150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (20th - 26th SEPTEMBER 1871)
This week's stories include the boy who cheated a Rainford widow, the plans are agreed for the new St Helens Town Hall, the shenanigans in a Warrington Road beerhouse and the man staying in Sutton Oak who shot his wife dead on a train near Rainford and then killed himself.
We begin at the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 20th when Martin Geoghegan was charged with stealing 5s 6d and a revolver from a public house in Liverpool Road. He was convicted and given a four-month prison sentence. A boy called Henry Shuttleworth was also in court charged with obtaining £1 18s 6d under false pretences from the secretary of the South Lancashire Colliery Accident Fund. The 12-year-old from Old Lane in Rainford had been given the responsibility to draw a widow's entitlement from the fund.
Seven weeks earlier he had wrongly told the woman – who I expect was a neighbour – that she had been struck off the list and had no entitlement to any further payments. However, that wasn't true and Henry continued collecting the money from the secretary of the fund and keeping it for himself. Despite being only twelve, the magistrates sent the boy to Kirkdale prison for two months and ordered that he be whipped. The Warrington Examiner called Henry a "precocious rascal".
On the 20th a special meeting of St Helens Town Council was held to decide on the size and cost of the new Town Hall. As a result of the fire in May at the original municipal centre in New Market Place, the councillors had decided to construct a grand new building with adjacent police station. They had chosen the site in what was then known as Cotham Street – but which would later become Corporation Street – and had agreed the price with the landowner.
At the council meeting a letter was read out from Colonel Bruce, the chief constable of Lancashire, describing how he would like the new police station to be built. The councillors agreed that their new seat of municipal government would have a large assembly room, a mayor's parlour, rooms for the town clerk, rooms for the treasurer, a collector's room, three rooms for the surveyor, a room for the inspector of nuisances and space for the hall keeper (i.e. caretaker).
"The police buildings will be arranged on the very best and most comprehensive principles", said the Wigan Observer. "The whole structure will be handsome in design, with a front of cut stone and the remainder of brick." No price was stated – but it was thought about £20,000 would be adequate. A committee was appointed to provide instructions for the architects and decide upon the size of rooms and costs. Six architects would be invited to send in their plans. The five unsuccessful competitors would be compensated for their time by the payment of twenty guineas.
On the 23rd the Wigan Observer described a shocking shooting that had taken place two days earlier (and illustrated above by Marty Strutt): "A horrible occurrence, almost unexampled in the annals of railway tragedies, was perpetrated in a second-class carriage of a railway train," they wrote. On the same day The Times used the headline "Murder and Suicide" as they described the tragic event. It took some time to piece together exactly what had happened but in a couple of sentences, Robert Wanless of Sutton had shot his wife Ann in the temple while the pair were travelling together on the Liverpool train. And then after killing his wife in cold blood, the 33-year-old unemployed surveyor had inserted the revolver into his own mouth and pulled the trigger.
Wanless had lost his job and his marriage was on the rocks. So he had moved in with his brother William, a miner living in Sutton Oak. The address was Albion Place, which in the 1871 census is sandwiched between Sutton Road and Worsley Brow. On the 21st Wanless met up with his estranged wife Ann, who was staying in Pemberton, near Wigan, and the pair caught a train together. Shortly after passing through Rainford Junction, Thomas Young, a Farnworth cooper and a fellow second-class passenger, heard sounds of a struggle followed by two shots. Then there was a deadly silence accompanied by a pungent smell of gunpowder.
Porter Patrick Tracy told the coroner's inquest that when the train stopped at Kirkby station he opened the carriage door because he was going to "put his missus" on the train. His attention was also directed to powder smoke, which he could see through the window and upon entering the compartment discovered the couple lying motionless on the floor. Patrick Tracy thought that Wanless was asleep. He could have shouted "wakey wakey" or something similar, but instead told the coroner that he gave him "a blow on his back, and I told him to rouse up". After realising that both were dead, the authorities in Liverpool were telegraphed and the police and a doctor met the train at the Exchange Station.
