150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 29 DEC 1875 - 4 JAN 1876
This week's many stories include the Dark Lane shop in Parr with dodgy weights, the two court cases concerning the Druids Arms beerhouse, the aged poor hand-outs in Lea Green, the violent assault on a mother-in-law in the former Baldwin Street workhouse and the owner of a cart who was prosecuted for only having his name chalked upon it.
We begin with the two court hearings concerning the Druids Arms beerhouse in Sandfield Crescent in Greenbank. In the first Edward Donoghue appeared in the St Helens Petty Sessions accused of being drunk on licensed premises and assaulting PC Kiernan. The latter told the court that he had been summoned to the Druids Arms, which was kept by Donoghue's mother, Ann. He found her son sitting in the kitchen having just broken a quantity of what was described as earthenware and acting in a very violent manner.
The constable said he was requested to put Donoghue out of his mother's house and was proceeding to do so when the man grabbed him by his coat, tore all the buttons off and then struck him on his breast. Eventually he managed to place his handcuffs on the man but only after the officer had been kicked and bitten on both hands and he added that it had been with great difficulty that he got his prisoner to the police station.
Donoghue asked for his case to be adjourned so that his mother and her servant might come to court to give evidence that he had not assaulted the constable. But instead PC Williamson was despatched to the beerhouse to bring them – but soon returned to the hearing with neither. The constable explained that Ann Donoghue was refusing to come to court herself or allow her servant to do so. Edward Donoghue was fined 10 shillings and costs for being drunk on licensed premises and a further 30 shillings and costs for the assault on the constable.
What was not explained at the time was that Edward's mother Ann Donoghue had her own legal problems to contend with. Three days later she appeared in the Petty Sessions charged with selling drink during prohibited hours. PC Kiernan gave evidence of seeing a crowd of between 50 and 60 standing in the entry that led to the back door of the Greenbank beerhouse on a Sunday morning when alcohol sales were banned.
Upon climbing up on a wall, he said he saw groups of six or seven men going in and out of the beerhouse and getting served with pints of beer. The constable told the Bench that he and PC Doig got inside the house by knocking on the back door and using the password "all right". Inside they found a number of men with beer before them. One man had a pint jug and as the policemen entered, he pulled off his coat and threw it over the jug.
Mrs Donoghue claimed all the drinkers were her lodgers, which the police said was not true. And after telling the landlady they would report her, they said she had begged them to let her off, saying it would never happen again. The magistrates described it as a bad case and imposed the maximum fine of £5 and costs. The conviction would also likely mean that Ann Donoghue would lose her licence at the next licensing hearings.
There were more examples in the courts this week of the different priorities that the St Helens magistrates had when sentencing defendants. The man in charge of the town's police force was Supt James Ludlam, who was also responsible for weights and measures. It was his job to personally visit shops from time to time and check on their weights.
Most food shops did, of course, then sell their goods by weight and it was important that their scales were true and they were not cheating their customers. But, I think, most deficiencies were through error and even the slightest mistake would lead to a prosecution.
William Winstanley kept a provisions shop in Dark Lane in Parr and had been visited by Supt Ludlam in his capacity as inspector of weights and measures. He tested all the weights and found five of them were either one or two drachms light. The old-fashioned unit of measurement known as a drachm is equivalent to just one eighth of an ounce but for that slight error, Winstanley was prosecuted and fined 20 shillings and costs.
Meanwhile, in a separate case Robert Connor was charged with being drunk and assaulting PC Doig in Liverpool Street in St Helens (pictured above). The officer explained to the court how the defendant had been very violent and had kicked him several times on his legs and he had needed to get assistance to take his prisoner to the police station. But for the violent attack on the bobby, Connor was fined just 10 shillings and costs with the alternative of 14 days in prison. And for the drunkenness he was fined 5 shillings.
And a builder called Edward Pemberton from Westfield Street was dragged into court for having a cart without his name being legibly displayed on it. PC Gilligan said that he had seen Pemberton's cart in College Street with the builder's name only chalked upon it, instead of being painted. During the previous week he said he had warned the driver that the name needed to be painted but it had not been done.
