IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (31st OCT. - 6th NOV. 1922)
This week's stories include the harsh sentence on the runaway husband, the proposals to slash the wages of Town Hall officials, the noisy woman who accused the St Helens Chief Constable of seeking another stripe, the reduction in relief payments for the poor, the black sheep of the family that burgled Swire's and the Liverpool Road whistle-blower who was rewarded with a walking stick.
We begin on November 1st when the Liverpool Echo published an article in which they wrote that a Labour party resolution passed by St Helens Town Council had gone down well in the town. All leading officials at the Town Hall would now be dismissed from their office if they did not agree to their salaries being cut – in some instances by over £200 per year. The paper wrote:
"Among the townspeople there is much approval of the course, and the property-owners and ratepayers are anxious that the axe should have free play in many of the departments, including the rank and file of the medical officer's department, the education staff, and the teachers, as well as the police force." Whether such cuts would result in an actual reduction in the rates was, however, another matter.
The police were far more used to mobs goading or assaulting them as they took their prisoners to the station than have a Good Samaritan help them when they were being attacked. So understandably a great fuss was made of James Whittle in a ceremony held in the parade room of St Helens police station on the 2nd. The man from Oxford Street had assisted PC Marshall while he had been arresting a drunken man that resisted wildly.
The struggle took place in Liverpool Road with the policeman having handed his whistle to Whittle to blow it and summon assistance from other officers. For his action as a whistle-blower, Whittle was presented with a special ebony walking stick. The fact the man was being honoured for doing what essentially was not very much, underlined how rare it was for members of the public to assist the police.
A more typical example of what the police faced was revealed in St Helens Police Court on the 3rd when a Widnes woman called Daisy Gallimore was summoned for not having lights on her car. The offence had taken place in St Helens on the previous Saturday night and the town's Chief Constable had booked the woman himself.
However, Arthur Ellerington (pictured above and right Ellerington's funeral in 1939) told the Bench that Mrs Gallimore had indulged in a "storm of criticism and jeering" in the presence of a crowd of 100 people. The woman claimed that she was only being booked because he wanted a stripe – although I don't think Chief Constables can have extra stripes! Mrs Gallimore failed to turn up to court and was fined £3.
A Cheshire farmer was also in court on the 3rd charged with sending milk into St Helens that contained eight grains of dirt per gallon. A sample of Daniel Massey's milk had been taken at St Helens railway station and an analyst reported rust, sand and animal dung within the dirt. However, the quantities of the impurities were tiny and the milk was still considered to have been of a high quality. And so the case was dismissed upon payment of costs.
Concern was expressed for a missing St Helens woman on the 3rd. Isabel Pennington from Johnson Street had left her home on October 17th to visit a friend in Birkenhead but the 34-year-old had never arrived.
Although the times might be seen as more enlightened in many ways, there could still be harsh penalties for offences that would not be considered criminal today. The Reporter on the 3rd described how a chimney sweep called Thomas Walker had been charged in St Helens Police Court with wife desertion after taking off for Stockport with a young woman. The affair was only converted from a domestic tragedy into a criminal offence if the husband failed to make financial provision for his wife and family.
If the administrators of the Poor Law, the Prescot Guardians, were forced to step in to financially support the wife, the taxpayer was seen as doing the husband's job and so a prosecution took place. Walker's relationship with the other woman had now ended and, somehow, the runaway husband had ended up with the custody of the couple's 7-month-old son. He had been in court before and ordered to repay all the money that the Prescot Guardians had paid his wife – but had got considerably into arrears.
The sweep pleaded for a chance to redeem himself, saying he was a good man spoiled by people's talk. To that remark the Chairman of the Bench said: "You don't seem to have had much consideration for your wife during these years." The man declared that he would like to return to St Helens from Stockport. The Bench enquired whether he expected his wife to take him back after being away for so long, particularly as he would be coming home with an illegitimate child.
