150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 17 - 23 FEBRRUARY 1875
This week's many stories include the Valentine mania in St Helens, the high level of infant mortality, the claim of cruelty to an exhausted bull, the brainless Liverpool Street lodging house theft and the brutal husband from Gerards Bridge who threatened to "Corrigan" his wife.
I often mention how when St Helens Magistrates sent boys or young men to Kirkdale prison (shown above) for a short period they were also ordered to receive a birching. In the St Helens Newspaper on the 20th this description of how the punishment had been inflicted on three inmates was given in which they were tied to a frame:
"In order to have a deterrent effect upon others convicted of crimes of violence, the whole of the male prisoners under sentence for this class of offence, were brought into the central hall of the prison, where the punishment was inflicted, so that they might be spectators of it. Of the trio [James] Wilson showed the most bravado, audibly counting the strokes as they fell, and on receiving the last exclaimed “Domino;” and on being unloosed from the frame he said to the officials “If you think it has done me any good, you are much mistaken.”"
The Newspaper reflected on the extraordinary number of Valentines that had been sent this year. They said the Valentine "mania" lasted about three days in St Helens and it had been calculated that 15,360 cards had passed through the Post Office. That included Valentines that had come into St Helens from other towns; cards posted from St Helens to other places and Valentine cards both posted and delivered within St Helens.
The figure had been produced by knowing the average mail on each of those three days of the week and working out the excess, which were assumed to be Valentine cards. Of course, some senders might have bypassed the post and delivered their cards by hand and so the total could even be higher. Commenting on the large volume of cards sent into St Helens – and with a nod to the Pagan origins of Valentines Day – the Newspaper said the "bewitching beauties" of St Helens might now claim to be the greatest attraction that the town can boast.
Many families in St Helens had to share a yard that they might use for their water supply and for hanging out their washing. Such communal arrangements caused many a row with some of the squabbling neighbours ending up in court. On the 22nd Martha Kaye summoned Ellen Thomas to the St Helens Petty Sessions, accusing her neighbour in Peasley Cross of using threatening language towards her.
The two women had rowed after Martha's husband had come home and found Ellen Thomas's clothesline crossing his wife's and so he had decided to chop it down. Understandably, Ellen was not best chuffed at that and so she and Martha went at each other hammer and tongs. It sounds like trouble had been brewing between the two families for some time and the magistrates decided it was six of one and half a dozen of the other and dismissed the case.
There were some more depressing mortality figures released this week, which revealed that in the quarter ending December 20th 1874, 451 people had died in St Helens. Of that number more than half of the deaths (259) had been aged under 5. During the corresponding period in 1873 there had been 349 deaths, with the excess blamed on high numbers of bronchitis and scarlet fever cases.
The St Helens Newspaper in its analysis of the stats was concerned that Parr had double the number of deaths of scarlet fever as Eccleston, which they blamed on Parr's housing conditions, writing:
"The figures we have given above certainly appear very startling, and may no doubt cause many of our readers to ask whether it be not possible to do something to arrest this fearful rate of mortality, especially amongst those classes of disease which are of an infectious character. We think it must be patent to every one that the present wretched state of many of the habitations of the working classes, and their being so excessively overcrowded, has a great deal to do with it, and as a preventative, therefore, it seems imperative that immediate steps should be taken to improve them."
Animals being walked through the streets of St Helens used to be a common sight. They might be being escorted to market or a slaughterhouse or transferred to another farmer. William Burrows and Edward Forshaw appear to have been driving a bull through St Helens as the result of it being sold to a butcher. The pair appeared in court on the 22nd charged with cruelly ill-treating the animal after Robert Dagnall had made a complaint.
The furniture broker from Liverpool Road told magistrates that he had seen the animal being driven down the street in an exhausted state. Upon the bull collapsing, the men had pulled the ring that had been inserted through its nose and twisted its tail to try and persuade the animal to stand up. Being unsuccessful they next got a bucket of cold water and threw it over the bull's head.
Later, Inspector Whiteside inspected the animal in a stable belonging to Mr Billington, a butcher in Bridge Street. He told the court that the animal was bleeding from the nostrils, but not from where the ring was inserted. The solicitor for the two men submitted that no cruelty had been used, claiming it did not hurt a bull to ring its nose or twist its tail. Just how he knew that, I cannot say!
He said his clients had done all they could to recover the animal from its exhausted condition and the bucket of water had mainly been brought in to give the animal a drink. The magistrates said there was some doubt over whether any cruelty had been inflicted and so decided to dismiss the case.
