150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (23rd - 29th MAY 1872)
This week's stories include the shocking story of the mentally-ill man who died through starvation, the warring neighbours of Warrington Road, the public list of people claiming poor relief and why the new waterworks at Whiston was wiping the smile of some cynical folk's faces.
The Prescot Guardians met on the 23rd and were told that there were currently 321 persons in Whiston Workhouse, 121 of them children. Persons admitted to the workhouse, whether to the main wards or to the transient casual ward, were supposed to be completely destitute. Any coppers they might have in their possession had to be handed over upon arrival. At the guardians' meeting, the Master of the workhouse reported that a tramp had obtained admission to the casual ward claiming destitution. He must not have been a very experienced tramp as, otherwise, he would have known that he would have been searched. Fifteen shillings was found on him and prosecution and prison would probably follow.
After paying a visit to the casual ward in 1866 the Prescot Reporter had described the two rooms as: "…miserably uncomfortable places, and if they are fit for tramps they are certainly fit for no other human beings." The men's ward then had sleeping accommodation for 18 persons but they found 41 men and boys crammed inside – although after the negative publicity improvements were made.
In these days of data protection, it's interesting to contrast how times were very different in the past when there was little concern for persons' privacy. At the meeting, the Guardians considered whether a list should be published each month containing details of all those in receipt of outdoor relief. That was the very small sum given (usually in the form of food coupons) to those in dire poverty, so they could continue living in their own homes. That was a much cheaper arrangement than placing them in the workhouse.
The discussion centred on the heavy workload of generating such a list, as opposed to the privacy implications of claimants. Putting such a list in the public domain would, it was hoped, allow people to report those who might be cheating the system. It was stated that the guardians for West Derby already had a similar scheme in operation and so they decided to write to them for information.
Apart from on Christmas Day, the food served in the workhouse to the paupers was pretty basic fare and I think there was little point in complaining about it. The Master also reported that "several of the old women" had complained of the quality of the meat they had been given. The complaints were made to some guardians when making one of their regular inspections of the workhouse. The Master said the visitors had examined the meat but the women's complaint was found to be groundless. Just whether the guardians would eat such meat themselves was not stated!
"Live and let live" was not a motto employed by many in the 1870s. In the Prescot Petty Sessions on the 23rd, Margaret Keefe insisted that a prosecution brought against her by Catherine McRea had been motivated by spite, as she had once given the woman a "necessary lecture on propriety". The advice may have been necessary to Margaret Keefe but was no doubt resented by her recipient neighbour in Warrington Road in Rainhill.
The lecture appears to have sparked a spat between the pair that led to the court hearing after Mrs McRea had ticked off one of Mrs Keefe's children. That resulted in the mother going to Mrs McRea's house and calling her "a reprobate" and threatening to "pull her to pieces". Mrs Keefe was bound over in two sureties to keep the peace.
On the 24th the inquest on Lawrence Cunliffe was held at the Victoria Inn in New Market Place in St Helens – and a shocking story was told. The man was described as being found half-naked at 3:30am lying on the railway line near to the Parr Copper Works. Half-naked sounds a bit generous, as he had on no shirt, trousers, stockings or boots – just his undies, seemingly. The man was assumed to have been drunk – and so a policeman took him into custody. However, on the way to the police lock up, PC Gill noticed that his prisoner was shivering very badly and so he kindly gave him some brandy.
Lawrence's wife came to the station and identified the arrested man as her husband and returned home to collect some clothes. But within two hours of being placed in a cell, Lawrence was found to be dead. A post-mortem revealed nothing that could account for his demise – and so it was assumed it had been caused by a combination of exposure and hunger, as a result of what the St Helens Newspaper called the "perfect emptiness of his stomach". However, mental illness, rather than poverty, appeared to be the root cause of Lawrence's death. The Newspaper wrote:
"The unfortunate man had evidently been somewhat deranged in his intellect for some days at least before his death. He was seen in various places in the district, appearing like a vision of rags, miserable and lonely, and then disappearing suddenly as he had come, sometimes getting a little liquid refreshment, and sometimes getting nothing. Several persons had spoken to him, and heard him talk like a lunatic, but no one appeared to have done anything to restore him to his home or place him under protection until he was dying."
