150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (20th - 26th JUNE 1872)
This week's stories include the bucket of water solution to a chemical works fire, a Westfield Street brothel is raided by the police, the St Helens thunderstorm of exceptional severity and the young maniacal butcher that had to be placed in a straightjacket.
There was essentially no such a thing as false alarms to trouble the St Helens Fire Brigade in the 1870s. The telephone had yet to be invented and so mischievous hoax phone calls could not be made. And smoke alarms triggering call outs when there was no fire would not become an issue for a hundred more years. However, the horse-driven brigade could still end up wasting their time in attending to reports of fire when their services were not needed. But that was not because of false alarms – but because it took so long for them to be notified of a fire, assemble a crew and then arrive on the scene that the blaze had by then often been extinguished by others.
This was particularly so in industry. When a fire occurred at the Greenbank Alkali Works on the morning of the 20th this week they knew exactly what to do – summon men and buckets! By passing buckets of water between them and chucking its contents onto the fire, they were able to extinguish the blaze within half-an-hour. The St Helens Newspaper wrote: "Had it succeeded in gaining a firm hold, the results would have been most disastrous."
As soon as the fire had been noticed, a messenger from the chemical works had been despatched to the police station at the old town hall and to the fire station in St Mary's Street. But although the chemical works at Greenbank was not far away, the blaze was out by the time the brigade arrived and so they were not required, an experience they were very much used to. Many works in St Helens kept their own small engine for dealing with fires. However, that took time to set up and using buckets of water could often prove the quickest and most effective means of putting out a fire when time was of the essence.
Some weeks ago, a young butcher called Peter Gorman from High Street in Prescot had appeared in court charged with assaulting his mother while drunk. As the man promised to stop drinking, only a token sentence was imposed. However, on the 22nd, Prescot Police were informed of Gorman's strange conduct at his home and two officers were sent to investigate. They found the 25-year-old at an upstairs window, destroying its frame and removing bricks, with the window itself completely shattered.
The butcher threatened the officers with bricks and despite his bedroom being barricaded, the police managed to force an entry and manacle the unfortunate man. The Newspaper wrote that at the station "his conduct was that of a confirmed maniac", and so a doctor recommended his removal to the workhouse hospital by cab. On the journey to Whiston, some alarm was created to passers-by through Gorman's frantic struggles to escape.
Inside the workhouse, the female nurse placed a straightjacket on the man and, according to the Newspaper, was forced to listen to "some of the foulest language that could be uttered". Two days later Gorman was transferred to Rainhill Asylum but the 1881 census suggests Peter was by then out of the institution and living with his mother.
On the 22nd the Newspaper described how earlier in the week a thunderstorm of "exceptional severity [had] burst over this neighbourhood". The report continued: "The state of the atmosphere on Monday, surcharged with electricity, foreboded thunder, and no change being apparent on Tuesday morning, a thunderstorm of more or less violence was generally anticipated. It was not until midday, however, that its approach was heralded unmistakably. [By the evening] the rain was descending in torrents. Suddenly a dreadful clap of thunder seemed to shake heaven and earth, and rock the houses to their very foundations. The lightning flashed like sheets of fire, making night for an instant as bright as day.
"Although the storm winged a fatal and destructive course over most of the country, we are glad to be able to state that it passed harmlessly over St. Helens and vicinity. No damage has been reported, and inquiries made in various quarters lead us to believe that we have happily escaped any injury to life or property."
However, a separate report in the paper suggested that had not been the case in Prescot, as the thunderstorm had devastated the premises of joiner William Jackson. It was believed that lightning had struck the building's gas pipes and ignited the gas, causing an inferno. The fire brigade was summoned through the usual ringing of a bell at Prescot Town Hall.
Although the brigade was reported as having been quickly formed, by the time they arrived at the joiner's shop, its contents had been almost completely destroyed. The Newspaper wrote: "Much sympathy is felt in the town for Mr. Jackson, owing to his having only recently purchased the premises and erected the building which is now completely in ruins."
The longstanding feud between two Liverpool Road marine store dealers led to another court appearance on the 24th. Marine stores were a common type of junk shop in the 19th century. The term sounded better than calling them rag dealers, which many of them essentially were. Only last month Catherine Aspin and Bridget Hayes had ended up in court after fighting over a boy customer who had a bag of rags to sell.
