150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (17th - 23rd MAY 1871)
This week's stories include an update on the Town Hall fire, the College Street poker row, the Billinge child poisoning case, the story of Flash Harry the Newton horse thief and the legal dilemma of who should pay for the Prescot butcher's meat.
We begin on the 17th when a special meeting of St Helens Town Council discussed the fire that had destroyed the Town Hall eleven days earlier. It had been estimated that the damage would be around £2,500 and the municipal building had only been insured for £2,000. However the Mayor who presided at the meeting was able to report that the estimate had been lowered to £1,530 and it was resolved to make a claim for that sum to the Manchester Insurance Company.
Once the claim was settled, the council would consider whether to rebuild the old building in New Market Place (off Exchange Street) or erect a new town hall on another site. I think we already know the answer to that question! The fire-ravaged structure was only thirty years old and had recently undergone improvements. However St Helens was now a much bigger town than it had been when the building was planned in the 1830s and it was no longer fit for purpose.
Last week I described how Joseph Roughsedge – a 60-year-old builder from St Anns – came to be involved in a 19th century version of road rage. Using his horsewhip, he had struck another road user with "both the lash and the stook". Whips were the makeshift weapons of choice for those driving traps or carts on the road. Inside the home the iron poker was the far too-handy instrument of violence when passions became enflamed.
Also on the 17th James Owen appeared in the St Helens Petty Sessions charged with committing a dangerous assault upon John Grumbley using a poker. The latter was a 64-year-old labourer in a chemical works and Owen was his son-in-law with both men neighbours in Cowley Court, near College Street.
The 21-year-old coal miner had got into an argument with his father-in-law and then bashed him over the head with a poker. Owen was committed to the Liverpool Assizes for trial and on July 11th was sentenced to four months in prison.
On the 18th at Haydock Police Court, a butcher called Harry Jones, alias "Flash Harry", was charged with horse stealing. The magistrates were told that Rainford farmer Thomas Rosbotham had attended Newton Fair in order to sell his horse. A dealer named Richard Barton persuaded him to go into the Red Bull and the horse was left in charge of Harry Jones.
Upon leaving the pub, Rosbotham discovered that both Flash Harry and his animal had disappeared and so reported the matter to the police. In court Harry Jones pleaded it had only been a "drunken freak" and said he had thought that Richard Barton had bought the horse. The magistrates – perhaps surprisingly – accepted the explanation and Flash Harry was discharged upon payment of costs that amounted to 30 shillings.
On the 20th Margaret Lamb from Baxters Lane was returning home from market and left a train at Peasley Cross thinking it was Sutton Oak station. The 54-year-old ended up on the line and an engine ran her down, killing Margaret on the spot. That's all the information I can find on that tragedy, which is probably a good thing, as the papers liked to describe in detail the gruesome aspects of such deaths.
The death of leading citizen Thomas Barrow was announced on the 21st. The 58-year-old owned Phoenix Brewery in Peckers Hill Road and a few pubs in St Helens too – including the Globe Street in Church Street where he lived. Barrow had also been a member of St Helens Town Council and was reported as having enjoyed excellent health until he suffered an attack of apoplexy (aka stroke), which killed him within the hour.
Bare-knuckle prize-fights were brutal affairs and could last 60 rounds. A couple of years ago the St Helens Newspaper had been highly critical of the police for failing to stop a bout in Thatto Heath, writing: "We may, perhaps, be favoured with a few more of these degrading and brutal exhibitions if the supine and effete management of our police force is permitted to continue."
Since then the bobbies had been more proactive and in St Helens Petty Sessions on the 22nd, William Brown and John Rimmer were charged with having engaged in a prize-fight and four others were accused of aiding and abetting. They all pleaded guilty and were bound over to keep the peace for three months – which was unlikely to deter them from holding future bouts.
On the same day Henry Cunliffe of Billinge Chapel End was charged before the county magistrates sitting in Wigan with being "drunk and riotous" in Billinge. Then after being taken into custody he broke the windows of the police station! If the 30-year-old labourer had stolen a bit of clothing he would have been sent to prison. However he had only been drunk and violent and so the magistrates ordered him to just pay a one-shilling fine. Mind you, Cunliffe also had to pay for the smashed windows and the court costs, which probably amounted to a bob or two.