Pemberton's solicitor told the court that the cart had been newly purchased and the builder had given orders to a Liverpool firm to make an engraved plate that could be fastened to the cart. But in the meantime he had chalked legibly the name of his business on one of its panels. However, the magistrates decided to still convict, although the man was only fined one shilling and costs.
The Co-op Stores in Baldwin Street was built on the site of a workhouse that had been built in the 1790s by Windle and Eccleston townships in a joint scheme to care for their paupers (pictured above). Since its closure in the 1840s, the building had been used mainly as a lodging house.
This week Robert Dufficey appeared in the St Helens Petty Sessions charged with assaulting Ann Carney. She was his mother-in-law and both lived in separate rooms at the old workhouse. On the previous Friday night, Dudley had knocked Ann down and kicked her on several parts of her body. And then on the Saturday night, which was Christmas Day, he was accused of striking his mother-in-law with a poker and inflicting a severe wound on her head.
Dufficey denied in court being responsible for both assaults but did say the woman and her son had both been "agait" with him on both days, annoying him, I think, it means. The 20-year-old – who had previously served a one-month prison sentence for assault – was committed to take his trial at the next quarter sessions in Kirkdale where he was cleared of the charge.
I cannot find any report on the hearing but the surgeon that treated Ann Carney's head wound had told the St Helens magistrates that she had been drunk. One could hardly blame her with such a violent son-in-law but female drinking was not considered socially acceptable. And so unless there had been independent corroboration of her claims, the judge would have been unimpressed with her testimony and probably had little difficulty in finding Dufficey not guilty.
Every Christmas and New Year some of the better-off citizens of the St Helens district would organise meals for the elderly poor or distribute hand-outs to them. The St Helens Newspaper on January 1st described how merchant and broker Frederick Rigg of Brook House in Walkers Lane – in what became known as Sutton Manor – had given his annual Christmas dole.
The recipients were seventy so-called "aged poor" who were living in the Lea Green, Bold and Rainhill districts and they received beef, tea and small sums of money. The Newspaper wrote: "This thoughtful liberality on the part of Mr Rigg enabled many of the families of the neighbourhood to enjoy ‘a merry Christmas’."
There was another of those brainless thefts from St Helens lodgings this week. John Turner had spent a month staying at William Leyland's beerhouse in Brook Street but then disappeared, along with a vest, a pair of boots and a pair of skates. With the penalty for stealing wearing apparel almost always being prison, it was a dangerous game to play, particularly as such thieves rarely went far.
And so the police had little difficulty in tracing the thief and tracking down the stolen items at local pawnshops. That was what happened with John Turner, who in court this week pleaded guilty to stealing and then pawning the stolen items and was sent to prison for one month with hard labour.
Mary Cain was another thief who did not appear too bright. On Christmas Eve she had helped herself to a quantity of clothing that had been briefly left in the lobby of Pickavance's beerhouse in Naylor Street. A miner called John Houghton had only left the bundle unattended for about three minutes. But around five minutes after he discovered it had been taken, Houghton went outside and crossed the Market Place where he saw Mary Cain enter the Victoria Hotel blatantly carrying his possessions.
It did not seem to have occurred to the woman that the owner of the bundle would go looking for it and then hand her over to the police. In court 28-year-old Mary was committed to take her trial at the next quarter sessions where she would be sentenced to 3 months in prison.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the attempt to stop Ex Terra Lucem becoming the town's motto, the drowning in a Cowley Hill clay hole, the nurses at Whiston Workhouse get a pay rise and the death at St Helens railway station.
We begin with the two court hearings concerning the Druids Arms beerhouse in Sandfield Crescent in Greenbank. In the first Edward Donoghue appeared in the St Helens Petty Sessions accused of being drunk on licensed premises and assaulting PC Kiernan. The latter told the court that he had been summoned to the Druids Arms, which was kept by Donoghue's mother, Ann. He found her son sitting in the kitchen having just broken a quantity of what was described as earthenware and acting in a very violent manner.
The constable said he was requested to put Donoghue out of his mother's house and was proceeding to do so when the man grabbed him by his coat, tore all the buttons off and then struck him on his breast. Eventually he managed to place his handcuffs on the man but only after the officer had been kicked and bitten on both hands and he added that it had been with great difficulty that he got his prisoner to the police station.