This time Bridget Hayes summoned Catherine Aspin for threatening to assault her. Mrs Hayes told the court that she had been in Tontine Street when she came across Mrs Aspin who immediately "threw off her shawl, squared her arms, worked herself up into a passion and declared she was going to “have it out”".
The woman's cross-examination led to a lot of laughter in the courtroom, which did not please the Bench. The Chairman decided to dismiss the case before the defence presented their side of the argument, warning the women that if binding them over did not stop their feuding, they would have to be sent to prison.
John Woodcock is another regular character who pops up in these articles from time to time. The former owner of a "house of ill repute" in Westfield Street had lost his beerhouse licence in 1869 after magistrates designated his place to be a common brothel. Five months later the married man with six children picked up a woman in Bolton and took her to several pubs before being attacked and robbed by the woman's accomplice. Although Woodcock was the victim in the case, the Recorder in court was scathing, saying no one could feel sorry for a man who'd earned his living like he had.
This week on the 24th after receiving a tip-off, police raided Woodcock's Westfield Street house – which he'd continued to run as a temperance hotel since losing his beer licence. Down in the cellar, Inspector Whiteside and his team of officers found five full beer barrels and another that was half-full. The ale was being used for illicit sales and it was seized and a prosecution was being prepared.
On the following day we gleaned more information on what must have triggered the raid when Isabella Sillery appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with stealing £3. Isabella's case also suggested that the premises were still being used as a brothel, as she was described as a "resident of an immoral house in Westfield Street". A copper furnace worker called Francis McDermott told the court that on the previous Sunday he had gone into Woodcock's house while somewhat the worst for drink and requested a glass of ale.
Initially he was told that ale was not sold there but in the end managed to obtain two quarts of beer and half-a-pint of rum. McDermott claimed that when he went into the house he had the princely sum of £4 3 shillings in his pocket but while in the company of the woman, £3 of it had disappeared. After complaining to the landlady of the house, he said he was pushed out of the door. PC Robinson admitted that he had not been able to find the missing money on the woman and so the Bench decided to dismiss the case against her. However, it was clear that McDermott's complaint had led to the police raid.
During the evening of the 25th, Vance's Concert Party appeared at the Volunteer Hall in St Helens. Alfred Vance was a comic music hall singer who wrote many songs. One of them called "Walking in the Zoo" has been cited as the earliest known use in this country of the term "OK" in its present sense. Adverts promoting the event stated that Vance's patrons were the Prince and Princess of Wales and "the Aristocracy and Clergy of Great Britain and Ireland". Now that's one heck of a lot of patrons!
On the 26th the doctor responsible for treating paupers in Whiston Workhouse told a meeting of the Prescot Guardians that there were three cases of smallpox and four of fever currently in the house. Fever was the catch-all term for all kinds of contagious diseases – such as typhoid, scarlet fever etc. – in which the patient suffered a high temperature. With sanitary conditions generally poor within the St Helens district, cases of fever were a recurring problem.
Next week's stories will include the Prescot sheep that tried to jump through a shop window, the family fight in Sutton, the cruel mother who wanted her daughter to stay out all night and the Continental diorama at the Volunteer Hall.
There was essentially no such a thing as false alarms to trouble the St Helens Fire Brigade in the 1870s. The telephone had yet to be invented and so mischievous hoax phone calls could not be made. And smoke alarms triggering call outs when there was no fire would not become an issue for a hundred more years. However, the horse-driven brigade could still end up wasting their time in attending to reports of fire when their services were not needed. But that was not because of false alarms – but because it took so long for them to be notified of a fire, assemble a crew and then arrive on the scene that the blaze had by then often been extinguished by others.
This was particularly so in industry. When a fire occurred at the Greenbank Alkali Works on the morning of the 20th this week they knew exactly what to do – summon men and buckets! By passing buckets of water between them and chucking its contents onto the fire, they were able to extinguish the blaze within half-an-hour. The St Helens Newspaper wrote: "Had it succeeded in gaining a firm hold, the results would have been most disastrous."
