150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (15 - 21 MAY 1873)
This week's many stories include the 11-year-old boy sent to prison for a theft worth three-halfpence, the dead baby found in the canal, the Prescot watch movement maker who was illegally working boys at night, an attack on the honesty of fast-living St Helens shop assistants, the obscene street singer in Shaw Street and the two ticket-of-leave men that wanted to return to prison.
Charles Rigby was a well-known wheelwright who had his workshop in Crossfield Street in St Helens, near to the railway station, and is pictured on the right in the group photo above of heavyweight St Helens characters. At 3:15am on one morning this week the driver of a passing train saw that Rigby's premises were on fire and he informed a signalman who dashed to the police station with the news. The fire bell was rung and in ten minutes the Fire Brigade had assembled. Its members were then police officers who took on the additional responsibility of dealing with fires.
Soon the five police constables, an inspector and a sergeant arrived at the scene of the blaze. As there was an ample supply of water, the fire could soon be put out but about 15 feet of the length of the building was destroyed, together with timber, tools and some machinery. The fire had apparently broken out because a boiler had been left burning near to a quantity of timber and sawdust.
It was not an uncommon event for dead babies to be found floating in the canal. In fact it was the obvious place for single mothers to deposit the remains of their child that had either been stillborn or died soon after birth. The St Helens / Sankey Canal was then so deep that it could be weeks before the body was found, making it very difficult to identify the mother and learn how the child had died.
It was a criminal offence to dispose of a baby's body in such a way but many young girls felt they had no other choice, as their parents might disown them for having an illegitimate child. If they'd managed to keep their pregnancy secret and their baby had subsequently died, it made sense to them to make the heart-breaking decision to dispose of the evidence.
This week an inquest was held in the Victoria Hotel in Naylor Street in St Helens concerning the death of an unknown infant found floating in the canal two days before. A coal miner called William Roberts told the inquiry that as he was going to his work at the Alexandra Colliery, he had seen the body of the baby floating in the water. He informed the police and PC Robinson had the grisly task of removing the body and taking it to the police station. He told the inquest hearing:
"It was perfectly naked, destitute of a tie or wrap of any kind. Inquiries have been made, but no clue obtained to the maternity." Dr Lyon said the body was that of a female child that had been prematurely born. He told the hearing that the child had spent about a fortnight in the water and decomposition had set in, making further investigations difficult.
Also this week a 17-year-old girl called Elizabeth Tither from Parr was killed in the Sutton Glass Works. Her inquest at the Bulls Head Inn in Parr Stocks heard that Elizabeth was a glass polisher and had died by the crank on a polishing table striking her head.
It's hard to imagine "fast living" by young men in the 1870s on the dark streets of St Helens with few places of entertainment on offer other than pubs. But I suppose everything is relative to its time. On the 17th the editor of the St Helens Newspaper devoted many column inches in his weekly editorial criticising the dishonesty of fast-living shop assistants.
And as Bernard Dromgoole owned a couple of shops in Liverpool Road and Hardshaw Street, he presumably had some experience of the subject. This is part of what he wrote: "Fast life among young men, a few years ago, was the exception – now it appears to be the rule. Formerly, shop assistants were satisfied with small salaries, plain fare, and long hours. Then industry and honesty was the rule. Now, all is changed. Young men must have large salaries, short hours of work, and long hours at the bar parlour.
"Plain fare is no longer palatable: nightly carousing – billiards and betting, bitter beer and bad tobacco – must be had; and when the weekly stipend fails to procure these in sufficient abundance for the fast young man of the counter or the desk, recurrence is had to obtaining things on credit; and when credit is used up, then the employer's money-draw is resorted to, or the ledger is searched for outstanding accounts not likely to be suddenly called in, and these are surreptitiously made out, presented and collected, and the money thus obtained is misappropriated."
The Newspaper also provided a list of eleven recent gifts to the St Helens Cottage Hospital. The donations in kind from individuals included a chest of medicines, flowers, eight bottles of port wine, old linen and books.
