150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (9th - 15th MARCH 1870)
This week's stories include the dirty, ragged children creating pandemonium in Prescot, the "undaycent" name-calling in Parr, the Moss Bank poaching case, the brainless lodger in Rainford and the excitable woman in St Helens County Court.
We begin with the English Opera Company, which was performing nightly in the Town Hall in New Market Place this week. Their performances went down so well that they were persuaded to stay on for a second week.
On the 12th the St Helens Newspaper wrote that the Rivers Pollution Commissioners had issued a report about discharges from chemical works and other industries. They said the Commission had no objection to the emptying of drainage into the Mersey. Essentially that was the same as discharging into the sea and that was an acceptable means of getting rid of waste - no matter how toxic it was. However they planned to ban the effluent from such works from entering streams inland. The Newspaper wrote that this will be a "serious matter for St. Helens", as such discharges from factories were commonplace.
The Prescot Reporter published this article on the 12th about the Prescot Penny Bank, which was only opened for a short while on Saturdays to encourage saving amongst the poor: "Reference has several times been made in the columns of this paper to the almost intolerable nuisance caused to shopkeepers and others in the Market-place, by the children attracted to the Town Hall on Saturday evenings by the Prescot Penny Bank.
"On Saturday last the noise caused by the children running after one another up and down the thirty or forty steps which lead to the hall, combined with the occasional ringing of the fire bell, rendered it almost impossible for the persons in the neighbourhood to attend to business with any degree of comfort. A lot of dirty, ragged and most impertinent boys and girls made the entrance to the Town Hall into a little Pandemonium.
"It no doubt is very commendable to afford the poor, and the children of the poor, the opportunity of saving the little money which finds its way into their possession, but this could and ought to be done without disturbing the peace of the neighbourhood. Could Mr. Superintendent Fowler [the head of Prescot Police] do anything to remedy this state of things? Children of the ragged, dirty stamp of those referred to, generally “make tracks” at the sight of a policeman."
Like most other local papers, the Prescot Reporter also covered national and international news and wrote about a massacre of an Indian village in Montana. They claimed that American soldiers led by a Colonel Baker had slaughtered 173 Indians, of which ninety were women and fifty were children under the age of twelve.
In the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 14th Ellen Swayle brought a summons against Margaret Birchall for assaulting her in Parr. Ellen said they'd met in the street and Margaret had told her she wanted an explanation for the "undaycent" names (as the St Helens Newspaper put it) that she had previously called her. The name-calling was denied but that wasn't good enough for Margaret Birchall who proceeded to launch an assault on Ellen for which she was bound over for a month.
I do wonder if the poor education that many people received during the mid-19th century led to them having no common sense? A surprisingly high number of defendants appeared in court after suddenly quitting their lodgings and taking other people's stuff with them. Did they not realise that they'd be the number one suspect? William White was one of these brainless thieves having lodged at George Farrimond's mother's house in Rainford.
The miner had seen his watch safe in his room in the morning before going to the pit but upon his return found his precious timepiece missing. Also gone was William White. Upon checking the local pawnbrokers, the police found that Robert Gowenlock in the Market Place had taken the watch in pledge and given White 6s. 6d. for it. He pleaded guilty to the theft and was sent to Kirkdale Gaol in Liverpool for two months.
Also in court was John Howard who was a registered lodging-house keeper in Mount Street, which used to be near Liverpool Street. Such individuals had a habit of cramming people into rooms and a nuisance inspector gave evidence that he had found thirteen lodgers in the house – five more than he was allowed. Five individuals were sleeping in a single room – how many beds were in it was not stated but it wouldn't have been five! The man was fined ten shillings.
Very few people owned their own homes and tenants were obliged to give two weeks notice before vacating their house. Leaving without notice and taking their possessions with them – and thus denying their landlord the opportunity of seizing them in lieu of rent – was a serious offence. Miles Tumalty discovered this in the Petty Sessions after quitting the rented home that Thomas Barrow owned.
The man's rent was 2/6 per week and he owed Barrow the sum of ten shillings, comprising a fortnight's back rent and two weeks notice. Tumalty claimed that he had made no agreement to give notice but was told that every rent book contained such a clause and if it wasn’t in the defendant's book, it must have been torn out. The man was ordered to pay a £1 fine along with costs and if in default go to prison for one month.
