St Helens History This Week

Bringing History to Life from 50, 100 and 150 Years Ago!

Bringing History to Life from 50, 100 and 150 Years Ago!

ST HELENS 150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
This page is a series of weekly articles that describe llfe in the Lancashire town in the 1870s and which are updated every Sunday morning.
150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
This page is a series of weekly articles that describe llfe in St Helens in Lancashire in the 1870s and which are updated every Sunday morning.
Kirkdale gaol summary

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (26th OCT. - 1st NOV. 1870)

This week's stories include the Parr grocer who was accused of making a very grave imputation on a woman's chastity, one of the last corrupt council elections takes place in St Helens, why the Eccleston Ward was known as the "Kilkenny Ward", two boy thieves at Whiston are given harsh sentences, a drowning at Pocket Nook and the mother of a future St Helens MP calls another son a "good-for-nothing lazy fellow".
READ FULL ARTICLE
Pilkington glassworks summary

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (19th - 25th OCTOBER 1870)

This week's stories include the fifteen-year-old Thatto Heath girl who claimed a Manchester publican made her pregnant, Pilkingtons adopt a hard-line attitude to their workers who had been on strike for seven months, a woman claims sexual assault by a Prescot policeman in the early hours, the simple looking fellow who denied the impeachment of his morality and the old offenders who were given harsh prison terms.
READ FULL ARTICLE
Laceys School St Helens

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (12th - 18th OCTOBER 1870)

This week's many stories include an act of bravery at a Greenbank chemical works, the thumbless Sutton glass polisher, the Cowley school collection for victims of the Franco-Prussian war, the drunken cart drivers of Knowsley, the Bible liars infesting St Helens, the struggle for a hat in College Street that led to threats being made and the man dubbed one of the laziest fellows in Lancashire gets his comeuppance.
READ FULL ARTICLE
St Helens Borough Police

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (5th - 11th OCTOBER 1870)

This week's many stories include a train crash at St Helens railway station, the rogues and vagabonds wanted for deserting their families, the Whiston Workhouse cook gets drunk (again!), why more darkness was visible on the streets of St Helens, the unfair sacking of the workhouse barber, why there had been a "pretty tulip exhibition" in Gerrard's Bridge and a borough police force for St Helens is re-considered.
READ FULL ARTICLE
Auction summary

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (28th SEPT. - 4th OCT. 1870)

This week's stories include the Dentons Green hen stealers, a company of volunteer soldiers enjoy a treat in Rainford, the man sent to prison after attempting suicide, a Peasley Cross tea party, the apprentice described as an "inveterate smoker and drunkard", a man receives a stiff fine for not licensing his horse and an unusual St Helens auction of horses, picks and paraphernalia used in building a railway line.
READ FULL ARTICLE
Victoria Passage summary

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (21st - 27th SEPTEMBER 1870)

This week's many stories include the man who claimed a policeman robbed him near Bridge Street, a street attack outside the Nag's Head, a big athletics contest is held in Dentons Green, the St Helens Flower Show is held in Thatto Heath, the Pocket Nook man in the Lancaster debtor's prison, clothes stealing in Eccleston and the Vicar of St Helens laments how the people of the town are losing interest in religion.
READ FULL ARTICLE
Pilkingtons Glass summary

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (14th - 20th SEPTEMBER 1870)

This week's stories include the Pilkington glass striker who tried to throw a strike-breaker off a bridge in Westfield Street, the man who thought the dead were burying the dead in St Helens, the raving mad horse with rabies, the St Helens telegraphic genius that found himself in trouble in Tipton, the man fined for singing in the streets of St Helens and the formation of a new temperance movement in the town.
READ FULL ARTICLE
St Helens County Court summary

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (7th - 13th SEPTEMBER 1870)

This week's many stories include the cost of the scheme to remove the evils of Sankey Brook, the Pilkington striker who was called a "snake in the grass", the Prescot boy poked in the eye with an umbrella, the Liverpool Road painter's absent apprentice, the cost of shoes for paupers in Whiston Workhouse, the man who said he'd shot a hen to make his gun safe and the Rainford poster boy who threw stones at a train.
READ FULL ARTICLE
Liverpool Inn summary

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (31st AUG. - 6th SEPT. 1870)

This week's many stories include the wife beater from Parr, the revenge window smashing at the Liverpool Inn, the Eccleston foundry that was fined for illegally working a "great lump of a lad", the man ordered to contribute towards the support of his lunatic wife, the Parr beerhouse keeper who got out of a charge of selling ale on a Sunday morning, the Eccleston licensee who was on a 36-year-trial and there's another complaint about the purloining of Thatto Heath.
READ FULL ARTICLE
Volunteer Hall summary

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (24th - 30th AUGUST 1870)

This week's stories include an experiment to cure the evils of Sankey Brook, the prevalence of foot and mouth in Eccleston, the middle-aged woman of "wretched aspect" charged with begging, the black man of Moss Nook who fell asleep driving a carriage, the Earlestown women who fought by dragging hair, the Irish diorama at the Volunteer Hall and the man who used a stone to bash his son in front of the Parr police.
READ FULL ARTICLE
Boundary Road summary

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (17th - 23rd AUGUST 1870)

This week's many stories include the Boundary Lane mob that turned on a Pilkington strike-breaker, a shocking explosion takes place at a Bryn coalmine, the Eccleston Church School Treat, the drunken men that knocked people off the footpath in Church Street, the man who turned up drunk to court and the church minister at a Town Hall temperance meeting who thought St Helens was one of the least saintly towns.
READ FULL ARTICLE