150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (29 MAY - 4 JUNE 1873)
This week's many stories include the explosion in a coal miner's own fireplace, the Corporation's night soil deficiency, the delinquent magistrates on St Helens Bench, the fast writing course in Hardshaw Street, more criticism of St Helens shop assistants and the Whit Monday Grand Gala in Thatto Heath.
It would be a few more years before typewriters would be commercially available and presently writing had to be done laboriously by hand. The faster you could write, the more work could be done, hence this advert in the St Helens Newspaper on the 31st:
"WRITING. Smart's Academy Now Open, Every Wednesday, In The Athenaeum, Hardshaw-St. St. Helens. Hours of Tuition – 3 till 10 o’clock. New Invention for Rapid Writing. Manner of execution:- Off-hand by the action of the whole arm – dashing style; also on the pre-eminent principle of the combined movement, guaranteed in six or eight lessons. Ladies' style elegant. Smart and Co., London. Terms, one guinea. Academy in St. Helens, also Manchester and Liverpool."
Night soil was the euphemism for human faeces; so-called because a collector normally removed it at night from the privies that were used as toilets. And what did they do with it all – well they sold it at auction as composted manure. Perhaps that's where the expression "where there's muck there's brass" comes from!
In 1872 St Helens Corporation had decided to take night soil collection and its disposal in-house after being dissatisfied with the service provided by their contractor. At the time the council's surveyor produced rather precise estimates of the cost of being in the night soil game. He reckoned that the Corporation's outlay would amount to £1,416 11s 3d with their income from manure sales being £912 12s. That would leave a deficiency of £530, which was roughly the annual sum paid to the contractor to run the night soil service.
This week after a full year's operation by the Corporation, the accounts showed a rather different picture. Although their expenses were not far off the estimated amount, the Corporation's manure sales brought in far less than predicted which made their overall loss £310 greater than had been expected. But undaunted the council blamed wet weather and problems with their night soil depot in Parr for the disappointing figures. However, most residents of St Helens did not receive night soil collections, relying instead on putting their human waste into ashpits that drained into the sewers and which caused many a health problem.
The difficulty with the magistrates on the St Helens Bench was that they were mainly industrialists with demanding jobs. Some were also a councillor or an alderman and served on council committees. Finding time away from their work to undertake these extracurricular activities was often difficult. At one point during the 1860s a room at Pilkingtons Glassworks was turned into a courtroom for the convenience of their bosses that were then on the Bench. Taking the courtroom to the magistrates was eventually seen as a bit extreme – but at least it meant the court system functioned for a while.
Since then the St Helens Newspaper regularly moaned about absent magistrates that were causing great inconvenience to many – particularly defendants in court, as they would have to return to a police cell until at least the following day. This is what the Newspaper said on the 31st about a recent wave of absentee magistrates:
"The duties of the magistracy, though of very great importance, are about the only duties, the neglect of which brings no disastrous consequences upon the delinquent. It is wondrous how many very excellent gentlemen can be found willing to be enrolled justices of the peace, and how few care for giving themselves the trouble of exercising the functions which the commission confers upon the recipient. The reward once obtained, its obligations become a nuisance [and are] …subservient to the requirements of private pursuits". The paper's solution to the problem was simple – appoint lots more magistrates!
I often find it surprising how important ventures planned for St Helens would initially often have only a few lines devoted to them in the newspapers. That had been the case with St Helens Hospital a few months ago and this week Pilkingtons proposed new works at Cowley Hill – that became known as the "top works" – only received a paragraph in the Newspaper. This is all that was written:
"A NEW PLATE GLASS WORKS FOR ST. HELENS – We understand that the Messrs. Pilkington, have taken a large plot of land near Gerard's Bridge, as a site of an extensive Plate Glass Manufactory. The eligibility of the locality is everything that could be desired, there being an abundant supply of water, with sand [and] coal in close proximity."
Two weeks ago the Newspaper had a right pop at shop assistants, writing: "Fast life among young men, a few years ago, was the exception – now it appears to be the rule. Formerly, shop assistants were satisfied with small salaries, plain fare, and long hours. Then industry and honesty was the rule. Now, all is changed." This week the paper claimed dishonest workers were disposing of their ill-gotten gains in pubs:
"We learn that there are certain public and private houses in the town where pilfering shop assistants barter and dispose of the articles abstracted from their masters' shops. One place resorted to by young females is situate in a street leading out of Water-street. It might be well that the police should keep a look out for such places. Another place, where fast young men can spend, in a free and easy manner, the money of their employers, is in the neighbourhood of Duke-street.
