100 YEARS AGO:

A SPECIAL meeting of members of Worcestershire County Cricket Club was held on Saturday under the presidency of Lord Cobham.

It was conveyed to review the financial crisis which has engulfed the club for so many years.

The committee warned it was crucial the big financial overdraft which had been overhanging the club for years, should be dealt with.

Officers suggested a series of positive financial measures and it was reported that a plea for liberality in donations from the people of Worcestershire had resulted in several gentlemen promising amounts ranging from £5 to £20 and even £50.

These promises were expected to largely increase and to provide sufficiently large guarantees as to carry the club forward for the next two years.

150 YEARS AGO:

TWO prostitutes named Mary Morris and Emma Payne were charged at Worcester Police Court with stealing nine shillings from the person of Frederick Turner, a labourer of Powick.

This was the second case in which young labourers from that village have been victimised by prostitutes in the last 10 days.

Turner came to the city on Saturday with £1 and after visiting several public houses, met Payne at the Falcon Inn, Broad Street.

They drank together at that place and at the White Horse in Silver Street. Eventually, he went with her to Morris’s house in Watercourse Alley.

He gave the girl half-a-crown and went to bed. He awoke alone after about an hour or so and discovered that nine shillings was missing from his breeches pocket.

The defendants were each sentenced to one month’s gaol.

● St Nicholas Church has been closed for the last three weeks for the purpose of undergoing its septennial cleansing, colouring and reparations and will be reopened for divine worship on Sunday next. The work of redecoration has been carefully executed by Joseph Wood, builder of the Butts.

The walls are coloured blue, relieved with white.

200 YEARS AGO:

IT is expected that the steam engine, which has been lately erected for supplying Worcester with water, will begin to work in a few days.

Early on Friday morning, a fire was discovered in a work shop near the engine. The shop would have been totally destroyed had it not been for the timely assistance of one of the engines belonging to the Worcester Fire Office. From appearances there is little doubt that the place was set on fire by some malicious person or persons, but they have not yet been discovered.

● Miss Taylor, milliner, dress and pelisse-maker of 98 High Street, Worcester, respectfully begs leave to return her thanks to the ladies of the city and its environs for the great encouragement she has received since her residence as above and begs to inform them she has just received a large assortment of winter dresses, pelisses, millinery etc., which she earnestly entreats their inspection of, and will be grateful for their future indulgent favours.

250 YEARS AGO:

A FEW days since, as one Robert Sytch of the parish of Hanley Castle was playing carelessly with a gun, not knowing it was charged, it accidentally went off and wounded one Sarah Sytch in such a terrible manner that she expired about two hours after.

The coroner’s inquest, having sat on the body and brought in its jury verdict of “manslaughter,” Sytch was committed to our county gaol to await trial.

● Penny’s Machine continues to set out from the Bell Inn, Broad Street, Worcester for London via Oxford every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7am and returns to Worcester on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 6pm. Parcels and luggage are carried at very easy rates. If a gentleman for his family or a party of gentlemen or ladies take the whole machine at Worcester, it will not, if desired, set out from there before 8am and will likewise take them up as near as possible to the place of their residence. Your most obliged humble servant, William Penny.