An Illustrated History of Old Sutton in St.Helens
Part 56 (of 58) - Sutton Trivia and True
Facts!
Researched
& Written by Stephen
Wainwright ©MMXI
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The Great Fire of Sutton Moss
For two days during the hot summer of 1899, thousands of people descended upon Sutton Moss to watch what the Liverpool Mercury dubbed "the most extensive and most extraordinary fire which ever occurred at St.Helens". Smoke from burning turf billowed over Sutton and Parr and train passengers on the adjacent line had a perfect view of the "prairie fire" as it consumed sixty acres of land. In fact it was believed that a spark from the engine of a passing train had started the fire, setting alight one of many stacks of turf. It was so hot and dry that the fire quickly spread, destroying the work of up to fifty employees of the Lancashire Moss Litter Company.
Turf cutters at
work at Sutton / Bold Moss - one cuts while the other
spreads it out before stacking
Sutton Moss was located between St.Helens Junction and
Collins Green stations and along with Bold Moss, was
owned by colliery proprietors and
Colonel Richard Pilkington.
They leased the land to companies who extricated the peat
turf for use as firelighters or animal bedding litter.
The prolonged warm weather of August 1899 had greatly
improved productivity and thousands of stacks of turf
blocks occupied the land. Turf cutters had dug long peat
trenches and after removal from the ground, the nine inch
turf blocks were built up in pyramids to dry. Each
measured between 3 and 12 feet tall, and their array must
have been quite a sight. In between the trench rows were
tram lines, so that ponies could pull slatted trams of
turf to sheds nearby where 'pressing' took place.
Some firelight sellers had arrangements where they could
remove the turf themselves.
Frank Bamber
in his 'Clog Clatters in Old Sutton' recalls
Mr. Barrow,
the 'Firelight Mon', with his shaggy pony and two-wheeled
float. After gathering the cut and dried blocks of peat
from the Moss and soaking them in naphtha, he sold them
on Sutton's streets as firelighters. Every Saturday
morning during the early years of the 20th century, Mr.
Barrow would arrive in Edgeworth Street and young Frank
would buy a week's supply of 7 firelighters at a penny
each. Frank wrote that the 'firelight mon's' hands shone
like polished mahogany, through working with peat and
naphtha and he had a strong smell of
firelighters.
A driver and horse on Sutton Moss with a loaded slatted tram taking the dried peat to a pressing shed
The fire brigade under Superintendent Lyon eventually arrived from their base at the Town Hall but they had a major problem. Where could they get water from? They settled on a pond at Berry's Lane farm almost half-a-mile away and a couple of hosepipes were put to work. Their priority was to safeguard the machinery sheds where turf pressing and other operations were performed. This they successfully did, although 2500 tons of moss were lost. During the evening, the fire of Sutton Moss was quite a spectacle, as the Liverpool Mercury described:
Immense stacks of
turf, scattered over a surface of hundreds of yards,
were emitting lurid tongues of flame, which shot
high into the air, while the ground between was one
mass of flickering and smouldering fire. A glare
overhead revealed the immensity of the
conflagration, which was visible in the surrounding
districts. Thousands of people were attracted to the
spot, and gazed with mingled feelings at the scene
before them 
Left: An old
time view of a cutter on the moss; Right: Women sorting
and stacking turf at Sutton Moss
All photos in this article have been taken from 'Clog Clatters' - Courtesy Sutton Historic Society
When Queen Victoria Came Through Sutton
Did you know that Queen Victoria passed through Sutton on two occasions? The first was on Tuesday May 11th, 1886 when her special train travelled through St.Helens Junction on a trip from Windsor Castle to Liverpool. The two day visit was mainly to open the city’s International Exhibition of Navigation, Commerce and Industry.The monarch left Windsor just after midnight, accompanied by the Prince and Princess Henry of Battenberg and the Duke of Connaught. Princess Henry was otherwise known as Beatrice and she was the Queen's youngest child. The Duke, a.k.a. Prince Arthur, was her seventh child, and he’d visited St.Helens twelve years earlier on his way to Edinburgh.
