150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (8th - 14th NOVEMER 1871)
This week's stories include the horrendous fatality at a St Helens chemical works, the Billinge miners' clog fight that ended in death, the Newton 9-hour rule, a new mayor for St Helens and the local election impersonators.
We begin on the 8th when the annual Lowe House Tea Party and Ball was held in the Volunteer Hall (pictured above). The partygoers tucked into tea at 6:30pm and the dancing to a Quadrille Band began at 8pm. Although the numbers attending were slightly down on last year, there were still 800 partygoers with proceeds going towards the running costs of Roman Catholic schools in the borough.
On the 9th Charles Rawson from Portico died after suffering a horrendous accident at work. The man had been employed at the Greenbank Alkali Company in St Helens and two days earlier had somehow fallen into a large pan of boiling caustic soda. No-one saw the accident and Rowson managed to extricate himself from the pan without any assistance but was severely scalded and must have been in great agony.
The accident seemed similar to one that had occurred at the St Helens Chemical Company in Pocket Nook in 1868 in which a worker had been told to bale out the bottoms of caustic soda pans. For this he was using a long ladle with an iron bowl at its end, while standing precariously on a plank placed along the edges of two pans. The wooden handle on the ladle broke and the man lost his balance and fell backwards into the hot caustic. On that occasion the man survived but spent six months in Liverpool Infirmary and a leg had to be amputated. Despite evidence that the handle was completely unfit for the job, a judge later ruled that the company had no liability to pay compensation.
Also on the 9th, the first meeting of the new St Helens Town Council was held – after the holding of recent elections. An important job was electing the Mayor for the ensuing year and Alderman John Marsh – the owner of Parr Alkali Works – became the town's third municipal head. It's an interesting point that both his predecessors David Gamble and Llewellyn Evans were also owners of chemical works in St Helens – highlighting the importance of that industry at that time.
However, within a few years a depression in trade would lead to a thinning out of the sector and John Marsh's business in Parr would fold. But it would be the best part of fifty years before the rest of the chemical industry would depart St Helens and stop its pollution and irreparable damage to the health of its workforce and residents. The chemical waste heaps in the town would for many decades be a physical reminder of the ugliness of a horrible industry that unlike coal mining never created a huge amount of employment but instead did a huge amount of damage.
Last week I wrote that barring by-elections in St Helens over the next year, the recent council elections would have been the last "open" and blatantly corrupt ones. That's because when the next round was due in November 1872, the secret ballot would have been introduced and, hopefully, the St Helens Newspaper would no longer be able to write: "Not only is bribery by drink carried on to a great extent, but personation and false representation are practised to a degree unknown in any other town and a great disgrace to this."
With a much smaller population than today, people within local communities were more likely to know one another and so there was a greater chance that electoral impersonators would be caught. On the 11th the Wigan Observer wrote how John Gillooly and Patrick Roe had appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with "personating at the late municipal election in Eccleston ward". However, the pair was treated quite lightly. As they had pleaded guilty and – had seemingly spent a day or two in a police cell – the town clerk decided to withdrew the prosecution against them.
Coal miners were known to settle their disputes by naked or semi-naked fighting that involved kicking their opponent with their clogs – often on the head. The obvious dangers of such practices were illustrated on the 12th when Thomas Simpkin died in Billinge. Three weeks earlier the 26-year-old had been drinking with Jonathan Cunliffe in Tom Hill's beerhouse in The Rant, a district / street in Billinge Chapel End where they both lived.
The two young miners began quarrelling and after being turned out by the landlady, decided to settle their differences in a nearby field. The 20-year-old Cunliffe was seen to knock down Simpkin and then kick him several times on his head and side. Some days later Simpkin went to his work but had to return home because of his injuries. These gradually worsened and the man went into a coma and died. At the inquest held at the George and Dragon in Billinge, witnesses spoke of what they had seen, with John Heyes saying:
"I was at home at my mother's, and heard a noise in the lane. Coming to the door I saw Jonathan Cunliffe and deceased taking off their things. I made towards them, being lame, and saw them start to fight. The first round (as I believe) both fell. Jonathan got up, and standing over deceased punched him with his clog about the right side several times. I got them down the lane some twenty yards perhaps, and they commenced quarrelling again. Jonathan knocked deceased down, and I picked him up, begging them to give over. A few yards further they again started, and that time Jonathan knocked deceased down, and then as he stood over deceased Jonathan fetched him a punch on the back of the head.
