IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (30th MAY - 5th JUNE 1922)
This week's many stories include the midnight raids on St Helens explosive stores by Irish extremists, the Parr dirty boots assault, a review of the May horse parade in St Helens town centre, the stone throwing boys at Rainhill Asylum, pitch and toss in Pocket Nook and a terrible death down Ashtons Green Colliery.
I expect many mothers in St Helens have suffered the irritation of painstakingly scrubbing their floor so it shines like a new pin, only for someone with dirty boots to immediately walk all over it! Thoughtless children can perhaps be forgiven – but the actions of Ellis Davidson seemed deliberate. The 32-year-old miner from Fleet Lane in Parr appeared in St Helens Police Court on June 1st charged with assaulting his wife. On the previous morning Alice Davidson had scrubbed her house down and was busy hanging clothes in her kitchen when her husband walked in.
Ellis was wearing his dirty pit clogs and trudged through the house and up the stairs with them on – much to Alice's annoyance. She remonstrated with her husband for his thoughtlessness in not removing his clogs and he replied that he was the boss in the house and would do as he pleased. Mrs Davidson told the court that her husband had then inflicted a severe wound on her head and the court fined him 20 shillings.
Since the war, the St Helens Reporter had stopped routinely identifying children in court. Seemingly, this has been a voluntary decision by the newspaper. And so all we know about the two small boys that appeared in the Police Court on the 1st was that they came from Thatto Heath. The lads were charged with throwing stones at greenhouses belonging to Rainhill Asylum and smashing a total of 24 panes.
The head gardener at Rainhill told the court that the neighbourhood boys had – over the previous two months – been quite a nuisance. They'd stolen rhubarb, trampled on his seed beds and damaged the asylum wall. He said when he told the boys off, they took no notice and gave him a lot of cheek back. Both lads had confessed to the stone throwing but one of their mothers complained to the court about the behaviour of the police.
She said a sergeant had told them that if they did not say they had broken the glass, they would be kept in the police station all night. Last year Sutton Police were accused of using third degree tactics on boys to get confessions, including threatening lads with a hosepipe. I expect such coercive behaviour by the police was commonplace but the mother's complaint does not appear to have been investigated. The newspaper in its report missed out the case's conclusion, although I imagine they received small fines.
There were some nasty ways to die down a coal mine – but I reckon falling down the pit shaft has to be the worst. That fate happened to Joseph Valentine of Derbyshire Hill Road who was killed after dropping 300 yards down the shaft at Ashtons Green Colliery (pictured above). The inquest into the carpenter's death was held in St Helens Town Hall on the 1st and Thomas Garrison told how the accident had occurred when he and Joseph had been undertaking repairs.
As the latter was removing some bolts, he'd slipped and fallen backwards to his death. Although there were safety belts attached to chains that could be used when undertaking such work, Mr Garrison said they were not very practical when men had to move about the shaft. And so they hadn't used them.
Before the war when horse-driven wagonnettes had conveyed parties from St Helens to Southport, the trip could take three hours and so regular services were impractical. However, the new motor charabancs had greatly reduced journey times. And so in addition to hiring their vehicles out to clubs and the like for days out, the many St Helens operators were now advertising regular runs to the seaside and countryside.
On the 2nd in the Reporter, Marshall's of Hardshaw Street published this advert: "Doctor says you must have a change of air. Has it ever struck you to take that change by taking a trip in Marshall's luxurious motor coaches? Regular service to Blackpool, Southport, Trough of Bowland, etc. Evening runs every Monday, Thursday, and Sunday to Hale and Childwall." If you had a telephone you could call Marshall's and request a booklet detailing their services. Their number was just 79.
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 developed towards the end of the 19th century. The Reporter in its review of last week's 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."
The paper also waxed lyrically about the recent Cowley Sports that had been held on the school athletics ground in Wynne Road in strong sunshine: "Proud parents were there in hundreds, and the bestowing of the bronze tokens on the winners of the different races was a ceremony made unique by the brilliant gathering in the midst of which it was staged and the vociferous applause with which the victors were greeted."
