150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (11th - 17th NOVEMBER 1869)
This week's stories include a murder of a St Helens milkman, a boiler explosion at Ravenhead, the abomination of boys in coal mines, a claim of attempted rape in Thatto Heath, the bad state of Warrington New Road and the perils of a bus journey from Prescot to St Helens.
We start on the 11th when a new drill hall belonging to the Second Lancashire Engineers at Combshop Brow in Eccleston was opened with a grand military ball. The St Helens Newspaper described the preparations as "being on a scale of magnitude probably unprecedented in St. Helens." The Manchester Quadrille Band performed at the event to a large attendance, with tickets expensively priced at 6 shillings for men and 4 shillings for ladies.
There was a boiler explosion at the pottery works of Horn and Kelly at Ravenhead on the same day in which a number of workmen had miraculous escapes. The 25ft. long boiler was in a shed and the explosion brought down its outer wall and part of the roof. Several men were working in the shed at the time and one was buried under the debris and one or two others received minor injuries after being struck by flying bricks.
Two huge pieces of the boiler – that were each at least a ton in weight – were projected 30 yards by the blast and large sheets of iron were strewn over the field in which the shed was situated. The Prescot Reporter wrote: "It seems perfectly wonderful how the men escaped maiming or death in such a scene."
A farmer from Great Sankey called Samuel Gleave was killed during the morning of the 11th while on his way into St Helens to deliver milk. The 45-year-old was discovered in his horse and cart at his nephew's farm in Burtonwood, having been shot from behind.
His pony had veered off the normal route into St Helens in order to take his master to his relative. Gleave was said to have quarrelled with several people and it was felt that one of these might have been responsible for the crime. The farmer's family put up the huge sum of £200 for information on the killing.
There was another meeting of miners in the White Lion in Church Street (at the corner of Hall Street) during the evening of the 11th. The speaker was again William Pickard from Wigan who called for every collier to "buckle on his armour for the struggle", criticising the indifference shown by many Lancashire miners in improving their rights.
The 47-year-old miners' agent argued that if the colliers of the county were united, they would not only achieve a wage increase but also be able to remove many injustices. These included delays in getting paid and having themselves to pay for the picks, spades and gunpowder that they used in their work.
Pickard also referred to a campaign to get a law passed that would ban boys as young as ten from being made to work underground for more than 50 hours a week. He labelled the present limitless system an "abomination" and also wanted boys to go to school for at least six hours a week. In conclusion Mr Pickard begged all the men of the St Helens district to "join together in one common bond of union" in order to achieve their aims.
The St Helens Newspaper was published on the 13th and gave an account of the most recent Town Council meeting in which Councillor Greenough had complained of the state of Warrington New Road. He said it was the worst street in the borough and Cllr. Hibbert agreed that it was in a disgraceful condition. After some discussion it was decided to write to the railway company to get their agreement to repair the road.
Greenough said the company would take "no notice of anything unless it came from a public body or a gentleman like me. They know I would fight them if they were as big as Goliath." Eight years later the big-headed Joseph Greenough would be sent to prison for a year after trying to evict his tenants on Parr Moss by destroying their house!
The Prescot Reporter was also published on the 13th and printed an account of a bus journey by a man using the pseudonym "Traveller" that was reprinted from the Liverpool Mercury: "Yesterday, leaving Prescot by the nine a.m. 'bus for St. Helens, a grey mare, sent here a few weeks ago to complete her education, commenced the morning's performance by a vigorous onslaught with her heels upon the front of the 'bus, and shortly before reaching Portico Chapel kicked over the bar.
"This caused a considerable commotion, many of the passengers, amongst them several well-dressed women with infants in their arms, getting out of the 'bus in a state of alarm, the women standing in the rain, trembling with fear and cold. The beast, entangled amongst the harness, traces, &c., kicked furiously, and fell, rolling about on the highway, whilst the other horses (one of them bleeding at the nose) stood quietly enough with the broken harness straggling about them.
"Having managed somehow to put the team together, we reached St. Helens about ten o’clock, the mare occasionally kicking the front of the 'bus. Three miles and a half in an hour!" The correspondent then described what happened during the evening when the bus arrived at the Red Lion at the top of Bridge Street (pictured above) for the return trip to Prescot: "The mare darted backwards and sideways, lashed out in all directions. In this manner she stamped, kicked, and fought, the sweat pouring out of her amid a cloud of steam, as a bystander observed, “like a mad tiger”.
"I protest, in the name of the public, against this system of converting the road from Prescot to St. Helens into a training ground for vicious horses from Liverpool. Of course, the horses do not have it all their own way: they have to be fought with, kicked, and beaten, (two men armed with thick sticks accompanied us this morning for that purpose)."
The Prescot Reporter was also celebrating its tenth birthday having been founded on November 12th 1859. Like many other early newspapers, its late proprietor had lost money for several years as costs were heavy and the public needed persuading of the merits of purchasing a paper.
