150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (2nd - 8th AUGUST 1871)
This week's stories include the Tontine Street wife stabber who cried like a baby in court, the Parr rapists are handed tough sentences, the mayor of St Helens sues again for libel, the first ever August Bank Holiday is held and St Anne's church in Sutton has a special visitor.
The mayor of St Helens was Llewellyn Evans. He was a partner in a chemical works in Pocket Nook and seems to have been a rather touchy sort. In April Evans sued the editor of the St Helens Standard for libel after a letter had been published that suggested he might have some other agenda "apart from a pure desire to serve the interests of the town." The wealthy industrialist was awarded the princely sum of £50 for that insult and he was at it again this week.
Evans had brought an action against Market Street tailor Robert Moncrieff after he'd published another critical letter in a local paper. The mayor was also furious with the Corporation surveyor called Ross who had passed a document onto Moncrieff. So much so that the prickly Evans refused to attend and chair the monthly Town Council meeting on the 2nd because of the alleged libel.
The St Helens Newspaper was often critical of the behaviour of councillors and denounced comments that several of them had made at the meeting: "A more unwarrantable abuse of the accidental position of being members of a town council we have never heard of." In the end public statements of apology were deemed sufficient to bring the silliness to a close.
On the 3rd Josiah Beech appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with stabbing his wife Elizabeth. The 26-year-old fishmonger had some time ago been told by his wife to leave their marital home in Tontine Street (pictured above in later years). However Beech kept coming back to the house to plead with Elizabeth to be allowed to return home. But she stuck to her guns and upon the last occasion he had turned up, a row led to him stabbing her in the thigh. Now in the dock facing a serious charge of wounding with a knife, the St Helens Newspaper wrote that Josiah Beech had "intermittent fits of vigorous crying".
When his very weak wife entered the courtroom, the fishmonger "roared loudly, buried his face in his handkerchief, and rocked to and fro in an apparently frantic manner." In fact both parties did a lot of sobbing "in concert", as the newspaper put it. Josiah denied he had used a knife but Dr Griffiths gave evidence that a sharp blade had unquestionably caused the one-inch wound. The defendant was remanded to another hearing, with the Newspaper writing: "He acted like a baby as the police led him away, and he covered with reproaches the woman he had injured, as often as he could afford to stop sobbing for a moment."
On the 4th Benjamin Gerard, a foreman in the engine department of Sutton Glassworks, was killed. This is how his demise was reported: "Whilst attending to an engine he accidentally slipped and fell on some cog wheels, was drawn in, and whirled round several times before the engine could be stopped. When the body was extricated, life was extinct. The unfortunate man, who came from Bolton, leaves a wife and two children."
Getting a rape conviction is difficult enough today – but without blood tests and DNA and with the class system hindering justice, it was close to impossible 150 years ago. And sentences for those who were convicted were rarely long. However there are always exceptions to every rule – which was certainly the case when three St Helens men and a youth appeared in the Liverpool Assizes on the 5th.
In May when miners David Waine and Job Neald had appeared at the St Helens Petty Sessions, I described how the pair had been charged with committing rape in Coal Pit Lane in Parr (now Merton Bank Road). Two middle-aged married sisters, Elizabeth Murphy and Mary Cullen, had accused the two 22-year-olds of committing the "felonious assault", as it was described in court. The word "ravish" was also used to describe what had occurred after a group of men had burst into their house.
Waine lived in Johnson Street in Parr and was a married man with two children and was virtually illiterate. Neald was a single man who lived with his parents in Atlas Street. They were both committed to the assizes, where a 15-year-old boy called Thomas Winstanley joined them, along with Thomas Colquitt. The latter was a 24-year-old miner and had gone on the run after the incident but a few days earlier he had been arrested in Warrington.
The newspapers did not reveal exactly what had occurred in the house in Parr. They were always very happy to describe violent assaults and tragic events in great, often gory, detail – but never anything sexual. In fact the word "rape" was only used in the prison records that I have traced. However the Liverpool Daily Post commented that: "The circumstance of both cases were of a peculiarly atrocious character."