Poaching or "trespassing in pursuit of game" was a common crime. John Cranshaw, Thomas Roberts, John Hanson and John and George Robinson were charged with committing such an offence on farmland owned by Sir Robert Gerard in Moss Bank. Gamekeeper John Frodsham told the hearing that he'd been tipped off about the men and so with two companions had got undercover to observe them. Frodsham managed to scare off a hare that the poachers had been chasing and then shot one of their dogs as it chased after another.
The gamekeeper from Rainford then confronted the five men and said that John Cranshaw had struck him with a half-brick. This cut him severely and as it rebounded off his head, it knocked two teeth out of the mouth of one of his assistants. Cranshaw had also been charged with the assault but the witnesses picked out different men and so his case was dismissed. The others were fined between 5 shillings and £2.
I'm used to reading references in old newspapers to folk in their fifties and sixties being described as elderly. However this advert in the St Helens Newspaper on the 15th is the first describing a person in their forties as being old. And it was self-described!: "WANTED, by an elderly Female (aged 41) a situation as GENERAL SERVANT, or to take charge of a House. – Apply at Dromgoole's Registry Office." Perhaps forty-one was considered elderly in the context of domestic staff of which most were young.
Some people had no idea how to behave in a court of law and were very excitable, talking loudly non-stop and infuriating the Bench. Such a case took place in St Helens County Court on the 15th when a woman called Jones sued another called Hicks. Few details of the actual case were revealed in the St Helens Newspaper's report, as they preferred to concentrate on the women's behaviour. It had something to do with a bedstead and a handbrush for which Mrs Jones sought damages. This is the Newspaper’s account of the proceedings:
"The plaintiff is a Welshwoman and the defendant an Irishwoman, and during the pros and cons of the case it was amusing to listen to the dialectic contrasts. While Mrs. Jones was telling her story, which she did with considerable volubility, despite her imperfect pronunciation of English, the defendant continued a persistent system of interruptions and ejaculations. It was no use to endeavour to keep her in order, much less induce her to hold her tongue.
"Once she was permitted to open the ball in her own behalf, she poured out a torrent which his Honour managed to stem, after a very great deal of difficulty, and a few threats of coercion, and she was temporarily quieted. A young woman named Warren was examined on behalf of the plaintiff, and the scene between her and the defendant was fully as chaotic as that with the plaintiff. As is customary in all cases where friendly females fall out, the adjectives were most uncomplimentary on both sides and as a second witness was being sought for, the defendant continued to jerk out her complaints.
"The registrar in vain requested her to be silent, and when, in sheer despair, he held out a threat of severity, the incorrigible woman flatly told him there was no use in his appealing to her, as she could not repress her feelings. The second witness was at last found, but she did not throw much light on the case. An order was given for the payment of 17s. 6d."
Next week's stories will include the madman in St. Anne's monastery, two women scrap like bulldogs in Pocket Nook, the depraved young girl from Napier Street, the scandalous slander charge by a Rainhill woman and the prize fighter that brutally attacked a Prescot woman.
We begin with the English Opera Company, which was performing nightly in the Town Hall in New Market Place this week. Their performances went down so well that they were persuaded to stay on for a second week.
On the 12th the St Helens Newspaper wrote that the Rivers Pollution Commissioners had issued a report about discharges from chemical works and other industries. They said the Commission had no objection to the emptying of drainage into the Mersey. Essentially that was the same as discharging into the sea and that was an acceptable means of getting rid of waste - no matter how toxic it was. However they planned to ban the effluent from such works from entering streams inland. The Newspaper wrote that this will be a "serious matter for St. Helens", as such discharges from factories were commonplace.
The Prescot Reporter published this article on the 12th about the Prescot Penny Bank, which was only opened for a short while on Saturdays to encourage saving amongst the poor: "Reference has several times been made in the columns of this paper to the almost intolerable nuisance caused to shopkeepers and others in the Market-place, by the children attracted to the Town Hall on Saturday evenings by the Prescot Penny Bank.
