150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (3rd - 9th JANUARY 1872)
This week's stories include the scandal in Rainford when a young lodger took off with his landlady, the smallpox and measles epidemics that were raging in St Helens, a miner's curious drunken death in Cross Street, the punch up at a working men's ball in Prescot and the police sergeant found drunk in Liverpool Road in St Helens who blamed his condition on diarrhoea.
We begin in St Helens Petty Sessions on the 4th when Thomas Cruise was charged with stealing a fire shovel belonging to John McKenna of Coal Pit Lane in Parr. However, it transpired that McKenna's wife had bashed Cruise with the shovel and so he had simply taken it off her for his own protection. The case was dismissed.
Taking in lodgers used to be much more common than today, as it provided an easy source of extra income for hard-pressed families. However it also led to overcrowding and romantic entanglements. School Brow in Rainford (pictured above) is now part of Church Road but it used to be the name of the street leading from Pasture Lane to the Derby Arms. On the 6th the St Helens Newspaper published an article about a scandal that had taken place in School Brow involving an unnamed married woman and her young lodger. As a result the cheated husband was left penniless and forced to sell off what possessions he had left. The Newspaper wrote:
"A certain section of society in the village of Rainford has been unusually exercised over a domestic scandal which occurred last Saturday. It appears that the wife of a pipemaker residing at School-brow, the mother of five children, left her husband's roof in company with a lodger, a youth only eighteen years of age. It is alleged that she carried with her all the money and easily portable property on which she laid her hands, and set up house with her paramour a short distance off.
"The deserted husband had his household effects brought to the hammer on Wednesday, and pocketed all they realised; and the most shameless feature of the transaction is that the guilty pair watched the sale from a short distance. The wife keeps her youngest child. She tried to get rid of it by sending it to the father, but he returned it immediately."
The Newspaper also provided a week-by-week breakdown of the number of deaths from smallpox and measles within the borough of St Helens over the past two months. That was a relatively narrow geographical area, excluding Haydock, Rainford, Eccleston etc. There had been 64 deaths from measles since the start of November and smallpox had taken a further 50 lives. "Their table", they wrote, gives "a clear idea of the destructive character of the epidemics which have raged with such virulence in our midst. They are now happily decreasing in extent, though not such as to give hopes of their early extinction."
The Newspaper also gave an account of a curious death involving a miner called John Whittle, who had been found dead in bed at his lodgings in Cross Street in St Helens. The nature of his demise symbolised the often confused, drunken and semi-violent society that then existed in working-class districts of the town. Whittle worked at Groves Colliery in Burtonhead Road, which was also known as Ravenhead Colliery. His wife Isabella told an inquest hearing at the Red Lion in Bridge Street that on the previous Saturday her husband had come home from his night shift at 8am and around midday went out to collect his wages.
Many men would then hand their pay over to their wives and receive pocket money (i.e. drinking and tobacco money) back in return. However, Whittle simply paid the owner of the house her board and lodging and then left. During the evening Isabella went in search of her husband and found him in a beerhouse in Liverpool Road. She said she asked him for some money to buy food for the family and, the Newspaper wrote, "He replied with an oath, and when she repeated the question he struck her." A man who witnessed the assault came to Isabella's defence by striking her husband in the face.
Isabella then went home where she said she had a fit and did not remember anything else until the following morning when she discovered her husband dead in bed. However, the owner of the house, Elizabeth Brannon, said that at midnight she had found John Whittle unconscious in her kitchen and with the help of another lodger had dragged him to his room. Shortly afterwards she heard Mrs Whittle shout "murder", and upon entering their room saw the couple fighting, with the wife pushing her husband down on to his back. The inquest jury said they thought the whole affair suspicious and requested a post-mortem examination be conducted on Whittle's body.
This was subsequently carried out and Dr Lyon reported that the man's death had been caused by congestion of the brain induced by excessive intemperance. Brain congestion was a widely used term at that time when swellings or blockages were found. I think the truth was the doctor did not really know the cause of Whittle's death but the man's hard-drinking lifestyle certainly did not help.