The three men were given 20-year jail terms but the 15-year-old lad only received 18 months, as the jury had recommended mercy because of his youth. However young Thomas Winstanley had to serve his term with hard labour – and there was little mercy on the dreaded prison treadmill. Prison records show that David Waine served his time at Kirkdale, Pentonville, Dartmoor and Parkhurst prisons before being released on licence in 1887, after serving 16 years. His wife Ellen had relocated to Park Road, probably to be with her family.
Meanwhile Job Neald was imprisoned at Kirkdale, Pentonville, Portsmouth and Portland prisons before being released on licence in 1886. Dr Alexander Goss returned to St Helens on the 6th. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Liverpool visited the town every three years but because there were three churches, would spread his visit over two Sundays. Last week the bishop confirmed 600 persons at Lowe House and Holy Cross churches and during a sermon had severely criticised drunken mothers who accidentally smothered their babies in bed.
Dr Goss was now in Sutton visiting St Anne's church (shown above), which he had consecrated in 1853 and confirmation was administered to almost 200 persons. The bishop would have known well Fr Ignatius Spencer of Sutton Monastery, who had held the first mass in the church and also Sister Elizabeth Prout of Sutton Convent. Both are buried at St Anne's and were honoured as "venerable" in 2021 placing them just two steps away from Sainthood.
The 7th was the first official Bank Holiday in the UK after banker-turned-politician Sir John Lubbock had introduced the Bank Holidays Act of 1871. Prior to his legislation some workers enjoyed the odd public holiday on days other than Christmas Day and Good Friday – but bank clerks were always excluded. That was because until the passing of the Act, the holders of bills of exchange had the legal power to demand payment from banks on any day except Sunday and Christmas Day.
So the bankers felt they could not close for a holiday. That changed with Lubbock's Law – which is why we call public holidays, "bank holidays". So I'm going to conclude this week's piece in a somewhat different way than usual by reprinting an article that the Liverpool Echo published on July 27th 1921 that looked back fifty years to the first Bank Holiday:
"The first day of August, 1921, will be the jubilee anniversary of the August Bank Holiday. Fifty years ago Liverpool advanced tentatively towards a holiday feeling on the first Monday in August. The four and twenty hours of relaxation, so adroitly secured by Sir John Lubbock, who talked about the due dates of bank drafts to his fellow legislators, to whom the idea of a national holiday would have savoured of red revolution, were not generally popular on their first appearance.
"One newspaper boldly declared that there was no plausible reason for establishing such a holiday. Bank clerks, whom it benefited, had an annual holiday anyhow, while a vast number of persons, whose dinners depended on their day's work, were compelled to be idle, for the advantage of a certain few, who would have their dinners, whether they worked or not.
"On the other hand, the “Liverpool Mercury,” looking to the future, saw the voluntary extension of the Bank Holiday Act far beyond its original scope. “This widening process” (said the Mercury) “may be expected to increase with every succeeding year, as people become more familiarised with the idea that occasional holidays are rather a good thing. Then we shall see in communities like Liverpool business suspended, not merely in the centres of commercial activity, but generally, throughout the town, and the carter, as well as the clerk, enjoy his day's relaxation.”
"The carter, equally with the clerk, has enjoyed his day's relaxation for many a year now; but it was otherwise on August Bank Holiday in Liverpool in 1871. The banks, the Stock Exchange, and the general produce markets were all closed. Otherwise it was a case of “business as usual”. The shops were open. Baron Martin charged the grand jury in the Crown Court at the assizes. The streets were crowded, for the railways, which had made no provision for getting people out of Liverpool, afforded plentiful facilities for getting them in, and excursionists from the country wandered aimlessly about our streets in the “tropical heat,” precisely as they may have done already this summer.
"We have seen that carters and others enjoyed no holiday in 1871. Domestic servants, who were than paid from £8 to £14 a year in Liverpool, regarded the Bank Holiday with curiosity. They had no share in it. A London paper declared that the holiday would never be popular till it received an appropriate name, and suggested “Lammas Day.” The Spectator preferred “Harvest Monday.” Posterity has refused both, evolving for itself the truly descriptive title of “August Bank Holiday.” May the Jubilee Bank Holiday be a fine one!" (N.B. In 1971 the August Bank Holiday was shifted to the last Monday in August.)
