IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (31st Dec. 1918 - 6th Jan. 1919)
This week's many stories include a double murder and suicide, the severe flooding in St Helens, a child tragedy in Clock Face, why Boys Scouts blew their bugles on New Year's Eve, the meths drinker on the Prescot bus, the Cannington Shaw marble thieves and the poor children's free breakfasts.
However we begin with a triple tragedy at an isolated farmhouse near Liverpool that had Prescot and St Helens connections. On the 31st a young servant called Norah Mitchell discovered the bodies of Anthony Bower and his wife Martha lying in their sitting room with bullet wounds to their heads.
The girl ran upstairs to rouse Unwin Bower, her employer's father, who was still in bed. As she walked into the elderly man's bedroom, she tripped over the body of a dead dog and saw Bower lying with blood on his face. The terrified girl fled from the house thinking a killer was on the loose. Norah ran to a neighbour's house for help and when the farmhouse was properly searched, the couple's 14-month-old baby was discovered unharmed in its cot – the tragedy's only good news.
Martha Bower had lived for most of her life in Prescot and her father William Silcock, from Owen Street in Toll Bar, identified his daughter's body. Two days later an inquest took place in which Norah told the coroner that Mrs Bower had said her husband had delusions that his family would die. How right he was!
Finding her master and mistress dead had been a distressing experience for the servant. "I haven't closed my eyes since", Norah told the hearing. The inquest jury returned a verdict that Anthony Bower had murdered his wife and father and then committed suicide.
On the 31st a young man called Edward Bate was fined in St Helens Police Court after being caught begging in Church Street. He said he wanted money for his lodgings but was found to have six shillings on his person.
"How Did a Woman Become Helplessly Drunk?", was the headline to an article in the St Helens Reporter. The magistrates in Prescot Police Court considered this question on the 31st when Minnie Downham appeared before them charged with being drunk and incapable. The woman had got on a tram outside the Sefton Arms during the previous afternoon seemingly sober. However twenty minutes later she was so drunk that she had to be carried off the tram into the Prescot Police Station in Derby Street!
The answer to the question appears to be that Minnie had drunk some meths, as she was found to be in possession of a bottle of methylated spirit. However the woman swore that she had not drunk anything from the bottle and had only had a little whisky.
A fortnight earlier Minnie had been found lying helplessly drunk in Parr Street at 6 o’clock in the evening with two bottles of meths in her possession. For that offence she had been fined ten shillings. Minnie promised the Bench that she would not drink any more alcohol during the New Year and she was fined another ten bob. That was hardly the answer to her problems.
The inquest on 2 years 9 months old Ethel Garner of Clock Face Road was also held on New Year's Eve. The little girl had fallen backwards into a bucket of boiling water that her mother had carried into the yard to clean her slopstone. That was a stone slab located under a tap. Ethel was had only just recovered from pneumonia and died from her scalds on the following day in St Helens Hospital. This was the second tragedy that her mother Margaret had to bear, having lost her husband in October.
There was bad news for the younger schoolchildren in St Helens on the 31st. They had to go back to school! They had only received one week of schooling over the last two months due to the flu outbreak but it was now considered safe enough for the elementary schools to reopen on January 7th.
Towards the end of the war many Boy Scouts had helped with air raid duties, including sounding the all-clear signal after an attack or a false alarm. St Helens Boys Scouts used their bugles to sound the "all clear" for the last time at midnight on December 31st. This was a national initiative designed to signify the end of the "war's alarms of the past year, and that the road is all clear for peace and happiness, good work and success in the New Year".
On New Year's Day the 35th free breakfasts for 2,700 poor children took place at 11 reception centres across St Helens. These were mainly schools such as St Anne's in Sutton and Sacred Heart in Borough Road. However the centres also included the Catholic Temperance League Hall in Lord Street and the Salvation Army Hall in Milk Street (now the Citadel arts centre).
This longstanding event was begun by the late Joseph Leach of the estate agency / auctioneers and was now organised by his son Wilfred, with a large number of volunteers helping out at each centre. The St Helens Reporter described it as one of the "red letter events of the New Year" and added that the "smiling faces of the children bore excellent testimony to the fact that the attendance, no less than the breakfast, was greatly appreciated by the little people."
At Providence Hospital all the patients that had been allowed a few days Christmas home leave were now back in residence. This would be the last festive season that the hospital would provide care for wounded soldiers and so a special effort was made to give them all a good time on New Year's Day. The Mayor and Mayoress went round the wards and helped to serve plum puddings and other extras for the patients.
During the evening the eleventh annual New Year's Day ball and whist drive was held in the Town Hall in aid of St Austin's Church in Thatto Heath, which was well attended.
On the 2nd the freedom of the borough was conferred on the Mayor of St Helens at a special town council meeting. Alderman Henry Bates was now in his fourth consecutive year as the town's leading citizen and he became only the seventh person to receive the award and the only living recipient.