"Am I the only man who has made a slip?", sobbed Walker. "You have been pretty callous over this slip", replied the Chairman. Walker said he had been married over 20 years and it was the first slip that he had made. The Bench said they considered it to be a very bad case with the man's desertion of his wife a deliberate act that ought to be worthy of the strongest condemnation, adding:
"You are talking in a very penitent spirit now, but we will see whether, bye and bye, you are willing to do what you are promising. You will have to go to prison for two months with hard labour." Walker asked who would care for his infant son during his time of incarceration. The Bench said the child would no doubt be looked after by the Guardians in the same way his other children had been cared for. In other words the toddler would likely go into the workhouse.
Although never explicitly stated by the magistrates, there is no doubt that the punishment of such offenders was greater if another woman had been involved and, as in this case, an illegitimate child was born. Disgust was rarely mentioned – but it was clearly an underlying issue during sentencing.
The St Helens Reporter also described fury at a special meeting of the Board of Guardians held earlier this week in which plans to cut relief payments to those in dire need were confirmed. Children would now receive 2s 6d or 3s 6d a week and the maximum a family could claim would be £1 15 shillings a week, a reduction of five shillings.
Councillor Burrows accused the General Relief Committee of starving children by taking money away from them and said a recent deputation to London had spent more on one meal than children were being allowed for a week. Then Councillor Archibald Dodd accused one of the officials of living in "coward's castle" through not being prepared to fully answer questions. The Guardians said the cutbacks in relief payments were having to be made because they were short of money.
Swire's was a long-standing plumbing and decorating family in St Helens. For much of the 20th century, W. Swire & Sons had premises in Duke Street, George Street, Bickerstaffe Street and Church Road in Rainford – eventually closing in the late 1990s. In 1922 the firm appeared to have had only one lock-up shop in George Street and the Reporter described how William Higgins had burgled it. The young coal miner of no fixed abode had appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with stealing various items and cash to the value of £4 10 shillings that belonged to William Swire.
Higgins was quickly arrested and told police: "It was after the pubs closed that I went in. I don't think I would have done it if I had been sober." The man was also charged with stealing a duck from a poultry breeder in Prescot Road. William Higgins's sister gave evidence in the man's defence but in calling her brother the "black sheep of the family", did not help his case very much! As he had three previous convictions, Higgins was sent to prison for two months.
The Reporter also described how an "elderly labourer of no fixed abode" called Martin Brannan had been in the Police Court this week facing a charge of being drunk and disorderly in Liverpool Street (pictured above) at 2am. The paper quoted the dialogue between the Bench, police and prisoner in the courtroom: "The Chairman: Has he ever been here before? Supt. Dunn: Yes. This is his 110th time. (Laughter in court.)
"Prisoner turning round to the court, and glaring fiercely at the merrymakers, shouted “Now, what are you laughing at?” The Chairman: In consideration of your not having been here for some years….. Prisoner: No, sir. I have kept as good as I could. The Chairman: You will be fined 10s,. and we hope this will be the last time."
Henry Baynton was arguably the top Shakespearean actor of his day and in a stage career lasting 40 years, is said to have performed 'Hamlet' over 2,000 times. One of those occasions took place in St Helens this week, when Baynton's Shakespearean company played the Theatre Royal. Other plays performed by his troupe included 'Macbeth', 'Twelfth Night', 'As You Like It' and 'Othello'. The theatre's advert in the Reporter bore the message "Smoking permitted". If you were one of the few folk with a telephone, you could call St Helens 114 via the operator to book your seat.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the violent gin scene in the Nag's Head, the child wearing a highly flammable petticoat that burned to death, the commemoration of Remembrance Day in St Helens and the benefit cheat with 13 children.
We begin on November 1st when the Liverpool Echo published an article in which they wrote that a Labour party resolution passed by St Helens Town Council had gone down well in the town. All leading officials at the Town Hall would now be dismissed from their office if they did not agree to their salaries being cut – in some instances by over £200 per year. The paper wrote:
"Among the townspeople there is much approval of the course, and the property-owners and ratepayers are anxious that the axe should have free play in many of the departments, including the rank and file of the medical officer's department, the education staff, and the teachers, as well as the police force." Whether such cuts would result in an actual reduction in the rates was, however, another matter.