Next week's stories will include the curious death of a child in a Lea Green pit, a harsh sentence for the thieving Sutton postie, a Rainford man's murderous assault and outspoken lawyer Thomas Swift finally has his wings clipped.
The mayor of St Helens was Llewellyn Evans. He was a partner in a chemical works in Pocket Nook and seems to have been a rather touchy sort. In April Evans sued the editor of the St Helens Standard for libel after a letter had been published that suggested he might have some other agenda "apart from a pure desire to serve the interests of the town." The wealthy industrialist was awarded the princely sum of £50 for that insult and he was at it again this week.
Evans had brought an action against Market Street tailor Robert Moncrieff after he'd published another critical letter in a local paper. The mayor was also furious with the Corporation surveyor called Ross who had passed a document onto Moncrieff. So much so that the prickly Evans refused to attend and chair the monthly Town Council meeting on the 2nd because of the alleged libel.
The St Helens Newspaper was often critical of the behaviour of councillors and denounced comments that several of them had made at the meeting: "A more unwarrantable abuse of the accidental position of being members of a town council we have never heard of." In the end public statements of apology were deemed sufficient to bring the silliness to a close.
When his very weak wife entered the courtroom, the fishmonger "roared loudly, buried his face in his handkerchief, and rocked to and fro in an apparently frantic manner." In fact both parties did a lot of sobbing "in concert", as the newspaper put it. Josiah denied he had used a knife but Dr Griffiths gave evidence that a sharp blade had unquestionably caused the one-inch wound. The defendant was remanded to another hearing, with the Newspaper writing: "He acted like a baby as the police led him away, and he covered with reproaches the woman he had injured, as often as he could afford to stop sobbing for a moment."
On the 4th Benjamin Gerard, a foreman in the engine department of Sutton Glassworks, was killed. This is how his demise was reported: "Whilst attending to an engine he accidentally slipped and fell on some cog wheels, was drawn in, and whirled round several times before the engine could be stopped. When the body was extricated, life was extinct. The unfortunate man, who came from Bolton, leaves a wife and two children."
Getting a rape conviction is difficult enough today – but without blood tests and DNA and with the class system hindering justice, it was close to impossible 150 years ago. And sentences for those who were convicted were rarely long. However there are always exceptions to every rule – which was certainly the case when three St Helens men and a youth appeared in the Liverpool Assizes on the 5th.
In May when miners David Waine and Job Neald had appeared at the St Helens Petty Sessions, I described how the pair had been charged with committing rape in Coal Pit Lane in Parr (now Merton Bank Road). Two middle-aged married sisters, Elizabeth Murphy and Mary Cullen, had accused the two 22-year-olds of committing the "felonious assault", as it was described in court. The word "ravish" was also used to describe what had occurred after a group of men had burst into their house.
Waine lived in Johnson Street in Parr and was a married man with two children and was virtually illiterate. Neald was a single man who lived with his parents in Atlas Street. They were both committed to the assizes, where a 15-year-old boy called Thomas Winstanley joined them, along with Thomas Colquitt. The latter was a 24-year-old miner and had gone on the run after the incident but a few days earlier he had been arrested in Warrington.
The newspapers did not reveal exactly what had occurred in the house in Parr. They were always very happy to describe violent assaults and tragic events in great, often gory, detail – but never anything sexual. In fact the word "rape" was only used in the prison records that I have traced. However the Liverpool Daily Post commented that: "The circumstance of both cases were of a peculiarly atrocious character."
The three men were given 20-year jail terms but the 15-year-old lad only received 18 months, as the jury had recommended mercy because of his youth. However young Thomas Winstanley had to serve his term with hard labour – and there was little mercy on the dreaded prison treadmill. Prison records show that David Waine served his time at Kirkdale, Pentonville, Dartmoor and Parkhurst prisons before being released on licence in 1887, after serving 16 years. His wife Ellen had relocated to Park Road, probably to be with her family.
