150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 18 - 24 MARCH 1874
This week's many stories include the plans to enlarge St Helens Market, the bricklayers' strike at the new St Helens Town Hall, the boys illegally employed at the Eccleston Flint Glassworks, the strange case of the dead duck and the pub singer, the mother who claimed her baby died from a smallpox vaccination and St Helens' doctors complain about the state of the town's atmosphere.
We begin on the 18th when the council's Improvement Committee submitted a scheme to a special meeting that would enable the enlargement of the town's market through the destruction of a number of properties, including the old town hall. On the following day the Corporation purchased properties in Tontine Street and in Bridge Street, with the latter including the Crooked Billet beerhouse and its adjoining police barracks. These would now be demolished to make room for the expansion.
On the 19th the Liverpool bricklayers employed in building the new St Helens Town Hall in what would become known as Victoria Square returned to work after the settling of their dispute over pay and working hours. The men had been out on strike this week after discovering that their pay was less than what St Helens' brickies earned. But after a promise of parity at a wage of 36 shillings a week for working the same number of hours, the men agreed to return to their jobs. Almost £2 a week was a very good wage for the 1870s but bricklayers always said they only worked 7 or 8 months of the year. That was because they were only paid when they actually worked and so bad weather and lack of jobs meant no income.
The Rainhill County Asylum employed attendants to control its inmates, as opposed to nurses to care for its patients. On the 20th an advert in the classified section of the Liverpool Mercury sought to recruit two live-in female attendants at a salary of £18 per year. Their age was not to exceed thirty and their "board, lodging, and washing" was provided free. But as a stark reminder of how females were paid less than men, a separate advert for an assistant storekeeper at the Rainhill Asylum – who needed to be a single man – offered remuneration of £30 per year with "board, lodging, washing, and uniform" provided.
The Liverpool Weekly Courier wrote this on the 21st about two vagrants that had unwittingly got into trouble in St Helens: "A TRAVELLING BED – Two Liverpool men, named Charles Bannister and Charles Vrain, were brought up at St. Helens [Petty Sessions], on Saturday, charged with vagrancy. Prisoners got into a horse-box at Edge-hill, on Friday night, for the purpose of sleeping in it. During the night it was attached to a train without disturbing them and when they awoke on Saturday morning they were surprised to find themselves in St. Helens. They were sent to prison for a week."
The St Helens Newspaper on the 21st wrote how the spate of burglaries in the town was continuing. Or as they put it: "It is pretty clear that St. Helens is infested by a gang of housebreakers who carry on their depredations in the most barefaced manner."
The paper also described how St Patrick's Day had been marked in the town: "The Irish national festival was celebrated in St. Helens in a highly edifying and creditable manner. We were glad to observe that the degrading custom of honouring it by an excessive indulgence in drink was almost wholly abandoned this year. One of the best evidences of this happy change is to be found in the fact that but one disciple of St. Patrick got into the hands of the police. A great deal of this is owing to the wonderful success of the temperance movement established by Father Turner in attracting the Catholic and Irish people to its ranks."
The Newspaper described the inquest on one-month-old Harriet Murray that had recently taken place at the Crescent Hotel in Liverpool Road in St Helens. All children were required by law to have vaccinations against smallpox and Harriet had been given hers a fortnight after birth. Since then her mother claimed that her daughter had been unwell and blamed the vaccination for her death.
Today’s epidemiologists do state that 19th century vaccines were not as safe as modern-day ones. However, the inquest heard that the mother had carried Harriet in a "vagrant way", which had allowed her daughter to catch cold and die. As a result the inquest jury returned a verdict that the infant had "died from natural causes, accelerated by exposure to cold."
The Newspaper also described the council's recent Health Committee meeting in which a letter signed by all the medical men in the town was discussed. This supported the conclusions of the committee's Medical Officer in his recent report on pollution in St Helens. Dr Robert McNicoll of Hardshaw Street had criticised the glass, chemical and copper firms in the borough, claiming their discharges were a major factor in the town's high death rate.