The police were far more used to mobs goading or assaulting them as they took their prisoners to the station than have a Good Samaritan help them when they were being attacked. So understandably a great fuss was made of James Whittle in a ceremony held in the parade room of St Helens police station on the 2nd. The man from Oxford Street had assisted PC Marshall while he had been arresting a drunken man that resisted wildly.
The struggle took place in Liverpool Road with the policeman having handed his whistle to Whittle to blow it and summon assistance from other officers. For his action as a whistle-blower, Whittle was presented with a special ebony walking stick. The fact the man was being honoured for doing what essentially was not very much, underlined how rare it was for members of the public to assist the police.
A more typical example of what the police faced was revealed in St Helens Police Court on the 3rd when a Widnes woman called Daisy Gallimore was summoned for not having lights on her car. The offence had taken place in St Helens on the previous Saturday night and the town's Chief Constable had booked the woman himself.
A Cheshire farmer was also in court on the 3rd charged with sending milk into St Helens that contained eight grains of dirt per gallon. A sample of Daniel Massey's milk had been taken at St Helens railway station and an analyst reported rust, sand and animal dung within the dirt. However, the quantities of the impurities were tiny and the milk was still considered to have been of a high quality. And so the case was dismissed upon payment of costs.
Concern was expressed for a missing St Helens woman on the 3rd. Isabel Pennington from Johnson Street had left her home on October 17th to visit a friend in Birkenhead but the 34-year-old had never arrived.
Although the times might be seen as more enlightened in many ways, there could still be harsh penalties for offences that would not be considered criminal today. The Reporter on the 3rd described how a chimney sweep called Thomas Walker had been charged in St Helens Police Court with wife desertion after taking off for Stockport with a young woman. The affair was only converted from a domestic tragedy into a criminal offence if the husband failed to make financial provision for his wife and family.
If the administrators of the Poor Law, the Prescot Guardians, were forced to step in to financially support the wife, the taxpayer was seen as doing the husband's job and so a prosecution took place. Walker's relationship with the other woman had now ended and, somehow, the runaway husband had ended up with the custody of the couple's 7-month-old son. He had been in court before and ordered to repay all the money that the Prescot Guardians had paid his wife – but had got considerably into arrears.
The sweep pleaded for a chance to redeem himself, saying he was a good man spoiled by people's talk. To that remark the Chairman of the Bench said: "You don't seem to have had much consideration for your wife during these years." The man declared that he would like to return to St Helens from Stockport. The Bench enquired whether he expected his wife to take him back after being away for so long, particularly as he would be coming home with an illegitimate child.
"Am I the only man who has made a slip?", sobbed Walker. "You have been pretty callous over this slip", replied the Chairman. Walker said he had been married over 20 years and it was the first slip that he had made. The Bench said they considered it to be a very bad case with the man's desertion of his wife a deliberate act that ought to be worthy of the strongest condemnation, adding:
"You are talking in a very penitent spirit now, but we will see whether, bye and bye, you are willing to do what you are promising. You will have to go to prison for two months with hard labour." Walker asked who would care for his infant son during his time of incarceration. The Bench said the child would no doubt be looked after by the Guardians in the same way his other children had been cared for. In other words the toddler would likely go into the workhouse.
Although never explicitly stated by the magistrates, there is no doubt that the punishment of such offenders was greater if another woman had been involved and, as in this case, an illegitimate child was born. Disgust was rarely mentioned – but it was clearly an underlying issue during sentencing.
The St Helens Reporter also described fury at a special meeting of the Board of Guardians held earlier this week in which plans to cut relief payments to those in dire need were confirmed. Children would now receive 2s 6d or 3s 6d a week and the maximum a family could claim would be £1 15 shillings a week, a reduction of five shillings.
Councillor Burrows accused the General Relief Committee of starving children by taking money away from them and said a recent deputation to London had spent more on one meal than children were being allowed for a week. Then Councillor Archibald Dodd accused one of the officials of living in "coward's castle" through not being prepared to fully answer questions. The Guardians said the cutbacks in relief payments were having to be made because they were short of money.