Meanwhile Job Neald was imprisoned at Kirkdale, Pentonville, Portsmouth and Portland prisons before being released on licence in 1886. Dr Alexander Goss returned to St Helens on the 6th. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Liverpool visited the town every three years but because there were three churches, would spread his visit over two Sundays. Last week the bishop confirmed 600 persons at Lowe House and Holy Cross churches and during a sermon had severely criticised drunken mothers who accidentally smothered their babies in bed.
The 7th was the first official Bank Holiday in the UK after banker-turned-politician Sir John Lubbock had introduced the Bank Holidays Act of 1871. Prior to his legislation some workers enjoyed the odd public holiday on days other than Christmas Day and Good Friday – but bank clerks were always excluded. That was because until the passing of the Act, the holders of bills of exchange had the legal power to demand payment from banks on any day except Sunday and Christmas Day.
So the bankers felt they could not close for a holiday. That changed with Lubbock's Law – which is why we call public holidays, "bank holidays". So I'm going to conclude this week's piece in a somewhat different way than usual by reprinting an article that the Liverpool Echo published on July 27th 1921 that looked back fifty years to the first Bank Holiday:
"The first day of August, 1921, will be the jubilee anniversary of the August Bank Holiday. Fifty years ago Liverpool advanced tentatively towards a holiday feeling on the first Monday in August. The four and twenty hours of relaxation, so adroitly secured by Sir John Lubbock, who talked about the due dates of bank drafts to his fellow legislators, to whom the idea of a national holiday would have savoured of red revolution, were not generally popular on their first appearance.
"One newspaper boldly declared that there was no plausible reason for establishing such a holiday. Bank clerks, whom it benefited, had an annual holiday anyhow, while a vast number of persons, whose dinners depended on their day's work, were compelled to be idle, for the advantage of a certain few, who would have their dinners, whether they worked or not.
"On the other hand, the “Liverpool Mercury,” looking to the future, saw the voluntary extension of the Bank Holiday Act far beyond its original scope. “This widening process” (said the Mercury) “may be expected to increase with every succeeding year, as people become more familiarised with the idea that occasional holidays are rather a good thing. Then we shall see in communities like Liverpool business suspended, not merely in the centres of commercial activity, but generally, throughout the town, and the carter, as well as the clerk, enjoy his day's relaxation.”
"The carter, equally with the clerk, has enjoyed his day's relaxation for many a year now; but it was otherwise on August Bank Holiday in Liverpool in 1871. The banks, the Stock Exchange, and the general produce markets were all closed. Otherwise it was a case of “business as usual”. The shops were open. Baron Martin charged the grand jury in the Crown Court at the assizes. The streets were crowded, for the railways, which had made no provision for getting people out of Liverpool, afforded plentiful facilities for getting them in, and excursionists from the country wandered aimlessly about our streets in the “tropical heat,” precisely as they may have done already this summer.
"We have seen that carters and others enjoyed no holiday in 1871. Domestic servants, who were than paid from £8 to £14 a year in Liverpool, regarded the Bank Holiday with curiosity. They had no share in it. A London paper declared that the holiday would never be popular till it received an appropriate name, and suggested “Lammas Day.” The Spectator preferred “Harvest Monday.” Posterity has refused both, evolving for itself the truly descriptive title of “August Bank Holiday.” May the Jubilee Bank Holiday be a fine one!" (N.B. In 1971 the August Bank Holiday was shifted to the last Monday in August.)
Next week's stories will include the curious death of a child in a Lea Green pit, a harsh sentence for the thieving Sutton postie, a Rainford man's murderous assault and outspoken lawyer Thomas Swift finally has his wings clipped.
This week's stories include the Tontine Street wife stabber who cried like a baby in court, the Parr rapists are handed tough sentences, the mayor of St Helens sues again for libel, the first ever August Bank Holiday is held and St Anne's church in Sutton has a special visitor.
The mayor of St Helens was Llewellyn Evans. He was a partner in a chemical works in Pocket Nook and seems to have been a rather touchy sort.