"It is to be hoped that the police will make them cut their cables, or bring them to an anchorage in the lockups. Too much licence is allowed in these matters; and many a young man might be saved if the police kept a sharper look out on such places and characters. There are men who are a disgrace to the body of respectable licensed victuallers, who look with a single eye for such business as will fill their pockets, regardless of the character of their customers."
There was an advert from the American Steamship Company published in the St Helens Newspaper offering transatlantic travel. Although cabin passage from Liverpool to the United States cost a hefty 15 or 18 guineas. At the other end of the pricing scale steerage travel only cost 6 guineas.
Women tended to fare worse than men when it came to facing charges of indecency in court. Although the term could have several different meanings, when Mary Malone and John Holding were jointly charged with "very indecent conduct in a public street", it seems clear as to what they'd been doing. The pair appeared this week in the St Helens Petty Sessions and the man was ordered to find sureties to be of good behaviour. However, the woman was sent to Kirkdale prison for a month. Mary Malone had at least one prior conviction for which she had been sent to prison. She may have been a prostitute but there was still quite a gulf between how the sexes were treated for committing the same offence.
It does seem crazy that the wide and deep St Helens Canal was not fenced off to prevent accidental deaths – especially at known danger spots. But that would have cost brass and human life was cheap. So little girls like Ellen Rimmer of Parr – who were totally innocent of the dangers – needlessly lost their lives while playing near the dangerous waterway. She drowned this week despite a man that was passing by immediately bringing her out. But Ellen could not be revived.
A coal miner called Roscoe had a bit of a shock after throwing a block of coal on to his kitchen fire. Later he started breaking up the coal and it exploded, burning the man badly on his back. It turned out that a mining fuse had been embedded in the block containing about a pound of gunpowder.
It was Whit Monday on June 2nd and a Grand Gala and Fete and Floral Display took place in the Victoria Gardens in Thatto Heath. The 2nd Engineers Band was in attendance. Their newspaper advert said: "The large and commodious Ball Room (200 feet long,) will be thrown open for dancing; and in the evening will be brilliantly illuminated." Being a fine day many thousands of St Helens folk took a train to places such as Liverpool and Southport and others attended a Band of Hope temperance gathering in Sherdley Park.
That included a large procession to the park from Hardshaw Street which included seven brass bands. The Liverpool Mercury wrote: "…judging from the number of young persons who assembled to take part in the procession which was formed (the number being not fewer than a couple of thousand), St. Helens ought to be proud of the large proportion of its youthful population who are being brought up pledged to abstain from intoxicating drinks."
The promoters of the St Helens Cottage Hospital clearly missed a trick when they opened their little infirmary in Peasley Cross on January 15th. They did not ask any Royals to open it! That's unlike Wigan Infirmary, which was officially opened on the 4th of this week by the Prince and Princess of Wales.
As well as the presence of the man who in 1901 would become King Edward VII (pictured above), there was also an exhibition, a grand bazaar, fancy fair and athletics festival within the hospital grounds. There was no fanfare or entertainment when St Helens Cottage Hospital opened. I think they just unlocked the door!
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the imbeciles and lunatics in Whiston Workhouse, the grisly discovery at Pocket Nook, the tablecloth theft from an Ormskirk Street shop and the low take-up of books at the St Helens library.
It would be a few more years before typewriters would be commercially available and presently writing had to be done laboriously by hand. The faster you could write, the more work could be done, hence this advert in the St Helens Newspaper on the 31st:
"WRITING. Smart's Academy Now Open, Every Wednesday, In The Athenaeum, Hardshaw-St. St. Helens. Hours of Tuition – 3 till 10 o’clock. New Invention for Rapid Writing. Manner of execution:- Off-hand by the action of the whole arm – dashing style; also on the pre-eminent principle of the combined movement, guaranteed in six or eight lessons. Ladies' style elegant. Smart and Co., London. Terms, one guinea. Academy in St. Helens, also Manchester and Liverpool."
Night soil was the euphemism for human faeces; so-called because a collector normally removed it at night from the privies that were used as toilets. And what did they do with it all – well they sold it at auction as composted manure. Perhaps that's where the expression "where there's muck there's brass" comes from!