There was yet another example this week of a lodger stealing articles from the place where they'd been staying. It was a brainless crime as the person's sudden departure from the house and the loss of certain items would quickly be connected. They would become the prime suspect and as they rarely went far, the person would soon be arrested and almost always sent to prison. That was the fate of Catherine Winterbottom who appeared in court charged with stealing a pair of boots and a shawl.
The young woman had spent a week lodging at Bridget Ward's house in Liverpool Street in Greenbank and when she'd left had taken the items in question with her. The boots belonged to a fellow lodger and the shawl was the property of Mrs Ward. In her defence Catherine claimed that the boots had been lent to her to get married in but when arrested she was still single and wearing the boots. The silly woman was sent to prison for two months.
Edward Scott appeared in court on the 26th charged with unlawfully assaulting his wife Margaret. That charge suggests that a man could lawfully assault his wife – which is correct. Husbands were allowed in law to "chastise" their spouse for some misdemeanour that the woman was accused of having committed. But neither the punishment, nor the type of supposed offence, ever seemed to have been defined. Although knocking your wife to the floor and then giving her a kicking was certainly seen as having gone beyond the boundaries of legal chastisement.
Despite Edward and Margaret having been married for two years, they had only lived together for six months due to Edward's behaviour. At the time of the most recent assault, they had been living in Victoria Street in Gerards Bridge. Mrs Scott's solicitor told the court that:
"The husband is a lazy, idle fellow. On Sunday morning last, the defendant went to his mother's house in the same street, and when he came home without saying a word he commenced beating his wife by knocking her down and kicking her two or three times. He also struck her three or four times in the face, which discoloured it, as also her eyes.
"The complainant thinking his mother had said something to him she went to the house to ask her about it, when the defendant met her in the street and began striking her again, although she had her baby in her arms." Hearing that Margaret was taking out a summons against him, Scott had sharpened a knife in front of his wife's face and said that if any policeman came to serve the summons on him, he would "Corrigan" both him and her.
Thomas Corrigan was a man who had attained considerable notoriety for murdering his mother and last year had been executed at Liverpool. The magistrates said it was a very bad case but only gave Scott 14 days in prison. Although they did say that when the brutal husband came out of Kirkdale Gaol, he had to find sureties to keep the peace for six months or be further imprisoned.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the suspicious death of a baby, the foolish fare dodging at the station, the kinny cat played at Rainford and the mother of a future St Helens MP attacks the man she blamed for her husband's death.
"In order to have a deterrent effect upon others convicted of crimes of violence, the whole of the male prisoners under sentence for this class of offence, were brought into the central hall of the prison, where the punishment was inflicted, so that they might be spectators of it. Of the trio [James] Wilson showed the most bravado, audibly counting the strokes as they fell, and on receiving the last exclaimed “Domino;” and on being unloosed from the frame he said to the officials “If you think it has done me any good, you are much mistaken.”"
The Newspaper reflected on the extraordinary number of Valentines that had been sent this year. They said the Valentine "mania" lasted about three days in St Helens and it had been calculated that 15,360 cards had passed through the Post Office. That included Valentines that had come into St Helens from other towns; cards posted from St Helens to other places and Valentine cards both posted and delivered within St Helens.
The figure had been produced by knowing the average mail on each of those three days of the week and working out the excess, which were assumed to be Valentine cards. Of course, some senders might have bypassed the post and delivered their cards by hand and so the total could even be higher. Commenting on the large volume of cards sent into St Helens – and with a nod to the Pagan origins of Valentines Day – the Newspaper said the "bewitching beauties" of St Helens might now claim to be the greatest attraction that the town can boast.
Many families in St Helens had to share a yard that they might use for their water supply and for hanging out their washing. Such communal arrangements caused many a row with some of the squabbling neighbours ending up in court. On the 22nd Martha Kaye summoned Ellen Thomas to the St Helens Petty Sessions, accusing her neighbour in Peasley Cross of using threatening language towards her.
The two women had rowed after Martha's husband had come home and found Ellen Thomas's clothesline crossing his wife's and so he had decided to chop it down. Understandably, Ellen was not best chuffed at that and so she and Martha went at each other hammer and tongs. It sounds like trouble had been brewing between the two families for some time and the magistrates decided it was six of one and half a dozen of the other and dismissed the case.
There were some more depressing mortality figures released this week, which revealed that in the quarter ending December 20th 1874, 451 people had died in St Helens. Of that number more than half of the deaths (259) had been aged under 5. During the corresponding period in 1873 there had been 349 deaths, with the excess blamed on high numbers of bronchitis and scarlet fever cases.