Donoghue asked for his case to be adjourned so that his mother and her servant might come to court to give evidence that he had not assaulted the constable. But instead PC Williamson was despatched to the beerhouse to bring them – but soon returned to the hearing with neither. The constable explained that Ann Donoghue was refusing to come to court herself or allow her servant to do so. Edward Donoghue was fined 10 shillings and costs for being drunk on licensed premises and a further 30 shillings and costs for the assault on the constable.
What was not explained at the time was that Edward's mother Ann Donoghue had her own legal problems to contend with. Three days later she appeared in the Petty Sessions charged with selling drink during prohibited hours. PC Kiernan gave evidence of seeing a crowd of between 50 and 60 standing in the entry that led to the back door of the Greenbank beerhouse on a Sunday morning when alcohol sales were banned.
Upon climbing up on a wall, he said he saw groups of six or seven men going in and out of the beerhouse and getting served with pints of beer. The constable told the Bench that he and PC Doig got inside the house by knocking on the back door and using the password "all right". Inside they found a number of men with beer before them. One man had a pint jug and as the policemen entered, he pulled off his coat and threw it over the jug.
Mrs Donoghue claimed all the drinkers were her lodgers, which the police said was not true. And after telling the landlady they would report her, they said she had begged them to let her off, saying it would never happen again. The magistrates described it as a bad case and imposed the maximum fine of £5 and costs. The conviction would also likely mean that Ann Donoghue would lose her licence at the next licensing hearings.
There were more examples in the courts this week of the different priorities that the St Helens magistrates had when sentencing defendants. The man in charge of the town's police force was Supt James Ludlam, who was also responsible for weights and measures. It was his job to personally visit shops from time to time and check on their weights.
Most food shops did, of course, then sell their goods by weight and it was important that their scales were true and they were not cheating their customers. But, I think, most deficiencies were through error and even the slightest mistake would lead to a prosecution.
William Winstanley kept a provisions shop in Dark Lane in Parr and had been visited by Supt Ludlam in his capacity as inspector of weights and measures. He tested all the weights and found five of them were either one or two drachms light. The old-fashioned unit of measurement known as a drachm is equivalent to just one eighth of an ounce but for that slight error, Winstanley was prosecuted and fined 20 shillings and costs.
And a builder called Edward Pemberton from Westfield Street was dragged into court for having a cart without his name being legibly displayed on it. PC Gilligan said that he had seen Pemberton's cart in College Street with the builder's name only chalked upon it, instead of being painted. During the previous week he said he had warned the driver that the name needed to be painted but it had not been done.
Pemberton's solicitor told the court that the cart had been newly purchased and the builder had given orders to a Liverpool firm to make an engraved plate that could be fastened to the cart. But in the meantime he had chalked legibly the name of his business on one of its panels. However, the magistrates decided to still convict, although the man was only fined one shilling and costs.
This week Robert Dufficey appeared in the St Helens Petty Sessions charged with assaulting Ann Carney. She was his mother-in-law and both lived in separate rooms at the old workhouse. On the previous Friday night, Dudley had knocked Ann down and kicked her on several parts of her body. And then on the Saturday night, which was Christmas Day, he was accused of striking his mother-in-law with a poker and inflicting a severe wound on her head.
Dufficey denied in court being responsible for both assaults but did say the woman and her son had both been "agait" with him on both days, annoying him, I think, it means. The 20-year-old – who had previously served a one-month prison sentence for assault – was committed to take his trial at the next quarter sessions in Kirkdale where he was cleared of the charge.
I cannot find any report on the hearing but the surgeon that treated Ann Carney's head wound had told the St Helens magistrates that she had been drunk. One could hardly blame her with such a violent son-in-law but female drinking was not considered socially acceptable. And so unless there had been independent corroboration of her claims, the judge would have been unimpressed with her testimony and probably had little difficulty in finding Dufficey not guilty.