In 1872 St Helens Corporation had decided to take night soil collection and its disposal in-house after being dissatisfied with the service provided by their contractor. At the time the council's surveyor produced rather precise estimates of the cost of being in the night soil game. He reckoned that the Corporation's outlay would amount to £1,416 11s 3d with their income from manure sales being £912 12s. That would leave a deficiency of £530, which was roughly the annual sum paid to the contractor to run the night soil service.
This week after a full year's operation by the Corporation, the accounts showed a rather different picture. Although their expenses were not far off the estimated amount, the Corporation's manure sales brought in far less than predicted which made their overall loss £310 greater than had been expected. But undaunted the council blamed wet weather and problems with their night soil depot in Parr for the disappointing figures. However, most residents of St Helens did not receive night soil collections, relying instead on putting their human waste into ashpits that drained into the sewers and which caused many a health problem.
The difficulty with the magistrates on the St Helens Bench was that they were mainly industrialists with demanding jobs. Some were also a councillor or an alderman and served on council committees. Finding time away from their work to undertake these extracurricular activities was often difficult. At one point during the 1860s a room at Pilkingtons Glassworks was turned into a courtroom for the convenience of their bosses that were then on the Bench. Taking the courtroom to the magistrates was eventually seen as a bit extreme – but at least it meant the court system functioned for a while.
Since then the St Helens Newspaper regularly moaned about absent magistrates that were causing great inconvenience to many – particularly defendants in court, as they would have to return to a police cell until at least the following day. This is what the Newspaper said on the 31st about a recent wave of absentee magistrates:
"The duties of the magistracy, though of very great importance, are about the only duties, the neglect of which brings no disastrous consequences upon the delinquent. It is wondrous how many very excellent gentlemen can be found willing to be enrolled justices of the peace, and how few care for giving themselves the trouble of exercising the functions which the commission confers upon the recipient. The reward once obtained, its obligations become a nuisance [and are] …subservient to the requirements of private pursuits". The paper's solution to the problem was simple – appoint lots more magistrates!
I often find it surprising how important ventures planned for St Helens would initially often have only a few lines devoted to them in the newspapers. That had been the case with St Helens Hospital a few months ago and this week Pilkingtons proposed new works at Cowley Hill – that became known as the "top works" – only received a paragraph in the Newspaper. This is all that was written:
"A NEW PLATE GLASS WORKS FOR ST. HELENS – We understand that the Messrs. Pilkington, have taken a large plot of land near Gerard's Bridge, as a site of an extensive Plate Glass Manufactory. The eligibility of the locality is everything that could be desired, there being an abundant supply of water, with sand [and] coal in close proximity."
Two weeks ago the Newspaper had a right pop at shop assistants, writing: "Fast life among young men, a few years ago, was the exception – now it appears to be the rule. Formerly, shop assistants were satisfied with small salaries, plain fare, and long hours. Then industry and honesty was the rule. Now, all is changed." This week the paper claimed dishonest workers were disposing of their ill-gotten gains in pubs:
"We learn that there are certain public and private houses in the town where pilfering shop assistants barter and dispose of the articles abstracted from their masters' shops. One place resorted to by young females is situate in a street leading out of Water-street. It might be well that the police should keep a look out for such places. Another place, where fast young men can spend, in a free and easy manner, the money of their employers, is in the neighbourhood of Duke-street.
"It is to be hoped that the police will make them cut their cables, or bring them to an anchorage in the lockups. Too much licence is allowed in these matters; and many a young man might be saved if the police kept a sharper look out on such places and characters. There are men who are a disgrace to the body of respectable licensed victuallers, who look with a single eye for such business as will fill their pockets, regardless of the character of their customers."
There was an advert from the American Steamship Company published in the St Helens Newspaper offering transatlantic travel. Although cabin passage from Liverpool to the United States cost a hefty 15 or 18 guineas. At the other end of the pricing scale steerage travel only cost 6 guineas.
Women tended to fare worse than men when it came to facing charges of indecency in court. Although the term could have several different meanings, when Mary Malone and John Holding were jointly charged with "very indecent conduct in a public street", it seems clear as to what they'd been doing. The pair appeared this week in the St Helens Petty Sessions and the man was ordered to find sureties to be of good behaviour. However, the woman was sent to Kirkdale prison for a month. Mary Malone had at least one prior conviction for which she had been sent to prison. She may have been a prostitute but there was still quite a gulf between how the sexes were treated for committing the same offence.