The letter from the doctors listed three causes of "much permanent ill-health and mortality" in St Helens. These were: 1) The escape of sulphureted hydrogen from the brooks and waste heaps. 2) The unnecessary escape of irritating vapours from works, particularly at night. 3) The enormous amount of coal smoke, which in damp weather falls in the town, charged with acids. The committee ultimately decided that they would write to the Local Government Board asking for the Alkali Act of 1863 to be extended to other manufacturers.
The latest mortality stats were stated at the meeting and they always made grim reading. For the month ending March 14th there had been 113 deaths in St Helens. Out of these 57 had been children under five, with 27 of them under one-year-old. And that had been a better month than normal, with no deaths from measles, typhoid or smallpox. However, scarlet fever had been responsibly for 19 fatalities.
There was a curious case in court this week concerning a dead duck and a singer. Like today many pubs employed vocalists to entertain their customers and the New Inn in Liverpool Road had Joseph Sedley as their occasional singer. The court was told that the man had gone for some drink to the New Inn after closing time. As he could not get in at the front, Sedley had climbed over a wall at the back but in doing so had accidentally trod on a duck and killed it.
He said he decided to take the dead duck home with him and on the following morning explain what had happened and pay for it. But he had an engagement in Rainford and before he could own up to his fowl deed, the police had been to his house and discovered the deceased duck. Jessie Holmes, the wife of the landlord, was in court and asked for the charge against the singer to be withdrawn, as they had believed the man's rather unlikely story. The real reason, I think, was that Sedley had paid the pub compensation and the court agreed for the case to be dropped.
Employers were allowed to have boys as young as eight or nine working for them. But the law stated that these youngsters could only undertake what was known as "half-time" working, that is no more than 6½ hours a day – as the average working week for adults was 70 hours. Those under 13 were also not permitted to work before 6am and after 6pm. Additionally, the employer had to ensure that the child possessed a certificate stating they were attending school and that he or she had been passed fit by a doctor.
Factory inspectors would pay unannounced visits to check the rules were being followed – and often they were not. In St Helens Petty Sessions on the 23rd, Woodall, Keen and Woodall – who ran the Eccleston Flint Glass works – were fined £3 and costs for having two boys in their employment who were under age and did not possess certificates.
From the parents' point of view they wanted their children to be earning money as soon as possible – but they were equally breaking the law if they did not follow the rules. And so a number of fathers were also in court for allowing their sons to work illegally and they were each fined between 5 and 10 shillings.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the St Helens Newspaper's libel case, a worker is killed at a chemical works, the Haydock murder charge, the creative beggar in Bridge Street and two violent assaults take place in Rainford.
We begin on the 18th when the council's Improvement Committee submitted a scheme to a special meeting that would enable the enlargement of the town's market through the destruction of a number of properties, including the old town hall. On the following day the Corporation purchased properties in Tontine Street and in Bridge Street, with the latter including the Crooked Billet beerhouse and its adjoining police barracks. These would now be demolished to make room for the expansion.
On the 19th the Liverpool bricklayers employed in building the new St Helens Town Hall in what would become known as Victoria Square returned to work after the settling of their dispute over pay and working hours. The men had been out on strike this week after discovering that their pay was less than what St Helens' brickies earned. But after a promise of parity at a wage of 36 shillings a week for working the same number of hours, the men agreed to return to their jobs. Almost £2 a week was a very good wage for the 1870s but bricklayers always said they only worked 7 or 8 months of the year. That was because they were only paid when they actually worked and so bad weather and lack of jobs meant no income.
The Liverpool Weekly Courier wrote this on the 21st about two vagrants that had unwittingly got into trouble in St Helens: "A TRAVELLING BED – Two Liverpool men, named Charles Bannister and Charles Vrain, were brought up at St. Helens [Petty Sessions], on Saturday, charged with vagrancy. Prisoners got into a horse-box at Edge-hill, on Friday night, for the purpose of sleeping in it. During the night it was attached to a train without disturbing them and when they awoke on Saturday morning they were surprised to find themselves in St. Helens. They were sent to prison for a week."
The St Helens Newspaper on the 21st wrote how the spate of burglaries in the town was continuing. Or as they put it: "It is pretty clear that St. Helens is infested by a gang of housebreakers who carry on their depredations in the most barefaced manner."
