150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (6th - 12th May 1869)
This week's stories include a sex scandal at Whiston Workhouse, a 60-round prize fight in Thatto Heath, the child "street Arabs" playing outside Lowe House Church, the old men who smoked turf, the Boundary Road and Bold Heath trespassing cases and the illegal Sutton Board meeting.
We begin on the 6th with a meeting of the Prescot Board of Guardians where the Master of Whiston Workhouse reported that 322 paupers had been in the house during the past week with 129 of them children. The workhouse covered the whole of the St Helens and Prescot districts and had been built in 1843 to replace smaller houses in Sutton, Prescot, Windle and Bold.
A letter from Rev. Moore was read out at the meeting in which he repeated a claim made to him by a patient in the institution's hospital (pictured above). The workhouse chaplain said a pauper called Mary Sixsmith had made a "grave charge" against Thomas Holmes, the workhouse Master, to add to the recent list of charges made against him by the institution's doctor.
The Guardians had investigated these complaints and had asked Mr Holmes to resign but he'd refused to leave and the matter was now in the hands of the Poor Law Board. However Mary Sixsmith's allegation was the most serious of them all, although the Chairman of the Board asked the reporters present not to publish any details for the time being.
It was decided that a special committee would investigate Mary's complaint to see if there were grounds for a full inquiry by the Board. However I can reveal that the woman had alleged that the Master had made her pregnant and she had subsequently miscarried in the workhouse hospital. There will be much more on this story soon!
At the last meeting of the Guardians they had set up a committee to undertake a thorough inventory of the workhouse stores. This was mainly because the Master had recorded 626 pints of ale intended for the paupers as being discarded as waste, out of a total supply of 1,261 pints.
However when the committee members had visited the stores the Master had refused to give them access, although they were able to examine the books and found them to be in a poor state.
When one committee member began to read one of the instructions from the Poor Law Board on the matter, Mr Holmes said he knew all about it and didn't "care a fig for it". The committee had sent a report on this to the Poor Law Board and they in turn had asked the Master to respond.
And finally before leaving the goings on at the workhouse (until next week), the medical officer reported that many of the old men were smoking turf instead of tobacco. Turf had begun to be used as fuel in the hospital and the men were smoking it to supplement the small quantity of tobacco that was issued to them each week.
Several of the Guardians said at the meeting that puffing on turf wouldn't do the old men any harm – it probably didn't do them any good either! The peat turf was normally used as firelighters or animal bedding litter and would likely have been sourced from the mosses at Bold, Sutton and Parr.
The townships of Sutton and Parr had not yet been fully incorporated into the new St Helens borough and some matters were still managed by Local Boards. The Sutton Local Board normally met in rooms in Peasley Cross but at their last meeting had decided to meet in the Council Chamber of the Town Hall in New Market Place.
On the 6th the Liverpool Mercury reported that they had met for the first time at their new venue but been told by a member that their assembly was illegal. That was because they had a by-law banning meetings outside of Sutton. Their law clerk confirmed this and so the meeting immediately closed and the members dispersed, no doubt wondering why this hadn't been mentioned earlier.
The man who waited until the last minute to raise the matter was Joseph Greenough, who in 1877 would learn about real illegality when he was sent to prison for 12 months for trying to evict a tenant by destroying their house!
This letter was published in the St Helens Newspaper on the 8th under the headline 'Street Arabs': "Sir, When passing St. Mary's Lowe House Church [pictured above] on Sunday evening my attention was called to some children who had assembled in the open space in front of the building amusing themselves by swinging upon both entrance gates, some walking round the iron railings, and others were throwing stones at the notice board and into the streets, the latter being dangerous to persons passing at the time, many remarking how strange it was that such like scenes should be allowed to take place within the grounds of a church.
"Such, however, should be stopped, and I trust the Rev. Mr. Ullathorne will call the attention of the officials of his church to locking the gates after the services of the day are over, that children or other persons cannot enter to amuse themselves, or do damage to others. – Yours respectfully, An Eye Witness".
At the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 10th Mary Baddeley pleaded guilty to pulling a coal wagon along the footpath in Eccleston. However she was only seven years of age and it was decided to withdraw the charge on account of her extreme youth.
A stinging editorial in the St Helens Newspaper this week criticised police officers being taken off their duties to keep watch on the fields and lands of private gentlemen, "who may happen to have a friend at court in the police superintendent".
There appeared to be an example of this in the Sessions when William Ledmond, Francis Cosgrove, J. Pickavance, George Evans and Thomas Saxon were charged with trespassing on a cricket field owned by William Pilkington.