The lengths that the St Helens police went to catch men playing the game of pitch and toss for a few pennies do seem pretty ridiculous today. On the 2nd Peter Johnson and Timothy Kelly from Pitt Street, William Coleman from Farnworth Street and James Twist from Graham Street were charged with gaming with coins. PC Dillon told the court that on the previous Friday evening he had taken up a position in Pocket Nook Street, overlooking Pitt Street. From his concealed observation point (probably in someone's home) he had seen a group of youths gaming in which coins had been tossed in the air and money changed hands.
After ten minutes of watching the gambling and making notes, the constable raided the group. As usual, most of the participants immediately took to their heels and got away but there were inevitably a couple of men slow to react to the raid that could be nabbed. These were Peter Johnson and William Coleman and two more gamblers were subsequently identified and summoned to court. They pleaded that they were the "wrong lot" and had been simply standing there after the pitch and toss players had run off. But they were not believed and each was fined 5 shillings.
One of those curious charges that occasionally came to court was that of "driving a locomotive that did not consume its own smoke". That was a reference to the steam engine that was used to haul large vehicles on the roads for which steeplejack Fred Dibnah would later develop a passion. Just how you stopped a steam loco from puffing out smoke was never explained – but the police only appeared to book drivers when they considered emissions to be excessive.
Walter Pilling of Eccleston Lane Ends and Alfred Renshall of Laurel Road appeared in court on the 2nd charged with that offence. PC Drysdale gave evidence of seeing the pair driving a locomotive up City Road in St Helens with large clouds of black smoke being emitted. The defendants said it was not possible to stop the chimney from smoking but Renshall was still fined 10 shillings and the charge against Pilling was dismissed.
On the 5th the Echo published a report on a midnight raid on explosive stores in St Helens, under the headlines: "The Night Riders – How The Mine Area Was Raided – Explosives For Erin? – The Outrage Put Down To Extremists." There were many explosive stores in St Helens, as industries such as coalmining and brickmaking undertook regular blasting operations.
The theory was that Irish extremists opposed to the exclusion of Northern Ireland from the newly created Irish Free State was stockpiling explosives in case of civil war. And so armed men with Irish accents and dressed in dark suits and light grey caps had stolen detonators and explosives from St Helens' collieries at Sutton Manor, Clock Face, Sherdley and Bold.
The midnight raids had been a very professional operation and the raiders also entered Pilkington's stores at Ravenhead and attempted to break into the explosive stores of the Greengate Brick & Tile Company in Thatto Heath. Railway guard Gus Jenkinson was on his way home from work when he disturbed the thieves at the latter place. He was held at gunpoint for an hour until the men fled empty handed after failing to penetrate the store's iron doors. As far as I know nobody was ever brought to book for the thefts.
There was a special treat at the Hippodome Theatre in St Helens from the 5th with a performance by the famous American magician and illusionist Carl Hertz. The pen pal of Harry Houdini had created headlines in 1921 after being summoned to the House of Commons. A committee of MPs investigating animal cruelty demanded proof that his vanishing birdcage act did not harm its resident canary. So Hertz performed the trick and then showed them the unharmed bird. As a result the illusion was being advertised in the St Helens Reporter as "The House of Commons Canary". Carl Hertz's "conflux of apparent miracles" at the Hippodrome in Corporation Street also included "The Great Indian Rope Trick".
Next week's stories will include the Sutton councillor charged with perjury, the grenades stashed inside a Langtree Street railway bridge, the pavement advertising using a shaving brush and the furiously-ridden horse that knocked down a 2-year-old.
I expect many mothers in St Helens have suffered the irritation of painstakingly scrubbing their floor so it shines like a new pin, only for someone with dirty boots to immediately walk all over it! Thoughtless children can perhaps be forgiven – but the actions of Ellis Davidson seemed deliberate. The 32-year-old miner from Fleet Lane in Parr appeared in St Helens Police Court on June 1st charged with assaulting his wife. On the previous morning Alice Davidson had scrubbed her house down and was busy hanging clothes in her kitchen when her husband walked in.