In April Evans sued the editor of the St Helens Standard for libel after a letter had been published that suggested he might have some other agenda "apart from a pure desire to serve the interests of the town."
The wealthy industrialist was awarded the princely sum of £50 for that insult and he was at it again this week.
Evans had brought an action against Market Street tailor Robert Moncrieff after he'd published another critical letter in a local paper.
The mayor was also furious with the Corporation surveyor called Ross who had passed a document onto Moncrieff.
So much so that the prickly Evans refused to attend and chair the monthly Town Council meeting on the 2nd because of the alleged libel.
The St Helens Newspaper was often critical of the behaviour of councillors and denounced comments that several of them had made at the meeting:
"A more unwarrantable abuse of the accidental position of being members of a town council we have never heard of."
In the end public statements of apology were deemed sufficient to bring the silliness to a close.
On the 3rd Josiah Beech appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with stabbing his wife Elizabeth.
The 26-year-old fishmonger had some time ago been told by his wife to leave their marital home in Tontine Street (pictured above in later years).
However Beech kept coming back to the house to plead with Elizabeth to be allowed to return home.
But she stuck to her guns and upon the last occasion he had turned up, a row led to him stabbing her in the thigh.
Now in the dock facing a serious charge of wounding with a knife, the St Helens Newspaper wrote that Josiah Beech had "intermittent fits of vigorous crying".
When his very weak wife entered the courtroom, the fishmonger "roared loudly, buried his face in his handkerchief, and rocked to and fro in an apparently frantic manner."
In fact both parties did a lot of sobbing "in concert", as the newspaper put it. Josiah denied he had used a knife but Dr Griffiths gave evidence that a sharp blade had unquestionably caused the one-inch wound.
The defendant was remanded to another hearing, with the Newspaper writing:
"He acted like a baby as the police led him away, and he covered with reproaches the woman he had injured, as often as he could afford to stop sobbing for a moment."
On the 4th Benjamin Gerard, a foreman in the engine department of Sutton Glassworks, was killed. This is how his demise was reported:
"Whilst attending to an engine he accidentally slipped and fell on some cog wheels, was drawn in, and whirled round several times before the engine could be stopped.
"When the body was extricated, life was extinct. The unfortunate man, who came from Bolton, leaves a wife and two children."
Getting a rape conviction is difficult enough today – but without blood tests and DNA and with the class system hindering justice, it was close to impossible 150 years ago. And sentences for those who were convicted were rarely long.
However there are always exceptions to every rule – which was certainly the case when three St Helens men and a youth appeared in the Liverpool Assizes on the 5th.
In May when miners David Waine and Job Neald had appeared at the St Helens Petty Sessions, I described how the pair had been charged with committing rape in Coal Pit Lane in Parr (now Merton Bank Road).
Two middle-aged married sisters, Elizabeth Murphy and Mary Cullen, had accused the two 22-year-olds of committing the "felonious assault", as it was described in court.
The word "ravish" was also used to describe what had occurred after a group of men had burst into their house.
Waine lived in Johnson Street in Parr and was a married man with two children and was virtually illiterate. Neald was a single man who lived with his parents in Atlas Street.
They were both committed to the assizes, where a 15-year-old boy called Thomas Winstanley joined them, along with Thomas Colquitt.
The latter was a 24-year-old miner and had gone on the run after the incident but a few days earlier he had been arrested in Warrington.
The newspapers did not reveal exactly what had occurred in the house in Parr.
They were always very happy to describe violent assaults and tragic events in great, often gory, detail – but never anything sexual.
In fact the word "rape" was only used in the prison records that I have traced.
However the Liverpool Daily Post commented that: "The circumstance of both cases were of a peculiarly atrocious character."
The three men were given 20-year jail terms but the 15-year-old lad only received 18 months, as the jury had recommended mercy because of his youth.
However young Thomas Winstanley had to serve his term with hard labour – and there was little mercy on the dreaded prison treadmill.
Prison records show that David Waine served his time at Kirkdale, Pentonville, Dartmoor and Parkhurst prisons before being released on licence in 1887, after serving 16 years. His wife Ellen had relocated to Park Road, probably to be with her family.
