IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (29 MAY - 4 JUNE 1923)
This week's many stories include the shocking case of a man's attempted murder of his 5-year-old niece, the St Helens MP accuses another member of parliament of being a liar, the missing money at Haydock Labour Club, a 3-month-long Mersey mystery is finally solved and the 8-foot high bicycle that came to St Helens.
The St Helens Labour MP James Sexton comes across as having been a very amiable man who tended to take a middle of the road approach to politics. But we all have things that can make us seethe and Sexton's nerve was certainly touched this week. "It is a lie – an atrocious lie. You are a liar." That is what the mild-mannered man told another MP in the House of Commons on the 29th.
John Remer, the Conservative member for Macclesfield, was attempting to introduce a private member's bill in which trade union members could choose to opt out of contributing to levies that boosted MPs' salaries. It was then common for Members of Parliament to have other demanding part-time jobs, with several St Helens MPs over the years being practising lawyers. Sexton's other job was being the long-standing Secretary of the Dockers Union and Remer implied that he received £2,000 from that post as a yearly salary.
The Speaker of the Commons demanded that Sexton withdraw his lie claim, as it was considered unparliamentary language. That he did but then he accused Remer of telling a deliberate untruth. "You have blackened me deliberately," added Mr Sexton as he shook his fist towards the man. "I will give you a punch on the jaw, look out, I am telling you." Mr Sexton was persuaded by his colleagues to leave the chamber, but in the end Remer's proposed bill was rejected in a vote.
At 6.45pm on the 29th Ernest Thorley walked into St Helens Police Station and made this chilling confession: "I have cut a child's throat at 36, Eldon Street. It will save a lot of trouble." Upon being asked where the girl was the man replied: "In the back bedroom." The 20-year-old handed over a door key to Chief Inspector Roe who immediately went to the house accompanied by Dr Eric Reid.
In the bedroom they found little Marion Rowe partly suffocated with her head jammed between a mattress and the bedrail of an iron bedstead. When she was released the five-year-old was found to have a wound three inches long under her chin and she was taken to Providence Hospital. On the following morning Thorley appeared in court charged with wounding with intent to murder.
It was revealed that he was the girl's uncle and when charged said: "I have nothing to say, only that this is the razor I did it with." Investigations revealed that Thorley's married sister had gone with her husband to the cinema and he was babysitting the child who initially had been playing in the street. In the dock the man was described as calm and collected and offered no objection to being remanded for eight days when the girl would hopefully be fit to give evidence. The St Helens Reporter's headline to their article was "Child's Fearful Ordeal".
Around about the time Thorley was committing his dreadful act, Edward Webster was knocked down by a butcher's van in Lowfield Lane in Lea Green and killed. Children routinely played in the street and were often run over. At the 7-year-old’s inquest on the following day, the coroner exonerated the driver from blame.
Sometimes employees caught with their hands in the till were not prosecuted in the Police Court at the Town Hall – but instead sued at the County Court in East Street (pictured above). Going down the criminal route rarely got you your money back and so it could be seen as more pragmatic to take the civil option.
On the 30th William Halsall, the president of Haydock Working Men's Labour Club, brought an action against Henry Smith for £45 1s 5d. He had been a steward at the club for three years and when stocktaking took place in 1922 a number of deficiencies were found. Smith was blamed and sacked and now the club wanted its money back.
Although the man had offered to repay the shortfall at 5 shillings a month, he denied responsibility, putting the losses down to such things as beer that had gone off. The judge ruled that the system of working at the club seemed rather loose but said he considered the defendant responsible for £30 of the loss which he ordered him to repay at 20 shillings a month.
On the 31st two collapses of underground roof took place down two different St Helens coalmines. At the Ravenhead Pit of the St Helens Collieries Company, a stone weighing two tons killed Richard Egerton. He was 61 and had been working down mines since the age of nine. And at Ashtons Green Colliery in Parr four men were injured by a roof collapse, including 29-year-old William Chadwick of Allanson Street and 28-year-old Edward Boyle of Tontine Street. They would both later die from their injuries.
What the Reporter described as a "giraffe bicycle" passed through St Helens on the 31st as part of its tour of Lancashire. The "freak cycle" was 8 ft 6 ins high and had been built by Raleigh to promote National Bicycle Week.
