150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (18th - 24th OCTOBER 1871)
This week's stories include the drunken cooks at Whiston Workhouse, the state of the streets of St Helens, the fever sheds at Whiston, the German emigrants' railway accident, the death of a Rainford platelayer and the bowling in Newton.
We begin on the 18th when the St Helens Highway Committee held a meeting to discuss the state of the streets in the borough. A sub-committee had conducted an inspection and felt the roads were generally in good nick – although I expect that by our standards they were pretty poor. The only recommendation that prompted discussion was for the council to flag the front of St Peter's C of E Church in Parr for free.
This upset Councillor Greenough who complained that the so-called Dissenting places of worship (such as Methodists) had to pay for their own flagging. So Greenough claimed it would be unfair to give the Establishment churches a special privilege. The Town Clerk advised that it was up to the Council to decide and the sub-committee's recommendation was finally agreed.
At the beginning of 1871 the Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had announced the formation of the German Empire and begun a programme of religious discrimination. As a result many German Catholics chose to leave the country and my next story about two railway accidents near Upholland and Rainford involves an emigrant train. This article was published in the Shields Daily Gazette on the 18th:
"On Monday night, a fatal accident took place near Upholland Tunnel, on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, between Wigan and Liverpool. About half-past nine o'clock a goods train was standing while the engine took in water, when there came up at great speed two trains (combined into one) of German emigrants, with a couple of engines in front. The goods train was driven nearly fifty yards along the metals, several waggons were thrown off the line and the stoker – a man named Benjamin Thistlethwaite – who had been under the engine oiling some of the machinery, was killed. His remains were frightfully mangled. The passengers in the emigrant trains were severely shaken, but none of them appear to have been seriously hurt.
"On Sunday night a number of platelayers were proceeding on a truck towards Rainford Junction, situate on the same section of the Lancashire and Yorkshire system, when they observed a train approaching, and lifted their truck off the metals. As soon as the train had gone by one of the men was missed, and his companions found his body shockingly mutilated a short distance away. His name was Swift. It is evident he had been struck by the passing train." All three of the platelayers came from Rainford.
The Prescot Board of Guardians was the elected committee responsible for implementing the Poor Law within the district of St Helens and Prescot. Their work included overseeing Whiston Workhouse and on the 19th the guardians held their usual meeting in its boardroom. It would be two more years before St Helens Cottage Hospital would open and – apart from the Royal Infirmary at Liverpool – the only hospital in the district was the one attached to Whiston workhouse (illustrated above) – and that was extremely basic.
Just two nurses staffed the hospital, with a doctor calling in from time to time to check on the patients. Recently the assistant nurse had quit and the guardians' meeting interviewed those who’d applied for her position and appointed a Miss Jones, presently employed at Denbigh Lunatic Asylum.
Finding a suitable cook for the workhouse that would stick the course and not get too drunk was a recurring problem. Last year the Chairman of the Guardians had described the then cook as "callous as a rhinoceros's hide", as Mrs Roby was regularly getting drunk and taking no notice of warnings. Her successor quit partly through having no proper place to sleep, after having been expected to rest her weary bones in a loft.
The woman also complained of having too many meals to cook – despite having pauper assistants to help her. So the meeting decided to appoint someone with experience of working in a big institution who did not have a reputation for getting drunk. Mary Denman – presently the cook at the Cheshire County Lunatic Asylum at Upton near Chester – got the job, with fingers crossed, no doubt, that the 30-year-old would stay off the booze.
The meeting also heard that seven smallpox cases had been brought to their hospital from St Helens. It wouldn't be until 1881 that the St Helens Borough Sanatorium – also known as the Fever or the Infectious Diseases Hospital – would be built in Peasley Cross where sufferers could be isolated. Currently contagious patients were taken to Whiston and essentially stuck in sheds away from other patients and the public at large. In fact the meeting heard that their doctor had complained that the fever sheds were not watertight, and so the matter was referred to their building committee to sort out.
The Guardians were also responsible for overseeing compulsory vaccinations against smallpox in the district and they appointed Jonathan Dalton from Prescot to "look after vaccination defaulters", at a salary of 25s per week. And he would likely have his work cut out. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a Preston man who had been in court 35 times through refusing to have his child vaccinated.