Ellis was wearing his dirty pit clogs and trudged through the house and up the stairs with them on – much to Alice's annoyance. She remonstrated with her husband for his thoughtlessness in not removing his clogs and he replied that he was the boss in the house and would do as he pleased. Mrs Davidson told the court that her husband had then inflicted a severe wound on her head and the court fined him 20 shillings.
Since the war, the St Helens Reporter had stopped routinely identifying children in court. Seemingly, this has been a voluntary decision by the newspaper. And so all we know about the two small boys that appeared in the Police Court on the 1st was that they came from Thatto Heath. The lads were charged with throwing stones at greenhouses belonging to Rainhill Asylum and smashing a total of 24 panes.
The head gardener at Rainhill told the court that the neighbourhood boys had – over the previous two months – been quite a nuisance. They'd stolen rhubarb, trampled on his seed beds and damaged the asylum wall. He said when he told the boys off, they took no notice and gave him a lot of cheek back. Both lads had confessed to the stone throwing but one of their mothers complained to the court about the behaviour of the police.
She said a sergeant had told them that if they did not say they had broken the glass, they would be kept in the police station all night. Last year Sutton Police were accused of using third degree tactics on boys to get confessions, including threatening lads with a hosepipe. I expect such coercive behaviour by the police was commonplace but the mother's complaint does not appear to have been investigated. The newspaper in its report missed out the case's conclusion, although I imagine they received small fines.
As the latter was removing some bolts, he'd slipped and fallen backwards to his death. Although there were safety belts attached to chains that could be used when undertaking such work, Mr Garrison said they were not very practical when men had to move about the shaft. And so they hadn't used them.
Before the war when horse-driven wagonnettes had conveyed parties from St Helens to Southport, the trip could take three hours and so regular services were impractical. However, the new motor charabancs had greatly reduced journey times. And so in addition to hiring their vehicles out to clubs and the like for days out, the many St Helens operators were now advertising regular runs to the seaside and countryside.
On the 2nd in the Reporter, Marshall's of Hardshaw Street published this advert: "Doctor says you must have a change of air. Has it ever struck you to take that change by taking a trip in Marshall's luxurious motor coaches? Regular service to Blackpool, Southport, Trough of Bowland, etc. Evening runs every Monday, Thursday, and Sunday to Hale and Childwall." If you had a telephone you could call Marshall's and request a booklet detailing their services. Their number was just 79.
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 developed towards the end of the 19th century. The Reporter in its review of last week's 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."
The paper also waxed lyrically about the recent Cowley Sports that had been held on the school athletics ground in Wynne Road in strong sunshine: "Proud parents were there in hundreds, and the bestowing of the bronze tokens on the winners of the different races was a ceremony made unique by the brilliant gathering in the midst of which it was staged and the vociferous applause with which the victors were greeted."
The lengths that the St Helens police went to catch men playing the game of pitch and toss for a few pennies do seem pretty ridiculous today. On the 2nd Peter Johnson and Timothy Kelly from Pitt Street, William Coleman from Farnworth Street and James Twist from Graham Street were charged with gaming with coins. PC Dillon told the court that on the previous Friday evening he had taken up a position in Pocket Nook Street, overlooking Pitt Street. From his concealed observation point (probably in someone's home) he had seen a group of youths gaming in which coins had been tossed in the air and money changed hands.
After ten minutes of watching the gambling and making notes, the constable raided the group. As usual, most of the participants immediately took to their heels and got away but there were inevitably a couple of men slow to react to the raid that could be nabbed. These were Peter Johnson and William Coleman and two more gamblers were subsequently identified and summoned to court. They pleaded that they were the "wrong lot" and had been simply standing there after the pitch and toss players had run off. But they were not believed and each was fined 5 shillings.
Walter Pilling of Eccleston Lane Ends and Alfred Renshall of Laurel Road appeared in court on the 2nd charged with that offence. PC Drysdale gave evidence of seeing the pair driving a locomotive up City Road in St Helens with large clouds of black smoke being emitted. The defendants said it was not possible to stop the chimney from smoking but Renshall was still fined 10 shillings and the charge against Pilling was dismissed.
On the 5th the Echo published a report on a midnight raid on explosive stores in St Helens, under the headlines: "The Night Riders – How The Mine Area Was Raided – Explosives For Erin? – The Outrage Put Down To Extremists." There were many explosive stores in St Helens, as industries such as coalmining and brickmaking undertook regular blasting operations.
