150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (20th - 26th May 1869)
This week's stories include the bull that got stuck in a Prescot shop, the resolution of the Whiston Workhouse sex scandal, the man who suffered from the blue devils, an assault on the Rainford Junction stationmaster and the Ancient Shepherds' Friendly Society at Parr are sued in the County Court.
We begin at the Prescot Union Board of Guardians meeting on the 20th when some unusual punishments for misbehaving inmates of the workhouse were revealed. One pauper called Waterworth had refused to be seated during a service in the chapel and was made to eat nothing but potatoes for a few meals.
Another man called Peter Briars had left the workhouse without permission and then returned drunk. His punishment was to sleep for the night in the tramp ward of the workhouse. The Prescot Reporter had inspected the rooms reserved for tramps in 1866 and described them as: "…miserably uncomfortable places, and if they are fit for tramps they are certainly fit for no other human beings." These had apparently improved since then but sleeping in them was still considered a punishment.
The St Helens Newspaper on the 22nd commented on a recent Police Court hearing: "Bridget Kildare, who has had the honour of a personal interview with almost every magistrate in the division, made her bow once more for improper conduct in Westfield-street, and was ordered to be sent to prison for a month. Thomas Eccleston, an individual who was found in her delightful society, was ordered to pay the costs, and discharged when he had done so."
The Newspaper also described a recent incident with a large bull that was being driven by a youth from the Stanley cattle market to St Helens. The animal was literally being led by the nose, via a cord attached to a ring passed through its nostrils. As the youth passed through Prescot on Whit Monday the animal did not appreciate the crowded streets and started "pulling, tugging, and otherwise manifesting dislike to even the delicate restraint produced by the cord."
Eventually the bull got loose from the youth, as the Newspaper described in its own inimitable way: "A quiet, but most expressive pantomime was carried on between them for some minutes, and at last, a movement on the part of the quadruped deprived the biped of the link that bound them together."
The animal then entered a shop on Fazakerley Street, to the horror of the proprietor's wife: "The bull, dispensing even with the faintest approach to etiquette, was about paying his devoirs to the lady, when – crash! smash! – the floor yielded beneath his ponderous weight, and the latter half of his person partially disappeared below the level.
"The treacherous boards, which a moment before presented so smooth a path through the emporium of curiosities, had yielded when least expected, and left the bull in such a state of literal suspense as ought to have spoiled his appetite for holiday keeping. "The unlucky animal made very grotesque efforts to recover his footing, but was unsuccessful, until some friendly persons came provided with ropes, and accomplished the restoration of his equilibrium. To get the intruder out was the next consideration."
That was achieved by getting the bull out of the back of the shop "at the sacrifice of a set of banisters which impeded the way." Eventually they got the animal into the backyard of a pub until it could be calmed down ready to resume its travels to St Helens.
The only thing that would have made this story better is if it had been a china shop. It was in fact a marine store – a sort of junk shop that could also have sold a few items of interest to sailors. However the shop might have sold items of crockery and the name of the pub where the animal was taken was – the Bull's Head!
Sentences for relatively minor infringements of the law could be severe. The Wigan Observer wrote on the 22nd that at a recent hearing of the Prescot Petty Sessions: "Catherine Melia, a member of the pedling fraternity, was summoned at the instance of Police-constable Fisher, for hawking cloth without a license, and was sent to prison for 14 days."
In the St Helens Police Court on the 24th, Samuel Bohanna was summoned for assaulting Henry Hindle, the 43-year-old stationmaster at Rainford Junction. The man had entered the station booking office and obtained a train ticket to Bolton for a drunken man, who Hindle would not allow to travel.
Bohanna told the stationmaster that he had often seen him "fifty times drunker" than his friend and called Hindle several foul names and then struck and kicked him. Porter John Twitty told the Bench that he saw the defendant pursue the stationmaster with kicks and curses and Constable Turner said Bohanna was himself drunk but "not beastly drunk". The man was fined 40 shillings. However he had also lost his job and claimed the stationmaster had been to see the secretary of the Wigan Coal and Iron Company and got him the sack.
At St Helens County Court on the 24th a man called Gore sued someone called Pilkington for the return of thirty shillings that he had supposedly lent him. Of interest in this case was where the money had been "lent", as it had been on a rabbit coursing ground in Parr owned by a man called Miller.
The judge was keen to find out if the money had been a gambling debt but both denied it. This was because the Gaming Act of 1845 had made such debts unenforceable in the courts. However the judge's interest was academic as Gore had no witnesses to prove his case against Pilkington and so his claim was denied.