"I then saw blood running down deceased’s shoulder and shirt. I jerked Jonathan away, asking him if he wanted to kill him. I got deceased up once more, and they walked away quietly towards their homes at “The Rant.” It was with the toe of his clog that Jonathan punched deceased. Both men were drunk, but the deceased was the worst." In a separate hearing in court, Jonathan Cunliffe was committed to the Liverpool Assizes where on December 12th he was charged with having "feloniously killed and slain one Thomas Simpkin" – but was found not guilty.
Many men could work 60-plus hours a week, usually over 5½ or 6 days. The working days were incredibly long and exhausting and a movement was afoot to reduce the hours worked in a day. Railway workers were asking for a 10-hour-a-day limit, with some – according to the Wigan Observer – claiming they presently laboured twelve and sometimes twenty-five, or even thirty hours consecutively. The paper wrote: "It is impossible for men to do their duty as husbands, fathers, and citizens if they are subjected to service so harassing, and it is merely a waste of muscle, and perhaps of reason, to degrade humanity by such a strain of responsibility in labour."
In Newton-le-Willows (as well as in other towns) there was a campaign underway to persuade employers to reduce the working day to 9 hours or 54 hours per week. Recently a meeting on Newton Common had attracted around 2,000 workmen in support of the reduced hours – and they were enjoying some success. On the 13th a notice was posted at the Vulcan Foundry, near Newton, announcing that its directors had consented to grant the nine-hour system from January 1st. At noon on the same day, the firm's employees met at the foundry gates and decided to offer a vote of thanks to the directors. I'll bet they didn't work 50-odd hours a week!
On the 14th there was a very good attendance at the Theatre Royal (pictured above when used by the Salvation Army), when the St Helens Amateur Dramatic Society put on a performance in aid of the "sufferers by the late colliery explosion at Wigan". However, there were then that many disasters in the Lancashire coal field, I'm unsure which one they were referring to, probably Ince. To underline the point and by tragic coincidence, there was yet another explosion on that day. This one was at Hindley, although only six lives (and eleven ponies) were lost – compared to the usual 40 or 50.
Speaking at a fundraising meeting for the men's dependents later in the month, the Mayor of Wigan would criticise the "reckless manner in which gunpowder is used in the working of coal mines in this neighbourhood". Nathaniel Eckersley also called for Parliament to "regulate or restrict the use of explosive substances in the getting of coal, so as to prevent the possibility of the awful loss of human life which occurs under the present system of working".
And finally, it has to be said that men simply don't pay their addresses to women any more. Neither do they go a-wooing, courting or walk out with women. I'm always attracted to newspaper stories that use those old fashioned expressions, such as this curious article in an edition of the Wigan Observer this week:
"A young man named John Kellett, of Charnock Moss, Penwortham, 21 years of age, the son of a farmer, was paying his addresses to a young woman living in the same neighbourhood, and about nine o'clock the other evening was returning from her residence towards his home, when he imagined he saw in the lane a coffin, with a silver plate, bearing his own name, his age, and the day on which he died. He retraced his steps, but in a few minutes returned to the spot; as he persistently avers, whatever part of the road he took, the coffin rose from the ground and barred his progress.
"Not being desirous of showing the “white feather” to his ladylove, he remained in the lane about an hour and a half, but he was then compelled to give way, and returned to her residence in a terrible state of excitement and trepidation. He wildly told his story, and the fright was so terrible that it was evident his mind had become deranged. A man was despatched to his father's house, and there was nothing at all in the form of a coffin could be seen or traced. The father took the young man home, and placed him under the care of Dr. Evans, but he still remains in a wild, delirious state, and cries that he can almost perpetually see the coffin before him."