The timing was a little awkward for Bates as a scandal was brewing over letters that the Mayoress had sent to the authorities in Dublin. John Bull magazine had reported that Alice Bates had used her position to try and get favourable treatment for her brother who had been arrested as an army absentee.
On the 3rd the St Helens Reporter described how parts of the town had been saturated this week as a result of heavy rain: "There is water everywhere in lesser or greater quantity", the paper wrote. "Poor aquatic Sutton" had been particularly badly hit creating some "extraordinary sights" that were "to the great disgust of its inhabitants". For much of one day the tramway track at Peasley Cross had been impassable and the fields on all sides of St Helens were under water.
"Even the proverbial oldest inhabitant would be hard put to it to find a parallel to the existing state of things", added the Reporter. The newspaper added that the green pastures of a few days ago were now holding water that was "deep enough in places to drown a venturesome child."
On the 4th George Edwards from Volunteer Street appeared in the Police Court charged with stealing a tobacco pouch and a knife. The 11-year-old had been to the St Helens Corporation gas works to take some dinner to his brother. The boy spotted a jacket hanging up in Eli Dixon's cabin and from it took the knife and pouch, selling the latter to a man in Church Street for threepence.
Fifty years ago the lad would probably have been sent to prison for the thefts and he could still have been birched. However as George's father was serving in Egypt, some latitude appears to have been given and the boy was put on probation.
Boys taking meals to family members at their place of work was commonplace, which provided easy access to buildings for young thieves. In another case the manager of Cannington Shaw blamed such lads for stealing thousands of gross of glass stoppers from his bottle firm every year. That's a heck of a lot of marbles!
Mr Ashall said some were used to smash street lamps, as he brought a prosecution against George Rawlinson from Blackbrook and John Melia of Back Albert Street. The youths had nicked two gross of the stoppers; although they were both employed at the firm and not meal deliverers. The pair had been seen by the police at 5am that same morning throwing the marbles in the street and were both fined £1.
Poor old Annie Murphy made her 69th court appearance on the 6th charged with vagrancy. She had been discovered by the police sleeping on the cold floor of a lavatory inside the headquarters of the Royal Army Medical Corp in Croppers Hill. Superintendent Dunn told the Bench that the woman was a "regular nuisance" and during the past month had been allowed to stay for the night in the charge room of the police station. The magistrates decided that three months in prison was the answer to Annie's homelessness.
Next week's '100 Years Ago' stories will include the girl pickpockets at the Baldwin Street Co-op, two dreadful deaths at Sutton Manor Colliery, the Blinkhorn Rooms in Sutton, Ford cars for sale at a Duke Street dealer's, the Vincent Street fire tragedy, the New Year sales in St Helens, a film and theatre guide and the poor lighting in the town.
However we begin with a triple tragedy at an isolated farmhouse near Liverpool that had Prescot and St Helens connections. On the 31st a young servant called Norah Mitchell discovered the bodies of Anthony Bower and his wife Martha lying in their sitting room with bullet wounds to their heads.
The girl ran upstairs to rouse Unwin Bower, her employer's father, who was still in bed. As she walked into the elderly man's bedroom, she tripped over the body of a dead dog and saw Bower lying with blood on his face. The terrified girl fled from the house thinking a killer was on the loose. Norah ran to a neighbour's house for help and when the farmhouse was properly searched, the couple's 14-month-old baby was discovered unharmed in its cot – the tragedy's only good news.
Martha Bower had lived for most of her life in Prescot and her father William Silcock, from Owen Street in Toll Bar, identified his daughter's body. Two days later an inquest took place in which Norah told the coroner that Mrs Bower had said her husband had delusions that his family would die. How right he was!
Finding her master and mistress dead had been a distressing experience for the servant. "I haven't closed my eyes since", Norah told the hearing. The inquest jury returned a verdict that Anthony Bower had murdered his wife and father and then committed suicide.
On the 31st a young man called Edward Bate was fined in St Helens Police Court after being caught begging in Church Street. He said he wanted money for his lodgings but was found to have six shillings on his person.
"How Did a Woman Become Helplessly Drunk?", was the headline to an article in the St Helens Reporter. The magistrates in Prescot Police Court considered this question on the 31st when Minnie Downham appeared before them charged with being drunk and incapable. The woman had got on a tram outside the Sefton Arms during the previous afternoon seemingly sober. However twenty minutes later she was so drunk that she had to be carried off the tram into the Prescot Police Station in Derby Street!
The answer to the question appears to be that Minnie had drunk some meths, as she was found to be in possession of a bottle of methylated spirit. However the woman swore that she had not drunk anything from the bottle and had only had a little whisky.
A fortnight earlier Minnie had been found lying helplessly drunk in Parr Street at 6 o’clock in the evening with two bottles of meths in her possession. For that offence she had been fined ten shillings. Minnie promised the Bench that she would not drink any more alcohol during the New Year and she was fined another ten bob. That was hardly the answer to her problems.