People could be incredibly casual about medicines and poisons. Before coming to St Helens to found his pharmaceutical empire, Thomas Beecham had spent a couple of years in Wigan where he kept a small druggist's shop on Wallgate. In 1858 a mother accidentally gave her 6-month-old child an overdose of dangerous laudanum from which the infant died. That was because Beecham's wife upon selling the laudanum had poured the liquid into an old bottle that had previously contained a harmless medicine and she failed to change the label.
An inquest held at the Stork Inn in Billinge on the 22nd this week heard that a casual attitude to the disposal of medicine had led to the death of Thomas Robinson. The six-year-old and two of his pals had found what was referred to as smallage near to the door of their school and after taking some of it they all became ill. Thomas from Billinge Lane was the worst affected and died within hours. The other two children were also attacked with what was described as "very dangerous symptoms", but after medical treatment they were now said to be out of danger.
As we know health and safety was very basic in the past and on the 22nd the inquest on John Sherratt was held. The 37-year-old builder from Hamer Street had fallen while standing on the rafters of a house. Sherratt fell on his side where he had been previously been hurt, and – according to the Liverpool Mercury – "experienced severe pain immediately. He lingered for a fortnight in considerable pain."
There was a curious case in St Helens County Court on the 23rd involving a well-known doctor who had formerly been a personal physician to Lord Derby. Dr Richard Gorst had married his wife Harriet in 1859 and the couple initially lived in Eccleston Street in Prescot. Incidentally FindmyPast's incorrect transcription of Dr Gorst's 1861 census entry states "Surgeon Plumber" as his occupation – which boggles the mind! It should actually be "Surgeon Member Royal College…".
During a suit for judicial separation in 1870 Harriet Gorst made serious allegations of violence and drinking against her husband. It had been a nasty business and was covered in great detail by the newspapers – but it was all over now. Well, apart from who should pay the butcher's bill! Poor old Thomas Dennett got caught right in the middle of the affair with his meat. The butcher from Church Street in Prescot had been supplying Mrs Gorst for some time. However when he sent her his bill, she insisted that it was Dr Gorst's responsibility to pay it. But the legally separated spouse told the butcher that Mrs Gorst must cough up for her own meat.
Husbands were legally responsible for their wives' debts. But as part of the separation agreement made in court, the doctor had agreed to pay £62 per year alimony to his wife and his liability for any bills was removed. Dr Gorst argued in the County Court that the Divorce Court ruling had been retrospective. His solicitor claimed that it had begun from when Mrs Gorst had left the home and so she had to pay for her own meat. However the judge disagreed, stating the order had only begun when the Divorce Court initiated it. So Dr Gorst was told to pay the butcher's bill of £3 13s 5d.
This week it was reported that a nine-year-old boy from Prescot called Henry Ward had died from hydrophobia (rabies). The incubation period for the disease could be quite lengthy and the boy had been bitten on his left ear by a so-called "mad dog" as far back as December 30th. The 1871 census suggests that the lad had actually been living in St Helens Road in Eccleston.
And finally the smallpox epidemic in Liverpool – that had been killing 100+ people every week for several months – was now abating with the onset of warmer weather, although 50 sufferers were still losing their lives each week. In the past the dreadful disease could be localised to villages and towns but the railway network was helping to spread smallpox far and wide. In the Liverpool Mercury this week a doctor criticised the reckless and uncaring employers who were sending their contagious servants suffering from smallpox back to their homes on trains:
"To The Editors Of The Liverpool Mercury. – Gentlemen, There are some persons who seem to be so selfish in their nature that no thought for others ever enters their mind; only let themselves be saved trouble or inconvenience, and they care nothing for the wellbeing of others. These reflections were forced on me one day this week on being asked to visit a person in this locality. I found the patient was labouring under an attack of smallpox, and that a sister, who had just recovered from smallpox, had been sent by railway from near Manchester [back] home to Buckley, and thus introduced this fearful contagion into this neighbourhood.
"Upon inquiry I heard that on the way some gentleman had, very properly, left the carriage this female was in and expressed their dissatisfaction at this person, in the state she was in, being permitted to travel by railway. Can nothing be done to prevent cases like this from being permitted to travel by public conveyances?
"It is not easy to say how many may have caught the infection from this person on the way between Manchester and Buckley, and here this loathsome disease is introduced amongst us purely from the selfish motive of getting rid of a servant girl because she was not able for immediate work. – Yours, &c., William F. McMillan, M.D. Buckley, by Mold."