It does seem crazy that the wide and deep St Helens Canal was not fenced off to prevent accidental deaths – especially at known danger spots. But that would have cost brass and human life was cheap. So little girls like Ellen Rimmer of Parr – who were totally innocent of the dangers – needlessly lost their lives while playing near the dangerous waterway. She drowned this week despite a man that was passing by immediately bringing her out. But Ellen could not be revived.
A coal miner called Roscoe had a bit of a shock after throwing a block of coal on to his kitchen fire. Later he started breaking up the coal and it exploded, burning the man badly on his back. It turned out that a mining fuse had been embedded in the block containing about a pound of gunpowder.
It was Whit Monday on June 2nd and a Grand Gala and Fete and Floral Display took place in the Victoria Gardens in Thatto Heath. The 2nd Engineers Band was in attendance. Their newspaper advert said: "The large and commodious Ball Room (200 feet long,) will be thrown open for dancing; and in the evening will be brilliantly illuminated." Being a fine day many thousands of St Helens folk took a train to places such as Liverpool and Southport and others attended a Band of Hope temperance gathering in Sherdley Park.
That included a large procession to the park from Hardshaw Street which included seven brass bands. The Liverpool Mercury wrote: "…judging from the number of young persons who assembled to take part in the procession which was formed (the number being not fewer than a couple of thousand), St. Helens ought to be proud of the large proportion of its youthful population who are being brought up pledged to abstain from intoxicating drinks."
The promoters of the St Helens Cottage Hospital clearly missed a trick when they opened their little infirmary in Peasley Cross on January 15th. They did not ask any Royals to open it! That's unlike Wigan Infirmary, which was officially opened on the 4th of this week by the Prince and Princess of Wales.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the imbeciles and lunatics in Whiston Workhouse, the grisly discovery at Pocket Nook, the tablecloth theft from an Ormskirk Street shop and the low take-up of books at the St Helens library.
This week's many stories include the explosion in a coal miner's own fireplace, the Corporation's night soil deficiency, the delinquent magistrates on St Helens Bench, the fast writing course in Hardshaw Street, more criticism of St Helens shop assistants and the Whit Monday Grand Gala in Thatto Heath.
It would be a few more years before typewriters would be commercially available and presently writing had to be done laboriously by hand.
The faster you could write, the more work could be done, hence this advert in the St Helens Newspaper on the 31st:
"WRITING. Smart's Academy Now Open, Every Wednesday, In The Athenaeum, Hardshaw-St. St. Helens. Hours of Tuition – 3 till 10 o’clock. New Invention for Rapid Writing.
"Manner of execution:- Off-hand by the action of the whole arm – dashing style; also on the pre-eminent principle of the combined movement, guaranteed in six or eight lessons. Ladies' style elegant. Smart and Co., London. Terms, one guinea. Academy in St. Helens, also Manchester and Liverpool."
Night soil was the euphemism for human faeces; so-called because a collector normally removed it at night from the privies that were used as toilets.
And what did they do with it all – well they sold it at auction as composted manure. Perhaps that's where the expression "where there's muck there's brass" comes from!
In 1872 St Helens Corporation had decided to take night soil collection and its disposal in-house after being dissatisfied with the service provided by their contractor.
At the time the council's surveyor produced rather precise estimates of the cost of being in the night soil game.
He reckoned that the Corporation's outlay would amount to £1,416 11s 3d with their income from manure sales being £912 12s.
That would leave a deficiency of £530, which was roughly the annual sum paid to the contractor to run the night soil service.
This week after a full year's operation by the Corporation, the accounts showed a rather different picture.
Although their expenses were not far off the estimated amount, the Corporation's manure sales brought in far less than predicted which made their overall loss £310 greater than had been expected.
But undaunted the council blamed wet weather and problems with their night soil depot in Parr for the disappointing figures.
However, most residents of St Helens did not receive night soil collections, relying instead on putting their human waste into ashpits that drained into the sewers and which caused many a health problem.
The difficulty with the magistrates on the St Helens Bench was that they were mainly industrialists with demanding jobs. Some were also a councillor or an alderman and served on council committees.
Finding time away from their work to undertake these extracurricular activities was often difficult.
