IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (27th MARCH - 2nd APRIL 1923)
This week's many stories include the Westfield Street gas explosion, the opening of the Parish Church recreation ground in Rainford Road, a call for a bye-law compelling the humane slaughter of animals in St Helens, the death of a leading St Helens clergyman and the claims of illegitimacy in the Railway Hotel that led to a court case.
We begin on the 29th when a deputation from the RSPCA attended a St Helens Health Committee meeting to call for a bye-law to be introduced in the town compelling butchers to kill animals in a humane manner. Captain Durham of the society had previously criticised the "awful conditions" in the slaughterhouses and called on local butchers to stun their animals before cutting their throats. Humane methods were not used, he said, because the butchers were too conservative and said what had been good enough for their fathers was good enough for them. The committee said they would look into passing a bye-law.
The Rev. Harry Bolton died this week after forty years as vicar at St John's Church in Ravenhead. An interesting man who in 1919 wondered why so many churches – including his own – were now "sparsely filled" on Sunday mornings. Rev. Bolton did not really offer an answer to his own question but many parishioners had, perhaps, lost their faith through the horrendous death toll in the war. Then in 1921 the Vicar of St John's described how he had stumbled across an open-air meeting of Communists at Thatto Heath. Rev. Bolton felt spreading conspiracy theories did not help their cause:
"Long before the speaker at the Thatto Heath meeting had finished, my mind wandered away to the unemployed, the poor millions who have today in England no work and no wages, whose outlook just now is very dark indeed. I said to myself, “Here is a good man, thoroughly in earnest, who can express himself wonderfully well, telling us how the Capitalists engineered the late war, swung all the members of Parliament into doing their bidding; and how to-day a large tract of land in China is being worked by Capitalists from Japan, America and England, to the detriment of the miners on Thatto Heath!”. And I felt that even if all he was saying is true, he would be better employed if he would give his mind to a scheme for helping to make employment at once for those without it to-day."
The Liverpool Echo wrote on the 29th that St Helens Town Council would be considering a recommendation by their Finance Committee to reduce the rates for the next financial year from 17 shillings in the pound to 16s 4d.
The St Helens Reporter described on the 30th how St Helens was taking to the airwaves in a Good Friday concert. The St Helens Glee Club was performing for an hour on the British Broadcasting Company's Manchester station. Surgeon Dr Stanley Siddall from Prescot Road was in charge of the male voice choir.
The Reporter began their account of a recent court case with these words: "Romance and sordidness ran hand in hand through a remarkable story which was unfolded to the Bench at the St. Helens Police Court on Friday. The principals were a girl, her lover, and an unsuccessful wooer, making the usual triangle of forces."
The "unsuccessful wooer" had been William Kelly from Waterloo Street who was charged with making "false, offensive, and defamatory statements" concerning Mary Challinor to William Sergeant with whom the young woman had been "keeping company". Mary's counsel said that his client only knew Kelly through his sister and had only spoken to him on a few occasions.
On February 28th Kelly entered the Shaw Street shop where the 25-year-old worked and out of the blue proposed marriage to her. He said he had been working in America and claimed to have made a lot of money and told Mary she was "foolish to bother with a poor man" like William Sergeant. Mary refused his offer but Kelly was persistent and on the following day called into the shop again to repeat his proposal. He was firmly told she wanted nothing to do with him and Mary's mother even wrote a letter asking Kelly to stay away from her daughter.
Mary's boyfriend, William Sergeant of Arthur Street, told the court that some days later he had bumped into Kelly in the Railway Hotel in Shaw Street and been told by him that Mary had had an illegitimate child by an Irishman and had consumption (TB). "She is not worth bothering about, and I wouldn't have her for £1,000", was what Kelly supposedly had said. In court Kelly's defence counsel asked Mary was it not true that she had been "very chummy" with his client – which she denied.
The solicitor then told the Bench that it was a case of a mountain being made out of a molehill. His client had denied making any derogatory statements but just the same would happily publicly withdraw them if necessary. However, the magistrates did not agree, with the Chairman of the Bench heavily criticising Kelly's claim of Mary having had an illegitimate child: "There can be nothing more serious said against a girl's character than that, and it is up to her to clear herself if anything like that has been said."