There was a marked contrast between how certain crimes were now dealt with by the courts compared to 50 years before. In the 1870s stealing small amounts of coal almost always led to a short prison sentence, even in the most desperate cases of poverty. However, this week the Reporter described how Clarence Murray from Fleet Lane had had his case dismissed after being charged with stealing 55 pounds of coal worth 10 shillings from Ashton's Green Colliery.
The 26-year old with six children explained to the Bench that his family lived on only 26 shillings per week. He said they had no coal in the house and if they bought coal they would have to go without meat. Upon promising the magistrates that he would keep away from the colliery in future, the magistrates let the man go, something that would never have happened in the past.
The crime of lodging out – that we refer to as sleeping rough – was also harshly treated in the 1870s with prison the routine sentence. But this week when William Owen faced such a charge after being caught sleeping in the Metallic Brickworks in Sutton, he was released from the court upon condition he went to Whiston Workhouse.
James Tickle was in trouble for working while claiming unemployment benefit. The man from Salisbury Street had only been receiving 2s 6d a day and when Ellen Dooley offered him a job in her Doulton Street shop he jumped at it. The work was only on one day a week for which he received just four shillings pay – but it was sufficient to warrant a prosecution when the authorities learnt of his employment.
There was no such thing as unemployment benefit in the 1870s and so no comparison can be made. However, in the 1920s the courts were clamping down on abuse of the benefit system and prison was the usual sentence for convicted offenders. But the magistrates decided that Tickle's offence was not in the most serious category and he was only fined £2 2 shillings.
The 22nd St Helens Horse Show and Parade was held on June 2nd. The Reporter wrote: "Nothing less than hero-worship, interpreted in the form of slavish application of paste and polish, cloth and brush, made possible such an exhilarating parade of the grand animals which come next to man in intelligence and usefulness."
On the 3rd the body of John McClone was discovered in the canal at Blackbrook. The 35-year-old had left Whiston Workhouse earlier that day and walked to St Helens – seemingly to drown himself.
On the 4th the Liverpool Echo described how the 3-month long mystery of the disappearance of William Williams looked like being solved. The 26-year-old from New Street in Sutton had been employed as a travelling salesman for Dewar's wholesale tobacconists of Corporation Street in St Helens. On February 16th Williams had called in at the Ferry Hotel at Penketh on the Mersey where he took an order from the landlord.
After briefly returning to his van to deposit a bag, William told the driver to wait a moment while he went back to the hotel. A few minutes later a woman told the driver that someone had fallen into the river. A search took place and a smouldering cigarette-end was found on the riverbank along with Williams' hat. The soil on the bank also showed traces of being recently disturbed. Finally, after over three months, a body had been recovered from the river, which inside a pocket of the coat had a driving licence belonging to Williams.
At the man's inquest his father described how his son had experienced a nervous breakdown three years earlier, which had had a temporary effect on his brain. The Coroner in returning a verdict of "Suicide whilst of unsound mind" said he was sorry he could not come to any other conclusion, adding: "Williams had a sudden impulse, probably in the same way he had three years ago, and his mind was in such a state that he could not help himself and took away his own life."
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Silkstone Street lovers' quarrel in which a woman is slashed with a razor, the nuisance newsboys on their brakeless bikes and the 15 people sharing two bedrooms in a house with 22 broken panes of glass.
The St Helens Labour MP James Sexton comes across as having been a very amiable man who tended to take a middle of the road approach to politics. But we all have things that can make us seethe and Sexton's nerve was certainly touched this week. "It is a lie – an atrocious lie. You are a liar." That is what the mild-mannered man told another MP in the House of Commons on the 29th.
John Remer, the Conservative member for Macclesfield, was attempting to introduce a private member's bill in which trade union members could choose to opt out of contributing to levies that boosted MPs' salaries. It was then common for Members of Parliament to have other demanding part-time jobs, with several St Helens MPs over the years being practising lawyers. Sexton's other job was being the long-standing Secretary of the Dockers Union and Remer implied that he received £2,000 from that post as a yearly salary.
