150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 25 - 31 DECEMBER 1873
This week's many stories include the St Helens Newspaper's musings on the meaning of Christmas, the joy of Christmas Day in Whiston Workhouse, the Canal Street crowd that tried to stop three policemen from making an arrest, the Peasley Cross grocer brought down to earth in a spirit of wantonness, the poaching on the Bold Hall estate, the fire at the old Town Hall, more details of the new St Helens News and Reading Room and the Haydock miners' strike over how many hundredweight comprise a ton.
The Christmas panto at the Theatre Royal in the building we know as the Citadel (pictured above) continued throughout this week. What was described as a "gorgeous pantomime" and a "grand treat for the Christmas holidays", had begun on Christmas Eve and bore the less than snappy title of 'Harlequin Sinbad the Sailor or the Wicked Ogre and the Fairies of the Ocean Deep!' The St Helens Newspaper wrote that some of the effects were "positively dazzling".
The highlight of the year for the several hundred inmates of Whiston Workhouse was always the Christmas dinner and the entertainment that followed, as the Newspaper also described: "The monotony of the lives of the great bulk of the inmates, particularly the young, requires some such relief at a festive season, and it was a wise and humane provision which makes Christmas a pleasant time, when even the collected waifs of society are entertained with the cheer which is the lot of happier mortals."
The paper added that not only had there been an ample banquet this year – but the dining hall was made "gay with evergreens and mottoes". In the evening a band from Whiston entertained the paupers with the Newspaper commenting: "It was something wonderful to observe the heartiness and vigour with which many of the company utilised the dance tunes. It was quite apparent that merriment reigned supreme, and when the hour arrived for breaking up the Master [of the workhouse] complimented all upon the pleasant and agreeable day they had passed."
The paper also described how Christmas 1873 had been autumnal, with even some sunshine having broken through at times. At Christmastime the paper's editor, Bernard Dromgoole, liked to preach a bit of a sermon on the true meaning of the season and these were this year's philosophical utterings:
"It is the season for enjoyment, and abandonment to pleasure, innocent or objectionable. It is the time for scattered families, battling in units, to gather again around the parent hearth, and realise the exquisite happiness of such periodical reunions, when hearts severed by distance, possibly estranged by cares, can “meet again like parted streams, and mingle as of old.”
"Unfortunately its pleasures, if deep, are short-lived. A few hours – sunny spots they may be in the gloom of life's struggle – and it has rolled away in the track of its predecessors. The laughing groups are gone, the holly fades upon the wall, and the traces of Christmas are soon left in the chambers of the memory alone.
"Unfortunately many hundreds, perhaps thousands, in our town, will observe Christmas by abandoning themselves to riot and debauchery, as if a Saviour came that man might be degraded to the level of the brute; and they will involve their unhappy families in that misery which is the lot of the drunkard's dependents, and which is felt with tenfold bitterness at such a season as this. If such unholy celebrations were but banished from the Christmas time, how few the cold hearths that would be lighted by the December sun!"
The Newspaper provided more information on the St Helens News and Reading Room that was due to open on January 1st. Such newsrooms were clubs in which its subscribers had access to a wide range of daily and weekly newspapers, as well as other publications. It was a cost-effective way of widening your knowledge, although the reading matter could not be taken away.
The subscription fee for the facility had now been set at ten shillings a year, which works out at just over 2d a week. What was described as the principal London, Liverpool and Manchester dailies would be available, as well as St Helens and Prescot papers and a selection of magazines. The Mayor, James Radley, was the President of the new men-only reading club and it was stated that old newspapers and magazines that were "done with" would be sold off by auction.
The bobbies of St Helens could have a difficult task in conveying their prisoners to the police station late on a Saturday night after making an arrest. Even if those that resisted had been handcuffed, they could still shout and summon help from others. The noise would result in a crowd gathering and amongst them one or two idiots would chance their arm with the police.
In the St Helens Petty Sessions this week John Kenny was charged with being drunk and disorderly in Canal Street on the previous Saturday night and with assaulting Sergeant Berry. The latter had been accompanying PC Rowan who had arrested Kenny and while the pair was escorting their prisoner to the station, they said he had "resisted furiously" and called out for fellow Irishmen to rescue him. In court John Kenny sensibly offered no defence to the charges and instead appealed for leniency and was fined 7s 6d and costs.