Next week's stories will include a new Chamber of Commerce for St Helens, the sending back to prison of a ticket-of-leave man, the drunken passenger at Newton Bridge and the Sunday evening burglars in St Helens.
On the 9th Charles Rawson from Portico died after suffering a horrendous accident at work. The man had been employed at the Greenbank Alkali Company in St Helens and two days earlier had somehow fallen into a large pan of boiling caustic soda. No-one saw the accident and Rowson managed to extricate himself from the pan without any assistance but was severely scalded and must have been in great agony.
The accident seemed similar to one that had occurred at the St Helens Chemical Company in Pocket Nook in 1868 in which a worker had been told to bale out the bottoms of caustic soda pans. For this he was using a long ladle with an iron bowl at its end, while standing precariously on a plank placed along the edges of two pans. The wooden handle on the ladle broke and the man lost his balance and fell backwards into the hot caustic. On that occasion the man survived but spent six months in Liverpool Infirmary and a leg had to be amputated. Despite evidence that the handle was completely unfit for the job, a judge later ruled that the company had no liability to pay compensation.
Also on the 9th, the first meeting of the new St Helens Town Council was held – after the holding of recent elections. An important job was electing the Mayor for the ensuing year and Alderman John Marsh – the owner of Parr Alkali Works – became the town's third municipal head. It's an interesting point that both his predecessors David Gamble and Llewellyn Evans were also owners of chemical works in St Helens – highlighting the importance of that industry at that time.
However, within a few years a depression in trade would lead to a thinning out of the sector and John Marsh's business in Parr would fold. But it would be the best part of fifty years before the rest of the chemical industry would depart St Helens and stop its pollution and irreparable damage to the health of its workforce and residents. The chemical waste heaps in the town would for many decades be a physical reminder of the ugliness of a horrible industry that unlike coal mining never created a huge amount of employment but instead did a huge amount of damage.
Last week I wrote that barring by-elections in St Helens over the next year, the recent council elections would have been the last "open" and blatantly corrupt ones. That's because when the next round was due in November 1872, the secret ballot would have been introduced and, hopefully, the St Helens Newspaper would no longer be able to write: "Not only is bribery by drink carried on to a great extent, but personation and false representation are practised to a degree unknown in any other town and a great disgrace to this."
With a much smaller population than today, people within local communities were more likely to know one another and so there was a greater chance that electoral impersonators would be caught. On the 11th the Wigan Observer wrote how John Gillooly and Patrick Roe had appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with "personating at the late municipal election in Eccleston ward". However, the pair was treated quite lightly. As they had pleaded guilty and – had seemingly spent a day or two in a police cell – the town clerk decided to withdrew the prosecution against them.
Coal miners were known to settle their disputes by naked or semi-naked fighting that involved kicking their opponent with their clogs – often on the head. The obvious dangers of such practices were illustrated on the 12th when Thomas Simpkin died in Billinge. Three weeks earlier the 26-year-old had been drinking with Jonathan Cunliffe in Tom Hill's beerhouse in The Rant, a district / street in Billinge Chapel End where they both lived.
The two young miners began quarrelling and after being turned out by the landlady, decided to settle their differences in a nearby field. The 20-year-old Cunliffe was seen to knock down Simpkin and then kick him several times on his head and side. Some days later Simpkin went to his work but had to return home because of his injuries. These gradually worsened and the man went into a coma and died. At the inquest held at the George and Dragon in Billinge, witnesses spoke of what they had seen, with John Heyes saying:
"I was at home at my mother's, and heard a noise in the lane. Coming to the door I saw Jonathan Cunliffe and deceased taking off their things. I made towards them, being lame, and saw them start to fight. The first round (as I believe) both fell. Jonathan got up, and standing over deceased punched him with his clog about the right side several times. I got them down the lane some twenty yards perhaps, and they commenced quarrelling again. Jonathan knocked deceased down, and I picked him up, begging them to give over. A few yards further they again started, and that time Jonathan knocked deceased down, and then as he stood over deceased Jonathan fetched him a punch on the back of the head.