The paper also described how St Patrick's Day had been marked in the town: "The Irish national festival was celebrated in St. Helens in a highly edifying and creditable manner. We were glad to observe that the degrading custom of honouring it by an excessive indulgence in drink was almost wholly abandoned this year. One of the best evidences of this happy change is to be found in the fact that but one disciple of St. Patrick got into the hands of the police. A great deal of this is owing to the wonderful success of the temperance movement established by Father Turner in attracting the Catholic and Irish people to its ranks."
The Newspaper described the inquest on one-month-old Harriet Murray that had recently taken place at the Crescent Hotel in Liverpool Road in St Helens. All children were required by law to have vaccinations against smallpox and Harriet had been given hers a fortnight after birth. Since then her mother claimed that her daughter had been unwell and blamed the vaccination for her death.
Today’s epidemiologists do state that 19th century vaccines were not as safe as modern-day ones. However, the inquest heard that the mother had carried Harriet in a "vagrant way", which had allowed her daughter to catch cold and die. As a result the inquest jury returned a verdict that the infant had "died from natural causes, accelerated by exposure to cold."
The Newspaper also described the council's recent Health Committee meeting in which a letter signed by all the medical men in the town was discussed. This supported the conclusions of the committee's Medical Officer in his recent report on pollution in St Helens. Dr Robert McNicoll of Hardshaw Street had criticised the glass, chemical and copper firms in the borough, claiming their discharges were a major factor in the town's high death rate.
The letter from the doctors listed three causes of "much permanent ill-health and mortality" in St Helens. These were: 1) The escape of sulphureted hydrogen from the brooks and waste heaps. 2) The unnecessary escape of irritating vapours from works, particularly at night. 3) The enormous amount of coal smoke, which in damp weather falls in the town, charged with acids. The committee ultimately decided that they would write to the Local Government Board asking for the Alkali Act of 1863 to be extended to other manufacturers.
The latest mortality stats were stated at the meeting and they always made grim reading. For the month ending March 14th there had been 113 deaths in St Helens. Out of these 57 had been children under five, with 27 of them under one-year-old. And that had been a better month than normal, with no deaths from measles, typhoid or smallpox. However, scarlet fever had been responsibly for 19 fatalities.
There was a curious case in court this week concerning a dead duck and a singer. Like today many pubs employed vocalists to entertain their customers and the New Inn in Liverpool Road had Joseph Sedley as their occasional singer. The court was told that the man had gone for some drink to the New Inn after closing time. As he could not get in at the front, Sedley had climbed over a wall at the back but in doing so had accidentally trod on a duck and killed it.
He said he decided to take the dead duck home with him and on the following morning explain what had happened and pay for it. But he had an engagement in Rainford and before he could own up to his fowl deed, the police had been to his house and discovered the deceased duck. Jessie Holmes, the wife of the landlord, was in court and asked for the charge against the singer to be withdrawn, as they had believed the man's rather unlikely story. The real reason, I think, was that Sedley had paid the pub compensation and the court agreed for the case to be dropped.
Employers were allowed to have boys as young as eight or nine working for them. But the law stated that these youngsters could only undertake what was known as "half-time" working, that is no more than 6½ hours a day – as the average working week for adults was 70 hours. Those under 13 were also not permitted to work before 6am and after 6pm. Additionally, the employer had to ensure that the child possessed a certificate stating they were attending school and that he or she had been passed fit by a doctor.
Factory inspectors would pay unannounced visits to check the rules were being followed – and often they were not. In St Helens Petty Sessions on the 23rd, Woodall, Keen and Woodall – who ran the Eccleston Flint Glass works – were fined £3 and costs for having two boys in their employment who were under age and did not possess certificates.
From the parents' point of view they wanted their children to be earning money as soon as possible – but they were equally breaking the law if they did not follow the rules. And so a number of fathers were also in court for allowing their sons to work illegally and they were each fined between 5 and 10 shillings.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the St Helens Newspaper's libel case, a worker is killed at a chemical works, the Haydock murder charge, the creative beggar in Bridge Street and two violent assaults take place in Rainford.
This week's many stories include the plans to enlarge St Helens Market, the bricklayers' strike at the new St Helens Town Hall, the boys illegally employed at the Eccleston Flint Glassworks, the strange case of the dead duck and the pub singer, the mother who claimed her baby died from a smallpox vaccination and St Helens' doctors complain about the state of the town's atmosphere.
