150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (10th - 16th JANUARY 1872)
This week's stories include the children who had never been to school, the smallpox epidemic worsens in St Helens, the strange Rainford pheasant theft, a Prescot wife-beater gets his come-uppance and the property owners' campaign against a proposed chemical works in Boundary Road.
We begin with the artistes performing at the St Helens Theatre Royal's "New Concert Hall" this week in the premises we know as The Citadel. These included: Messrs. Henri and Charlan ("Parisian grotesques, gymnasts, acrobats, contortionists and pantomimists"); Alf Arthur ("An exceedingly good comic, has made himself a great favourite"); W. Lorenzo ("Negro comedian and juggler"); J. A. Power ("Comic") and Miss L. Lyons ("Serio-comic and dancer").
A brutal wife beater called James Yates appeared in Prescot Petty Sessions on the 10th. The St Helens Newspaper described his wife's distressing testimony to the Bench: "The poor woman's evidence showed that he almost strangled her as well as abusing and cutting her with violent blows." The watchmaker was arrested in a St Helens pub having heard that the police were after him and he admitted planning to flee – after knocking back a few pints first! Yates was given six months in prison.
The new residential district of St Ann's in Eccleston contained some well-heeled folk. The residents listed in the 1871 census include a candle manufacturer, a builder, landowner, druggist, manufacturing chemist, mining engineer, ironmonger, corn dealer, curate, commercial clerk, pawnbroker and teacher. It was a middle-class area that the inhabitants wanted keeping that way and proposals to open a new chemical works in Boundary Road were causing them alarm.
So on the 10th, a protest meeting was held in the Bird-i’th-Hand (pictured above), attended by what was described as a "large and influential" group of property owners. After a discussion this resolution was passed: "That this meeting is of opinion that the proposed chemical works intended to be carried on on land belonging to Mr. James Varley, called the St. Helens and Liverpool Alkali Company, will be highly injurious to vegetation in the immediate neighbourhood of St Ann's and Cowley-hill and detrimental to property, and that this meeting hereby expresses its strong opposition to the erection, and pledges itself to use every legitimate means to stay any further progress."
This was far from being the pressure group's first meeting. In 1869 their representatives had met a Government inspector to complain about "noxious and destructive vapour" discharged from chemical works that easterly winds had blown into their gardens. As a result, the St Helens Newspaper carried out its own investigation into the St Ann's residents' complaints and wrote:
"It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that for two miles every fruit tree in the wind line of the vapours is utterly and completely blasted, presenting to the eye a black, burnt, and shrivelled mass. The leaves which were green a few days ago now hang lifeless on the trees, or are strewn like tea leaves on the ground beneath. All the bloom and flower of apple and pear trees has been burnt and destroyed. The flowering plants have shared a similar fate, while the hedgerows present the singular appearance of being green and healthy on the lee side, and burnt and scorched on the side to the town."
That had occurred three years earlier – and the residents were now concerned that if a chemical works was built on their doorstep instead of 2 to 3 miles away, such environment damage would be a much more regular event.
On the 10th the Town Council considered a request from the architects producing plans for the new Town Hall building in what would become Corporation Street for a month's extension of their deadline. Six architects had been invited to send in their designs, with the five unsuccessful competitors compensated for their time by the payment of twenty guineas. The deadline for submission had been February – but the councillors acceded to their request and granted them an additional month.
On the 12th John Young of the Raven Hotel held his annual treat for the aged poor of St Mary's parish and nearly sixty persons sat down to tea and a concert.
I do like the way the St Helens Newspaper employed the English language in their reports. In describing how Robert Ashurst had been asked to take a pheasant to the Vicar of Rainford, the Newspaper wrote on the 13th of his: "…assenting to the proposal with manifest cheerfulness". Ashurst had been part of a shooting party in Bickerstaffe and Lord Derby wanted his headkeeper to send two pheasants and a hare to the Rev. Samuel Cavan. So the 46-year-old from School Brow in Rainford was asked to undertake the task and claimed to have delivered the gift.