As the population of St Helens expanded, its water supply could not keep up with demand and its pumping station on Eccleston Hill regularly ran dry. Water had to be rationed to St Helens townsfolk and supplies were often turned off at night. The town's new well at Whiston had long been touted as the solution to the problem. When it first became operational in late 1871, everything looked rosy. But the borehole soon had to be abandoned after meeting geological problems. The Whiston waterworks soon became a standing joke, with many calls in the St Helens Council Chamber for it to be written off.
This week on the 25th, the St Helens Newspaper said there was finally some good news to report: "Our readers will be glad to learn that the tunnelling operation at the St. Helens Corporation Waterworks, Whiston; have at length resulted in an abundant supply of water. These much abused works and their promoters have so long been held up to ridicule and contempt, that it is quite a relief to have anything favourable to report. Members of the Town Council, even, have not hesitated to assert that in a few months the well would be dry, and have recommended the sale of the engine and plant as a matter of economy or spite.
"The Whiston works have been a fruitful cause of bitterness in the Council, and of much uneasiness and unpleasantness in the town. Every man who was prominently connected with them, from the geologist to the engineer, aye, and even the labourers, have been attacked and abused without sense or mercy, rhyme or reason. We believe we are not premature in congratulating the ratepayers on the pretty certain prospect of obtaining a bountiful supply of water from the Whiston waterworks."
The Newspaper described how the breakthrough had been made earlier in the month after an explosive shot was fired amongst rocks. A sudden rush of water took place, with the flow being so great that the workmen involved having to rapidly vacate the place. They were even forced to leave their tools behind, with one of the men saying: "The water came like the rush of the tide."
However, in a separate part of the paper this letter was published about a water shortage in Elephant Lane (pictured above): "Sir, I beg to ask you to allow me a few lines in your paper, on the scarcity of water. There has been no water in Elephant lane, for two days, where the small pox is raging fearfully, and the sick are crying for water, and the public are running from one house to another. – I remain, yours, A Ratepayer, Thatto Heath, May 23rd, 1872."
Another report described how during the two-day Whit festivities at Preston recently, up to 60 lost children had on each day been taken to the police station. In nearly every instance, the mothers who went to claim their kids were drunk, and some were described as respectable-looking.
The summer meeting of Newton Races was going to be held in a couple of weeks and on the 27th the letting of sites for drinking bars and booths took place. Publicans and fairground folk and others had to go to the Grandstand on Newton Racecourse at 11am in order to agree their site and cough up their rent in advance.
And finally, in the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 27th, Michael Curran was charged with assaulting his wife Bridget. The latter complained that her husband "broke her tea vessels in a fit of spleen" (as the Newspaper put it) and then assaulted her. Matters would have got worse, Bridget reckoned, if a neighbour had not intervened.
Typically, her husband Michael denied striking his wife but still claimed enormous provocation, saying: "Even if I had done it, it was well due and high time. No other man in England could have stood her tongue for twenty years as I have done." He was fined 5 shillings and costs.
Next week's stories will include the Westfield Street doctor that sued a patient for refusing to pay his bill, the blacksmith wrongly charged with indecently assaulting a child in Parr, the Rainford sister-in-law defamation case and the start of Newton Races.
The Prescot Guardians met on the 23rd and were told that there were currently 321 persons in Whiston Workhouse, 121 of them children. Persons admitted to the workhouse, whether to the main wards or to the transient casual ward, were supposed to be completely destitute. Any coppers they might have in their possession had to be handed over upon arrival. At the guardians' meeting, the Master of the workhouse reported that a tramp had obtained admission to the casual ward claiming destitution. He must not have been a very experienced tramp as, otherwise, he would have known that he would have been searched. Fifteen shillings was found on him and prosecution and prison would probably follow.
After paying a visit to the casual ward in 1866 the Prescot Reporter had described the two rooms as: "…miserably uncomfortable places, and if they are fit for tramps they are certainly fit for no other human beings." The men's ward then had sleeping accommodation for 18 persons but they found 41 men and boys crammed inside – although after the negative publicity improvements were made.