Every Christmas and New Year some of the better-off citizens of the St Helens district would organise meals for the elderly poor or distribute hand-outs to them. The St Helens Newspaper on January 1st described how merchant and broker Frederick Rigg of Brook House in Walkers Lane – in what became known as Sutton Manor – had given his annual Christmas dole.
The recipients were seventy so-called "aged poor" who were living in the Lea Green, Bold and Rainhill districts and they received beef, tea and small sums of money. The Newspaper wrote: "This thoughtful liberality on the part of Mr Rigg enabled many of the families of the neighbourhood to enjoy ‘a merry Christmas’."
There was another of those brainless thefts from St Helens lodgings this week. John Turner had spent a month staying at William Leyland's beerhouse in Brook Street but then disappeared, along with a vest, a pair of boots and a pair of skates. With the penalty for stealing wearing apparel almost always being prison, it was a dangerous game to play, particularly as such thieves rarely went far.
And so the police had little difficulty in tracing the thief and tracking down the stolen items at local pawnshops. That was what happened with John Turner, who in court this week pleaded guilty to stealing and then pawning the stolen items and was sent to prison for one month with hard labour.
Mary Cain was another thief who did not appear too bright. On Christmas Eve she had helped herself to a quantity of clothing that had been briefly left in the lobby of Pickavance's beerhouse in Naylor Street. A miner called John Houghton had only left the bundle unattended for about three minutes. But around five minutes after he discovered it had been taken, Houghton went outside and crossed the Market Place where he saw Mary Cain enter the Victoria Hotel blatantly carrying his possessions.
It did not seem to have occurred to the woman that the owner of the bundle would go looking for it and then hand her over to the police. In court 28-year-old Mary was committed to take her trial at the next quarter sessions where she would be sentenced to 3 months in prison.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the attempt to stop Ex Terra Lucem becoming the town's motto, the drowning in a Cowley Hill clay hole, the nurses at Whiston Workhouse get a pay rise and the death at St Helens railway station.
This week's many stories include the Dark Lane shop in Parr with dodgy weights, the two court cases concerning the Druids Arms beerhouse, the aged poor hand-outs in Lea Green, the violent assault on a mother-in-law in the former Baldwin Street workhouse and the owner of a cart who was prosecuted for only having his name chalked upon it.
We begin with the two court hearings concerning the Druids Arms beerhouse in Sandfield Crescent in Greenbank.
In the first Edward Donoghue appeared in the St Helens Petty Sessions accused of being drunk on licensed premises and assaulting PC Kiernan.
The latter told the court that he had been summoned to the Druids Arms, which was kept by Donoghue's mother, Ann.
He found her son sitting in the kitchen having just broken a quantity of what was described as earthenware and acting in a very violent manner.
The constable said he was requested to put Donoghue out of his mother's house and was proceeding to do so when the man grabbed him by his coat, tore all the buttons off and then struck him on his breast.
Eventually he managed to place his handcuffs on the man but only after the officer had been kicked and bitten on both hands and he added that it had been with great difficulty that he got his prisoner to the police station.
Donoghue asked for his case to be adjourned so that his mother and her servant might come to court to give evidence that he had not assaulted the constable.
But instead PC Williamson was despatched to the beerhouse to bring them – but soon returned to the hearing with neither.
The constable explained that Ann Donoghue was refusing to come to court herself or allow her servant to do so.
Edward Donoghue was fined 10 shillings and costs for being drunk on licensed premises and a further 30 shillings and costs for the assault on the constable.
What was not explained at the time was that Edward's mother Ann Donoghue had her own legal problems to contend with.
Three days later she appeared in the Petty Sessions charged with selling drink during prohibited hours.
PC Kiernan gave evidence of seeing a crowd of between 50 and 60 standing in the entry that led to the back door of the Greenbank beerhouse on a Sunday morning when alcohol sales were banned.
Upon climbing up on a wall, he said he saw groups of six or seven men going in and out of the beerhouse and getting served with pints of beer.
The constable told the Bench that he and PC Doig got inside the house by knocking on the back door and using the password "all right".
Inside they found a number of men with beer before them. One man had a pint jug and as the policemen entered, he pulled off his coat and threw it over the jug.
Mrs Donoghue claimed all the drinkers were her lodgers, which the police said was not true.