Kelly was bound over to be of good behaviour for 12 months with himself paying a surety of £5 and having to find two other persons prepared to pay sureties of £2 10 shillings each. "Rejected Lover's Wild Statements – Remarkably Evidence In Triangular Love Affair", was the Reporter's headline to their article.
Cholertons were pioneering the sale of wireless receivers in St Helens and had many adverts in the Reporter promoting their sets. However, they wanted people to know that their photography side was still going strong and this week ran this ad: "Kodaks For The Holidays! Special show of cameras now on view at … F. Cholerton's Photo Stores, 52, Bridge St., St. Helens."
In St Helens Police Court on the 31st, Lilian Jennion was accused of stealing from the homes of two of her neighbours. The 19-year-old from Carlow Street in Grange Park would enter their houses once the early risers had gone to work. Eleanor Mayor from French Street would get up at 5:15am to wake and make breakfast for her 15-year-old and 17-year-old sons. Once they had left for work, Mrs Mayor ensured the door was secured. Then the 49-year-old widow went back to bed again and at 6:30am her two daughters rose and by 7:10am had both left the house.
Although the girls closed the door behind them it was not locked and on one day when Mrs Mayor did not rise until 8:45am, she found the back door left open. She also noticed that a quarter pound of butter and a loaf of bread had practically all been used and her purse was missing. Lilian Jennion's home was back-to-back with the Mayors and when arrested by the police she made this statement:
"I saw Mayor's girl come out of the back door to go to work. I went up the yard, looked through the kitchen window, and there was no one in. I went inside, made some toast and had some tea. I took a purse and a hat, and stayed twenty minutes and went back home. My sister Annie tore the hat up, and when I opened the purse it was empty." Lilian had been unemployed for two years and also admitted entering a neighbour's house in Carlow Street and stealing bacon and a few small items. She was bound over for two years upon condition she entered a girls' home.
People still routinely used lighted candles with the obvious dangers. This week an elderly woman from Westfield Street (pictured above) identified as a Mrs Taylor went down her cellar steps carrying a candle in order to put a penny in her gas meter. She was unaware that there was a leak in a gas pipe and the inevitable explosion occurred. Mrs Taylor was described as "prostrated for a short time by shock" as several articles in her cellar caught fire.
Albert Palliser from Croppers Hill happened to be passing outside her premises and hearing the explosion lifted the cellar grid in the street. The young man then dashed down into the cellar and extinguished the fire and assisted Mrs Taylor to a place of safety. The Reporter wrote: "The Borough Fire Brigade was on the scene with great promptitude, but owing to the prompt and plucky action of Mr Palliser their services were not needed."
And finally, it was Easter Monday on April 2nd and the Reporter said it would be remembered by the parishioners of St Helens Parish Church as a "red letter day in the social side of its parochial life". That was because the church recreation ground in Rainford Road was formally opened. In the afternoon a large crowd gathered to witness the opening ceremony and watch the first football match to be played on the new ground. Although the field was not entirely new as Cllr. Varley who opened the ground stated that he had played rugby on it thirty years before.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the paranoid doctor from Cowley Hill Lane, the Ravenhead housekeeper's tragic suicide, St Helens Ladies triumph against their old rivals and the pram stealer who did not want to spend Easter in a cell.
We begin on the 29th when a deputation from the RSPCA attended a St Helens Health Committee meeting to call for a bye-law to be introduced in the town compelling butchers to kill animals in a humane manner. Captain Durham of the society had previously criticised the "awful conditions" in the slaughterhouses and called on local butchers to stun their animals before cutting their throats. Humane methods were not used, he said, because the butchers were too conservative and said what had been good enough for their fathers was good enough for them. The committee said they would look into passing a bye-law.