John Noon had attempted to free Kenny and he was next in the dock charged with assaulting PC Phillips. The latter had been helping the two other officers take Kenny to the station when Noon ran up and attempted to free him by striking PC Phillips more than once. Noon did not follow the example set by his compliant predecessor in the dock and ask for leniency, which usually went down well with the Bench.
Instead he chose the opposite path of disputing the evidence by claiming that he had been attracted to the scene by the noise of the crowd and saying he had done nothing apart from tell the police to take their man to the station quietly – and in return the bobbies had arrested him. A not very likely story and he was fined £1 and costs by the magistrates and given a lecture.
John Boylan was another unwise character. Sergeant Robinson told the court that he had been coming down Peasley Cross Lane when he saw a grocer called Thompson going up a ladder outside his shop to bring down some bacon that was hanging up. In what the newspaper called a "spirit of wantonness", Boylan pulled down the ladder, bringing the grocer to the ground. The sergeant said he approached Boylan and asked for his name and in return he received a violent blow on the nose. However, Boylan was only fined 10 shillings and costs.
The Newspaper headlined their report of a dispute between two women as a "Trivial Assault". I can't say that I agree, as Ellen Holland had been accused of punching Mary Atherton in the stomach – and the latter was pregnant and complained of having been in pain ever since the blow was struck. In court the defendant denied the punch and said they had both "wrangled" equally and only a token fine was imposed.
Poaching was very common and prosecutions took place at most court hearings. This week Thomas Baxter and John Pownall were both charged with using a gun on the Bold Hall estate for the purpose of taking game. A gamekeeper gave evidence of seeing the two men firing weapons and immediately afterwards a hare had bounded past him. Both men possessed shotguns and were disarmed and taken into custody.
Their excuse in court was pretty lame. Baxter and Pownall claimed they had only discharged their weapons in the air because they'd wanted to empty them and they insisted they had not been after game. That did not, of course, explain why they were trespassing with guns on the Bold estate. Both prospective poachers with dubious aims were fined 5 shillings.
The 1871 census lists 55 persons within the St Helens / Prescot district who bore the name Moses. One of them was a Rainford coal miner called Moses Middlehurst and on the 29th in St Helens Petty Sessions he was fined 20 shillings and costs for a violent assault on a policeman.
On the 31st at about 4am a fire was discovered in the old St Helens Town Hall in New Market Place. It originated in the basement, where a large stove heated a number of pipes. One had set fire to the woodwork in the ceiling but it was quickly extinguished and no serious damage was done. It had been the third blaze that the building had suffered since 1871.
On the same day a fire broke out at Groves Colliery (aka Ravenhead Colliery) in St Helens. Underground fires could be difficult to put out and it took many hours before the blaze was extinguished.
Several hundred coalminers in Haydock were also on strike this week, mainly because of a row over how many hundredweight comprised a ton. Miners were paid for the amount of coal that they produced. But there were often disputes with the mine's management over how the coal was measured, with petty rules implemented that disadvantaged the men.
A new law attempted to regulate payment by ton with the miners allowed to recruit an individual known as a checkweighman to confirm the management's own weights. However, the coal bosses felt there should be 25 cwt for every ton but the men insisted on 20 and it was expected that the dispute would spread to other local pits.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the drunkenness in St Helens on New Year's Day, the cowardly runaway husband from Rainhill, the theft of a charity box from the Globe Hotel and the row that led to nine summonses being issued.
The highlight of the year for the several hundred inmates of Whiston Workhouse was always the Christmas dinner and the entertainment that followed, as the Newspaper also described: "The monotony of the lives of the great bulk of the inmates, particularly the young, requires some such relief at a festive season, and it was a wise and humane provision which makes Christmas a pleasant time, when even the collected waifs of society are entertained with the cheer which is the lot of happier mortals."
The paper added that not only had there been an ample banquet this year – but the dining hall was made "gay with evergreens and mottoes". In the evening a band from Whiston entertained the paupers with the Newspaper commenting: "It was something wonderful to observe the heartiness and vigour with which many of the company utilised the dance tunes. It was quite apparent that merriment reigned supreme, and when the hour arrived for breaking up the Master [of the workhouse] complimented all upon the pleasant and agreeable day they had passed."