In fact Ashust sold one of the pheasants in the Wheatsheaf Inn for a shilling and only later took the remaining game to the Vicar where he obtained another shilling. He also cheekily asked the 71-year-old minister for a glass of ale – but Rev. Cavan refused! Ashurt was later arrested and in court told the magistrates: "A man twitched it out of my hand, but I suppose I shall have to stand the lash of the law for it." The Newspaper wrote that "the “lash of the law” was then laid on to the tune of two months' imprisonment".
A heavy storm "of unusual violence" struck the St Helens district during the afternoon of the 13th. The day was reported to have been "fine and genial" in the morning and the blowing of a strong wind had begun with "great suddenness". The Newspaper added: "It raged for many hours, and caused very considerable alarm, but happily subsided without causing any damage that we have heard of."
In St Helens Petty Sessions on the 15th, the magistrates criticised the father of children aged 10 and 12 for having never sent them to school, saying: "If not sent to school and taught, they would simply be trained for housebreaking or some other species of crime." The case had nothing to do with the kids' lack of education – as that was not yet compulsory – but instead arose in evidence on another matter.
The two youngsters were far from being unusual in never having had any schooling. Out of 4.3 million children of primary school age in England and Wales in 1870, two million did not attend school. That was partly because it cost money to have an education and poor parents could not afford the fees – and instead wanted their children to be earning wages.
During the evening of the 15th, a longstanding railway guard called James Ramsdale was killed near to St Helens station. The 36-year-old lived in Shaw Street and was described as having been "literally cut to pieces" after superintending the shunting of carriages.
In the St Helens Newspaper on the 16th, it was claimed that the official smallpox mortality figures for the town were understated. Although the sanitary authorities had declared that the deadly disease was diminishing in St Helens, the Newspaper argued that it was, in fact, increasing in prevalence. In fact five deaths from smallpox had occurred in populous areas of St Helens on the previous day.
And although the authorities claimed there'd only been three deaths in total in Westfield Street, the Newspaper said they knew of fifteen. Although smallpox was a notifiable disease, it appears that not all households and doctors were making the correct returns. The Newspaper wrote: "It is most desirable that this loathsome disease be eradicated as soon as possible, but it is right to let the public know that it is not going from us of its own accord."
The campaign for a nine-hour working day was gaining ground. The St Helens Newspaper had written a lot about the movement over the past couple of years – but had been making its own staff work longer hours. However, the paper reported this week that its proprietor and editor Bernard Dromgoole had told his employees that they would in future work no longer than nine hours each day. He also expressed his hope that the men would use their extra time beneficially for leisure. The paper added that they hoped to have "the pleasure of recording the universal adoption of the nine hours' movement in St. Helens".
And finally, the latest Royal news. As I recently mentioned, the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, was recovering from a serious attack of typhoid fever. There had been considerable concern throughout the country over his condition and at last week’s St Helens Council meeting, the Mayor, John Marsh, referred to the "great anxiety and trial" in the town over the prince's dangerous illness. A motion was then passed giving thanks for the poorly prince's recovery. Or as Marsh put it: "The joyful anticipation of his complete restoration to health".
The St Helens Newspaper now published this letter from Windsor Castle under the headline: "The Queen's Thanks To The Nation": "The Queen is very anxious to express her deep sense of the touching sympathy of the whole nation on the occasion of the alarming illness of her dear son, the Prince of Wales. The universal feeling shown by her people during those painful terrible days, and the sympathy evinced by them towards herself and her beloved daughter, the Princess of Wales, as well as the general joy at the improvement in the Prince of Wales's state have made a deep and lasting impression on her heart which can never be effaced."
And also this week, the Dundee Courier wrote of some Royal largesse to the hilarious poor: "Benevolence to the Poor – The New Year's festivals are nearly at a close, as Auld Yule is mostly kept. By the working class there has been a good deal of hilarity. The poor on the estates of Birkhall, Abergeldie, and Balmoral are not forgot, the Queen and Prince of Wales giving them venison, meal, tea and sugar, warm clothing, &c., and their hearts are made to rejoice at this inclement season."