The St Helens Newspaper also published this article about a punch-up in Prescot: "A working men's ball took place in the Court Room, Prescot, on Monday night last; it was very well attended, the band of the Harmonic Society supplying the music. The proceedings were continued very pleasantly until the small hours, when a couple of strangers said to be from Liverpool, put in an appearance. A row shortly afterwards arose, in which they played a most disagreeably prominent part.
"One of them broke a bottle on a man's head, and not content with this feat, he gave melancholy usage to the secretary for interfering in the interests of order. The bass violin came into the melee by some unexplained process, and was carried away a wreck. A large tea cup formed an element in the fight, but collapsed at an early stage from violent contact with the cranium of one of the combatants. Some forms were overthrown, a few ladies screamed, and general confusion and alarm prevailed. The police locked up one of the strangers, who gave the name of Richard Thornton, and the magistrates reminded him at petty sessions on Tuesday."
The St Helens Newspaper also published this short piece: "We understand that one of the policemen, who for many years has been a prominent member of the St. Helens force – a sergeant – and generally reputed a teetotaller, has been caught in a state of super-refreshment, in an entry in Liverpool-road, and on his person when examined were found, it is said, skeleton keys and other implements of industry. We hope that the enquiry will be an open one, so that the public mind may be satisfied."
A few days later at a hearing of St Helens Petty Sessions, Superintendent Ludlam, the head of the town's police force, was asked about the report and said: "It is entirely untrue; there is not the least foundation for it." However, the Newspaper had not identified the officer involved – but the superintendent then did. Ludlam told the court it was Sergeant Eastham who had been found drunk but blamed his condition on taking a "little stimulant" through attacks of diarrhoea.
Two half-glasses of brandy were said to have been responsible for putting the policeman in such a drunken state. When the magistrates then asked what Sergeant Eastham had to say about the affair, Supt. Ludlam replied: "He is almost broken-hearted. It is a most shameful thing."
When the previous Lord Derby had died at Knowsley Hall (shown above) in 1869 after a long illness, the St Helens Newspaper said the announcement of his demise had come "like a thunder-clap". A "feeling of gloom" had descended on Prescot and Huyton with scarcely a house without a closed blind or some other mark of respect for the 14th earl.
Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley had been highly distinguished. He had served as prime minister on three occasions and is still to this day the Tories longest-serving leader. This week, on the 7th, a memorial chapel was dedicated to the late earl at Knowsley Church. Then in 1874, the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli would unveil a statue of Lord Derby in Parliament Square in London.
During the evening of the 8th, a concert was held in the Volunteer Hall in St Helens to raise funds for the Catholic schools of Sutton. The Newspaper wrote that the promoters had "reason to be rejoiced at the result", as the venue was well filled.
And finally, the St Helens Newspaper published these two brief articles, back to back, about the bad weather in the country and the demise of a lion-tamer: "VIOLENT STORMS. – A hurricane, thunderstorms, and an earthquake were severally experienced in this country on Thursday. The earthquake was distinctly felt at Sheffield, where a man was killed by lightning. Near Manchester a church was burned."
"LION TAMER WORRIED TO DEATH. – Thomas Maccarte, a “tamer” attached to Manders' menagerie, was going through the usual performance with lions at Bolton, on Wednesday night, when the beasts became infuriated, and killed the unfortunate man. At the inquest, which was held on Thursday, the jury faithfully reflected public opinion by appending to their verdict an expression of “entire disapprobation of the reckless custom of so-called lion tamers performing in dens where ferocious animals are caged up.”"
Next week's stories will include the St Helens children who had never been to school, the smallpox epidemic worsens, the Prescot wife-beater gets his come-uppance and the campaign against a proposed chemical works in Boundary Road.
We begin in St Helens Petty Sessions on the 4th when Thomas Cruise was charged with stealing a fire shovel belonging to John McKenna of Coal Pit Lane in Parr. However, it transpired that McKenna's wife had bashed Cruise with the shovel and so he had simply taken it off her for his own protection. The case was dismissed.
"A certain section of society in the village of Rainford has been unusually exercised over a domestic scandal which occurred last Saturday. It appears that the wife of a pipemaker residing at School-brow, the mother of five children, left her husband's roof in company with a lodger, a youth only eighteen years of age. It is alleged that she carried with her all the money and easily portable property on which she laid her hands, and set up house with her paramour a short distance off.