The Rev. Harry Bolton died this week after forty years as vicar at St John's Church in Ravenhead. An interesting man who in 1919 wondered why so many churches – including his own – were now "sparsely filled" on Sunday mornings. Rev. Bolton did not really offer an answer to his own question but many parishioners had, perhaps, lost their faith through the horrendous death toll in the war. Then in 1921 the Vicar of St John's described how he had stumbled across an open-air meeting of Communists at Thatto Heath. Rev. Bolton felt spreading conspiracy theories did not help their cause:
"Long before the speaker at the Thatto Heath meeting had finished, my mind wandered away to the unemployed, the poor millions who have today in England no work and no wages, whose outlook just now is very dark indeed. I said to myself, “Here is a good man, thoroughly in earnest, who can express himself wonderfully well, telling us how the Capitalists engineered the late war, swung all the members of Parliament into doing their bidding; and how to-day a large tract of land in China is being worked by Capitalists from Japan, America and England, to the detriment of the miners on Thatto Heath!”. And I felt that even if all he was saying is true, he would be better employed if he would give his mind to a scheme for helping to make employment at once for those without it to-day."
The Liverpool Echo wrote on the 29th that St Helens Town Council would be considering a recommendation by their Finance Committee to reduce the rates for the next financial year from 17 shillings in the pound to 16s 4d.
The St Helens Reporter described on the 30th how St Helens was taking to the airwaves in a Good Friday concert. The St Helens Glee Club was performing for an hour on the British Broadcasting Company's Manchester station. Surgeon Dr Stanley Siddall from Prescot Road was in charge of the male voice choir.
The Reporter began their account of a recent court case with these words: "Romance and sordidness ran hand in hand through a remarkable story which was unfolded to the Bench at the St. Helens Police Court on Friday. The principals were a girl, her lover, and an unsuccessful wooer, making the usual triangle of forces."
The "unsuccessful wooer" had been William Kelly from Waterloo Street who was charged with making "false, offensive, and defamatory statements" concerning Mary Challinor to William Sergeant with whom the young woman had been "keeping company". Mary's counsel said that his client only knew Kelly through his sister and had only spoken to him on a few occasions.
On February 28th Kelly entered the Shaw Street shop where the 25-year-old worked and out of the blue proposed marriage to her. He said he had been working in America and claimed to have made a lot of money and told Mary she was "foolish to bother with a poor man" like William Sergeant. Mary refused his offer but Kelly was persistent and on the following day called into the shop again to repeat his proposal. He was firmly told she wanted nothing to do with him and Mary's mother even wrote a letter asking Kelly to stay away from her daughter.
Mary's boyfriend, William Sergeant of Arthur Street, told the court that some days later he had bumped into Kelly in the Railway Hotel in Shaw Street and been told by him that Mary had had an illegitimate child by an Irishman and had consumption (TB). "She is not worth bothering about, and I wouldn't have her for £1,000", was what Kelly supposedly had said. In court Kelly's defence counsel asked Mary was it not true that she had been "very chummy" with his client – which she denied.
The solicitor then told the Bench that it was a case of a mountain being made out of a molehill. His client had denied making any derogatory statements but just the same would happily publicly withdraw them if necessary. However, the magistrates did not agree, with the Chairman of the Bench heavily criticising Kelly's claim of Mary having had an illegitimate child: "There can be nothing more serious said against a girl's character than that, and it is up to her to clear herself if anything like that has been said."
Kelly was bound over to be of good behaviour for 12 months with himself paying a surety of £5 and having to find two other persons prepared to pay sureties of £2 10 shillings each. "Rejected Lover's Wild Statements – Remarkably Evidence In Triangular Love Affair", was the Reporter's headline to their article.
Cholertons were pioneering the sale of wireless receivers in St Helens and had many adverts in the Reporter promoting their sets. However, they wanted people to know that their photography side was still going strong and this week ran this ad: "Kodaks For The Holidays! Special show of cameras now on view at … F. Cholerton's Photo Stores, 52, Bridge St., St. Helens."
In St Helens Police Court on the 31st, Lilian Jennion was accused of stealing from the homes of two of her neighbours. The 19-year-old from Carlow Street in Grange Park would enter their houses once the early risers had gone to work. Eleanor Mayor from French Street would get up at 5:15am to wake and make breakfast for her 15-year-old and 17-year-old sons. Once they had left for work, Mrs Mayor ensured the door was secured. Then the 49-year-old widow went back to bed again and at 6:30am her two daughters rose and by 7:10am had both left the house.