Next week's stories will include the scandalous Parr defamation case, the roughs that smashed the St Helens Newspaper's windows, the rape of a sixteen-year-old girl at Eccleston and the extraordinary funeral of a St Helens railway guard.
We begin with the artistes performing at the St Helens Theatre Royal's "New Concert Hall" this week in the premises we know as The Citadel. These included: Messrs. Henri and Charlan ("Parisian grotesques, gymnasts, acrobats, contortionists and pantomimists"); Alf Arthur ("An exceedingly good comic, has made himself a great favourite"); W. Lorenzo ("Negro comedian and juggler"); J. A. Power ("Comic") and Miss L. Lyons ("Serio-comic and dancer").
A brutal wife beater called James Yates appeared in Prescot Petty Sessions on the 10th. The St Helens Newspaper described his wife's distressing testimony to the Bench: "The poor woman's evidence showed that he almost strangled her as well as abusing and cutting her with violent blows." The watchmaker was arrested in a St Helens pub having heard that the police were after him and he admitted planning to flee – after knocking back a few pints first! Yates was given six months in prison.
The new residential district of St Ann's in Eccleston contained some well-heeled folk. The residents listed in the 1871 census include a candle manufacturer, a builder, landowner, druggist, manufacturing chemist, mining engineer, ironmonger, corn dealer, curate, commercial clerk, pawnbroker and teacher. It was a middle-class area that the inhabitants wanted keeping that way and proposals to open a new chemical works in Boundary Road were causing them alarm.
This was far from being the pressure group's first meeting. In 1869 their representatives had met a Government inspector to complain about "noxious and destructive vapour" discharged from chemical works that easterly winds had blown into their gardens. As a result, the St Helens Newspaper carried out its own investigation into the St Ann's residents' complaints and wrote:
"It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that for two miles every fruit tree in the wind line of the vapours is utterly and completely blasted, presenting to the eye a black, burnt, and shrivelled mass. The leaves which were green a few days ago now hang lifeless on the trees, or are strewn like tea leaves on the ground beneath. All the bloom and flower of apple and pear trees has been burnt and destroyed. The flowering plants have shared a similar fate, while the hedgerows present the singular appearance of being green and healthy on the lee side, and burnt and scorched on the side to the town."
That had occurred three years earlier – and the residents were now concerned that if a chemical works was built on their doorstep instead of 2 to 3 miles away, such environment damage would be a much more regular event.
On the 10th the Town Council considered a request from the architects producing plans for the new Town Hall building in what would become Corporation Street for a month's extension of their deadline. Six architects had been invited to send in their designs, with the five unsuccessful competitors compensated for their time by the payment of twenty guineas. The deadline for submission had been February – but the councillors acceded to their request and granted them an additional month.
On the 12th John Young of the Raven Hotel held his annual treat for the aged poor of St Mary's parish and nearly sixty persons sat down to tea and a concert.
I do like the way the St Helens Newspaper employed the English language in their reports. In describing how Robert Ashurst had been asked to take a pheasant to the Vicar of Rainford, the Newspaper wrote on the 13th of his: "…assenting to the proposal with manifest cheerfulness". Ashurst had been part of a shooting party in Bickerstaffe and Lord Derby wanted his headkeeper to send two pheasants and a hare to the Rev. Samuel Cavan. So the 46-year-old from School Brow in Rainford was asked to undertake the task and claimed to have delivered the gift.
In fact Ashust sold one of the pheasants in the Wheatsheaf Inn for a shilling and only later took the remaining game to the Vicar where he obtained another shilling. He also cheekily asked the 71-year-old minister for a glass of ale – but Rev. Cavan refused! Ashurt was later arrested and in court told the magistrates: "A man twitched it out of my hand, but I suppose I shall have to stand the lash of the law for it." The Newspaper wrote that "the “lash of the law” was then laid on to the tune of two months' imprisonment".
