150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (23rd - 29th JANUARY 1873)
This week's many stories include the stupendous night soil sale in Parr, the orphan girls wanted to work at St Helens Hospital, the improvements planned for the town's poor railway station, the St Helens Mineral Water Manufacturers Association's new scheme to get back their bottles and the man who refused to pay his wife's debts is sued in St Helens County Court.
We begin on the 23rd when a lad called Henry Owen appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with stealing five shillings from a Liverpool ale and porter bottling firm called John Berry & Co. The boy was about 13-years-old and employed to accompany the company's carter when he visited local towns. Henry's duties were to mind the horse and cart while the carter went into public houses to solicit orders. After visiting a certain pub in St Helens, the carter discovered that the boy and 5 shillings in copper that was kept inside a box had disappeared.
Later that day the police apprehended Henry at St Helens railway station where he'd used some of the stolen cash to buy a train ticket to Manchester. The magistrates ordered that he be sent to prison for 14 days and be "whipped once". That did not mean that Henry only endured one stroke of the birch rod – he may have received as many as a dozen or even fifteen lashings. The term was a reference to the number of occasions that he would be birched.
The St Helens Newspaper of the 25th contained this advert: "STUPENDOUS SALE, by Auction; about 4000 Loads of excellent Night Soil; behind the Horse Shoe, Parr, near St. Helens." Night soil was a euphemism for human faeces and was so called because a collector normally removed it at night from the privies, pits and pail closets that people then used as toilets.
And so if you wanted to make your roses or crops grow, you could trot along to the Horse Shoe on February 8th for what auctioneer William Birchall also called "superior night soil". I wonder how you classified night soil as poor or good? It reminds me of one of my favourite lines from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here!"
The Newspaper's editorial praised the new parcel service to India: "Thirty years ago when Rowland Hill established the penny post, it was considered a marvellous thing that a letter weighing half an ounce should be conveyed from one end of England to another for a penny. But what will our readers think of being able to send a parcel from London to the remotest village in India for a penny an ounce, or 1s. 4d. a pound!
"Yet this can now be done, the Peninsular and Oriental Company having made arrangements with the Indian post office, by which parcels delivered at the Company's office in London will be conveyed to any post town in India, and delivered to the person to whom they are addressed, at a uniform charge of 1s. 4d. a pound, which covers all charges except the Indian customs duty."
The new St Helens Railway Station in Shaw Street was opened in July 1871. It was rather basic and at the time the St Helens Newspaper wrote: "It appears to us that the ridiculous incompetency of the old station has had an injurious effect upon the new. It will ever remain a mystery why the people of St. Helens tolerated so wretched a little hole as the building now abandoned. It was scarcely fit for the smallest village, and was a standing disgrace to the town for very many years."
The new building that the Newspaper claimed bore "no architectural pretensions whatever" was an improvement on the old station – but not seemingly by much. This week the paper criticised the new railway station's "manifest inadequacy" to meet the needs of the "great and increasing" railway passenger traffic in St Helens. "We were promised a “first-class station,” but got one of a fourth-class instead", the Newspaper lamented.
Of particular concern was that the majority of the travelling passengers at Shaw Street crossed the railway line on foot, setting up the prospect of a bad accident before too long. There was a bridge that allowed a safe crossover but it was too far away for most passengers to bother with. The Newspaper said it was expected that improvements would soon take place in which the station booking office would be relocated from its present site to a bridge in Raven Street. And platforms were to be built to allow passengers to safely cross the lines.
St Helens had a thriving mineral water industry during the 19th century. Mains and pumped water supplies could be poor in terms of both their quality and quantity. Consequently, those who had the cash would often instead buy bottled mineral water, with the added prospect of its supposed healing powers. The Newspaper described how the mineral water manufacturers of St Helens had held a meeting at the White Lion in Church Street this week for the purpose of forming an association.