The coroner's jury decided that Robert Wanless had shot his wife and himself while in a state of "unsound mind, caused by jealousy, family difficulties and blighted propects". The jury also called for a means of communication in every train after the passenger Thomas Young reported that he hadn't been able to contact the guard after hearing the shots. Witnesses also testified that Wanless was a drunken brute, obsessed with the notion that his wife was seeing another man. Three children were orphaned by his actions.
In the 1871 census there are four residents listed at a certain property in Warrington Road in St Helens. There was the 40-year-old head of the house William Davies – whose occupation was described as a coal miner and beer seller; his 38-year-old wife Mary; a 48-year-old widower and glass worker called William Allcock and his 13-year-old son of the same name. The latter two were lodgers and, of course, the census only tells us the formal relationships between the residents in a house – not what might actually be going on within. And a lot of shenanigans had clearly been going on in Warrington Road!
On the 25th at St Helens Petty Sessions, an application was made to transfer the beer licence from William Davies to William Allcock. However, the magistrates refused the transfer "on the ground that the applicant was improperly connected with Mrs. Davies." The newspapers reported that William Davies had left the house but his wife was still living there. In court Davies gave evidence of an alleged intimacy between Allcock and his wife and the magistrates ruled that until the applicant "sent" the woman from him, he would not get the licence transferred to his name.
And finally, at Aspull, near Wigan, there was a shocking case described in court this week after a jealous husband had ordered his dog to attack – or "worry" – his wife. This is how the Liverpool Mercury described the case under the headline "Horrible Brutality At Aspull – A Man Inciting A Bulldog To Worry His Wife":
"Yesterday, at Bolton, a collier named Charles Bradley of Aspull, was charged with inciting a bull-dog to worry his wife, Ann Bradley. The prisoner was defended by Mr. Rutter. The complainant who is a decent, good-looking woman, and who wept bitterly on being called upon to give evidence, said her husband was jealous of a man named William Petty, but she denied that there was any foundation whatever for it. On Monday, the 18th instant, when he returned home, he said “I have something to tell thee, you ________ .”
"She asked what it was, and he said, “I'll tell thee in a bit.” He then fastened both doors and put the keys into his pockets, after which he “smashed” his jacket off. She again asked him what he was going to do, and he replied “I'm going to murder thee, you ________.” He called his dog – a bulldog weighing 31 lbs. or 32 lbs. – and “heighed” it at her. The dog flew at her arm, and at the same time her husband struck her in the face with his fist. Then he jumped upon the sofa where she was sitting, and began kicking her at the back of the head and the shoulders.
"The dog pulled her off the sofa, and she got into the pantry, but whether it was the dog that dragged her she could not say. There she dropped down behind the door, and the dog kept shaking her as hard as it could, the flesh “flying all roads” out of her arm. Whilst trying to get up, her husband went and shoved her down again. At last she got up and ran to the front door, and managed to shoot the lock. Her husband, however, placed his shoulders against the door and when she entreated him, for God's sake, to take the dog off her, he merely replied “Worry the _________ thing.”
"He tried to lock the door again, and she then ran to the back door, the dog still hanging on her and “eating” her. She shot the lock of the door, and got out in that way. As she was getting away the dog dropped from her, and took the piece with it. In cross-examination, witness said her husband had had two or three gills to drink, but was not drunk. Dr. Monks, of Wigan, said the complainant went to his surgery on the afternoon in question. He found nine wounds on her right arm. One on the inside of the upper part of the right arm was about an inch and a half square, and the flesh was taken clean out.
"On the back of the upper part of the right arm were three large lacerated wounds, each about two inches long, which he could have laid his finger in. There were also five smaller wounds, all about the upper part of the arm. On Thursday, he feared mortification would set in but the wounds had taken “better ways;” and, as the woman had a strong constitution, he thought she would get better. The defendant denied having incited the dog.
"The Chairman said a more brutal case he never listened to. Defendant was committed to prison for six months with hard labour, at the expiration of which period he is to find sureties to keep the peace for another six months." Despite Ann Bradley's suffering at the hands of her brutal husband, the 1881 census shows the couple still living together in Harrogate Street in Wigan with Charles Bradley now aged 38 and listed as a coal miner and licensed victualler and his wife Ann aged 35.