The theory was that Irish extremists opposed to the exclusion of Northern Ireland from the newly created Irish Free State was stockpiling explosives in case of civil war. And so armed men with Irish accents and dressed in dark suits and light grey caps had stolen detonators and explosives from St Helens' collieries at Sutton Manor, Clock Face, Sherdley and Bold.
The midnight raids had been a very professional operation and the raiders also entered Pilkington's stores at Ravenhead and attempted to break into the explosive stores of the Greengate Brick & Tile Company in Thatto Heath. Railway guard Gus Jenkinson was on his way home from work when he disturbed the thieves at the latter place. He was held at gunpoint for an hour until the men fled empty handed after failing to penetrate the store's iron doors. As far as I know nobody was ever brought to book for the thefts.
There was a special treat at the Hippodome Theatre in St Helens from the 5th with a performance by the famous American magician and illusionist Carl Hertz. The pen pal of Harry Houdini had created headlines in 1921 after being summoned to the House of Commons. A committee of MPs investigating animal cruelty demanded proof that his vanishing birdcage act did not harm its resident canary. So Hertz performed the trick and then showed them the unharmed bird. As a result the illusion was being advertised in the St Helens Reporter as "The House of Commons Canary". Carl Hertz's "conflux of apparent miracles" at the Hippodrome in Corporation Street also included "The Great Indian Rope Trick".
Next week's stories will include the Sutton councillor charged with perjury, the grenades stashed inside a Langtree Street railway bridge, the pavement advertising using a shaving brush and the furiously-ridden horse that knocked down a 2-year-old.
This week's many stories include the midnight raids on St Helens explosive stores by Irish extremists, the Parr dirty boots assault, a review of the May horse parade in St Helens town centre, the stone throwing boys at Rainhill Asylum, pitch and toss in Pocket Nook and a terrible death down Ashtons Green Colliery.
I expect many mothers in St Helens have suffered the irritation of painstakingly scrubbing their floor so it shines like a new pin, only for someone with dirty boots to immediately walk all over it!
Thoughtless children can perhaps be forgiven – but the actions of Ellis Davidson seemed deliberate.
The 32-year-old miner from Fleet Lane in Parr appeared in St Helens Police Court on June 1st charged with assaulting his wife.
On the previous morning Alice Davidson had scrubbed her house down and was busy hanging clothes in her kitchen when her husband walked in.
Ellis was wearing his dirty pit clogs and trudged through the house and up the stairs with them on – much to Alice's annoyance.
She remonstrated with her husband for his thoughtlessness in not removing his clogs and he replied that he was the boss in the house and would do as he pleased.
Mrs Davidson told the court that her husband had then inflicted a severe wound on her head and the court fined him 20 shillings.
Since the war, the St Helens Reporter had stopped routinely identifying children in court. Seemingly, this has been a voluntary decision by the newspaper.
And so all we know about the two small boys that appeared in the Police Court on the 1st was that they came from Thatto Heath.
The lads were charged with throwing stones at greenhouses belonging to Rainhill Asylum and smashing a total of 24 panes.
The head gardener at Rainhill told the court that the neighbourhood boys had – over the previous two months – been quite a nuisance.
They'd stolen rhubarb, trampled on his seed beds and damaged the asylum wall.
He said when he told the boys off, they took no notice and gave him a lot of cheek back.
Both lads had confessed to the stone throwing but one of their mothers complained to the court about the behaviour of the police.
She said a sergeant had told them that if they did not say they had broken the glass, they would be kept in the police station all night.
Last year Sutton Police were accused of using third degree tactics on boys to get confessions, including threatening lads with a hosepipe.
I expect such coercive behaviour by the police was commonplace but the mother's complaint does not appear to have been investigated.
The newspaper in its report missed out the case's conclusion, although I imagine they received small fines.
There were some nasty ways to die down a coal mine – but I reckon falling down the pit shaft has to be the worst.
That fate happened to Joseph Valentine of Derbyshire Hill Road who was killed after dropping 300 yards down the shaft at Ashtons Green Colliery (pictured above).