"The deserted husband had his household effects brought to the hammer on Wednesday, and pocketed all they realised; and the most shameless feature of the transaction is that the guilty pair watched the sale from a short distance. The wife keeps her youngest child. She tried to get rid of it by sending it to the father, but he returned it immediately."
The Newspaper also provided a week-by-week breakdown of the number of deaths from smallpox and measles within the borough of St Helens over the past two months. That was a relatively narrow geographical area, excluding Haydock, Rainford, Eccleston etc. There had been 64 deaths from measles since the start of November and smallpox had taken a further 50 lives. "Their table", they wrote, gives "a clear idea of the destructive character of the epidemics which have raged with such virulence in our midst. They are now happily decreasing in extent, though not such as to give hopes of their early extinction."
The Newspaper also gave an account of a curious death involving a miner called John Whittle, who had been found dead in bed at his lodgings in Cross Street in St Helens. The nature of his demise symbolised the often confused, drunken and semi-violent society that then existed in working-class districts of the town. Whittle worked at Groves Colliery in Burtonhead Road, which was also known as Ravenhead Colliery. His wife Isabella told an inquest hearing at the Red Lion in Bridge Street that on the previous Saturday her husband had come home from his night shift at 8am and around midday went out to collect his wages.
Many men would then hand their pay over to their wives and receive pocket money (i.e. drinking and tobacco money) back in return. However, Whittle simply paid the owner of the house her board and lodging and then left. During the evening Isabella went in search of her husband and found him in a beerhouse in Liverpool Road. She said she asked him for some money to buy food for the family and, the Newspaper wrote, "He replied with an oath, and when she repeated the question he struck her." A man who witnessed the assault came to Isabella's defence by striking her husband in the face.
Isabella then went home where she said she had a fit and did not remember anything else until the following morning when she discovered her husband dead in bed. However, the owner of the house, Elizabeth Brannon, said that at midnight she had found John Whittle unconscious in her kitchen and with the help of another lodger had dragged him to his room. Shortly afterwards she heard Mrs Whittle shout "murder", and upon entering their room saw the couple fighting, with the wife pushing her husband down on to his back. The inquest jury said they thought the whole affair suspicious and requested a post-mortem examination be conducted on Whittle's body.
This was subsequently carried out and Dr Lyon reported that the man's death had been caused by congestion of the brain induced by excessive intemperance. Brain congestion was a widely used term at that time when swellings or blockages were found. I think the truth was the doctor did not really know the cause of Whittle's death but the man's hard-drinking lifestyle certainly did not help.
The St Helens Newspaper also published this article about a punch-up in Prescot: "A working men's ball took place in the Court Room, Prescot, on Monday night last; it was very well attended, the band of the Harmonic Society supplying the music. The proceedings were continued very pleasantly until the small hours, when a couple of strangers said to be from Liverpool, put in an appearance. A row shortly afterwards arose, in which they played a most disagreeably prominent part.
"One of them broke a bottle on a man's head, and not content with this feat, he gave melancholy usage to the secretary for interfering in the interests of order. The bass violin came into the melee by some unexplained process, and was carried away a wreck. A large tea cup formed an element in the fight, but collapsed at an early stage from violent contact with the cranium of one of the combatants. Some forms were overthrown, a few ladies screamed, and general confusion and alarm prevailed. The police locked up one of the strangers, who gave the name of Richard Thornton, and the magistrates reminded him at petty sessions on Tuesday."
The St Helens Newspaper also published this short piece: "We understand that one of the policemen, who for many years has been a prominent member of the St. Helens force – a sergeant – and generally reputed a teetotaller, has been caught in a state of super-refreshment, in an entry in Liverpool-road, and on his person when examined were found, it is said, skeleton keys and other implements of industry. We hope that the enquiry will be an open one, so that the public mind may be satisfied."
A few days later at a hearing of St Helens Petty Sessions, Superintendent Ludlam, the head of the town's police force, was asked about the report and said: "It is entirely untrue; there is not the least foundation for it." However, the Newspaper had not identified the officer involved – but the superintendent then did. Ludlam told the court it was Sergeant Eastham who had been found drunk but blamed his condition on taking a "little stimulant" through attacks of diarrhoea.