The Speaker of the Commons demanded that Sexton withdraw his lie claim, as it was considered unparliamentary language. That he did but then he accused Remer of telling a deliberate untruth. "You have blackened me deliberately," added Mr Sexton as he shook his fist towards the man. "I will give you a punch on the jaw, look out, I am telling you." Mr Sexton was persuaded by his colleagues to leave the chamber, but in the end Remer's proposed bill was rejected in a vote.
At 6.45pm on the 29th Ernest Thorley walked into St Helens Police Station and made this chilling confession: "I have cut a child's throat at 36, Eldon Street. It will save a lot of trouble." Upon being asked where the girl was the man replied: "In the back bedroom." The 20-year-old handed over a door key to Chief Inspector Roe who immediately went to the house accompanied by Dr Eric Reid.
In the bedroom they found little Marion Rowe partly suffocated with her head jammed between a mattress and the bedrail of an iron bedstead. When she was released the five-year-old was found to have a wound three inches long under her chin and she was taken to Providence Hospital. On the following morning Thorley appeared in court charged with wounding with intent to murder.
It was revealed that he was the girl's uncle and when charged said: "I have nothing to say, only that this is the razor I did it with." Investigations revealed that Thorley's married sister had gone with her husband to the cinema and he was babysitting the child who initially had been playing in the street. In the dock the man was described as calm and collected and offered no objection to being remanded for eight days when the girl would hopefully be fit to give evidence. The St Helens Reporter's headline to their article was "Child's Fearful Ordeal".
Around about the time Thorley was committing his dreadful act, Edward Webster was knocked down by a butcher's van in Lowfield Lane in Lea Green and killed. Children routinely played in the street and were often run over. At the 7-year-old’s inquest on the following day, the coroner exonerated the driver from blame.
On the 30th William Halsall, the president of Haydock Working Men's Labour Club, brought an action against Henry Smith for £45 1s 5d. He had been a steward at the club for three years and when stocktaking took place in 1922 a number of deficiencies were found. Smith was blamed and sacked and now the club wanted its money back.
Although the man had offered to repay the shortfall at 5 shillings a month, he denied responsibility, putting the losses down to such things as beer that had gone off. The judge ruled that the system of working at the club seemed rather loose but said he considered the defendant responsible for £30 of the loss which he ordered him to repay at 20 shillings a month.
On the 31st two collapses of underground roof took place down two different St Helens coalmines. At the Ravenhead Pit of the St Helens Collieries Company, a stone weighing two tons killed Richard Egerton. He was 61 and had been working down mines since the age of nine. And at Ashtons Green Colliery in Parr four men were injured by a roof collapse, including 29-year-old William Chadwick of Allanson Street and 28-year-old Edward Boyle of Tontine Street. They would both later die from their injuries.
What the Reporter described as a "giraffe bicycle" passed through St Helens on the 31st as part of its tour of Lancashire. The "freak cycle" was 8 ft 6 ins high and had been built by Raleigh to promote National Bicycle Week.
There was a marked contrast between how certain crimes were now dealt with by the courts compared to 50 years before. In the 1870s stealing small amounts of coal almost always led to a short prison sentence, even in the most desperate cases of poverty. However, this week the Reporter described how Clarence Murray from Fleet Lane had had his case dismissed after being charged with stealing 55 pounds of coal worth 10 shillings from Ashton's Green Colliery.
The 26-year old with six children explained to the Bench that his family lived on only 26 shillings per week. He said they had no coal in the house and if they bought coal they would have to go without meat. Upon promising the magistrates that he would keep away from the colliery in future, the magistrates let the man go, something that would never have happened in the past.
The crime of lodging out – that we refer to as sleeping rough – was also harshly treated in the 1870s with prison the routine sentence. But this week when William Owen faced such a charge after being caught sleeping in the Metallic Brickworks in Sutton, he was released from the court upon condition he went to Whiston Workhouse.
James Tickle was in trouble for working while claiming unemployment benefit. The man from Salisbury Street had only been receiving 2s 6d a day and when Ellen Dooley offered him a job in her Doulton Street shop he jumped at it. The work was only on one day a week for which he received just four shillings pay – but it was sufficient to warrant a prosecution when the authorities learnt of his employment.