Next Week's stories will include the policeman accused of assault at an Earlestown theatre, the dispute between the Newton toll collector and the vegetable hawker, the Thatto Heath pigeon flying match and a graphic description of the liberation of Paris.
We begin on the 17th when a special meeting of St Helens Town Council discussed the fire that had destroyed the Town Hall eleven days earlier. It had been estimated that the damage would be around £2,500 and the municipal building had only been insured for £2,000. However the Mayor who presided at the meeting was able to report that the estimate had been lowered to £1,530 and it was resolved to make a claim for that sum to the Manchester Insurance Company.
Once the claim was settled, the council would consider whether to rebuild the old building in New Market Place (off Exchange Street) or erect a new town hall on another site. I think we already know the answer to that question! The fire-ravaged structure was only thirty years old and had recently undergone improvements. However St Helens was now a much bigger town than it had been when the building was planned in the 1830s and it was no longer fit for purpose.
Last week I described how Joseph Roughsedge – a 60-year-old builder from St Anns – came to be involved in a 19th century version of road rage. Using his horsewhip, he had struck another road user with "both the lash and the stook". Whips were the makeshift weapons of choice for those driving traps or carts on the road. Inside the home the iron poker was the far too-handy instrument of violence when passions became enflamed.
Also on the 17th James Owen appeared in the St Helens Petty Sessions charged with committing a dangerous assault upon John Grumbley using a poker. The latter was a 64-year-old labourer in a chemical works and Owen was his son-in-law with both men neighbours in Cowley Court, near College Street.
The 21-year-old coal miner had got into an argument with his father-in-law and then bashed him over the head with a poker. Owen was committed to the Liverpool Assizes for trial and on July 11th was sentenced to four months in prison.
On the 18th at Haydock Police Court, a butcher called Harry Jones, alias "Flash Harry", was charged with horse stealing. The magistrates were told that Rainford farmer Thomas Rosbotham had attended Newton Fair in order to sell his horse. A dealer named Richard Barton persuaded him to go into the Red Bull and the horse was left in charge of Harry Jones.
Upon leaving the pub, Rosbotham discovered that both Flash Harry and his animal had disappeared and so reported the matter to the police. In court Harry Jones pleaded it had only been a "drunken freak" and said he had thought that Richard Barton had bought the horse. The magistrates – perhaps surprisingly – accepted the explanation and Flash Harry was discharged upon payment of costs that amounted to 30 shillings.
On the 20th Margaret Lamb from Baxters Lane was returning home from market and left a train at Peasley Cross thinking it was Sutton Oak station. The 54-year-old ended up on the line and an engine ran her down, killing Margaret on the spot. That's all the information I can find on that tragedy, which is probably a good thing, as the papers liked to describe in detail the gruesome aspects of such deaths.
The death of leading citizen Thomas Barrow was announced on the 21st. The 58-year-old owned Phoenix Brewery in Peckers Hill Road and a few pubs in St Helens too – including the Globe Street in Church Street where he lived. Barrow had also been a member of St Helens Town Council and was reported as having enjoyed excellent health until he suffered an attack of apoplexy (aka stroke), which killed him within the hour.
Since then the bobbies had been more proactive and in St Helens Petty Sessions on the 22nd, William Brown and John Rimmer were charged with having engaged in a prize-fight and four others were accused of aiding and abetting. They all pleaded guilty and were bound over to keep the peace for three months – which was unlikely to deter them from holding future bouts.
On the same day Henry Cunliffe of Billinge Chapel End was charged before the county magistrates sitting in Wigan with being "drunk and riotous" in Billinge. Then after being taken into custody he broke the windows of the police station! If the 30-year-old labourer had stolen a bit of clothing he would have been sent to prison. However he had only been drunk and violent and so the magistrates ordered him to just pay a one-shilling fine. Mind you, Cunliffe also had to pay for the smashed windows and the court costs, which probably amounted to a bob or two.
People could be incredibly casual about medicines and poisons. Before coming to St Helens to found his pharmaceutical empire, Thomas Beecham had spent a couple of years in Wigan where he kept a small druggist's shop on Wallgate. In 1858 a mother accidentally gave her 6-month-old child an overdose of dangerous laudanum from which the infant died. That was because Beecham's wife upon selling the laudanum had poured the liquid into an old bottle that had previously contained a harmless medicine and she failed to change the label.
