explained that a meeting was being held at the Fleece Hotel to discuss a proposal that the 1925 event be combined with the crowning of a May Queen.
The Reporter described how the Theatre Royal had been packed out for a special performance of a children’s play called "The Masque of Empire". The paper said:
"Some time before the doors opened a long queue was waiting for admission, and when the doors opened a continual stream of people – mostly women and children – poured in.
"When all the seats were occupied, many more watched the performance standing, taking up positions in all sorts of places, a privileged few even being behind the scenes.
"Many people, however, had to be refused admittance, and they lost much, for the play more than justified all expectations. It was a magnificent success. It was a great performance."
One reason for the packed out nature of the theatre was that 100 local children performed in the play and so their mothers and siblings were likely to have comprised much of the audience.
The subject of the show would, no doubt, be seen as distasteful today promoting the British Empire and presented under the auspices of the Women’s Guild of Empire.
In February 1917 it was announced that Pilkington's Special Hospital for Wounded Soldiers and Sailors had been completed and was ready to receive patients.
The state-of-the-art infirmary with 100 beds was situated in Borough Road and specially designed for the "treatment of cases where the patient is in a broken-down state from shock, &c".
This week the Reporter announced that after eight years of service, the hospital would close at the end of February.
Pilkington’s Glass had paid for the erection and maintenance of the institution, which had catered not only for war patients but also for those with orthopaedic treatment needs from within the St Helens district.
The paper said it had one of the best X-ray installations in the country and added: "By the use of a large number of ingenious mechanical exercisers, thousands of wonderful cures have been effected."
I wonder if in the light of events in America, the term "trumpery" will make a comeback? It has long since died out but means useless, worthless, all show etc.
The word was used in a court case this week when an angry car driver was prosecuted for failing to stop at "suicide corner" after being signalled to do so by a point duty policeman.
Suicide corner was the nickname for the junction of Westfield Street, Cotham Street, Ormskirk Street and Baldwin Street in St Helens (pictured above).
Over one 12-hour period in 1923, a traffic census had counted 4,143 vehicles passing that point.
The motorist Alfred Griffin was also charged with failing to display his road registration licence (tax disc) on his vehicle.
It was the latter charge that Griffin – an accountant from Prescot Road – said was a "most trumpery and ridiculous thing".
The defendant chose to defend himself in court and subjected all the witnesses to a lengthy cross-examination.
Griffin even challenged the right of Superintendent Dunn, who was prosecuting, to cross-examine or interfere in the case, as he put it.
PC Hinchcliffe told the magistrates that while on point duty outside the Sefton Arms, Mr Griffin had been driving a car down Cotham Street and he had signalled him to stop.
The constable explained that he had stopped another car that was coming down Westfield Street and waved on another motor proceeding from Ormskirk Street into Baldwin Street.
But Mr Griffin had ignored his stop signal and drove on. He said if the driver of the car going into Baldwin Street had not applied his brakes very promptly, there would have been a collision.
Herbert Jones from Cooper Street had been the driver in question and he gave evidence of seeing the constable signal Mr Griffin to pull up.
Mr Jones added that if he had not had the presence of mind to apply the brakes quickly, there would have been an accident.
Alfred Griffin said he had been driving for 12 years and angrily insisted that the constable had beckoned him to come on.
Point-duty policemen operated from a little island outside the Sefton where a lamppost was located.
Griffin insisted that he had not seen the bobby until he had sounded his electric horn and then the constable suddenly appeared from behind the lamppost and waved his right hand. That he had taken as the signal for him to advance.
The magistrates felt there had been a genuine misunderstanding over the hand signal and told Griffin to only pay the court costs and dismissed the "trumpery" tax disc charge.
When a man called Ashton from Platt Street was charged with being drunk and disorderly in Broad Oak Road, PC Drysdale told the magistrates that he had seen him outside the Oddfellows Hall where a dance was in progress.
Ashton had shouted to the dancers "Come outside and I will blind you with science." He was then seen staggering along Broad Oak Road.