A "ticket-of-leave" man was the name given to a convict released early from prison on licence. Each was issued with what might be called a "get out of jail card" and like today strict conditions were imposed on them, including reporting regularly to the police. Any breaches would lead to them being recalled to gaol to complete their sentence. I imagine few ticket-of-leavers wanted to return to prison – but Thomas Cunningham and Charles Reece did.
The pair appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions this week charged with failing to report themselves to the police as ticket-of-leave men. They had walked into a St Helens police station saying they had grown weary of rambling about the country and were anxious to return to prison. So the magistrates obliged them!
Also in court was an 11-year-old boy called Charles Harvey who was charged with stealing a cast iron window frame belonging to Thomas Kilshaw of Gerards Bridge. The lad had taken it from an old brickworks and sold it for just threehalfpence. His mother Emma told the court that she sent Charles to the Cowley School in North Road each day and couldn't understand why he had committed the theft, as she was very strict with him. The Chairman of the Bench said it would not be fair to punish the parents by fining the boy and so Charles was sent to prison for two weeks. And so a fortnight in Kirkdale Gaol for a theft that was only worth three-halfpence.
Street singers were quite common in St Helens, sometimes selling sheet music or collecting donations as they exercised their lungs. Not only could they fall foul of the begging laws; but their songs could also easily be interpreted as obscene. Patrick Hayes appeared in the court charged with singing and vending obscene songs in Shaw Street and other parts of St Helens.
Several of the songs were submitted to the Bench and they said that while they could find no sentence which was "absolutely obscene", the words were "so arranged as to suggest obscenity". Hayes pleaded to be discharged from the court promising to immediately leave town. But he was fined £1 and costs with a month's imprisonment in default.
There was another example of the miners' practice of fighting through clog kicking, which was known as "purring". Thomas Holding and Joseph Riley were charged with unlawfully wounding Martin Finn by kicking him at Parr. The police told the Bench that the injured man was currently in the workhouse hospital and not yet able to appear in court. And so a 3-day remand in custody was granted for the pair.
Military parades always attracted crowds, particularly when starting or ending long marches. On the 19th the Lancashire Hussars entered Southport after marching from Ormskirk. One of the four troops of soldiers came from St Helens and was under the command of Captain Frederick Earle.
One hundred and fifty years ago it was quite permissible for children as young as eight to be employed in workshops. However, the Workshops’ Regulations Act of 1867 had restricted 8 to 13-year-olds to half-time working and stipulated that child employees attended school for 10 hours a week. But as the average working week for adults was 70 hours, half-time working still meant youngsters could be employed for 6½ hours a day. Young children were also banned from night work but some small firms felt the rules did not apply to them.
On the 20th William Sephton appeared in Prescot Petty Sessions after being caught employing two boys at 9:20pm at night – when their legal hour of finishing was 7pm. The 1871 census describes Sephton as a "watch pinion maker master" employing one man and two boys at his Kemble Street workshop in Prescot. A factory inspector gave evidence of previously warning Sephton about his failure to comply with the law and he was fined £2 and costs.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the train smash at Sutton Oak, the Bridge Street pickpocket, criticism of the new Thatto Heath post office, the prolific wife deserter and the story of the defunct duck at Pilkingtons.
Soon the five police constables, an inspector and a sergeant arrived at the scene of the blaze. As there was an ample supply of water, the fire could soon be put out but about 15 feet of the length of the building was destroyed, together with timber, tools and some machinery. The fire had apparently broken out because a boiler had been left burning near to a quantity of timber and sawdust.
It was not an uncommon event for dead babies to be found floating in the canal. In fact it was the obvious place for single mothers to deposit the remains of their child that had either been stillborn or died soon after birth. The St Helens / Sankey Canal was then so deep that it could be weeks before the body was found, making it very difficult to identify the mother and learn how the child had died.