The St Helens Petty Sessions were held on the 15th in which Susannah Norman was charged with vagrancy. A constable told the Bench that he'd seen the woman beat her daughter because she hadn't got any money off the people she'd been sent to beg from. Susannah Norman was sent to prison for 14 days.
A tramp called John Ellison was charged with stealing a pair of trousers belonging to John Ashton. The latter had left his pants in a colliery cabin at Sutton Heath and after finding them missing saw Ellison wearing them in Liverpool Road. The St Helens Newspaper said he "deprived him of his spoil in a very brief space of time". Ellison pleaded guilty and was sent to prison for two months with hard labour.
However the most serious charges at the Petty Sessions were of attempted rape on a woman named Mary Lynes at Thatto Heath and of robbing her of a gold ring. The two defendants were James Ashton and William Hilton but they claimed mistaken identity and had twenty witnesses in court to back them up.
Robert Lyon kept the British Lion beerhouse in Lugsmore Lane and said Mary Lynes was drunk when she came into his house and had mistaken another man for James Ashton. Mary claimed Hilton and Ashton had both been in the beerhouse and had offered to see her home safely but then attacked her on the journey. But the landlord said neither of the two prisoners had been in his house during that evening. They both had strong alibis and so the Bench dismissed the case.
There was another shocking colliery explosion on the 15th, which took the lives of 27 men and boys in the no. 5 pit of the Moss Hall Colliery Company at Platt Bridge.
For two nights from the 15th what was described as a "dramatic entertainment" called 'The Foundling of Sebastopol' was held at St Joseph's School in Peasley Cross. Twelve young ladies performed all the acting and the St Helens Newspaper in its first night review praised the costumes and concluded: "The piece throughout was tolerably well sustained." Between the scenes the choir of St Joseph's and a number of vocalists performed a programme of music to a full house.
At the Prescot Petty Sessions on the 16th, John Garton was sent to prison for two months for stealing a bottle of brandy worth six shillings from the Hope of Anchor. The man didn't even have the pleasure of drinking the brandy, as the licensee's wife had chased after him and so he smashed the bottle against a wall.
There was a quite unusual event at St Helens Town Hall on the 16th when 'Buckston's Panorama of African Scenery' was presented. The event was a mixture of lecture and a display of forty painted scenes depicting the "salient points of a journey of 20,000 miles", including the discovery of Dr Livingstone. The talk included the "customs, superstitions, religious creeds and rites, of the natives".
A tea party and ball seems an unusual combination but they were quite common in St Helens in the 1860s. Such an event was organised by Lowe House church in the Volunteer Hall on the 17th, with the tea at 6 o’clock and the dancing to a quadrille band starting at 8pm. That's a type of music performed by four couples in a rectangular formation and is not dissimilar to American square dancing. Tickets cost 2s.
Next week's stories will include the Greenbank women who put on an act in court, the drunks that died in St Helens Canal, the abused Newton servant girl who cut her throat, the council consider having their own police force, the state-of-the art steam printing in Hardshaw Street and the brick-throwing fracas at Pilks.
We start on the 11th when a new drill hall belonging to the Second Lancashire Engineers at Combshop Brow in Eccleston was opened with a grand military ball. The St Helens Newspaper described the preparations as "being on a scale of magnitude probably unprecedented in St. Helens." The Manchester Quadrille Band performed at the event to a large attendance, with tickets expensively priced at 6 shillings for men and 4 shillings for ladies.
There was a boiler explosion at the pottery works of Horn and Kelly at Ravenhead on the same day in which a number of workmen had miraculous escapes. The 25ft. long boiler was in a shed and the explosion brought down its outer wall and part of the roof. Several men were working in the shed at the time and one was buried under the debris and one or two others received minor injuries after being struck by flying bricks.
Two huge pieces of the boiler – that were each at least a ton in weight – were projected 30 yards by the blast and large sheets of iron were strewn over the field in which the shed was situated. The Prescot Reporter wrote: "It seems perfectly wonderful how the men escaped maiming or death in such a scene."
A farmer from Great Sankey called Samuel Gleave was killed during the morning of the 11th while on his way into St Helens to deliver milk. The 45-year-old was discovered in his horse and cart at his nephew's farm in Burtonwood, having been shot from behind.
His pony had veered off the normal route into St Helens in order to take his master to his relative. Gleave was said to have quarrelled with several people and it was felt that one of these might have been responsible for the crime. The farmer's family put up the huge sum of £200 for information on the killing.
There was another meeting of miners in the White Lion in Church Street (at the corner of Hall Street) during the evening of the 11th. The speaker was again William Pickard from Wigan who called for every collier to "buckle on his armour for the struggle", criticising the indifference shown by many Lancashire miners in improving their rights.
The 47-year-old miners' agent argued that if the colliers of the county were united, they would not only achieve a wage increase but also be able to remove many injustices. These included delays in getting paid and having themselves to pay for the picks, spades and gunpowder that they used in their work.