Then Ashton started aiming blows at a lamp standard and the constable – apparently thinking that with the standard unable to fight back it was an unfair contest – placed him under arrest. Ashton was fined 7s 6d.
Another drunk in court was a chap called Prescott from Wall Street who had been celebrating his birthday too well.
A constable had found him in a drunken condition at midnight in Parr Mount Street and decided to take him home.
On the journey Prescott had said to the officer: "I have worked for the money and I have a right to spend it which way I like." One way was to use his wages to pay his fine of 7s 6d.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the lorry that crashed into a house in Kitchener Street, the break-in at the Hippodrome, the Saturday night disturbance in Silver Street, the council row over a carpet and a rebuff for Lowe House's cinema plans.
We begin on the 27th at a meeting of the council's Housing Committee. Amongst the announcements the Town Clerk reported that the Ministry of Health had approved plans to use a site on Scholes Lane to build a housing estate.
I think if breach of promise of marriage cases still took place today, the courts would be extremely busy!
Not that all that many couples get married anymore but in the past if a man changed his mind over getting wed, the woman's future marriage prospects were seen as having been damaged and she needed compensating.
On the 27th at Liverpool Assizes, Lily Tickle from Duke Street in St Helens brought a breach of promise action against her next-door neighbour, John Burrows.
When Lily turned 21 she and John had become engaged. At a party to celebrate the occasion, he had made a speech in which he had promised to do everything he could to make his future wife happy.
But then John became enamoured with a woman called Miss Kitts and at one point confessed to Lily of his feelings for her.
Lily's counsel told the hearing: "He began to cry, fell on his knees, asked Miss Tickle to forgive him, and promised to forget the other girl."
But he couldn't forget her and a week later he took Miss Kitts to a Butchers Ball, which is not, perhaps, the most romantic sounding event but it led to his relationship with Lily ending.
The young woman did not seem to have been particularly harmed by the break-up, at least not financially, as she had since spent time living in Canada where she held a position as a saleswoman and earned very good money.
But the jury decided that Lily had suffered a breach of promise and she was awarded £75 damages.
The bulky trams travelling through the narrow and congested streets of St Helens were inevitably going to end up involved in many accidents.
But, of course, the size of the vehicles meant that the cars, motorcycles and horse-drawn carts that the trams collided with were the ones that came off second best.
Although the front portion of the tramcar was caved in, the damage to the cart was far worse.
It was described as having been turned into matchwood with its shafts and front wheels completely smashed and much coal was dumped on the pavement and road. Fortunately there were no injuries.
The May horse show and parade through the streets of St Helens town centre was a long-standing event.
It used to be held on May Day but had shifted to the last Saturday in the month. That was seemingly because of the socialist connotations that May 1st had developed towards the end of the 19th century. The Reporter in its review of the 1922 event wrote:
"The horses were a magnificent lot, and it was difficult to realise that there were so many such handsome creatures in St. Helens. Splendidly groomed, their glossy coats shimmering in the sun, with their scrupulously clean and highly-polished harness, and their ornaments of rosettes and bouquets and ribbons and what not.
"Motor power has certainly made huge inroads in the sphere of horse traction, but there is something about the latter which appeals to the aesthetic side of mankind, and it is in a pageant of this description that we realise how much poorer the world would be if the horse were ousted entirely from its place in the scheme of things."
As the number of horses being worked in St Helens was reducing, so the nags participating in the annual show were seemingly getting less.
And so to stimulate interest, a notice in the St Helens Reporter on the 30th explained that a meeting was being held at the Fleece Hotel to discuss a proposal that the 1925 event be combined with the crowning of a May Queen.
The Reporter described how the Theatre Royal had been packed out for a special performance of a children’s play called "The Masque of Empire". The paper said:
"Some time before the doors opened a long queue was waiting for admission, and when the doors opened a continual stream of people – mostly women and children – poured in.
"When all the seats were occupied, many more watched the performance standing, taking up positions in all sorts of places, a privileged few even being behind the scenes.