In another case a child called Maxwell sued a man called Vernon for eleven shillings back wages, although the wife of the latter claimed that only one shilling was owed. The girl had been employed by the Vernons as a domestic servant but on one morning had arrived a little late for work and was promptly dismissed. The Vernons really should have paid off the girl as her mother went into the witness box and made an embarrassing claim against the man, as reported by the St Helens Newspaper:
"Vernon had a weakness for indulging at intervals in heavy drinking, and then for getting an attack of what the witness, with nice taste, called “the blue devils,” and while affected by the visitation of these highly pleasant companions, the plaintiff used to be sent to attend on him, the defendant's wife fearing to risk playing the part of handmaiden herself." The judge allowed the young girl nine shillings, which no doubt she would have had to give to her mother.
Many people during the 19th century were members of friendly societies. These were essentially insurance providers that doled out payments for sickness, burials and sometimes unemployment. They did have strange names and the Ancient Shepherds' Friendly Society was known to have had seven branches or lodges in St Helens. The one at Parr was known as the 'Island Shepherds' lodge and one of its members called Joseph Dean brought an action in the County Court against the society's secretary for arrears of sick pay.
Like all insurance companies the friendly societies had terms and conditions – or rules as they were then known. The Ancient Shepherds would cough up ten shillings a week as sickness pay for their members. However there was a clause in their rules that said if their total funds dipped down to £20, the amount payable dropped to 5 shillings. Joseph Dean objected to this reduction and the judge decided to adjourn the case for six weeks in order to study the books of the Island Shepherds.
It was reported on the 24th that the son of Superintendent James Fowler – who was in charge of Prescot Police – had drowned in the English Channel after falling overboard from a ship bound for Equatorial Guinea. Robert Fowler had only been eighteen but had already made several voyages to various parts of the world and had an important job lined up in Africa.
On the 25th the Sanitary Committee of the Sutton Local Board announced that they planned to inspect the newly paved Fisher Street and Taylor Street (pictured above at the junction of the two streets). It was also the day when the master of Whiston Workhouse finally got his comeuppance! Thomas Holmes had been subject of a large volume of complaints over the last couple of months.
The head nurse at the workhouse hospital had accused him of tyranny and the medical officer had made fourteen serious allegations against the man. After an investigation Holmes was asked to resign but refused and while the Poor Law Board was considering the matter, an inmate made a further damning allegation against him. Mary Sixsmith accused the master of having had sex with her on numerous occasions and making her pregnant, leading to a miscarriage.
So last week a poor law inspector held a 7-hour inquiry at Whiston Workhouse into a charge of gross immorality against the master. Thomas Holmes denied everything and before coming to Whiston had a good reputation, having worked at similar institutions for 18 years – including being the master of Ormskirk Workhouse.
However on the 25th the clerk to the Prescot Guardians (who ran the workhouse) received a letter from the Poor Law Board. They said they'd studied their inspector's report and deemed Thomas Holmes to be an unfit person to hold the office of master and so would be removed from his job.
Next week's stories will include the shocking damage done to trees in Eccleston by chemical works, the Windle wife beater, the night soil dumper of Havelock Street, the start of Newton Races, the pauper woman in Whiston Workhouse who was repatriated to Ireland and the Prescot man who was drunk and riotous once too often.
We begin at the Prescot Union Board of Guardians meeting on the 20th when some unusual punishments for misbehaving inmates of the workhouse were revealed. One pauper called Waterworth had refused to be seated during a service in the chapel and was made to eat nothing but potatoes for a few meals.
Another man called Peter Briars had left the workhouse without permission and then returned drunk. His punishment was to sleep for the night in the tramp ward of the workhouse. The Prescot Reporter had inspected the rooms reserved for tramps in 1866 and described them as: "…miserably uncomfortable places, and if they are fit for tramps they are certainly fit for no other human beings." These had apparently improved since then but sleeping in them was still considered a punishment.
The Newspaper also described a recent incident with a large bull that was being driven by a youth from the Stanley cattle market to St Helens. The animal was literally being led by the nose, via a cord attached to a ring passed through its nostrils. As the youth passed through Prescot on Whit Monday the animal did not appreciate the crowded streets and started "pulling, tugging, and otherwise manifesting dislike to even the delicate restraint produced by the cord."
Eventually the bull got loose from the youth, as the Newspaper described in its own inimitable way: "A quiet, but most expressive pantomime was carried on between them for some minutes, and at last, a movement on the part of the quadruped deprived the biped of the link that bound them together."
The animal then entered a shop on Fazakerley Street, to the horror of the proprietor's wife: "The bull, dispensing even with the faintest approach to etiquette, was about paying his devoirs to the lady, when – crash! smash! – the floor yielded beneath his ponderous weight, and the latter half of his person partially disappeared below the level.
"The treacherous boards, which a moment before presented so smooth a path through the emporium of curiosities, had yielded when least expected, and left the bull in such a state of literal suspense as ought to have spoiled his appetite for holiday keeping. "The unlucky animal made very grotesque efforts to recover his footing, but was unsuccessful, until some friendly persons came provided with ropes, and accomplished the restoration of his equilibrium. To get the intruder out was the next consideration."