An inquest held at the Stork Inn in Billinge on the 22nd this week heard that a casual attitude to the disposal of medicine had led to the death of Thomas Robinson. The six-year-old and two of his pals had found what was referred to as smallage near to the door of their school and after taking some of it they all became ill. Thomas from Billinge Lane was the worst affected and died within hours. The other two children were also attacked with what was described as "very dangerous symptoms", but after medical treatment they were now said to be out of danger.
As we know health and safety was very basic in the past and on the 22nd the inquest on John Sherratt was held. The 37-year-old builder from Hamer Street had fallen while standing on the rafters of a house. Sherratt fell on his side where he had been previously been hurt, and – according to the Liverpool Mercury – "experienced severe pain immediately. He lingered for a fortnight in considerable pain."
There was a curious case in St Helens County Court on the 23rd involving a well-known doctor who had formerly been a personal physician to Lord Derby. Dr Richard Gorst had married his wife Harriet in 1859 and the couple initially lived in Eccleston Street in Prescot. Incidentally FindmyPast's incorrect transcription of Dr Gorst's 1861 census entry states "Surgeon Plumber" as his occupation – which boggles the mind! It should actually be "Surgeon Member Royal College…".
During a suit for judicial separation in 1870 Harriet Gorst made serious allegations of violence and drinking against her husband. It had been a nasty business and was covered in great detail by the newspapers – but it was all over now. Well, apart from who should pay the butcher's bill! Poor old Thomas Dennett got caught right in the middle of the affair with his meat. The butcher from Church Street in Prescot had been supplying Mrs Gorst for some time. However when he sent her his bill, she insisted that it was Dr Gorst's responsibility to pay it. But the legally separated spouse told the butcher that Mrs Gorst must cough up for her own meat.
Husbands were legally responsible for their wives' debts. But as part of the separation agreement made in court, the doctor had agreed to pay £62 per year alimony to his wife and his liability for any bills was removed. Dr Gorst argued in the County Court that the Divorce Court ruling had been retrospective. His solicitor claimed that it had begun from when Mrs Gorst had left the home and so she had to pay for her own meat. However the judge disagreed, stating the order had only begun when the Divorce Court initiated it. So Dr Gorst was told to pay the butcher's bill of £3 13s 5d.
This week it was reported that a nine-year-old boy from Prescot called Henry Ward had died from hydrophobia (rabies). The incubation period for the disease could be quite lengthy and the boy had been bitten on his left ear by a so-called "mad dog" as far back as December 30th. The 1871 census suggests that the lad had actually been living in St Helens Road in Eccleston.
And finally the smallpox epidemic in Liverpool – that had been killing 100+ people every week for several months – was now abating with the onset of warmer weather, although 50 sufferers were still losing their lives each week. In the past the dreadful disease could be localised to villages and towns but the railway network was helping to spread smallpox far and wide. In the Liverpool Mercury this week a doctor criticised the reckless and uncaring employers who were sending their contagious servants suffering from smallpox back to their homes on trains:
"To The Editors Of The Liverpool Mercury. – Gentlemen, There are some persons who seem to be so selfish in their nature that no thought for others ever enters their mind; only let themselves be saved trouble or inconvenience, and they care nothing for the wellbeing of others. These reflections were forced on me one day this week on being asked to visit a person in this locality. I found the patient was labouring under an attack of smallpox, and that a sister, who had just recovered from smallpox, had been sent by railway from near Manchester [back] home to Buckley, and thus introduced this fearful contagion into this neighbourhood.
"Upon inquiry I heard that on the way some gentleman had, very properly, left the carriage this female was in and expressed their dissatisfaction at this person, in the state she was in, being permitted to travel by railway. Can nothing be done to prevent cases like this from being permitted to travel by public conveyances?
"It is not easy to say how many may have caught the infection from this person on the way between Manchester and Buckley, and here this loathsome disease is introduced amongst us purely from the selfish motive of getting rid of a servant girl because she was not able for immediate work. – Yours, &c., William F. McMillan, M.D. Buckley, by Mold."
Next Week's stories will include the policeman accused of assault at an Earlestown theatre, the dispute between the Newton toll collector and the vegetable hawker, the Thatto Heath pigeon flying match and a graphic description of the liberation of Paris.
This week's stories include an update on the Town Hall fire, the College Street poker row, the Billinge child poisoning case, the story of Flash Harry the Newton horse thief and the legal dilemma of who should pay for the Prescot butcher's meat.
