150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (22nd - 28th April 1869)
This week's stories include the battle of Westfield Street, a "piteous appeal" by a Park Road beggar, a bicycle demonstration in the Volunteer Hall, more trouble with the master of Whiston Workhouse, Dentons Green gipsies hold a ball and the sleeping drunk in the St Helens dock.
We begin with this advertisement in the Ormskirk Advertiser on the 22nd: "John Anderton, nail and screw bolt manufacturer, 14, Bridge-street, St. Helens, is able to supply every description of nails and screw bolts, of the best quality, on the most reasonable terms."
St Helens has had a long history of nail making, mainly on a small scale. There were forges on a number of farms, with blacksmiths knocking out nails as needed. However John Anderton manufactured them on a large scale and was the leading maker of wrought iron nails in St Helens. The competition from factory cut nails would soon affect his business and by the 1880s he had diversified as an estate agent.
Also on the 22nd a meeting of the Prescot Union Board of Guardians was held in the boardroom of Whiston Workhouse. The committee had recently asked the Master of the workhouse to resign after holding an inquiry into his behaviour but Thomas Holmes had stubbornly refused to leave.
The matter was now in the hands of the Poor Law Board, who were the people with the power to sack him. However in the meantime the Guardians still had to deal with the Master, who had day-to-day charge of the workhouse and quite a temper.
Their Clerk reported that Mr Holmes had recorded 626 pints of ale purchased for the paupers as being waste, out of a total supply of 1,261 pints. This over a four-week period was an extraordinary amount of discarded ale and the implication was that the master had drunk some of it himself.
The man clearly liked a drink and he had been reported as being drunk on duty on several recent occasions. One of the Guardians who had undertaken a stocktake at the workhouse also reported that the accounts had been in an "exceedingly unsatisfactory state".
He had discussed this with Mr Holmes who had reacted angrily and so the Guardians decided to set up a committee to undertake a thorough inventory of the workhouse stores.
Not all the paupers in the workhouse were employed within it. Some people were hired out for the day to local employers – such as farmers – and then returned to the house at night.
However it was revealed at the meeting that one girl had been sent to work as a servant to a family in Garston but had been so "illused" that she had returned to the workhouse. A Garston police sergeant had written to the Guardians to say the girl had been badly treated and so the committee decided to investigate.
Recently the St Helens Newspaper had predicted that bicycles – which they called "curious vehicles" – would soon be running through the streets of St Helens. During the evening of the 22nd a man called John Christian of the St Helens Carriage Works gave a demonstration of a bike at the Volunteer Hall in Mill Street. The Newspaper wrote that he had:
"…worked the machine with considerable skill. Many of the gentlemen present tried to follow his example, but invariably came to grief, to the amusement of the others. It is in contemplation to start an association, with Mr. Christian as instructor, and we may expect soon to see the bicycle mania in full swing here." The St Helens Cycling Club was actually formed in 1876 by Joseph Beecham and Joseph Ashton and became the largest club outside of London.
The air in the St Helens Junction area on the 24th must have crackled with gunshots for several hours, as members of St Helens' own volunteer army participated in a shooting contest. The 47th Lancashire Rifle Volunteers was one of the two volunteer battalions in the town and twenty of their members took on and narrowly beat the 1st Liverpool LRV on ranges set at 200, 500 and 600 yards.
There was trouble in Westfield Street on the 24th. This is how the St Helens Newspaper reported it: "A row took place on Saturday evening, when several men quarrelled in Westfield-street, at the top of Water-street, and some of them fought out their differences. One of them got stabbed in the melee, we believe, both in the neck and in the face, and as soon as he received the wounds he left his companions and ran off as fast as his legs could carry him.
"No information has since been lodged at the police office by any of the parties concerned, and it is supposed that neither the injured man nor his friends want the authorities to interfere. The same locality is notorious for disorderly characters. Late on Saturday night a number of burly fellows had a pitched battle, and carried away a few dilapidated faces as trophies of the fight."
Begging or vagrancy usually meant a week or two in prison – perhaps a month for old offenders. However at the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 26th, George Grace came up with a simple means of avoiding jail.
The native of Manchester had been caught begging in Park Road and decided to simply beg the magistrates to let him go. The St Helens Newspaper said he made a "piteous appeal" to the Bench, promising to return home immediately. It worked and he was discharged with a caution.
A mother and daughter were also in court in connection with trouble in Liverpool Street (pictured above during the 1930s) that had lasted from late Sunday morning until three in the afternoon. Constable Michael Darmody told the court that upwards of 1,500 people had occupied the road making it completely impassable.
The trouble began when the officer tried to take Patrick Ward into custody for disorderly conduct and had used his baton on the man. This upset his sister, Mary Fitzgibbon, who helped her brother get away from the constable.