As soon as the fire had been noticed, a messenger from the chemical works had been despatched to the police station at the old town hall and to the fire station in St Mary's Street. But although the chemical works at Greenbank was not far away, the blaze was out by the time the brigade arrived and so they were not required, an experience they were very much used to. Many works in St Helens kept their own small engine for dealing with fires. However, that took time to set up and using buckets of water could often prove the quickest and most effective means of putting out a fire when time was of the essence.
Some weeks ago, a young butcher called Peter Gorman from High Street in Prescot had appeared in court charged with assaulting his mother while drunk. As the man promised to stop drinking, only a token sentence was imposed. However, on the 22nd, Prescot Police were informed of Gorman's strange conduct at his home and two officers were sent to investigate. They found the 25-year-old at an upstairs window, destroying its frame and removing bricks, with the window itself completely shattered.
The butcher threatened the officers with bricks and despite his bedroom being barricaded, the police managed to force an entry and manacle the unfortunate man. The Newspaper wrote that at the station "his conduct was that of a confirmed maniac", and so a doctor recommended his removal to the workhouse hospital by cab. On the journey to Whiston, some alarm was created to passers-by through Gorman's frantic struggles to escape.
Inside the workhouse, the female nurse placed a straightjacket on the man and, according to the Newspaper, was forced to listen to "some of the foulest language that could be uttered". Two days later Gorman was transferred to Rainhill Asylum but the 1881 census suggests Peter was by then out of the institution and living with his mother.
On the 22nd the Newspaper described how earlier in the week a thunderstorm of "exceptional severity [had] burst over this neighbourhood". The report continued: "The state of the atmosphere on Monday, surcharged with electricity, foreboded thunder, and no change being apparent on Tuesday morning, a thunderstorm of more or less violence was generally anticipated. It was not until midday, however, that its approach was heralded unmistakably. [By the evening] the rain was descending in torrents. Suddenly a dreadful clap of thunder seemed to shake heaven and earth, and rock the houses to their very foundations. The lightning flashed like sheets of fire, making night for an instant as bright as day.
"Although the storm winged a fatal and destructive course over most of the country, we are glad to be able to state that it passed harmlessly over St. Helens and vicinity. No damage has been reported, and inquiries made in various quarters lead us to believe that we have happily escaped any injury to life or property."
However, a separate report in the paper suggested that had not been the case in Prescot, as the thunderstorm had devastated the premises of joiner William Jackson. It was believed that lightning had struck the building's gas pipes and ignited the gas, causing an inferno. The fire brigade was summoned through the usual ringing of a bell at Prescot Town Hall.
Although the brigade was reported as having been quickly formed, by the time they arrived at the joiner's shop, its contents had been almost completely destroyed. The Newspaper wrote: "Much sympathy is felt in the town for Mr. Jackson, owing to his having only recently purchased the premises and erected the building which is now completely in ruins."
This time Bridget Hayes summoned Catherine Aspin for threatening to assault her. Mrs Hayes told the court that she had been in Tontine Street when she came across Mrs Aspin who immediately "threw off her shawl, squared her arms, worked herself up into a passion and declared she was going to “have it out”".
The woman's cross-examination led to a lot of laughter in the courtroom, which did not please the Bench. The Chairman decided to dismiss the case before the defence presented their side of the argument, warning the women that if binding them over did not stop their feuding, they would have to be sent to prison.
John Woodcock is another regular character who pops up in these articles from time to time. The former owner of a "house of ill repute" in Westfield Street had lost his beerhouse licence in 1869 after magistrates designated his place to be a common brothel. Five months later the married man with six children picked up a woman in Bolton and took her to several pubs before being attacked and robbed by the woman's accomplice. Although Woodcock was the victim in the case, the Recorder in court was scathing, saying no one could feel sorry for a man who'd earned his living like he had.
This week on the 24th after receiving a tip-off, police raided Woodcock's Westfield Street house – which he'd continued to run as a temperance hotel since losing his beer licence. Down in the cellar, Inspector Whiteside and his team of officers found five full beer barrels and another that was half-full. The ale was being used for illicit sales and it was seized and a prosecution was being prepared.