It was a criminal offence to dispose of a baby's body in such a way but many young girls felt they had no other choice, as their parents might disown them for having an illegitimate child. If they'd managed to keep their pregnancy secret and their baby had subsequently died, it made sense to them to make the heart-breaking decision to dispose of the evidence.
This week an inquest was held in the Victoria Hotel in Naylor Street in St Helens concerning the death of an unknown infant found floating in the canal two days before. A coal miner called William Roberts told the inquiry that as he was going to his work at the Alexandra Colliery, he had seen the body of the baby floating in the water. He informed the police and PC Robinson had the grisly task of removing the body and taking it to the police station. He told the inquest hearing:
"It was perfectly naked, destitute of a tie or wrap of any kind. Inquiries have been made, but no clue obtained to the maternity." Dr Lyon said the body was that of a female child that had been prematurely born. He told the hearing that the child had spent about a fortnight in the water and decomposition had set in, making further investigations difficult.
Also this week a 17-year-old girl called Elizabeth Tither from Parr was killed in the Sutton Glass Works. Her inquest at the Bulls Head Inn in Parr Stocks heard that Elizabeth was a glass polisher and had died by the crank on a polishing table striking her head.
It's hard to imagine "fast living" by young men in the 1870s on the dark streets of St Helens with few places of entertainment on offer other than pubs. But I suppose everything is relative to its time. On the 17th the editor of the St Helens Newspaper devoted many column inches in his weekly editorial criticising the dishonesty of fast-living shop assistants.
And as Bernard Dromgoole owned a couple of shops in Liverpool Road and Hardshaw Street, he presumably had some experience of the subject. This is part of what he wrote: "Fast life among young men, a few years ago, was the exception – now it appears to be the rule. Formerly, shop assistants were satisfied with small salaries, plain fare, and long hours. Then industry and honesty was the rule. Now, all is changed. Young men must have large salaries, short hours of work, and long hours at the bar parlour.
"Plain fare is no longer palatable: nightly carousing – billiards and betting, bitter beer and bad tobacco – must be had; and when the weekly stipend fails to procure these in sufficient abundance for the fast young man of the counter or the desk, recurrence is had to obtaining things on credit; and when credit is used up, then the employer's money-draw is resorted to, or the ledger is searched for outstanding accounts not likely to be suddenly called in, and these are surreptitiously made out, presented and collected, and the money thus obtained is misappropriated."
The Newspaper also provided a list of eleven recent gifts to the St Helens Cottage Hospital. The donations in kind from individuals included a chest of medicines, flowers, eight bottles of port wine, old linen and books.
A "ticket-of-leave" man was the name given to a convict released early from prison on licence. Each was issued with what might be called a "get out of jail card" and like today strict conditions were imposed on them, including reporting regularly to the police. Any breaches would lead to them being recalled to gaol to complete their sentence. I imagine few ticket-of-leavers wanted to return to prison – but Thomas Cunningham and Charles Reece did.
The pair appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions this week charged with failing to report themselves to the police as ticket-of-leave men. They had walked into a St Helens police station saying they had grown weary of rambling about the country and were anxious to return to prison. So the magistrates obliged them!
Also in court was an 11-year-old boy called Charles Harvey who was charged with stealing a cast iron window frame belonging to Thomas Kilshaw of Gerards Bridge. The lad had taken it from an old brickworks and sold it for just threehalfpence. His mother Emma told the court that she sent Charles to the Cowley School in North Road each day and couldn't understand why he had committed the theft, as she was very strict with him. The Chairman of the Bench said it would not be fair to punish the parents by fining the boy and so Charles was sent to prison for two weeks. And so a fortnight in Kirkdale Gaol for a theft that was only worth three-halfpence.
Street singers were quite common in St Helens, sometimes selling sheet music or collecting donations as they exercised their lungs. Not only could they fall foul of the begging laws; but their songs could also easily be interpreted as obscene. Patrick Hayes appeared in the court charged with singing and vending obscene songs in Shaw Street and other parts of St Helens.