Their mother, Bridget Ward, then got involved and claimed that Constable Darmody had kicked her. The St Helens Newspaper quoted her like this:
"Its a nice thing to have a poor woman lek me, that has six little childer to contind wid, kicked in this way. (Turning fiercely to the officer.) A nice thrick of you, Mr. Darmody, but God will meet you yit for it." The Bench fined Mary Fitzgibbon twenty shillings but dismissed the charge against her mother.
Another case with amusing elements concerned John Fleming, who was charged with being drunk and indecent in College Street. The police often brought offenders into court just hours after they had been arrested and in Fleming's case it was clearly far too soon.
The Newspaper wrote how the man had quickly fallen asleep after he had been placed in the dock: "When his name was called he did not vouchsafe the slightest movement in response, and a repetition of the patronymic [his surname] only elicited a prolonged and much-to-be-envied snore in response.
"Thereupon a constable shook him gently by the shoulder, and whispered into his ear that he was required to get up but he slumbered on. Then another officer seized him by the collar, and shook him, and went through every gradation of force up to dragging him from the seat, vainly."
Eventually the police got Fleming awake and on his feet and "he then found voice, and in a tone of the most happy case, answered that he heard distinctly but understood not a word." A remand was granted as it seemed pointless to continue and the man was taken to his cell to continue his slumbers.
Some other cases at the Sessions underlined the strange values held then, including a much greater tolerance to violence than today. Michael Creswell was charged with stabbing labourer Hugh O’Donnell in Parr, although the Bench allowed the case to be withdrawn.
That was because the 24-year-old labourer from Barber Street had said he did not wish to pursue the prosecution as Creswell had promised not to molest him in future.
Also Andrew Spreswell and Mary Fitzgibbons were both fined just twenty shillings for assaulting police constables. However Thomas Kay was given 14 days in prison for stealing a dog from John Leigh, a publican in Bridge Street.
One might think that a 'Gipsy Ball' was when people dressed up as the "nomadic beings", as the St Helens Newspaper called the travellers. In fact the event held on the 26th had been organised by gipsies – who were encamped in a field in Dentons Green – seemingly as a moneymaking venture.
About 500 people turned up to the Volunteer Hall, "the majority of whom", the Newspaper wrote, "appeared to have attended out of a spirit of curiosity". About twenty of the travellers were at the ball in costume and "they looked very picturesque and joined heartily in the dances."
Next week's stories will include the Sutton Bowling Green eviction outrage, a triple tragedy at the Pocket Nook glassworks, the soldier who broke a bobby's leg in Prescot, the celebration of May Day in St Helens, a Bridge Street butcher warns the public to be on their guard, cruelty to a horse in Prescot and there's bad blood in Parr.
We begin with this advertisement in the Ormskirk Advertiser on the 22nd: "John Anderton, nail and screw bolt manufacturer, 14, Bridge-street, St. Helens, is able to supply every description of nails and screw bolts, of the best quality, on the most reasonable terms."
St Helens has had a long history of nail making, mainly on a small scale. There were forges on a number of farms, with blacksmiths knocking out nails as needed. However John Anderton manufactured them on a large scale and was the leading maker of wrought iron nails in St Helens. The competition from factory cut nails would soon affect his business and by the 1880s he had diversified as an estate agent.
Also on the 22nd a meeting of the Prescot Union Board of Guardians was held in the boardroom of Whiston Workhouse. The committee had recently asked the Master of the workhouse to resign after holding an inquiry into his behaviour but Thomas Holmes had stubbornly refused to leave.
The matter was now in the hands of the Poor Law Board, who were the people with the power to sack him. However in the meantime the Guardians still had to deal with the Master, who had day-to-day charge of the workhouse and quite a temper.
Their Clerk reported that Mr Holmes had recorded 626 pints of ale purchased for the paupers as being waste, out of a total supply of 1,261 pints. This over a four-week period was an extraordinary amount of discarded ale and the implication was that the master had drunk some of it himself.
The man clearly liked a drink and he had been reported as being drunk on duty on several recent occasions. One of the Guardians who had undertaken a stocktake at the workhouse also reported that the accounts had been in an "exceedingly unsatisfactory state".
He had discussed this with Mr Holmes who had reacted angrily and so the Guardians decided to set up a committee to undertake a thorough inventory of the workhouse stores.
Not all the paupers in the workhouse were employed within it. Some people were hired out for the day to local employers – such as farmers – and then returned to the house at night.
However it was revealed at the meeting that one girl had been sent to work as a servant to a family in Garston but had been so "illused" that she had returned to the workhouse. A Garston police sergeant had written to the Guardians to say the girl had been badly treated and so the committee decided to investigate.