The Wigan Observer reported on the 21st that Newton Bowling Club had held a dinner at the White Lion Inn in Newton-le-Willow's High Street. There were lots of toasts as usual and during one of them their chairman described how the club had been in existence for three years and been very successful: "Before the club was formed a want was felt in the village for something of the kind. A great many of the members led sedentary lives, and to have some outdoor recreation in the summer evenings is a necessity."
The 1871 census shows Francis Gallagher living as a lodger with John Bold in Cross Street in St Helens, with both men employed as tailors. However, the pair fell out and so Gallagher moved to other quarters. On the 23rd the 30-year-old brought an action in St Helens Petty Sessions against his former landlord accusing him of maliciously spreading gossip. Francis Gallagher was described as having been "paying his addresses" to a woman with the intention of marriage. However, John Bold had been endangering the couple's relationship by telling a friend of Gallagher that his mate was a married man. Bold denied making the claim in court and the magistrates decided to dismiss the case – but warned the defendant to be careful in future.
On the 24th a diocesan conference in Chester discussed the class system and whether gaps between the classes were widening or narrowing. The Rev. William Mocatta of St Thomas's Church in St Helens said the "estrangement of classes" was not just through the neglect of the rich but also caused by the behaviour of the poor, adding:
"I do not agree with remarks which would seem to infer that the richer classes were grinding down the poor, and such remarks, would serve to do a great deal of mischief not easily repaired. I find that the richer classes respond to the duties required of them, and the breach has often been made, or at least widened, by the fact that the more the upper classes did for the lower classes the more ingratitude the lower-classes show." Clearly much more doffing of caps was needed in St Helens!
And finally, two articles from the same edition of the Liverpool Daily Post caught my eye this week. The first involves a woman selling clothes in the city belonging to a typhoid sufferer: "The police are very much to be praised for the determination with which they acted in the case of the wretched woman in Milton-street who was found, with a crowd round her, selling the infected clothes of a person who had just died of typhoid fever. What a picture of demented depravity did the scene present! How profound is the wretchedness and debasement which it exhibits!
"No one can pretend that beings such as these can be too closely watched on behalf of the community. Every resource of police and social surveillance is required for the protection of life in such neighbourhoods; and though it may be that the mad act was committed under the excitement of drink, there is little consolation to be derived from that in a place where it is a matter of doubt whether people have died of fever or of beer.
"The officers who are charged with such thankless and repulsive duties as must be done in such a district deserve the utmost sympathy and encouragement, and it was most satisfactory to perceive by yesterday's incidents in the police-court that they are thoroughly up to their work, and sensibly fortify themselves for the performance of it."
The Daily Post also reprinted this article from The New York Times, which pondered whether it might be possible in the future to cross the Atlantic in less than a week:
"Three steamships, the Baltic, the City of Brooklyn, and the Wyoming, arrived at this port from Liverpool on the 24th of September, each of which made the passage within nine days. The achievement and coincidence are remarkable, and remind us – in spite of a common opinion that the Atlantic passage has become as short in the average as it is likely to be – that in reality the time is being gradually reduced.
"Improvements in model and in machinery, the sedulous care begotten of competition, and the advantages of riper experience, unite in bringing about such a result, and there is reason to think the time will continue to be shortened. Whether the passage will ever be made within a week or not it would be hazardous to predict; but certainly stranger things have happened." And how could people in 1871 have predicted strange things like aeroplanes and transatlantic crossings in hours!
Next week's stories will include the smallpox epidemic in Greenbank, concern over the cost of the proposed new St Helens town hall, a plea from a Haydock miner and a dispute over a pigeon race is heard in St Helens County Court.
We begin on the 18th when the St Helens Highway Committee held a meeting to discuss the state of the streets in the borough. A sub-committee had conducted an inspection and felt the roads were generally in good nick – although I expect that by our standards they were pretty poor. The only recommendation that prompted discussion was for the council to flag the front of St Peter's C of E Church in Parr for free.
This upset Councillor Greenough who complained that the so-called Dissenting places of worship (such as Methodists) had to pay for their own flagging. So Greenough claimed it would be unfair to give the Establishment churches a special privilege. The Town Clerk advised that it was up to the Council to decide and the sub-committee's recommendation was finally agreed.