The first decision taken by the newly created St Helens and District Mineral Water Manufacturers Association was to make a charge of one penny for each bottle not returned by the purchaser. Buyers were supposed to return all bottles to where they had bought them from but there was no incentive for them to do so. As a result many bottles did not find their way back to the mineral manufacturers and so it was hoped that reclaiming the penny deposit would motivate buyers to return them. I wonder if this was the first time that such deposits were put on bottles in St Helens?
Pictured above are the nursing staff at St Helens Cottage Hospital and its original building prior to modifications. The Newspaper described how at the recent meeting of the Prescot Guardians, the new hospital's application to take some orphan girls from the workhouse had been considered. The matron wanted at least three girls to assist her but the Clerk to the Guardians reported that sending so many children would create a problem. He had been looking through their rules on the subject and found that unless the children were brothers or sisters, they were not permitted to send out more than two – with four being the maximum allowed for siblings. It was also necessary that a boarding out committee be formed on the outside to take responsibility for the girls.
One of the guardians said he thought that the children were going to work at the hospital as apprentices but the Clerk said that was not the case. They would be going under the care of the matron as a foster parent but at the same time learn how to be nurses. In the end it was decided to write to the Local Government Board and request their opinion on the matter. Three girls were eventually allowed to work at the hospital. Two were only eight years of age – and the other just seven.
Last September the guardians had discussed whether their workhouse schoolteacher required help and it was suggested that a pupil teacher from among the pauper girls could be appointed. Pupil teachers learned the profession on the job as they taught younger children. That was at the same time as completing their own education – usually before and/or after normal school hours. However, a guardian called John Birchall was against the idea saying workhouse children had a "great want of mental activity, as compared with other children".
At the recent meeting of the guardians, it was stated that the schools inspector had been consulted about the advisability of appointing a pupil teacher – but he had also been firmly against the idea. Although he said he had heard of such things in very large workhouses in cities, he did not recommend a trial at Whiston. The pauper kids clearly had no chance to advance themselves in life – with little encouragement from those appointed to care for them.
Men were responsible in law for the debts of their spouses. But during times of domestic strife, husbands would place indemnity notices in newspapers refuting their responsibility for any monies owed by their wife. A typical notice would say:
"I, JOE BLOGGS – of No. 1 Church Street, St. Helens, do hereby give notice that I will NOT BE RESPONSIBLE for any Debt or Debts contracted by my wife, Jane Bloggs, after this date – January 23rd, 1873. Witness, Fred Smith."
In St Helens County Court in East Street this week a door-to-door salesman (known as a Scotch draper) called Mr Ray sued a man called Miller for 20 shillings. That was the outstanding balance on a debt the man's wife had run up. Miller's defence was that he had no liability because he had published an indemnity notice in a newspaper rescinding his responsibilities for paying his wife's creditors.
However, the judge ruled that such a notice was insufficient and relied upon traders happening to see it. He said unless a creditor had been personally informed of his indemnity, it would not stand. The defendant said his notice had satisfied another judge in a similar case in Runcorn and added that he would still refuse to pay the money. The judge said that if he did not pay, he would send him to prison for 21 days.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the black entertainer who smashed a window on a train with his banjo, the alleged theft at a Westfield Street house of ill repute, the curious friendly society court case and the female squabble in Liverpool Street.
We begin on the 23rd when a lad called Henry Owen appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with stealing five shillings from a Liverpool ale and porter bottling firm called John Berry & Co. The boy was about 13-years-old and employed to accompany the company's carter when he visited local towns. Henry's duties were to mind the horse and cart while the carter went into public houses to solicit orders. After visiting a certain pub in St Helens, the carter discovered that the boy and 5 shillings in copper that was kept inside a box had disappeared.
Later that day the police apprehended Henry at St Helens railway station where he'd used some of the stolen cash to buy a train ticket to Manchester. The magistrates ordered that he be sent to prison for 14 days and be "whipped once". That did not mean that Henry only endured one stroke of the birch rod – he may have received as many as a dozen or even fifteen lashings. The term was a reference to the number of occasions that he would be birched.