Two half-glasses of brandy were said to have been responsible for putting the policeman in such a drunken state. When the magistrates then asked what Sergeant Eastham had to say about the affair, Supt. Ludlam replied: "He is almost broken-hearted. It is a most shameful thing."
Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley had been highly distinguished. He had served as prime minister on three occasions and is still to this day the Tories longest-serving leader. This week, on the 7th, a memorial chapel was dedicated to the late earl at Knowsley Church. Then in 1874, the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli would unveil a statue of Lord Derby in Parliament Square in London.
During the evening of the 8th, a concert was held in the Volunteer Hall in St Helens to raise funds for the Catholic schools of Sutton. The Newspaper wrote that the promoters had "reason to be rejoiced at the result", as the venue was well filled.
And finally, the St Helens Newspaper published these two brief articles, back to back, about the bad weather in the country and the demise of a lion-tamer: "VIOLENT STORMS. – A hurricane, thunderstorms, and an earthquake were severally experienced in this country on Thursday. The earthquake was distinctly felt at Sheffield, where a man was killed by lightning. Near Manchester a church was burned."
"LION TAMER WORRIED TO DEATH. – Thomas Maccarte, a “tamer” attached to Manders' menagerie, was going through the usual performance with lions at Bolton, on Wednesday night, when the beasts became infuriated, and killed the unfortunate man. At the inquest, which was held on Thursday, the jury faithfully reflected public opinion by appending to their verdict an expression of “entire disapprobation of the reckless custom of so-called lion tamers performing in dens where ferocious animals are caged up.”"
Next week's stories will include the St Helens children who had never been to school, the smallpox epidemic worsens, the Prescot wife-beater gets his come-uppance and the campaign against a proposed chemical works in Boundary Road.
This week's stories include the scandal in Rainford when a young lodger took off with his landlady, the smallpox and measles epidemics that were raging in St Helens, a miner's curious drunken death in Cross Street, the punch up at a working men's ball in Prescot and the police sergeant found drunk in Liverpool Road in St Helens who blamed his condition on diarrhoea.
We begin in St Helens Petty Sessions on the 4th when Thomas Cruise was charged with stealing a fire shovel belonging to John McKenna of Coal Pit Lane in Parr.
However, it transpired that McKenna's wife had bashed Cruise with the shovel and so he had simply taken it off her for his own protection. The case was dismissed.
Taking in lodgers used to be much more common than today, as it provided an easy source of extra income for hard-pressed families. However it also led to overcrowding and romantic entanglements.
School Brow in Rainford (pictured above) is now part of Church Road but it used to be the name of the street leading from Pasture Lane to the Derby Arms.
On the 6th the St Helens Newspaper published an article about a scandal that had taken place in School Brow involving an unnamed married woman and her young lodger.
As a result the cheated husband was left penniless and forced to sell off what possessions he had left. The Newspaper wrote:
"A certain section of society in the village of Rainford has been unusually exercised over a domestic scandal which occurred last Saturday.
"It appears that the wife of a pipemaker residing at School-brow, the mother of five children, left her husband's roof in company with a lodger, a youth only eighteen years of age.
"It is alleged that she carried with her all the money and easily portable property on which she laid her hands, and set up house with her paramour a short distance off.
"The deserted husband had his household effects brought to the hammer on Wednesday, and pocketed all they realised; and the most shameless feature of the transaction is that the guilty pair watched the sale from a short distance.
"The wife keeps her youngest child. She tried to get rid of it by sending it to the father, but he returned it immediately."
The Newspaper also provided a week-by-week breakdown of the number of deaths from smallpox and measles within the borough of St Helens over the past two months.
That was a relatively narrow geographical area, excluding Haydock, Rainford, Eccleston etc.
There had been 64 deaths from measles since the start of November and smallpox had taken a further 50 lives.
"Their table", they wrote, gives "a clear idea of the destructive character of the epidemics which have raged with such virulence in our midst. They are now happily decreasing in extent, though not such as to give hopes of their early extinction."
The Newspaper also gave an account of a curious death involving a miner called John Whittle, who had been found dead in bed at his lodgings in Cross Street in St Helens.
The nature of his demise symbolised the often confused, drunken and semi-violent society that then existed in working-class districts of the town.