Although the girls closed the door behind them it was not locked and on one day when Mrs Mayor did not rise until 8:45am, she found the back door left open. She also noticed that a quarter pound of butter and a loaf of bread had practically all been used and her purse was missing. Lilian Jennion's home was back-to-back with the Mayors and when arrested by the police she made this statement:
"I saw Mayor's girl come out of the back door to go to work. I went up the yard, looked through the kitchen window, and there was no one in. I went inside, made some toast and had some tea. I took a purse and a hat, and stayed twenty minutes and went back home. My sister Annie tore the hat up, and when I opened the purse it was empty." Lilian had been unemployed for two years and also admitted entering a neighbour's house in Carlow Street and stealing bacon and a few small items. She was bound over for two years upon condition she entered a girls' home.
Albert Palliser from Croppers Hill happened to be passing outside her premises and hearing the explosion lifted the cellar grid in the street. The young man then dashed down into the cellar and extinguished the fire and assisted Mrs Taylor to a place of safety. The Reporter wrote: "The Borough Fire Brigade was on the scene with great promptitude, but owing to the prompt and plucky action of Mr Palliser their services were not needed."
And finally, it was Easter Monday on April 2nd and the Reporter said it would be remembered by the parishioners of St Helens Parish Church as a "red letter day in the social side of its parochial life". That was because the church recreation ground in Rainford Road was formally opened. In the afternoon a large crowd gathered to witness the opening ceremony and watch the first football match to be played on the new ground. Although the field was not entirely new as Cllr. Varley who opened the ground stated that he had played rugby on it thirty years before.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the paranoid doctor from Cowley Hill Lane, the Ravenhead housekeeper's tragic suicide, St Helens Ladies triumph against their old rivals and the pram stealer who did not want to spend Easter in a cell.
This week's many stories include the Westfield Street gas explosion, the opening of the Parish Church recreation ground in Rainford Road, a call for a bye-law compelling the humane slaughter of animals in St Helens, the death of a leading St Helens clergyman and the claims of illegitimacy in the Railway Hotel that led to a court case.
We begin on the 29th when a deputation from the RSPCA attended a St Helens Health Committee meeting to call for a bye-law to be introduced in the town compelling butchers to kill animals in a humane manner.
Captain Durham of the society had previously criticised the "awful conditions" in the slaughterhouses and called on local butchers to stun their animals before cutting their throats.
Humane methods were not used, he said, because the butchers were too conservative and said what had been good enough for their fathers was good enough for them. The committee said they would look into passing a bye-law.
The Rev. Harry Bolton died this week after forty years as vicar at St John's Church in Ravenhead.
An interesting man who in 1919 wondered why so many churches – including his own – were now "sparsely filled" on Sunday mornings.
Rev. Bolton did not really offer an answer to his own question but many parishioners had, perhaps, lost their faith through the horrendous death toll in the war.
Then in 1921 the Vicar of St John's described how he had stumbled across an open-air meeting of Communists at Thatto Heath. Rev. Bolton felt spreading conspiracy theories did not help their cause:
"Long before the speaker at the Thatto Heath meeting had finished, my mind wandered away to the unemployed, the poor millions who have today in England no work and no wages, whose outlook just now is very dark indeed.
"I said to myself, “Here is a good man, thoroughly in earnest, who can express himself wonderfully well, telling us how the Capitalists engineered the late war, swung all the members of Parliament into doing their bidding; and how to-day a large tract of land in China is being worked by Capitalists from Japan, America and England, to the detriment of the miners on Thatto Heath!”.
"And I felt that even if all he was saying is true, he would be better employed if he would give his mind to a scheme for helping to make employment at once for those without it to-day."
The Liverpool Echo wrote on the 29th that St Helens Town Council would be considering a recommendation by their Finance Committee to reduce the rates for the next financial year from 17 shillings in the pound to 16s 4d.
The St Helens Reporter described on the 30th how St Helens was taking to the airwaves in a Good Friday concert.