The inquest into the carpenter's death was held in St Helens Town Hall on the 1st and Thomas Garrison told how the accident had occurred when he and Joseph had been undertaking repairs.
As the latter was removing some bolts, he'd slipped and fallen backwards to his death.
Although there were safety belts attached to chains that could be used when undertaking such work, Mr Garrison said they were not very practical when men had to move about the shaft. And so they hadn't used them.
Before the war when horse-driven wagonnettes had conveyed parties from St Helens to Southport, the trip could take three hours and so regular services were impractical.
However, the new motor charabancs had greatly reduced journey times. And so in addition to hiring their vehicles out to clubs and the like for days out, the many St Helens operators were now advertising regular runs to the seaside and countryside.
On the 2nd in the Reporter, Marshall's of Hardshaw Street published this advert:
"Doctor says you must have a change of air. Has it ever struck you to take that change by taking a trip in Marshall's luxurious motor coaches? Regular service to Blackpool, Southport, Trough of Bowland, etc. Evening runs every Monday, Thursday, and Sunday to Hale and Childwall."
If you had a telephone you could call Marshall's and request a booklet detailing their services. Their number was just 79.
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 developed towards the end of the 19th century. The Reporter in its review of last week's 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."
The paper also waxed lyrically about the recent Cowley Sports that had been held on the school athletics ground in Wynne Road in strong sunshine:
"Proud parents were there in hundreds, and the bestowing of the bronze tokens on the winners of the different races was a ceremony made unique by the brilliant gathering in the midst of which it was staged and the vociferous applause with which the victors were greeted."
The lengths that the St Helens police went to catch men playing the game of pitch and toss for a few pennies do seem pretty ridiculous today.
On the 2nd Peter Johnson and Timothy Kelly from Pitt Street, William Coleman from Farnworth Street and James Twist from Graham Street were charged with gaming with coins.
PC Dillon told the court that on the previous Friday evening he had taken up a position in Pocket Nook Street, overlooking Pitt Street.
From his concealed observation point (probably in someone's home) he had seen a group of youths gaming in which coins had been tossed in the air and money changed hands.
After ten minutes of watching the gambling and making notes, the constable raided the group.
As usual, most of the participants immediately took to their heels and got away but there were inevitably a couple of men slow to react to the raid that could be nabbed.
These were Peter Johnson and William Coleman and two more gamblers were subsequently identified and summoned to court.
They pleaded that they were the "wrong lot" and had been simply standing there after the pitch and toss players had run off. But they were not believed and each was fined 5 shillings.
One of those curious charges that occasionally came to court was that of "driving a locomotive that did not consume its own smoke".
That was a reference to the steam engine that was used to haul large vehicles on the roads for which steeplejack Fred Dibnah would later develop a passion.
Just how you stopped a steam loco from puffing out smoke was never explained – but the police only appeared to book drivers when they considered emissions to be excessive.
Walter Pilling of Eccleston Lane Ends and Alfred Renshall of Laurel Road appeared in court on the 2nd charged with that offence.
PC Drysdale gave evidence of seeing the pair driving a locomotive up City Road in St Helens with large clouds of black smoke being emitted.
The defendants said it was not possible to stop the chimney from smoking but Renshall was still fined 10 shillings and the charge against Pilling was dismissed.
On the 5th the Echo published a report on a midnight raid on explosive stores in St Helens, under the headlines:
"The Night Riders – How The Mine Area Was Raided – Explosives For Erin? – The Outrage Put Down To Extremists."
There were many explosive stores in St Helens, as industries such as coalmining and brickmaking undertook regular blasting operations.
The theory was that Irish extremists opposed to the exclusion of Northern Ireland from the newly created Irish Free State was stockpiling explosives in case of civil war.
And so armed men with Irish accents and dressed in dark suits and light grey caps had stolen detonators and explosives from St Helens' collieries at Sutton Manor, Clock Face, Sherdley and Bold.
The midnight raids had been a very professional operation and the raiders also entered Pilkington's stores at Ravenhead and attempted to break into the explosive stores of the Greengate Brick & Tile Company in Thatto Heath.