"Many people, however, had to be refused admittance, and they lost much, for the play more than justified all expectations. It was a magnificent success. It was a great performance."
One reason for the packed out nature of the theatre was that 100 local children performed in the play and so their mothers and siblings were likely to have comprised much of the audience.
The subject of the show would, no doubt, be seen as distasteful today promoting the British Empire and presented under the auspices of the Women’s Guild of Empire.
In February 1917 it was announced that Pilkington's Special Hospital for Wounded Soldiers and Sailors had been completed and was ready to receive patients.
The state-of-the-art infirmary with 100 beds was situated in Borough Road and specially designed for the "treatment of cases where the patient is in a broken-down state from shock, &c".
This week the Reporter announced that after eight years of service, the hospital would close at the end of February.
Pilkington’s Glass had paid for the erection and maintenance of the institution, which had catered not only for war patients but also for those with orthopaedic treatment needs from within the St Helens district.
The paper said it had one of the best X-ray installations in the country and added: "By the use of a large number of ingenious mechanical exercisers, thousands of wonderful cures have been effected."
I wonder if in the light of events in America, the term "trumpery" will make a comeback? It has long since died out but means useless, worthless, all show etc.
The word was used in a court case this week when an angry car driver was prosecuted for failing to stop at "suicide corner" after being signalled to do so by a point duty policeman.
Over one 12-hour period in 1923, a traffic census had counted 4,143 vehicles passing that point.
The motorist Alfred Griffin was also charged with failing to display his road registration licence (tax disc) on his vehicle.
It was the latter charge that Griffin – an accountant from Prescot Road – said was a "most trumpery and ridiculous thing".
The defendant chose to defend himself in court and subjected all the witnesses to a lengthy cross-examination.
Griffin even challenged the right of Superintendent Dunn, who was prosecuting, to cross-examine or interfere in the case, as he put it.
PC Hinchcliffe told the magistrates that while on point duty outside the Sefton Arms, Mr Griffin had been driving a car down Cotham Street and he had signalled him to stop.
The constable explained that he had stopped another car that was coming down Westfield Street and waved on another motor proceeding from Ormskirk Street into Baldwin Street.
But Mr Griffin had ignored his stop signal and drove on. He said if the driver of the car going into Baldwin Street had not applied his brakes very promptly, there would have been a collision.
Herbert Jones from Cooper Street had been the driver in question and he gave evidence of seeing the constable signal Mr Griffin to pull up.
Mr Jones added that if he had not had the presence of mind to apply the brakes quickly, there would have been an accident.
Alfred Griffin said he had been driving for 12 years and angrily insisted that the constable had beckoned him to come on.
Point-duty policemen operated from a little island outside the Sefton where a lamppost was located.
Griffin insisted that he had not seen the bobby until he had sounded his electric horn and then the constable suddenly appeared from behind the lamppost and waved his right hand. That he had taken as the signal for him to advance.
The magistrates felt there had been a genuine misunderstanding over the hand signal and told Griffin to only pay the court costs and dismissed the "trumpery" tax disc charge.
When a man called Ashton from Platt Street was charged with being drunk and disorderly in Broad Oak Road, PC Drysdale told the magistrates that he had seen him outside the Oddfellows Hall where a dance was in progress.
Ashton had shouted to the dancers "Come outside and I will blind you with science." He was then seen staggering along Broad Oak Road.
Then Ashton started aiming blows at a lamp standard and the constable – apparently thinking that with the standard unable to fight back it was an unfair contest – placed him under arrest. Ashton was fined 7s 6d.
Another drunk in court was a chap called Prescott from Wall Street who had been celebrating his birthday too well.
A constable had found him in a drunken condition at midnight in Parr Mount Street and decided to take him home.
On the journey Prescott had said to the officer: "I have worked for the money and I have a right to spend it which way I like." One way was to use his wages to pay his fine of 7s 6d.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the lorry that crashed into a house in Kitchener Street, the break-in at the Hippodrome, the Saturday night disturbance in Silver Street, the council row over a carpet and a rebuff for Lowe House's cinema plans.