The St Helens Glee Club was performing for an hour on the British Broadcasting Company's Manchester station. Surgeon Dr Stanley Siddall from Prescot Road was in charge of the male voice choir.
The Reporter began their account of a recent court case with these words:
"Romance and sordidness ran hand in hand through a remarkable story which was unfolded to the Bench at the St. Helens Police Court on Friday.
"The principals were a girl, her lover, and an unsuccessful wooer, making the usual triangle of forces."
The "unsuccessful wooer" had been William Kelly from Waterloo Street who was charged with making "false, offensive, and defamatory statements" concerning Mary Challinor to William Sergeant with whom the young woman had been "keeping company".
Mary's counsel said that his client only knew Kelly through his sister and had only spoken to him on a few occasions.
On February 28th Kelly entered the Shaw Street shop where the 25-year-old worked and out of the blue proposed marriage to her.
He said he had been working in America and claimed to have made a lot of money and told Mary she was "foolish to bother with a poor man" like William Sergeant.
Mary refused his offer but Kelly was persistent and on the following day called into the shop again to repeat his proposal.
He was firmly told she wanted nothing to do with him and Mary's mother even wrote a letter asking Kelly to stay away from her daughter.
Mary's boyfriend, William Sergeant of Arthur Street, told the court that some days later he had bumped into Kelly in the Railway Hotel in Shaw Street and been told by him that Mary had had an illegitimate child by an Irishman and had consumption (TB).
"She is not worth bothering about, and I wouldn't have her for £1,000", was what Kelly supposedly had said.
In court Kelly's defence counsel asked Mary was it not true that she had been "very chummy" with his client – which she denied.
The solicitor then told the Bench that it was a case of a mountain being made out of a molehill.
His client had denied making any derogatory statements but just the same would happily publicly withdraw them if necessary.
However, the magistrates did not agree, with the Chairman of the Bench heavily criticising Kelly's claim of Mary having had an illegitimate child:
"There can be nothing more serious said against a girl's character than that, and it is up to her to clear herself if anything like that has been said."
Kelly was bound over to be of good behaviour for 12 months with himself paying a surety of £5 and having to find two other persons prepared to pay sureties of £2 10 shillings each.
"Rejected Lover's Wild Statements – Remarkably Evidence In Triangular Love Affair", was the Reporter's headline to their article.
Cholertons were pioneering the sale of wireless receivers in St Helens and had many adverts in the Reporter promoting their sets.
However, they wanted people to know that their photography side was still going strong and this week ran this ad:
"Kodaks For The Holidays! Special show of cameras now on view at … F. Cholerton's Photo Stores, 52, Bridge St., St. Helens."
In St Helens Police Court on the 31st, Lilian Jennion was accused of stealing from the homes of two of her neighbours.
The 19-year-old from Carlow Street in Grange Park would enter their houses once the early risers had gone to work.
Eleanor Mayor from French Street would get up at 5:15am to wake and make breakfast for her 15-year-old and 17-year-old sons.
Once they had left for work, Mrs Mayor ensured the door was secured. Then the 49-year-old widow went back to bed again and at 6:30am her two daughters rose and by 7:10am had both left the house.
Although the girls closed the door behind them it was not locked and on one day when Mrs Mayor did not rise until 8:45am, she found the back door left open.
She also noticed that a quarter pound of butter and a loaf of bread had practically all been used and her purse was missing.
Lilian Jennion's home was back-to-back with the Mayors and when arrested by the police she made this statement:
"I saw Mayor's girl come out of the back door to go to work. I went up the yard, looked through the kitchen window, and there was no one in. I went inside, made some toast and had some tea. I took a purse and a hat, and stayed twenty minutes and went back home. My sister Annie tore the hat up, and when I opened the purse it was empty."
Lilian had been unemployed for two years and also admitted entering a neighbour's house in Carlow Street and stealing bacon and a few small items.
She was bound over for two years upon condition she entered a girls' home.
People still routinely used lighted candles with the obvious dangers. This week an elderly woman from Westfield Street (pictured above) identified as a Mrs Taylor went down her cellar steps carrying a candle in order to put a penny in her gas meter.