The inquest on 2 years 9 months old Ethel Garner of Clock Face Road was also held on New Year's Eve. The little girl had fallen backwards into a bucket of boiling water that her mother had carried into the yard to clean her slopstone. That was a stone slab located under a tap. Ethel was had only just recovered from pneumonia and died from her scalds on the following day in St Helens Hospital. This was the second tragedy that her mother Margaret had to bear, having lost her husband in October.
There was bad news for the younger schoolchildren in St Helens on the 31st. They had to go back to school! They had only received one week of schooling over the last two months due to the flu outbreak but it was now considered safe enough for the elementary schools to reopen on January 7th.
Towards the end of the war many Boy Scouts had helped with air raid duties, including sounding the all-clear signal after an attack or a false alarm. St Helens Boys Scouts used their bugles to sound the "all clear" for the last time at midnight on December 31st. This was a national initiative designed to signify the end of the "war's alarms of the past year, and that the road is all clear for peace and happiness, good work and success in the New Year".
On New Year's Day the 35th free breakfasts for 2,700 poor children took place at 11 reception centres across St Helens. These were mainly schools such as St Anne's in Sutton and Sacred Heart in Borough Road. However the centres also included the Catholic Temperance League Hall in Lord Street and the Salvation Army Hall in Milk Street (now the Citadel arts centre).
This longstanding event was begun by the late Joseph Leach of the estate agency / auctioneers and was now organised by his son Wilfred, with a large number of volunteers helping out at each centre. The St Helens Reporter described it as one of the "red letter events of the New Year" and added that the "smiling faces of the children bore excellent testimony to the fact that the attendance, no less than the breakfast, was greatly appreciated by the little people."
At Providence Hospital all the patients that had been allowed a few days Christmas home leave were now back in residence. This would be the last festive season that the hospital would provide care for wounded soldiers and so a special effort was made to give them all a good time on New Year's Day. The Mayor and Mayoress went round the wards and helped to serve plum puddings and other extras for the patients.
During the evening the eleventh annual New Year's Day ball and whist drive was held in the Town Hall in aid of St Austin's Church in Thatto Heath, which was well attended.
Mayoral portrait of Henry Bates who was awarded the freedom of the borough - Contributed by Merrick Baker-Bates
Mayoral portrait of Henry Bates which seems to have been hand coloured
Mayoral portrait of Henry Bates
The timing was a little awkward for Bates as a scandal was brewing over letters that the Mayoress had sent to the authorities in Dublin. John Bull magazine had reported that Alice Bates had used her position to try and get favourable treatment for her brother who had been arrested as an army absentee.
On the 3rd the St Helens Reporter described how parts of the town had been saturated this week as a result of heavy rain: "There is water everywhere in lesser or greater quantity", the paper wrote. "Poor aquatic Sutton" had been particularly badly hit creating some "extraordinary sights" that were "to the great disgust of its inhabitants". For much of one day the tramway track at Peasley Cross had been impassable and the fields on all sides of St Helens were under water.
"Even the proverbial oldest inhabitant would be hard put to it to find a parallel to the existing state of things", added the Reporter. The newspaper added that the green pastures of a few days ago were now holding water that was "deep enough in places to drown a venturesome child."
On the 4th George Edwards from Volunteer Street appeared in the Police Court charged with stealing a tobacco pouch and a knife. The 11-year-old had been to the St Helens Corporation gas works to take some dinner to his brother. The boy spotted a jacket hanging up in Eli Dixon's cabin and from it took the knife and pouch, selling the latter to a man in Church Street for threepence.
Fifty years ago the lad would probably have been sent to prison for the thefts and he could still have been birched. However as George's father was serving in Egypt, some latitude appears to have been given and the boy was put on probation.
Boys taking meals to family members at their place of work was commonplace, which provided easy access to buildings for young thieves. In another case the manager of Cannington Shaw blamed such lads for stealing thousands of gross of glass stoppers from his bottle firm every year. That's a heck of a lot of marbles!
Mr Ashall said some were used to smash street lamps, as he brought a prosecution against George Rawlinson from Blackbrook and John Melia of Back Albert Street. The youths had nicked two gross of the stoppers; although they were both employed at the firm and not meal deliverers. The pair had been seen by the police at 5am that same morning throwing the marbles in the street and were both fined £1.
Poor old Annie Murphy made her 69th court appearance on the 6th charged with vagrancy. She had been discovered by the police sleeping on the cold floor of a lavatory inside the headquarters of the Royal Army Medical Corp in Croppers Hill. Superintendent Dunn told the Bench that the woman was a "regular nuisance" and during the past month had been allowed to stay for the night in the charge room of the police station. The magistrates decided that three months in prison was the answer to Annie's homelessness.
Next week's '100 Years Ago' stories will include the girl pickpockets at the Baldwin Street Co-op, two dreadful deaths at Sutton Manor Colliery, the Blinkhorn Rooms in Sutton, Ford cars for sale at a Duke Street dealer's, the Vincent Street fire tragedy, the New Year sales in St Helens, a film and theatre guide and the poor lighting in the town.