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.
Engineer Hall summary

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (28th DEC. 1870 - 3rd JAN.1871)

This week's many stories include the "greatest novelties in negro minstrelsy" at the Volunteer Hall, criticism over the lack of an illuminated public clock, the mayor's annual Christmas dinner for the aged poor, the Sutton man sent to prison for stealing pigeons, an argument over whether Brook Street was a highway and a major inquiry by Truck Commissioners is held into malpractice in the Prescot watch industry.
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Carr Mill Dam summary

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

This week's stories include the Christmas produce on display in St Helens, the greatest brute in all Prescot is brought to court, the Christmas skaters enjoying themselves on Carr Mill Dam and on Eccleston Mere, why the St Helens Newspaper thought 1870 would be thought the most remarkable year in history and how an Eccleston woman beaten and thrown out of her home by her husband was treated by magistrates.
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Laceys summary

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

This week's stories include an allegation by the St Helens Newspaper of penny pinching at Whiston Workhouse, a magistrate comments on the lack of places to spend a penny in St Helens, the cheating Liverpool Road grocer, the chaotic nature of the railways leads to a train crash in Peasley Cross, the annual 4-day Christmas shoot at St Helens Junction, the Cowley boys "reunion" and the workhouse prepares for Christmas.
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Tontine Street summary

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

This week's many stories include the horse rug that was allegedly stolen in Moss Bank by a Peasley Cross grocer, the strange Parr Street drunkenness dispute between a solicitor and the police, the riderless horse in Eccleston, the recidivist offender stupidly drunk in Tontine Street, a famous Irish poet gives a series of readings at St Helens Town Hall and the drunken man who would turn himself in at the police station.
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Volunteer Hall summary

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (30th NOV. - 6th DEC. 1870)

This week's many stories include the juicy Parr scandal of a married woman and a sixteen-year-old boy, the man given three months in prison for sleeping in the open air, the new Whiston Workhouse cook resigns, the fat Christmas geese and turkeys in Market Street, a benefit concert in the Volunteer Hall for a blind member of a band and the prosecution of the Prescot apprentice watchmaker for not turning up to work.
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St Helens police summary

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (23rd - 29th NOVEMBER 1870)

This week's stories include the pitiable tale of the Irish beggar in Tontine Street, the bobby who almost lost his whiskers in Church Street, the St Helens volunteer soldiers prepare for war with their new single shot Snider rifles, the man in Parr Street who asked a policeman to have a glass of summut and the wild woman with bare arms accused of cursing, swearing and creating a noise in Eccleston at midnight.
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Sutton Oak Welsh Chapel summary

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (16th - 22nd NOVEMBER 1870)

This week's stories include a claim that St Helens had the dirtiest streets in Lancashire, how the courts treated the poor for taking bits of coal, the foundation stone laying for the Sutton Road Methodist Church, criticism of the police after a Raglan Street burglary, the strange struggle between a Sutton landlady and her lodger and the woman of loose character who was charged with behaving indecently in Liverpool Road.
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Lowe House summary

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (9th - 15th NOVEMBER 1870)

This week's many stories include a mysterious drowning in St Helens Canal, the man who broke down the door of his sister's house in Duke Street, the cannon firing in Pocket Nook, a cheeky court appeal by the landlord of the Railway Hotel in Rainhill, an old lady's dramatic leap from a train, the Lowe House Tea Party and Ball and a train crash at Sutton in which a train drivers and stoker jumped for their lives.
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Parr Street summary

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (2nd - 8th NOVEMBER 1870)

This week's many stories include a case of severe poverty and wife beating in Rainford, Whiston Workhouse receives a bad inspector's report, the end of the six-month-long Pilkington glass strike, harsh prison terms as a result of a Parr Street burglary, the man accused of abominable conduct against his wife and the drunken woman in Smithy Brow who said she declared to goodness that she never drank more than pop.
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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".
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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.
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