We begin on the 18th when the council's Improvement Committee submitted a scheme to a special meeting that would enable the enlargement of the town's market through the destruction of a number of properties, including the old town hall.
On the following day the Corporation purchased properties in Tontine Street and in Bridge Street, with the latter including the Crooked Billet beerhouse and its adjoining police barracks. These would now be demolished to make room for the expansion.
On the 19th the Liverpool bricklayers employed in building the new St Helens Town Hall in what would become known as Victoria Square returned to work after the settling of their dispute over pay and working hours.
The men had been out on strike this week after discovering that their pay was less than what St Helens' brickies earned.
But after a promise of parity at a wage of 36 shillings a week for working the same number of hours, the men agreed to return to their jobs.
Almost £2 a week was a very good wage for the 1870s but bricklayers always said they only worked 7 or 8 months of the year.
That was because they were only paid when they actually worked and so bad weather and lack of jobs meant no income.
The Rainhill County Asylum employed attendants to control its inmates, as opposed to nurses to care for its patients.
On the 20th an advert in the classified section of the Liverpool Mercury sought to recruit two live-in female attendants at a salary of £18 per year.
Their age was not to exceed thirty and their "board, lodging, and washing" was provided free.
But as a stark reminder of how females were paid less than men, a separate advert for an assistant storekeeper at the Rainhill Asylum – who needed to be a single man – offered remuneration of £30 per year with "board, lodging, washing, and uniform" provided.
The Liverpool Weekly Courier wrote this on the 21st about two vagrants that had unwittingly got into trouble in St Helens:
"A TRAVELLING BED – Two Liverpool men, named Charles Bannister and Charles Vrain, were brought up at St. Helens [Petty Sessions], on Saturday, charged with vagrancy.
"Prisoners got into a horse-box at Edge-hill, on Friday night, for the purpose of sleeping in it.
"During the night it was attached to a train without disturbing them and when they awoke on Saturday morning they were surprised to find themselves in St. Helens. They were sent to prison for a week."
The St Helens Newspaper on the 21st wrote how the spate of burglaries in the town was continuing. Or as they put it:
"It is pretty clear that St. Helens is infested by a gang of housebreakers who carry on their depredations in the most barefaced manner."
The paper also described how St Patrick's Day had been marked in the town:
"The Irish national festival was celebrated in St. Helens in a highly edifying and creditable manner.
"We were glad to observe that the degrading custom of honouring it by an excessive indulgence in drink was almost wholly abandoned this year.
"One of the best evidences of this happy change is to be found in the fact that but one disciple of St. Patrick got into the hands of the police.
"A great deal of this is owing to the wonderful success of the temperance movement established by Father Turner in attracting the Catholic and Irish people to its ranks."
The Newspaper described the inquest on one-month-old Harriet Murray that had recently taken place at the Crescent Hotel in Liverpool Road in St Helens.
All children were required by law to have vaccinations against smallpox and Harriet had been given hers a fortnight after birth.
Since then her mother claimed that her daughter had been unwell and blamed the vaccination for her death.
Today’s epidemiologists do state that 19th century vaccines were not as safe as modern-day ones.
However, the inquest heard that the mother had carried Harriet in a "vagrant way", which had allowed her daughter to catch cold and die.
As a result the inquest jury returned a verdict that the infant had "died from natural causes, accelerated by exposure to cold."
The Newspaper also described the council's recent Health Committee meeting in which a letter signed by all the medical men in the town was discussed.
This supported the conclusions of the committee's Medical Officer in his recent report on pollution in St Helens.
Dr Robert McNicoll of Hardshaw Street had criticised the glass, chemical and copper firms in the borough, claiming their discharges were a major factor in the town's high death rate.
The letter from the doctors listed three causes of "much permanent ill-health and mortality" in St Helens. These were:
1) The escape of sulphureted hydrogen from the brooks and waste heaps. 2) The unnecessary escape of irritating vapours from works, particularly at night. 3) The enormous amount of coal smoke, which in damp weather falls in the town, charged with acids.
The committee ultimately decided that they would write to the Local Government Board asking for the Alkali Act of 1863 to be extended to other manufacturers.