A heavy storm "of unusual violence" struck the St Helens district during the afternoon of the 13th. The day was reported to have been "fine and genial" in the morning and the blowing of a strong wind had begun with "great suddenness". The Newspaper added: "It raged for many hours, and caused very considerable alarm, but happily subsided without causing any damage that we have heard of."
In St Helens Petty Sessions on the 15th, the magistrates criticised the father of children aged 10 and 12 for having never sent them to school, saying: "If not sent to school and taught, they would simply be trained for housebreaking or some other species of crime." The case had nothing to do with the kids' lack of education – as that was not yet compulsory – but instead arose in evidence on another matter.
The two youngsters were far from being unusual in never having had any schooling. Out of 4.3 million children of primary school age in England and Wales in 1870, two million did not attend school. That was partly because it cost money to have an education and poor parents could not afford the fees – and instead wanted their children to be earning wages.
During the evening of the 15th, a longstanding railway guard called James Ramsdale was killed near to St Helens station. The 36-year-old lived in Shaw Street and was described as having been "literally cut to pieces" after superintending the shunting of carriages.
In the St Helens Newspaper on the 16th, it was claimed that the official smallpox mortality figures for the town were understated. Although the sanitary authorities had declared that the deadly disease was diminishing in St Helens, the Newspaper argued that it was, in fact, increasing in prevalence. In fact five deaths from smallpox had occurred in populous areas of St Helens on the previous day.
And although the authorities claimed there'd only been three deaths in total in Westfield Street, the Newspaper said they knew of fifteen. Although smallpox was a notifiable disease, it appears that not all households and doctors were making the correct returns. The Newspaper wrote: "It is most desirable that this loathsome disease be eradicated as soon as possible, but it is right to let the public know that it is not going from us of its own accord."
The campaign for a nine-hour working day was gaining ground. The St Helens Newspaper had written a lot about the movement over the past couple of years – but had been making its own staff work longer hours. However, the paper reported this week that its proprietor and editor Bernard Dromgoole had told his employees that they would in future work no longer than nine hours each day. He also expressed his hope that the men would use their extra time beneficially for leisure. The paper added that they hoped to have "the pleasure of recording the universal adoption of the nine hours' movement in St. Helens".
And finally, the latest Royal news. As I recently mentioned, the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, was recovering from a serious attack of typhoid fever. There had been considerable concern throughout the country over his condition and at last week’s St Helens Council meeting, the Mayor, John Marsh, referred to the "great anxiety and trial" in the town over the prince's dangerous illness. A motion was then passed giving thanks for the poorly prince's recovery. Or as Marsh put it: "The joyful anticipation of his complete restoration to health".
The St Helens Newspaper now published this letter from Windsor Castle under the headline: "The Queen's Thanks To The Nation": "The Queen is very anxious to express her deep sense of the touching sympathy of the whole nation on the occasion of the alarming illness of her dear son, the Prince of Wales. The universal feeling shown by her people during those painful terrible days, and the sympathy evinced by them towards herself and her beloved daughter, the Princess of Wales, as well as the general joy at the improvement in the Prince of Wales's state have made a deep and lasting impression on her heart which can never be effaced."
And also this week, the Dundee Courier wrote of some Royal largesse to the hilarious poor: "Benevolence to the Poor – The New Year's festivals are nearly at a close, as Auld Yule is mostly kept. By the working class there has been a good deal of hilarity. The poor on the estates of Birkhall, Abergeldie, and Balmoral are not forgot, the Queen and Prince of Wales giving them venison, meal, tea and sugar, warm clothing, &c., and their hearts are made to rejoice at this inclement season."
Next week's stories will include the scandalous Parr defamation case, the roughs that smashed the St Helens Newspaper's windows, the rape of a sixteen-year-old girl at Eccleston and the extraordinary funeral of a St Helens railway guard.
This week's stories include the children who had never been to school, the smallpox epidemic worsens in St Helens, the strange Rainford pheasant theft, a Prescot wife-beater gets his come-uppance and the property owners' campaign against a proposed chemical works in Boundary Road.