In these days of data protection, it's interesting to contrast how times were very different in the past when there was little concern for persons' privacy. At the meeting, the Guardians considered whether a list should be published each month containing details of all those in receipt of outdoor relief. That was the very small sum given (usually in the form of food coupons) to those in dire poverty, so they could continue living in their own homes. That was a much cheaper arrangement than placing them in the workhouse.
The discussion centred on the heavy workload of generating such a list, as opposed to the privacy implications of claimants. Putting such a list in the public domain would, it was hoped, allow people to report those who might be cheating the system. It was stated that the guardians for West Derby already had a similar scheme in operation and so they decided to write to them for information.
Apart from on Christmas Day, the food served in the workhouse to the paupers was pretty basic fare and I think there was little point in complaining about it. The Master also reported that "several of the old women" had complained of the quality of the meat they had been given. The complaints were made to some guardians when making one of their regular inspections of the workhouse. The Master said the visitors had examined the meat but the women's complaint was found to be groundless. Just whether the guardians would eat such meat themselves was not stated!
"Live and let live" was not a motto employed by many in the 1870s. In the Prescot Petty Sessions on the 23rd, Margaret Keefe insisted that a prosecution brought against her by Catherine McRea had been motivated by spite, as she had once given the woman a "necessary lecture on propriety". The advice may have been necessary to Margaret Keefe but was no doubt resented by her recipient neighbour in Warrington Road in Rainhill.
The lecture appears to have sparked a spat between the pair that led to the court hearing after Mrs McRea had ticked off one of Mrs Keefe's children. That resulted in the mother going to Mrs McRea's house and calling her "a reprobate" and threatening to "pull her to pieces". Mrs Keefe was bound over in two sureties to keep the peace.
On the 24th the inquest on Lawrence Cunliffe was held at the Victoria Inn in New Market Place in St Helens – and a shocking story was told. The man was described as being found half-naked at 3:30am lying on the railway line near to the Parr Copper Works. Half-naked sounds a bit generous, as he had on no shirt, trousers, stockings or boots – just his undies, seemingly. The man was assumed to have been drunk – and so a policeman took him into custody. However, on the way to the police lock up, PC Gill noticed that his prisoner was shivering very badly and so he kindly gave him some brandy.
Lawrence's wife came to the station and identified the arrested man as her husband and returned home to collect some clothes. But within two hours of being placed in a cell, Lawrence was found to be dead. A post-mortem revealed nothing that could account for his demise – and so it was assumed it had been caused by a combination of exposure and hunger, as a result of what the St Helens Newspaper called the "perfect emptiness of his stomach". However, mental illness, rather than poverty, appeared to be the root cause of Lawrence's death. The Newspaper wrote:
"The unfortunate man had evidently been somewhat deranged in his intellect for some days at least before his death. He was seen in various places in the district, appearing like a vision of rags, miserable and lonely, and then disappearing suddenly as he had come, sometimes getting a little liquid refreshment, and sometimes getting nothing. Several persons had spoken to him, and heard him talk like a lunatic, but no one appeared to have done anything to restore him to his home or place him under protection until he was dying."
As the population of St Helens expanded, its water supply could not keep up with demand and its pumping station on Eccleston Hill regularly ran dry. Water had to be rationed to St Helens townsfolk and supplies were often turned off at night. The town's new well at Whiston had long been touted as the solution to the problem. When it first became operational in late 1871, everything looked rosy. But the borehole soon had to be abandoned after meeting geological problems. The Whiston waterworks soon became a standing joke, with many calls in the St Helens Council Chamber for it to be written off.
This week on the 25th, the St Helens Newspaper said there was finally some good news to report: "Our readers will be glad to learn that the tunnelling operation at the St. Helens Corporation Waterworks, Whiston; have at length resulted in an abundant supply of water. These much abused works and their promoters have so long been held up to ridicule and contempt, that it is quite a relief to have anything favourable to report. Members of the Town Council, even, have not hesitated to assert that in a few months the well would be dry, and have recommended the sale of the engine and plant as a matter of economy or spite.