We begin on the 17th when a special meeting of St Helens Town Council discussed the fire that had destroyed the Town Hall eleven days earlier.
It had been estimated that the damage would be around £2,500 and the municipal building had only been insured for £2,000.
However the Mayor who presided at the meeting was able to report that the estimate had been lowered to £1,530 and it was resolved to make a claim for that sum to the Manchester Insurance Company.
Once the claim was settled, the council would consider whether to rebuild the old building in New Market Place (off Exchange Street) or erect a new town hall on another site. I think we already know the answer to that question!
The fire-ravaged structure was only thirty years old and had recently undergone improvements.
However St Helens was now a much bigger town than it had been when the building was planned in the 1830s and it was no longer fit for purpose.
Last week I described how Joseph Roughsedge – a 60-year-old builder from St Anns – came to be involved in a 19th century version of road rage.
Using his horsewhip, he had struck another road user with "both the lash and the stook".
Whips were the makeshift weapons of choice for those driving traps or carts on the road.
Inside the home the iron poker was the far too-handy instrument of violence when passions became enflamed.
Also on the 17th James Owen appeared in the St Helens Petty Sessions charged with committing a dangerous assault upon John Grumbley using a poker.
The latter was a 64-year-old labourer in a chemical works and Owen was his son-in-law with both men neighbours in Cowley Court, near College Street.
The 21-year-old coal miner had got into an argument with his father-in-law and then bashed him over the head with a poker.
Owen was committed to the Liverpool Assizes for trial and on July 11th was sentenced to four months in prison.
On the 18th at Haydock Police Court, a butcher called Harry Jones, alias "Flash Harry", was charged with horse stealing.
The magistrates were told that Rainford farmer Thomas Rosbotham had attended Newton Fair in order to sell his horse.
A dealer named Richard Barton persuaded him to go into the Red Bull and the horse was left in charge of Harry Jones.
Upon leaving the pub, Rosbotham discovered that both Flash Harry and his animal had disappeared and so reported the matter to the police.
In court Harry Jones pleaded it had only been a "drunken freak" and said he had thought that Richard Barton had bought the horse.
The magistrates – perhaps surprisingly – accepted the explanation and Flash Harry was discharged upon payment of costs that amounted to 30 shillings.
On the 20th Margaret Lamb from Baxters Lane was returning home from market and left a train at Peasley Cross thinking it was Sutton Oak station.
The 54-year-old ended up on the line and an engine ran her down, killing Margaret on the spot.
That's all the information I can find on that tragedy, which is probably a good thing, as the papers liked to describe in detail the gruesome aspects of such deaths.
The death of leading citizen Thomas Barrow was announced on the 21st. The 58-year-old owned Phoenix Brewery in Peckers Hill Road and a few pubs in St Helens too – including the Globe Street in Church Street where he lived.
Barrow had also been a member of St Helens Town Council and was reported as having enjoyed excellent health until he suffered an attack of apoplexy (aka stroke), which killed him within the hour.
Bare-knuckle prize-fights were brutal affairs and could last 60 rounds. A couple of years ago the St Helens Newspaper had been highly critical of the police for failing to stop a bout in Thatto Heath, writing:
"We may, perhaps, be favoured with a few more of these degrading and brutal exhibitions if the supine and effete management of our police force is permitted to continue."
Since then the bobbies had been more proactive and in St Helens Petty Sessions on the 22nd, William Brown and John Rimmer were charged with having engaged in a prize-fight and four others were accused of aiding and abetting.
They all pleaded guilty and were bound over to keep the peace for three months – which was unlikely to deter them from holding future bouts.
On the same day Henry Cunliffe of Billinge Chapel End was charged before the county magistrates sitting in Wigan with being "drunk and riotous" in Billinge.
Then after being taken into custody he broke the windows of the police station!
If the 30-year-old labourer had stolen a bit of clothing he would have been sent to prison.
However he had only been drunk and violent and so the magistrates ordered him to just pay a one-shilling fine.
Mind you, Cunliffe also had to pay for the smashed windows and the court costs, which probably amounted to a bob or two.
People could be incredibly casual about medicines and poisons. Before coming to St Helens to found his pharmaceutical empire, Thomas Beecham had spent a couple of years in Wigan where he kept a small druggist's shop on Wallgate.
In 1858 a mother accidentally gave her 6-month-old child an overdose of dangerous laudanum from which the infant died.