The St Helens Newspaper in its analysis of the stats was concerned that Parr had double the number of deaths of scarlet fever as Eccleston, which they blamed on Parr's housing conditions, writing:
"The figures we have given above certainly appear very startling, and may no doubt cause many of our readers to ask whether it be not possible to do something to arrest this fearful rate of mortality, especially amongst those classes of disease which are of an infectious character. We think it must be patent to every one that the present wretched state of many of the habitations of the working classes, and their being so excessively overcrowded, has a great deal to do with it, and as a preventative, therefore, it seems imperative that immediate steps should be taken to improve them."
Animals being walked through the streets of St Helens used to be a common sight. They might be being escorted to market or a slaughterhouse or transferred to another farmer. William Burrows and Edward Forshaw appear to have been driving a bull through St Helens as the result of it being sold to a butcher. The pair appeared in court on the 22nd charged with cruelly ill-treating the animal after Robert Dagnall had made a complaint.
The furniture broker from Liverpool Road told magistrates that he had seen the animal being driven down the street in an exhausted state. Upon the bull collapsing, the men had pulled the ring that had been inserted through its nose and twisted its tail to try and persuade the animal to stand up. Being unsuccessful they next got a bucket of cold water and threw it over the bull's head.
Later, Inspector Whiteside inspected the animal in a stable belonging to Mr Billington, a butcher in Bridge Street. He told the court that the animal was bleeding from the nostrils, but not from where the ring was inserted. The solicitor for the two men submitted that no cruelty had been used, claiming it did not hurt a bull to ring its nose or twist its tail. Just how he knew that, I cannot say!
He said his clients had done all they could to recover the animal from its exhausted condition and the bucket of water had mainly been brought in to give the animal a drink. The magistrates said there was some doubt over whether any cruelty had been inflicted and so decided to dismiss the case.
There was yet another example this week of a lodger stealing articles from the place where they'd been staying. It was a brainless crime as the person's sudden departure from the house and the loss of certain items would quickly be connected. They would become the prime suspect and as they rarely went far, the person would soon be arrested and almost always sent to prison. That was the fate of Catherine Winterbottom who appeared in court charged with stealing a pair of boots and a shawl.
The young woman had spent a week lodging at Bridget Ward's house in Liverpool Street in Greenbank and when she'd left had taken the items in question with her. The boots belonged to a fellow lodger and the shawl was the property of Mrs Ward. In her defence Catherine claimed that the boots had been lent to her to get married in but when arrested she was still single and wearing the boots. The silly woman was sent to prison for two months.
Edward Scott appeared in court on the 26th charged with unlawfully assaulting his wife Margaret. That charge suggests that a man could lawfully assault his wife – which is correct. Husbands were allowed in law to "chastise" their spouse for some misdemeanour that the woman was accused of having committed. But neither the punishment, nor the type of supposed offence, ever seemed to have been defined. Although knocking your wife to the floor and then giving her a kicking was certainly seen as having gone beyond the boundaries of legal chastisement.
Despite Edward and Margaret having been married for two years, they had only lived together for six months due to Edward's behaviour. At the time of the most recent assault, they had been living in Victoria Street in Gerards Bridge. Mrs Scott's solicitor told the court that:
"The husband is a lazy, idle fellow. On Sunday morning last, the defendant went to his mother's house in the same street, and when he came home without saying a word he commenced beating his wife by knocking her down and kicking her two or three times. He also struck her three or four times in the face, which discoloured it, as also her eyes.
"The complainant thinking his mother had said something to him she went to the house to ask her about it, when the defendant met her in the street and began striking her again, although she had her baby in her arms." Hearing that Margaret was taking out a summons against him, Scott had sharpened a knife in front of his wife's face and said that if any policeman came to serve the summons on him, he would "Corrigan" both him and her.
Thomas Corrigan was a man who had attained considerable notoriety for murdering his mother and last year had been executed at Liverpool. The magistrates said it was a very bad case but only gave Scott 14 days in prison. Although they did say that when the brutal husband came out of Kirkdale Gaol, he had to find sureties to keep the peace for six months or be further imprisoned.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the suspicious death of a baby, the foolish fare dodging at the station, the kinny cat played at Rainford and the mother of a future St Helens MP attacks the man she blamed for her husband's death.
This week's many stories include the Valentine mania in St Helens, the high level of infant mortality, the claim of cruelty to an exhausted bull, the brainless Liverpool Street lodging house theft and the brutal husband from Gerards Bridge who threatened to "Corrigan" his wife.