At one point during the 1860s a room at Pilkingtons Glassworks was turned into a courtroom for the convenience of their bosses that were then on the Bench.
Taking the courtroom to the magistrates was eventually seen as a bit extreme – but at least it meant the court system functioned for a while.
Since then the St Helens Newspaper regularly moaned about absent magistrates that were causing great inconvenience to many – particularly defendants in court, as they would have to return to a police cell until at least the following day.
This is what the Newspaper said on the 31st about a recent wave of absentee magistrates:
"The duties of the magistracy, though of very great importance, are about the only duties, the neglect of which brings no disastrous consequences upon the delinquent.
"It is wondrous how many very excellent gentlemen can be found willing to be enrolled justices of the peace, and how few care for giving themselves the trouble of exercising the functions which the commission confers upon the recipient.
"The reward once obtained, its obligations become a nuisance [and are] …subservient to the requirements of private pursuits".
The paper's solution to the problem was simple – appoint lots more magistrates!
I often find it surprising how important ventures planned for St Helens would initially often have only a few lines devoted to them in the newspapers.
That had been the case with St Helens Hospital a few months ago and this week Pilkingtons proposed new works at Cowley Hill – that became known as the "top works" – only received a paragraph in the Newspaper. This is all that was written:
"A NEW PLATE GLASS WORKS FOR ST. HELENS – We understand that the Messrs. Pilkington, have taken a large plot of land near Gerard's Bridge, as a site of an extensive Plate Glass Manufactory. The eligibility of the locality is everything that could be desired, there being an abundant supply of water, with sand [and] coal in close proximity."
Two weeks ago the Newspaper had a right pop at shop assistants, writing: "Fast life among young men, a few years ago, was the exception – now it appears to be the rule. Formerly, shop assistants were satisfied with small salaries, plain fare, and long hours. Then industry and honesty was the rule. Now, all is changed."
This week the paper claimed dishonest workers were disposing of their ill-gotten gains in pubs:
"We learn that there are certain public and private houses in the town where pilfering shop assistants barter and dispose of the articles abstracted from their masters' shops.
"One place resorted to by young females is situate in a street leading out of Water-street. It might be well that the police should keep a look out for such places.
"Another place, where fast young men can spend, in a free and easy manner, the money of their employers, is in the neighbourhood of Duke-street. It is to be hoped that the police will make them cut their cables, or bring them to an anchorage in the lockups.
"Too much licence is allowed in these matters; and many a young man might be saved if the police kept a sharper look out on such places and characters.
"There are men who are a disgrace to the body of respectable licensed victuallers, who look with a single eye for such business as will fill their pockets, regardless of the character of their customers."
There was an advert from the American Steamship Company published in the St Helens Newspaper offering transatlantic travel.
Although cabin passage from Liverpool to the United States cost a hefty 15 or 18 guineas. At the other end of the pricing scale steerage travel only cost 6 guineas.
Women tended to fare worse than men when it came to facing charges of indecency in court.
Although the term could have several different meanings, when Mary Malone and John Holding were jointly charged with "very indecent conduct in a public street", it seems clear as to what they'd been doing.
The pair appeared this week in the St Helens Petty Sessions and the man was ordered to find sureties to be of good behaviour. However, the woman was sent to Kirkdale prison for a month.
Mary Malone had at least one prior conviction for which she had been sent to prison. She may have been a prostitute but there was still quite a gulf between how the sexes were treated for committing the same offence.
It does seem crazy that the wide and deep St Helens Canal was not fenced off to prevent accidental deaths – especially at known danger spots. But that would have cost brass and human life was cheap.
So little girls like Ellen Rimmer of Parr – who were totally innocent of the dangers – needlessly lost their lives while playing near the dangerous waterway.
She drowned this week despite a man that was passing by immediately bringing her out. But Ellen could not be revived.
A coal miner called Roscoe had a bit of a shock after throwing a block of coal on to his kitchen fire. Later he started breaking up the coal and it exploded, burning the man badly on his back.
It turned out that a mining fuse had been embedded in the block containing about a pound of gunpowder.
It was Whit Monday on June 2nd and a Grand Gala and Fete and Floral Display took place in the Victoria Gardens in Thatto Heath. The 2nd Engineers Band was in attendance.
Their newspaper advert said: "The large and commodious Ball Room (200 feet long,) will be thrown open for dancing; and in the evening will be brilliantly illuminated."