"I then saw blood running down deceased’s shoulder and shirt. I jerked Jonathan away, asking him if he wanted to kill him. I got deceased up once more, and they walked away quietly towards their homes at “The Rant.” It was with the toe of his clog that Jonathan punched deceased. Both men were drunk, but the deceased was the worst." In a separate hearing in court, Jonathan Cunliffe was committed to the Liverpool Assizes where on December 12th he was charged with having "feloniously killed and slain one Thomas Simpkin" – but was found not guilty.
Many men could work 60-plus hours a week, usually over 5½ or 6 days. The working days were incredibly long and exhausting and a movement was afoot to reduce the hours worked in a day. Railway workers were asking for a 10-hour-a-day limit, with some – according to the Wigan Observer – claiming they presently laboured twelve and sometimes twenty-five, or even thirty hours consecutively. The paper wrote: "It is impossible for men to do their duty as husbands, fathers, and citizens if they are subjected to service so harassing, and it is merely a waste of muscle, and perhaps of reason, to degrade humanity by such a strain of responsibility in labour."
In Newton-le-Willows (as well as in other towns) there was a campaign underway to persuade employers to reduce the working day to 9 hours or 54 hours per week. Recently a meeting on Newton Common had attracted around 2,000 workmen in support of the reduced hours – and they were enjoying some success. On the 13th a notice was posted at the Vulcan Foundry, near Newton, announcing that its directors had consented to grant the nine-hour system from January 1st. At noon on the same day, the firm's employees met at the foundry gates and decided to offer a vote of thanks to the directors. I'll bet they didn't work 50-odd hours a week!
Speaking at a fundraising meeting for the men's dependents later in the month, the Mayor of Wigan would criticise the "reckless manner in which gunpowder is used in the working of coal mines in this neighbourhood". Nathaniel Eckersley also called for Parliament to "regulate or restrict the use of explosive substances in the getting of coal, so as to prevent the possibility of the awful loss of human life which occurs under the present system of working".
And finally, it has to be said that men simply don't pay their addresses to women any more. Neither do they go a-wooing, courting or walk out with women. I'm always attracted to newspaper stories that use those old fashioned expressions, such as this curious article in an edition of the Wigan Observer this week:
"A young man named John Kellett, of Charnock Moss, Penwortham, 21 years of age, the son of a farmer, was paying his addresses to a young woman living in the same neighbourhood, and about nine o'clock the other evening was returning from her residence towards his home, when he imagined he saw in the lane a coffin, with a silver plate, bearing his own name, his age, and the day on which he died. He retraced his steps, but in a few minutes returned to the spot; as he persistently avers, whatever part of the road he took, the coffin rose from the ground and barred his progress.
"Not being desirous of showing the “white feather” to his ladylove, he remained in the lane about an hour and a half, but he was then compelled to give way, and returned to her residence in a terrible state of excitement and trepidation. He wildly told his story, and the fright was so terrible that it was evident his mind had become deranged. A man was despatched to his father's house, and there was nothing at all in the form of a coffin could be seen or traced. The father took the young man home, and placed him under the care of Dr. Evans, but he still remains in a wild, delirious state, and cries that he can almost perpetually see the coffin before him."
Next week's stories will include a new Chamber of Commerce for St Helens, the sending back to prison of a ticket-of-leave man, the drunken passenger at Newton Bridge and the Sunday evening burglars in St Helens.
This week's stories include the horrendous fatality at a St Helens chemical works, the Billinge miners' clog fight that ended in death, the Newton 9-hour rule, a new mayor for St Helens and the local election impersonators.
We begin on the 8th when the annual Lowe House Tea Party and Ball was held in the Volunteer Hall (pictured above).
The partygoers tucked into tea at 6:30pm and the dancing to a Quadrille Band began at 8pm.