Meanwhile Job Neald was imprisoned at Kirkdale, Pentonville, Portsmouth and Portland prisons before being released on licence in 1886.
Dr Alexander Goss returned to St Helens on the 6th. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Liverpool visited the town every three years but because there were three churches, would spread his visit over two Sundays.
Last week the bishop confirmed 600 persons at Lowe House and Holy Cross churches and during a sermon had severely criticised drunken mothers who accidentally smothered their babies in bed.
Dr Goss was now in Sutton visiting St Anne's church (shown above), which he had consecrated in 1853 and confirmation was administered to almost 200 persons.
The bishop would have known well Fr Ignatius Spencer of Sutton Monastery, who had held the first mass in the church and also Sister Elizabeth Prout of Sutton Convent.
Both are buried at St Anne's and were honoured as "venerable" in 2021 placing them just two steps away from Sainthood.
The 7th was the first official Bank Holiday in the UK after banker-turned-politician Sir John Lubbock had introduced the Bank Holidays Act of 1871.
Prior to his legislation some workers enjoyed the odd public holiday on days other than Christmas Day and Good Friday – but bank clerks were always excluded.
That was because until the passing of the Act, the holders of bills of exchange had the legal power to demand payment from banks on any day except Sunday and Christmas Day. So the bankers felt they could not close for a holiday.
That changed with Lubbock's Law – which is why we call public holidays, "bank holidays".
So I'm going to conclude this week's piece in a somewhat different way than usual by reprinting an article that the Liverpool Echo published on July 27th 1921 that looked back fifty years to the first Bank Holiday:
"The first day of August, 1921, will be the jubilee anniversary of the August Bank Holiday. Fifty years ago Liverpool advanced tentatively towards a holiday feeling on the first Monday in August.
"The four and twenty hours of relaxation, so adroitly secured by Sir John Lubbock, who talked about the due dates of bank drafts to his fellow legislators, to whom the idea of a national holiday would have savoured of red revolution, were not generally popular on their first appearance.
"One newspaper boldly declared that there was no plausible reason for establishing such a holiday. Bank clerks, whom it benefited, had an annual holiday anyhow, while a vast number of persons, whose dinners depended on their day's work, were compelled to be idle, for the advantage of a certain few, who would have their dinners, whether they worked or not.
"On the other hand, the “Liverpool Mercury,” looking to the future, saw the voluntary extension of the Bank Holiday Act far beyond its original scope.
"“This widening process” (said the Mercury) “may be expected to increase with every succeeding year, as people become more familiarised with the idea that occasional holidays are rather a good thing.
"“Then we shall see in communities like Liverpool business suspended, not merely in the centres of commercial activity, but generally, throughout the town, and the carter, as well as the clerk, enjoy his day's relaxation.”
"The carter, equally with the clerk, has enjoyed his day's relaxation for many a year now; but it was otherwise on August Bank Holiday in Liverpool in 1871.
"The banks, the Stock Exchange, and the general produce markets were all closed. Otherwise it was a case of “business as usual”.
"The shops were open. Baron Martin charged the grand jury in the Crown Court at the assizes.
"The streets were crowded, for the railways, which had made no provision for getting people out of Liverpool, afforded plentiful facilities for getting them in, and excursionists from the country wandered aimlessly about our streets in the “tropical heat,” precisely as they may have done already this summer.
"We have seen that carters and others enjoyed no holiday in 1871. Domestic servants, who were than paid from £8 to £14 a year in Liverpool, regarded the Bank Holiday with curiosity. They had no share in it.
"A London paper declared that the holiday would never be popular till it received an appropriate name, and suggested “Lammas Day.” The Spectator preferred “Harvest Monday.”
"Posterity has refused both, evolving for itself the truly descriptive title of “August Bank Holiday.” May the Jubilee Bank Holiday be a fine one!"
In 1971 the August Bank Holiday was shifted to the last Monday in August.
Next week's stories will include the curious death of a child in a Lea Green pit, a harsh sentence for the thieving Sutton postie, a Rainford man's murderous assault and outspoken lawyer Thomas Swift finally has his wings clipped.