The paper also described how Christmas 1873 had been autumnal, with even some sunshine having broken through at times. At Christmastime the paper's editor, Bernard Dromgoole, liked to preach a bit of a sermon on the true meaning of the season and these were this year's philosophical utterings:
"It is the season for enjoyment, and abandonment to pleasure, innocent or objectionable. It is the time for scattered families, battling in units, to gather again around the parent hearth, and realise the exquisite happiness of such periodical reunions, when hearts severed by distance, possibly estranged by cares, can “meet again like parted streams, and mingle as of old.”
"Unfortunately its pleasures, if deep, are short-lived. A few hours – sunny spots they may be in the gloom of life's struggle – and it has rolled away in the track of its predecessors. The laughing groups are gone, the holly fades upon the wall, and the traces of Christmas are soon left in the chambers of the memory alone.
"Unfortunately many hundreds, perhaps thousands, in our town, will observe Christmas by abandoning themselves to riot and debauchery, as if a Saviour came that man might be degraded to the level of the brute; and they will involve their unhappy families in that misery which is the lot of the drunkard's dependents, and which is felt with tenfold bitterness at such a season as this. If such unholy celebrations were but banished from the Christmas time, how few the cold hearths that would be lighted by the December sun!"
The Newspaper provided more information on the St Helens News and Reading Room that was due to open on January 1st. Such newsrooms were clubs in which its subscribers had access to a wide range of daily and weekly newspapers, as well as other publications. It was a cost-effective way of widening your knowledge, although the reading matter could not be taken away.
The subscription fee for the facility had now been set at ten shillings a year, which works out at just over 2d a week. What was described as the principal London, Liverpool and Manchester dailies would be available, as well as St Helens and Prescot papers and a selection of magazines. The Mayor, James Radley, was the President of the new men-only reading club and it was stated that old newspapers and magazines that were "done with" would be sold off by auction.
The bobbies of St Helens could have a difficult task in conveying their prisoners to the police station late on a Saturday night after making an arrest. Even if those that resisted had been handcuffed, they could still shout and summon help from others. The noise would result in a crowd gathering and amongst them one or two idiots would chance their arm with the police.
In the St Helens Petty Sessions this week John Kenny was charged with being drunk and disorderly in Canal Street on the previous Saturday night and with assaulting Sergeant Berry. The latter had been accompanying PC Rowan who had arrested Kenny and while the pair was escorting their prisoner to the station, they said he had "resisted furiously" and called out for fellow Irishmen to rescue him. In court John Kenny sensibly offered no defence to the charges and instead appealed for leniency and was fined 7s 6d and costs.
John Noon had attempted to free Kenny and he was next in the dock charged with assaulting PC Phillips. The latter had been helping the two other officers take Kenny to the station when Noon ran up and attempted to free him by striking PC Phillips more than once. Noon did not follow the example set by his compliant predecessor in the dock and ask for leniency, which usually went down well with the Bench.
Instead he chose the opposite path of disputing the evidence by claiming that he had been attracted to the scene by the noise of the crowd and saying he had done nothing apart from tell the police to take their man to the station quietly – and in return the bobbies had arrested him. A not very likely story and he was fined £1 and costs by the magistrates and given a lecture.
John Boylan was another unwise character. Sergeant Robinson told the court that he had been coming down Peasley Cross Lane when he saw a grocer called Thompson going up a ladder outside his shop to bring down some bacon that was hanging up. In what the newspaper called a "spirit of wantonness", Boylan pulled down the ladder, bringing the grocer to the ground. The sergeant said he approached Boylan and asked for his name and in return he received a violent blow on the nose. However, Boylan was only fined 10 shillings and costs.
The Newspaper headlined their report of a dispute between two women as a "Trivial Assault". I can't say that I agree, as Ellen Holland had been accused of punching Mary Atherton in the stomach – and the latter was pregnant and complained of having been in pain ever since the blow was struck. In court the defendant denied the punch and said they had both "wrangled" equally and only a token fine was imposed.