Swire's was a long-standing plumbing and decorating family in St Helens. For much of the 20th century, W. Swire & Sons had premises in Duke Street, George Street, Bickerstaffe Street and Church Road in Rainford – eventually closing in the late 1990s. In 1922 the firm appeared to have had only one lock-up shop in George Street and the Reporter described how William Higgins had burgled it. The young coal miner of no fixed abode had appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with stealing various items and cash to the value of £4 10 shillings that belonged to William Swire.
Higgins was quickly arrested and told police: "It was after the pubs closed that I went in. I don't think I would have done it if I had been sober." The man was also charged with stealing a duck from a poultry breeder in Prescot Road. William Higgins's sister gave evidence in the man's defence but in calling her brother the "black sheep of the family", did not help his case very much! As he had three previous convictions, Higgins was sent to prison for two months.
"Prisoner turning round to the court, and glaring fiercely at the merrymakers, shouted “Now, what are you laughing at?” The Chairman: In consideration of your not having been here for some years….. Prisoner: No, sir. I have kept as good as I could. The Chairman: You will be fined 10s,. and we hope this will be the last time."
Henry Baynton was arguably the top Shakespearean actor of his day and in a stage career lasting 40 years, is said to have performed 'Hamlet' over 2,000 times. One of those occasions took place in St Helens this week, when Baynton's Shakespearean company played the Theatre Royal. Other plays performed by his troupe included 'Macbeth', 'Twelfth Night', 'As You Like It' and 'Othello'. The theatre's advert in the Reporter bore the message "Smoking permitted". If you were one of the few folk with a telephone, you could call St Helens 114 via the operator to book your seat.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the violent gin scene in the Nag's Head, the child wearing a highly flammable petticoat that burned to death, the commemoration of Remembrance Day in St Helens and the benefit cheat with 13 children.
This week's stories include the harsh sentence on the runaway husband, the proposals to slash the wages of Town Hall officials, the noisy woman who accused the St Helens Chief Constable of seeking another stripe, the reduction in relief payments for the poor, the black sheep of the family that burgled Swire's and the Liverpool Road whistle-blower who was rewarded with a walking stick.
We begin on November 1st when the Liverpool Echo published an article in which they wrote that a Labour party resolution passed by St Helens Town Council had gone down well in the town.
All leading officials at the Town Hall would now be dismissed from their office if they did not agree to their salaries being cut – in some instances by over £200 per year. The paper wrote:
"Among the townspeople there is much approval of the course, and the property-owners and ratepayers are anxious that the axe should have free play in many of the departments, including the rank and file of the medical officer's department, the education staff, and the teachers, as well as the police force."
Whether such cuts would result in an actual reduction in the rates was, however, another matter.
The police were far more used to mobs goading or assaulting them as they took their prisoners to the station than have a Good Samaritan help them when they were being attacked.
So understandably a great fuss was made of James Whittle in a ceremony held in the parade room of St Helens police station on the 2nd.
The man from Oxford Street had assisted PC Marshall while he had been arresting a drunken man that resisted wildly.
The struggle took place in Liverpool Road with the policeman having handed his whistle to Whittle to blow it and summon assistance from other officers.
For his action as a whistle-blower, Whittle was presented with a special ebony walking stick.
The fact the man was being honoured for doing what essentially was not very much, underlined how rare it was for members of the public to assist the police.
A more typical example of what the police faced was revealed in St Helens Police Court on the 3rd when a Widnes woman called Daisy Gallimore was summoned for not having lights on her car.
The offence had taken place in St Helens on the previous Saturday night and the town's Chief Constable had booked the woman himself.
However, Arthur Ellerington (pictured above and right Ellerington's funeral in 1939) told the Bench that Mrs Gallimore had indulged in a "storm of criticism and jeering" in the presence of a crowd of 100 people.
The woman claimed that she was only being booked because he wanted a stripe – although I don't think Chief Constables can have extra stripes! Mrs Gallimore failed to turn up to court and was fined £3.
A Cheshire farmer was also in court on the 3rd charged with sending milk into St Helens that contained eight grains of dirt per gallon.