Although the numbers attending were slightly down on last year, there were still 800 partygoers with proceeds going towards the running costs of Roman Catholic schools in the borough.
On the 9th Charles Rawson from Portico died after suffering a horrendous accident at work.
The man had been employed at the Greenbank Alkali Company in St Helens and two days earlier had somehow fallen into a large pan of boiling caustic soda.
No-one saw the accident and Rowson managed to extricate himself from the pan without any assistance but was severely scalded and must have been in great agony.
The accident seemed similar to one that had occurred at the St Helens Chemical Company in Pocket Nook in 1868 in which a worker had been told to bale out the bottoms of caustic soda pans.
For this he was using a long ladle with an iron bowl at its end, while standing precariously on a plank placed along the edges of two pans.
The wooden handle on the ladle broke and the man lost his balance and fell backwards into the hot caustic.
On that occasion the man survived but spent six months in Liverpool Infirmary and a leg had to be amputated.
Despite evidence that the handle was completely unfit for the job, a judge later ruled that the company had no liability to pay compensation.
Also on the 9th, the first meeting of the new St Helens Town Council was held – after the holding of recent elections.
An important job was electing the Mayor for the ensuing year and Alderman John Marsh – the owner of Parr Alkali Works – became the town's third municipal head.
It's an interesting point that both his predecessors David Gamble and Llewellyn Evans were also owners of chemical works in St Helens – highlighting the importance of that industry at that time.
However, within a few years a depression in trade would lead to a thinning out of the sector and John Marsh's business in Parr would fold.
But it would be the best part of fifty years before the rest of the chemical industry would depart St Helens and stop its pollution and irreparable damage to the health of its workforce and residents.
The chemical waste heaps in the town would for many decades be a physical reminder of the ugliness of a horrible industry that unlike coal mining never created a huge amount of employment but instead did a huge amount of damage.
Last week I wrote that barring by-elections in St Helens over the next year, the recent council elections would have been the last "open" and blatantly corrupt ones.
That's because when the next round was due in November 1872, the secret ballot would have been introduced and, hopefully, the St Helens Newspaper would no longer be able to write:
"Not only is bribery by drink carried on to a great extent, but personation and false representation are practised to a degree unknown in any other town and a great disgrace to this."
With a much smaller population than today, people within local communities were more likely to know one another and so there was a greater chance that electoral impersonators would be caught.
On the 11th the Wigan Observer wrote how John Gillooly and Patrick Roe had appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with "personating at the late municipal election in Eccleston ward".
However, the pair was treated quite lightly. As they had pleaded guilty and – had seemingly spent a day or two in a police cell – the town clerk decided to withdrew the prosecution against them.
Coal miners were known to settle their disputes by naked or semi-naked fighting that involved kicking their opponent with their clogs – often on the head.
The obvious dangers of such practices were illustrated on the 12th when Thomas Simpkin died in Billinge.
Three weeks earlier the 26-year-old had been drinking with Jonathan Cunliffe in Tom Hill's beerhouse in The Rant, a district / street in Billinge Chapel End where they both lived.
The two young miners began quarrelling and after being turned out by the landlady, decided to settle their differences in a nearby field.
The 20-year-old Cunliffe was seen to knock down Simpkin and then kick him several times on his head and side.
Some days later Simpkin went to his work but had to return home because of his injuries. These gradually worsened and the man went into a coma and died.
At the inquest held at the George and Dragon in Billinge, witnesses spoke of what they had seen, with John Heyes saying:
"I was at home at my mother's, and heard a noise in the lane. Coming to the door I saw Jonathan Cunliffe and deceased taking off their things.
"I made towards them, being lame, and saw them start to fight. The first round (as I believe) both fell.
"Jonathan got up, and standing over deceased punched him with his clog about the right side several times.
"I got them down the lane some twenty yards perhaps, and they commenced quarrelling again.