Poaching was very common and prosecutions took place at most court hearings. This week Thomas Baxter and John Pownall were both charged with using a gun on the Bold Hall estate for the purpose of taking game. A gamekeeper gave evidence of seeing the two men firing weapons and immediately afterwards a hare had bounded past him. Both men possessed shotguns and were disarmed and taken into custody.
Their excuse in court was pretty lame. Baxter and Pownall claimed they had only discharged their weapons in the air because they'd wanted to empty them and they insisted they had not been after game. That did not, of course, explain why they were trespassing with guns on the Bold estate. Both prospective poachers with dubious aims were fined 5 shillings.
The 1871 census lists 55 persons within the St Helens / Prescot district who bore the name Moses. One of them was a Rainford coal miner called Moses Middlehurst and on the 29th in St Helens Petty Sessions he was fined 20 shillings and costs for a violent assault on a policeman.
On the 31st at about 4am a fire was discovered in the old St Helens Town Hall in New Market Place. It originated in the basement, where a large stove heated a number of pipes. One had set fire to the woodwork in the ceiling but it was quickly extinguished and no serious damage was done. It had been the third blaze that the building had suffered since 1871.
On the same day a fire broke out at Groves Colliery (aka Ravenhead Colliery) in St Helens. Underground fires could be difficult to put out and it took many hours before the blaze was extinguished.
Several hundred coalminers in Haydock were also on strike this week, mainly because of a row over how many hundredweight comprised a ton. Miners were paid for the amount of coal that they produced. But there were often disputes with the mine's management over how the coal was measured, with petty rules implemented that disadvantaged the men.
A new law attempted to regulate payment by ton with the miners allowed to recruit an individual known as a checkweighman to confirm the management's own weights. However, the coal bosses felt there should be 25 cwt for every ton but the men insisted on 20 and it was expected that the dispute would spread to other local pits.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the drunkenness in St Helens on New Year's Day, the cowardly runaway husband from Rainhill, the theft of a charity box from the Globe Hotel and the row that led to nine summonses being issued.
This week's many stories include the St Helens Newspaper's musings on the meaning of Christmas, the joy of Christmas Day in Whiston Workhouse, the Canal Street crowd that tried to stop three policemen from making an arrest, the Peasley Cross grocer brought down to earth in a spirit of wantonness, the poaching on the Bold Hall estate, the fire at the old Town Hall, more details of the new St Helens News and Reading Room and the Haydock miners' strike over how many hundredweight comprise a ton.
The Christmas panto at the Theatre Royal in the building we know as the Citadel (pictured above) continued throughout this week.
What was described as a "gorgeous pantomime" and a "grand treat for the Christmas holidays", had begun on Christmas Eve and bore the less than snappy title of 'Harlequin Sinbad the Sailor or the Wicked Ogre and the Fairies of the Ocean Deep!'
The St Helens Newspaper wrote that some of the effects were "positively dazzling".
The highlight of the year for the several hundred inmates of Whiston Workhouse was always the Christmas dinner and the entertainment that followed, as the Newspaper also described:
"The monotony of the lives of the great bulk of the inmates, particularly the young, requires some such relief at a festive season, and it was a wise and humane provision which makes Christmas a pleasant time, when even the collected waifs of society are entertained with the cheer which is the lot of happier mortals."
The paper added that not only had there been an ample banquet this year – but the dining hall was made "gay with evergreens and mottoes".
In the evening a band from Whiston entertained the paupers with the Newspaper commenting:
"It was something wonderful to observe the heartiness and vigour with which many of the company utilised the dance tunes.
"It was quite apparent that merriment reigned supreme, and when the hour arrived for breaking up the Master [of the workhouse] complimented all upon the pleasant and agreeable day they had passed."
The paper also described how Christmas 1873 had been autumnal, with even some sunshine having broken through at times.
At Christmastime the paper's editor, Bernard Dromgoole, liked to preach a bit of a sermon on the true meaning of the season and these were this year's philosophical utterings:
"It is the season for enjoyment, and abandonment to pleasure, innocent or objectionable. It is the time for scattered families, battling in units, to gather again around the parent hearth, and realise the exquisite happiness of such periodical reunions, when hearts severed by distance, possibly estranged by cares, can “meet again like parted streams, and mingle as of old.”