A sample of Daniel Massey's milk had been taken at St Helens railway station and an analyst reported rust, sand and animal dung within the dirt.
However, the quantities of the impurities were tiny and the milk was still considered to have been of a high quality. And so the case was dismissed upon payment of costs.
Concern was expressed for a missing St Helens woman on the 3rd. Isabel Pennington from Johnson Street had left her home on October 17th to visit a friend in Birkenhead but the 34-year-old had never arrived.
Although the times might be seen as more enlightened in many ways, there could still be harsh penalties for offences that would not be considered criminal today.
The Reporter on the 3rd described how a chimney sweep called Thomas Walker had been charged in St Helens Police Court with wife desertion after taking off for Stockport with a young woman.
The affair was only converted from a domestic tragedy into a criminal offence if the husband failed to make financial provision for his wife and family.
If the administrators of the Poor Law, the Prescot Guardians, were forced to step in to financially support the wife, the taxpayer was seen as doing the husband's job and so a prosecution took place.
Walker's relationship with the other woman had now ended and, somehow, the runaway husband had ended up with the custody of the couple's 7-month-old son.
He had been in court before and ordered to repay all the money that the Prescot Guardians had paid his wife – but had got considerably into arrears.
The sweep pleaded for a chance to redeem himself, saying he was a good man spoiled by people's talk.
To that remark the Chairman of the Bench said: "You don't seem to have had much consideration for your wife during these years."
The man declared that he would like to return to St Helens from Stockport. The Bench enquired whether he expected his wife to take him back after being away for so long, particularly as he would be coming home with an illegitimate child.
"Am I the only man who has made a slip?", sobbed Walker. "You have been pretty callous over this slip", replied the Chairman.
Walker said he had been married over 20 years and it was the first slip that he had made.
The Bench said they considered it to be a very bad case with the man's desertion of his wife a deliberate act that ought to be worthy of the strongest condemnation, adding:
"You are talking in a very penitent spirit now, but we will see whether, bye and bye, you are willing to do what you are promising. You will have to go to prison for two months with hard labour."
Walker asked who would care for his infant son during his time of incarceration.
The Bench said the child would no doubt be looked after by the Guardians in the same way his other children had been cared for. In other words the toddler would likely go into the workhouse.
Although never explicitly stated by the magistrates, there is no doubt that the punishment of such offenders was greater if another woman had been involved and, as in this case, an illegitimate child was born.
Disgust was rarely mentioned – but it was clearly an underlying issue during sentencing.
The Reporter also described fury at a special meeting of the Board of Guardians held earlier this week in which plans to cut relief payments to those in dire need were confirmed.
Children would now receive 2s 6d or 3s 6d a week and the maximum a family could claim would be £1 15 shillings a week, a reduction of five shillings.
Councillor Burrows accused the General Relief Committee of starving children by taking money away from them and said a recent deputation to London had spent more on one meal than children were being allowed for a week.
Then Councillor Archibald Dodd accused one of the officials of living in "coward's castle" through not being prepared to fully answer questions.
The Guardians said the cutbacks in relief payments were having to be made because they were short of money.
Swire's was a long-standing plumbing and decorating family in St Helens. For much of the 20th century, W. Swire & Sons had premises in Duke Street, George Street, Bickerstaffe Street and Church Road in Rainford – eventually closing in the late 1990s.
In 1922 the firm appeared to have had only one lock-up shop in George Street and the Reporter described how William Higgins had burgled it.
The young coal miner of no fixed abode had appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with stealing various items and cash to the value of £4 10 shillings that belonged to William Swire.
Higgins was quickly arrested and told police: "It was after the pubs closed that I went in. I don't think I would have done it if I had been sober."
The man was also charged with stealing a duck from a poultry breeder in Prescot Road.
William Higgins's sister gave evidence in the man's defence but in calling her brother the "black sheep of the family", did not help his case very much!
As he had three previous convictions, Higgins was sent to prison for two months.
The Reporter also described how an "elderly labourer of no fixed abode" called Martin Brannan had been in the Police Court this week facing a charge of being drunk and disorderly in Liverpool Street (pictured above) at 2am.