"On Saturday last the noise caused by the children running after one another up and down the thirty or forty steps which lead to the hall, combined with the occasional ringing of the fire bell, rendered it almost impossible for the persons in the neighbourhood to attend to business with any degree of comfort. A lot of dirty, ragged and most impertinent boys and girls made the entrance to the Town Hall into a little Pandemonium.
"It no doubt is very commendable to afford the poor, and the children of the poor, the opportunity of saving the little money which finds its way into their possession, but this could and ought to be done without disturbing the peace of the neighbourhood. Could Mr. Superintendent Fowler [the head of Prescot Police] do anything to remedy this state of things? Children of the ragged, dirty stamp of those referred to, generally “make tracks” at the sight of a policeman."
Like most other local papers, the Prescot Reporter also covered national and international news and wrote about a massacre of an Indian village in Montana. They claimed that American soldiers led by a Colonel Baker had slaughtered 173 Indians, of which ninety were women and fifty were children under the age of twelve.
In the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 14th Ellen Swayle brought a summons against Margaret Birchall for assaulting her in Parr. Ellen said they'd met in the street and Margaret had told her she wanted an explanation for the "undaycent" names (as the St Helens Newspaper put it) that she had previously called her. The name-calling was denied but that wasn't good enough for Margaret Birchall who proceeded to launch an assault on Ellen for which she was bound over for a month.
I do wonder if the poor education that many people received during the mid-19th century led to them having no common sense? A surprisingly high number of defendants appeared in court after suddenly quitting their lodgings and taking other people's stuff with them. Did they not realise that they'd be the number one suspect? William White was one of these brainless thieves having lodged at George Farrimond's mother's house in Rainford.
The miner had seen his watch safe in his room in the morning before going to the pit but upon his return found his precious timepiece missing. Also gone was William White. Upon checking the local pawnbrokers, the police found that Robert Gowenlock in the Market Place had taken the watch in pledge and given White 6s. 6d. for it. He pleaded guilty to the theft and was sent to Kirkdale Gaol in Liverpool for two months.
Also in court was John Howard who was a registered lodging-house keeper in Mount Street, which used to be near Liverpool Street. Such individuals had a habit of cramming people into rooms and a nuisance inspector gave evidence that he had found thirteen lodgers in the house – five more than he was allowed. Five individuals were sleeping in a single room – how many beds were in it was not stated but it wouldn't have been five! The man was fined ten shillings.
Very few people owned their own homes and tenants were obliged to give two weeks notice before vacating their house. Leaving without notice and taking their possessions with them – and thus denying their landlord the opportunity of seizing them in lieu of rent – was a serious offence. Miles Tumalty discovered this in the Petty Sessions after quitting the rented home that Thomas Barrow owned.
The man's rent was 2/6 per week and he owed Barrow the sum of ten shillings, comprising a fortnight's back rent and two weeks notice. Tumalty claimed that he had made no agreement to give notice but was told that every rent book contained such a clause and if it wasn’t in the defendant's book, it must have been torn out. The man was ordered to pay a £1 fine along with costs and if in default go to prison for one month.
Poaching or "trespassing in pursuit of game" was a common crime. John Cranshaw, Thomas Roberts, John Hanson and John and George Robinson were charged with committing such an offence on farmland owned by Sir Robert Gerard in Moss Bank. Gamekeeper John Frodsham told the hearing that he'd been tipped off about the men and so with two companions had got undercover to observe them. Frodsham managed to scare off a hare that the poachers had been chasing and then shot one of their dogs as it chased after another.
The gamekeeper from Rainford then confronted the five men and said that John Cranshaw had struck him with a half-brick. This cut him severely and as it rebounded off his head, it knocked two teeth out of the mouth of one of his assistants. Cranshaw had also been charged with the assault but the witnesses picked out different men and so his case was dismissed. The others were fined between 5 shillings and £2.
I'm used to reading references in old newspapers to folk in their fifties and sixties being described as elderly. However this advert in the St Helens Newspaper on the 15th is the first describing a person in their forties as being old. And it was self-described!: "WANTED, by an elderly Female (aged 41) a situation as GENERAL SERVANT, or to take charge of a House. – Apply at Dromgoole's Registry Office." Perhaps forty-one was considered elderly in the context of domestic staff of which most were young.