"The Whiston works have been a fruitful cause of bitterness in the Council, and of much uneasiness and unpleasantness in the town. Every man who was prominently connected with them, from the geologist to the engineer, aye, and even the labourers, have been attacked and abused without sense or mercy, rhyme or reason. We believe we are not premature in congratulating the ratepayers on the pretty certain prospect of obtaining a bountiful supply of water from the Whiston waterworks."
The Newspaper described how the breakthrough had been made earlier in the month after an explosive shot was fired amongst rocks. A sudden rush of water took place, with the flow being so great that the workmen involved having to rapidly vacate the place. They were even forced to leave their tools behind, with one of the men saying: "The water came like the rush of the tide."
Another report described how during the two-day Whit festivities at Preston recently, up to 60 lost children had on each day been taken to the police station. In nearly every instance, the mothers who went to claim their kids were drunk, and some were described as respectable-looking.
The summer meeting of Newton Races was going to be held in a couple of weeks and on the 27th the letting of sites for drinking bars and booths took place. Publicans and fairground folk and others had to go to the Grandstand on Newton Racecourse at 11am in order to agree their site and cough up their rent in advance.
And finally, in the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 27th, Michael Curran was charged with assaulting his wife Bridget. The latter complained that her husband "broke her tea vessels in a fit of spleen" (as the Newspaper put it) and then assaulted her. Matters would have got worse, Bridget reckoned, if a neighbour had not intervened.
Typically, her husband Michael denied striking his wife but still claimed enormous provocation, saying: "Even if I had done it, it was well due and high time. No other man in England could have stood her tongue for twenty years as I have done." He was fined 5 shillings and costs.
Next week's stories will include the Westfield Street doctor that sued a patient for refusing to pay his bill, the blacksmith wrongly charged with indecently assaulting a child in Parr, the Rainford sister-in-law defamation case and the start of Newton Races.
This week's stories include the shocking story of the mentally-ill man who died through starvation, the warring neighbours of Warrington Road, the public list of people claiming poor relief and why the new waterworks at Whiston was wiping the smile of some cynical folk's faces.
The Prescot Guardians met on the 23rd and were told that there were currently 321 persons in Whiston Workhouse, 121 of them children.
Persons admitted to the workhouse, whether to the main wards or to the transient casual ward, were supposed to be completely destitute.
Any coppers they might have in their possession had to be handed over upon arrival.
At the guardians' meeting, the Master of the workhouse reported that a tramp had obtained admission to the casual ward claiming destitution.
He must not have been a very experienced tramp as, otherwise, he would have known that he would have been searched.
Fifteen shillings was found on him and prosecution and prison would probably follow.
After paying a visit to the casual ward in 1866 the Prescot Reporter had described the two rooms as:
"…miserably uncomfortable places, and if they are fit for tramps they are certainly fit for no other human beings."
The men's ward then had sleeping accommodation for 18 persons but they found 41 men and boys crammed inside – although after the negative publicity improvements were made.
In these days of data protection, it's interesting to contrast how times were very different in the past when there was little concern for persons' privacy.
At the meeting, the Guardians considered whether a list should be published each month containing details of all those in receipt of outdoor relief.
That was the very small sum given (usually in the form of food coupons) to those in dire poverty, so they could continue living in their own homes.
That was a much cheaper arrangement than placing them in the workhouse.
The discussion centred on the heavy workload of generating such a list, as opposed to the privacy implications of claimants.
Putting such a list in the public domain would, it was hoped, allow people to report those who might be cheating the system.
It was stated that the guardians for West Derby already had a similar scheme in operation and so they decided to write to them for information.
Apart from on Christmas Day, the food served in the workhouse to the paupers was pretty basic fare and I think there was little point in complaining about it.
The Master also reported that "several of the old women" had complained of the quality of the meat they had been given.
The complaints were made to some guardians when making one of their regular inspections of the workhouse.
The Master said the visitors had examined the meat but the women's complaint was found to be groundless. Just whether the guardians would eat such meat themselves was not stated!
"Live and let live" was not a motto employed by many in the 1870s. In the Prescot Petty Sessions on the 23rd, Margaret Keefe insisted that a prosecution brought against her by Catherine McRea had been motivated by spite, as she had once given the woman a "necessary lecture on propriety".