Railway guard Gus Jenkinson was on his way home from work when he disturbed the thieves at the latter place.
He was held at gunpoint for an hour until the men fled empty handed after failing to penetrate the store's iron doors.
As far as I know nobody was ever brought to book for the thefts.
There was a special treat at the Hippodome Theatre in St Helens from the 5th with a performance by the famous American magician and illusionist Carl Hertz.
The pen pal of Harry Houdini had created headlines in 1921 after being summoned to the House of Commons.
A committee of MPs investigating animal cruelty demanded proof that his vanishing birdcage act did not harm its resident canary. So Hertz performed the trick and then showed them the unharmed bird.
As a result the illusion was being advertised in the St Helens Reporter as "The House of Commons Canary".
Carl Hertz's "conflux of apparent miracles" at the Hippodrome in Corporation Street also included "The Great Indian Rope Trick".
Next week's stories will include the Sutton councillor charged with perjury, the grenades stashed inside a Langtree Street railway bridge, the pavement advertising using a shaving brush and the furiously-ridden horse that knocked down a 2-year-old.
I expect many mothers in St Helens have suffered the irritation of painstakingly scrubbing their floor so it shines like a new pin, only for someone with dirty boots to immediately walk all over it!
Thoughtless children can perhaps be forgiven – but the actions of Ellis Davidson seemed deliberate.
The 32-year-old miner from Fleet Lane in Parr appeared in St Helens Police Court on June 1st charged with assaulting his wife.
On the previous morning Alice Davidson had scrubbed her house down and was busy hanging clothes in her kitchen when her husband walked in.
Ellis was wearing his dirty pit clogs and trudged through the house and up the stairs with them on – much to Alice's annoyance.
She remonstrated with her husband for his thoughtlessness in not removing his clogs and he replied that he was the boss in the house and would do as he pleased.
Mrs Davidson told the court that her husband had then inflicted a severe wound on her head and the court fined him 20 shillings.
Since the war, the St Helens Reporter had stopped routinely identifying children in court. Seemingly, this has been a voluntary decision by the newspaper.
And so all we know about the two small boys that appeared in the Police Court on the 1st was that they came from Thatto Heath.
The lads were charged with throwing stones at greenhouses belonging to Rainhill Asylum and smashing a total of 24 panes.
The head gardener at Rainhill told the court that the neighbourhood boys had – over the previous two months – been quite a nuisance.
They'd stolen rhubarb, trampled on his seed beds and damaged the asylum wall.
He said when he told the boys off, they took no notice and gave him a lot of cheek back.
Both lads had confessed to the stone throwing but one of their mothers complained to the court about the behaviour of the police.
She said a sergeant had told them that if they did not say they had broken the glass, they would be kept in the police station all night.
Last year Sutton Police were accused of using third degree tactics on boys to get confessions, including threatening lads with a hosepipe.
I expect such coercive behaviour by the police was commonplace but the mother's complaint does not appear to have been investigated.
The newspaper in its report missed out the case's conclusion, although I imagine they received small fines.
That fate happened to Joseph Valentine of Derbyshire Hill Road who was killed after dropping 300 yards down the shaft at Ashtons Green Colliery (pictured above).
The inquest into the carpenter's death was held in St Helens Town Hall on the 1st and Thomas Garrison told how the accident had occurred when he and Joseph had been undertaking repairs.
As the latter was removing some bolts, he'd slipped and fallen backwards to his death.
Although there were safety belts attached to chains that could be used when undertaking such work, Mr Garrison said they were not very practical when men had to move about the shaft. And so they hadn't used them.
Before the war when horse-driven wagonnettes had conveyed parties from St Helens to Southport, the trip could take three hours and so regular services were impractical.
However, the new motor charabancs had greatly reduced journey times. And so in addition to hiring their vehicles out to clubs and the like for days out, the many St Helens operators were now advertising regular runs to the seaside and countryside.
On the 2nd in the Reporter, Marshall's of Hardshaw Street published this advert:
"Doctor says you must have a change of air. Has it ever struck you to take that change by taking a trip in Marshall's luxurious motor coaches? Regular service to Blackpool, Southport, Trough of Bowland, etc. Evening runs every Monday, Thursday, and Sunday to Hale and Childwall."