The paper quoted the dialogue between the Bench, police and prisoner in the courtroom:
"The Chairman: Has he ever been here before?
"Supt. Dunn: Yes. This is his 110th time. (Laughter in court.)
"Prisoner turning round to the court, and glaring fiercely at the merrymakers, shouted “Now, what are you laughing at?”
"The Chairman: In consideration of your not having been here for some years…..
"Prisoner: No, sir. I have kept as good as I could.
"The Chairman: You will be fined 10s,. and we hope this will be the last time."
Henry Baynton was arguably the top Shakespearean actor of his day and in a stage career lasting 40 years, is said to have performed 'Hamlet' over 2,000 times.
One of those occasions took place in St Helens this week, when Baynton's Shakespearean company played the Theatre Royal.
Other plays performed by his troupe included 'Macbeth', 'Twelfth Night', 'As You Like It' and 'Othello'.
The theatre's advert in the Reporter bore the message "Smoking permitted". If you were one of the few folk with a telephone, you could call St Helens 114 via the operator to book your seat.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the violent gin scene in the Nag's Head, the child wearing a highly flammable petticoat that burned to death, the commemoration of Remembrance Day in St Helens and the benefit cheat with 13 children.
We begin on November 1st when the Liverpool Echo published an article in which they wrote that a Labour party resolution passed by St Helens Town Council had gone down well in the town.
All leading officials at the Town Hall would now be dismissed from their office if they did not agree to their salaries being cut – in some instances by over £200 per year. The paper wrote:
"Among the townspeople there is much approval of the course, and the property-owners and ratepayers are anxious that the axe should have free play in many of the departments, including the rank and file of the medical officer's department, the education staff, and the teachers, as well as the police force."
Whether such cuts would result in an actual reduction in the rates was, however, another matter.
The police were far more used to mobs goading or assaulting them as they took their prisoners to the station than have a Good Samaritan help them when they were being attacked.
So understandably a great fuss was made of James Whittle in a ceremony held in the parade room of St Helens police station on the 2nd.
The man from Oxford Street had assisted PC Marshall while he had been arresting a drunken man that resisted wildly.
The struggle took place in Liverpool Road with the policeman having handed his whistle to Whittle to blow it and summon assistance from other officers.
For his action as a whistle-blower, Whittle was presented with a special ebony walking stick.
The fact the man was being honoured for doing what essentially was not very much, underlined how rare it was for members of the public to assist the police.
A more typical example of what the police faced was revealed in St Helens Police Court on the 3rd when a Widnes woman called Daisy Gallimore was summoned for not having lights on her car.
The offence had taken place in St Helens on the previous Saturday night and the town's Chief Constable had booked the woman himself.
The woman claimed that she was only being booked because he wanted a stripe – although I don't think Chief Constables can have extra stripes! Mrs Gallimore failed to turn up to court and was fined £3.
A Cheshire farmer was also in court on the 3rd charged with sending milk into St Helens that contained eight grains of dirt per gallon.
A sample of Daniel Massey's milk had been taken at St Helens railway station and an analyst reported rust, sand and animal dung within the dirt.
However, the quantities of the impurities were tiny and the milk was still considered to have been of a high quality. And so the case was dismissed upon payment of costs.
Concern was expressed for a missing St Helens woman on the 3rd. Isabel Pennington from Johnson Street had left her home on October 17th to visit a friend in Birkenhead but the 34-year-old had never arrived.
Although the times might be seen as more enlightened in many ways, there could still be harsh penalties for offences that would not be considered criminal today.
The Reporter on the 3rd described how a chimney sweep called Thomas Walker had been charged in St Helens Police Court with wife desertion after taking off for Stockport with a young woman.
The affair was only converted from a domestic tragedy into a criminal offence if the husband failed to make financial provision for his wife and family.
If the administrators of the Poor Law, the Prescot Guardians, were forced to step in to financially support the wife, the taxpayer was seen as doing the husband's job and so a prosecution took place.
Walker's relationship with the other woman had now ended and, somehow, the runaway husband had ended up with the custody of the couple's 7-month-old son.