We begin with the artistes performing at the St Helens Theatre Royal's "New Concert Hall" this week in the premises we know as The Citadel. These included:
Messrs. Henri and Charlan ("Parisian grotesques, gymnasts, acrobats, contortionists and pantomimists"); Alf Arthur ("An exceedingly good comic, has made himself a great favourite"); W. Lorenzo ("Negro comedian and juggler"); J. A. Power ("Comic") and Miss L. Lyons ("Serio-comic and dancer").
A brutal wife beater called James Yates appeared in Prescot Petty Sessions on the 10th. The St Helens Newspaper described his wife's distressing testimony to the Bench:
"The poor woman's evidence showed that he almost strangled her as well as abusing and cutting her with violent blows."
The watchmaker was arrested in a St Helens pub having heard that the police were after him and he admitted planning to flee – after knocking back a few pints first! Yates was given six months in prison.
The new residential district of St Ann's in Eccleston contained some well-heeled folk.
The residents listed in the 1871 census include a candle manufacturer, a builder, landowner, druggist, manufacturing chemist, mining engineer, ironmonger, corn dealer, curate, commercial clerk, pawnbroker and teacher.
It was a middle-class area that the inhabitants wanted keeping that way and proposals to open a new chemical works in Boundary Road were causing them alarm.
So on the 10th, a protest meeting was held in the Bird-i’th-Hand (pictured above), attended by what was described as a "large and influential" group of property owners. After a discussion this resolution was passed:
"That this meeting is of opinion that the proposed chemical works intended to be carried on on land belonging to Mr. James Varley, called the St. Helens and Liverpool Alkali Company, will be highly injurious to vegetation in the immediate neighbourhood of St Ann's and Cowley-hill and detrimental to property, and that this meeting hereby expresses its strong opposition to the erection, and pledges itself to use every legitimate means to stay any further progress."
This was far from being the pressure group's first meeting. In 1869 their representatives had met a Government inspector to complain about "noxious and destructive vapour" discharged from chemical works that easterly winds had blown into their gardens.
As a result, the St Helens Newspaper carried out its own investigation into the St Ann's residents' complaints and wrote:
"It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that for two miles every fruit tree in the wind line of the vapours is utterly and completely blasted, presenting to the eye a black, burnt, and shrivelled mass.
"The leaves which were green a few days ago now hang lifeless on the trees, or are strewn like tea leaves on the ground beneath. All the bloom and flower of apple and pear trees has been burnt and destroyed.
"The flowering plants have shared a similar fate, while the hedgerows present the singular appearance of being green and healthy on the lee side, and burnt and scorched on the side to the town."
That had occurred three years earlier – and the residents were now concerned that if a chemical works was built on their doorstep instead of 2 to 3 miles away, such environment damage would be a much more regular event.
On the 10th the Town Council considered a request from the architects producing plans for the new Town Hall building in what would become Corporation Street for a month's extension of their deadline.
Six architects had been invited to send in their designs, with the five unsuccessful competitors compensated for their time by the payment of twenty guineas.
The deadline for submission had been February – but the councillors acceded to their request and granted them an additional month.
On the 12th John Young of the Raven Hotel held his annual treat for the aged poor of St Mary's parish and nearly sixty persons sat down to tea and a concert.
I do like the way the St Helens Newspaper employed the English language in their reports.
In describing how Robert Ashurst had been asked to take a pheasant to the Vicar of Rainford, the Newspaper wrote on the 13th of his: "…assenting to the proposal with manifest cheerfulness".
Ashurst had been part of a shooting party in Bickerstaffe and Lord Derby wanted his headkeeper to send two pheasants and a hare to the Rev. Samuel Cavan.
So the 46-year-old from School Brow in Rainford was asked to undertake the task and claimed to have delivered the gift.
In fact Ashust sold one of the pheasants in the Wheatsheaf Inn for a shilling and only later took the remaining game to the Vicar where he obtained another shilling.
He also cheekily asked the 71-year-old minister for a glass of ale – but Rev. Cavan refused!