At the beginning of 1871 the Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had announced the formation of the German Empire and begun a programme of religious discrimination. As a result many German Catholics chose to leave the country and my next story about two railway accidents near Upholland and Rainford involves an emigrant train. This article was published in the Shields Daily Gazette on the 18th:
"On Monday night, a fatal accident took place near Upholland Tunnel, on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, between Wigan and Liverpool. About half-past nine o'clock a goods train was standing while the engine took in water, when there came up at great speed two trains (combined into one) of German emigrants, with a couple of engines in front. The goods train was driven nearly fifty yards along the metals, several waggons were thrown off the line and the stoker – a man named Benjamin Thistlethwaite – who had been under the engine oiling some of the machinery, was killed. His remains were frightfully mangled. The passengers in the emigrant trains were severely shaken, but none of them appear to have been seriously hurt.
"On Sunday night a number of platelayers were proceeding on a truck towards Rainford Junction, situate on the same section of the Lancashire and Yorkshire system, when they observed a train approaching, and lifted their truck off the metals. As soon as the train had gone by one of the men was missed, and his companions found his body shockingly mutilated a short distance away. His name was Swift. It is evident he had been struck by the passing train." All three of the platelayers came from Rainford.
Just two nurses staffed the hospital, with a doctor calling in from time to time to check on the patients. Recently the assistant nurse had quit and the guardians' meeting interviewed those who’d applied for her position and appointed a Miss Jones, presently employed at Denbigh Lunatic Asylum.
Finding a suitable cook for the workhouse that would stick the course and not get too drunk was a recurring problem. Last year the Chairman of the Guardians had described the then cook as "callous as a rhinoceros's hide", as Mrs Roby was regularly getting drunk and taking no notice of warnings. Her successor quit partly through having no proper place to sleep, after having been expected to rest her weary bones in a loft.
The woman also complained of having too many meals to cook – despite having pauper assistants to help her. So the meeting decided to appoint someone with experience of working in a big institution who did not have a reputation for getting drunk. Mary Denman – presently the cook at the Cheshire County Lunatic Asylum at Upton near Chester – got the job, with fingers crossed, no doubt, that the 30-year-old would stay off the booze.
The meeting also heard that seven smallpox cases had been brought to their hospital from St Helens. It wouldn't be until 1881 that the St Helens Borough Sanatorium – also known as the Fever or the Infectious Diseases Hospital – would be built in Peasley Cross where sufferers could be isolated. Currently contagious patients were taken to Whiston and essentially stuck in sheds away from other patients and the public at large. In fact the meeting heard that their doctor had complained that the fever sheds were not watertight, and so the matter was referred to their building committee to sort out.
The Guardians were also responsible for overseeing compulsory vaccinations against smallpox in the district and they appointed Jonathan Dalton from Prescot to "look after vaccination defaulters", at a salary of 25s per week. And he would likely have his work cut out. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a Preston man who had been in court 35 times through refusing to have his child vaccinated.
The Wigan Observer reported on the 21st that Newton Bowling Club had held a dinner at the White Lion Inn in Newton-le-Willow's High Street. There were lots of toasts as usual and during one of them their chairman described how the club had been in existence for three years and been very successful: "Before the club was formed a want was felt in the village for something of the kind. A great many of the members led sedentary lives, and to have some outdoor recreation in the summer evenings is a necessity."
The 1871 census shows Francis Gallagher living as a lodger with John Bold in Cross Street in St Helens, with both men employed as tailors. However, the pair fell out and so Gallagher moved to other quarters. On the 23rd the 30-year-old brought an action in St Helens Petty Sessions against his former landlord accusing him of maliciously spreading gossip. Francis Gallagher was described as having been "paying his addresses" to a woman with the intention of marriage. However, John Bold had been endangering the couple's relationship by telling a friend of Gallagher that his mate was a married man. Bold denied making the claim in court and the magistrates decided to dismiss the case – but warned the defendant to be careful in future.
On the 24th a diocesan conference in Chester discussed the class system and whether gaps between the classes were widening or narrowing. The Rev. William Mocatta of St Thomas's Church in St Helens said the "estrangement of classes" was not just through the neglect of the rich but also caused by the behaviour of the poor, adding:
"I do not agree with remarks which would seem to infer that the richer classes were grinding down the poor, and such remarks, would serve to do a great deal of mischief not easily repaired. I find that the richer classes respond to the duties required of them, and the breach has often been made, or at least widened, by the fact that the more the upper classes did for the lower classes the more ingratitude the lower-classes show." Clearly much more doffing of caps was needed in St Helens!