"Jonathan knocked deceased down, and I picked him up, begging them to give over. A few yards further they again started, and that time Jonathan knocked deceased down, and then as he stood over deceased Jonathan fetched him a punch on the back of the head.
"I then saw blood running down deceased’s shoulder and shirt. I jerked Jonathan away, asking him if he wanted to kill him.
"I got deceased up once more, and they walked away quietly towards their homes at “The Rant.”
"It was with the toe of his clog that Jonathan punched deceased. Both men were drunk, but the deceased was the worst."
In a separate hearing in court, Jonathan Cunliffe was committed to the Liverpool Assizes where on December 12th he was charged with having "feloniously killed and slain one Thomas Simpkin" – but was found not guilty.
Many men could work 60-plus hours a week, usually over 5½ or 6 days. The working days were incredibly long and exhausting and a movement was afoot to reduce the hours worked in a day.
Railway workers were asking for a 10-hour-a-day limit, with some – according to the Wigan Observer – claiming they presently laboured twelve and sometimes twenty-five, or even thirty hours consecutively.
The paper wrote: "It is impossible for men to do their duty as husbands, fathers, and citizens if they are subjected to service so harassing, and it is merely a waste of muscle, and perhaps of reason, to degrade humanity by such a strain of responsibility in labour."
In Newton-le-Willows (as well as in other towns) there was a campaign underway to persuade employers to reduce the working day to 9 hours or 54 hours per week.
Recently a meeting on Newton Common had attracted around 2,000 workmen in support of the reduced hours – and they were enjoying some success.
On the 13th a notice was posted at the Vulcan Foundry, near Newton, announcing that its directors had consented to grant the nine-hour system from January 1st.
At noon on the same day, the firm's employees met at the foundry gates and decided to offer a vote of thanks to the directors. I'll bet they didn't work 50-odd hours a week!
On the 14th there was a very good attendance at the Theatre Royal (pictured above when used by the Salvation Army), when the St Helens Amateur Dramatic Society put on a performance in aid of the "sufferers by the late colliery explosion at Wigan".
However, there were then that many disasters in the Lancashire coal field, I'm unsure which one they were referring to, probably Ince.
To underline the point and by tragic coincidence, there was yet another explosion on that day.
This one was at Hindley, although only six lives (and eleven ponies) were lost – compared to the usual 40 or 50.
Speaking at a fundraising meeting for the men's dependents later in the month, the Mayor of Wigan would criticise the "reckless manner in which gunpowder is used in the working of coal mines in this neighbourhood".
Nathaniel Eckersley also called for Parliament to "regulate or restrict the use of explosive substances in the getting of coal, so as to prevent the possibility of the awful loss of human life which occurs under the present system of working".
And finally, it has to be said that men simply don't pay their addresses to women any more. Neither do they go a-wooing, courting or walk out with women.
I'm always attracted to newspaper stories that use those old fashioned expressions, such as this curious article in an edition of the Wigan Observer this week:
"A young man named John Kellett, of Charnock Moss, Penwortham, 21 years of age, the son of a farmer, was paying his addresses to a young woman living in the same neighbourhood, and about nine o'clock the other evening was returning from her residence towards his home, when he imagined he saw in the lane a coffin, with a silver plate, bearing his own name, his age, and the day on which he died.
"He retraced his steps, but in a few minutes returned to the spot; as he persistently avers, whatever part of the road he took, the coffin rose from the ground and barred his progress.
"Not being desirous of showing the “white feather” to his ladylove, he remained in the lane about an hour and a half, but he was then compelled to give way, and returned to her residence in a terrible state of excitement and trepidation.
"He wildly told his story, and the fright was so terrible that it was evident his mind had become deranged.
"A man was despatched to his father's house, and there was nothing at all in the form of a coffin could be seen or traced.
"The father took the young man home, and placed him under the care of Dr. Evans, but he still remains in a wild, delirious state, and cries that he can almost perpetually see the coffin before him."
Next week's stories will include a new Chamber of Commerce for St Helens, the sending back to prison of a ticket-of-leave man, the drunken passenger at Newton Bridge and the Sunday evening burglars in St Helens.