Some people had no idea how to behave in a court of law and were very excitable, talking loudly non-stop and infuriating the Bench. Such a case took place in St Helens County Court on the 15th when a woman called Jones sued another called Hicks. Few details of the actual case were revealed in the St Helens Newspaper's report, as they preferred to concentrate on the women's behaviour. It had something to do with a bedstead and a handbrush for which Mrs Jones sought damages. This is the Newspaper’s account of the proceedings:
"The plaintiff is a Welshwoman and the defendant an Irishwoman, and during the pros and cons of the case it was amusing to listen to the dialectic contrasts. While Mrs. Jones was telling her story, which she did with considerable volubility, despite her imperfect pronunciation of English, the defendant continued a persistent system of interruptions and ejaculations. It was no use to endeavour to keep her in order, much less induce her to hold her tongue.
"Once she was permitted to open the ball in her own behalf, she poured out a torrent which his Honour managed to stem, after a very great deal of difficulty, and a few threats of coercion, and she was temporarily quieted. A young woman named Warren was examined on behalf of the plaintiff, and the scene between her and the defendant was fully as chaotic as that with the plaintiff. As is customary in all cases where friendly females fall out, the adjectives were most uncomplimentary on both sides and as a second witness was being sought for, the defendant continued to jerk out her complaints.
"The registrar in vain requested her to be silent, and when, in sheer despair, he held out a threat of severity, the incorrigible woman flatly told him there was no use in his appealing to her, as she could not repress her feelings. The second witness was at last found, but she did not throw much light on the case. An order was given for the payment of 17s. 6d."
Next week's stories will include the madman in St. Anne's monastery, two women scrap like bulldogs in Pocket Nook, the depraved young girl from Napier Street, the scandalous slander charge by a Rainhill woman and the prize fighter that brutally attacked a Prescot woman.
This week's stories include the dirty, ragged children creating pandemonium in Prescot, the "undaycent" name-calling in Parr, the Moss Bank poaching case, the brainless lodger in Rainford and the excitable woman in St Helens County Court.
We begin with the English Opera Company, which was performing nightly in the Town Hall in New Market Place this week.
Their performances went down so well that they were persuaded to stay on for a second week.
On the 12th the St Helens Newspaper wrote that the Rivers Pollution Commissioners had issued a report about discharges from chemical works and other industries.
They said the Commission had no objection to the emptying of drainage into the Mersey.
Essentially that was the same as discharging into the sea and that was an acceptable means of getting rid of waste - no matter how toxic it was.
However they planned to ban the effluent from such works from entering streams inland.
The Newspaper wrote that this will be a "serious matter for St. Helens", as such discharges from factories were commonplace.
The Prescot Reporter published this article on the 12th about the Prescot Penny Bank, which was only opened for a short while on Saturdays to encourage saving amongst the poor:
"Reference has several times been made in the columns of this paper to the almost intolerable nuisance caused to shopkeepers and others in the Market-place, by the children attracted to the Town Hall on Saturday evenings by the Prescot Penny Bank.
"On Saturday last the noise caused by the children running after one another up and down the thirty or forty steps which lead to the hall, combined with the occasional ringing of the fire bell, rendered it almost impossible for the persons in the neighbourhood to attend to business with any degree of comfort.
"A lot of dirty, ragged and most impertinent boys and girls made the entrance to the Town Hall into a little Pandemonium.
"It no doubt is very commendable to afford the poor, and the children of the poor, the opportunity of saving the little money which finds its way into their possession, but this could and ought to be done without disturbing the peace of the neighbourhood.
"Could Mr. Superintendent Fowler [head of Prescot Police] do anything to remedy this state of things? Children of the ragged, dirty stamp of those referred to, generally “make tracks” at the sight of a policeman."
Like most other local papers, the Prescot Reporter also covered national and international news and wrote about a massacre of an Indian village in Montana.
They claimed that American soldiers led by a Colonel Baker had slaughtered 173 Indians, of which ninety were women and fifty were children under the age of twelve.