And finally, two articles from the same edition of the Liverpool Daily Post caught my eye this week. The first involves a woman selling clothes in the city belonging to a typhoid sufferer: "The police are very much to be praised for the determination with which they acted in the case of the wretched woman in Milton-street who was found, with a crowd round her, selling the infected clothes of a person who had just died of typhoid fever. What a picture of demented depravity did the scene present! How profound is the wretchedness and debasement which it exhibits!
"No one can pretend that beings such as these can be too closely watched on behalf of the community. Every resource of police and social surveillance is required for the protection of life in such neighbourhoods; and though it may be that the mad act was committed under the excitement of drink, there is little consolation to be derived from that in a place where it is a matter of doubt whether people have died of fever or of beer.
"The officers who are charged with such thankless and repulsive duties as must be done in such a district deserve the utmost sympathy and encouragement, and it was most satisfactory to perceive by yesterday's incidents in the police-court that they are thoroughly up to their work, and sensibly fortify themselves for the performance of it."
The Daily Post also reprinted this article from The New York Times, which pondered whether it might be possible in the future to cross the Atlantic in less than a week:
"Three steamships, the Baltic, the City of Brooklyn, and the Wyoming, arrived at this port from Liverpool on the 24th of September, each of which made the passage within nine days. The achievement and coincidence are remarkable, and remind us – in spite of a common opinion that the Atlantic passage has become as short in the average as it is likely to be – that in reality the time is being gradually reduced.
"Improvements in model and in machinery, the sedulous care begotten of competition, and the advantages of riper experience, unite in bringing about such a result, and there is reason to think the time will continue to be shortened. Whether the passage will ever be made within a week or not it would be hazardous to predict; but certainly stranger things have happened." And how could people in 1871 have predicted strange things like aeroplanes and transatlantic crossings in hours!
Next week's stories will include the smallpox epidemic in Greenbank, concern over the cost of the proposed new St Helens town hall, a plea from a Haydock miner and a dispute over a pigeon race is heard in St Helens County Court.
This week's stories include the drunken cooks at Whiston Workhouse, the state of the streets of St Helens, the fever sheds at Whiston, the German emigrants' railway accident, the death of a Rainford platelayer and the bowling in Newton.
We begin on the 18th when the St Helens Highway Committee held a meeting to discuss the state of the streets in the borough.
A sub-committee had conducted an inspection and felt the roads were generally in good nick – although I expect that by our standards they were pretty poor.
The only recommendation that prompted discussion was for the council to flag the front of St Peter's C of E Church in Parr for free.
This upset Councillor Greenough who complained that the so-called Dissenting places of worship (such as Methodists) had to pay for their own flagging.
So Greenough claimed it would be unfair to give the Establishment churches a special privilege.
The Town Clerk advised that it was up to the Council to decide and the sub-committee's recommendation was finally agreed.
At the beginning of 1871 the Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had announced the formation of the German Empire and begun a programme of religious discrimination.
As a result many German Catholics chose to leave the country and my next story about two railway accidents near Upholland and Rainford involves an emigrant train.
This article was published in the Shields Daily Gazette on the 18th:
"On Monday night, a fatal accident took place near Upholland Tunnel, on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, between Wigan and Liverpool.
"About half-past nine o'clock a goods train was standing while the engine took in water, when there came up at great speed two trains (combined into one) of German emigrants, with a couple of engines in front.
"The goods train was driven nearly fifty yards along the metals, several waggons were thrown off the line and the stoker – a man named Benjamin Thistlethwaite – who had been under the engine oiling some of the machinery, was killed. His remains were frightfully mangled.
"The passengers in the emigrant trains were severely shaken, but none of them appear to have been seriously hurt.
"On Sunday night a number of platelayers were proceeding on a truck towards Rainford Junction, situate on the same section of the Lancashire and Yorkshire system, when they observed a train approaching, and lifted their truck off the metals.
"As soon as the train had gone by one of the men was missed, and his companions found his body shockingly mutilated a short distance away.
"His name was Swift. It is evident he had been struck by the passing train."
All three of the platelayers came from Rainford.
The Prescot Board of Guardians was the elected committee responsible for implementing the Poor Law within the district of St Helens and Prescot.
Their work included overseeing Whiston Workhouse and on the 19th the guardians held their usual meeting in its boardroom.