There was no such thing as unemployment benefit in the 1870s and so no comparison can be made. However, in the 1920s the courts were clamping down on abuse of the benefit system and prison was the usual sentence for convicted offenders. But the magistrates decided that Tickle's offence was not in the most serious category and he was only fined £2 2 shillings.
The 22nd St Helens Horse Show and Parade was held on June 2nd. The Reporter wrote: "Nothing less than hero-worship, interpreted in the form of slavish application of paste and polish, cloth and brush, made possible such an exhilarating parade of the grand animals which come next to man in intelligence and usefulness."
On the 3rd the body of John McClone was discovered in the canal at Blackbrook. The 35-year-old had left Whiston Workhouse earlier that day and walked to St Helens – seemingly to drown himself.
On the 4th the Liverpool Echo described how the 3-month long mystery of the disappearance of William Williams looked like being solved. The 26-year-old from New Street in Sutton had been employed as a travelling salesman for Dewar's wholesale tobacconists of Corporation Street in St Helens. On February 16th Williams had called in at the Ferry Hotel at Penketh on the Mersey where he took an order from the landlord.
After briefly returning to his van to deposit a bag, William told the driver to wait a moment while he went back to the hotel. A few minutes later a woman told the driver that someone had fallen into the river. A search took place and a smouldering cigarette-end was found on the riverbank along with Williams' hat. The soil on the bank also showed traces of being recently disturbed. Finally, after over three months, a body had been recovered from the river, which inside a pocket of the coat had a driving licence belonging to Williams.
At the man's inquest his father described how his son had experienced a nervous breakdown three years earlier, which had had a temporary effect on his brain. The Coroner in returning a verdict of "Suicide whilst of unsound mind" said he was sorry he could not come to any other conclusion, adding: "Williams had a sudden impulse, probably in the same way he had three years ago, and his mind was in such a state that he could not help himself and took away his own life."
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Silkstone Street lovers' quarrel in which a woman is slashed with a razor, the nuisance newsboys on their brakeless bikes and the 15 people sharing two bedrooms in a house with 22 broken panes of glass.
This week's many stories include the shocking case of a man's attempted murder of his 5-year-old niece, the St Helens MP accuses another member of parliament of being a liar, the missing money at Haydock Labour Club, a 3-month-long Mersey mystery is finally solved and the 8-foot high bicycle that came to St Helens.
The St Helens Labour MP James Sexton comes across as having been a very amiable man who tended to take a middle of the road approach to politics.
But we all have things that can make us seethe and Sexton's nerve was certainly touched this week.
"It is a lie – an atrocious lie. You are a liar." That is what the mild-mannered man told another MP in the House of Commons on the 29th.
John Remer, the Conservative member for Macclesfield, was attempting to introduce a private member's bill in which trade union members could choose to opt out of contributing to levies that boosted MPs' salaries.
It was then common for Members of Parliament to have other demanding part-time jobs, with several St Helens MPs over the years being practising lawyers.
Sexton's other job was being the long-standing Secretary of the Dockers Union and Remer implied that he received £2,000 from that post as a yearly salary.
The Speaker of the Commons demanded that Sexton withdraw his lie claim, as it was considered unparliamentary language.
That he did but then he accused Remer of telling a deliberate untruth.
"You have blackened me deliberately," added Mr Sexton as he shook his fist towards the man. "I will give you a punch on the jaw, look out, I am telling you."
Mr Sexton was persuaded by his colleagues to leave the chamber, but in the end Remer's proposed bill was rejected in a vote.
At 6.45pm on the 29th Ernest Thorley walked into St Helens Police Station and made this chilling confession: "I have cut a child's throat at 36, Eldon Street. It will save a lot of trouble."
Upon being asked where the girl was the man replied: "In the back bedroom."
The 20-year-old handed over a door key to Chief Inspector Roe who immediately went to the house accompanied by Dr Eric Reid.
In the bedroom they found little Marion Rowe partly suffocated with her head jammed between a mattress and the bedrail of an iron bedstead.
When she was released the five-year-old was found to have a wound three inches long under her chin and she was taken to Providence Hospital.
On the following morning Thorley appeared in court charged with wounding with intent to murder.
It was revealed that he was the girl's uncle and when charged said: "I have nothing to say, only that this is the razor I did it with."