Pickard also referred to a campaign to get a law passed that would ban boys as young as ten from being made to work underground for more than 50 hours a week. He labelled the present limitless system an "abomination" and also wanted boys to go to school for at least six hours a week. In conclusion Mr Pickard begged all the men of the St Helens district to "join together in one common bond of union" in order to achieve their aims.
The St Helens Newspaper was published on the 13th and gave an account of the most recent Town Council meeting in which Councillor Greenough had complained of the state of Warrington New Road. He said it was the worst street in the borough and Cllr. Hibbert agreed that it was in a disgraceful condition. After some discussion it was decided to write to the railway company to get their agreement to repair the road.
Greenough said the company would take "no notice of anything unless it came from a public body or a gentleman like me. They know I would fight them if they were as big as Goliath." Eight years later the big-headed Joseph Greenough would be sent to prison for a year after trying to evict his tenants on Parr Moss by destroying their house!
"This caused a considerable commotion, many of the passengers, amongst them several well-dressed women with infants in their arms, getting out of the 'bus in a state of alarm, the women standing in the rain, trembling with fear and cold. The beast, entangled amongst the harness, traces, &c., kicked furiously, and fell, rolling about on the highway, whilst the other horses (one of them bleeding at the nose) stood quietly enough with the broken harness straggling about them.
"I protest, in the name of the public, against this system of converting the road from Prescot to St. Helens into a training ground for vicious horses from Liverpool. Of course, the horses do not have it all their own way: they have to be fought with, kicked, and beaten, (two men armed with thick sticks accompanied us this morning for that purpose)."
The Prescot Reporter was also celebrating its tenth birthday having been founded on November 12th 1859. Like many other early newspapers, its late proprietor had lost money for several years as costs were heavy and the public needed persuading of the merits of purchasing a paper.
The St Helens Petty Sessions were held on the 15th in which Susannah Norman was charged with vagrancy. A constable told the Bench that he'd seen the woman beat her daughter because she hadn't got any money off the people she'd been sent to beg from. Susannah Norman was sent to prison for 14 days.
A tramp called John Ellison was charged with stealing a pair of trousers belonging to John Ashton. The latter had left his pants in a colliery cabin at Sutton Heath and after finding them missing saw Ellison wearing them in Liverpool Road. The St Helens Newspaper said he "deprived him of his spoil in a very brief space of time". Ellison pleaded guilty and was sent to prison for two months with hard labour.
However the most serious charges at the Petty Sessions were of attempted rape on a woman named Mary Lynes at Thatto Heath and of robbing her of a gold ring. The two defendants were James Ashton and William Hilton but they claimed mistaken identity and had twenty witnesses in court to back them up.
Robert Lyon kept the British Lion beerhouse in Lugsmore Lane and said Mary Lynes was drunk when she came into his house and had mistaken another man for James Ashton. Mary claimed Hilton and Ashton had both been in the beerhouse and had offered to see her home safely but then attacked her on the journey. But the landlord said neither of the two prisoners had been in his house during that evening. They both had strong alibis and so the Bench dismissed the case.
There was another shocking colliery explosion on the 15th, which took the lives of 27 men and boys in the no. 5 pit of the Moss Hall Colliery Company at Platt Bridge.
For two nights from the 15th what was described as a "dramatic entertainment" called 'The Foundling of Sebastopol' was held at St Joseph's School in Peasley Cross. Twelve young ladies performed all the acting and the St Helens Newspaper in its first night review praised the costumes and concluded: "The piece throughout was tolerably well sustained." Between the scenes the choir of St Joseph's and a number of vocalists performed a programme of music to a full house.
At the Prescot Petty Sessions on the 16th, John Garton was sent to prison for two months for stealing a bottle of brandy worth six shillings from the Hope of Anchor. The man didn't even have the pleasure of drinking the brandy, as the licensee's wife had chased after him and so he smashed the bottle against a wall.
There was a quite unusual event at St Helens Town Hall on the 16th when 'Buckston's Panorama of African Scenery' was presented. The event was a mixture of lecture and a display of forty painted scenes depicting the "salient points of a journey of 20,000 miles", including the discovery of Dr Livingstone. The talk included the "customs, superstitions, religious creeds and rites, of the natives".
A tea party and ball seems an unusual combination but they were quite common in St Helens in the 1860s. Such an event was organised by Lowe House church in the Volunteer Hall on the 17th, with the tea at 6 o’clock and the dancing to a quadrille band starting at 8pm. That's a type of music performed by four couples in a rectangular formation and is not dissimilar to American square dancing. Tickets cost 2s.
Next week's stories will include the Greenbank women who put on an act in court, the drunks that died in St Helens Canal, the abused Newton servant girl who cut her throat, the council consider having their own police force, the state-of-the art steam printing in Hardshaw Street and the brick-throwing fracas at Pilks.