Whittle worked at Groves Colliery in Burtonhead Road, which was also known as Ravenhead Colliery.
His wife Isabella told an inquest hearing at the Red Lion in Bridge Street that on the previous Saturday her husband had come home from his night shift at 8am and around midday went out to collect his wages.
Many men would then hand their pay over to their wives and receive pocket money (i.e. drinking and tobacco money) back in return.
However, Whittle simply paid the owner of the house her board and lodging and then left.
During the evening Isabella went in search of her husband and found him in a beerhouse in Liverpool Road.
She said she asked him for some money to buy food for the family and, the Newspaper wrote, "He replied with an oath, and when she repeated the question he struck her."
A man who witnessed the assault came to Isabella's defence by striking her husband in the face.
Isabella then went home where she said she had a fit and did not remember anything else until the following morning when she discovered her husband dead in bed.
However, the owner of the house, Elizabeth Brannon, said that at midnight she had found John Whittle unconscious in her kitchen and with the help of another lodger had dragged him to his room.
Shortly afterwards she heard Mrs Whittle shout "murder", and upon entering their room saw the couple fighting, with the wife pushing her husband down on to his back.
The inquest jury said they thought the whole affair suspicious and requested a post-mortem examination be conducted on Whittle's body.
This was subsequently carried out and Dr Lyon reported that the man's death had been caused by congestion of the brain induced by excessive intemperance.
Brain congestion was a widely used term at that time when swellings or blockages were found.
I think the truth was the doctor did not really know the cause of Whittle's death but the man's hard-drinking lifestyle certainly did not help.
The St Helens Newspaper also published this article about a punch-up in Prescot:
"A working men's ball took place in the Court Room, Prescot, on Monday night last; it was very well attended, the band of the Harmonic Society supplying the music.
"The proceedings were continued very pleasantly until the small hours, when a couple of strangers said to be from Liverpool, put in an appearance.
"A row shortly afterwards arose, in which they played a most disagreeably prominent part.
"One of them broke a bottle on a man's head, and not content with this feat, he gave melancholy usage to the secretary for interfering in the interests of order.
"The bass violin came into the melee by some unexplained process, and was carried away a wreck.
"A large tea cup formed an element in the fight, but collapsed at an early stage from violent contact with the cranium of one of the combatants.
"Some forms were overthrown, a few ladies screamed, and general confusion and alarm prevailed.
"The police locked up one of the strangers, who gave the name of Richard Thornton, and the magistrates reminded him at petty sessions on Tuesday."
The St Helens Newspaper also published this short piece:
"We understand that one of the policemen, who for many years has been a prominent member of the St. Helens force – a sergeant – and generally reputed a teetotaller, has been caught in a state of super-refreshment, in an entry in Liverpool-road, and on his person when examined were found, it is said, skeleton keys and other implements of industry.
"We hope that the enquiry will be an open one, so that the public mind may be satisfied."
A few days later at a hearing of St Helens Petty Sessions, Superintendent Ludlam, the head of the town's police force, was asked about the report and said:
"It is entirely untrue; there is not the least foundation for it."
However, the Newspaper had not identified the officer involved – but the superintendent then did.
Ludlam told the court it was Sergeant Eastham who had been found drunk but blamed his condition on taking a "little stimulant" through attacks of diarrhoea.
Two half-glasses of brandy were said to have been responsible for putting the policeman in such a drunken state.
When the magistrates then asked what Sergeant Eastham had to say about the affair, Supt. Ludlam replied: "He is almost broken-hearted. It is a most shameful thing."
When the previous Lord Derby (pictured above) had died at Knowsley Hall in 1869 after a long illness, the St Helens Newspaper said the announcement of his demise had come "like a thunder-clap".
A "feeling of gloom" had descended on Prescot and Huyton with scarcely a house without a closed blind or some other mark of respect for the 14th earl.
Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley had been highly distinguished. He had served as prime minister on three occasions and is still to this day the Tories longest-serving leader.
This week, on the 7th, a memorial chapel was dedicated to the late earl at Knowsley Church.
Then in 1874, the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli would unveil a statue of Lord Derby in Parliament Square in London.