On the following day we gleaned more information on what must have triggered the raid when Isabella Sillery appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with stealing £3. Isabella's case also suggested that the premises were still being used as a brothel, as she was described as a "resident of an immoral house in Westfield Street". A copper furnace worker called Francis McDermott told the court that on the previous Sunday he had gone into Woodcock's house while somewhat the worst for drink and requested a glass of ale.
Initially he was told that ale was not sold there but in the end managed to obtain two quarts of beer and half-a-pint of rum. McDermott claimed that when he went into the house he had the princely sum of £4 3 shillings in his pocket but while in the company of the woman, £3 of it had disappeared. After complaining to the landlady of the house, he said he was pushed out of the door. PC Robinson admitted that he had not been able to find the missing money on the woman and so the Bench decided to dismiss the case against her. However, it was clear that McDermott's complaint had led to the police raid.
During the evening of the 25th, Vance's Concert Party appeared at the Volunteer Hall in St Helens. Alfred Vance was a comic music hall singer who wrote many songs. One of them called "Walking in the Zoo" has been cited as the earliest known use in this country of the term "OK" in its present sense. Adverts promoting the event stated that Vance's patrons were the Prince and Princess of Wales and "the Aristocracy and Clergy of Great Britain and Ireland". Now that's one heck of a lot of patrons!
On the 26th the doctor responsible for treating paupers in Whiston Workhouse told a meeting of the Prescot Guardians that there were three cases of smallpox and four of fever currently in the house. Fever was the catch-all term for all kinds of contagious diseases – such as typhoid, scarlet fever etc. – in which the patient suffered a high temperature. With sanitary conditions generally poor within the St Helens district, cases of fever were a recurring problem.
Next week's stories will include the Prescot sheep that tried to jump through a shop window, the family fight in Sutton, the cruel mother who wanted her daughter to stay out all night and the Continental diorama at the Volunteer Hall.
This week's stories include the bucket of water solution to a chemical works fire, a Westfield Street brothel is raided by the police, the St Helens thunderstorm of exceptional severity and the young maniacal butcher that had to be placed in a straightjacket.
There was essentially no such a thing as false alarms to trouble the St Helens Fire Brigade in the 1870s.
The telephone had yet to be invented and so mischievous hoax phone calls could not be made.
And smoke alarms triggering call outs when there was no fire would not become an issue for a hundred more years.
However, the horse-driven brigade could still end up wasting their time in attending to reports of fire when their services were not needed.
But that was not because of false alarms – but because it took so long for them to be notified of a fire, assemble a crew and then arrive on the scene that the blaze had by then often been extinguished by others.
This was particularly so in industry. When a fire occurred at the Greenbank Alkali Works on the morning of the 20th this week they knew exactly what to do – summon men and buckets!
By passing buckets of water between them and chucking its contents onto the fire, they were able to extinguish the blaze within half-an-hour.
The St Helens Newspaper wrote: "Had it succeeded in gaining a firm hold, the results would have been most disastrous."
As soon as the fire had been noticed, a messenger from the chemical works had been despatched to the police station at the old town hall and to the fire station in St Mary's Street.
But although the chemical works at Greenbank was not far away, the blaze was out by the time the brigade arrived and so they were not required, an experience they were very much used to.
Many works in St Helens kept their own small engine for dealing with fires.
However, that took time to set up and using buckets of water could often prove the quickest and most effective means of putting out a fire when time was of the essence.
Some weeks ago, a young butcher called Peter Gorman from High Street in Prescot had appeared in court charged with assaulting his mother while drunk.
As the man promised to stop drinking, only a token sentence was imposed.
However, on the 22nd, Prescot Police were informed of Gorman's strange conduct at his home and two officers were sent to investigate.
They found the 25-year-old at an upstairs window, destroying its frame and removing bricks, with the window itself completely shattered.
The butcher threatened the officers with bricks and despite his bedroom being barricaded, the police managed to force an entry and manacle the unfortunate man.
The Newspaper wrote that at the station "his conduct was that of a confirmed maniac", and so a doctor recommended his removal to the workhouse hospital by cab.
On the journey to Whiston, some alarm was created to passers-by through Gorman's frantic struggles to escape.