Next week's stories will include the Whiston well water cock-up, a new school for Peasley Cross, more breach of promise of marriage cases and the squabbling women of Blackbrook who were using the most abusive and filthy epithets.
We begin at the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 20th when Martin Geoghegan was charged with stealing 5s 6d and a revolver from a public house in Liverpool Road. He was convicted and given a four-month prison sentence. A boy called Henry Shuttleworth was also in court charged with obtaining £1 18s 6d under false pretences from the secretary of the South Lancashire Colliery Accident Fund. The 12-year-old from Old Lane in Rainford had been given the responsibility to draw a widow's entitlement from the fund.
Seven weeks earlier he had wrongly told the woman – who I expect was a neighbour – that she had been struck off the list and had no entitlement to any further payments. However, that wasn't true and Henry continued collecting the money from the secretary of the fund and keeping it for himself. Despite being only twelve, the magistrates sent the boy to Kirkdale prison for two months and ordered that he be whipped. The Warrington Examiner called Henry a "precocious rascal".
On the 20th a special meeting of St Helens Town Council was held to decide on the size and cost of the new Town Hall. As a result of the fire in May at the original municipal centre in New Market Place, the councillors had decided to construct a grand new building with adjacent police station. They had chosen the site in what was then known as Cotham Street – but which would later become Corporation Street – and had agreed the price with the landowner.
At the council meeting a letter was read out from Colonel Bruce, the chief constable of Lancashire, describing how he would like the new police station to be built. The councillors agreed that their new seat of municipal government would have a large assembly room, a mayor's parlour, rooms for the town clerk, rooms for the treasurer, a collector's room, three rooms for the surveyor, a room for the inspector of nuisances and space for the hall keeper (i.e. caretaker).
"The police buildings will be arranged on the very best and most comprehensive principles", said the Wigan Observer. "The whole structure will be handsome in design, with a front of cut stone and the remainder of brick." No price was stated – but it was thought about £20,000 would be adequate. A committee was appointed to provide instructions for the architects and decide upon the size of rooms and costs. Six architects would be invited to send in their plans. The five unsuccessful competitors would be compensated for their time by the payment of twenty guineas.
Wanless had lost his job and his marriage was on the rocks. So he had moved in with his brother William, a miner living in Sutton Oak. The address was Albion Place, which in the 1871 census is sandwiched between Sutton Road and Worsley Brow. On the 21st Wanless met up with his estranged wife Ann, who was staying in Pemberton, near Wigan, and the pair caught a train together. Shortly after passing through Rainford Junction, Thomas Young, a Farnworth cooper and a fellow second-class passenger, heard sounds of a struggle followed by two shots. Then there was a deadly silence accompanied by a pungent smell of gunpowder.
Porter Patrick Tracy told the coroner's inquest that when the train stopped at Kirkby station he opened the carriage door because he was going to "put his missus" on the train. His attention was also directed to powder smoke, which he could see through the window and upon entering the compartment discovered the couple lying motionless on the floor. Patrick Tracy thought that Wanless was asleep. He could have shouted "wakey wakey" or something similar, but instead told the coroner that he gave him "a blow on his back, and I told him to rouse up". After realising that both were dead, the authorities in Liverpool were telegraphed and the police and a doctor met the train at the Exchange Station.
The coroner's jury decided that Robert Wanless had shot his wife and himself while in a state of "unsound mind, caused by jealousy, family difficulties and blighted propects". The jury also called for a means of communication in every train after the passenger Thomas Young reported that he hadn't been able to contact the guard after hearing the shots. Witnesses also testified that Wanless was a drunken brute, obsessed with the notion that his wife was seeing another man. Three children were orphaned by his actions.
In the 1871 census there are four residents listed at a certain property in Warrington Road in St Helens. There was the 40-year-old head of the house William Davies – whose occupation was described as a coal miner and beer seller; his 38-year-old wife Mary; a 48-year-old widower and glass worker called William Allcock and his 13-year-old son of the same name. The latter two were lodgers and, of course, the census only tells us the formal relationships between the residents in a house – not what might actually be going on within. And a lot of shenanigans had clearly been going on in Warrington Road!
