150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (23rd - 29th DECEMBER 1869)
The celebration of Christmas in St Helens in 1869 had many similarities with today. For many it was a time for eating and drinking and putting up festive decorations in their homes. Although the giving of presents took place, it was on a smaller scale than today. That was partly because the concept of Father Christmas would not be connected with children until the 1880s.
An editorial in the St Helens Standard on December 25th comparing Christmas past and present does provide some insights into what the season was like: "In families the day is still observed as one of rejoicing. Our houses are decorated in the orthodox fashion with any quantity of holly, mistletoe, and artificial roses; the young people are feasted with mince pies, plum pudding, fruit, and confectionary of endless variety; public balls and private parties are on the tapis [under consideration] every night. The very literature of the season is decked out in its Christmas garb, all the colours of the rainbow being used to give effect to its binding; carol singers enliven the streets with their doggerel legends, handed down, in many instances, from generation to generation without the aid of the printing press. These are the general features of Christmas-tide in this century."
The Standard lamented how hospitality for the poor – which had been an important aspect of Christmas in Lancashire in the past – had now largely disappeared. That might be seen as being borne out by a St Helens Newspaper report on the 28th, which described how an elderly couple in Orrell had died from starvation.
The St Helens Standard also described how the shops in the town had commemorated Christmas: "The windows of the grocery establishments were filled to repletion with almost all the good things for making mince pies and plum puddings. The confectioners vied with each other in making a suitable Christmas display, and the licensed victuallers announced special Christmas brews, their windows being crammed with long-necked bottles of wines and spirits done up in tissue paper of varied hues. The toy-shops were also stocked with every imaginable game in which children delight, and the stationers and booksellers' windows were decorated with Christmas stationery, artificial roses, and elegantly-bound books suitable for all ages."
Every year a few days before the 25th the butchers in the market brightened up their stalls with decorations, tinsel and flowers and added extra carcasses to attract customer attention. These included beef, mutton, oxen, geese etc. The St Helens Newspaper described one stall as having been "most tastefully laid out, with fancy designs in artificial flowers and evergreens. In front were two sheep handsomely ornamented, and each bearing a branch of laurel berries in its mouth."
John Hatton's stall bore an "enormous stag's head, from which rose a royal plume". The Newspaper wrote that: "The stalls bent beneath the weight of turkeys, geese, and other fowl, and game and fruit could be had by the load. The stalls where the various commodities are sold seemed to have been replenished especially for the occasion, and there was a briskness observable at the different marts which, even in our busy market, is only to be seen at Christmas time, and several of the stalls were profusely decorated with paper flowers."
The St Helens Standard also commented on the decorations in the market: "Not only were the stalls decked out in their Christmas glory, but their holders also put on their best looks and best speech. “A merry Christmas, and good luck to you,” being their peculiar salutation. Mr. Edmondson displayed sufficient potatoes to feed nearly the whole of the population of St. Helens on Christmas-day."
Churches also appear to have been specially decorated for the season, as this letter in the Prescot Reporter reveals: "The Christmas decorations at Whiston Church have this year been most elaborate, elegant, chaste, and beautiful, and will well repay anyone's visit while they remain." The same correspondent would also complement the Christmas decorations in Rainhill Parish Church in another edition of the Reporter.
There weren't many Christmas adverts in the St Helens Newspaper but Dromgooles had been regular advertisers for the past few weeks. That was because the shop owner, Bernard Dromgoole, was also the proprietor of the St Helens Newspaper – so the ads cost him nothing, apart from the space. With shops in Hardshaw Street and Liverpool Road, he claimed to have the cheapest toys in town, as well as fancy Christmas lanterns, and was offering a range of games for Christmas. These included lotto, dominoes, draughts, chess, playing cards and what he called race games.
In addition to Christmas cards, Dromgoole was also offering scented packets and envelopes as Christmas stationery and a range of annuals for 1869. These are all unfamiliar names to me but were either special editions of magazines or annual Christmas publications. They had titles like 'Tom Hood's Comic Annual', 'Good Words Annual', 'Beeton's Annual' and the 'Sunday Magazine'.
The only other Christmas advertiser in the Newspaper was Peter McKinley of Birmingham House in Bridge Street who was selling tree ornaments and toys and fancy goods. These was even less Christmas ads in the Prescot Reporter with the newspaper itself appearing to be the sole advertiser. The Reporter was offering children's coloured picture books and a "large collection of present books, beautifully bound." These were available from the Reporter's own offices in Market Place, Prescot.