That was achieved by getting the bull out of the back of the shop "at the sacrifice of a set of banisters which impeded the way." Eventually they got the animal into the backyard of a pub until it could be calmed down ready to resume its travels to St Helens.
The only thing that would have made this story better is if it had been a china shop. It was in fact a marine store – a sort of junk shop that could also have sold a few items of interest to sailors. However the shop might have sold items of crockery and the name of the pub where the animal was taken was – the Bull's Head!
Sentences for relatively minor infringements of the law could be severe. The Wigan Observer wrote on the 22nd that at a recent hearing of the Prescot Petty Sessions: "Catherine Melia, a member of the pedling fraternity, was summoned at the instance of Police-constable Fisher, for hawking cloth without a license, and was sent to prison for 14 days."
In the St Helens Police Court on the 24th, Samuel Bohanna was summoned for assaulting Henry Hindle, the 43-year-old stationmaster at Rainford Junction. The man had entered the station booking office and obtained a train ticket to Bolton for a drunken man, who Hindle would not allow to travel.
Bohanna told the stationmaster that he had often seen him "fifty times drunker" than his friend and called Hindle several foul names and then struck and kicked him. Porter John Twitty told the Bench that he saw the defendant pursue the stationmaster with kicks and curses and Constable Turner said Bohanna was himself drunk but "not beastly drunk". The man was fined 40 shillings. However he had also lost his job and claimed the stationmaster had been to see the secretary of the Wigan Coal and Iron Company and got him the sack.
At St Helens County Court on the 24th a man called Gore sued someone called Pilkington for the return of thirty shillings that he had supposedly lent him. Of interest in this case was where the money had been "lent", as it had been on a rabbit coursing ground in Parr owned by a man called Miller.
The judge was keen to find out if the money had been a gambling debt but both denied it. This was because the Gaming Act of 1845 had made such debts unenforceable in the courts. However the judge's interest was academic as Gore had no witnesses to prove his case against Pilkington and so his claim was denied.
In another case a child called Maxwell sued a man called Vernon for eleven shillings back wages, although the wife of the latter claimed that only one shilling was owed. The girl had been employed by the Vernons as a domestic servant but on one morning had arrived a little late for work and was promptly dismissed. The Vernons really should have paid off the girl as her mother went into the witness box and made an embarrassing claim against the man, as reported by the St Helens Newspaper:
"Vernon had a weakness for indulging at intervals in heavy drinking, and then for getting an attack of what the witness, with nice taste, called “the blue devils,” and while affected by the visitation of these highly pleasant companions, the plaintiff used to be sent to attend on him, the defendant's wife fearing to risk playing the part of handmaiden herself." The judge allowed the young girl nine shillings, which no doubt she would have had to give to her mother.
Many people during the 19th century were members of friendly societies. These were essentially insurance providers that doled out payments for sickness, burials and sometimes unemployment. They did have strange names and the Ancient Shepherds' Friendly Society was known to have had seven branches or lodges in St Helens. The one at Parr was known as the 'Island Shepherds' lodge and one of its members called Joseph Dean brought an action in the County Court against the society's secretary for arrears of sick pay.
Like all insurance companies the friendly societies had terms and conditions – or rules as they were then known. The Ancient Shepherds would cough up ten shillings a week as sickness pay for their members. However there was a clause in their rules that said if their total funds dipped down to £20, the amount payable dropped to 5 shillings. Joseph Dean objected to this reduction and the judge decided to adjourn the case for six weeks in order to study the books of the Island Shepherds.
It was reported on the 24th that the son of Superintendent James Fowler – who was in charge of Prescot Police – had drowned in the English Channel after falling overboard from a ship bound for Equatorial Guinea. Robert Fowler had only been eighteen but had already made several voyages to various parts of the world and had an important job lined up in Africa.
The head nurse at the workhouse hospital had accused him of tyranny and the medical officer had made fourteen serious allegations against the man. After an investigation Holmes was asked to resign but refused and while the Poor Law Board was considering the matter, an inmate made a further damning allegation against him. Mary Sixsmith accused the master of having had sex with her on numerous occasions and making her pregnant, leading to a miscarriage.
So last week a poor law inspector held a 7-hour inquiry at Whiston Workhouse into a charge of gross immorality against the master. Thomas Holmes denied everything and before coming to Whiston had a good reputation, having worked at similar institutions for 18 years – including being the master of Ormskirk Workhouse.
However on the 25th the clerk to the Prescot Guardians (who ran the workhouse) received a letter from the Poor Law Board. They said they'd studied their inspector's report and deemed Thomas Holmes to be an unfit person to hold the office of master and so would be removed from his job.
Next week's stories will include the shocking damage done to trees in Eccleston by chemical works, the Windle wife beater, the night soil dumper of Havelock Street, the start of Newton Races, the pauper woman in Whiston Workhouse who was repatriated to Ireland and the Prescot man who was drunk and riotous once too often.