Inside the workhouse, the female nurse placed a straightjacket on the man and, according to the Newspaper, was forced to listen to "some of the foulest language that could be uttered".
Two days later Gorman was transferred to Rainhill Asylum but the 1881 census suggests Peter was by then out of the institution and living with his mother.
On the 22nd the Newspaper described how earlier in the week a thunderstorm of "exceptional severity [had] burst over this neighbourhood". The report continued:
"The state of the atmosphere on Monday, surcharged with electricity, foreboded thunder, and no change being apparent on Tuesday morning, a thunderstorm of more or less violence was generally anticipated. It was not until midday, however, that its approach was heralded unmistakably.
"[By the evening] the rain was descending in torrents. Suddenly a dreadful clap of thunder seemed to shake heaven and earth, and rock the houses to their very foundations. The lightning flashed like sheets of fire, making night for an instant as bright as day.
"Although the storm winged a fatal and destructive course over most of the country, we are glad to be able to state that it passed harmlessly over St. Helens and vicinity. No damage has been reported, and inquiries made in various quarters lead us to believe that we have happily escaped any injury to life or property."
However, a separate report in the paper suggested that had not been the case in Prescot, as the thunderstorm had devastated the premises of joiner William Jackson.
It was believed that lightning had struck the building's gas pipes and ignited the gas, causing an inferno.
The fire brigade was summoned through the usual ringing of a bell at Prescot Town Hall.
Although the brigade was reported as having been quickly formed, by the time they arrived at the joiner's shop, its contents had been almost completely destroyed. The Newspaper wrote:
"Much sympathy is felt in the town for Mr. Jackson, owing to his having only recently purchased the premises and erected the building which is now completely in ruins."
The longstanding feud between two Liverpool Road marine store dealers led to another court appearance on the 24th.
Marine stores were a common type of junk shop in the 19th century. The term sounded better than calling them rag dealers, which many of them essentially were.
Only last month Catherine Aspin and Bridget Hayes had ended up in court after fighting over a boy customer who had a bag of rags to sell.
This time Bridget Hayes summoned Catherine Aspin for threatening to assault her.
Mrs Hayes told the court that she had been in Tontine Street when she came across Mrs Aspin who immediately "threw off her shawl, squared her arms, worked herself up into a passion and declared she was going to “have it out”".
The woman's cross-examination led to a lot of laughter in the courtroom, which did not please the Bench.
The Chairman decided to dismiss the case before the defence presented their side of the argument, warning the women that if binding them over did not stop their feuding, they would have to be sent to prison.
John Woodcock is another regular character who pops up in these articles from time to time.
The former owner of a "house of ill repute" in Westfield Street had lost his beerhouse licence in 1869 after magistrates designated his place to be a common brothel.
Five months later the married man with six children picked up a woman in Bolton and took her to several pubs before being attacked and robbed by the woman's accomplice.
Although Woodcock was the victim in the case, the Recorder in court was scathing, saying no one could feel sorry for a man who'd earned his living like he had.
This week on the 24th after receiving a tip-off, police raided Woodcock's Westfield Street house – which he'd continued to run as a temperance hotel since losing his beer licence.
Down in the cellar, Inspector Whiteside and his team of officers found five full beer barrels and another that was half-full.
The ale was being used for illicit sales and it was seized and a prosecution was being prepared.
On the following day we gleaned more information on what must have triggered the raid when Isabella Sillery appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with stealing £3.
Isabella's case also suggested that the premises were still being used as a brothel, as she was described as a "resident of an immoral house in Westfield Street".
A copper furnace worker called Francis McDermott told the court that on the previous Sunday he had gone into Woodcock's house while somewhat the worst for drink and requested a glass of ale.
Initially he was told that ale was not sold there but in the end managed to obtain two quarts of beer and half-a-pint of rum.
McDermott claimed that when he went into the house he had the princely sum of £4 3 shillings in his pocket but while in the company of the woman, £3 of it had disappeared.
After complaining to the landlady of the house, he said he was pushed out of the door.
PC Robinson admitted that he had not been able to find the missing money on the woman and so the Bench decided to dismiss the case against her.