On the 25th at St Helens Petty Sessions, an application was made to transfer the beer licence from William Davies to William Allcock. However, the magistrates refused the transfer "on the ground that the applicant was improperly connected with Mrs. Davies." The newspapers reported that William Davies had left the house but his wife was still living there. In court Davies gave evidence of an alleged intimacy between Allcock and his wife and the magistrates ruled that until the applicant "sent" the woman from him, he would not get the licence transferred to his name.
And finally, at Aspull, near Wigan, there was a shocking case described in court this week after a jealous husband had ordered his dog to attack – or "worry" – his wife. This is how the Liverpool Mercury described the case under the headline "Horrible Brutality At Aspull – A Man Inciting A Bulldog To Worry His Wife":
"Yesterday, at Bolton, a collier named Charles Bradley of Aspull, was charged with inciting a bull-dog to worry his wife, Ann Bradley. The prisoner was defended by Mr. Rutter. The complainant who is a decent, good-looking woman, and who wept bitterly on being called upon to give evidence, said her husband was jealous of a man named William Petty, but she denied that there was any foundation whatever for it. On Monday, the 18th instant, when he returned home, he said “I have something to tell thee, you ________ .”
"She asked what it was, and he said, “I'll tell thee in a bit.” He then fastened both doors and put the keys into his pockets, after which he “smashed” his jacket off. She again asked him what he was going to do, and he replied “I'm going to murder thee, you ________.” He called his dog – a bulldog weighing 31 lbs. or 32 lbs. – and “heighed” it at her. The dog flew at her arm, and at the same time her husband struck her in the face with his fist. Then he jumped upon the sofa where she was sitting, and began kicking her at the back of the head and the shoulders.
"The dog pulled her off the sofa, and she got into the pantry, but whether it was the dog that dragged her she could not say. There she dropped down behind the door, and the dog kept shaking her as hard as it could, the flesh “flying all roads” out of her arm. Whilst trying to get up, her husband went and shoved her down again. At last she got up and ran to the front door, and managed to shoot the lock. Her husband, however, placed his shoulders against the door and when she entreated him, for God's sake, to take the dog off her, he merely replied “Worry the _________ thing.”
"He tried to lock the door again, and she then ran to the back door, the dog still hanging on her and “eating” her. She shot the lock of the door, and got out in that way. As she was getting away the dog dropped from her, and took the piece with it. In cross-examination, witness said her husband had had two or three gills to drink, but was not drunk. Dr. Monks, of Wigan, said the complainant went to his surgery on the afternoon in question. He found nine wounds on her right arm. One on the inside of the upper part of the right arm was about an inch and a half square, and the flesh was taken clean out.
"On the back of the upper part of the right arm were three large lacerated wounds, each about two inches long, which he could have laid his finger in. There were also five smaller wounds, all about the upper part of the arm. On Thursday, he feared mortification would set in but the wounds had taken “better ways;” and, as the woman had a strong constitution, he thought she would get better. The defendant denied having incited the dog.
"The Chairman said a more brutal case he never listened to. Defendant was committed to prison for six months with hard labour, at the expiration of which period he is to find sureties to keep the peace for another six months." Despite Ann Bradley's suffering at the hands of her brutal husband, the 1881 census shows the couple still living together in Harrogate Street in Wigan with Charles Bradley now aged 38 and listed as a coal miner and licensed victualler and his wife Ann aged 35.
Next week's stories will include the Whiston well water cock-up, a new school for Peasley Cross, more breach of promise of marriage cases and the squabbling women of Blackbrook who were using the most abusive and filthy epithets.
This week's stories include the boy who cheated a Rainford widow, the plans are agreed for the new St Helens Town Hall, the shenanigans in a Warrington Road beerhouse and the man staying in Sutton Oak who shot his wife dead on a train near Rainford and then killed himself.
We begin at the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 20th when Martin Geoghegan was charged with stealing 5s 6d and a revolver from a public house in Liverpool Road. He was convicted and given a four-month prison sentence.