That was because Beecham's wife upon selling the laudanum had poured the liquid into an old bottle that had previously contained a harmless medicine and she failed to change the label.
An inquest held at the Stork Inn in Billinge on the 22nd this week heard that a casual attitude to the disposal of medicine had led to the death of Thomas Robinson.
The six-year-old and two of his pals had found what was referred to as smallage near to the door of their school and after taking some of it they all became ill.
Thomas from Billinge Lane was the worst affected and died within hours.
The other two children were also attacked with what was described as "very dangerous symptoms", but after medical treatment they were now said to be out of danger.
As we know health and safety was very basic in the past and on the 22nd the inquest on John Sherratt was held.
The 37-year-old builder from Hamer Street had fallen while standing on the rafters of a house.
Sherratt fell on his side where he had been previously been hurt, and – according to the Liverpool Mercury – "experienced severe pain immediately. He lingered for a fortnight in considerable pain."
There was a curious case in St Helens County Court on the 23rd involving a well-known doctor who had formerly been a personal physician to Lord Derby.
Dr Richard Gorst had married his wife Harriet in 1859 and the couple initially lived in Eccleston Street in Prescot.
Incidentally FindmyPast's incorrect transcription of Dr Gorst's 1861 census entry states "Surgeon Plumber" as his occupation – which boggles the mind! It should actually be "Surgeon Member Royal College…".
During a suit for judicial separation in 1870 Harriet Gorst made serious allegations of violence and drinking against her husband.
It had been a nasty business and was covered in great detail by the newspapers – but it was all over now. Well, apart from who should pay the butcher's bill!
Poor old Thomas Dennett got caught right in the middle of the affair with his meat.
The butcher from Church Street in Prescot had been supplying Mrs Gorst for some time.
However when he sent her his bill, she insisted that it was Dr Gorst's responsibility to pay it.
But the legally separated spouse told the butcher that Mrs Gorst must cough up for her own meat.
Husbands were legally responsible for their wives' debts. But as part of the separation agreement made in court, the doctor had agreed to pay £62 per year alimony to his wife and his liability for any bills was removed.
Dr Gorst argued in the County Court that the Divorce Court ruling had been retrospective.
His solicitor claimed that it had begun from when Mrs Gorst had left the home and so she had to pay for her own meat.
However the judge disagreed, stating the order had only begun when the Divorce Court initiated it. So Dr Gorst was told to pay the butcher's bill of £3 13s 5d.
This week it was reported that a nine-year-old boy from Prescot called Henry Ward had died from hydrophobia (rabies).
The incubation period for the disease could be quite lengthy and the boy had been bitten on his left ear by a so-called "mad dog" as far back as December 30th.
The 1871 census suggests that the lad had actually been living in St Helens Road in Eccleston.
And finally the smallpox epidemic in Liverpool – that had been killing 100+ people every week for several months – was now abating with the onset of warmer weather, although 50 sufferers were still losing their lives each week.
In the past the dreadful disease could be localised to villages and towns but the railway network was helping to spread smallpox far and wide.
In the Liverpool Mercury this week a doctor criticised the reckless and uncaring employers who were sending their contagious servants suffering from smallpox back to their homes on trains:
"To The Editors Of The Liverpool Mercury. – Gentlemen, There are some persons who seem to be so selfish in their nature that no thought for others ever enters their mind; only let themselves be saved trouble or inconvenience, and they care nothing for the wellbeing of others.
"These reflections were forced on me one day this week on being asked to visit a person in this locality.
"I found the patient was labouring under an attack of smallpox, and that a sister, who had just recovered from smallpox, had been sent by railway from near Manchester [back] home to Buckley, and thus introduced this fearful contagion into this neighbourhood.
"Upon inquiry I heard that on the way some gentleman had, very properly, left the carriage this female was in and expressed their dissatisfaction at this person, in the state she was in, being permitted to travel by railway.
"Can nothing be done to prevent cases like this from being permitted to travel by public conveyances?
"It is not easy to say how many may have caught the infection from this person on the way between Manchester and Buckley, and here this loathsome disease is introduced amongst us purely from the selfish motive of getting rid of a servant girl because she was not able for immediate work. – Yours, &c., William F. McMillan, M.D. Buckley, by Mold."