The mayor of St Helens was Llewellyn Evans. He was a partner in a chemical works in Pocket Nook and seems to have been a rather touchy sort.
In April Evans sued the editor of the St Helens Standard for libel after a letter had been published that suggested he might have some other agenda "apart from a pure desire to serve the interests of the town."
The wealthy industrialist was awarded the princely sum of £50 for that insult and he was at it again this week.
Evans had brought an action against Market Street tailor Robert Moncrieff after he'd published another critical letter in a local paper.
The mayor was also furious with the Corporation surveyor called Ross who had passed a document onto Moncrieff.
So much so that the prickly Evans refused to attend and chair the monthly Town Council meeting on the 2nd because of the alleged libel.
The St Helens Newspaper was often critical of the behaviour of councillors and denounced comments that several of them had made at the meeting:
"A more unwarrantable abuse of the accidental position of being members of a town council we have never heard of."
In the end public statements of apology were deemed sufficient to bring the silliness to a close.
On the 3rd Josiah Beech appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with stabbing his wife Elizabeth.
However Beech kept coming back to the house to plead with Elizabeth to be allowed to return home.
But she stuck to her guns and upon the last occasion he had turned up, a row led to him stabbing her in the thigh.
Now in the dock facing a serious charge of wounding with a knife, the St Helens Newspaper wrote that Josiah Beech had "intermittent fits of vigorous crying".
When his very weak wife entered the courtroom, the fishmonger "roared loudly, buried his face in his handkerchief, and rocked to and fro in an apparently frantic manner."
In fact both parties did a lot of sobbing "in concert", as the newspaper put it. Josiah denied he had used a knife but Dr Griffiths gave evidence that a sharp blade had unquestionably caused the one-inch wound.
The defendant was remanded to another hearing, with the Newspaper writing:
"He acted like a baby as the police led him away, and he covered with reproaches the woman he had injured, as often as he could afford to stop sobbing for a moment."
On the 4th Benjamin Gerard, a foreman in the engine department of Sutton Glassworks, was killed. This is how his demise was reported:
"Whilst attending to an engine he accidentally slipped and fell on some cog wheels, was drawn in, and whirled round several times before the engine could be stopped.
"When the body was extricated, life was extinct. The unfortunate man, who came from Bolton, leaves a wife and two children."
Getting a rape conviction is difficult enough today – but without blood tests and DNA and with the class system hindering justice, it was close to impossible 150 years ago. And sentences for those who were convicted were rarely long.
However there are always exceptions to every rule – which was certainly the case when three St Helens men and a youth appeared in the Liverpool Assizes on the 5th.
In May when miners David Waine and Job Neald had appeared at the St Helens Petty Sessions, I described how the pair had been charged with committing rape in Coal Pit Lane in Parr (now Merton Bank Road).
Two middle-aged married sisters, Elizabeth Murphy and Mary Cullen, had accused the two 22-year-olds of committing the "felonious assault", as it was described in court.
The word "ravish" was also used to describe what had occurred after a group of men had burst into their house.
Waine lived in Johnson Street in Parr and was a married man with two children and was virtually illiterate. Neald was a single man who lived with his parents in Atlas Street.
They were both committed to the assizes, where a 15-year-old boy called Thomas Winstanley joined them, along with Thomas Colquitt.
The latter was a 24-year-old miner and had gone on the run after the incident but a few days earlier he had been arrested in Warrington.
The newspapers did not reveal exactly what had occurred in the house in Parr.
They were always very happy to describe violent assaults and tragic events in great, often gory, detail – but never anything sexual.
In fact the word "rape" was only used in the prison records that I have traced.
However the Liverpool Daily Post commented that: "The circumstance of both cases were of a peculiarly atrocious character."
The three men were given 20-year jail terms but the 15-year-old lad only received 18 months, as the jury had recommended mercy because of his youth.
However young Thomas Winstanley had to serve his term with hard labour – and there was little mercy on the dreaded prison treadmill.