The partygoers tucked into tea at 6:30pm and the dancing to a Quadrille Band began at 8pm.
Although the numbers attending were slightly down on last year, there were still 800 partygoers with proceeds going towards the running costs of Roman Catholic schools in the borough.
On the 9th Charles Rawson from Portico died after suffering a horrendous accident at work.
The man had been employed at the Greenbank Alkali Company in St Helens and two days earlier had somehow fallen into a large pan of boiling caustic soda.
No-one saw the accident and Rowson managed to extricate himself from the pan without any assistance but was severely scalded and must have been in great agony.
The accident seemed similar to one that had occurred at the St Helens Chemical Company in Pocket Nook in 1868 in which a worker had been told to bale out the bottoms of caustic soda pans.
For this he was using a long ladle with an iron bowl at its end, while standing precariously on a plank placed along the edges of two pans.
The wooden handle on the ladle broke and the man lost his balance and fell backwards into the hot caustic.
On that occasion the man survived but spent six months in Liverpool Infirmary and a leg had to be amputated.
Despite evidence that the handle was completely unfit for the job, a judge later ruled that the company had no liability to pay compensation.
Also on the 9th, the first meeting of the new St Helens Town Council was held – after the holding of recent elections.
An important job was electing the Mayor for the ensuing year and Alderman John Marsh – the owner of Parr Alkali Works – became the town's third municipal head.
It's an interesting point that both his predecessors David Gamble and Llewellyn Evans were also owners of chemical works in St Helens – highlighting the importance of that industry at that time.
However, within a few years a depression in trade would lead to a thinning out of the sector and John Marsh's business in Parr would fold.
But it would be the best part of fifty years before the rest of the chemical industry would depart St Helens and stop its pollution and irreparable damage to the health of its workforce and residents.
The chemical waste heaps in the town would for many decades be a physical reminder of the ugliness of a horrible industry that unlike coal mining never created a huge amount of employment but instead did a huge amount of damage.
Last week I wrote that barring by-elections in St Helens over the next year, the recent council elections would have been the last "open" and blatantly corrupt ones.
That's because when the next round was due in November 1872, the secret ballot would have been introduced and, hopefully, the St Helens Newspaper would no longer be able to write:
"Not only is bribery by drink carried on to a great extent, but personation and false representation are practised to a degree unknown in any other town and a great disgrace to this."
With a much smaller population than today, people within local communities were more likely to know one another and so there was a greater chance that electoral impersonators would be caught.
On the 11th the Wigan Observer wrote how John Gillooly and Patrick Roe had appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with "personating at the late municipal election in Eccleston ward".
However, the pair was treated quite lightly. As they had pleaded guilty and – had seemingly spent a day or two in a police cell – the town clerk decided to withdrew the prosecution against them.
Coal miners were known to settle their disputes by naked or semi-naked fighting that involved kicking their opponent with their clogs – often on the head.
The obvious dangers of such practices were illustrated on the 12th when Thomas Simpkin died in Billinge.
Three weeks earlier the 26-year-old had been drinking with Jonathan Cunliffe in Tom Hill's beerhouse in The Rant, a district / street in Billinge Chapel End where they both lived.
The two young miners began quarrelling and after being turned out by the landlady, decided to settle their differences in a nearby field.
The 20-year-old Cunliffe was seen to knock down Simpkin and then kick him several times on his head and side.
Some days later Simpkin went to his work but had to return home because of his injuries. These gradually worsened and the man went into a coma and died.
At the inquest held at the George and Dragon in Billinge, witnesses spoke of what they had seen, with John Heyes saying:
"I was at home at my mother's, and heard a noise in the lane. Coming to the door I saw Jonathan Cunliffe and deceased taking off their things.
"I made towards them, being lame, and saw them start to fight. The first round (as I believe) both fell.
"Jonathan got up, and standing over deceased punched him with his clog about the right side several times.