The St Helens Newspaper of the 25th contained this advert: "STUPENDOUS SALE, by Auction; about 4000 Loads of excellent Night Soil; behind the Horse Shoe, Parr, near St. Helens." Night soil was a euphemism for human faeces and was so called because a collector normally removed it at night from the privies, pits and pail closets that people then used as toilets.
And so if you wanted to make your roses or crops grow, you could trot along to the Horse Shoe on February 8th for what auctioneer William Birchall also called "superior night soil". I wonder how you classified night soil as poor or good? It reminds me of one of my favourite lines from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here!"
The Newspaper's editorial praised the new parcel service to India: "Thirty years ago when Rowland Hill established the penny post, it was considered a marvellous thing that a letter weighing half an ounce should be conveyed from one end of England to another for a penny. But what will our readers think of being able to send a parcel from London to the remotest village in India for a penny an ounce, or 1s. 4d. a pound!
"Yet this can now be done, the Peninsular and Oriental Company having made arrangements with the Indian post office, by which parcels delivered at the Company's office in London will be conveyed to any post town in India, and delivered to the person to whom they are addressed, at a uniform charge of 1s. 4d. a pound, which covers all charges except the Indian customs duty."
The new St Helens Railway Station in Shaw Street was opened in July 1871. It was rather basic and at the time the St Helens Newspaper wrote: "It appears to us that the ridiculous incompetency of the old station has had an injurious effect upon the new. It will ever remain a mystery why the people of St. Helens tolerated so wretched a little hole as the building now abandoned. It was scarcely fit for the smallest village, and was a standing disgrace to the town for very many years."
The new building that the Newspaper claimed bore "no architectural pretensions whatever" was an improvement on the old station – but not seemingly by much. This week the paper criticised the new railway station's "manifest inadequacy" to meet the needs of the "great and increasing" railway passenger traffic in St Helens. "We were promised a “first-class station,” but got one of a fourth-class instead", the Newspaper lamented.
Of particular concern was that the majority of the travelling passengers at Shaw Street crossed the railway line on foot, setting up the prospect of a bad accident before too long. There was a bridge that allowed a safe crossover but it was too far away for most passengers to bother with. The Newspaper said it was expected that improvements would soon take place in which the station booking office would be relocated from its present site to a bridge in Raven Street. And platforms were to be built to allow passengers to safely cross the lines.
St Helens had a thriving mineral water industry during the 19th century. Mains and pumped water supplies could be poor in terms of both their quality and quantity. Consequently, those who had the cash would often instead buy bottled mineral water, with the added prospect of its supposed healing powers. The Newspaper described how the mineral water manufacturers of St Helens had held a meeting at the White Lion in Church Street this week for the purpose of forming an association.
The first decision taken by the newly created St Helens and District Mineral Water Manufacturers Association was to make a charge of one penny for each bottle not returned by the purchaser. Buyers were supposed to return all bottles to where they had bought them from but there was no incentive for them to do so. As a result many bottles did not find their way back to the mineral manufacturers and so it was hoped that reclaiming the penny deposit would motivate buyers to return them. I wonder if this was the first time that such deposits were put on bottles in St Helens?
One of the guardians said he thought that the children were going to work at the hospital as apprentices but the Clerk said that was not the case. They would be going under the care of the matron as a foster parent but at the same time learn how to be nurses. In the end it was decided to write to the Local Government Board and request their opinion on the matter. Three girls were eventually allowed to work at the hospital. Two were only eight years of age – and the other just seven.
Last September the guardians had discussed whether their workhouse schoolteacher required help and it was suggested that a pupil teacher from among the pauper girls could be appointed. Pupil teachers learned the profession on the job as they taught younger children. That was at the same time as completing their own education – usually before and/or after normal school hours. However, a guardian called John Birchall was against the idea saying workhouse children had a "great want of mental activity, as compared with other children".