I often mention how when St Helens Magistrates sent boys or young men to Kirkdale prison (shown above) for a short period they were also ordered to receive a birching.
In the St Helens Newspaper on the 20th this description of how the punishment had been inflicted on three inmates was given in which they were tied to a frame:
"In order to have a deterrent effect upon others convicted of crimes of violence, the whole of the male prisoners under sentence for this class of offence, were brought into the central hall of the prison, where the punishment was inflicted, so that they might be spectators of it.
"Of the trio [James] Wilson showed the most bravado, audibly counting the strokes as they fell, and on receiving the last exclaimed “Domino;” and on being unloosed from the frame he said to the officials “If you think it has done me any good, you are much mistaken.”"
The Newspaper reflected on the extraordinary number of Valentines that had been sent this year.
They said the Valentine "mania" lasted about three days in St Helens and it had been calculated that 15,360 cards had passed through the Post Office.
That included Valentines that had come into St Helens from other towns; cards posted from St Helens to other places and Valentine cards both posted and delivered within St Helens.
The figure had been produced by knowing the average mail on each of those three days of the week and working out the excess, which were assumed to be Valentine cards.
Of course, some senders might have bypassed the post and delivered their cards by hand and so the total could even be higher.
Commenting on the large volume of cards sent into St Helens – and with a nod to the Pagan origins of Valentines Day – the Newspaper said the "bewitching beauties" of St Helens might now claim to be the greatest attraction that the town can boast.
Many families in St Helens had to share a yard that they might use for their water supply and for hanging out their washing.
Such communal arrangements caused many a row with some of the squabbling neighbours ending up in court.
On the 22nd Martha Kaye summoned Ellen Thomas to the St Helens Petty Sessions, accusing her neighbour in Peasley Cross of using threatening language towards her.
The two women had rowed after Martha's husband had come home and found Ellen Thomas's clothesline crossing his wife's and so he had decided to chop it down.
Understandably, Ellen was not best chuffed at that and so she and Martha went at each other hammer and tongs.
It sounds like trouble had been brewing between the two families for some time and the magistrates decided it was six of one and half a dozen of the other and dismissed the case.
There were some more depressing mortality figures released this week, which revealed that in the quarter ending December 20th 1874, 451 people had died in St Helens.
Of that number more than half of the deaths (259) had been aged under 5.
During the corresponding period in 1873 there had been 349 deaths, with the excess blamed on high numbers of bronchitis and scarlet fever cases.
The St Helens Newspaper in its analysis of the stats was concerned that Parr had double the number of deaths of scarlet fever as Eccleston, which they blamed on Parr's housing conditions, writing:
"The figures we have given above certainly appear very startling, and may no doubt cause many of our readers to ask whether it be not possible to do something to arrest this fearful rate of mortality, especially amongst those classes of disease which are of an infectious character.
"We think it must be patent to every one that the present wretched state of many of the habitations of the working classes, and their being so excessively overcrowded, has a great deal to do with it, and as a preventative, therefore, it seems imperative that immediate steps should be taken to improve them."
Animals being walked through the streets of St Helens used to be a common sight.
They might be being escorted to market or a slaughterhouse or transferred to another farmer.
William Burrows and Edward Forshaw appear to have been driving a bull through St Helens as the result of it being sold to a butcher.
The pair appeared in court on the 22nd charged with cruelly ill-treating the animal after Robert Dagnall had made a complaint.
The furniture broker from Liverpool Road told magistrates that he had seen the animal being driven down the street in an exhausted state.
Upon the bull collapsing, the men had pulled the ring that had been inserted through its nose and twisted its tail to try and persuade the animal to stand up.
Being unsuccessful they next got a bucket of cold water and threw it over the bull's head.
Later, Inspector Whiteside inspected the animal in a stable belonging to Mr Billington, a butcher in Bridge Street. He told the court that the animal was bleeding from the nostrils, but not from where the ring was inserted.
The solicitor for the two men submitted that no cruelty had been used, claiming it did not hurt a bull to ring its nose or twist its tail. Just how he knew that, I cannot say!
He said his clients had done all they could to recover the animal from its exhausted condition and the bucket of water had mainly been brought in to give the animal a drink.
The magistrates said there was some doubt over whether any cruelty had been inflicted and so decided to dismiss the case.
There was yet another example this week of a lodger stealing articles from the place where they'd been staying.