Being a fine day many thousands of St Helens folk took a train to places such as Liverpool and Southport and others attended a Band of Hope temperance gathering in Sherdley Park.
That included a large procession to the park from Hardshaw Street which included seven brass bands. The Liverpool Mercury wrote:
"…judging from the number of young persons who assembled to take part in the procession which was formed (the number being not fewer than a couple of thousand), St. Helens ought to be proud of the large proportion of its youthful population who are being brought up pledged to abstain from intoxicating drinks."
The promoters of the St Helens Cottage Hospital clearly missed a trick when they opened their little infirmary in Peasley Cross on January 15th. They did not ask any Royals to open it!
That's unlike Wigan Infirmary, which was officially opened on the 4th of this week by the Prince and Princess of Wales.
As well as the presence of the man who in 1901 would become King Edward VII (pictured above), there was also an exhibition, a grand bazaar, fancy fair and athletics festival within the hospital grounds.
There was no fanfare or entertainment when St Helens Cottage Hospital opened. I think they just unlocked the door!
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the imbeciles and lunatics in Whiston Workhouse, the grisly discovery at Pocket Nook, the tablecloth theft from an Ormskirk Street shop and the low take-up of books at the St Helens library.
It would be a few more years before typewriters would be commercially available and presently writing had to be done laboriously by hand.
The faster you could write, the more work could be done, hence this advert in the St Helens Newspaper on the 31st:
"WRITING. Smart's Academy Now Open, Every Wednesday, In The Athenaeum, Hardshaw-St. St. Helens. Hours of Tuition – 3 till 10 o’clock. New Invention for Rapid Writing.
"Manner of execution:- Off-hand by the action of the whole arm – dashing style; also on the pre-eminent principle of the combined movement, guaranteed in six or eight lessons. Ladies' style elegant. Smart and Co., London. Terms, one guinea. Academy in St. Helens, also Manchester and Liverpool."
Night soil was the euphemism for human faeces; so-called because a collector normally removed it at night from the privies that were used as toilets.
And what did they do with it all – well they sold it at auction as composted manure. Perhaps that's where the expression "where there's muck there's brass" comes from!
In 1872 St Helens Corporation had decided to take night soil collection and its disposal in-house after being dissatisfied with the service provided by their contractor.
At the time the council's surveyor produced rather precise estimates of the cost of being in the night soil game.
He reckoned that the Corporation's outlay would amount to £1,416 11s 3d with their income from manure sales being £912 12s.
That would leave a deficiency of £530, which was roughly the annual sum paid to the contractor to run the night soil service.
This week after a full year's operation by the Corporation, the accounts showed a rather different picture.
Although their expenses were not far off the estimated amount, the Corporation's manure sales brought in far less than predicted which made their overall loss £310 greater than had been expected.
But undaunted the council blamed wet weather and problems with their night soil depot in Parr for the disappointing figures.
However, most residents of St Helens did not receive night soil collections, relying instead on putting their human waste into ashpits that drained into the sewers and which caused many a health problem.
The difficulty with the magistrates on the St Helens Bench was that they were mainly industrialists with demanding jobs. Some were also a councillor or an alderman and served on council committees.
Finding time away from their work to undertake these extracurricular activities was often difficult.
At one point during the 1860s a room at Pilkingtons Glassworks was turned into a courtroom for the convenience of their bosses that were then on the Bench.
Taking the courtroom to the magistrates was eventually seen as a bit extreme – but at least it meant the court system functioned for a while.
Since then the St Helens Newspaper regularly moaned about absent magistrates that were causing great inconvenience to many – particularly defendants in court, as they would have to return to a police cell until at least the following day.
This is what the Newspaper said on the 31st about a recent wave of absentee magistrates:
"The duties of the magistracy, though of very great importance, are about the only duties, the neglect of which brings no disastrous consequences upon the delinquent.
"It is wondrous how many very excellent gentlemen can be found willing to be enrolled justices of the peace, and how few care for giving themselves the trouble of exercising the functions which the commission confers upon the recipient.
"The reward once obtained, its obligations become a nuisance [and are] …subservient to the requirements of private pursuits".
The paper's solution to the problem was simple – appoint lots more magistrates!
I often find it surprising how important ventures planned for St Helens would initially often have only a few lines devoted to them in the newspapers.