Constable Houghton told the court that he had been instructed to watch the land and had seen the five defendants on the field at different times on a Sunday. It was stated that the five had done a penny's worth of damage to the Boundary Road field and they were each fined a shilling.
However the bobbies did keep an eye on farmers' fields as well as landowners. At the same hearing George Grayson and William Tasker were charged with doing "malicious injury" to a field of oats.
Robert Whalley – who had a 190-acre farm at Mill Green in Bold Heath – was the owner of the field and he estimated that the malicious damage amounted to a shilling. Superintendent Ludlam told the court that Constable Clarke had seen the pair trespassing on Mr Whalley's field and upon going to learn their names they "beat him unmercifully".
The head of St Helens Police added that: "The position is a lonely one, and I have to ask the bench to give the officer such protection for the future as would deter such attacks." In other words give the two men a stiff fine or a prison sentence.
The magistrates obliged with a fine of 15s 6d each for the trespass (or 14 days in default of payment) and £5 or two months for the assault. That was a lot of money, so very likely the pair spent 2½ months in prison – which all began because they took a walk in a field, probably as a short cut.
Bridget Rorke was also in court for having an unlicensed lodging house. The woman was very deaf and produced a pencil and slate on which Sergeant Myers wrote down the charge. The St Helens Newspaper wrote: "She made herself acquainted with it through an ancient pair of brass-rimmed spectacles."
The Bench fined Bridget 2 shillings and costs and warned her to be more careful in future, with the sergeant scrawling the message on the old woman's slate for her to read. Bridget thanked the magistrates and the officer before leaving the courtroom.
On the 10th a prize-fight took place between two Widnes men called Brannon and Burns in a place called Hughes' Score in Thatto Heath. It lasted nearly two hours in front of about 100 spectators, with many of these having travelled on foot from Widnes.
The pugilists went sixty rounds before the supporters of Burns "threw up the sponge" – as the surrender was described – and two of them helped the battered man to a nearby pub. The St Helens Newspaper said both men had been severely punished and they were highly critical of the police who did nothing to stop the fight:
"We may, perhaps, be favoured with a few more of these degrading and brutal exhibitions if the supine and effete management of our police force is permitted to continue."
And finally on the 11th Greenalls held another dinner for their tenants at the old Fleece Hotel in Church Street. There were the usual patriotic toasts and the songs included 'The Death of Nelson' and 'Victoria for England'.
Next week's stories will include an inquiry into the sex scandal at Whiston Workhouse, the first bus service in St Helens, the "shivering, bare-footed, little bundle of suffering humanity" from Smithy Brow, a "murderous assault" in a Westfield Street house of ill fame, the Whit Monday excursionists and the woman whose Irish was got up in Victoria Passage.
We begin on the 6th with a meeting of the Prescot Board of Guardians where the Master of Whiston Workhouse reported that 322 paupers had been in the house during the past week with 129 of them children. The workhouse covered the whole of the St Helens and Prescot districts and had been built in 1843 to replace smaller houses in Sutton, Prescot, Windle and Bold.
The Guardians had investigated these complaints and had asked Mr Holmes to resign but he'd refused to leave and the matter was now in the hands of the Poor Law Board. However Mary Sixsmith's allegation was the most serious of them all, although the Chairman of the Board asked the reporters present not to publish any details for the time being.
It was decided that a special committee would investigate Mary's complaint to see if there were grounds for a full inquiry by the Board. However I can reveal that the woman had alleged that the Master had made her pregnant and she had subsequently miscarried in the workhouse hospital. There will be much more on this story soon!
At the last meeting of the Guardians they had set up a committee to undertake a thorough inventory of the workhouse stores. This was mainly because the Master had recorded 626 pints of ale intended for the paupers as being discarded as waste, out of a total supply of 1,261 pints.
However when the committee members had visited the stores the Master had refused to give them access, although they were able to examine the books and found them to be in a poor state.
When one committee member began to read one of the instructions from the Poor Law Board on the matter, Mr Holmes said he knew all about it and didn't "care a fig for it". The committee had sent a report on this to the Poor Law Board and they in turn had asked the Master to respond.
And finally before leaving the goings on at the workhouse (until next week), the medical officer reported that many of the old men were smoking turf instead of tobacco. Turf had begun to be used as fuel in the hospital and the men were smoking it to supplement the small quantity of tobacco that was issued to them each week.