A boy called Henry Shuttleworth was also in court charged with obtaining £1 18s 6d under false pretences from the secretary of the South Lancashire Colliery Accident Fund.
The 12-year-old from Old Lane in Rainford had been given the responsibility to draw a widow's entitlement from the fund.
Seven weeks earlier he had wrongly told the woman – who I expect was a neighbour – that she had been struck off the list and had no entitlement to any further payments.
However, that wasn't true and Henry continued collecting the money from the secretary of the fund and keeping it for himself.
Despite being only twelve, the magistrates sent the boy to Kirkdale prison for two months and ordered that he be whipped. The Warrington Examiner called Henry a "precocious rascal".
On the 20th a special meeting of St Helens Town Council was held to decide on the size and cost of the new Town Hall.
As a result of the fire in May at the original municipal centre in New Market Place, the councillors had decided to construct a grand new building with adjacent police station.
They had chosen the site in what was then known as Cotham Street – but which would later become Corporation Street – and had agreed the price with the landowner.
At the council meeting a letter was read out from Colonel Bruce, the chief constable of Lancashire, describing how he would like the new police station to be built.
The councillors agreed that their new seat of municipal government would have a large assembly room, a mayor's parlour, rooms for the town clerk, rooms for the treasurer, a collector's room, three rooms for the surveyor, a room for the inspector of nuisances and space for the hall keeper (i.e. caretaker).
"The police buildings will be arranged on the very best and most comprehensive principles", said the Wigan Observer.
"The whole structure will be handsome in design, with a front of cut stone and the remainder of brick."
No price was stated – but it was thought about £20,000 would be adequate. A committee was appointed to provide instructions for the architects and decide upon the size of rooms and costs.
Six architects would be invited to send in their plans. The five unsuccessful competitors would be compensated for their time by the payment of twenty guineas.
On the 23rd the Wigan Observer described a shocking shooting that had taken place two days earlier (and illustrated above by Marty Strutt):
"A horrible occurrence, almost unexampled in the annals of railway tragedies, was perpetrated in a second-class carriage of a railway train," they wrote.
On the same day The Times used the headline "Murder and Suicide" as they described the tragic event.
It took some time to piece together exactly what had happened but in a couple of sentences, Robert Wanless of Sutton had shot his wife Ann in the temple while the pair were travelling together on the Liverpool train.
And then after killing his wife in cold blood, the 33-year-old unemployed surveyor had inserted the revolver into his own mouth and pulled the trigger.
Wanless had lost his job and his marriage was on the rocks. So he had moved in with his brother William, a miner living in Sutton Oak.
The address was Albion Place, which in the 1871 census is sandwiched between Sutton Road and Worsley Brow.
On the 21st Wanless met up with his estranged wife Ann, who was staying in Pemberton, near Wigan, and the pair caught a train together.
Shortly after passing through Rainford Junction, Thomas Young, a Farnworth cooper and a fellow second-class passenger, heard sounds of a struggle followed by two shots.
Then there was a deadly silence accompanied by a pungent smell of gunpowder.
Porter Patrick Tracy told the coroner's inquest that when the train stopped at Kirkby station he opened the carriage door because he was going to "put his missus" on the train.
His attention was also directed to powder smoke, which he could see through the window and upon entering the compartment discovered the couple lying motionless on the floor.
Patrick Tracy thought that Wanless was asleep. He could have shouted "wakey wakey" or something similar, but instead told the coroner that he gave him "a blow on his back, and I told him to rouse up".
After realising that both were dead, the authorities in Liverpool were telegraphed and the police and a doctor met the train at the Exchange Station.
The coroner's jury decided that Robert Wanless had shot his wife and himself while in a state of "unsound mind, caused by jealousy, family difficulties and blighted propects".
The jury also called for a means of communication in every train after the passenger Thomas Young reported that he hadn't been able to contact the guard after hearing the shots.
Witnesses also testified that Wanless was a drunken brute, obsessed with the notion that his wife was seeing another man. Three children were orphaned by his actions.
In the 1871 census there are four residents listed at a certain property in Warrington Road in St Helens.