In the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 14th Ellen Swayle brought a summons against Margaret Birchall for assaulting her in Parr.
Ellen said they'd met in the street and Margaret had told her she wanted an explanation for the "undaycent" names (as the St Helens Newspaper put it) that she had previously called her.
The name-calling was denied but that wasn't good enough for Margaret Birchall who proceeded to launch an assault on Ellen for which she was bound over for a month.
I do wonder if the poor education that many people received during the mid-19th century led to them having no common sense?
A surprisingly high number of defendants appeared in court after suddenly quitting their lodgings and taking other people's stuff with them.
Did they not realise that they'd be the number one suspect?
William White was one of these brainless thieves having lodged at George Farrimond's mother's house in Rainford.
The miner had seen his watch safe in his room in the morning before going to the pit but upon his return found his precious timepiece missing. Also gone was William White.
Upon checking the local pawnbrokers, the police found that Robert Gowenlock in the Market Place had taken the watch in pledge and given White 6s. 6d. for it.
He pleaded guilty to the theft and was sent to Kirkdale Gaol in Liverpool for two months.
Also in court was John Howard who was a registered lodging-house keeper in Mount Street, which used to be near Liverpool Street.
Such individuals had a habit of cramming people into rooms and a nuisance inspector gave evidence that he had found thirteen lodgers in the house – five more than he was allowed.
Five individuals were sleeping in a single room – how many beds were in it was not stated but it wouldn't have been five! The man was fined ten shillings.
Very few people owned their own homes and tenants were obliged to give two weeks notice before vacating their house.
Leaving without notice and taking their possessions with them – and thus denying their landlord the opportunity of seizing them in lieu of rent – was a serious offence.
Miles Tumalty discovered this in the Petty Sessions after quitting the rented home that Thomas Barrow owned.
The man's rent was 2/6 per week and he owed Barrow the sum of ten shillings, comprising a fortnight's back rent and two weeks notice.
Tumalty claimed that he had made no agreement to give notice but was told that every rent book contained such a clause and if it wasn’t in the defendant's book, it must have been torn out.
The man was ordered to pay a £1 fine along with costs and if in default go to prison for one month.
Poaching or "trespassing in pursuit of game" was a common crime.
John Cranshaw, Thomas Roberts, John Hanson and John and George Robinson were charged with committing such an offence on farmland owned by Sir Robert Gerard in Moss Bank.
Gamekeeper John Frodsham told the hearing that he'd been tipped off about the men and so with two companions had got undercover to observe them.
Frodsham managed to scare off a hare that the poachers had been chasing and then shot one of their dogs as it chased after another.
The gamekeeper from Rainford then confronted the five men and said that John Cranshaw had struck him with a half-brick.
This cut him severely and as it rebounded off his head, it knocked two teeth out of the mouth of one of his assistants.
Cranshaw had also been charged with the assault but the witnesses picked out different men and so his case was dismissed.
The others were fined between 5 shillings and £2.
I'm used to reading references in old newspapers to folk in their fifties and sixties being described as elderly.
However this advert in the St Helens Newspaper on the 15th is the first describing a person in their forties as being old. And it was self-described!:
"WANTED, by an elderly Female (aged 41) a situation as GENERAL SERVANT, or to take charge of a House. – Apply at Dromgoole's Registry Office."
Perhaps forty-one was considered elderly in the context of domestic staff of which most were young.
Some people had no idea how to behave in a court of law and were very excitable, talking loudly non-stop and infuriating the Bench.
Such a case took place in St Helens County Court on the 15th when a woman called Jones sued another called Hicks.
Few details of the actual case were revealed in the St Helens Newspaper's report, as they preferred to concentrate on the women's behaviour.
It had something to do with a bedstead and a handbrush for which Mrs Jones sought damages. This is the Newspaper’s account of the proceedings:
"The plaintiff is a Welshwoman and the defendant an Irishwoman, and during the pros and cons of the case it was amusing to listen to the dialectic contrasts.
"While Mrs. Jones was telling her story, which she did with considerable volubility, despite her imperfect pronunciation of English, the defendant continued a persistent system of interruptions and ejaculations.