Investigations revealed that Thorley's married sister had gone with her husband to the cinema and he was babysitting the child who initially had been playing in the street.
In the dock the man was described as calm and collected and offered no objection to being remanded for eight days when the girl would hopefully be fit to give evidence.
The St Helens Reporter's headline to their article was "Child's Fearful Ordeal".
Around about the time Thorley was committing his dreadful act, Edward Webster was knocked down by a butcher's van in Lowfield Lane in Lea Green and killed.
Children routinely played in the street and were often run over. At the 7-year-old’s inquest on the following day, the coroner exonerated the driver from blame.
Sometimes employees caught with their hands in the till were not prosecuted in the Police Court at the Town Hall – but instead sued at the County Court in East Street (pictured above).
Going down the criminal route rarely got you your money back and so it could be seen as more pragmatic to take the civil option.
On the 30th William Halsall, the president of Haydock Working Men's Labour Club, brought an action against Henry Smith for £45 1s 5d.
He had been a steward at the club for three years and when stocktaking took place in 1922 a number of deficiencies were found. Smith was blamed and sacked and now the club wanted its money back.
Although the man had offered to repay the shortfall at 5 shillings a month, he denied responsibility, putting the losses down to such things as beer that had gone off.
The judge ruled that the system of working at the club seemed rather loose but said he considered the defendant responsible for £30 of the loss which he ordered him to repay at 20 shillings a month.
On the 31st two collapses of underground roof took place down two different St Helens coalmines.
At the Ravenhead Pit of the St Helens Collieries Company, a stone weighing two tons killed Richard Egerton. He was 61 and had been working down mines since the age of nine.
And at Ashtons Green Colliery in Parr four men were injured by a roof collapse, including 29-year-old William Chadwick of Allanson Street and 28-year-old Edward Boyle of Tontine Street. They would both later die from their injuries.
What the Reporter described as a "giraffe bicycle" passed through St Helens on the 31st as part of its tour of Lancashire.
The "freak cycle" was 8 ft 6 ins high and had been built by Raleigh to promote National Bicycle Week.
There was a marked contrast between how certain crimes were now dealt with by the courts compared to 50 years before.
In the 1870s stealing small amounts of coal almost always led to a short prison sentence, even in the most desperate cases of poverty.
However, this week the Reporter described how Clarence Murray from Fleet Lane had had his case dismissed after being charged with stealing 55 pounds of coal worth 10 shillings from Ashton's Green Colliery.
The 26-year old with six children explained to the Bench that his family lived on only 26 shillings per week.
He said they had no coal in the house and if they bought coal they would have to go without meat.
Upon promising the magistrates that he would keep away from the colliery in future, the magistrates let the man go, something that would never have happened in the past.
The crime of lodging out – that we refer to as sleeping rough – was also harshly treated in the 1870s with prison the routine sentence.
But this week when William Owen faced such a charge after being caught sleeping in the Metallic Brickworks in Sutton, he was released from the court upon condition he went to Whiston Workhouse.
James Tickle was in trouble for working while claiming unemployment benefit.
The man from Salisbury Street had only been receiving 2s 6d a day and when Ellen Dooley offered him a job in her Doulton Street shop he jumped at it.
The work was only on one day a week for which he received just four shillings pay – but it was sufficient to warrant a prosecution when the authorities learnt of his employment.
There was no such thing as unemployment benefit in the 1870s and so no comparison can be made.
However, in the 1920s the courts were clamping down on abuse of the benefit system and prison was the usual sentence for convicted offenders.
But the magistrates decided that Tickle's offence was not in the most serious category and he was only fined £2 2 shillings.
The 22nd St Helens Horse Show and Parade was held on June 2nd. The Reporter wrote:
"Nothing less than hero-worship, interpreted in the form of slavish application of paste and polish, cloth and brush, made possible such an exhilarating parade of the grand animals which come next to man in intelligence and usefulness."
On the 3rd the body of John McClone was discovered in the canal at Blackbrook. The 35-year-old had left Whiston Workhouse earlier that day and walked to St Helens – seemingly to drown himself.
On the 4th the Liverpool Echo described how the 3-month long mystery of the disappearance of William Williams looked like being solved.