Several of the songs were submitted to the Bench and they said that while they could find no sentence which was "absolutely obscene", the words were "so arranged as to suggest obscenity". Hayes pleaded to be discharged from the court promising to immediately leave town. But he was fined £1 and costs with a month's imprisonment in default.
There was another example of the miners' practice of fighting through clog kicking, which was known as "purring". Thomas Holding and Joseph Riley were charged with unlawfully wounding Martin Finn by kicking him at Parr. The police told the Bench that the injured man was currently in the workhouse hospital and not yet able to appear in court. And so a 3-day remand in custody was granted for the pair.
Military parades always attracted crowds, particularly when starting or ending long marches. On the 19th the Lancashire Hussars entered Southport after marching from Ormskirk. One of the four troops of soldiers came from St Helens and was under the command of Captain Frederick Earle.
One hundred and fifty years ago it was quite permissible for children as young as eight to be employed in workshops. However, the Workshops’ Regulations Act of 1867 had restricted 8 to 13-year-olds to half-time working and stipulated that child employees attended school for 10 hours a week. But as the average working week for adults was 70 hours, half-time working still meant youngsters could be employed for 6½ hours a day. Young children were also banned from night work but some small firms felt the rules did not apply to them.
On the 20th William Sephton appeared in Prescot Petty Sessions after being caught employing two boys at 9:20pm at night – when their legal hour of finishing was 7pm. The 1871 census describes Sephton as a "watch pinion maker master" employing one man and two boys at his Kemble Street workshop in Prescot. A factory inspector gave evidence of previously warning Sephton about his failure to comply with the law and he was fined £2 and costs.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the train smash at Sutton Oak, the Bridge Street pickpocket, criticism of the new Thatto Heath post office, the prolific wife deserter and the story of the defunct duck at Pilkingtons.
This week's many stories include the 11-year-old boy sent to prison for a theft worth three-halfpence, the dead baby found in the canal, the Prescot watch movement maker who was illegally working boys at night, an attack on the honesty of fast-living St Helens shop assistants, the obscene street singer in Shaw Street and the two ticket-of-leave men that wanted to return to prison.
Charles Rigby was a well-known wheelwright who had his workshop in Crossfield Street in St Helens, near to the railway station, and is pictured on the right in the group photo above of heavyweight St Helens characters.
At 3:15am on one morning this week the driver of a passing train saw that Rigby's premises were on fire and he informed a signalman who dashed to the police station with the news.
The fire bell was rung and in ten minutes the Fire Brigade had assembled. Its members were then police officers who took on the additional responsibility of dealing with fires.
Soon the five police constables, an inspector and a sergeant arrived at the scene of the blaze.
As there was an ample supply of water, the fire could soon be put out but about 15 feet of the length of the building was destroyed, together with timber, tools and some machinery.
The fire had apparently broken out because a boiler had been left burning near to a quantity of timber and sawdust.
It was not an uncommon event for dead babies to be found floating in the canal.
In fact it was the obvious place for single mothers to deposit the remains of their child that had either been stillborn or died soon after birth.
The St Helens / Sankey Canal was then so deep that it could be weeks before the body was found, making it very difficult to identify the mother and learn how the child had died.
It was a criminal offence to dispose of a baby's body in such a way but many young girls felt they had no other choice, as their parents might disown them for having an illegitimate child.
If they'd managed to keep their pregnancy secret and their baby had subsequently died, it made sense to them to make the heart-breaking decision to dispose of the evidence.
This week an inquest was held in the Victoria Hotel in Naylor Street in St Helens concerning the death of an unknown infant found floating in the canal two days before.
A coal miner called William Roberts told the inquiry that as he was going to his work at the Alexandra Colliery, he had seen the body of the baby floating in the water.
He informed the police and PC Robinson had the grisly task of removing the body and taking it to the police station. He told the inquest hearing:
"It was perfectly naked, destitute of a tie or wrap of any kind. Inquiries have been made, but no clue obtained to the maternity."