There was the 40-year-old head of the house William Davies – whose occupation was described as a coal miner and beer seller; his 38-year-old wife Mary; a 48-year-old widower and glass worker called William Allcock and his 13-year-old son of the same name.
The latter two were lodgers and, of course, the census only tells us the formal relationships between the residents in a house – not what might actually be going on within.
And a lot of shenanigans had clearly been going on in Warrington Road!
On the 25th at St Helens Petty Sessions, an application was made to transfer the beer licence from William Davies to William Allcock.
However, the magistrates refused the transfer "on the ground that the applicant was improperly connected with Mrs. Davies."
The newspapers reported that William Davies had left the house but his wife was still living there.
In court Davies gave evidence of an alleged intimacy between Allcock and his wife and the magistrates ruled that until the applicant "sent" the woman from him, he would not get the licence transferred to his name.
And finally, at Aspull, near Wigan, there was a shocking case described in court this week after a jealous husband had ordered his dog to attack – or "worry" – his wife.
This is how the Liverpool Mercury described the case under the headline "Horrible Brutality At Aspull – A Man Inciting A Bulldog To Worry His Wife":
"Yesterday, at Bolton, a collier named Charles Bradley of Aspull, was charged with inciting a bull-dog to worry his wife, Ann Bradley. The prisoner was defended by Mr. Rutter.
"The complainant who is a decent, good-looking woman, and who wept bitterly on being called upon to give evidence, said her husband was jealous of a man named William Petty, but she denied that there was any foundation whatever for it.
"On Monday, the 18th instant, when he returned home, he said “I have something to tell thee, you ________ .”
"She asked what it was, and he said, “I'll tell thee in a bit.” He then fastened both doors and put the keys into his pockets, after which he “smashed” his jacket off.
"She again asked him what he was going to do, and he replied “I'm going to murder thee, you ________.”
"He called his dog – a bulldog weighing 31 lbs. or 32 lbs. – and “heighed” it at her. The dog flew at her arm, and at the same time her husband struck her in the face with his fist.
"Then he jumped upon the sofa where she was sitting, and began kicking her at the back of the head and the shoulders.
"The dog pulled her off the sofa, and she got into the pantry, but whether it was the dog that dragged her she could not say.
"There she dropped down behind the door, and the dog kept shaking her as hard as it could, the flesh “flying all roads” out of her arm.
"Whilst trying to get up, her husband went and shoved her down again. At last she got up and ran to the front door, and managed to shoot the lock.
"Her husband, however, placed his shoulders against the door and when she entreated him, for God's sake, to take the dog off her, he merely replied “Worry the _________ thing.”
"He tried to lock the door again, and she then ran to the back door, the dog still hanging on her and “eating” her.
"She shot the lock of the door, and got out in that way. As she was getting away the dog dropped from her, and took the piece with it.
"In cross-examination, witness said her husband had had two or three gills to drink, but was not drunk.
"Dr. Monks, of Wigan, said the complainant went to his surgery on the afternoon in question.
"He found nine wounds on her right arm. One on the inside of the upper part of the right arm was about an inch and a half square, and the flesh was taken clean out.
"On the back of the upper part of the right arm were three large lacerated wounds, each about two inches long, which he could have laid his finger in.
"There were also five smaller wounds, all about the upper part of the arm.
"On Thursday, he feared mortification would set in but the wounds had taken “better ways;” and, as the woman had a strong constitution, he thought she would get better.
"The defendant denied having incited the dog.
"The Chairman said a more brutal case he never listened to. Defendant was committed to prison for six months with hard labour, at the expiration of which period he is to find sureties to keep the peace for another six months."
Despite Ann Bradley’s suffering at the hands of her brutal husband, the 1881 census shows the couple still living together in Harrogate Street in Wigan with Charles Bradley now aged 38 and listed as a coal miner and licensed victualler and his wife Ann aged 35.
Next week's stories will include the Whiston well water cock-up, a new school for Peasley Cross, more breach of promise of marriage cases and the squabbling women of Blackbrook who were using the most abusive and filthy epithets.