At the recent meeting of the guardians, it was stated that the schools inspector had been consulted about the advisability of appointing a pupil teacher – but he had also been firmly against the idea. Although he said he had heard of such things in very large workhouses in cities, he did not recommend a trial at Whiston. The pauper kids clearly had no chance to advance themselves in life – with little encouragement from those appointed to care for them.
Men were responsible in law for the debts of their spouses. But during times of domestic strife, husbands would place indemnity notices in newspapers refuting their responsibility for any monies owed by their wife. A typical notice would say:
"I, JOE BLOGGS – of No. 1 Church Street, St. Helens, do hereby give notice that I will NOT BE RESPONSIBLE for any Debt or Debts contracted by my wife, Jane Bloggs, after this date – January 23rd, 1873. Witness, Fred Smith."
In St Helens County Court in East Street this week a door-to-door salesman (known as a Scotch draper) called Mr Ray sued a man called Miller for 20 shillings. That was the outstanding balance on a debt the man's wife had run up. Miller's defence was that he had no liability because he had published an indemnity notice in a newspaper rescinding his responsibilities for paying his wife's creditors.
However, the judge ruled that such a notice was insufficient and relied upon traders happening to see it. He said unless a creditor had been personally informed of his indemnity, it would not stand. The defendant said his notice had satisfied another judge in a similar case in Runcorn and added that he would still refuse to pay the money. The judge said that if he did not pay, he would send him to prison for 21 days.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the black entertainer who smashed a window on a train with his banjo, the alleged theft at a Westfield Street house of ill repute, the curious friendly society court case and the female squabble in Liverpool Street.
This week's many stories include the stupendous night soil sale in Parr, the orphan girls wanted to work at St Helens Hospital, the improvements planned for the town's poor railway station, the St Helens Mineral Water Manufacturers Association's new scheme to get back their bottles and the man who refused to pay his wife's debts is sued in St Helens County Court.
We begin on the 23rd when a lad called Henry Owen appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with stealing five shillings from a Liverpool ale and porter bottling firm called John Berry & Co.
The boy was about 13-years-old and employed to accompany the company's carter when he visited local towns.
Henry's duties were to mind the horse and cart while the carter went into public houses to solicit orders.
After visiting a certain pub in St Helens, the carter discovered that the boy and 5 shillings in copper that was kept inside a box had disappeared.
Later that day the police apprehended Henry at St Helens railway station where he'd used some of the stolen cash to buy a train ticket to Manchester.
The magistrates ordered that he be sent to prison for 14 days and be "whipped once".
That did not mean that Henry only endured one stroke of the birch rod – he may have received as many as a dozen or even fifteen lashings. The term was a reference to the number of occasions that he would be birched.
The St Helens Newspaper of the 25th contained this advert:
"STUPENDOUS SALE, by Auction; about 4000 Loads of excellent Night Soil; behind the Horse Shoe, Parr, near St. Helens."
Night soil was a euphemism for human faeces and was so called because a collector normally removed it at night from the privies, pits and pail closets that people then used as toilets.
And so if you wanted to make your roses or crops grow, you could trot along to the Horse Shoe on February 8th for what auctioneer William Birchall also called "superior night soil".
I wonder how you classified night soil as poor or good? It reminds me of one of my favourite lines from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here!"
The Newspaper's editorial praised the new parcel service to India:
"Thirty years ago when Rowland Hill established the penny post, it was considered a marvellous thing that a letter weighing half an ounce should be conveyed from one end of England to another for a penny.
"But what will our readers think of being able to send a parcel from London to the remotest village in India for a penny an ounce, or 1s. 4d. a pound!
"Yet this can now be done, the Peninsular and Oriental Company having made arrangements with the Indian post office, by which parcels delivered at the Company's office in London will be conveyed to any post town in India, and delivered to the person to whom they are addressed, at a uniform charge of 1s. 4d. a pound, which covers all charges except the Indian customs duty."