"It was no use to endeavour to keep her in order, much less induce her to hold her tongue.
"Once she was permitted to open the ball in her own behalf, she poured out a torrent which his Honour managed to stem, after a very great deal of difficulty, and a few threats of coercion, and she was temporarily quieted.
"A young woman named Warren was examined on behalf of the plaintiff, and the scene between her and the defendant was fully as chaotic as that with the plaintiff.
"As is customary in all cases where friendly females fall out, the adjectives were most uncomplimentary on both sides and as a second witness was being sought for, the defendant continued to jerk out her complaints.
"The registrar in vain requested her to be silent, and when, in sheer despair, he held out a threat of severity, the incorrigible woman flatly told him there was no use in his appealing to her, as she could not repress her feelings.
"The second witness was at last found, but she did not throw much light on the case. An order was given for the payment of 17s. 6d."
Next week's stories will include the madman in St. Anne's monastery, two women scrap like bulldogs in Pocket Nook, the depraved young girl from Napier Street, the scandalous slander charge by a Rainhill woman and the prize fighter that brutally attacked a Prescot woman.
We begin with the English Opera Company, which was performing nightly in the Town Hall in New Market Place this week.
Their performances went down so well that they were persuaded to stay on for a second week.
On the 12th the St Helens Newspaper wrote that the Rivers Pollution Commissioners had issued a report about discharges from chemical works and other industries.
They said the Commission had no objection to the emptying of drainage into the Mersey.
Essentially that was the same as discharging into the sea and that was an acceptable means of getting rid of waste - no matter how toxic it was.
However they planned to ban the effluent from such works from entering streams inland.
The Newspaper wrote that this will be a "serious matter for St. Helens", as such discharges from factories were commonplace.
The Prescot Reporter published this article on the 12th about the Prescot Penny Bank, which was only opened for a short while on Saturdays to encourage saving amongst the poor:
"Reference has several times been made in the columns of this paper to the almost intolerable nuisance caused to shopkeepers and others in the Market-place, by the children attracted to the Town Hall on Saturday evenings by the Prescot Penny Bank.
"On Saturday last the noise caused by the children running after one another up and down the thirty or forty steps which lead to the hall, combined with the occasional ringing of the fire bell, rendered it almost impossible for the persons in the neighbourhood to attend to business with any degree of comfort.
"A lot of dirty, ragged and most impertinent boys and girls made the entrance to the Town Hall into a little Pandemonium.
"It no doubt is very commendable to afford the poor, and the children of the poor, the opportunity of saving the little money which finds its way into their possession, but this could and ought to be done without disturbing the peace of the neighbourhood.
"Could Mr. Superintendent Fowler [head of Prescot Police] do anything to remedy this state of things? Children of the ragged, dirty stamp of those referred to, generally “make tracks” at the sight of a policeman."
Like most other local papers, the Prescot Reporter also covered national and international news and wrote about a massacre of an Indian village in Montana.
They claimed that American soldiers led by a Colonel Baker had slaughtered 173 Indians, of which ninety were women and fifty were children under the age of twelve.
In the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 14th Ellen Swayle brought a summons against Margaret Birchall for assaulting her in Parr.
Ellen said they'd met in the street and Margaret had told her she wanted an explanation for the "undaycent" names (as the St Helens Newspaper put it) that she had previously called her.
The name-calling was denied but that wasn't good enough for Margaret Birchall who proceeded to launch an assault on Ellen for which she was bound over for a month.
I do wonder if the poor education that many people received during the mid-19th century led to them having no common sense?
A surprisingly high number of defendants appeared in court after suddenly quitting their lodgings and taking other people's stuff with them.
Did they not realise that they'd be the number one suspect?
William White was one of these brainless thieves having lodged at George Farrimond's mother's house in Rainford.
The miner had seen his watch safe in his room in the morning before going to the pit but upon his return found his precious timepiece missing. Also gone was William White.
Upon checking the local pawnbrokers, the police found that Robert Gowenlock in the Market Place had taken the watch in pledge and given White 6s. 6d. for it.
He pleaded guilty to the theft and was sent to Kirkdale Gaol in Liverpool for two months.