"Unfortunately its pleasures, if deep, are short-lived. A few hours – sunny spots they may be in the gloom of life's struggle – and it has rolled away in the track of its predecessors. The laughing groups are gone, the holly fades upon the wall, and the traces of Christmas are soon left in the chambers of the memory alone.
"Unfortunately many hundreds, perhaps thousands, in our town, will observe Christmas by abandoning themselves to riot and debauchery, as if a Saviour came that man might be degraded to the level of the brute; and they will involve their unhappy families in that misery which is the lot of the drunkard's dependents, and which is felt with tenfold bitterness at such a season as this.
"If such unholy celebrations were but banished from the Christmas time, how few the cold hearths that would be lighted by the December sun!"
The Newspaper provided more information on the St Helens News and Reading Room that was due to open on January 1st.
Such newsrooms were clubs in which its subscribers had access to a wide range of daily and weekly newspapers, as well as other publications.
It was a cost-effective way of widening your knowledge, although the reading matter could not be taken away.
The subscription fee for the facility had now been set at ten shillings a year, which works out at just over 2d a week.
What was described as the principal London, Liverpool and Manchester dailies would be available, as well as St Helens and Prescot papers and a selection of magazines.
The Mayor, James Radley, was the President of the new men-only reading club and it was stated that old newspapers and magazines that were "done with" would be sold off by auction.
The bobbies of St Helens could have a difficult task in conveying their prisoners to the police station late on a Saturday night after making an arrest.
Even if those that resisted had been handcuffed, they could still shout and summon help from others.
The noise would result in a crowd gathering and amongst them one or two idiots would chance their arm with the police.
In the St Helens Petty Sessions this week John Kenny was charged with being drunk and disorderly in Canal Street on the previous Saturday night and with assaulting Sergeant Berry.
The latter had been accompanying PC Rowan who had arrested Kenny and while the pair was escorting their prisoner to the station, they said he had "resisted furiously" and called out for fellow Irishmen to rescue him.
In court John Kenny sensibly offered no defence to the charges and instead appealed for leniency and was fined 7s 6d and costs.
John Noon had attempted to free Kenny and he was next in the dock charged with assaulting PC Phillips.
The latter had been helping the two other officers take Kenny to the station when Noon ran up and attempted to free him by striking PC Phillips more than once.
Noon did not follow the example set by his compliant predecessor in the dock and ask for leniency, which usually went down well with the Bench.
Instead he chose the opposite path of disputing the evidence by claiming that he had been attracted to the scene by the noise of the crowd and saying he had done nothing apart from tell the police to take their man to the station quietly – and in return the bobbies had arrested him.
A not very likely story and he was fined £1 and costs by the magistrates and given a lecture.
John Boylan was another unwise character. Sergeant Robinson told the court that he had been coming down Peasley Cross Lane when he saw a grocer called Thompson going up a ladder outside his shop to bring down some bacon that was hanging up.
In what the newspaper called a "spirit of wantonness", Boylan pulled down the ladder, bringing the grocer to the ground.
The sergeant said he approached Boylan and asked for his name and in return he received a violent blow on the nose. However, Boylan was only fined 10 shillings and costs.
The Newspaper headlined their report of a dispute between two women as a "Trivial Assault".
I can't say that I agree, as Ellen Holland had been accused of punching Mary Atherton in the stomach – and the latter was pregnant and complained of having been in pain ever since the blow was struck.
In court the defendant denied the punch and said they had both "wrangled" equally and only a token fine was imposed.
Poaching was very common and prosecutions took place at most court hearings. This week Thomas Baxter and John Pownall were both charged with using a gun on the Bold Hall estate for the purpose of taking game.
A gamekeeper gave evidence of seeing the two men firing weapons and immediately afterwards a hare had bounded past him. Both men possessed shotguns and were disarmed and taken into custody.
Their excuse in court was pretty lame. Baxter and Pownall claimed they had only discharged their weapons in the air because they'd wanted to empty them and they insisted they had not been after game.
That did not, of course, explain why they were trespassing with guns on the Bold estate. Both prospective poachers with dubious aims were fined 5 shillings.
The 1871 census lists 55 persons within the St Helens / Prescot district who bore the name Moses.
One of them was a Rainford coal miner called Moses Middlehurst and on the 29th in St Helens Petty Sessions he was fined 20 shillings and costs for a violent assault on a policeman.