The new St Helens Railway Station in Shaw Street was opened in July 1871. It was rather basic and at the time the St Helens Newspaper wrote:
"It appears to us that the ridiculous incompetency of the old station has had an injurious effect upon the new. It will ever remain a mystery why the people of St. Helens tolerated so wretched a little hole as the building now abandoned. It was scarcely fit for the smallest village, and was a standing disgrace to the town for very many years."
The new building that the Newspaper claimed bore "no architectural pretensions whatever" was an improvement on the old station – but not seemingly by much.
This week the paper criticised the new railway station's "manifest inadequacy" to meet the needs of the "great and increasing" railway passenger traffic in St Helens.
"We were promised a “first-class station,” but got one of a fourth-class instead", the Newspaper lamented.
Of particular concern was that the majority of the travelling passengers at Shaw Street crossed the railway line on foot, setting up the prospect of a bad accident before too long.
There was a bridge that allowed a safe crossover but it was too far away for most passengers to bother with.
The Newspaper said it was expected that improvements would soon take place in which the station booking office would be relocated from its present site to a bridge in Raven Street. And platforms were to be built to allow passengers to safely cross the lines.
St Helens had a thriving mineral water industry during the 19th century.
Mains and pumped water supplies could be poor in terms of both their quality and quantity.
Consequently, those who had the cash would often instead buy bottled mineral water, with the added prospect of its supposed healing powers.
The Newspaper described how the mineral water manufacturers of St Helens had held a meeting at the White Lion in Church Street this week for the purpose of forming an association.
The first decision taken by the newly created St Helens and District Mineral Water Manufacturers Association was to make a charge of one penny for each bottle not returned by the purchaser.
Buyers were supposed to return all bottles to where they had bought them from but there was no incentive for them to do so.
As a result many bottles did not find their way back to the mineral manufacturers and so it was hoped that reclaiming the penny deposit would motivate buyers to return them.
I wonder if this was the first time that such deposits were put on bottles in St Helens?
Pictured above are the nursing staff at St Helens Cottage Hospital and its original building prior to modifications.
The Newspaper described how at the recent meeting of the Prescot Guardians, the new hospital's application to take some orphan girls from the workhouse had been considered.
The matron wanted at least three girls to assist her but the Clerk to the Guardians reported that sending so many children would create a problem.
He had been looking through their rules on the subject and found that unless the children were brothers or sisters, they were not permitted to send out more than two – with four being the maximum allowed for siblings.
It was also necessary that a boarding out committee be formed on the outside to take responsibility for the girls.
One of the guardians said he thought that the children were going to work at the hospital as apprentices but the Clerk said that was not the case.
They would be going under the care of the matron as a foster parent but at the same time learn how to be nurses.
In the end it was decided to write to the Local Government Board and request their opinion on the matter.
Three girls were eventually allowed to work at the hospital. Two were only eight years of age – and the other just seven.
Last September the guardians had discussed whether their workhouse schoolteacher required help and it was suggested that a pupil teacher from among the pauper girls could be appointed.
Pupil teachers learned the profession on the job as they taught younger children. That was at the same time as completing their own education – usually before and/or after normal school hours.
However, a guardian called John Birchall was against the idea saying workhouse children had a "great want of mental activity, as compared with other children".
At the recent meeting of the guardians, it was stated that the schools inspector had been consulted about the advisability of appointing a pupil teacher – but he had also been firmly against the idea.
Although he said he had heard of such things in very large workhouses in cities, he did not recommend a trial at Whiston.
The pauper kids clearly had no chance to advance themselves in life – with little encouragement from those appointed to care for them.
Men were responsible in law for the debts of their spouses. But during times of domestic strife, husbands would place indemnity notices in newspapers refuting their responsibility for any monies owed by their wife. A typical notice would say:
"I, JOE BLOGGS – of No. 1 Church Street, St. Helens, do hereby give notice that I will NOT BE RESPONSIBLE for any Debt or Debts contracted by my wife, Jane Bloggs, after this date – January 23rd, 1873. Witness, Fred Smith."