Prison records show that David Waine served his time at Kirkdale, Pentonville, Dartmoor and Parkhurst prisons before being released on licence in 1887, after serving 16 years. His wife Ellen had relocated to Park Road, probably to be with her family.
Meanwhile Job Neald was imprisoned at Kirkdale, Pentonville, Portsmouth and Portland prisons before being released on licence in 1886.
Dr Alexander Goss returned to St Helens on the 6th. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Liverpool visited the town every three years but because there were three churches, would spread his visit over two Sundays.
Last week the bishop confirmed 600 persons at Lowe House and Holy Cross churches and during a sermon had severely criticised drunken mothers who accidentally smothered their babies in bed.
The bishop would have known well Fr Ignatius Spencer of Sutton Monastery, who had held the first mass in the church and also Sister Elizabeth Prout of Sutton Convent.
Both are buried at St Anne's and were honoured as "venerable" in 2021 placing them just two steps away from Sainthood.
The 7th was the first official Bank Holiday in the UK after banker-turned-politician Sir John Lubbock had introduced the Bank Holidays Act of 1871.
Prior to his legislation some workers enjoyed the odd public holiday on days other than Christmas Day and Good Friday – but bank clerks were always excluded.
That was because until the passing of the Act, the holders of bills of exchange had the legal power to demand payment from banks on any day except Sunday and Christmas Day. So the bankers felt they could not close for a holiday.
That changed with Lubbock's Law – which is why we call public holidays, "bank holidays".
So I'm going to conclude this week's piece in a somewhat different way than usual by reprinting an article that the Liverpool Echo published on July 27th 1921 that looked back fifty years to the first Bank Holiday:
"The first day of August, 1921, will be the jubilee anniversary of the August Bank Holiday. Fifty years ago Liverpool advanced tentatively towards a holiday feeling on the first Monday in August.
"The four and twenty hours of relaxation, so adroitly secured by Sir John Lubbock, who talked about the due dates of bank drafts to his fellow legislators, to whom the idea of a national holiday would have savoured of red revolution, were not generally popular on their first appearance.
"One newspaper boldly declared that there was no plausible reason for establishing such a holiday. Bank clerks, whom it benefited, had an annual holiday anyhow, while a vast number of persons, whose dinners depended on their day's work, were compelled to be idle, for the advantage of a certain few, who would have their dinners, whether they worked or not.
"On the other hand, the “Liverpool Mercury,” looking to the future, saw the voluntary extension of the Bank Holiday Act far beyond its original scope.
"“This widening process” (said the Mercury) “may be expected to increase with every succeeding year, as people become more familiarised with the idea that occasional holidays are rather a good thing.
"“Then we shall see in communities like Liverpool business suspended, not merely in the centres of commercial activity, but generally, throughout the town, and the carter, as well as the clerk, enjoy his day's relaxation.”
"The carter, equally with the clerk, has enjoyed his day's relaxation for many a year now; but it was otherwise on August Bank Holiday in Liverpool in 1871.
"The banks, the Stock Exchange, and the general produce markets were all closed. Otherwise it was a case of “business as usual”.
"The shops were open. Baron Martin charged the grand jury in the Crown Court at the assizes.
"The streets were crowded, for the railways, which had made no provision for getting people out of Liverpool, afforded plentiful facilities for getting them in, and excursionists from the country wandered aimlessly about our streets in the “tropical heat,” precisely as they may have done already this summer.
"We have seen that carters and others enjoyed no holiday in 1871. Domestic servants, who were than paid from £8 to £14 a year in Liverpool, regarded the Bank Holiday with curiosity. They had no share in it.
"A London paper declared that the holiday would never be popular till it received an appropriate name, and suggested “Lammas Day.” The Spectator preferred “Harvest Monday.”
"Posterity has refused both, evolving for itself the truly descriptive title of “August Bank Holiday.” May the Jubilee Bank Holiday be a fine one!"
In 1971 the August Bank Holiday was shifted to the last Monday in August.
Next week's stories will include the curious death of a child in a Lea Green pit, a harsh sentence for the thieving Sutton postie, a Rainford man's murderous assault and outspoken lawyer Thomas Swift finally has his wings clipped.