During the evening of the 8th, a concert was held in the Volunteer Hall in St Helens to raise funds for the Catholic schools of Sutton.
The Newspaper wrote that the promoters had "reason to be rejoiced at the result", as the venue was well filled.
And finally, the St Helens Newspaper published these two brief articles, back to back, about the bad weather in the country and the demise of a lion-tamer:
"VIOLENT STORMS. – A hurricane, thunderstorms, and an earthquake were severally experienced in this country on Thursday. The earthquake was distinctly felt at Sheffield, where a man was killed by lightning. Near Manchester a church was burned."
"LION TAMER WORRIED TO DEATH. – Thomas Maccarte, a “tamer” attached to Manders' menagerie, was going through the usual performance with lions at Bolton, on Wednesday night, when the beasts became infuriated, and killed the unfortunate man.
"At the inquest, which was held on Thursday, the jury faithfully reflected public opinion by appending to their verdict an expression of “entire disapprobation of the reckless custom of so-called lion tamers performing in dens where ferocious animals are caged up.”"
Next week's stories will include the St Helens children who had never been to school, the smallpox epidemic worsens, the Prescot wife-beater gets his come-uppance and the campaign against a proposed chemical works in Boundary Road.
We begin in St Helens Petty Sessions on the 4th when Thomas Cruise was charged with stealing a fire shovel belonging to John McKenna of Coal Pit Lane in Parr.
However, it transpired that McKenna's wife had bashed Cruise with the shovel and so he had simply taken it off her for his own protection. The case was dismissed.
School Brow in Rainford (pictured above) is now part of Church Road but it used to be the name of the street leading from Pasture Lane to the Derby Arms.
On the 6th the St Helens Newspaper published an article about a scandal that had taken place in School Brow involving an unnamed married woman and her young lodger.
As a result the cheated husband was left penniless and forced to sell off what possessions he had left. The Newspaper wrote:
"A certain section of society in the village of Rainford has been unusually exercised over a domestic scandal which occurred last Saturday.
"It appears that the wife of a pipemaker residing at School-brow, the mother of five children, left her husband's roof in company with a lodger, a youth only eighteen years of age.
"It is alleged that she carried with her all the money and easily portable property on which she laid her hands, and set up house with her paramour a short distance off.
"The deserted husband had his household effects brought to the hammer on Wednesday, and pocketed all they realised; and the most shameless feature of the transaction is that the guilty pair watched the sale from a short distance.
"The wife keeps her youngest child. She tried to get rid of it by sending it to the father, but he returned it immediately."
The Newspaper also provided a week-by-week breakdown of the number of deaths from smallpox and measles within the borough of St Helens over the past two months.
That was a relatively narrow geographical area, excluding Haydock, Rainford, Eccleston etc.
There had been 64 deaths from measles since the start of November and smallpox had taken a further 50 lives.
"Their table", they wrote, gives "a clear idea of the destructive character of the epidemics which have raged with such virulence in our midst. They are now happily decreasing in extent, though not such as to give hopes of their early extinction."
The Newspaper also gave an account of a curious death involving a miner called John Whittle, who had been found dead in bed at his lodgings in Cross Street in St Helens.
The nature of his demise symbolised the often confused, drunken and semi-violent society that then existed in working-class districts of the town.
Whittle worked at Groves Colliery in Burtonhead Road, which was also known as Ravenhead Colliery.
His wife Isabella told an inquest hearing at the Red Lion in Bridge Street that on the previous Saturday her husband had come home from his night shift at 8am and around midday went out to collect his wages.
Many men would then hand their pay over to their wives and receive pocket money (i.e. drinking and tobacco money) back in return.
However, Whittle simply paid the owner of the house her board and lodging and then left.
During the evening Isabella went in search of her husband and found him in a beerhouse in Liverpool Road.
She said she asked him for some money to buy food for the family and, the Newspaper wrote, "He replied with an oath, and when she repeated the question he struck her."
A man who witnessed the assault came to Isabella's defence by striking her husband in the face.
Isabella then went home where she said she had a fit and did not remember anything else until the following morning when she discovered her husband dead in bed.
However, the owner of the house, Elizabeth Brannon, said that at midnight she had found John Whittle unconscious in her kitchen and with the help of another lodger had dragged him to his room.