In St Helens County Court in East Street this week a door-to-door salesman (known as a Scotch draper) called Mr Ray sued a man called Miller for 20 shillings. That was the outstanding balance on a debt the man's wife had run up.
Miller's defence was that he had no liability because he had published an indemnity notice in a newspaper rescinding his responsibilities for paying his wife's creditors.
However, the judge ruled that such a notice was insufficient and relied upon traders happening to see it. He said unless a creditor had been personally informed of his indemnity, it would not stand.
The defendant said his notice had satisfied another judge in a similar case in Runcorn and added that he would still refuse to pay the money.
The judge said that if he did not pay, he would send him to prison for 21 days.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the black entertainer who smashed a window on a train with his banjo, the alleged theft at a Westfield Street house of ill repute, the curious friendly society court case and the female squabble in Liverpool Street.
We begin on the 23rd when a lad called Henry Owen appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with stealing five shillings from a Liverpool ale and porter bottling firm called John Berry & Co.
The boy was about 13-years-old and employed to accompany the company's carter when he visited local towns.
Henry's duties were to mind the horse and cart while the carter went into public houses to solicit orders.
After visiting a certain pub in St Helens, the carter discovered that the boy and 5 shillings in copper that was kept inside a box had disappeared.
Later that day the police apprehended Henry at St Helens railway station where he'd used some of the stolen cash to buy a train ticket to Manchester.
The magistrates ordered that he be sent to prison for 14 days and be "whipped once".
That did not mean that Henry only endured one stroke of the birch rod – he may have received as many as a dozen or even fifteen lashings. The term was a reference to the number of occasions that he would be birched.
The St Helens Newspaper of the 25th contained this advert:
"STUPENDOUS SALE, by Auction; about 4000 Loads of excellent Night Soil; behind the Horse Shoe, Parr, near St. Helens."
Night soil was a euphemism for human faeces and was so called because a collector normally removed it at night from the privies, pits and pail closets that people then used as toilets.
And so if you wanted to make your roses or crops grow, you could trot along to the Horse Shoe on February 8th for what auctioneer William Birchall also called "superior night soil".
I wonder how you classified night soil as poor or good? It reminds me of one of my favourite lines from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here!"
The Newspaper's editorial praised the new parcel service to India:
"Thirty years ago when Rowland Hill established the penny post, it was considered a marvellous thing that a letter weighing half an ounce should be conveyed from one end of England to another for a penny.
"But what will our readers think of being able to send a parcel from London to the remotest village in India for a penny an ounce, or 1s. 4d. a pound!
"Yet this can now be done, the Peninsular and Oriental Company having made arrangements with the Indian post office, by which parcels delivered at the Company's office in London will be conveyed to any post town in India, and delivered to the person to whom they are addressed, at a uniform charge of 1s. 4d. a pound, which covers all charges except the Indian customs duty."
The new St Helens Railway Station in Shaw Street was opened in July 1871. It was rather basic and at the time the St Helens Newspaper wrote:
"It appears to us that the ridiculous incompetency of the old station has had an injurious effect upon the new. It will ever remain a mystery why the people of St. Helens tolerated so wretched a little hole as the building now abandoned. It was scarcely fit for the smallest village, and was a standing disgrace to the town for very many years."
The new building that the Newspaper claimed bore "no architectural pretensions whatever" was an improvement on the old station – but not seemingly by much.
This week the paper criticised the new railway station's "manifest inadequacy" to meet the needs of the "great and increasing" railway passenger traffic in St Helens.
"We were promised a “first-class station,” but got one of a fourth-class instead", the Newspaper lamented.
Of particular concern was that the majority of the travelling passengers at Shaw Street crossed the railway line on foot, setting up the prospect of a bad accident before too long.