On the 31st at about 4am a fire was discovered in the old St Helens Town Hall in New Market Place. It originated in the basement, where a large stove heated a number of pipes.
One had set fire to the woodwork in the ceiling but it was quickly extinguished and no serious damage was done. It had been the third blaze that the building had suffered since 1871.
On the same day a fire broke out at Groves Colliery (aka Ravenhead Colliery) in St Helens.
Underground fires could be difficult to put out and it took many hours before the blaze was extinguished.
Several hundred coalminers in Haydock were also on strike this week, mainly because of a row over how many hundredweight comprised a ton.
Miners were paid for the amount of coal that they produced. But there were often disputes with the mine's management over how the coal was measured, with petty rules implemented that disadvantaged the men.
A new law attempted to regulate payment by ton with the miners allowed to recruit an individual known as a checkweighman to confirm the management's own weights.
However, the coal bosses felt there should be 25 cwt for every ton but the men insisted on 20 and it was expected that the dispute would spread to other local pits.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the drunkenness in St Helens on New Year's Day, the cowardly runaway husband from Rainhill, the theft of a charity box from the Globe Hotel and the row that led to nine summonses being issued.
What was described as a "gorgeous pantomime" and a "grand treat for the Christmas holidays", had begun on Christmas Eve and bore the less than snappy title of 'Harlequin Sinbad the Sailor or the Wicked Ogre and the Fairies of the Ocean Deep!'
The St Helens Newspaper wrote that some of the effects were "positively dazzling".
The highlight of the year for the several hundred inmates of Whiston Workhouse was always the Christmas dinner and the entertainment that followed, as the Newspaper also described:
"The monotony of the lives of the great bulk of the inmates, particularly the young, requires some such relief at a festive season, and it was a wise and humane provision which makes Christmas a pleasant time, when even the collected waifs of society are entertained with the cheer which is the lot of happier mortals."
The paper added that not only had there been an ample banquet this year – but the dining hall was made "gay with evergreens and mottoes".
In the evening a band from Whiston entertained the paupers with the Newspaper commenting:
"It was something wonderful to observe the heartiness and vigour with which many of the company utilised the dance tunes.
"It was quite apparent that merriment reigned supreme, and when the hour arrived for breaking up the Master [of the workhouse] complimented all upon the pleasant and agreeable day they had passed."
The paper also described how Christmas 1873 had been autumnal, with even some sunshine having broken through at times.
At Christmastime the paper's editor, Bernard Dromgoole, liked to preach a bit of a sermon on the true meaning of the season and these were this year's philosophical utterings:
"It is the season for enjoyment, and abandonment to pleasure, innocent or objectionable. It is the time for scattered families, battling in units, to gather again around the parent hearth, and realise the exquisite happiness of such periodical reunions, when hearts severed by distance, possibly estranged by cares, can “meet again like parted streams, and mingle as of old.”
"Unfortunately its pleasures, if deep, are short-lived. A few hours – sunny spots they may be in the gloom of life's struggle – and it has rolled away in the track of its predecessors. The laughing groups are gone, the holly fades upon the wall, and the traces of Christmas are soon left in the chambers of the memory alone.
"Unfortunately many hundreds, perhaps thousands, in our town, will observe Christmas by abandoning themselves to riot and debauchery, as if a Saviour came that man might be degraded to the level of the brute; and they will involve their unhappy families in that misery which is the lot of the drunkard's dependents, and which is felt with tenfold bitterness at such a season as this.
"If such unholy celebrations were but banished from the Christmas time, how few the cold hearths that would be lighted by the December sun!"
The Newspaper provided more information on the St Helens News and Reading Room that was due to open on January 1st.
Such newsrooms were clubs in which its subscribers had access to a wide range of daily and weekly newspapers, as well as other publications.
It was a cost-effective way of widening your knowledge, although the reading matter could not be taken away.
The subscription fee for the facility had now been set at ten shillings a year, which works out at just over 2d a week.
What was described as the principal London, Liverpool and Manchester dailies would be available, as well as St Helens and Prescot papers and a selection of magazines.
The Mayor, James Radley, was the President of the new men-only reading club and it was stated that old newspapers and magazines that were "done with" would be sold off by auction.