It would be two more years before St Helens Cottage Hospital would open and – apart from the Royal Infirmary at Liverpool – the only hospital in the district was the one attached to Whiston workhouse (illustrated above) – and that was extremely basic.
Just two nurses staffed the hospital, with a doctor calling in from time to time to check on the patients.
Recently the assistant nurse had quit and the guardians' meeting interviewed those who’d applied for her position and appointed a Miss Jones, presently employed at Denbigh Lunatic Asylum.
Finding a suitable cook for the workhouse that would stick the course and not get too drunk was a recurring problem.
Last year the Chairman of the Guardians had described the then cook as "callous as a rhinoceros's hide", as Mrs Roby was regularly getting drunk and taking no notice of warnings.
Her successor quit partly through having no proper place to sleep, after having been expected to rest her weary bones in a loft.
The woman also complained of having too many meals to cook – despite having pauper assistants to help her.
So the meeting decided to appoint someone with experience of working in a big institution who did not have a reputation for getting drunk.
Mary Denman – presently the cook at the Cheshire County Lunatic Asylum at Upton near Chester – got the job, with fingers crossed, no doubt, that the 30-year-old would stay off the booze.
The meeting also heard that seven smallpox cases had been brought to their hospital from St Helens.
It wouldn't be until 1881 that the St Helens Borough Sanatorium – also known as the Fever or the Infectious Diseases Hospital – would be built in Peasley Cross where sufferers could be isolated.
Currently contagious patients were taken to Whiston and essentially stuck in sheds away from other patients and the public at large.
In fact the meeting heard that their doctor had complained that the fever sheds were not watertight, and so the matter was referred to their building committee to sort out.
The Guardians were also responsible for overseeing compulsory vaccinations against smallpox in the district and they appointed Jonathan Dalton from Prescot to "look after vaccination defaulters", at a salary of 25s per week.
And he would likely have his work cut out. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a Preston man who had been in court 35 times through refusing to have his child vaccinated.
The Wigan Observer reported on the 21st that Newton Bowling Club had held a dinner at the White Lion Inn in Newton-le-Willow's High Street.
There were lots of toasts as usual and during one of them their chairman described how the club had been in existence for three years and been very successful:
"Before the club was formed a want was felt in the village for something of the kind. A great many of the members led sedentary lives, and to have some outdoor recreation in the summer evenings is a necessity."
The 1871 census shows Francis Gallagher living as a lodger with John Bold in Cross Street in St Helens, with both men employed as tailors.
However, the pair fell out and so Gallagher moved to other quarters.
On the 23rd the 30-year-old brought an action in St Helens Petty Sessions against his former landlord accusing him of maliciously spreading gossip.
Francis Gallagher was described as having been "paying his addresses" to a woman with the intention of marriage.
However, John Bold had been endangering the couple's relationship by telling a friend of Gallagher that his mate was a married man.
Bold denied making the claim in court and the magistrates decided to dismiss the case – but warned the defendant to be careful in future.
On the 24th a diocesan conference in Chester discussed the class system and whether gaps between the classes were widening or narrowing.
The Rev. William Mocatta of St Thomas's Church in St Helens said the "estrangement of classes" was not just through the neglect of the rich but also caused by the behaviour of the poor, adding:
"I do not agree with remarks which would seem to infer that the richer classes were grinding down the poor, and such remarks, would serve to do a great deal of mischief not easily repaired.
"I find that the richer classes respond to the duties required of them, and the breach has often been made, or at least widened, by the fact that the more the upper classes did for the lower classes the more ingratitude the lower-classes show."
Clearly much more doffing of caps was needed in St Helens!
And finally, two articles from the same edition of the Liverpool Daily Post caught my eye this week. The first involves a woman selling clothes in the city belonging to a typhoid sufferer:
"The police are very much to be praised for the determination with which they acted in the case of the wretched woman in Milton-street who was found, with a crowd round her, selling the infected clothes of a person who had just died of typhoid fever.
"What a picture of demented depravity did the scene present! How profound is the wretchedness and debasement which it exhibits!
"No one can pretend that beings such as these can be too closely watched on behalf of the community.
"Every resource of police and social surveillance is required for the protection of life in such neighbourhoods; and though it may be that the mad act was committed under the excitement of drink, there is little consolation to be derived from that in a place where it is a matter of doubt whether people have died of fever or of beer.