The latest mortality stats were stated at the meeting and they always made grim reading.
For the month ending March 14th there had been 113 deaths in St Helens. Out of these 57 had been children under five, with 27 of them under one-year-old.
And that had been a better month than normal, with no deaths from measles, typhoid or smallpox. However, scarlet fever had been responsibly for 19 fatalities.
There was a curious case in court this week concerning a dead duck and a singer. Like today many pubs employed vocalists to entertain their customers and the New Inn in Liverpool Road had Joseph Sedley as their occasional singer.
The court was told that the man had gone for some drink to the New Inn after closing time.
As he could not get in at the front, Sedley had climbed over a wall at the back but in doing so had accidentally trod on a duck and killed it.
He said he decided to take the dead duck home with him and on the following morning explain what had happened and pay for it.
But he had an engagement in Rainford and before he could own up to his fowl deed, the police had been to his house and discovered the deceased duck.
Jessie Holmes, the wife of the landlord, was in court and asked for the charge against the singer to be withdrawn, as they had believed the man's rather unlikely story.
The real reason, I think, was that Sedley had paid the pub compensation and the court agreed for the case to be dropped.
Employers were allowed to have boys as young as eight or nine working for them. But the law stated that these youngsters could only undertake what was known as "half-time" working, that is no more than 6½ hours a day – as the average working week for adults was 70 hours.
Those under 13 were also not permitted to work before 6am and after 6pm. Additionally, the employer had to ensure that the child possessed a certificate stating they were attending school and that he or she had been passed fit by a doctor.
Factory inspectors would pay unannounced visits to check the rules were being followed – and often they were not.
In St Helens Petty Sessions on the 23rd, Woodall, Keen and Woodall – who ran the Eccleston Flint Glass works – were fined £3 and costs for having two boys in their employment who were under age and did not possess certificates.
From the parents' point of view they wanted their children to be earning money as soon as possible – but they were equally breaking the law if they did not follow the rules.
And so a number of fathers were also in court for allowing their sons to work illegally and they were each fined between 5 and 10 shillings.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the St Helens Newspaper's libel case, a worker is killed at a chemical works, the Haydock murder charge, the creative beggar in Bridge Street and two violent assaults take place in Rainford.
We begin on the 18th when the council's Improvement Committee submitted a scheme to a special meeting that would enable the enlargement of the town's market through the destruction of a number of properties, including the old town hall.
On the following day the Corporation purchased properties in Tontine Street and in Bridge Street, with the latter including the Crooked Billet beerhouse and its adjoining police barracks. These would now be demolished to make room for the expansion.
On the 19th the Liverpool bricklayers employed in building the new St Helens Town Hall in what would become known as Victoria Square returned to work after the settling of their dispute over pay and working hours.
The men had been out on strike this week after discovering that their pay was less than what St Helens' brickies earned.
But after a promise of parity at a wage of 36 shillings a week for working the same number of hours, the men agreed to return to their jobs.
Almost £2 a week was a very good wage for the 1870s but bricklayers always said they only worked 7 or 8 months of the year.
That was because they were only paid when they actually worked and so bad weather and lack of jobs meant no income.
On the 20th an advert in the classified section of the Liverpool Mercury sought to recruit two live-in female attendants at a salary of £18 per year.
Their age was not to exceed thirty and their "board, lodging, and washing" was provided free.
But as a stark reminder of how females were paid less than men, a separate advert for an assistant storekeeper at the Rainhill Asylum – who needed to be a single man – offered remuneration of £30 per year with "board, lodging, washing, and uniform" provided.
The Liverpool Weekly Courier wrote this on the 21st about two vagrants that had unwittingly got into trouble in St Helens:
"A TRAVELLING BED – Two Liverpool men, named Charles Bannister and Charles Vrain, were brought up at St. Helens [Petty Sessions], on Saturday, charged with vagrancy.
"Prisoners got into a horse-box at Edge-hill, on Friday night, for the purpose of sleeping in it.
"During the night it was attached to a train without disturbing them and when they awoke on Saturday morning they were surprised to find themselves in St. Helens. They were sent to prison for a week."
The St Helens Newspaper on the 21st wrote how the spate of burglaries in the town was continuing. Or as they put it:
"It is pretty clear that St. Helens is infested by a gang of housebreakers who carry on their depredations in the most barefaced manner."