However, it was clear that McDermott's complaint had led to the police raid on the premises.
During the evening of the 25th, Vance's Concert Party appeared at the Volunteer Hall in St Helens.
Alfred Vance was a comic music hall singer who wrote many songs. One of them called "Walking in the Zoo" has been cited as the earliest known use in this country of the term "OK" in its present sense.
Adverts promoting the event stated that Vance's patrons were the Prince and Princess of Wales and "the Aristocracy and Clergy of Great Britain and Ireland". Now that's one heck of a lot of patrons!
On the 26th the doctor responsible for treating paupers in Whiston Workhouse told a meeting of the Prescot Guardians that there were three cases of smallpox and four of fever currently in the house.
Fever was the catch-all term for all kinds of contagious diseases – such as typhoid, scarlet fever etc. – in which the patient suffered a high temperature.
With sanitary conditions generally poor within the St Helens district, cases of fever were a recurring problem.
Next week's stories will include the Prescot sheep that tried to jump through a shop window, the family fight in Sutton, the cruel mother who wanted her daughter to stay out all night and the Continental diorama at the Volunteer Hall.
There was essentially no such a thing as false alarms to trouble the St Helens Fire Brigade in the 1870s.
The telephone had yet to be invented and so mischievous hoax phone calls could not be made.
And smoke alarms triggering call outs when there was no fire would not become an issue for a hundred more years.
However, the horse-driven brigade could still end up wasting their time in attending to reports of fire when their services were not needed.
But that was not because of false alarms – but because it took so long for them to be notified of a fire, assemble a crew and then arrive on the scene that the blaze had by then often been extinguished by others.
This was particularly so in industry. When a fire occurred at the Greenbank Alkali Works on the morning of the 20th this week they knew exactly what to do – summon men and buckets!
By passing buckets of water between them and chucking its contents onto the fire, they were able to extinguish the blaze within half-an-hour.
The St Helens Newspaper wrote: "Had it succeeded in gaining a firm hold, the results would have been most disastrous."
As soon as the fire had been noticed, a messenger from the chemical works had been despatched to the police station at the old town hall and to the fire station in St Mary's Street.
But although the chemical works at Greenbank was not far away, the blaze was out by the time the brigade arrived and so they were not required, an experience they were very much used to.
Many works in St Helens kept their own small engine for dealing with fires.
However, that took time to set up and using buckets of water could often prove the quickest and most effective means of putting out a fire when time was of the essence.
Some weeks ago, a young butcher called Peter Gorman from High Street in Prescot had appeared in court charged with assaulting his mother while drunk.
As the man promised to stop drinking, only a token sentence was imposed.
However, on the 22nd, Prescot Police were informed of Gorman's strange conduct at his home and two officers were sent to investigate.
They found the 25-year-old at an upstairs window, destroying its frame and removing bricks, with the window itself completely shattered.
The butcher threatened the officers with bricks and despite his bedroom being barricaded, the police managed to force an entry and manacle the unfortunate man.
The Newspaper wrote that at the station "his conduct was that of a confirmed maniac", and so a doctor recommended his removal to the workhouse hospital by cab.
On the journey to Whiston, some alarm was created to passers-by through Gorman's frantic struggles to escape.
Inside the workhouse, the female nurse placed a straightjacket on the man and, according to the Newspaper, was forced to listen to "some of the foulest language that could be uttered".
Two days later Gorman was transferred to Rainhill Asylum but the 1881 census suggests Peter was by then out of the institution and living with his mother.
On the 22nd the Newspaper described how earlier in the week a thunderstorm of "exceptional severity [had] burst over this neighbourhood". The report continued:
"The state of the atmosphere on Monday, surcharged with electricity, foreboded thunder, and no change being apparent on Tuesday morning, a thunderstorm of more or less violence was generally anticipated. It was not until midday, however, that its approach was heralded unmistakably.
"[By the evening] the rain was descending in torrents. Suddenly a dreadful clap of thunder seemed to shake heaven and earth, and rock the houses to their very foundations. The lightning flashed like sheets of fire, making night for an instant as bright as day.