That had been the case with St Helens Hospital a few months ago and this week Pilkingtons proposed new works at Cowley Hill – that became known as the "top works" – only received a paragraph in the Newspaper. This is all that was written:
"A NEW PLATE GLASS WORKS FOR ST. HELENS – We understand that the Messrs. Pilkington, have taken a large plot of land near Gerard's Bridge, as a site of an extensive Plate Glass Manufactory. The eligibility of the locality is everything that could be desired, there being an abundant supply of water, with sand [and] coal in close proximity."
Two weeks ago the Newspaper had a right pop at shop assistants, writing: "Fast life among young men, a few years ago, was the exception – now it appears to be the rule. Formerly, shop assistants were satisfied with small salaries, plain fare, and long hours. Then industry and honesty was the rule. Now, all is changed."
This week the paper claimed dishonest workers were disposing of their ill-gotten gains in pubs:
"We learn that there are certain public and private houses in the town where pilfering shop assistants barter and dispose of the articles abstracted from their masters' shops.
"One place resorted to by young females is situate in a street leading out of Water-street. It might be well that the police should keep a look out for such places.
"Another place, where fast young men can spend, in a free and easy manner, the money of their employers, is in the neighbourhood of Duke-street. It is to be hoped that the police will make them cut their cables, or bring them to an anchorage in the lockups.
"Too much licence is allowed in these matters; and many a young man might be saved if the police kept a sharper look out on such places and characters.
"There are men who are a disgrace to the body of respectable licensed victuallers, who look with a single eye for such business as will fill their pockets, regardless of the character of their customers."
There was an advert from the American Steamship Company published in the St Helens Newspaper offering transatlantic travel.
Although cabin passage from Liverpool to the United States cost a hefty 15 or 18 guineas. At the other end of the pricing scale steerage travel only cost 6 guineas.
Women tended to fare worse than men when it came to facing charges of indecency in court.
Although the term could have several different meanings, when Mary Malone and John Holding were jointly charged with "very indecent conduct in a public street", it seems clear as to what they'd been doing.
The pair appeared this week in the St Helens Petty Sessions and the man was ordered to find sureties to be of good behaviour. However, the woman was sent to Kirkdale prison for a month.
Mary Malone had at least one prior conviction for which she had been sent to prison. She may have been a prostitute but there was still quite a gulf between how the sexes were treated for committing the same offence.
It does seem crazy that the wide and deep St Helens Canal was not fenced off to prevent accidental deaths – especially at known danger spots. But that would have cost brass and human life was cheap.
So little girls like Ellen Rimmer of Parr – who were totally innocent of the dangers – needlessly lost their lives while playing near the dangerous waterway.
She drowned this week despite a man that was passing by immediately bringing her out. But Ellen could not be revived.
A coal miner called Roscoe had a bit of a shock after throwing a block of coal on to his kitchen fire. Later he started breaking up the coal and it exploded, burning the man badly on his back.
It turned out that a mining fuse had been embedded in the block containing about a pound of gunpowder.
It was Whit Monday on June 2nd and a Grand Gala and Fete and Floral Display took place in the Victoria Gardens in Thatto Heath. The 2nd Engineers Band was in attendance.
Their newspaper advert said: "The large and commodious Ball Room (200 feet long,) will be thrown open for dancing; and in the evening will be brilliantly illuminated."
Being a fine day many thousands of St Helens folk took a train to places such as Liverpool and Southport and others attended a Band of Hope temperance gathering in Sherdley Park.
That included a large procession to the park from Hardshaw Street which included seven brass bands. The Liverpool Mercury wrote:
"…judging from the number of young persons who assembled to take part in the procession which was formed (the number being not fewer than a couple of thousand), St. Helens ought to be proud of the large proportion of its youthful population who are being brought up pledged to abstain from intoxicating drinks."
The promoters of the St Helens Cottage Hospital clearly missed a trick when they opened their little infirmary in Peasley Cross on January 15th. They did not ask any Royals to open it!
As well as the presence of the man who in 1901 would become King Edward VII (pictured above), there was also an exhibition, a grand bazaar, fancy fair and athletics festival within the hospital grounds.
There was no fanfare or entertainment when St Helens Cottage Hospital opened. I think they just unlocked the door!
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the imbeciles and lunatics in Whiston Workhouse, the grisly discovery at Pocket Nook, the tablecloth theft from an Ormskirk Street shop and the low take-up of books at the St Helens library.