"The officers who are charged with such thankless and repulsive duties as must be done in such a district deserve the utmost sympathy and encouragement, and it was most satisfactory to perceive by yesterday's incidents in the police-court that they are thoroughly up to their work, and sensibly fortify themselves for the performance of it."
The Daily Post also reprinted this article from The New York Times, which pondered whether it might be possible in the future to cross the Atlantic in less than a week:
"Three steamships, the Baltic, the City of Brooklyn, and the Wyoming, arrived at this port from Liverpool on the 24th of September, each of which made the passage within nine days.
"The achievement and coincidence are remarkable, and remind us – in spite of a common opinion that the Atlantic passage has become as short in the average as it is likely to be – that in reality the time is being gradually reduced.
"Improvements in model and in machinery, the sedulous care begotten of competition, and the advantages of riper experience, unite in bringing about such a result, and there is reason to think the time will continue to be shortened.
"Whether the passage will ever be made within a week or not it would be hazardous to predict; but certainly stranger things have happened."
And how could people in 1871 have predicted strange things like aeroplanes and transatlantic crossings in hours!
Next week's stories will include the smallpox epidemic in Greenbank, concern over the cost of the proposed new St Helens town hall, a plea from a Haydock miner and a dispute over a pigeon race is heard in St Helens County Court.
We begin on the 18th when the St Helens Highway Committee held a meeting to discuss the state of the streets in the borough.
A sub-committee had conducted an inspection and felt the roads were generally in good nick – although I expect that by our standards they were pretty poor.
The only recommendation that prompted discussion was for the council to flag the front of St Peter's C of E Church in Parr for free.
This upset Councillor Greenough who complained that the so-called Dissenting places of worship (such as Methodists) had to pay for their own flagging.
So Greenough claimed it would be unfair to give the Establishment churches a special privilege.
The Town Clerk advised that it was up to the Council to decide and the sub-committee's recommendation was finally agreed.
At the beginning of 1871 the Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had announced the formation of the German Empire and begun a programme of religious discrimination.
As a result many German Catholics chose to leave the country and my next story about two railway accidents near Upholland and Rainford involves an emigrant train.
This article was published in the Shields Daily Gazette on the 18th:
"On Monday night, a fatal accident took place near Upholland Tunnel, on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, between Wigan and Liverpool.
"About half-past nine o'clock a goods train was standing while the engine took in water, when there came up at great speed two trains (combined into one) of German emigrants, with a couple of engines in front.
"The goods train was driven nearly fifty yards along the metals, several waggons were thrown off the line and the stoker – a man named Benjamin Thistlethwaite – who had been under the engine oiling some of the machinery, was killed. His remains were frightfully mangled.
"The passengers in the emigrant trains were severely shaken, but none of them appear to have been seriously hurt.
"On Sunday night a number of platelayers were proceeding on a truck towards Rainford Junction, situate on the same section of the Lancashire and Yorkshire system, when they observed a train approaching, and lifted their truck off the metals.
"As soon as the train had gone by one of the men was missed, and his companions found his body shockingly mutilated a short distance away.
"His name was Swift. It is evident he had been struck by the passing train."
All three of the platelayers came from Rainford.
The Prescot Board of Guardians was the elected committee responsible for implementing the Poor Law within the district of St Helens and Prescot.
Their work included overseeing Whiston Workhouse and on the 19th the guardians held their usual meeting in its boardroom.
Just two nurses staffed the hospital, with a doctor calling in from time to time to check on the patients.
Recently the assistant nurse had quit and the guardians' meeting interviewed those who’d applied for her position and appointed a Miss Jones, presently employed at Denbigh Lunatic Asylum.
Finding a suitable cook for the workhouse that would stick the course and not get too drunk was a recurring problem.
Last year the Chairman of the Guardians had described the then cook as "callous as a rhinoceros's hide", as Mrs Roby was regularly getting drunk and taking no notice of warnings.
Her successor quit partly through having no proper place to sleep, after having been expected to rest her weary bones in a loft.
The woman also complained of having too many meals to cook – despite having pauper assistants to help her.
So the meeting decided to appoint someone with experience of working in a big institution who did not have a reputation for getting drunk.
Mary Denman – presently the cook at the Cheshire County Lunatic Asylum at Upton near Chester – got the job, with fingers crossed, no doubt, that the 30-year-old would stay off the booze.
The meeting also heard that seven smallpox cases had been brought to their hospital from St Helens.