Ashurt was later arrested and in court told the magistrates:
"A man twitched it out of my hand, but I suppose I shall have to stand the lash of the law for it."
The Newspaper wrote that "the “lash of the law” was then laid on to the tune of two months' imprisonment".
A heavy storm "of unusual violence" struck the St Helens district during the afternoon of the 13th.
The day was reported to have been "fine and genial" in the morning and the blowing of a strong wind had begun with "great suddenness". The Newspaper added:
"It raged for many hours, and caused very considerable alarm, but happily subsided without causing any damage that we have heard of."
In St Helens Petty Sessions on the 15th, the magistrates criticised the father of children aged 10 and 12 for having never sent them to school, saying:
"If not sent to school and taught, they would simply be trained for housebreaking or some other species of crime."
The case had nothing to do with the kids' lack of education – as that was not yet compulsory – but instead arose in evidence on another matter.
The two youngsters were far from being unusual in never having had any schooling.
Out of 4.3 million children of primary school age in England and Wales in 1870, two million did not attend school.
That was partly because it cost money to have an education and poor parents could not afford the fees – and instead wanted their children to be earning wages.
During the evening of the 15th, a longstanding railway guard called James Ramsdale was killed near to St Helens station.
The 36-year-old lived in Shaw Street and was described as having been "literally cut to pieces" after superintending the shunting of carriages.
In the St Helens Newspaper on the 16th, it was claimed that the official smallpox mortality figures for the town were understated.
Although the sanitary authorities had declared that the deadly disease was diminishing in St Helens, the Newspaper argued that it was, in fact, increasing in prevalence.
In fact five deaths from smallpox had occurred in populous areas of St Helens on the previous day.
And although the authorities claimed there'd only been three deaths in total in Westfield Street, the Newspaper said they knew of fifteen.
Although smallpox was a notifiable disease, it appears that not all households and doctors were making the correct returns.
The Newspaper wrote: "It is most desirable that this loathsome disease be eradicated as soon as possible, but it is right to let the public know that it is not going from us of its own accord."
The campaign for a nine-hour working day was gaining ground.
The St Helens Newspaper had written a lot about the movement over the past couple of years – but had been making its own staff work longer hours.
However, the paper reported this week that its proprietor and editor Bernard Dromgoole had told his employees that they would in future work no longer than nine hours each day.
He also expressed his hope that the men would use their extra time beneficially for leisure.
The paper added that they hoped to have "the pleasure of recording the universal adoption of the nine hours' movement in St. Helens".
And finally, the latest Royal news. As I recently mentioned, the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, was recovering from a serious attack of typhoid fever.
There had been considerable concern throughout the country over his condition and at last week’s St Helens Council meeting, the Mayor, John Marsh, referred to the "great anxiety and trial" in the town over the prince's dangerous illness.
A motion was then passed giving thanks for the poorly prince's recovery. Or as Marsh put it: "The joyful anticipation of his complete restoration to health".
The St Helens Newspaper now published this letter from Windsor Castle under the headline: "The Queen's Thanks To The Nation":
"The Queen is very anxious to express her deep sense of the touching sympathy of the whole nation on the occasion of the alarming illness of her dear son, the Prince of Wales.
"The universal feeling shown by her people during those painful terrible days, and the sympathy evinced by them towards herself and her beloved daughter, the Princess of Wales, as well as the general joy at the improvement in the Prince of Wales's state have made a deep and lasting impression on her heart which can never be effaced."
And also this week, the Dundee Courier wrote of some Royal largesse to the hilarious poor: "Benevolence to the Poor – The New Year's festivals are nearly at a close, as Auld Yule is mostly kept. By the working class there has been a good deal of hilarity.
"The poor on the estates of Birkhall, Abergeldie, and Balmoral are not forgot, the Queen and Prince of Wales giving them venison, meal, tea and sugar, warm clothing, &c., and their hearts are made to rejoice at this inclement season."
Next week's stories will include the scandalous Parr defamation case, the roughs that smashed the St Helens Newspaper's windows, the rape of a sixteen-year-old girl at Eccleston and the extraordinary funeral of a St Helens railway guard.