Shortly afterwards she heard Mrs Whittle shout "murder", and upon entering their room saw the couple fighting, with the wife pushing her husband down on to his back.
The inquest jury said they thought the whole affair suspicious and requested a post-mortem examination be conducted on Whittle's body.
This was subsequently carried out and Dr Lyon reported that the man's death had been caused by congestion of the brain induced by excessive intemperance.
Brain congestion was a widely used term at that time when swellings or blockages were found.
I think the truth was the doctor did not really know the cause of Whittle's death but the man's hard-drinking lifestyle certainly did not help.
The St Helens Newspaper also published this article about a punch-up in Prescot:
"A working men's ball took place in the Court Room, Prescot, on Monday night last; it was very well attended, the band of the Harmonic Society supplying the music.
"The proceedings were continued very pleasantly until the small hours, when a couple of strangers said to be from Liverpool, put in an appearance.
"A row shortly afterwards arose, in which they played a most disagreeably prominent part.
"One of them broke a bottle on a man's head, and not content with this feat, he gave melancholy usage to the secretary for interfering in the interests of order.
"The bass violin came into the melee by some unexplained process, and was carried away a wreck.
"A large tea cup formed an element in the fight, but collapsed at an early stage from violent contact with the cranium of one of the combatants.
"Some forms were overthrown, a few ladies screamed, and general confusion and alarm prevailed.
"The police locked up one of the strangers, who gave the name of Richard Thornton, and the magistrates reminded him at petty sessions on Tuesday."
The St Helens Newspaper also published this short piece:
"We understand that one of the policemen, who for many years has been a prominent member of the St. Helens force – a sergeant – and generally reputed a teetotaller, has been caught in a state of super-refreshment, in an entry in Liverpool-road, and on his person when examined were found, it is said, skeleton keys and other implements of industry.
"We hope that the enquiry will be an open one, so that the public mind may be satisfied."
A few days later at a hearing of St Helens Petty Sessions, Superintendent Ludlam, the head of the town's police force, was asked about the report and said:
"It is entirely untrue; there is not the least foundation for it."
However, the Newspaper had not identified the officer involved – but the superintendent then did.
Ludlam told the court it was Sergeant Eastham who had been found drunk but blamed his condition on taking a "little stimulant" through attacks of diarrhoea.
Two half-glasses of brandy were said to have been responsible for putting the policeman in such a drunken state.
When the magistrates then asked what Sergeant Eastham had to say about the affair, Supt. Ludlam replied: "He is almost broken-hearted. It is a most shameful thing."
A "feeling of gloom" had descended on Prescot and Huyton with scarcely a house without a closed blind or some other mark of respect for the 14th earl.
Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley had been highly distinguished. He had served as prime minister on three occasions and is still to this day the Tories longest-serving leader.
This week, on the 7th, a memorial chapel was dedicated to the late earl at Knowsley Church.
Then in 1874, the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli would unveil a statue of Lord Derby in Parliament Square in London.
During the evening of the 8th, a concert was held in the Volunteer Hall in St Helens to raise funds for the Catholic schools of Sutton.
The Newspaper wrote that the promoters had "reason to be rejoiced at the result", as the venue was well filled.
And finally, the St Helens Newspaper published these two brief articles, back to back, about the bad weather in the country and the demise of a lion-tamer:
"VIOLENT STORMS. – A hurricane, thunderstorms, and an earthquake were severally experienced in this country on Thursday. The earthquake was distinctly felt at Sheffield, where a man was killed by lightning. Near Manchester a church was burned."
"LION TAMER WORRIED TO DEATH. – Thomas Maccarte, a “tamer” attached to Manders' menagerie, was going through the usual performance with lions at Bolton, on Wednesday night, when the beasts became infuriated, and killed the unfortunate man.
"At the inquest, which was held on Thursday, the jury faithfully reflected public opinion by appending to their verdict an expression of “entire disapprobation of the reckless custom of so-called lion tamers performing in dens where ferocious animals are caged up.”"
Next week's stories will include the St Helens children who had never been to school, the smallpox epidemic worsens, the Prescot wife-beater gets his come-uppance and the campaign against a proposed chemical works in Boundary Road.