And after telling the landlady they would report her, they said she had begged them to let her off, saying it would never happen again.
The magistrates described it as a bad case and imposed the maximum fine of £5 and costs.
The conviction would also likely mean that Ann Donoghue would lose her licence at the next licensing hearings.
There were more examples in the courts this week of the different priorities that the St Helens magistrates had when sentencing defendants.
The man in charge of the town's police force was Supt James Ludlam, who was also responsible for weights and measures.
It was his job to personally visit shops from time to time and check on their weights.
Most food shops did, of course, then sell their goods by weight and it was important that their scales were true and they were not cheating their customers.
But, I think, most deficiencies were through error and even the slightest mistake would lead to a prosecution.
William Winstanley kept a provisions shop in Dark Lane in Parr and had been visited by Supt Ludlam in his capacity as inspector of weights and measures.
He tested all the weights and found five of them were either one or two drachms light.
The old-fashioned unit of measurement known as a drachm is equivalent to just one eighth of an ounce but for that slight error, Winstanley was prosecuted and fined 20 shillings and costs.
Meanwhile, in a separate case Robert Connor was charged with being drunk and assaulting PC Doig in Liverpool Street in St Helens (pictured above).
The officer explained to the court how the defendant had been very violent and had kicked him several times on his legs and he had needed to get assistance to take his prisoner to the police station.
But for the violent attack on the bobby, Connor was fined just 10 shillings and costs with the alternative of 14 days in prison. And for the drunkenness he was fined 5 shillings.
And a builder called Edward Pemberton from Westfield Street was dragged into court for having a cart without his name being legibly displayed on it.
PC Gilligan said that he had seen Pemberton's cart in College Street with the builder's name only chalked upon it, instead of being painted.
During the previous week he said he had warned the driver that the name needed to be painted but it had not been done.
Pemberton's solicitor told the court that the cart had been newly purchased and the builder had given orders to a Liverpool firm to make an engraved plate that could be fastened to the cart.
But in the meantime he had chalked legibly the name of his business on one of its panels.
However, the magistrates decided to still convict, although the man was only fined one shilling and costs.
The Co-op Stores in Baldwin Street was built on the site of a workhouse that had been built in the 1790s by Windle and Eccleston townships in a joint scheme to care for their paupers (pictured above).
Since its closure in the 1840s, the building had been used mainly as a lodging house.
This week Robert Dufficey appeared in the St Helens Petty Sessions charged with assaulting Ann Carney. She was his mother-in-law and both lived at the old workhouse in separate rooms.
On the previous Friday night, Dudley had knocked Ann down and kicked her on several parts of her body.
And then on the Saturday night, which was Christmas Day, he was accused of striking his mother-in-law with a poker and inflicting a severe wound on her head.
Dufficey denied in court being responsible for both assaults but did say the woman and her son had both been "agait" with him on both days, annoying him, I think, it means.
The 20-year-old – who had previously served a one-month prison sentence for assault – was committed to take his trial at the next quarter sessions in Kirkdale where he was cleared of the charge.
I cannot find any report on the hearing but the surgeon that treated Ann Carney's head wound had told the St Helens magistrates that she had been drunk.
One could hardly blame her with such a violent son-in-law but female drinking was not considered socially acceptable.
And so unless there had been independent corroboration of her claims, the judge would have been unimpressed with her testimony and probably had little difficulty in finding Dufficey not guilty.
Every Christmas and New Year some of the better-off citizens of the St Helens district would organise meals for the elderly poor or distribute hand-outs to them.
The St Helens Newspaper on January 1st described how merchant and broker Frederick Rigg of Brook House in Walkers Lane – in what became known as Sutton Manor – had given his annual Christmas dole.
The recipients were seventy so-called "aged poor" who were living in the Lea Green, Bold and Rainhill districts and they received beef, tea and small sums of money. The Newspaper wrote:
"This thoughtful liberality on the part of Mr Rigg enabled many of the families of the neighbourhood to enjoy ‘a merry Christmas’."
There was another of those brainless thefts from St Helens lodgings this week.
John Turner had spent a month staying at William Leyland's beerhouse in Brook Street but then disappeared, along with a vest, a pair of boots and a pair of skates.