"Although the storm winged a fatal and destructive course over most of the country, we are glad to be able to state that it passed harmlessly over St. Helens and vicinity. No damage has been reported, and inquiries made in various quarters lead us to believe that we have happily escaped any injury to life or property."
However, a separate report in the paper suggested that had not been the case in Prescot, as the thunderstorm had devastated the premises of joiner William Jackson.
It was believed that lightning had struck the building's gas pipes and ignited the gas, causing an inferno.
The fire brigade was summoned through the usual ringing of a bell at Prescot Town Hall.
Although the brigade was reported as having been quickly formed, by the time they arrived at the joiner's shop, its contents had been almost completely destroyed. The Newspaper wrote:
"Much sympathy is felt in the town for Mr. Jackson, owing to his having only recently purchased the premises and erected the building which is now completely in ruins."
Marine stores were a common type of junk shop in the 19th century. The term sounded better than calling them rag dealers, which many of them essentially were.
Only last month Catherine Aspin and Bridget Hayes had ended up in court after fighting over a boy customer who had a bag of rags to sell.
This time Bridget Hayes summoned Catherine Aspin for threatening to assault her.
Mrs Hayes told the court that she had been in Tontine Street when she came across Mrs Aspin who immediately "threw off her shawl, squared her arms, worked herself up into a passion and declared she was going to “have it out”".
The woman's cross-examination led to a lot of laughter in the courtroom, which did not please the Bench.
The Chairman decided to dismiss the case before the defence presented their side of the argument, warning the women that if binding them over did not stop their feuding, they would have to be sent to prison.
John Woodcock is another regular character who pops up in these articles from time to time.
The former owner of a "house of ill repute" in Westfield Street had lost his beerhouse licence in 1869 after magistrates designated his place to be a common brothel.
Five months later the married man with six children picked up a woman in Bolton and took her to several pubs before being attacked and robbed by the woman's accomplice.
Although Woodcock was the victim in the case, the Recorder in court was scathing, saying no one could feel sorry for a man who'd earned his living like he had.
This week on the 24th after receiving a tip-off, police raided Woodcock's Westfield Street house – which he'd continued to run as a temperance hotel since losing his beer licence.
Down in the cellar, Inspector Whiteside and his team of officers found five full beer barrels and another that was half-full.
The ale was being used for illicit sales and it was seized and a prosecution was being prepared.
On the following day we gleaned more information on what must have triggered the raid when Isabella Sillery appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with stealing £3.
Isabella's case also suggested that the premises were still being used as a brothel, as she was described as a "resident of an immoral house in Westfield Street".
A copper furnace worker called Francis McDermott told the court that on the previous Sunday he had gone into Woodcock's house while somewhat the worst for drink and requested a glass of ale.
Initially he was told that ale was not sold there but in the end managed to obtain two quarts of beer and half-a-pint of rum.
McDermott claimed that when he went into the house he had the princely sum of £4 3 shillings in his pocket but while in the company of the woman, £3 of it had disappeared.
After complaining to the landlady of the house, he said he was pushed out of the door.
PC Robinson admitted that he had not been able to find the missing money on the woman and so the Bench decided to dismiss the case against her.
However, it was clear that McDermott's complaint had led to the police raid on the premises.
During the evening of the 25th, Vance's Concert Party appeared at the Volunteer Hall in St Helens.
Alfred Vance was a comic music hall singer who wrote many songs. One of them called "Walking in the Zoo" has been cited as the earliest known use in this country of the term "OK" in its present sense.
Adverts promoting the event stated that Vance's patrons were the Prince and Princess of Wales and "the Aristocracy and Clergy of Great Britain and Ireland". Now that's one heck of a lot of patrons!
On the 26th the doctor responsible for treating paupers in Whiston Workhouse told a meeting of the Prescot Guardians that there were three cases of smallpox and four of fever currently in the house.
Fever was the catch-all term for all kinds of contagious diseases – such as typhoid, scarlet fever etc. – in which the patient suffered a high temperature.
With sanitary conditions generally poor within the St Helens district, cases of fever were a recurring problem.
Next week's stories will include the Prescot sheep that tried to jump through a shop window, the family fight in Sutton, the cruel mother who wanted her daughter to stay out all night and the Continental diorama at the Volunteer Hall.