The advice may have been necessary to Margaret Keefe but was no doubt resented by her recipient neighbour in Warrington Road in Rainhill.
The lecture appears to have sparked a spat between the pair that led to the court hearing after Mrs McRea had ticked off one of Mrs Keefe's children.
That resulted in the mother going to Mrs McRea's house and calling her "a reprobate" and threatening to "pull her to pieces". Mrs Keefe was bound over in two sureties to keep the peace.
On the 24th the inquest on Lawrence Cunliffe was held at the Victoria Inn in New Market Place in St Helens – and a shocking story was told.
The man was described as being found half-naked at 3:30am lying on the railway line near to the Parr Copper Works.
Half-naked sounds a bit generous, as he had on no shirt, trousers, stockings or boots – just his undies, seemingly.
The man was assumed to have been drunk – and so a policeman took him into custody.
However, on the way to the police lock up, PC Gill noticed that his prisoner was shivering very badly and so he kindly gave him some brandy.
Lawrence's wife came to the station and identified the arrested man as her husband and returned home to collect some clothes.
But within two hours of being placed in a cell, Lawrence was found to be dead.
A post-mortem revealed nothing that could account for his demise – and so it was assumed it had been caused by a combination of exposure and hunger, as a result of what the St Helens Newspaper called the "perfect emptiness of his stomach".
However, mental illness, rather than poverty, appeared to be the root cause of Lawrence's death. The Newspaper wrote:
"The unfortunate man had evidently been somewhat deranged in his intellect for some days at least before his death. He was seen in various places in the district, appearing like a vision of rags, miserable and lonely, and then disappearing suddenly as he had come, sometimes getting a little liquid refreshment, and sometimes getting nothing.
"Several persons had spoken to him, and heard him talk like a lunatic, but no one appeared to have done anything to restore him to his home or place him under protection until he was dying."
As the population of St Helens expanded, its water supply could not keep up with demand and its pumping station on Eccleston Hill regularly ran dry.
Water had to be rationed to St Helens townsfolk and supplies were often turned off at night.
The town's new well at Whiston had long been touted as the solution to the problem.
When it first became operational in late 1871, everything looked rosy. But the borehole soon had to be abandoned after meeting geological problems.
The Whiston waterworks soon became a standing joke, with many calls in the St Helens Council Chamber for it to be written off.
This week on the 25th, the St Helens Newspaper said there was finally some good news to report:
"Our readers will be glad to learn that the tunnelling operation at the St. Helens Corporation Waterworks, Whiston; have at length resulted in an abundant supply of water.
"These much abused works and their promoters have so long been held up to ridicule and contempt, that it is quite a relief to have anything favourable to report.
"Members of the Town Council, even, have not hesitated to assert that in a few months the well would be dry, and have recommended the sale of the engine and plant as a matter of economy or spite.
"The Whiston works have been a fruitful cause of bitterness in the Council, and of much uneasiness and unpleasantness in the town.
"Every man who was prominently connected with them, from the geologist to the engineer, aye, and even the labourers, have been attacked and abused without sense or mercy, rhyme or reason.
"We believe we are not premature in congratulating the ratepayers on the pretty certain prospect of obtaining a bountiful supply of water from the Whiston waterworks."
The Newspaper described how the breakthrough had been made earlier in the month after an explosive shot was fired amongst rocks.
A sudden rush of water took place, with the flow being so great that the workmen involved having to rapidly vacate the place.
They were even forced to leave their tools behind, with one of the men saying: "The water came like the rush of the tide."
However, in a separate part of the paper this letter was published about a water shortage in Elephant Lane (pictured above):
"Sir, I beg to ask you to allow me a few lines in your paper, on the scarcity of water. There has been no water in Elephant lane, for two days, where the small pox is raging fearfully, and the sick are crying for water, and the public are running from one house to another. – I remain, yours, A Ratepayer, Thatto Heath, May 23rd, 1872."
Another report described how during the two-day Whit festivities at Preston recently, up to 60 lost children had on each day been taken to the police station.