Next Week's stories will include the policeman accused of assault at an Earlestown theatre, the dispute between the Newton toll collector and the vegetable hawker, the Thatto Heath pigeon flying match and a graphic description of the liberation of Paris.
We begin on the 17th when a special meeting of St Helens Town Council discussed the fire that had destroyed the Town Hall eleven days earlier.
It had been estimated that the damage would be around £2,500 and the municipal building had only been insured for £2,000.
However the Mayor who presided at the meeting was able to report that the estimate had been lowered to £1,530 and it was resolved to make a claim for that sum to the Manchester Insurance Company.
Once the claim was settled, the council would consider whether to rebuild the old building in New Market Place (off Exchange Street) or erect a new town hall on another site. I think we already know the answer to that question!
The fire-ravaged structure was only thirty years old and had recently undergone improvements.
However St Helens was now a much bigger town than it had been when the building was planned in the 1830s and it was no longer fit for purpose.
Last week I described how Joseph Roughsedge – a 60-year-old builder from St Anns – came to be involved in a 19th century version of road rage.
Using his horsewhip, he had struck another road user with "both the lash and the stook".
Whips were the makeshift weapons of choice for those driving traps or carts on the road.
Inside the home the iron poker was the far too-handy instrument of violence when passions became enflamed.
Also on the 17th James Owen appeared in the St Helens Petty Sessions charged with committing a dangerous assault upon John Grumbley using a poker.
The latter was a 64-year-old labourer in a chemical works and Owen was his son-in-law with both men neighbours in Cowley Court, near College Street.
The 21-year-old coal miner had got into an argument with his father-in-law and then bashed him over the head with a poker.
Owen was committed to the Liverpool Assizes for trial and on July 11th was sentenced to four months in prison.
On the 18th at Haydock Police Court, a butcher called Harry Jones, alias "Flash Harry", was charged with horse stealing.
The magistrates were told that Rainford farmer Thomas Rosbotham had attended Newton Fair in order to sell his horse.
A dealer named Richard Barton persuaded him to go into the Red Bull and the horse was left in charge of Harry Jones.
Upon leaving the pub, Rosbotham discovered that both Flash Harry and his animal had disappeared and so reported the matter to the police.
In court Harry Jones pleaded it had only been a "drunken freak" and said he had thought that Richard Barton had bought the horse.
The magistrates – perhaps surprisingly – accepted the explanation and Flash Harry was discharged upon payment of costs that amounted to 30 shillings.
On the 20th Margaret Lamb from Baxters Lane was returning home from market and left a train at Peasley Cross thinking it was Sutton Oak station.
The 54-year-old ended up on the line and an engine ran her down, killing Margaret on the spot.
That's all the information I can find on that tragedy, which is probably a good thing, as the papers liked to describe in detail the gruesome aspects of such deaths.
The death of leading citizen Thomas Barrow was announced on the 21st. The 58-year-old owned Phoenix Brewery in Peckers Hill Road and a few pubs in St Helens too – including the Globe Street in Church Street where he lived.
Barrow had also been a member of St Helens Town Council and was reported as having enjoyed excellent health until he suffered an attack of apoplexy (aka stroke), which killed him within the hour.
"We may, perhaps, be favoured with a few more of these degrading and brutal exhibitions if the supine and effete management of our police force is permitted to continue."
Since then the bobbies had been more proactive and in St Helens Petty Sessions on the 22nd, William Brown and John Rimmer were charged with having engaged in a prize-fight and four others were accused of aiding and abetting.
They all pleaded guilty and were bound over to keep the peace for three months – which was unlikely to deter them from holding future bouts.
On the same day Henry Cunliffe of Billinge Chapel End was charged before the county magistrates sitting in Wigan with being "drunk and riotous" in Billinge.
Then after being taken into custody he broke the windows of the police station!
If the 30-year-old labourer had stolen a bit of clothing he would have been sent to prison.
However he had only been drunk and violent and so the magistrates ordered him to just pay a one-shilling fine.
Mind you, Cunliffe also had to pay for the smashed windows and the court costs, which probably amounted to a bob or two.
People could be incredibly casual about medicines and poisons. Before coming to St Helens to found his pharmaceutical empire, Thomas Beecham had spent a couple of years in Wigan where he kept a small druggist's shop on Wallgate.
In 1858 a mother accidentally gave her 6-month-old child an overdose of dangerous laudanum from which the infant died.