She was unaware that there was a leak in a gas pipe and the inevitable explosion occurred.
Mrs Taylor was described as "prostrated for a short time by shock" as several articles in her cellar caught fire.
Albert Palliser from Croppers Hill happened to be passing outside her premises and hearing the explosion lifted the cellar grid in the street.
The young man then dashed down into the cellar and extinguished the fire and assisted Mrs Taylor to a place of safety. The Reporter wrote:
"The Borough Fire Brigade was on the scene with great promptitude, but owing to the prompt and plucky action of Mr Palliser their services were not needed."
And finally, it was Easter Monday on April 2nd and the Reporter said it would be remembered by the parishioners of St Helens Parish Church as a "red letter day in the social side of its parochial life".
That was because the church recreation ground in Rainford Road was formally opened.
In the afternoon a large crowd gathered to witness the opening ceremony and watch the first football match to be played on the new ground.
Although the field was not entirely new as Cllr. Varley who opened the ground stated that he had played rugby on it thirty years before.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the paranoid doctor from Cowley Hill Lane, the Ravenhead housekeeper's tragic suicide, St Helens Ladies triumph against their old rivals and the pram stealer who did not want to spend Easter in a cell.
We begin on the 29th when a deputation from the RSPCA attended a St Helens Health Committee meeting to call for a bye-law to be introduced in the town compelling butchers to kill animals in a humane manner.
Captain Durham of the society had previously criticised the "awful conditions" in the slaughterhouses and called on local butchers to stun their animals before cutting their throats.
Humane methods were not used, he said, because the butchers were too conservative and said what had been good enough for their fathers was good enough for them. The committee said they would look into passing a bye-law.
The Rev. Harry Bolton died this week after forty years as vicar at St John's Church in Ravenhead.
An interesting man who in 1919 wondered why so many churches – including his own – were now "sparsely filled" on Sunday mornings.
Rev. Bolton did not really offer an answer to his own question but many parishioners had, perhaps, lost their faith through the horrendous death toll in the war.
Then in 1921 the Vicar of St John's described how he had stumbled across an open-air meeting of Communists at Thatto Heath. Rev. Bolton felt spreading conspiracy theories did not help their cause:
"Long before the speaker at the Thatto Heath meeting had finished, my mind wandered away to the unemployed, the poor millions who have today in England no work and no wages, whose outlook just now is very dark indeed.
"I said to myself, “Here is a good man, thoroughly in earnest, who can express himself wonderfully well, telling us how the Capitalists engineered the late war, swung all the members of Parliament into doing their bidding; and how to-day a large tract of land in China is being worked by Capitalists from Japan, America and England, to the detriment of the miners on Thatto Heath!”.
"And I felt that even if all he was saying is true, he would be better employed if he would give his mind to a scheme for helping to make employment at once for those without it to-day."
The Liverpool Echo wrote on the 29th that St Helens Town Council would be considering a recommendation by their Finance Committee to reduce the rates for the next financial year from 17 shillings in the pound to 16s 4d.
The St Helens Reporter described on the 30th how St Helens was taking to the airwaves in a Good Friday concert.
The St Helens Glee Club was performing for an hour on the British Broadcasting Company's Manchester station. Surgeon Dr Stanley Siddall from Prescot Road was in charge of the male voice choir.
The Reporter began their account of a recent court case with these words:
"Romance and sordidness ran hand in hand through a remarkable story which was unfolded to the Bench at the St. Helens Police Court on Friday.
"The principals were a girl, her lover, and an unsuccessful wooer, making the usual triangle of forces."
The "unsuccessful wooer" had been William Kelly from Waterloo Street who was charged with making "false, offensive, and defamatory statements" concerning Mary Challinor to William Sergeant with whom the young woman had been "keeping company".
Mary's counsel said that his client only knew Kelly through his sister and had only spoken to him on a few occasions.
On February 28th Kelly entered the Shaw Street shop where the 25-year-old worked and out of the blue proposed marriage to her.
He said he had been working in America and claimed to have made a lot of money and told Mary she was "foolish to bother with a poor man" like William Sergeant.