In nearly every instance, the mothers who went to claim their kids were drunk, and some were described as respectable-looking.
The summer meeting of Newton Races was going to be held in a couple of weeks and on the 27th the letting of sites for drinking bars and booths took place.
Publicans and fairground folk and others had to go to the Grandstand on Newton Racecourse at 11am in order to agree their site and cough up their rent in advance.
And finally, in the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 27th, Michael Curran was charged with assaulting his wife Bridget.
The latter complained that her husband "broke her tea vessels in a fit of spleen" (as the Newspaper put it) and then assaulted her.
Matters would have got worse, Bridget reckoned, if a neighbour had not intervened.
Typically, her husband Michael denied striking his wife but still claimed enormous provocation, saying:
"Even if I had done it, it was well due and high time. No other man in England could have stood her tongue for twenty years as I have done." He was fined 5 shillings and costs.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the Westfield Street doctor that sued a patient for refusing to pay his bill, the blacksmith wrongly charged with indecently assaulting a child in Parr, the Rainford sister-in-law defamation case and the start of Newton Races.
The Prescot Guardians met on the 23rd and were told that there were currently 321 persons in Whiston Workhouse, 121 of them children.
Persons admitted to the workhouse, whether to the main wards or to the transient casual ward, were supposed to be completely destitute.
Any coppers they might have in their possession had to be handed over upon arrival.
At the guardians' meeting, the Master of the workhouse reported that a tramp had obtained admission to the casual ward claiming destitution.
He must not have been a very experienced tramp as, otherwise, he would have known that he would have been searched.
Fifteen shillings was found on him and prosecution and prison would probably follow.
After paying a visit to the casual ward in 1866 the Prescot Reporter had described the two rooms as:
"…miserably uncomfortable places, and if they are fit for tramps they are certainly fit for no other human beings."
The men's ward then had sleeping accommodation for 18 persons but they found 41 men and boys crammed inside – although after the negative publicity improvements were made.
In these days of data protection, it's interesting to contrast how times were very different in the past when there was little concern for persons' privacy.
At the meeting, the Guardians considered whether a list should be published each month containing details of all those in receipt of outdoor relief.
That was the very small sum given (usually in the form of food coupons) to those in dire poverty, so they could continue living in their own homes.
That was a much cheaper arrangement than placing them in the workhouse.
The discussion centred on the heavy workload of generating such a list, as opposed to the privacy implications of claimants.
Putting such a list in the public domain would, it was hoped, allow people to report those who might be cheating the system.
It was stated that the guardians for West Derby already had a similar scheme in operation and so they decided to write to them for information.
Apart from on Christmas Day, the food served in the workhouse to the paupers was pretty basic fare and I think there was little point in complaining about it.
The Master also reported that "several of the old women" had complained of the quality of the meat they had been given.
The complaints were made to some guardians when making one of their regular inspections of the workhouse.
The Master said the visitors had examined the meat but the women's complaint was found to be groundless. Just whether the guardians would eat such meat themselves was not stated!
"Live and let live" was not a motto employed by many in the 1870s. In the Prescot Petty Sessions on the 23rd, Margaret Keefe insisted that a prosecution brought against her by Catherine McRea had been motivated by spite, as she had once given the woman a "necessary lecture on propriety".
The advice may have been necessary to Margaret Keefe but was no doubt resented by her recipient neighbour in Warrington Road in Rainhill.
The lecture appears to have sparked a spat between the pair that led to the court hearing after Mrs McRea had ticked off one of Mrs Keefe's children.
That resulted in the mother going to Mrs McRea's house and calling her "a reprobate" and threatening to "pull her to pieces". Mrs Keefe was bound over in two sureties to keep the peace.
On the 24th the inquest on Lawrence Cunliffe was held at the Victoria Inn in New Market Place in St Helens – and a shocking story was told.
The man was described as being found half-naked at 3:30am lying on the railway line near to the Parr Copper Works.
Half-naked sounds a bit generous, as he had on no shirt, trousers, stockings or boots – just his undies, seemingly.
The man was assumed to have been drunk – and so a policeman took him into custody.