One of the advantages of being in the St Helens rifle volunteers (the 47th LRV) was being able to win some cash at their regular shooting contents. However the winners of their annual Christmas shoot received their prizes in kind – or as "Christmas cheer", as the St Helens Standard put it. The prizes included beef, turkey, rabbits, geese, ham, legs of mutton, coal, packets of tea and bottles of wine and on the 23rd they were handed out in the Volunteer Hall. At last year's ceremony one of the prizes was described as a "live donkey of the shaggy species" but no such animals were reported at this year's event.
On Christmas Day the United Methodist Free Church School held their annual tea party for 200 people in their schoolroom in Ormskirk Street. The party appeared to be mainly for the 165 pupils at the school and after the tea there were what was described as recitations and dialogues with several selections of sacred music sung by the choir. There was also a Christmas tea party held on the 25th in the schoolroom of the Baptist Chapel in Park Road in Parr.
The paupers at Whiston Workhouse were used to very simple fare during the year, with porridge served in the morning and evening and a small hot meal for lunch. However on Christmas Day they were allowed what the Prescot Reporter described as their "annual treat" of roast beef and plum pudding, "which was served out to them without stint". The paper continued: "The adult paupers had the further gratification of seeing placed before them a pint measure of good ale." As Christmas Day fell on a Saturday it was decided (I'm not quite sure why) to postpone the usual afternoon and evening Christmas entertainment to the following Wednesday.
On that day a Christmas tree was provided by Mrs Stapleton-Bretherton of Rainhill Hall, which the Reporter said had been "loaded with a profusion of gifts" contributed by many local ladies. For the adults these were either a handkerchief or a book. During the evening there was music and singing provided for the inmates and "old and young thoroughly enjoyed themselves". However the workhouse cook enjoyed herself too much over the Christmas period and would later be severely reprimanded by the Board of Guardians after getting drunk!
On the 27th the Commercial Hotel in Rainhill held their fourth annual tea party and ball. The tea was on the table at 7pm and the dancing started at 8, with tickets costing 1s 6d. A Christmas ball was also held at the Muncaster Arms in Rainford during the same evening. Gentlemen's tickets cost 3s 6d, while ladies' cost 2/6. In Waterloo Street the annual Wesleyan Methodist Sunday School Tea Party was held in their schoolroom. The Newspaper said the proceedings passed off "with the customary harmony". So no fighting then! And Sutton National School held their annual Christmas tea party on the 29th. There was entertainment provided after the tea, which included songs by the Parish Church Choir.
And to finish a few non-Christmas events that took place this week. Although St Helens was an industrial town and reported as having 345 furnace chimneys in 1870, many parts of the district were rural. The smoke belching out from the chimneys did not do any favours to crops and farmers often claimed compensation from the chemical and copper works whose noxious fumes did the most damage. On the 24th a farmer from Dentons Green called Jeremiah Haslam brought an action in St Helens County Court against the Ravenhead Copper Smelting Company.
He claimed that "deleterious smoke" from their works had caused £24 2s 8d damage to his land and crops. The copper firm accepted partial responsibility but were only prepared to pay £9 compensation, as they said smoke from other companies in the vicinity would have also blown over his land. The jury accepted this argument and awarded the farmer the £9 compensation offered by the firm.
The Bishop of Chester consecrated the new St John's church at Ravenhead on the 27th – which was the festival day of St John the Evangelist. The opening of the church on that date had been planned some months earlier, which meant that building work had to proceed with "considerable rapidity", as the St Helens Newspaper put it. The building in Gothic style seated over 500 and the British Plate Glass Company – whose works were nearby – had paid much of the cost.
The St Helens Petty Sessions was held on the same day in which James Roughley, the landlord of the Bridge Inn in Rainford, was charged with having illegally kept his house open on a Sunday morning. The defence painted quite a comical picture. One man gave evidence that at 7:30am he and two strangers had seen a servant girl called Ellen Marshall go into a coal store, leaving the back door to the inn open. Thirsty for a pint, the trio bolted inside and when Ellen returned she told them that Roughley, her "master", had not yet risen. So they changed their minds and decided not to bother with the ale.
However by then the police were knocking on the door and so the girl worried about getting into trouble with her master, locked the door against them and no alcohol was served. Well that was their rather unlikely tale but the prosecution case was a little different. They said two policemen had been keeping watch on the inn and seen three men go into the rear. One constable ran to the back, which was bolted against him as he approached and it was twelve minutes before he was admitted.
While he was knocking at the rear, the front door was opened and five or six men dashed out, although another constable claimed it was seven. When the police were eventually admitted they found a quart and three-pint jugs containing a little ale and some froth, showing that beer had recently been drawn. The landlord was found guilty and fined 2s 6d and 15 shillings costs.