The London and North-Western Railway provided the engine and twelve carriages, which boasted elegant day and night saloons. The Queen's day saloon had satinwood chairs and couches covered with dark blue watered silk. On the ceiling were four cut-glass oil lamps lined with white silk and a round clock, with a white enamel dial set in a chased gilt mounting, was hung from one side.
The royal party
L to R: Duke of Connaught, Princess Beatrice, Prince
Henry of Battenberg and Queen Victoria
The sleeping saloon was furnished with two small ormolu
bedsteads and the toilet basins in the dressing
compartment were plated with silver and gold. The royal
party were probably in the land of Nod when they went
through Sutton and the train travelled at just 25mph to
give Her Majesty a better night’s sleep. Security
was tight and the public were banned from St.Helens
Junction and the other stations until the train, preceded
by a pilot-engine, had passed. This was only three years
after Irishman
Patrick Flannigan
from Sutton, a brakesman on the L and NW railway, had
been charged with levying "war against Her Majesty" as
part of a Fenian plot.
The royals stayed in Liverpool until the Thursday morning
when they made the return trip to Windsor, steaming back
through the Junction. This day-time journey would have
been more of an inconvenience to travellers, barred again
from using the station. Just whether the Queen looked out
of her ornate carriage at industrial Sutton and said
"We are not amused", is not, however, recorded!
Victoria never visited St.Helens, despite the
town’s strong association with her reign. Victoria
Park was originally Cowley Hill Park but it was renamed
in 1887 to commemorate the monarch’s golden
jubilee. After her death,
Sir George Frampton’s
statue of Queen Victoria was unveiled in 1905 in the Town
Hall Square by the
Earl of Derby.
In Sutton we have the Victoria pub on Ellamsbridge Road
and in Gerards Lane, the Victoria bridge by Monastery Dam
and also the demolished Victoria Cottage.
Queen
Elizabeth II
also passed through Sutton and her son
Charles
visited the Mill Dam and the Adventure Playground in
Gerards Lane. You can see photos of these events
here.
The Flying Pharmacist of Junction Lane
For five decades during the twentieth century, countless Sutton folk got their prescriptions filled at Spencer’s chemists in Junction Lane. I wonder how many customers when collecting their cough drops, potions and pills, knew that the pharmacist family were aviation pioneers? In fact prior to moving to Sutton, proprietor Sydney Spencer had been a pioneering balloonist and parachutist and had served in the Great War as a balloon expert for both the Admiralty and the Royal Flying Corps.
Charles had six children including Sydney Ewart Spencer, who was born in Islington on December 12th, 1879. All of the Spencer brood became aeronauts although Sydney’s three older brothers, Stanley, Percival and Arthur, were more renowned. Percy is said to have made 1000 ascents and Stanley became the first Englishman to fly in a powered airship over England.
This was a time when ballooning was a highly dangerous activity. The Graphic newspaper of September 1st, 1888 commented that:
The history of ballooning is
marked, like the trail of an army, by the dead it
has left behind it. 
The Spencer
family memorial in Sutton Parish graveyard at St.Nicholas
Church in New Street
During the war, Sydney met his future wife Margaret who was making balloons in the Isle of Man. They moved to Sutton during the 1920s and began their pharmacy in Junction Lane. Sydney died in 1946 but wife Margaret ran the chemist’s shop for fifty years, assisted by her daughter Marie.
The family memorial in the Sutton Parish graveyard appropriately bears witness to Sydney’s aeronautical past and his membership of a pioneering family of aviators with ‘balloonist and parachutist’ engraved under his name.
Captain Spencer
is 4th from left on the front row of this 1936 photo
outside the British Legion
(Contributed by Sutton Historic Society)
The Night That 'E.T.' Came To Bold!