Mary refused his offer but Kelly was persistent and on the following day called into the shop again to repeat his proposal.
He was firmly told she wanted nothing to do with him and Mary's mother even wrote a letter asking Kelly to stay away from her daughter.
Mary's boyfriend, William Sergeant of Arthur Street, told the court that some days later he had bumped into Kelly in the Railway Hotel in Shaw Street and been told by him that Mary had had an illegitimate child by an Irishman and had consumption (TB).
"She is not worth bothering about, and I wouldn't have her for £1,000", was what Kelly supposedly had said.
In court Kelly's defence counsel asked Mary was it not true that she had been "very chummy" with his client – which she denied.
The solicitor then told the Bench that it was a case of a mountain being made out of a molehill.
His client had denied making any derogatory statements but just the same would happily publicly withdraw them if necessary.
However, the magistrates did not agree, with the Chairman of the Bench heavily criticising Kelly's claim of Mary having had an illegitimate child:
"There can be nothing more serious said against a girl's character than that, and it is up to her to clear herself if anything like that has been said."
Kelly was bound over to be of good behaviour for 12 months with himself paying a surety of £5 and having to find two other persons prepared to pay sureties of £2 10 shillings each.
"Rejected Lover's Wild Statements – Remarkably Evidence In Triangular Love Affair", was the Reporter's headline to their article.
Cholertons were pioneering the sale of wireless receivers in St Helens and had many adverts in the Reporter promoting their sets.
However, they wanted people to know that their photography side was still going strong and this week ran this ad:
"Kodaks For The Holidays! Special show of cameras now on view at … F. Cholerton's Photo Stores, 52, Bridge St., St. Helens."
In St Helens Police Court on the 31st, Lilian Jennion was accused of stealing from the homes of two of her neighbours.
The 19-year-old from Carlow Street in Grange Park would enter their houses once the early risers had gone to work.
Eleanor Mayor from French Street would get up at 5:15am to wake and make breakfast for her 15-year-old and 17-year-old sons.
Once they had left for work, Mrs Mayor ensured the door was secured. Then the 49-year-old widow went back to bed again and at 6:30am her two daughters rose and by 7:10am had both left the house.
Although the girls closed the door behind them it was not locked and on one day when Mrs Mayor did not rise until 8:45am, she found the back door left open.
She also noticed that a quarter pound of butter and a loaf of bread had practically all been used and her purse was missing.
Lilian Jennion's home was back-to-back with the Mayors and when arrested by the police she made this statement:
"I saw Mayor's girl come out of the back door to go to work. I went up the yard, looked through the kitchen window, and there was no one in. I went inside, made some toast and had some tea. I took a purse and a hat, and stayed twenty minutes and went back home. My sister Annie tore the hat up, and when I opened the purse it was empty."
Lilian had been unemployed for two years and also admitted entering a neighbour's house in Carlow Street and stealing bacon and a few small items.
She was bound over for two years upon condition she entered a girls' home.
She was unaware that there was a leak in a gas pipe and the inevitable explosion occurred.
Mrs Taylor was described as "prostrated for a short time by shock" as several articles in her cellar caught fire.
Albert Palliser from Croppers Hill happened to be passing outside her premises and hearing the explosion lifted the cellar grid in the street.
The young man then dashed down into the cellar and extinguished the fire and assisted Mrs Taylor to a place of safety. The Reporter wrote:
"The Borough Fire Brigade was on the scene with great promptitude, but owing to the prompt and plucky action of Mr Palliser their services were not needed."
And finally, it was Easter Monday on April 2nd and the Reporter said it would be remembered by the parishioners of St Helens Parish Church as a "red letter day in the social side of its parochial life".
That was because the church recreation ground in Rainford Road was formally opened.
In the afternoon a large crowd gathered to witness the opening ceremony and watch the first football match to be played on the new ground.
Although the field was not entirely new as Cllr. Varley who opened the ground stated that he had played rugby on it thirty years before.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the paranoid doctor from Cowley Hill Lane, the Ravenhead housekeeper's tragic suicide, St Helens Ladies triumph against their old rivals and the pram stealer who did not want to spend Easter in a cell.