Recently the St Helens Newspaper had predicted that bicycles – which they called "curious vehicles" – would soon be running through the streets of St Helens. During the evening of the 22nd a man called John Christian of the St Helens Carriage Works gave a demonstration of a bike at the Volunteer Hall in Mill Street. The Newspaper wrote that he had:
"…worked the machine with considerable skill. Many of the gentlemen present tried to follow his example, but invariably came to grief, to the amusement of the others. It is in contemplation to start an association, with Mr. Christian as instructor, and we may expect soon to see the bicycle mania in full swing here." The St Helens Cycling Club was actually formed in 1876 by Joseph Beecham and Joseph Ashton and became the largest club outside of London.
The air in the St Helens Junction area on the 24th must have crackled with gunshots for several hours, as members of St Helens' own volunteer army participated in a shooting contest. The 47th Lancashire Rifle Volunteers was one of the two volunteer battalions in the town and twenty of their members took on and narrowly beat the 1st Liverpool LRV on ranges set at 200, 500 and 600 yards.
There was trouble in Westfield Street on the 24th. This is how the St Helens Newspaper reported it: "A row took place on Saturday evening, when several men quarrelled in Westfield-street, at the top of Water-street, and some of them fought out their differences. One of them got stabbed in the melee, we believe, both in the neck and in the face, and as soon as he received the wounds he left his companions and ran off as fast as his legs could carry him.
"No information has since been lodged at the police office by any of the parties concerned, and it is supposed that neither the injured man nor his friends want the authorities to interfere. The same locality is notorious for disorderly characters. Late on Saturday night a number of burly fellows had a pitched battle, and carried away a few dilapidated faces as trophies of the fight."
Begging or vagrancy usually meant a week or two in prison – perhaps a month for old offenders. However at the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 26th, George Grace came up with a simple means of avoiding jail.
The native of Manchester had been caught begging in Park Road and decided to simply beg the magistrates to let him go. The St Helens Newspaper said he made a "piteous appeal" to the Bench, promising to return home immediately. It worked and he was discharged with a caution.
The trouble began when the officer tried to take Patrick Ward into custody for disorderly conduct and had used his baton on the man. This upset his sister, Mary Fitzgibbon, who helped her brother get away from the constable.
Their mother, Bridget Ward, then got involved and claimed that Constable Darmody had kicked her. The St Helens Newspaper quoted her like this:
"Its a nice thing to have a poor woman lek me, that has six little childer to contind wid, kicked in this way. (Turning fiercely to the officer.) A nice thrick of you, Mr. Darmody, but God will meet you yit for it." The Bench fined Mary Fitzgibbon twenty shillings but dismissed the charge against her mother.
Another case with amusing elements concerned John Fleming, who was charged with being drunk and indecent in College Street. The police often brought offenders into court just hours after they had been arrested and in Fleming's case it was clearly far too soon.
The Newspaper wrote how the man had quickly fallen asleep after he had been placed in the dock: "When his name was called he did not vouchsafe the slightest movement in response, and a repetition of the patronymic [his surname] only elicited a prolonged and much-to-be-envied snore in response.
"Thereupon a constable shook him gently by the shoulder, and whispered into his ear that he was required to get up but he slumbered on. Then another officer seized him by the collar, and shook him, and went through every gradation of force up to dragging him from the seat, vainly."
Eventually the police got Fleming awake and on his feet and "he then found voice, and in a tone of the most happy case, answered that he heard distinctly but understood not a word." A remand was granted as it seemed pointless to continue and the man was taken to his cell to continue his slumbers.
Some other cases at the Sessions underlined the strange values held then, including a much greater tolerance to violence than today. Michael Creswell was charged with stabbing labourer Hugh O’Donnell in Parr, although the Bench allowed the case to be withdrawn.
That was because the 24-year-old labourer from Barber Street had said he did not wish to pursue the prosecution as Creswell had promised not to molest him in future.
Also Andrew Spreswell and Mary Fitzgibbons were both fined just twenty shillings for assaulting police constables. However Thomas Kay was given 14 days in prison for stealing a dog from John Leigh, a publican in Bridge Street.
One might think that a 'Gipsy Ball' was when people dressed up as the "nomadic beings", as the St Helens Newspaper called the travellers. In fact the event held on the 26th had been organised by gipsies – who were encamped in a field in Dentons Green – seemingly as a moneymaking venture.
About 500 people turned up to the Volunteer Hall, "the majority of whom", the Newspaper wrote, "appeared to have attended out of a spirit of curiosity". About twenty of the travellers were at the ball in costume and "they looked very picturesque and joined heartily in the dances."
Next week's stories will include the Sutton Bowling Green eviction outrage, a triple tragedy at the Pocket Nook glassworks, the soldier who broke a bobby's leg in Prescot, the celebration of May Day in St Helens, a Bridge Street butcher warns the public to be on their guard, cruelty to a horse in Prescot and there's bad blood in Parr.