We begin at the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 20th when Martin Geoghegan was charged with stealing 5s 6d and a revolver from a public house in Liverpool Road. He was convicted and given a four-month prison sentence.
A boy called Henry Shuttleworth was also in court charged with obtaining £1 18s 6d under false pretences from the secretary of the South Lancashire Colliery Accident Fund.
The 12-year-old from Old Lane in Rainford had been given the responsibility to draw a widow's entitlement from the fund.
Seven weeks earlier he had wrongly told the woman – who I expect was a neighbour – that she had been struck off the list and had no entitlement to any further payments.
However, that wasn't true and Henry continued collecting the money from the secretary of the fund and keeping it for himself.
Despite being only twelve, the magistrates sent the boy to Kirkdale prison for two months and ordered that he be whipped. The Warrington Examiner called Henry a "precocious rascal".
On the 20th a special meeting of St Helens Town Council was held to decide on the size and cost of the new Town Hall.
As a result of the fire in May at the original municipal centre in New Market Place, the councillors had decided to construct a grand new building with adjacent police station.
They had chosen the site in what was then known as Cotham Street – but which would later become Corporation Street – and had agreed the price with the landowner.
At the council meeting a letter was read out from Colonel Bruce, the chief constable of Lancashire, describing how he would like the new police station to be built.
The councillors agreed that their new seat of municipal government would have a large assembly room, a mayor's parlour, rooms for the town clerk, rooms for the treasurer, a collector's room, three rooms for the surveyor, a room for the inspector of nuisances and space for the hall keeper (i.e. caretaker).
"The police buildings will be arranged on the very best and most comprehensive principles", said the Wigan Observer.
"The whole structure will be handsome in design, with a front of cut stone and the remainder of brick."
No price was stated – but it was thought about £20,000 would be adequate. A committee was appointed to provide instructions for the architects and decide upon the size of rooms and costs.
Six architects would be invited to send in their plans. The five unsuccessful competitors would be compensated for their time by the payment of twenty guineas.
"A horrible occurrence, almost unexampled in the annals of railway tragedies, was perpetrated in a second-class carriage of a railway train," they wrote.
On the same day The Times used the headline "Murder and Suicide" as they described the tragic event.
It took some time to piece together exactly what had happened but in a couple of sentences, Robert Wanless of Sutton had shot his wife Ann in the temple while the pair were travelling together on the Liverpool train.
And then after killing his wife in cold blood, the 33-year-old unemployed surveyor had inserted the revolver into his own mouth and pulled the trigger.
Wanless had lost his job and his marriage was on the rocks. So he had moved in with his brother William, a miner living in Sutton Oak.
The address was Albion Place, which in the 1871 census is sandwiched between Sutton Road and Worsley Brow.
On the 21st Wanless met up with his estranged wife Ann, who was staying in Pemberton, near Wigan, and the pair caught a train together.
Shortly after passing through Rainford Junction, Thomas Young, a Farnworth cooper and a fellow second-class passenger, heard sounds of a struggle followed by two shots.
Then there was a deadly silence accompanied by a pungent smell of gunpowder.
Porter Patrick Tracy told the coroner's inquest that when the train stopped at Kirkby station he opened the carriage door because he was going to "put his missus" on the train.
His attention was also directed to powder smoke, which he could see through the window and upon entering the compartment discovered the couple lying motionless on the floor.
Patrick Tracy thought that Wanless was asleep. He could have shouted "wakey wakey" or something similar, but instead told the coroner that he gave him "a blow on his back, and I told him to rouse up".
After realising that both were dead, the authorities in Liverpool were telegraphed and the police and a doctor met the train at the Exchange Station.
The coroner's jury decided that Robert Wanless had shot his wife and himself while in a state of "unsound mind, caused by jealousy, family difficulties and blighted propects".
The jury also called for a means of communication in every train after the passenger Thomas Young reported that he hadn't been able to contact the guard after hearing the shots.
Witnesses also testified that Wanless was a drunken brute, obsessed with the notion that his wife was seeing another man. Three children were orphaned by his actions.
In the 1871 census there are four residents listed at a certain property in Warrington Road in St Helens.