It was a brainless crime as the person's sudden departure from the house and the loss of certain items would quickly be connected.
They would become the prime suspect and as they rarely went far, the person would soon be arrested and almost always sent to prison.
That was the fate of Catherine Winterbottom who appeared in court charged with stealing a pair of boots and a shawl.
The young woman had spent a week lodging at Bridget Ward's house in Liverpool Street in Greenbank and when she'd left had taken the items in question with her.
The boots belonged to a fellow lodger and the shawl was the property of Mrs Ward.
In her defence Catherine claimed that the boots had been lent to her to get married in but when arrested she was still single and wearing the boots. The silly woman was sent to prison for two months.
Edward Scott appeared in court on the 26th charged with unlawfully assaulting his wife Margaret.
That charge suggests that a man could lawfully assault his wife – which is correct.
Husbands were allowed in law to "chastise" their spouse for some misdemeanour that the woman was accused of having committed.
But neither the punishment, nor the type of supposed offence, ever seemed to have been defined.
Although knocking your wife to the floor and then giving her a kicking was certainly seen as having gone beyond the boundaries of legal chastisement.
Despite Edward and Margaret having been married for two years, they had only lived together for six months due to Edward's behaviour.
At the time of the most recent assault, they had been living in Victoria Street in Gerards Bridge. Mrs Scott's solicitor told the court that:
"The husband is a lazy, idle fellow. On Sunday morning last, the defendant went to his mother's house in the same street, and when he came home without saying a word he commenced beating his wife by knocking her down and kicking her two or three times.
"He also struck her three or four times in the face, which discoloured it, as also her eyes.
"The complainant thinking his mother had said something to him she went to the house to ask her about it, when the defendant met her in the street and began striking her again, although she had her baby in her arms."
Hearing that Margaret was taking out a summons against him, Scott had sharpened a knife in front of his wife's face and said that if any policeman came to serve the summons on him, he would "Corrigan" both him and her.
Thomas Corrigan was a man who had attained considerable notoriety for murdering his mother and last year had been executed at Liverpool.
The magistrates said it was a very bad case but only gave Scott 14 days in prison.
Although they did say that when the brutal husband came out of Kirkdale Gaol, he had to find sureties to keep the peace for six months or be further imprisoned.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the suspicious death of a baby, the foolish fare dodging at the station, the kinny cat played at Rainford and the mother of a future St Helens MP attacks the man she blamed for her husband's death.
In the St Helens Newspaper on the 20th this description of how the punishment had been inflicted on three inmates was given in which they were tied to a frame:
"In order to have a deterrent effect upon others convicted of crimes of violence, the whole of the male prisoners under sentence for this class of offence, were brought into the central hall of the prison, where the punishment was inflicted, so that they might be spectators of it.
"Of the trio [James] Wilson showed the most bravado, audibly counting the strokes as they fell, and on receiving the last exclaimed “Domino;” and on being unloosed from the frame he said to the officials “If you think it has done me any good, you are much mistaken.”"
The Newspaper reflected on the extraordinary number of Valentines that had been sent this year.
They said the Valentine "mania" lasted about three days in St Helens and it had been calculated that 15,360 cards had passed through the Post Office.
That included Valentines that had come into St Helens from other towns; cards posted from St Helens to other places and Valentine cards both posted and delivered within St Helens.
The figure had been produced by knowing the average mail on each of those three days of the week and working out the excess, which were assumed to be Valentine cards.
Of course, some senders might have bypassed the post and delivered their cards by hand and so the total could even be higher.
Commenting on the large volume of cards sent into St Helens – and with a nod to the Pagan origins of Valentines Day – the Newspaper said the "bewitching beauties" of St Helens might now claim to be the greatest attraction that the town can boast.
Many families in St Helens had to share a yard that they might use for their water supply and for hanging out their washing.
Such communal arrangements caused many a row with some of the squabbling neighbours ending up in court.
On the 22nd Martha Kaye summoned Ellen Thomas to the St Helens Petty Sessions, accusing her neighbour in Peasley Cross of using threatening language towards her.
The two women had rowed after Martha's husband had come home and found Ellen Thomas's clothesline crossing his wife's and so he had decided to chop it down.
Understandably, Ellen was not best chuffed at that and so she and Martha went at each other hammer and tongs.
It sounds like trouble had been brewing between the two families for some time and the magistrates decided it was six of one and half a dozen of the other and dismissed the case.
There were some more depressing mortality figures released this week, which revealed that in the quarter ending December 20th 1874, 451 people had died in St Helens.