There was a bridge that allowed a safe crossover but it was too far away for most passengers to bother with.
The Newspaper said it was expected that improvements would soon take place in which the station booking office would be relocated from its present site to a bridge in Raven Street. And platforms were to be built to allow passengers to safely cross the lines.
St Helens had a thriving mineral water industry during the 19th century.
Mains and pumped water supplies could be poor in terms of both their quality and quantity.
Consequently, those who had the cash would often instead buy bottled mineral water, with the added prospect of its supposed healing powers.
The Newspaper described how the mineral water manufacturers of St Helens had held a meeting at the White Lion in Church Street this week for the purpose of forming an association.
The first decision taken by the newly created St Helens and District Mineral Water Manufacturers Association was to make a charge of one penny for each bottle not returned by the purchaser.
Buyers were supposed to return all bottles to where they had bought them from but there was no incentive for them to do so.
As a result many bottles did not find their way back to the mineral manufacturers and so it was hoped that reclaiming the penny deposit would motivate buyers to return them.
I wonder if this was the first time that such deposits were put on bottles in St Helens?
The Newspaper described how at the recent meeting of the Prescot Guardians, the new hospital's application to take some orphan girls from the workhouse had been considered.
The matron wanted at least three girls to assist her but the Clerk to the Guardians reported that sending so many children would create a problem.
He had been looking through their rules on the subject and found that unless the children were brothers or sisters, they were not permitted to send out more than two – with four being the maximum allowed for siblings.
It was also necessary that a boarding out committee be formed on the outside to take responsibility for the girls.
One of the guardians said he thought that the children were going to work at the hospital as apprentices but the Clerk said that was not the case.
They would be going under the care of the matron as a foster parent but at the same time learn how to be nurses.
In the end it was decided to write to the Local Government Board and request their opinion on the matter.
Three girls were eventually allowed to work at the hospital. Two were only eight years of age – and the other just seven.
Last September the guardians had discussed whether their workhouse schoolteacher required help and it was suggested that a pupil teacher from among the pauper girls could be appointed.
Pupil teachers learned the profession on the job as they taught younger children. That was at the same time as completing their own education – usually before and/or after normal school hours.
However, a guardian called John Birchall was against the idea saying workhouse children had a "great want of mental activity, as compared with other children".
At the recent meeting of the guardians, it was stated that the schools inspector had been consulted about the advisability of appointing a pupil teacher – but he had also been firmly against the idea.
Although he said he had heard of such things in very large workhouses in cities, he did not recommend a trial at Whiston.
The pauper kids clearly had no chance to advance themselves in life – with little encouragement from those appointed to care for them.
Men were responsible in law for the debts of their spouses. But during times of domestic strife, husbands would place indemnity notices in newspapers refuting their responsibility for any monies owed by their wife. A typical notice would say:
"I, JOE BLOGGS – of No. 1 Church Street, St. Helens, do hereby give notice that I will NOT BE RESPONSIBLE for any Debt or Debts contracted by my wife, Jane Bloggs, after this date – January 23rd, 1873. Witness, Fred Smith."
In St Helens County Court in East Street this week a door-to-door salesman (known as a Scotch draper) called Mr Ray sued a man called Miller for 20 shillings. That was the outstanding balance on a debt the man's wife had run up.
Miller's defence was that he had no liability because he had published an indemnity notice in a newspaper rescinding his responsibilities for paying his wife's creditors.
However, the judge ruled that such a notice was insufficient and relied upon traders happening to see it. He said unless a creditor had been personally informed of his indemnity, it would not stand.
The defendant said his notice had satisfied another judge in a similar case in Runcorn and added that he would still refuse to pay the money.
The judge said that if he did not pay, he would send him to prison for 21 days.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the black entertainer who smashed a window on a train with his banjo, the alleged theft at a Westfield Street house of ill repute, the curious friendly society court case and the female squabble in Liverpool Street.