He had been in court before and ordered to repay all the money that the Prescot Guardians had paid his wife – but had got considerably into arrears.
The sweep pleaded for a chance to redeem himself, saying he was a good man spoiled by people's talk.
To that remark the Chairman of the Bench said: "You don't seem to have had much consideration for your wife during these years."
The man declared that he would like to return to St Helens from Stockport. The Bench enquired whether he expected his wife to take him back after being away for so long, particularly as he would be coming home with an illegitimate child.
"Am I the only man who has made a slip?", sobbed Walker. "You have been pretty callous over this slip", replied the Chairman.
Walker said he had been married over 20 years and it was the first slip that he had made.
The Bench said they considered it to be a very bad case with the man's desertion of his wife a deliberate act that ought to be worthy of the strongest condemnation, adding:
"You are talking in a very penitent spirit now, but we will see whether, bye and bye, you are willing to do what you are promising. You will have to go to prison for two months with hard labour."
Walker asked who would care for his infant son during his time of incarceration.
The Bench said the child would no doubt be looked after by the Guardians in the same way his other children had been cared for. In other words the toddler would likely go into the workhouse.
Although never explicitly stated by the magistrates, there is no doubt that the punishment of such offenders was greater if another woman had been involved and, as in this case, an illegitimate child was born.
Disgust was rarely mentioned – but it was clearly an underlying issue during sentencing.
The Reporter also described fury at a special meeting of the Board of Guardians held earlier this week in which plans to cut relief payments to those in dire need were confirmed.
Children would now receive 2s 6d or 3s 6d a week and the maximum a family could claim would be £1 15 shillings a week, a reduction of five shillings.
Councillor Burrows accused the General Relief Committee of starving children by taking money away from them and said a recent deputation to London had spent more on one meal than children were being allowed for a week.
Then Councillor Archibald Dodd accused one of the officials of living in "coward's castle" through not being prepared to fully answer questions.
The Guardians said the cutbacks in relief payments were having to be made because they were short of money.
Swire's was a long-standing plumbing and decorating family in St Helens. For much of the 20th century, W. Swire & Sons had premises in Duke Street, George Street, Bickerstaffe Street and Church Road in Rainford – eventually closing in the late 1990s.
In 1922 the firm appeared to have had only one lock-up shop in George Street and the Reporter described how William Higgins had burgled it.
The young coal miner of no fixed abode had appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with stealing various items and cash to the value of £4 10 shillings that belonged to William Swire.
Higgins was quickly arrested and told police: "It was after the pubs closed that I went in. I don't think I would have done it if I had been sober."
The man was also charged with stealing a duck from a poultry breeder in Prescot Road.
William Higgins's sister gave evidence in the man's defence but in calling her brother the "black sheep of the family", did not help his case very much!
As he had three previous convictions, Higgins was sent to prison for two months.
The paper quoted the dialogue between the Bench, police and prisoner in the courtroom:
"The Chairman: Has he ever been here before?
"Supt. Dunn: Yes. This is his 110th time. (Laughter in court.)
"Prisoner turning round to the court, and glaring fiercely at the merrymakers, shouted “Now, what are you laughing at?”
"The Chairman: In consideration of your not having been here for some years…..
"Prisoner: No, sir. I have kept as good as I could.
"The Chairman: You will be fined 10s,. and we hope this will be the last time."
Henry Baynton was arguably the top Shakespearean actor of his day and in a stage career lasting 40 years, is said to have performed 'Hamlet' over 2,000 times.
One of those occasions took place in St Helens this week, when Baynton's Shakespearean company played the Theatre Royal.
Other plays performed by his troupe included 'Macbeth', 'Twelfth Night', 'As You Like It' and 'Othello'.
The theatre's advert in the Reporter bore the message "Smoking permitted". If you were one of the few folk with a telephone, you could call St Helens 114 via the operator to book your seat.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the violent gin scene in the Nag's Head, the child wearing a highly flammable petticoat that burned to death, the commemoration of Remembrance Day in St Helens and the benefit cheat with 13 children.