The 26-year-old from New Street in Sutton had been employed as a travelling salesman for Dewar's wholesale tobacconists of Corporation Street in St Helens.
On February 16th Williams had called in at the Ferry Hotel at Penketh on the Mersey where he took an order from the landlord.
After briefly returning to his van to deposit a bag, William told the driver to wait a moment while he went back to the hotel.
A few minutes later a woman told the driver that someone had fallen into the river. A search took place and a smouldering cigarette-end was found on the riverbank along with Williams' hat.
The soil on the bank also showed traces of being recently disturbed.
Finally, after over three months, a body had been recovered from the river, which inside a pocket of the coat had a driving licence belonging to Williams.
At the man's inquest his father described how his son had experienced a nervous breakdown three years earlier, which had had a temporary effect on his brain.
The Coroner in returning a verdict of "Suicide whilst of unsound mind" said he was sorry he could not come to any other conclusion, adding:
"Williams had a sudden impulse, probably in the same way he had three years ago, and his mind was in such a state that he could not help himself and took away his own life."
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Silkstone Street lovers' quarrel in which a woman is slashed with a razor, the nuisance newsboys on their brakeless bikes and the 15 people sharing two bedrooms in a house with 22 broken panes of glass.
The St Helens Labour MP James Sexton comes across as having been a very amiable man who tended to take a middle of the road approach to politics.
But we all have things that can make us seethe and Sexton's nerve was certainly touched this week.
"It is a lie – an atrocious lie. You are a liar." That is what the mild-mannered man told another MP in the House of Commons on the 29th.
John Remer, the Conservative member for Macclesfield, was attempting to introduce a private member's bill in which trade union members could choose to opt out of contributing to levies that boosted MPs' salaries.
It was then common for Members of Parliament to have other demanding part-time jobs, with several St Helens MPs over the years being practising lawyers.
Sexton's other job was being the long-standing Secretary of the Dockers Union and Remer implied that he received £2,000 from that post as a yearly salary.
The Speaker of the Commons demanded that Sexton withdraw his lie claim, as it was considered unparliamentary language.
That he did but then he accused Remer of telling a deliberate untruth.
"You have blackened me deliberately," added Mr Sexton as he shook his fist towards the man. "I will give you a punch on the jaw, look out, I am telling you."
Mr Sexton was persuaded by his colleagues to leave the chamber, but in the end Remer's proposed bill was rejected in a vote.
At 6.45pm on the 29th Ernest Thorley walked into St Helens Police Station and made this chilling confession: "I have cut a child's throat at 36, Eldon Street. It will save a lot of trouble."
Upon being asked where the girl was the man replied: "In the back bedroom."
The 20-year-old handed over a door key to Chief Inspector Roe who immediately went to the house accompanied by Dr Eric Reid.
In the bedroom they found little Marion Rowe partly suffocated with her head jammed between a mattress and the bedrail of an iron bedstead.
When she was released the five-year-old was found to have a wound three inches long under her chin and she was taken to Providence Hospital.
On the following morning Thorley appeared in court charged with wounding with intent to murder.
It was revealed that he was the girl's uncle and when charged said: "I have nothing to say, only that this is the razor I did it with."
Investigations revealed that Thorley's married sister had gone with her husband to the cinema and he was babysitting the child who initially had been playing in the street.
In the dock the man was described as calm and collected and offered no objection to being remanded for eight days when the girl would hopefully be fit to give evidence.
The St Helens Reporter's headline to their article was "Child's Fearful Ordeal".
Around about the time Thorley was committing his dreadful act, Edward Webster was knocked down by a butcher's van in Lowfield Lane in Lea Green and killed.
Children routinely played in the street and were often run over. At the 7-year-old’s inquest on the following day, the coroner exonerated the driver from blame.
Going down the criminal route rarely got you your money back and so it could be seen as more pragmatic to take the civil option.
On the 30th William Halsall, the president of Haydock Working Men's Labour Club, brought an action against Henry Smith for £45 1s 5d.
He had been a steward at the club for three years and when stocktaking took place in 1922 a number of deficiencies were found. Smith was blamed and sacked and now the club wanted its money back.
Although the man had offered to repay the shortfall at 5 shillings a month, he denied responsibility, putting the losses down to such things as beer that had gone off.