Also in court was John Howard who was a registered lodging-house keeper in Mount Street, which used to be near Liverpool Street.
Such individuals had a habit of cramming people into rooms and a nuisance inspector gave evidence that he had found thirteen lodgers in the house – five more than he was allowed.
Five individuals were sleeping in a single room – how many beds were in it was not stated but it wouldn't have been five! The man was fined ten shillings.
Very few people owned their own homes and tenants were obliged to give two weeks notice before vacating their house.
Leaving without notice and taking their possessions with them – and thus denying their landlord the opportunity of seizing them in lieu of rent – was a serious offence.
Miles Tumalty discovered this in the Petty Sessions after quitting the rented home that Thomas Barrow owned.
The man's rent was 2/6 per week and he owed Barrow the sum of ten shillings, comprising a fortnight's back rent and two weeks notice.
Tumalty claimed that he had made no agreement to give notice but was told that every rent book contained such a clause and if it wasn’t in the defendant's book, it must have been torn out.
The man was ordered to pay a £1 fine along with costs and if in default go to prison for one month.
Poaching or "trespassing in pursuit of game" was a common crime.
John Cranshaw, Thomas Roberts, John Hanson and John and George Robinson were charged with committing such an offence on farmland owned by Sir Robert Gerard in Moss Bank.
Gamekeeper John Frodsham told the hearing that he'd been tipped off about the men and so with two companions had got undercover to observe them.
Frodsham managed to scare off a hare that the poachers had been chasing and then shot one of their dogs as it chased after another.
The gamekeeper from Rainford then confronted the five men and said that John Cranshaw had struck him with a half-brick.
This cut him severely and as it rebounded off his head, it knocked two teeth out of the mouth of one of his assistants.
Cranshaw had also been charged with the assault but the witnesses picked out different men and so his case was dismissed.
The others were fined between 5 shillings and £2.
I'm used to reading references in old newspapers to folk in their fifties and sixties being described as elderly.
However this advert in the St Helens Newspaper on the 15th is the first describing a person in their forties as being old. And it was self-described!:
"WANTED, by an elderly Female (aged 41) a situation as GENERAL SERVANT, or to take charge of a House. – Apply at Dromgoole's Registry Office."
Perhaps forty-one was considered elderly in the context of domestic staff of which most were young.
Some people had no idea how to behave in a court of law and were very excitable, talking loudly non-stop and infuriating the Bench.
Such a case took place in St Helens County Court on the 15th when a woman called Jones sued another called Hicks.
Few details of the actual case were revealed in the St Helens Newspaper's report, as they preferred to concentrate on the women's behaviour.
It had something to do with a bedstead and a handbrush for which Mrs Jones sought damages. This is the Newspaper’s account of the proceedings:
"The plaintiff is a Welshwoman and the defendant an Irishwoman, and during the pros and cons of the case it was amusing to listen to the dialectic contrasts.
"While Mrs. Jones was telling her story, which she did with considerable volubility, despite her imperfect pronunciation of English, the defendant continued a persistent system of interruptions and ejaculations.
"It was no use to endeavour to keep her in order, much less induce her to hold her tongue.
"Once she was permitted to open the ball in her own behalf, she poured out a torrent which his Honour managed to stem, after a very great deal of difficulty, and a few threats of coercion, and she was temporarily quieted.
"A young woman named Warren was examined on behalf of the plaintiff, and the scene between her and the defendant was fully as chaotic as that with the plaintiff.
"As is customary in all cases where friendly females fall out, the adjectives were most uncomplimentary on both sides and as a second witness was being sought for, the defendant continued to jerk out her complaints.
"The registrar in vain requested her to be silent, and when, in sheer despair, he held out a threat of severity, the incorrigible woman flatly told him there was no use in his appealing to her, as she could not repress her feelings.
"The second witness was at last found, but she did not throw much light on the case. An order was given for the payment of 17s. 6d."
Next week's stories will include the madman in St. Anne's monastery, two women scrap like bulldogs in Pocket Nook, the depraved young girl from Napier Street, the scandalous slander charge by a Rainhill woman and the prize fighter that brutally attacked a Prescot woman.