If you had a telephone you could call Marshall's and request a booklet detailing their services. Their number was just 79.
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 developed towards the end of the 19th century. The Reporter in its review of last week's 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."
The paper also waxed lyrically about the recent Cowley Sports that had been held on the school athletics ground in Wynne Road in strong sunshine:
"Proud parents were there in hundreds, and the bestowing of the bronze tokens on the winners of the different races was a ceremony made unique by the brilliant gathering in the midst of which it was staged and the vociferous applause with which the victors were greeted."
The lengths that the St Helens police went to catch men playing the game of pitch and toss for a few pennies do seem pretty ridiculous today.
On the 2nd Peter Johnson and Timothy Kelly from Pitt Street, William Coleman from Farnworth Street and James Twist from Graham Street were charged with gaming with coins.
PC Dillon told the court that on the previous Friday evening he had taken up a position in Pocket Nook Street, overlooking Pitt Street.
From his concealed observation point (probably in someone's home) he had seen a group of youths gaming in which coins had been tossed in the air and money changed hands.
After ten minutes of watching the gambling and making notes, the constable raided the group.
As usual, most of the participants immediately took to their heels and got away but there were inevitably a couple of men slow to react to the raid that could be nabbed.
These were Peter Johnson and William Coleman and two more gamblers were subsequently identified and summoned to court.
They pleaded that they were the "wrong lot" and had been simply standing there after the pitch and toss players had run off. But they were not believed and each was fined 5 shillings.
That was a reference to the steam engine that was used to haul large vehicles on the roads for which steeplejack Fred Dibnah would later develop a passion.
Just how you stopped a steam loco from puffing out smoke was never explained – but the police only appeared to book drivers when they considered emissions to be excessive.
Walter Pilling of Eccleston Lane Ends and Alfred Renshall of Laurel Road appeared in court on the 2nd charged with that offence.
PC Drysdale gave evidence of seeing the pair driving a locomotive up City Road in St Helens with large clouds of black smoke being emitted.
The defendants said it was not possible to stop the chimney from smoking but Renshall was still fined 10 shillings and the charge against Pilling was dismissed.
On the 5th the Echo published a report on a midnight raid on explosive stores in St Helens, under the headlines:
"The Night Riders – How The Mine Area Was Raided – Explosives For Erin? – The Outrage Put Down To Extremists."
There were many explosive stores in St Helens, as industries such as coalmining and brickmaking undertook regular blasting operations.
The theory was that Irish extremists opposed to the exclusion of Northern Ireland from the newly created Irish Free State was stockpiling explosives in case of civil war.
And so armed men with Irish accents and dressed in dark suits and light grey caps had stolen detonators and explosives from St Helens' collieries at Sutton Manor, Clock Face, Sherdley and Bold.
The midnight raids had been a very professional operation and the raiders also entered Pilkington's stores at Ravenhead and attempted to break into the explosive stores of the Greengate Brick & Tile Company in Thatto Heath.
Railway guard Gus Jenkinson was on his way home from work when he disturbed the thieves at the latter place.
He was held at gunpoint for an hour until the men fled empty handed after failing to penetrate the store's iron doors.
As far as I know nobody was ever brought to book for the thefts.
There was a special treat at the Hippodome Theatre in St Helens from the 5th with a performance by the famous American magician and illusionist Carl Hertz.
The pen pal of Harry Houdini had created headlines in 1921 after being summoned to the House of Commons.
A committee of MPs investigating animal cruelty demanded proof that his vanishing birdcage act did not harm its resident canary. So Hertz performed the trick and then showed them the unharmed bird.
As a result the illusion was being advertised in the St Helens Reporter as "The House of Commons Canary".
Carl Hertz's "conflux of apparent miracles" at the Hippodrome in Corporation Street also included "The Great Indian Rope Trick".
Next week's stories will include the Sutton councillor charged with perjury, the grenades stashed inside a Langtree Street railway bridge, the pavement advertising using a shaving brush and the furiously-ridden horse that knocked down a 2-year-old.