100 YEARS AGO:

BRUTAL assault in hopfields.

At the County Petty Sessions, Charles William Hooper of St Martin’s Gate, Worcester, was charged with assaulting his son, aged 10. Witnesses stated that when the boy refused to pick hops, his father threw him to the ground and struck him several times until the boy appeared lifeless and was taken to the Infirmary where he did not recover consciousness until the day after. Jane Wade, who gave her name as Hooper, said her “husband”

clouted the boy over the earhole so she threatened to hit him if he touched the boy again. Asked by a magistrate if she was married to Hooper, she replied: “Well, I’ve got the ring.” She has three children and was not deemed by the court to be a satisfactory person to be in charge of the boy because of her drunken habits. The bench told the prisoner it was a very bad case and sent him down to four months’ hard labour. The boy has been sent to the Cottage Homes in Midland Road until his removal to the Dr Barnardos Homes where he will remain until he is 16.

150 YEARS AGO:

STREET disturbers. Fanny McCarthy and Maria Cartwright were charged at Worcester Police Court with being drunk in Broad Street and refusing to go home at half-past 12 o’clock on Sunday night. They were described as two regular bridge walkers, ever on the alert at night to pick up and plunder unwary votaries of “the jolly god.” They were each committed to hard labour for a total of 21 days.

200 YEARS AGO:

An inquest was held on Friday by N Mence, coroner of Worcester, on Walter Middleton, a waterman, who having hold of the lee sheet rope of a barge under sail, was blown overboard, and the barge went over him. He was found the day after by some fishermen who dragged for him very near the spot where he tumbled into the river. He has left five small children and a wife near confinement, for whose benefit a subscription was made at the Inquest, and above a guinea and a half were subscribed for her.

250 YEARS AGO:

WE hear that many gentlemen, tradesmen and others in Worcester and the neighbourhood intend joining in a complaint to the postmaster general of the late coming in of the post from London, as also respecting the late arrival of the mails from the North.

The cause of these delays is said to be as follows: When the London mails arrive at Shipston-upon-Stour, they are taken out of the mail cart and put on two horses’ backs and, being exceedingly weighty, they are often between four and five hours in getting to Stratford-upon- Avon which is but 10 miles, whereas it would be but a trifling addition to the expenses if the mails were taken in a light wheel carriage, drawn by two horses, and forwarded in that manner throughout to Birmingham and Wolverhampton. The mails would then arrive at those places, likewise Worcester, Bewdley and Kidderminster, four or five hours sooner than they do now. As for the North mails, these are often obliged to stop four or five hours at Kidderminster, waiting for the Warwickshire and Staffordshire letters coming with the Kidderminster London letters. This occasions the North mails not coming in to Worcester before nine or 10 at night, instead of four in the afternoon.