Of that number more than half of the deaths (259) had been aged under 5.
During the corresponding period in 1873 there had been 349 deaths, with the excess blamed on high numbers of bronchitis and scarlet fever cases.
The St Helens Newspaper in its analysis of the stats was concerned that Parr had double the number of deaths of scarlet fever as Eccleston, which they blamed on Parr's housing conditions, writing:
"The figures we have given above certainly appear very startling, and may no doubt cause many of our readers to ask whether it be not possible to do something to arrest this fearful rate of mortality, especially amongst those classes of disease which are of an infectious character.
"We think it must be patent to every one that the present wretched state of many of the habitations of the working classes, and their being so excessively overcrowded, has a great deal to do with it, and as a preventative, therefore, it seems imperative that immediate steps should be taken to improve them."
Animals being walked through the streets of St Helens used to be a common sight.
They might be being escorted to market or a slaughterhouse or transferred to another farmer.
William Burrows and Edward Forshaw appear to have been driving a bull through St Helens as the result of it being sold to a butcher.
The pair appeared in court on the 22nd charged with cruelly ill-treating the animal after Robert Dagnall had made a complaint.
The furniture broker from Liverpool Road told magistrates that he had seen the animal being driven down the street in an exhausted state.
Upon the bull collapsing, the men had pulled the ring that had been inserted through its nose and twisted its tail to try and persuade the animal to stand up.
Being unsuccessful they next got a bucket of cold water and threw it over the bull's head.
Later, Inspector Whiteside inspected the animal in a stable belonging to Mr Billington, a butcher in Bridge Street. He told the court that the animal was bleeding from the nostrils, but not from where the ring was inserted.
The solicitor for the two men submitted that no cruelty had been used, claiming it did not hurt a bull to ring its nose or twist its tail. Just how he knew that, I cannot say!
He said his clients had done all they could to recover the animal from its exhausted condition and the bucket of water had mainly been brought in to give the animal a drink.
The magistrates said there was some doubt over whether any cruelty had been inflicted and so decided to dismiss the case.
There was yet another example this week of a lodger stealing articles from the place where they'd been staying.
It was a brainless crime as the person's sudden departure from the house and the loss of certain items would quickly be connected.
They would become the prime suspect and as they rarely went far, the person would soon be arrested and almost always sent to prison.
That was the fate of Catherine Winterbottom who appeared in court charged with stealing a pair of boots and a shawl.
The young woman had spent a week lodging at Bridget Ward's house in Liverpool Street in Greenbank and when she'd left had taken the items in question with her.
The boots belonged to a fellow lodger and the shawl was the property of Mrs Ward.
In her defence Catherine claimed that the boots had been lent to her to get married in but when arrested she was still single and wearing the boots. The silly woman was sent to prison for two months.
Edward Scott appeared in court on the 26th charged with unlawfully assaulting his wife Margaret.
That charge suggests that a man could lawfully assault his wife – which is correct.
Husbands were allowed in law to "chastise" their spouse for some misdemeanour that the woman was accused of having committed.
But neither the punishment, nor the type of supposed offence, ever seemed to have been defined.
Although knocking your wife to the floor and then giving her a kicking was certainly seen as having gone beyond the boundaries of legal chastisement.
Despite Edward and Margaret having been married for two years, they had only lived together for six months due to Edward's behaviour.
At the time of the most recent assault, they had been living in Victoria Street in Gerards Bridge. Mrs Scott's solicitor told the court that:
"The husband is a lazy, idle fellow. On Sunday morning last, the defendant went to his mother's house in the same street, and when he came home without saying a word he commenced beating his wife by knocking her down and kicking her two or three times.
"He also struck her three or four times in the face, which discoloured it, as also her eyes.
"The complainant thinking his mother had said something to him she went to the house to ask her about it, when the defendant met her in the street and began striking her again, although she had her baby in her arms."
Hearing that Margaret was taking out a summons against him, Scott had sharpened a knife in front of his wife's face and said that if any policeman came to serve the summons on him, he would "Corrigan" both him and her.
Thomas Corrigan was a man who had attained considerable notoriety for murdering his mother and last year had been executed at Liverpool.
The magistrates said it was a very bad case but only gave Scott 14 days in prison.
Although they did say that when the brutal husband came out of Kirkdale Gaol, he had to find sureties to keep the peace for six months or be further imprisoned.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the suspicious death of a baby, the foolish fare dodging at the station, the kinny cat played at Rainford and the mother of a future St Helens MP attacks the man she blamed for her husband's death.