However, on the way to the police lock up, PC Gill noticed that his prisoner was shivering very badly and so he kindly gave him some brandy.
Lawrence's wife came to the station and identified the arrested man as her husband and returned home to collect some clothes.
But within two hours of being placed in a cell, Lawrence was found to be dead.
A post-mortem revealed nothing that could account for his demise – and so it was assumed it had been caused by a combination of exposure and hunger, as a result of what the St Helens Newspaper called the "perfect emptiness of his stomach".
However, mental illness, rather than poverty, appeared to be the root cause of Lawrence's death. The Newspaper wrote:
"The unfortunate man had evidently been somewhat deranged in his intellect for some days at least before his death. He was seen in various places in the district, appearing like a vision of rags, miserable and lonely, and then disappearing suddenly as he had come, sometimes getting a little liquid refreshment, and sometimes getting nothing.
"Several persons had spoken to him, and heard him talk like a lunatic, but no one appeared to have done anything to restore him to his home or place him under protection until he was dying."
As the population of St Helens expanded, its water supply could not keep up with demand and its pumping station on Eccleston Hill regularly ran dry.
Water had to be rationed to St Helens townsfolk and supplies were often turned off at night.
The town's new well at Whiston had long been touted as the solution to the problem.
When it first became operational in late 1871, everything looked rosy. But the borehole soon had to be abandoned after meeting geological problems.
The Whiston waterworks soon became a standing joke, with many calls in the St Helens Council Chamber for it to be written off.
This week on the 25th, the St Helens Newspaper said there was finally some good news to report:
"Our readers will be glad to learn that the tunnelling operation at the St. Helens Corporation Waterworks, Whiston; have at length resulted in an abundant supply of water.
"These much abused works and their promoters have so long been held up to ridicule and contempt, that it is quite a relief to have anything favourable to report.
"Members of the Town Council, even, have not hesitated to assert that in a few months the well would be dry, and have recommended the sale of the engine and plant as a matter of economy or spite.
"The Whiston works have been a fruitful cause of bitterness in the Council, and of much uneasiness and unpleasantness in the town.
"Every man who was prominently connected with them, from the geologist to the engineer, aye, and even the labourers, have been attacked and abused without sense or mercy, rhyme or reason.
"We believe we are not premature in congratulating the ratepayers on the pretty certain prospect of obtaining a bountiful supply of water from the Whiston waterworks."
The Newspaper described how the breakthrough had been made earlier in the month after an explosive shot was fired amongst rocks.
A sudden rush of water took place, with the flow being so great that the workmen involved having to rapidly vacate the place.
They were even forced to leave their tools behind, with one of the men saying: "The water came like the rush of the tide."
"Sir, I beg to ask you to allow me a few lines in your paper, on the scarcity of water. There has been no water in Elephant lane, for two days, where the small pox is raging fearfully, and the sick are crying for water, and the public are running from one house to another. – I remain, yours, A Ratepayer, Thatto Heath, May 23rd, 1872."
Another report described how during the two-day Whit festivities at Preston recently, up to 60 lost children had on each day been taken to the police station.
In nearly every instance, the mothers who went to claim their kids were drunk, and some were described as respectable-looking.
The summer meeting of Newton Races was going to be held in a couple of weeks and on the 27th the letting of sites for drinking bars and booths took place.
Publicans and fairground folk and others had to go to the Grandstand on Newton Racecourse at 11am in order to agree their site and cough up their rent in advance.
And finally, in the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 27th, Michael Curran was charged with assaulting his wife Bridget.
The latter complained that her husband "broke her tea vessels in a fit of spleen" (as the Newspaper put it) and then assaulted her.
Matters would have got worse, Bridget reckoned, if a neighbour had not intervened.
Typically, her husband Michael denied striking his wife but still claimed enormous provocation, saying:
"Even if I had done it, it was well due and high time. No other man in England could have stood her tongue for twenty years as I have done." He was fined 5 shillings and costs.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the Westfield Street doctor that sued a patient for refusing to pay his bill, the blacksmith wrongly charged with indecently assaulting a child in Parr, the Rainford sister-in-law defamation case and the start of Newton Races.