Dr Lyon said the body was that of a female child that had been prematurely born. He told the hearing that the child had spent about a fortnight in the water and decomposition had set in, making further investigations difficult.
Also this week a 17-year-old girl called Elizabeth Tither from Parr was killed in the Sutton Glass Works.
Her inquest at the Bulls Head Inn in Parr Stocks heard that Elizabeth was a glass polisher and had died by the crank on a polishing table striking her head.
It's hard to imagine "fast living" by young men in the 1870s on the dark streets of St Helens with few places of entertainment on offer other than pubs. But I suppose everything is relative to its time.
On the 17th the editor of the St Helens Newspaper devoted many column inches in his weekly editorial criticising the dishonesty of fast-living shop assistants.
And as Bernard Dromgoole owned a couple of shops in Liverpool Road and Hardshaw Street, he presumably had some experience of the subject. This is part of what he wrote:
"Fast life among young men, a few years ago, was the exception – now it appears to be the rule. Formerly, shop assistants were satisfied with small salaries, plain fare, and long hours. Then industry and honesty was the rule. Now, all is changed. Young men must have large salaries, short hours of work, and long hours at the bar parlour.
"Plain fare is no longer palatable: nightly carousing – billiards and betting, bitter beer and bad tobacco – must be had; and when the weekly stipend fails to procure these in sufficient abundance for the fast young man of the counter or the desk, recurrence is had to obtaining things on credit; and when credit is used up, then the employer's money-draw is resorted to, or the ledger is searched for outstanding accounts not likely to be suddenly called in, and these are surreptitiously made out, presented and collected, and the money thus obtained is misappropriated."
The Newspaper also provided a list of eleven recent gifts to the St Helens Cottage Hospital. The donations in kind from individuals included a chest of medicines, flowers, eight bottles of port wine, old linen and books.
A "ticket-of-leave" man was the name given to a convict released early from prison on licence.
Each was issued with what might be called a "get out of jail card" and like today strict conditions were imposed on them, including reporting regularly to the police.
Any breaches would lead to them being recalled to gaol to complete their sentence.
I imagine few ticket-of-leavers wanted to return to prison – but Thomas Cunningham and Charles Reece did.
The pair appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions this week charged with failing to report themselves to the police as ticket-of-leave men.
They had walked into a St Helens police station saying they had grown weary of rambling about the country and were anxious to return to prison. So the magistrates obliged them!
Also in court was an 11-year-old boy called Charles Harvey who was charged with stealing a cast iron window frame belonging to Thomas Kilshaw of Gerards Bridge.
The lad had taken it from an old brickworks and sold it for just threehalfpence.
His mother Emma told the court that she sent Charles to the Cowley School in North Road each day and couldn't understand why he had committed the theft, as she was very strict with him.
The Chairman of the Bench said it would not be fair to punish the parents by fining the boy and so Charles was sent to prison for two weeks.
And so a fortnight in Kirkdale Gaol for a theft that was only worth three-halfpence.
Street singers were quite common in St Helens, sometimes selling sheet music or collecting donations as they exercised their lungs.
Not only could they fall foul of the begging laws; but their songs could also easily be interpreted as obscene.
Patrick Hayes appeared in the court charged with singing and vending obscene songs in Shaw Street and other parts of St Helens.
Several of the songs were submitted to the Bench and they said that while they could find no sentence which was "absolutely obscene", the words were "so arranged as to suggest obscenity".
Hayes pleaded to be discharged from the court promising to immediately leave town. But he was fined £1 and costs with a month's imprisonment in default.
There was another example of the miners' practice of fighting through clog kicking, which was known as "purring".
Thomas Holding and Joseph Riley were charged with unlawfully wounding Martin Finn by kicking him at Parr.
The police told the Bench that the injured man was currently in the workhouse hospital and not yet able to appear in court. And so a 3-day remand in custody was granted for the pair.
Military parades always attracted crowds, particularly when starting or ending long marches.