The bobbies of St Helens could have a difficult task in conveying their prisoners to the police station late on a Saturday night after making an arrest.
Even if those that resisted had been handcuffed, they could still shout and summon help from others.
The noise would result in a crowd gathering and amongst them one or two idiots would chance their arm with the police.
In the St Helens Petty Sessions this week John Kenny was charged with being drunk and disorderly in Canal Street on the previous Saturday night and with assaulting Sergeant Berry.
The latter had been accompanying PC Rowan who had arrested Kenny and while the pair was escorting their prisoner to the station, they said he had "resisted furiously" and called out for fellow Irishmen to rescue him.
In court John Kenny sensibly offered no defence to the charges and instead appealed for leniency and was fined 7s 6d and costs.
John Noon had attempted to free Kenny and he was next in the dock charged with assaulting PC Phillips.
The latter had been helping the two other officers take Kenny to the station when Noon ran up and attempted to free him by striking PC Phillips more than once.
Noon did not follow the example set by his compliant predecessor in the dock and ask for leniency, which usually went down well with the Bench.
Instead he chose the opposite path of disputing the evidence by claiming that he had been attracted to the scene by the noise of the crowd and saying he had done nothing apart from tell the police to take their man to the station quietly – and in return the bobbies had arrested him.
A not very likely story and he was fined £1 and costs by the magistrates and given a lecture.
John Boylan was another unwise character. Sergeant Robinson told the court that he had been coming down Peasley Cross Lane when he saw a grocer called Thompson going up a ladder outside his shop to bring down some bacon that was hanging up.
In what the newspaper called a "spirit of wantonness", Boylan pulled down the ladder, bringing the grocer to the ground.
The sergeant said he approached Boylan and asked for his name and in return he received a violent blow on the nose. However, Boylan was only fined 10 shillings and costs.
The Newspaper headlined their report of a dispute between two women as a "Trivial Assault".
I can't say that I agree, as Ellen Holland had been accused of punching Mary Atherton in the stomach – and the latter was pregnant and complained of having been in pain ever since the blow was struck.
In court the defendant denied the punch and said they had both "wrangled" equally and only a token fine was imposed.
Poaching was very common and prosecutions took place at most court hearings. This week Thomas Baxter and John Pownall were both charged with using a gun on the Bold Hall estate for the purpose of taking game.
A gamekeeper gave evidence of seeing the two men firing weapons and immediately afterwards a hare had bounded past him. Both men possessed shotguns and were disarmed and taken into custody.
Their excuse in court was pretty lame. Baxter and Pownall claimed they had only discharged their weapons in the air because they'd wanted to empty them and they insisted they had not been after game.
That did not, of course, explain why they were trespassing with guns on the Bold estate. Both prospective poachers with dubious aims were fined 5 shillings.
The 1871 census lists 55 persons within the St Helens / Prescot district who bore the name Moses.
One of them was a Rainford coal miner called Moses Middlehurst and on the 29th in St Helens Petty Sessions he was fined 20 shillings and costs for a violent assault on a policeman.
On the 31st at about 4am a fire was discovered in the old St Helens Town Hall in New Market Place. It originated in the basement, where a large stove heated a number of pipes.
One had set fire to the woodwork in the ceiling but it was quickly extinguished and no serious damage was done. It had been the third blaze that the building had suffered since 1871.
On the same day a fire broke out at Groves Colliery (aka Ravenhead Colliery) in St Helens.
Underground fires could be difficult to put out and it took many hours before the blaze was extinguished.
Several hundred coalminers in Haydock were also on strike this week, mainly because of a row over how many hundredweight comprised a ton.
Miners were paid for the amount of coal that they produced. But there were often disputes with the mine's management over how the coal was measured, with petty rules implemented that disadvantaged the men.
A new law attempted to regulate payment by ton with the miners allowed to recruit an individual known as a checkweighman to confirm the management's own weights.
However, the coal bosses felt there should be 25 cwt for every ton but the men insisted on 20 and it was expected that the dispute would spread to other local pits.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the drunkenness in St Helens on New Year's Day, the cowardly runaway husband from Rainhill, the theft of a charity box from the Globe Hotel and the row that led to nine summonses being issued.