And finally The 'Royal and Original Christy's Minstrels' returned to St Helens for two shows at the Town Hall on the 28th and 29th. The St Helens Newspaper wrote: "At a time when there is so much of the n***er business in the market, with but a poor proportion of talent to recommend it, a treat like that now offered is not readily obtainable, and we have no doubt the lovers of genuine musical mimickry will not fail to avail themselves of the chance afforded of enjoying it on this occasion."
Next week's stories will include a New Year's Eve dinner for the old folk of Eccleston, the angry butcher that attacked a policeman in St Helens market, a savage assault on a horse in Prescot, the Town Council's fines for absentee councillors and the brutal assault in Whiston.
An editorial in the St Helens Standard on December 25th comparing Christmas past and present does provide some insights into what the season was like: "In families the day is still observed as one of rejoicing. Our houses are decorated in the orthodox fashion with any quantity of holly, mistletoe, and artificial roses; the young people are feasted with mince pies, plum pudding, fruit, and confectionary of endless variety; public balls and private parties are on the tapis [under consideration] every night. The very literature of the season is decked out in its Christmas garb, all the colours of the rainbow being used to give effect to its binding; carol singers enliven the streets with their doggerel legends, handed down, in many instances, from generation to generation without the aid of the printing press. These are the general features of Christmas-tide in this century."
The Standard lamented how hospitality for the poor – which had been an important aspect of Christmas in Lancashire in the past – had now largely disappeared. That might be seen as being borne out by a St Helens Newspaper report on the 28th, which described how an elderly couple in Orrell had died from starvation.
The St Helens Standard also described how the shops in the town had commemorated Christmas: "The windows of the grocery establishments were filled to repletion with almost all the good things for making mince pies and plum puddings. The confectioners vied with each other in making a suitable Christmas display, and the licensed victuallers announced special Christmas brews, their windows being crammed with long-necked bottles of wines and spirits done up in tissue paper of varied hues. The toy-shops were also stocked with every imaginable game in which children delight, and the stationers and booksellers' windows were decorated with Christmas stationery, artificial roses, and elegantly-bound books suitable for all ages."
Every year a few days before the 25th the butchers in the market brightened up their stalls with decorations, tinsel and flowers and added extra carcasses to attract customer attention. These included beef, mutton, oxen, geese etc. The St Helens Newspaper described one stall as having been "most tastefully laid out, with fancy designs in artificial flowers and evergreens. In front were two sheep handsomely ornamented, and each bearing a branch of laurel berries in its mouth."
John Hatton's stall bore an "enormous stag's head, from which rose a royal plume". The Newspaper wrote that: "The stalls bent beneath the weight of turkeys, geese, and other fowl, and game and fruit could be had by the load. The stalls where the various commodities are sold seemed to have been replenished especially for the occasion, and there was a briskness observable at the different marts which, even in our busy market, is only to be seen at Christmas time, and several of the stalls were profusely decorated with paper flowers."
The St Helens Standard also commented on the decorations in the market: "Not only were the stalls decked out in their Christmas glory, but their holders also put on their best looks and best speech. “A merry Christmas, and good luck to you,” being their peculiar salutation. Mr. Edmondson displayed sufficient potatoes to feed nearly the whole of the population of St. Helens on Christmas-day."
Churches also appear to have been specially decorated for the season, as this letter in the Prescot Reporter reveals: "The Christmas decorations at Whiston Church have this year been most elaborate, elegant, chaste, and beautiful, and will well repay anyone's visit while they remain." The same correspondent would also complement the Christmas decorations in Rainhill Parish Church in another edition of the Reporter.
In addition to Christmas cards, Dromgoole was also offering scented packets and envelopes as Christmas stationery and a range of annuals for 1869. These are all unfamiliar names to me but were either special editions of magazines or annual Christmas publications. They had titles like 'Tom Hood's Comic Annual', 'Good Words Annual', 'Beeton's Annual' and the 'Sunday Magazine'.
The only other Christmas advertiser in the Newspaper was Peter McKinley of Birmingham House in Bridge Street who was selling tree ornaments and toys and fancy goods. These was even less Christmas ads in the Prescot Reporter with the newspaper itself appearing to be the sole advertiser. The Reporter was offering children's coloured picture books and a "large collection of present books, beautifully bound." These were available from the Reporter's own offices in Market Place, Prescot.
One of the advantages of being in the St Helens rifle volunteers (the 47th LRV) was being able to win some cash at their regular shooting contents. However the winners of their annual Christmas shoot received their prizes in kind – or as "Christmas cheer", as the St Helens Standard put it. The prizes included beef, turkey, rabbits, geese, ham, legs of mutton, coal, packets of tea and bottles of wine and on the 23rd they were handed out in the Volunteer Hall. At last year's ceremony one of the prizes was described as a "live donkey of the shaggy species" but no such animals were reported at this year's event.