On the 19th the Lancashire Hussars entered Southport after marching from Ormskirk.
One of the four troops of soldiers came from St Helens and was under the command of Captain Frederick Earle.
One hundred and fifty years ago it was quite permissible for children as young as eight to be employed in workshops.
However, the Workshops’ Regulations Act of 1867 had restricted 8 to 13-year-olds to half-time working and stipulated that child employees attended school for 10 hours a week.
But as the average working week for adults was 70 hours, half-time working still meant youngsters could be employed for 6½ hours a day.
Young children were also banned from night work but some small firms felt the rules did not apply to them.
On the 20th William Sephton appeared in Prescot Petty Sessions after being caught employing two boys at 9:20pm at night – when their legal hour of finishing was 7pm.
The 1871 census describes Sephton as a "watch pinion maker master" employing one man and two boys at his Kemble Street workshop in Prescot.
A factory inspector gave evidence of previously warning Sephton about his failure to comply with the law and he was fined £2 and costs.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the train smash at Sutton Oak, the Bridge Street pickpocket, criticism of the new Thatto Heath post office, the prolific wife deserter and the story of the defunct duck at Pilkingtons.
At 3:15am on one morning this week the driver of a passing train saw that Rigby's premises were on fire and he informed a signalman who dashed to the police station with the news.
The fire bell was rung and in ten minutes the Fire Brigade had assembled. Its members were then police officers who took on the additional responsibility of dealing with fires.
Soon the five police constables, an inspector and a sergeant arrived at the scene of the blaze.
As there was an ample supply of water, the fire could soon be put out but about 15 feet of the length of the building was destroyed, together with timber, tools and some machinery.
The fire had apparently broken out because a boiler had been left burning near to a quantity of timber and sawdust.
It was not an uncommon event for dead babies to be found floating in the canal.
In fact it was the obvious place for single mothers to deposit the remains of their child that had either been stillborn or died soon after birth.
The St Helens / Sankey Canal was then so deep that it could be weeks before the body was found, making it very difficult to identify the mother and learn how the child had died.
It was a criminal offence to dispose of a baby's body in such a way but many young girls felt they had no other choice, as their parents might disown them for having an illegitimate child.
If they'd managed to keep their pregnancy secret and their baby had subsequently died, it made sense to them to make the heart-breaking decision to dispose of the evidence.
This week an inquest was held in the Victoria Hotel in Naylor Street in St Helens concerning the death of an unknown infant found floating in the canal two days before.
A coal miner called William Roberts told the inquiry that as he was going to his work at the Alexandra Colliery, he had seen the body of the baby floating in the water.
He informed the police and PC Robinson had the grisly task of removing the body and taking it to the police station. He told the inquest hearing:
"It was perfectly naked, destitute of a tie or wrap of any kind. Inquiries have been made, but no clue obtained to the maternity."
Dr Lyon said the body was that of a female child that had been prematurely born. He told the hearing that the child had spent about a fortnight in the water and decomposition had set in, making further investigations difficult.
Also this week a 17-year-old girl called Elizabeth Tither from Parr was killed in the Sutton Glass Works.
Her inquest at the Bulls Head Inn in Parr Stocks heard that Elizabeth was a glass polisher and had died by the crank on a polishing table striking her head.
It's hard to imagine "fast living" by young men in the 1870s on the dark streets of St Helens with few places of entertainment on offer other than pubs. But I suppose everything is relative to its time.
On the 17th the editor of the St Helens Newspaper devoted many column inches in his weekly editorial criticising the dishonesty of fast-living shop assistants.
And as Bernard Dromgoole owned a couple of shops in Liverpool Road and Hardshaw Street, he presumably had some experience of the subject. This is part of what he wrote:
"Fast life among young men, a few years ago, was the exception – now it appears to be the rule. Formerly, shop assistants were satisfied with small salaries, plain fare, and long hours. Then industry and honesty was the rule. Now, all is changed. Young men must have large salaries, short hours of work, and long hours at the bar parlour.