With the penalty for stealing wearing apparel almost always being prison, it was a dangerous game to play, particularly as such thieves rarely went far.
And so the police had little difficulty in tracing the thief and tracking down the stolen items at local pawnshops.
That was what happened with John Turner, who in court this week pleaded guilty to stealing and then pawning the stolen items and was sent to prison for one month with hard labour.
Mary Cain was another thief who did not appear too bright.
On Christmas Eve she had helped herself to a quantity of clothing that had been briefly left in the lobby of Pickavance's beerhouse in Naylor Street.
A miner called John Houghton had only left the bundle unattended for about three minutes.
But around five minutes after he discovered it had been taken, Houghton went outside and crossed the Market Place where he saw Mary Cain enter the Victoria Hotel blatantly carrying his possessions.
It did not seem to have occurred to the woman that the owner of the bundle would go looking for it and then hand her over to the police.
In court 28-year-old Mary was committed to take her trial at the next quarter sessions where she would be sentenced to 3 months in prison.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the attempt to stop Ex Terra Lucem becoming the town's motto, the drowning in a Cowley Hill clay hole, the nurses at Whiston Workhouse get a pay rise and the death at St Helens railway station.
We begin with the two court hearings concerning the Druids Arms beerhouse in Sandfield Crescent in Greenbank.
In the first Edward Donoghue appeared in the St Helens Petty Sessions accused of being drunk on licensed premises and assaulting PC Kiernan.
The latter told the court that he had been summoned to the Druids Arms, which was kept by Donoghue's mother, Ann.
He found her son sitting in the kitchen having just broken a quantity of what was described as earthenware and acting in a very violent manner.
The constable said he was requested to put Donoghue out of his mother's house and was proceeding to do so when the man grabbed him by his coat, tore all the buttons off and then struck him on his breast.
Eventually he managed to place his handcuffs on the man but only after the officer had been kicked and bitten on both hands and he added that it had been with great difficulty that he got his prisoner to the police station.
Donoghue asked for his case to be adjourned so that his mother and her servant might come to court to give evidence that he had not assaulted the constable.
But instead PC Williamson was despatched to the beerhouse to bring them – but soon returned to the hearing with neither.
The constable explained that Ann Donoghue was refusing to come to court herself or allow her servant to do so.
Edward Donoghue was fined 10 shillings and costs for being drunk on licensed premises and a further 30 shillings and costs for the assault on the constable.
What was not explained at the time was that Edward's mother Ann Donoghue had her own legal problems to contend with.
Three days later she appeared in the Petty Sessions charged with selling drink during prohibited hours.
PC Kiernan gave evidence of seeing a crowd of between 50 and 60 standing in the entry that led to the back door of the Greenbank beerhouse on a Sunday morning when alcohol sales were banned.
Upon climbing up on a wall, he said he saw groups of six or seven men going in and out of the beerhouse and getting served with pints of beer.
The constable told the Bench that he and PC Doig got inside the house by knocking on the back door and using the password "all right".
Inside they found a number of men with beer before them. One man had a pint jug and as the policemen entered, he pulled off his coat and threw it over the jug.
Mrs Donoghue claimed all the drinkers were her lodgers, which the police said was not true.
And after telling the landlady they would report her, they said she had begged them to let her off, saying it would never happen again.
The magistrates described it as a bad case and imposed the maximum fine of £5 and costs.
The conviction would also likely mean that Ann Donoghue would lose her licence at the next licensing hearings.
There were more examples in the courts this week of the different priorities that the St Helens magistrates had when sentencing defendants.
The man in charge of the town's police force was Supt James Ludlam, who was also responsible for weights and measures.
It was his job to personally visit shops from time to time and check on their weights.
Most food shops did, of course, then sell their goods by weight and it was important that their scales were true and they were not cheating their customers.
But, I think, most deficiencies were through error and even the slightest mistake would lead to a prosecution.
William Winstanley kept a provisions shop in Dark Lane in Parr and had been visited by Supt Ludlam in his capacity as inspector of weights and measures.
He tested all the weights and found five of them were either one or two drachms light.