It wouldn't be until 1881 that the St Helens Borough Sanatorium – also known as the Fever or the Infectious Diseases Hospital – would be built in Peasley Cross where sufferers could be isolated.
Currently contagious patients were taken to Whiston and essentially stuck in sheds away from other patients and the public at large.
In fact the meeting heard that their doctor had complained that the fever sheds were not watertight, and so the matter was referred to their building committee to sort out.
The Guardians were also responsible for overseeing compulsory vaccinations against smallpox in the district and they appointed Jonathan Dalton from Prescot to "look after vaccination defaulters", at a salary of 25s per week.
And he would likely have his work cut out. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a Preston man who had been in court 35 times through refusing to have his child vaccinated.
The Wigan Observer reported on the 21st that Newton Bowling Club had held a dinner at the White Lion Inn in Newton-le-Willow's High Street.
There were lots of toasts as usual and during one of them their chairman described how the club had been in existence for three years and been very successful:
"Before the club was formed a want was felt in the village for something of the kind. A great many of the members led sedentary lives, and to have some outdoor recreation in the summer evenings is a necessity."
The 1871 census shows Francis Gallagher living as a lodger with John Bold in Cross Street in St Helens, with both men employed as tailors.
However, the pair fell out and so Gallagher moved to other quarters.
On the 23rd the 30-year-old brought an action in St Helens Petty Sessions against his former landlord accusing him of maliciously spreading gossip.
Francis Gallagher was described as having been "paying his addresses" to a woman with the intention of marriage.
However, John Bold had been endangering the couple's relationship by telling a friend of Gallagher that his mate was a married man.
Bold denied making the claim in court and the magistrates decided to dismiss the case – but warned the defendant to be careful in future.
On the 24th a diocesan conference in Chester discussed the class system and whether gaps between the classes were widening or narrowing.
The Rev. William Mocatta of St Thomas's Church in St Helens said the "estrangement of classes" was not just through the neglect of the rich but also caused by the behaviour of the poor, adding:
"I do not agree with remarks which would seem to infer that the richer classes were grinding down the poor, and such remarks, would serve to do a great deal of mischief not easily repaired.
"I find that the richer classes respond to the duties required of them, and the breach has often been made, or at least widened, by the fact that the more the upper classes did for the lower classes the more ingratitude the lower-classes show."
Clearly much more doffing of caps was needed in St Helens!
And finally, two articles from the same edition of the Liverpool Daily Post caught my eye this week. The first involves a woman selling clothes in the city belonging to a typhoid sufferer:
"The police are very much to be praised for the determination with which they acted in the case of the wretched woman in Milton-street who was found, with a crowd round her, selling the infected clothes of a person who had just died of typhoid fever.
"What a picture of demented depravity did the scene present! How profound is the wretchedness and debasement which it exhibits!
"No one can pretend that beings such as these can be too closely watched on behalf of the community.
"Every resource of police and social surveillance is required for the protection of life in such neighbourhoods; and though it may be that the mad act was committed under the excitement of drink, there is little consolation to be derived from that in a place where it is a matter of doubt whether people have died of fever or of beer.
"The officers who are charged with such thankless and repulsive duties as must be done in such a district deserve the utmost sympathy and encouragement, and it was most satisfactory to perceive by yesterday's incidents in the police-court that they are thoroughly up to their work, and sensibly fortify themselves for the performance of it."
The Daily Post also reprinted this article from The New York Times, which pondered whether it might be possible in the future to cross the Atlantic in less than a week:
"Three steamships, the Baltic, the City of Brooklyn, and the Wyoming, arrived at this port from Liverpool on the 24th of September, each of which made the passage within nine days.
"The achievement and coincidence are remarkable, and remind us – in spite of a common opinion that the Atlantic passage has become as short in the average as it is likely to be – that in reality the time is being gradually reduced.
"Improvements in model and in machinery, the sedulous care begotten of competition, and the advantages of riper experience, unite in bringing about such a result, and there is reason to think the time will continue to be shortened.
"Whether the passage will ever be made within a week or not it would be hazardous to predict; but certainly stranger things have happened."
And how could people in 1871 have predicted strange things like aeroplanes and transatlantic crossings in hours!
Next week's stories will include the smallpox epidemic in Greenbank, concern over the cost of the proposed new St Helens town hall, a plea from a Haydock miner and a dispute over a pigeon race is heard in St Helens County Court.