We begin with the artistes performing at the St Helens Theatre Royal's "New Concert Hall" this week in the premises we know as The Citadel. These included:
Messrs. Henri and Charlan ("Parisian grotesques, gymnasts, acrobats, contortionists and pantomimists"); Alf Arthur ("An exceedingly good comic, has made himself a great favourite"); W. Lorenzo ("Negro comedian and juggler"); J. A. Power ("Comic") and Miss L. Lyons ("Serio-comic and dancer").
A brutal wife beater called James Yates appeared in Prescot Petty Sessions on the 10th. The St Helens Newspaper described his wife's distressing testimony to the Bench:
"The poor woman's evidence showed that he almost strangled her as well as abusing and cutting her with violent blows."
The watchmaker was arrested in a St Helens pub having heard that the police were after him and he admitted planning to flee – after knocking back a few pints first! Yates was given six months in prison.
The new residential district of St Ann's in Eccleston contained some well-heeled folk.
The residents listed in the 1871 census include a candle manufacturer, a builder, landowner, druggist, manufacturing chemist, mining engineer, ironmonger, corn dealer, curate, commercial clerk, pawnbroker and teacher.
It was a middle-class area that the inhabitants wanted keeping that way and proposals to open a new chemical works in Boundary Road were causing them alarm.
"That this meeting is of opinion that the proposed chemical works intended to be carried on on land belonging to Mr. James Varley, called the St. Helens and Liverpool Alkali Company, will be highly injurious to vegetation in the immediate neighbourhood of St Ann's and Cowley-hill and detrimental to property, and that this meeting hereby expresses its strong opposition to the erection, and pledges itself to use every legitimate means to stay any further progress."
This was far from being the pressure group's first meeting. In 1869 their representatives had met a Government inspector to complain about "noxious and destructive vapour" discharged from chemical works that easterly winds had blown into their gardens.
As a result, the St Helens Newspaper carried out its own investigation into the St Ann's residents' complaints and wrote:
"It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that for two miles every fruit tree in the wind line of the vapours is utterly and completely blasted, presenting to the eye a black, burnt, and shrivelled mass.
"The leaves which were green a few days ago now hang lifeless on the trees, or are strewn like tea leaves on the ground beneath. All the bloom and flower of apple and pear trees has been burnt and destroyed.
"The flowering plants have shared a similar fate, while the hedgerows present the singular appearance of being green and healthy on the lee side, and burnt and scorched on the side to the town."
That had occurred three years earlier – and the residents were now concerned that if a chemical works was built on their doorstep instead of 2 to 3 miles away, such environment damage would be a much more regular event.
On the 10th the Town Council considered a request from the architects producing plans for the new Town Hall building in what would become Corporation Street for a month's extension of their deadline.
Six architects had been invited to send in their designs, with the five unsuccessful competitors compensated for their time by the payment of twenty guineas.
The deadline for submission had been February – but the councillors acceded to their request and granted them an additional month.
On the 12th John Young of the Raven Hotel held his annual treat for the aged poor of St Mary's parish and nearly sixty persons sat down to tea and a concert.
I do like the way the St Helens Newspaper employed the English language in their reports.
In describing how Robert Ashurst had been asked to take a pheasant to the Vicar of Rainford, the Newspaper wrote on the 13th of his: "…assenting to the proposal with manifest cheerfulness".
Ashurst had been part of a shooting party in Bickerstaffe and Lord Derby wanted his headkeeper to send two pheasants and a hare to the Rev. Samuel Cavan.
So the 46-year-old from School Brow in Rainford was asked to undertake the task and claimed to have delivered the gift.
In fact Ashust sold one of the pheasants in the Wheatsheaf Inn for a shilling and only later took the remaining game to the Vicar where he obtained another shilling.
He also cheekily asked the 71-year-old minister for a glass of ale – but Rev. Cavan refused!
Ashurt was later arrested and in court told the magistrates:
"A man twitched it out of my hand, but I suppose I shall have to stand the lash of the law for it."