There was the 40-year-old head of the house William Davies – whose occupation was described as a coal miner and beer seller; his 38-year-old wife Mary; a 48-year-old widower and glass worker called William Allcock and his 13-year-old son of the same name.
The latter two were lodgers and, of course, the census only tells us the formal relationships between the residents in a house – not what might actually be going on within.
And a lot of shenanigans had clearly been going on in Warrington Road!
On the 25th at St Helens Petty Sessions, an application was made to transfer the beer licence from William Davies to William Allcock.
However, the magistrates refused the transfer "on the ground that the applicant was improperly connected with Mrs. Davies."
The newspapers reported that William Davies had left the house but his wife was still living there.
In court Davies gave evidence of an alleged intimacy between Allcock and his wife and the magistrates ruled that until the applicant "sent" the woman from him, he would not get the licence transferred to his name.
And finally, at Aspull, near Wigan, there was a shocking case described in court this week after a jealous husband had ordered his dog to attack – or "worry" – his wife.
This is how the Liverpool Mercury described the case under the headline "Horrible Brutality At Aspull – A Man Inciting A Bulldog To Worry His Wife":
"Yesterday, at Bolton, a collier named Charles Bradley of Aspull, was charged with inciting a bull-dog to worry his wife, Ann Bradley. The prisoner was defended by Mr. Rutter.
"The complainant who is a decent, good-looking woman, and who wept bitterly on being called upon to give evidence, said her husband was jealous of a man named William Petty, but she denied that there was any foundation whatever for it.
"On Monday, the 18th instant, when he returned home, he said “I have something to tell thee, you ________ .”
"She asked what it was, and he said, “I'll tell thee in a bit.” He then fastened both doors and put the keys into his pockets, after which he “smashed” his jacket off.
"She again asked him what he was going to do, and he replied “I'm going to murder thee, you ________.”
"He called his dog – a bulldog weighing 31 lbs. or 32 lbs. – and “heighed” it at her. The dog flew at her arm, and at the same time her husband struck her in the face with his fist.
"Then he jumped upon the sofa where she was sitting, and began kicking her at the back of the head and the shoulders.
"The dog pulled her off the sofa, and she got into the pantry, but whether it was the dog that dragged her she could not say.
"There she dropped down behind the door, and the dog kept shaking her as hard as it could, the flesh “flying all roads” out of her arm.
"Whilst trying to get up, her husband went and shoved her down again. At last she got up and ran to the front door, and managed to shoot the lock.
"Her husband, however, placed his shoulders against the door and when she entreated him, for God's sake, to take the dog off her, he merely replied “Worry the _________ thing.”
"He tried to lock the door again, and she then ran to the back door, the dog still hanging on her and “eating” her.
"She shot the lock of the door, and got out in that way. As she was getting away the dog dropped from her, and took the piece with it.
"In cross-examination, witness said her husband had had two or three gills to drink, but was not drunk.
"Dr. Monks, of Wigan, said the complainant went to his surgery on the afternoon in question.
"He found nine wounds on her right arm. One on the inside of the upper part of the right arm was about an inch and a half square, and the flesh was taken clean out.
"On the back of the upper part of the right arm were three large lacerated wounds, each about two inches long, which he could have laid his finger in.
"There were also five smaller wounds, all about the upper part of the arm.
"On Thursday, he feared mortification would set in but the wounds had taken “better ways;” and, as the woman had a strong constitution, he thought she would get better.
"The defendant denied having incited the dog.
"The Chairman said a more brutal case he never listened to. Defendant was committed to prison for six months with hard labour, at the expiration of which period he is to find sureties to keep the peace for another six months."
Despite Ann Bradley’s suffering at the hands of her brutal husband, the 1881 census shows the couple still living together in Harrogate Street in Wigan with Charles Bradley now aged 38 and listed as a coal miner and licensed victualler and his wife Ann aged 35.
Next week's stories will include the Whiston well water cock-up, a new school for Peasley Cross, more breach of promise of marriage cases and the squabbling women of Blackbrook who were using the most abusive and filthy epithets.