"Plain fare is no longer palatable: nightly carousing – billiards and betting, bitter beer and bad tobacco – must be had; and when the weekly stipend fails to procure these in sufficient abundance for the fast young man of the counter or the desk, recurrence is had to obtaining things on credit; and when credit is used up, then the employer's money-draw is resorted to, or the ledger is searched for outstanding accounts not likely to be suddenly called in, and these are surreptitiously made out, presented and collected, and the money thus obtained is misappropriated."
The Newspaper also provided a list of eleven recent gifts to the St Helens Cottage Hospital. The donations in kind from individuals included a chest of medicines, flowers, eight bottles of port wine, old linen and books.
A "ticket-of-leave" man was the name given to a convict released early from prison on licence.
Each was issued with what might be called a "get out of jail card" and like today strict conditions were imposed on them, including reporting regularly to the police.
Any breaches would lead to them being recalled to gaol to complete their sentence.
I imagine few ticket-of-leavers wanted to return to prison – but Thomas Cunningham and Charles Reece did.
The pair appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions this week charged with failing to report themselves to the police as ticket-of-leave men.
They had walked into a St Helens police station saying they had grown weary of rambling about the country and were anxious to return to prison. So the magistrates obliged them!
Also in court was an 11-year-old boy called Charles Harvey who was charged with stealing a cast iron window frame belonging to Thomas Kilshaw of Gerards Bridge.
The lad had taken it from an old brickworks and sold it for just threehalfpence.
His mother Emma told the court that she sent Charles to the Cowley School in North Road each day and couldn't understand why he had committed the theft, as she was very strict with him.
The Chairman of the Bench said it would not be fair to punish the parents by fining the boy and so Charles was sent to prison for two weeks.
And so a fortnight in Kirkdale Gaol for a theft that was only worth three-halfpence.
Street singers were quite common in St Helens, sometimes selling sheet music or collecting donations as they exercised their lungs.
Not only could they fall foul of the begging laws; but their songs could also easily be interpreted as obscene.
Patrick Hayes appeared in the court charged with singing and vending obscene songs in Shaw Street and other parts of St Helens.
Several of the songs were submitted to the Bench and they said that while they could find no sentence which was "absolutely obscene", the words were "so arranged as to suggest obscenity".
Hayes pleaded to be discharged from the court promising to immediately leave town. But he was fined £1 and costs with a month's imprisonment in default.
There was another example of the miners' practice of fighting through clog kicking, which was known as "purring".
Thomas Holding and Joseph Riley were charged with unlawfully wounding Martin Finn by kicking him at Parr.
The police told the Bench that the injured man was currently in the workhouse hospital and not yet able to appear in court. And so a 3-day remand in custody was granted for the pair.
Military parades always attracted crowds, particularly when starting or ending long marches.
On the 19th the Lancashire Hussars entered Southport after marching from Ormskirk.
One of the four troops of soldiers came from St Helens and was under the command of Captain Frederick Earle.
One hundred and fifty years ago it was quite permissible for children as young as eight to be employed in workshops.
However, the Workshops’ Regulations Act of 1867 had restricted 8 to 13-year-olds to half-time working and stipulated that child employees attended school for 10 hours a week.
But as the average working week for adults was 70 hours, half-time working still meant youngsters could be employed for 6½ hours a day.
Young children were also banned from night work but some small firms felt the rules did not apply to them.
On the 20th William Sephton appeared in Prescot Petty Sessions after being caught employing two boys at 9:20pm at night – when their legal hour of finishing was 7pm.
The 1871 census describes Sephton as a "watch pinion maker master" employing one man and two boys at his Kemble Street workshop in Prescot.
A factory inspector gave evidence of previously warning Sephton about his failure to comply with the law and he was fined £2 and costs.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the train smash at Sutton Oak, the Bridge Street pickpocket, criticism of the new Thatto Heath post office, the prolific wife deserter and the story of the defunct duck at Pilkingtons.