Several of the Guardians said at the meeting that puffing on turf wouldn't do the old men any harm – it probably didn't do them any good either! The peat turf was normally used as firelighters or animal bedding litter and would likely have been sourced from the mosses at Bold, Sutton and Parr.
The townships of Sutton and Parr had not yet been fully incorporated into the new St Helens borough and some matters were still managed by Local Boards. The Sutton Local Board normally met in rooms in Peasley Cross but at their last meeting had decided to meet in the Council Chamber of the Town Hall in New Market Place.
On the 6th the Liverpool Mercury reported that they had met for the first time at their new venue but been told by a member that their assembly was illegal. That was because they had a by-law banning meetings outside of Sutton. Their law clerk confirmed this and so the meeting immediately closed and the members dispersed, no doubt wondering why this hadn't been mentioned earlier.
The man who waited until the last minute to raise the matter was Joseph Greenough, who in 1877 would learn about real illegality when he was sent to prison for 12 months for trying to evict a tenant by destroying their house!
"Such, however, should be stopped, and I trust the Rev. Mr. Ullathorne will call the attention of the officials of his church to locking the gates after the services of the day are over, that children or other persons cannot enter to amuse themselves, or do damage to others. – Yours respectfully, An Eye Witness".
At the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 10th Mary Baddeley pleaded guilty to pulling a coal wagon along the footpath in Eccleston. However she was only seven years of age and it was decided to withdraw the charge on account of her extreme youth.
A stinging editorial in the St Helens Newspaper this week criticised police officers being taken off their duties to keep watch on the fields and lands of private gentlemen, "who may happen to have a friend at court in the police superintendent".
There appeared to be an example of this in the Sessions when William Ledmond, Francis Cosgrove, J. Pickavance, George Evans and Thomas Saxon were charged with trespassing on a cricket field owned by William Pilkington.
Constable Houghton told the court that he had been instructed to watch the land and had seen the five defendants on the field at different times on a Sunday. It was stated that the five had done a penny's worth of damage to the Boundary Road field and they were each fined a shilling.
However the bobbies did keep an eye on farmers' fields as well as landowners. At the same hearing George Grayson and William Tasker were charged with doing "malicious injury" to a field of oats.
Robert Whalley – who had a 190-acre farm at Mill Green in Bold Heath – was the owner of the field and he estimated that the malicious damage amounted to a shilling. Superintendent Ludlam told the court that Constable Clarke had seen the pair trespassing on Mr Whalley's field and upon going to learn their names they "beat him unmercifully".
The head of St Helens Police added that: "The position is a lonely one, and I have to ask the bench to give the officer such protection for the future as would deter such attacks." In other words give the two men a stiff fine or a prison sentence.
The magistrates obliged with a fine of 15s 6d each for the trespass (or 14 days in default of payment) and £5 or two months for the assault. That was a lot of money, so very likely the pair spent 2½ months in prison – which all began because they took a walk in a field, probably as a short cut.
Bridget Rorke was also in court for having an unlicensed lodging house. The woman was very deaf and produced a pencil and slate on which Sergeant Myers wrote down the charge. The St Helens Newspaper wrote: "She made herself acquainted with it through an ancient pair of brass-rimmed spectacles."
The Bench fined Bridget 2 shillings and costs and warned her to be more careful in future, with the sergeant scrawling the message on the old woman's slate for her to read. Bridget thanked the magistrates and the officer before leaving the courtroom.
On the 10th a prize-fight took place between two Widnes men called Brannon and Burns in a place called Hughes' Score in Thatto Heath. It lasted nearly two hours in front of about 100 spectators, with many of these having travelled on foot from Widnes.
The pugilists went sixty rounds before the supporters of Burns "threw up the sponge" – as the surrender was described – and two of them helped the battered man to a nearby pub. The St Helens Newspaper said both men had been severely punished and they were highly critical of the police who did nothing to stop the fight:
"We may, perhaps, be favoured with a few more of these degrading and brutal exhibitions if the supine and effete management of our police force is permitted to continue."
And finally on the 11th Greenalls held another dinner for their tenants at the old Fleece Hotel in Church Street. There were the usual patriotic toasts and the songs included 'The Death of Nelson' and 'Victoria for England'.
Next week's stories will include an inquiry into the sex scandal at Whiston Workhouse, the first bus service in St Helens, the "shivering, bare-footed, little bundle of suffering humanity" from Smithy Brow, a "murderous assault" in a Westfield Street house of ill fame, the Whit Monday excursionists and the woman whose Irish was got up in Victoria Passage.