Unexplained lights in the sky are not, of course, unusual. However, this case takes on greater interest as some of the onlookers were police officers! In fact two officers tried to follow the UFO and after it landed in a field at Rainhill, they were close to the craft as it took off.
The story began when amateur radio operator Robert Bennett of Nutgrove received a message from the president of a Liverpool UFO society that unexplained aerial activity had been reported in St.Helens. Bennett rang the police and three officers arrived and then sat with him for some five hours, as they and enthusiasts, attempted to track the mysterious object by radio. The 46-year-old listened to the police communications until 3am and was asked to relay messages to the radio hams who were also chasing the craft. Quoted in the St.Helens Star in July 2005 Robert Bennett said:
...there were officers in the
car trying to follow it and I believe it did land in
a field in Rainhill and two police officers, a PC
and a WPC were 20 yards away from it when it started
to take off. 
Two uniformed police
officers - PCs Lowe and Roberts - observed a high
speed UFO that hovered above Bold Power Station
before darting across the landscape and doing
likewise over Fiddler's Ferry Power Station.
Frog Frying Tonight in Sutton!
The order "Give us a split peas and frogs' legs mate", is not exactly one that Sutton chippy staff are used to receiving! However, for a while during the nineteenth century, frog was a Lancastrian delicacy that proved a 'nice little earner' for youngsters in Sutton and St.Helens.
The reporter described seeing several pounds of the hind parts of skinned frogs stacked on one side of the pond, with the redundant fore parts and skins stored nearby. Upon questioning the lads as to what they would be doing with the hind bits, they said:
We putten them i'th'
frying pan, and then i'th' hoon, and then they are
gradely good. 
Illustrator
Marty
Strutt depicts the scene with the lad
at the front with frog in hand talking to a reporter
on the bank
Did you know that there used to be a popular Lancashire snail fair that was held every September? Not everyone, it seems, in old Lanky devoured black puddings and Lancashire hot pot. Cuisine could be a tad more exotic. I trust this article was a gradely good read for you!
Bally Whittaker - The Heavyweight Sutton Builder
John 'Bally' Whittaker was reputed to be the heaviest man in St.Helens. Weighing in at 31 stones, the building contractor was referred to as 'Owd Bally', which was Lancashire dialect for 'belly'. As a builder Whittaker was responsible for constructing many notable buildings, works and chimneys in St.Helens and he was also licensee of a Sutton pub.Born in 1824 in Blackley, John Whittaker spent the first thirty years of his life in the Manchester district before relocating to St.Helens. Bally lived in Neill's Road in Bold which later became the Neil’s Foundry caretaker’s house. Frank Bamber visited a school friend there around 1920 and was struck by the "extraordinary width" of its doors and frames. The huge stomach of Bally Whittaker meant he had great difficulty in squeezing through average-sized house doors, so he had them custom built in his home.
John 'Bally' Whittaker
(1824 - 1894) builder and landlord of the Oak Tree Inn
Being conveyed around St.Helens also presented
difficulties. So Bally employed a strong pony
called
Black Bess
and a specially-built, strong trap with stablising props.
These steadied the trap and took the weight off the pony,
while he climbed in and became comfortably seated.
From around 1870 he lived with wife Anne at Oak Cottage
in St.Helens Junction and ran the Oak Tree Inn at 8
Gerrards Lane.
John Whittaker was said to have been a jovial character
of which there were many stories. He learnt that a firm
in Liverpool were offering suits made to measure for just
30 shillings. So he sent a man of average size to the
shop to place an order for a suit for himself and three
others, who the man told the staff were his brothers. The
additional suits were in fact for Whittaker and his two
best friends,
Joseph Jackson
and
Charles Rigby.
Jackson was a wheelwright and blacksmith of whom Jackson
Street was named and who weighed almost 23 stones. Rigby
was a wheelwright from Warrington Road who was also quite
a heavyweight at over 18 stones.