The old-fashioned unit of measurement known as a drachm is equivalent to just one eighth of an ounce but for that slight error, Winstanley was prosecuted and fined 20 shillings and costs.
The officer explained to the court how the defendant had been very violent and had kicked him several times on his legs and he had needed to get assistance to take his prisoner to the police station.
But for the violent attack on the bobby, Connor was fined just 10 shillings and costs with the alternative of 14 days in prison. And for the drunkenness he was fined 5 shillings.
And a builder called Edward Pemberton from Westfield Street was dragged into court for having a cart without his name being legibly displayed on it.
PC Gilligan said that he had seen Pemberton's cart in College Street with the builder's name only chalked upon it, instead of being painted.
During the previous week he said he had warned the driver that the name needed to be painted but it had not been done.
Pemberton's solicitor told the court that the cart had been newly purchased and the builder had given orders to a Liverpool firm to make an engraved plate that could be fastened to the cart.
But in the meantime he had chalked legibly the name of his business on one of its panels.
However, the magistrates decided to still convict, although the man was only fined one shilling and costs.
Since its closure in the 1840s, the building had been used mainly as a lodging house.
This week Robert Dufficey appeared in the St Helens Petty Sessions charged with assaulting Ann Carney. She was his mother-in-law and both lived at the old workhouse in separate rooms.
On the previous Friday night, Dudley had knocked Ann down and kicked her on several parts of her body.
And then on the Saturday night, which was Christmas Day, he was accused of striking his mother-in-law with a poker and inflicting a severe wound on her head.
Dufficey denied in court being responsible for both assaults but did say the woman and her son had both been "agait" with him on both days, annoying him, I think, it means.
The 20-year-old – who had previously served a one-month prison sentence for assault – was committed to take his trial at the next quarter sessions in Kirkdale where he was cleared of the charge.
I cannot find any report on the hearing but the surgeon that treated Ann Carney's head wound had told the St Helens magistrates that she had been drunk.
One could hardly blame her with such a violent son-in-law but female drinking was not considered socially acceptable.
And so unless there had been independent corroboration of her claims, the judge would have been unimpressed with her testimony and probably had little difficulty in finding Dufficey not guilty.
Every Christmas and New Year some of the better-off citizens of the St Helens district would organise meals for the elderly poor or distribute hand-outs to them.
The St Helens Newspaper on January 1st described how merchant and broker Frederick Rigg of Brook House in Walkers Lane – in what became known as Sutton Manor – had given his annual Christmas dole.
The recipients were seventy so-called "aged poor" who were living in the Lea Green, Bold and Rainhill districts and they received beef, tea and small sums of money. The Newspaper wrote:
"This thoughtful liberality on the part of Mr Rigg enabled many of the families of the neighbourhood to enjoy ‘a merry Christmas’."
There was another of those brainless thefts from St Helens lodgings this week.
John Turner had spent a month staying at William Leyland's beerhouse in Brook Street but then disappeared, along with a vest, a pair of boots and a pair of skates.
With the penalty for stealing wearing apparel almost always being prison, it was a dangerous game to play, particularly as such thieves rarely went far.
And so the police had little difficulty in tracing the thief and tracking down the stolen items at local pawnshops.
That was what happened with John Turner, who in court this week pleaded guilty to stealing and then pawning the stolen items and was sent to prison for one month with hard labour.
Mary Cain was another thief who did not appear too bright.
On Christmas Eve she had helped herself to a quantity of clothing that had been briefly left in the lobby of Pickavance's beerhouse in Naylor Street.
A miner called John Houghton had only left the bundle unattended for about three minutes.
But around five minutes after he discovered it had been taken, Houghton went outside and crossed the Market Place where he saw Mary Cain enter the Victoria Hotel blatantly carrying his possessions.
It did not seem to have occurred to the woman that the owner of the bundle would go looking for it and then hand her over to the police.
In court 28-year-old Mary was committed to take her trial at the next quarter sessions where she would be sentenced to 3 months in prison.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the attempt to stop Ex Terra Lucem becoming the town's motto, the drowning in a Cowley Hill clay hole, the nurses at Whiston Workhouse get a pay rise and the death at St Helens railway station.