On Christmas Day the United Methodist Free Church School held their annual tea party for 200 people in their schoolroom in Ormskirk Street. The party appeared to be mainly for the 165 pupils at the school and after the tea there were what was described as recitations and dialogues with several selections of sacred music sung by the choir. There was also a Christmas tea party held on the 25th in the schoolroom of the Baptist Chapel in Park Road in Parr.
On that day a Christmas tree was provided by Mrs Stapleton-Bretherton of Rainhill Hall, which the Reporter said had been "loaded with a profusion of gifts" contributed by many local ladies. For the adults these were either a handkerchief or a book. During the evening there was music and singing provided for the inmates and "old and young thoroughly enjoyed themselves". However the workhouse cook enjoyed herself too much over the Christmas period and would later be severely reprimanded by the Board of Guardians after getting drunk!
On the 27th the Commercial Hotel in Rainhill held their fourth annual tea party and ball. The tea was on the table at 7pm and the dancing started at 8, with tickets costing 1s 6d. A Christmas ball was also held at the Muncaster Arms in Rainford during the same evening. Gentlemen's tickets cost 3s 6d, while ladies' cost 2/6. In Waterloo Street the annual Wesleyan Methodist Sunday School Tea Party was held in their schoolroom. The Newspaper said the proceedings passed off "with the customary harmony". So no fighting then! And Sutton National School held their annual Christmas tea party on the 29th. There was entertainment provided after the tea, which included songs by the Parish Church Choir.
And to finish a few non-Christmas events that took place this week. Although St Helens was an industrial town and reported as having 345 furnace chimneys in 1870, many parts of the district were rural. The smoke belching out from the chimneys did not do any favours to crops and farmers often claimed compensation from the chemical and copper works whose noxious fumes did the most damage. On the 24th a farmer from Dentons Green called Jeremiah Haslam brought an action in St Helens County Court against the Ravenhead Copper Smelting Company.
He claimed that "deleterious smoke" from their works had caused £24 2s 8d damage to his land and crops. The copper firm accepted partial responsibility but were only prepared to pay £9 compensation, as they said smoke from other companies in the vicinity would have also blown over his land. The jury accepted this argument and awarded the farmer the £9 compensation offered by the firm.
The Bishop of Chester consecrated the new St John's church at Ravenhead on the 27th – which was the festival day of St John the Evangelist. The opening of the church on that date had been planned some months earlier, which meant that building work had to proceed with "considerable rapidity", as the St Helens Newspaper put it. The building in Gothic style seated over 500 and the British Plate Glass Company – whose works were nearby – had paid much of the cost.
The St Helens Petty Sessions was held on the same day in which James Roughley, the landlord of the Bridge Inn in Rainford, was charged with having illegally kept his house open on a Sunday morning. The defence painted quite a comical picture. One man gave evidence that at 7:30am he and two strangers had seen a servant girl called Ellen Marshall go into a coal store, leaving the back door to the inn open. Thirsty for a pint, the trio bolted inside and when Ellen returned she told them that Roughley, her "master", had not yet risen. So they changed their minds and decided not to bother with the ale.
However by then the police were knocking on the door and so the girl worried about getting into trouble with her master, locked the door against them and no alcohol was served. Well that was their rather unlikely tale but the prosecution case was a little different. They said two policemen had been keeping watch on the inn and seen three men go into the rear. One constable ran to the back, which was bolted against him as he approached and it was twelve minutes before he was admitted.
While he was knocking at the rear, the front door was opened and five or six men dashed out, although another constable claimed it was seven. When the police were eventually admitted they found a quart and three-pint jugs containing a little ale and some froth, showing that beer had recently been drawn. The landlord was found guilty and fined 2s 6d and 15 shillings costs.
And finally The 'Royal and Original Christy's Minstrels' returned to St Helens for two shows at the Town Hall on the 28th and 29th. The St Helens Newspaper wrote: "At a time when there is so much of the n***er business in the market, with but a poor proportion of talent to recommend it, a treat like that now offered is not readily obtainable, and we have no doubt the lovers of genuine musical mimickry will not fail to avail themselves of the chance afforded of enjoying it on this occasion."
Next week's stories will include a New Year's Eve dinner for the old folk of Eccleston, the angry butcher that attacked a policeman in St Helens market, a savage assault on a horse in Prescot, the Town Council's fines for absentee councillors and the brutal assault in Whiston.