The judge ruled that the system of working at the club seemed rather loose but said he considered the defendant responsible for £30 of the loss which he ordered him to repay at 20 shillings a month.
On the 31st two collapses of underground roof took place down two different St Helens coalmines.
At the Ravenhead Pit of the St Helens Collieries Company, a stone weighing two tons killed Richard Egerton. He was 61 and had been working down mines since the age of nine.
And at Ashtons Green Colliery in Parr four men were injured by a roof collapse, including 29-year-old William Chadwick of Allanson Street and 28-year-old Edward Boyle of Tontine Street. They would both later die from their injuries.
What the Reporter described as a "giraffe bicycle" passed through St Helens on the 31st as part of its tour of Lancashire.
The "freak cycle" was 8 ft 6 ins high and had been built by Raleigh to promote National Bicycle Week.
There was a marked contrast between how certain crimes were now dealt with by the courts compared to 50 years before.
In the 1870s stealing small amounts of coal almost always led to a short prison sentence, even in the most desperate cases of poverty.
However, this week the Reporter described how Clarence Murray from Fleet Lane had had his case dismissed after being charged with stealing 55 pounds of coal worth 10 shillings from Ashton's Green Colliery.
The 26-year old with six children explained to the Bench that his family lived on only 26 shillings per week.
He said they had no coal in the house and if they bought coal they would have to go without meat.
Upon promising the magistrates that he would keep away from the colliery in future, the magistrates let the man go, something that would never have happened in the past.
The crime of lodging out – that we refer to as sleeping rough – was also harshly treated in the 1870s with prison the routine sentence.
But this week when William Owen faced such a charge after being caught sleeping in the Metallic Brickworks in Sutton, he was released from the court upon condition he went to Whiston Workhouse.
James Tickle was in trouble for working while claiming unemployment benefit.
The man from Salisbury Street had only been receiving 2s 6d a day and when Ellen Dooley offered him a job in her Doulton Street shop he jumped at it.
The work was only on one day a week for which he received just four shillings pay – but it was sufficient to warrant a prosecution when the authorities learnt of his employment.
There was no such thing as unemployment benefit in the 1870s and so no comparison can be made.
However, in the 1920s the courts were clamping down on abuse of the benefit system and prison was the usual sentence for convicted offenders.
But the magistrates decided that Tickle's offence was not in the most serious category and he was only fined £2 2 shillings.
The 22nd St Helens Horse Show and Parade was held on June 2nd. The Reporter wrote:
"Nothing less than hero-worship, interpreted in the form of slavish application of paste and polish, cloth and brush, made possible such an exhilarating parade of the grand animals which come next to man in intelligence and usefulness."
On the 3rd the body of John McClone was discovered in the canal at Blackbrook. The 35-year-old had left Whiston Workhouse earlier that day and walked to St Helens – seemingly to drown himself.
On the 4th the Liverpool Echo described how the 3-month long mystery of the disappearance of William Williams looked like being solved.
The 26-year-old from New Street in Sutton had been employed as a travelling salesman for Dewar's wholesale tobacconists of Corporation Street in St Helens.
On February 16th Williams had called in at the Ferry Hotel at Penketh on the Mersey where he took an order from the landlord.
After briefly returning to his van to deposit a bag, William told the driver to wait a moment while he went back to the hotel.
A few minutes later a woman told the driver that someone had fallen into the river. A search took place and a smouldering cigarette-end was found on the riverbank along with Williams' hat.
The soil on the bank also showed traces of being recently disturbed.
Finally, after over three months, a body had been recovered from the river, which inside a pocket of the coat had a driving licence belonging to Williams.
At the man's inquest his father described how his son had experienced a nervous breakdown three years earlier, which had had a temporary effect on his brain.
The Coroner in returning a verdict of "Suicide whilst of unsound mind" said he was sorry he could not come to any other conclusion, adding:
"Williams had a sudden impulse, probably in the same way he had three years ago, and his mind was in such a state that he could not help himself and took away his own life."
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Silkstone Street lovers' quarrel in which a woman is slashed with a razor, the nuisance newsboys on their brakeless bikes and the 15 people sharing two bedrooms in a house with 22 broken panes of glass.