"I got them down the lane some twenty yards perhaps, and they commenced quarrelling again.
"Jonathan knocked deceased down, and I picked him up, begging them to give over. A few yards further they again started, and that time Jonathan knocked deceased down, and then as he stood over deceased Jonathan fetched him a punch on the back of the head.
"I then saw blood running down deceased’s shoulder and shirt. I jerked Jonathan away, asking him if he wanted to kill him.
"I got deceased up once more, and they walked away quietly towards their homes at “The Rant.”
"It was with the toe of his clog that Jonathan punched deceased. Both men were drunk, but the deceased was the worst."
In a separate hearing in court, Jonathan Cunliffe was committed to the Liverpool Assizes where on December 12th he was charged with having "feloniously killed and slain one Thomas Simpkin" – but was found not guilty.
Many men could work 60-plus hours a week, usually over 5½ or 6 days. The working days were incredibly long and exhausting and a movement was afoot to reduce the hours worked in a day.
Railway workers were asking for a 10-hour-a-day limit, with some – according to the Wigan Observer – claiming they presently laboured twelve and sometimes twenty-five, or even thirty hours consecutively.
The paper wrote: "It is impossible for men to do their duty as husbands, fathers, and citizens if they are subjected to service so harassing, and it is merely a waste of muscle, and perhaps of reason, to degrade humanity by such a strain of responsibility in labour."
In Newton-le-Willows (as well as in other towns) there was a campaign underway to persuade employers to reduce the working day to 9 hours or 54 hours per week.
Recently a meeting on Newton Common had attracted around 2,000 workmen in support of the reduced hours – and they were enjoying some success.
On the 13th a notice was posted at the Vulcan Foundry, near Newton, announcing that its directors had consented to grant the nine-hour system from January 1st.
At noon on the same day, the firm's employees met at the foundry gates and decided to offer a vote of thanks to the directors. I'll bet they didn't work 50-odd hours a week!
However, there were then that many disasters in the Lancashire coal field, I'm unsure which one they were referring to, probably Ince.
To underline the point and by tragic coincidence, there was yet another explosion on that day.
This one was at Hindley, although only six lives (and eleven ponies) were lost – compared to the usual 40 or 50.
Speaking at a fundraising meeting for the men's dependents later in the month, the Mayor of Wigan would criticise the "reckless manner in which gunpowder is used in the working of coal mines in this neighbourhood".
Nathaniel Eckersley also called for Parliament to "regulate or restrict the use of explosive substances in the getting of coal, so as to prevent the possibility of the awful loss of human life which occurs under the present system of working".
And finally, it has to be said that men simply don't pay their addresses to women any more. Neither do they go a-wooing, courting or walk out with women.
I'm always attracted to newspaper stories that use those old fashioned expressions, such as this curious article in an edition of the Wigan Observer this week:
"A young man named John Kellett, of Charnock Moss, Penwortham, 21 years of age, the son of a farmer, was paying his addresses to a young woman living in the same neighbourhood, and about nine o'clock the other evening was returning from her residence towards his home, when he imagined he saw in the lane a coffin, with a silver plate, bearing his own name, his age, and the day on which he died.
"He retraced his steps, but in a few minutes returned to the spot; as he persistently avers, whatever part of the road he took, the coffin rose from the ground and barred his progress.
"Not being desirous of showing the “white feather” to his ladylove, he remained in the lane about an hour and a half, but he was then compelled to give way, and returned to her residence in a terrible state of excitement and trepidation.
"He wildly told his story, and the fright was so terrible that it was evident his mind had become deranged.
"A man was despatched to his father's house, and there was nothing at all in the form of a coffin could be seen or traced.
"The father took the young man home, and placed him under the care of Dr. Evans, but he still remains in a wild, delirious state, and cries that he can almost perpetually see the coffin before him."
Next week's stories will include a new Chamber of Commerce for St Helens, the sending back to prison of a ticket-of-leave man, the drunken passenger at Newton Bridge and the Sunday evening burglars in St Helens.