As a builder John Whittaker was highly industrious. Working out of Foundry Street in St. Helens, his company was responsible for Sutton Glassworks, St.Helens Junction railway station, Sutton Road Pumping Station, Borough Sanatorium, Wolverhampton House, Daglish’s Foundry, Neil’s Foundry, Brown Edge water softening works, Boundary Road Baths, St. Mary’s C.E. School and mission church, Lingholme Hotel, The Saddle pub, Pear Tree at Collins Green and the Huntsman at Haydock. His firm was also responsible for many works' chimney stacks in St.Helens.
John Whittaker died on July 2nd, 1894 at Oak Cottage at the age of 70 years and is buried in Sutton Parish Church graveyard. Unsurprisingly it's said that the larger-than-life builder had to be laid to rest in a plot twice the size as normal!
What 'Lord Haw Haw' Said About Sutton
Joyce visited St.Helens about 1938 when the fascist gave a talk in the Corporation Street 'tin chapel'. During the war the chapel was bombed, although there probably wasn't a connection! Joyce was executed for treason on 3rd January 1946 at Wandsworth Prison.
Please Postman, Come Thou Near, and Hark!
Perhaps this website gives the impression that old Sutton was a grim, miserable place enlivened only by boozing and by the occasional walking and sports days. Of course, times were often very hard, although I expect that there could be much humour. Old newspapers did tend to focus on the darker side of life although I do come across quite a number of reports that make me smile! A favourite has to be a very brief report in the Liverpool Mercury of May 21st, 1863 in which an unnamed individual, who was corresponding with Thomas Park of Sutton Rolling Mills, decided to put some style into his letter. He wrote Park's address on the envelope as a poem which read:Give this to Mr. Thomas Park.
You'll find him (listen where to go)
Employed by Newton, Keats, and Co.
Away ! away ! o'er dales and hills,
To Sutton Copper Rolling Mills,
Near St.Helens, Lancashire.
A Letter from the King of Belgium to Sutton
The newspaper also commented that Ffouks had recently received the diploma of membership of the International Societé de Philogie, Science et Beaux Arts. Little seems known of Sam, although the Societé de Philogie, was a distinguished academic and scientific body run by Professor Haroon Mustapha Leon (1855-1932), an Islamic scholar and etymologist. Albert I of Belgium reigned for 24 years and during the war famously fought with his troops, while his wife, Queen Elisabeth, nursed soldiers at the front. Their son, Prince Leopold, enlisted in the Belgian army at the age of fourteen and fought as a private.
A 'Breeze' At Sutton Parish Church
An indignant Mr. Crouch, the bible class leader, had what might be called a frank and lengthy exchange of views with the vicar, Rev. W.E. Colegrove, which were recorded verbatim by the Reporter. Finally the vicar assured Mr. Crouch that he'd had the church books checked out and they were in good order and the pair shook hands. Mr. Crouch could sleep again!
Telegrams To Sutton From The Pope
"The following telegram has been received at Sutton from Rome - The Holy Father touched by the homage of the Knights of St.Columbia imparts from his heart the Apostolic Benediction."
Daisy the Peg - Sutton's Seven-Legged Cow!
A lusus naturae or freak of nature occurs every now and then and in 1872 it happened to a Sutton farmer called Mr. Gavin. The Preston Guardian of June 22nd described the new-born calf of being of "extraordinary malformation". The head, shoulders and forelegs were born normal but it had two distinct bodies, each with its own tail and hind legs. In total the cow had five legs at its rear. A lucrative career as a carnival exhibit would, perhaps, have been in store but when farmer Gavin found it, Sutton's own Daisy the Peg was already deceased.
The Day That Sutton Brook Caught Fire!
However, on Wednesday September 8th, 1915 huge flames emanated from the brook near St.Helens Junction, reaching the height of the Bowling Green Inn. The St.Helens Reporter in their account of the fire described it as causing "great alarm" in Sutton.