The paper also described how St Patrick's Day had been marked in the town:
"The Irish national festival was celebrated in St. Helens in a highly edifying and creditable manner.
"We were glad to observe that the degrading custom of honouring it by an excessive indulgence in drink was almost wholly abandoned this year.
"One of the best evidences of this happy change is to be found in the fact that but one disciple of St. Patrick got into the hands of the police.
"A great deal of this is owing to the wonderful success of the temperance movement established by Father Turner in attracting the Catholic and Irish people to its ranks."
The Newspaper described the inquest on one-month-old Harriet Murray that had recently taken place at the Crescent Hotel in Liverpool Road in St Helens.
All children were required by law to have vaccinations against smallpox and Harriet had been given hers a fortnight after birth.
Since then her mother claimed that her daughter had been unwell and blamed the vaccination for her death.
Today’s epidemiologists do state that 19th century vaccines were not as safe as modern-day ones.
However, the inquest heard that the mother had carried Harriet in a "vagrant way", which had allowed her daughter to catch cold and die.
As a result the inquest jury returned a verdict that the infant had "died from natural causes, accelerated by exposure to cold."
The Newspaper also described the council's recent Health Committee meeting in which a letter signed by all the medical men in the town was discussed.
This supported the conclusions of the committee's Medical Officer in his recent report on pollution in St Helens.
Dr Robert McNicoll of Hardshaw Street had criticised the glass, chemical and copper firms in the borough, claiming their discharges were a major factor in the town's high death rate.
The letter from the doctors listed three causes of "much permanent ill-health and mortality" in St Helens. These were:
1) The escape of sulphureted hydrogen from the brooks and waste heaps. 2) The unnecessary escape of irritating vapours from works, particularly at night. 3) The enormous amount of coal smoke, which in damp weather falls in the town, charged with acids.
The committee ultimately decided that they would write to the Local Government Board asking for the Alkali Act of 1863 to be extended to other manufacturers.
The latest mortality stats were stated at the meeting and they always made grim reading.
For the month ending March 14th there had been 113 deaths in St Helens. Out of these 57 had been children under five, with 27 of them under one-year-old.
And that had been a better month than normal, with no deaths from measles, typhoid or smallpox. However, scarlet fever had been responsibly for 19 fatalities.
There was a curious case in court this week concerning a dead duck and a singer. Like today many pubs employed vocalists to entertain their customers and the New Inn in Liverpool Road had Joseph Sedley as their occasional singer.
The court was told that the man had gone for some drink to the New Inn after closing time.
As he could not get in at the front, Sedley had climbed over a wall at the back but in doing so had accidentally trod on a duck and killed it.
He said he decided to take the dead duck home with him and on the following morning explain what had happened and pay for it.
But he had an engagement in Rainford and before he could own up to his fowl deed, the police had been to his house and discovered the deceased duck.
Jessie Holmes, the wife of the landlord, was in court and asked for the charge against the singer to be withdrawn, as they had believed the man's rather unlikely story.
The real reason, I think, was that Sedley had paid the pub compensation and the court agreed for the case to be dropped.
Employers were allowed to have boys as young as eight or nine working for them. But the law stated that these youngsters could only undertake what was known as "half-time" working, that is no more than 6½ hours a day – as the average working week for adults was 70 hours.
Those under 13 were also not permitted to work before 6am and after 6pm. Additionally, the employer had to ensure that the child possessed a certificate stating they were attending school and that he or she had been passed fit by a doctor.
Factory inspectors would pay unannounced visits to check the rules were being followed – and often they were not.
In St Helens Petty Sessions on the 23rd, Woodall, Keen and Woodall – who ran the Eccleston Flint Glass works – were fined £3 and costs for having two boys in their employment who were under age and did not possess certificates.
From the parents' point of view they wanted their children to be earning money as soon as possible – but they were equally breaking the law if they did not follow the rules.
And so a number of fathers were also in court for allowing their sons to work illegally and they were each fined between 5 and 10 shillings.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the St Helens Newspaper's libel case, a worker is killed at a chemical works, the Haydock murder charge, the creative beggar in Bridge Street and two violent assaults take place in Rainford.