That was because Beecham's wife upon selling the laudanum had poured the liquid into an old bottle that had previously contained a harmless medicine and she failed to change the label.
An inquest held at the Stork Inn in Billinge on the 22nd this week heard that a casual attitude to the disposal of medicine had led to the death of Thomas Robinson.
The six-year-old and two of his pals had found what was referred to as smallage near to the door of their school and after taking some of it they all became ill.
Thomas from Billinge Lane was the worst affected and died within hours.
The other two children were also attacked with what was described as "very dangerous symptoms", but after medical treatment they were now said to be out of danger.
As we know health and safety was very basic in the past and on the 22nd the inquest on John Sherratt was held.
The 37-year-old builder from Hamer Street had fallen while standing on the rafters of a house.
Sherratt fell on his side where he had been previously been hurt, and – according to the Liverpool Mercury – "experienced severe pain immediately. He lingered for a fortnight in considerable pain."
There was a curious case in St Helens County Court on the 23rd involving a well-known doctor who had formerly been a personal physician to Lord Derby.
Dr Richard Gorst had married his wife Harriet in 1859 and the couple initially lived in Eccleston Street in Prescot.
Incidentally FindmyPast's incorrect transcription of Dr Gorst's 1861 census entry states "Surgeon Plumber" as his occupation – which boggles the mind! It should actually be "Surgeon Member Royal College…".
During a suit for judicial separation in 1870 Harriet Gorst made serious allegations of violence and drinking against her husband.
It had been a nasty business and was covered in great detail by the newspapers – but it was all over now. Well, apart from who should pay the butcher's bill!
Poor old Thomas Dennett got caught right in the middle of the affair with his meat.
The butcher from Church Street in Prescot had been supplying Mrs Gorst for some time.
However when he sent her his bill, she insisted that it was Dr Gorst's responsibility to pay it.
But the legally separated spouse told the butcher that Mrs Gorst must cough up for her own meat.
Husbands were legally responsible for their wives' debts. But as part of the separation agreement made in court, the doctor had agreed to pay £62 per year alimony to his wife and his liability for any bills was removed.
Dr Gorst argued in the County Court that the Divorce Court ruling had been retrospective.
His solicitor claimed that it had begun from when Mrs Gorst had left the home and so she had to pay for her own meat.
However the judge disagreed, stating the order had only begun when the Divorce Court initiated it. So Dr Gorst was told to pay the butcher's bill of £3 13s 5d.
This week it was reported that a nine-year-old boy from Prescot called Henry Ward had died from hydrophobia (rabies).
The incubation period for the disease could be quite lengthy and the boy had been bitten on his left ear by a so-called "mad dog" as far back as December 30th.
The 1871 census suggests that the lad had actually been living in St Helens Road in Eccleston.
And finally the smallpox epidemic in Liverpool – that had been killing 100+ people every week for several months – was now abating with the onset of warmer weather, although 50 sufferers were still losing their lives each week.
In the past the dreadful disease could be localised to villages and towns but the railway network was helping to spread smallpox far and wide.
In the Liverpool Mercury this week a doctor criticised the reckless and uncaring employers who were sending their contagious servants suffering from smallpox back to their homes on trains:
"To The Editors Of The Liverpool Mercury. – Gentlemen, There are some persons who seem to be so selfish in their nature that no thought for others ever enters their mind; only let themselves be saved trouble or inconvenience, and they care nothing for the wellbeing of others.
"These reflections were forced on me one day this week on being asked to visit a person in this locality.
"I found the patient was labouring under an attack of smallpox, and that a sister, who had just recovered from smallpox, had been sent by railway from near Manchester [back] home to Buckley, and thus introduced this fearful contagion into this neighbourhood.
"Upon inquiry I heard that on the way some gentleman had, very properly, left the carriage this female was in and expressed their dissatisfaction at this person, in the state she was in, being permitted to travel by railway.
"Can nothing be done to prevent cases like this from being permitted to travel by public conveyances?
"It is not easy to say how many may have caught the infection from this person on the way between Manchester and Buckley, and here this loathsome disease is introduced amongst us purely from the selfish motive of getting rid of a servant girl because she was not able for immediate work. – Yours, &c., William F. McMillan, M.D. Buckley, by Mold."
Next Week's stories will include the policeman accused of assault at an Earlestown theatre, the dispute between the Newton toll collector and the vegetable hawker, the Thatto Heath pigeon flying match and a graphic description of the liberation of Paris.