Despite some efforts to limit discharges from factories into St.Helens's waterways, it was still a common practice and an unnamed works in Sutton was allowing oil and grease to drain into the brook. The council were aware of the problem and its Health Committee had coincidentally met on the Wednesday to discuss what could be done, though failed to come up with a plan of action. Their minds were, perhaps, concentrated at 6pm that same day, when a man who was lighting a cigarette, threw a match into the brook which ignited the grease and oil on its surface. Flames burst from both ends of the culvert, assistance was summoned and it was only extinguished after large quantities of rubbish was thrown onto the fire. The Reporter said:
The incident serves
to illustrate the great danger which, apart
altogether from the offensive smell which arises,
lurks in the greasy and oily matter in the
Watery-lane brook...the residents in the Watery-lane
are hoping that the incident of Wednesday evening
will not only force the Council to move in the
direction of curing the offensive smell, but, while
they are at it, they will tackle the overflowing
nuisance as well, and make a complete and
satisfactory job of it. 
Fred Thomas - The Hermit of New Street
Shortly after WW1, Fred Thomas quit his job on a matter of principle and declared that he would never again work on a regular basis. He was good to his word and decided on a simple life, building a shed for himself just off New Street. This was on land that belonged to Sutton farmer Eddie Rimmer by the Sutton vicarage and Fred lived there for decades. His bunk was said to have been made from old railway sleepers and he cooked on a little stove with its iron chimney emanating from the hut roof.Fred kept his unusual place of abode scrupulously clean. He was well educated and refused handouts. Often he could be found in the grounds of St.Nicholas, tidying the churchyard or digging graves to earn cash. Fred also helped out in the fields at harvest time and during winter, dressed in a long, dark coat, cloth cap and wore polished clogs with a white scarf wrapped round his neck. Daily journeys would be made to the churchyard to draw water from a standpipe, accompanied by his dog.
Bill Bate, now living in Western Australia and author of 'A Sutton Schoolboy's Memories of WW2', remembers Fred from when he was a boy in Sutton:
I have fond memories
of the times from about 1935, and my Grandad's
friendship with Fred. I always understood that the
shed belonged to my grandfather, but perhaps they
built it together. I know for a fact that the little
white dog called Jack was Grandad's. I was about
four years old at the time, and Granddad, myself,
and the dog used to go to the shed and spend most of
the day there. The old blokes would sit by the stove
smoking their pipes, and talking, perhaps, about the
coming war. I used to play outside with some plywood
boxes that used to contain Star cigarettes. One
amusing incident that occurred involving Fred, was
that on his trip to the church yard to refill his
water bottles, he used to pass our house, which was
on New Street, opposite Heward's field. One day my
Mum, who was looking from the front room window, saw
Fred stop and lean over the field fence and pick
something out of the nettles. When I got home from
school, Mum said," Go and look what's over the
fence". It appeared that Fred had found that one of
Heward's hen's had made a nest and Fred had been
getting a good supply of eggs. I'm sorry to say that
poor old Fred didn't get any more eggs! My Granddad,
Joe Standley, used to live in Nelson
Street. 
During the 1960s, Sutton vicar Rev. James Smith arranged for Fred, who was then well past 80, to see out his days at Nutgrove Home for the Elderly and upon his death was buried at St.Nicholas. He was very well thought of by local folk and many attended his funeral. During the 1980s, a St.Helens Star mention of Fred elicited many affectionate reader reminiscences leading to a lengthy article published on May 12th, 1988 entitled 'Fred: Toff in A Shed'. And talking of sheds...
The Dancing Shed at Norman's Lane, Sutton
Sutton Beauty & Heritage strives for factual accuracy at all times. Please do also get in touch if you believe that there are any errors, with details of any corrections contained within the site's update history page, which also details the regular updates. Many individuals from all over the world have kindly contributed Sutton information and photographs. If you would like to participate in this project, I would be delighted to hear from you and this website always credits any assistance given. Do also consider contributing any recollections of old Sutton that you might have for the Sutton Memories pages, which are proving very popular. I respond quickly to emails and if you haven't received a response within 12 hours, do check your junk mail folder or send your message again. Thank you! SRW