The Newspaper wrote that "the “lash of the law” was then laid on to the tune of two months' imprisonment".
A heavy storm "of unusual violence" struck the St Helens district during the afternoon of the 13th.
The day was reported to have been "fine and genial" in the morning and the blowing of a strong wind had begun with "great suddenness". The Newspaper added:
"It raged for many hours, and caused very considerable alarm, but happily subsided without causing any damage that we have heard of."
In St Helens Petty Sessions on the 15th, the magistrates criticised the father of children aged 10 and 12 for having never sent them to school, saying:
"If not sent to school and taught, they would simply be trained for housebreaking or some other species of crime."
The case had nothing to do with the kids' lack of education – as that was not yet compulsory – but instead arose in evidence on another matter.
The two youngsters were far from being unusual in never having had any schooling.
Out of 4.3 million children of primary school age in England and Wales in 1870, two million did not attend school.
That was partly because it cost money to have an education and poor parents could not afford the fees – and instead wanted their children to be earning wages.
During the evening of the 15th, a longstanding railway guard called James Ramsdale was killed near to St Helens station.
The 36-year-old lived in Shaw Street and was described as having been "literally cut to pieces" after superintending the shunting of carriages.
In the St Helens Newspaper on the 16th, it was claimed that the official smallpox mortality figures for the town were understated.
Although the sanitary authorities had declared that the deadly disease was diminishing in St Helens, the Newspaper argued that it was, in fact, increasing in prevalence.
In fact five deaths from smallpox had occurred in populous areas of St Helens on the previous day.
And although the authorities claimed there'd only been three deaths in total in Westfield Street, the Newspaper said they knew of fifteen.
Although smallpox was a notifiable disease, it appears that not all households and doctors were making the correct returns.
The Newspaper wrote: "It is most desirable that this loathsome disease be eradicated as soon as possible, but it is right to let the public know that it is not going from us of its own accord."
The campaign for a nine-hour working day was gaining ground.
The St Helens Newspaper had written a lot about the movement over the past couple of years – but had been making its own staff work longer hours.
However, the paper reported this week that its proprietor and editor Bernard Dromgoole had told his employees that they would in future work no longer than nine hours each day.
He also expressed his hope that the men would use their extra time beneficially for leisure.
The paper added that they hoped to have "the pleasure of recording the universal adoption of the nine hours' movement in St. Helens".
And finally, the latest Royal news. As I recently mentioned, the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, was recovering from a serious attack of typhoid fever.
There had been considerable concern throughout the country over his condition and at last week’s St Helens Council meeting, the Mayor, John Marsh, referred to the "great anxiety and trial" in the town over the prince's dangerous illness.
A motion was then passed giving thanks for the poorly prince's recovery. Or as Marsh put it: "The joyful anticipation of his complete restoration to health".
The St Helens Newspaper now published this letter from Windsor Castle under the headline: "The Queen's Thanks To The Nation":
"The Queen is very anxious to express her deep sense of the touching sympathy of the whole nation on the occasion of the alarming illness of her dear son, the Prince of Wales.
"The universal feeling shown by her people during those painful terrible days, and the sympathy evinced by them towards herself and her beloved daughter, the Princess of Wales, as well as the general joy at the improvement in the Prince of Wales's state have made a deep and lasting impression on her heart which can never be effaced."
And also this week, the Dundee Courier wrote of some Royal largesse to the hilarious poor: "Benevolence to the Poor – The New Year's festivals are nearly at a close, as Auld Yule is mostly kept. By the working class there has been a good deal of hilarity.
"The poor on the estates of Birkhall, Abergeldie, and Balmoral are not forgot, the Queen and Prince of Wales giving them venison, meal, tea and sugar, warm clothing, &c., and their hearts are made to rejoice at this inclement season."
Next week's stories will include the scandalous Parr defamation case, the roughs that smashed the St Helens Newspaper's windows, the rape of a sixteen-year-old girl at Eccleston and the extraordinary funeral of a St Helens railway guard.