150 YEARS AGO

Inspector's orders on uninhabitable houses

The sanitary inspector for Whitehaven has ordered that the following dwellings be immediately closed, being unfit for habitation: House, Bardy Well Steps; a room in Gunport, Bardy Well Steps; three cottages in Back Lane, Mount Pleasant; a midden adjoining a house in Mount Pleasant, to be covered in; and the overflow of a cesspool in Coates Lane to be attended to.

Shipbuilding in Whitehaven

It was feared that the prosperity of the port had departed with the last ship launched from the yard of Messrs Brocklebank, but we are glad to see that the shipbuilding trade is being revived very rapidly.

At present there are two new vessels on the stocks in the yard of Messrs Shepherd & Co. One is intended for the Pomoron trade and the other for the copper and iron ore trades.

October 12, 1865.

25 YEARS AGO

A mysterious affair at Cleator Moor

Reports circulated that the body of a baby had been discovered wrapped in a red handkerchief, by a little girl, in the old quarry, behind the Market Hall, Cleator Moor. The police immediately made inquiries, and asserted that the object was a rabbit or some other creature, being much decomposed. But some of the people that were present when the object was discovered affirmed that it was the body of a male child.

The St Nicholas Churchyard debt

A meeting of members of the congregation of St Nicholas Church, Whitehaven, was held to consider the measures to be adopted to raise the balance of the debt due for the improvement of the churchyard.

It was proposed that a bazaar should be held as a means of raising money, and a ladies committee was formed to organise stalls.

October 16, 1890.

100 YEARS AGO

Kippers wanted

Messrs Cowman Bros, fish and game dealers, Whitehaven, have received the following letter from the front:

“You will be wondering why I write you, but we are just after having a good smell of kippers from the Germans’ trenches, and we think if some of our friends of Whitehaven would send us a few kippers for our breakfast we could beat our machine gunners.”

British gain the upper hand

12001 Private Tom Scurr, 2nd Border Reg, and son of Mr & Mrs G Scurr, Church Street, Whitehaven, has written home: “I have been in hospital, wounded, and only came to the base last night from the hospital.

“You will have seen in the papers about our big scrap with the Germans last Saturday. Well, we have chased them for miles and captured a lot of prisoners and guns. We had just taken their second line of trenches, when I got hit above the right ear with a bullet, but it wasn’t very much and I managed to get to the dressing station all right.”

October 14, 1915.

75 YEARS AGO

Beaverbrook’s praise

“Your Spitfire will write a chapter of its own in the story of this epoch and you will share in its glory.” This is the quotation received by the mayor of Whitehaven from Lord Beaverbrook, minister for aircraft production.

The £5,000 for the Scawfell Spitfire was raised in about four weeks of collecting.

More knitters needed

There are stocks of wool accumulating at The Whitehaven News office and with with winter approaching, the need for clothing for our troops is greater than ever. There is only one solution to this problem – more knitters.

October 17, 1940.

50 YEARS AGO

Haig Pit future assured if full co-operation given

Whitehaven’s Haig Pit, the biggest Cumberland coalfield, is rich enough in coal reserves to make it one of the most potentially productive in the country.

Yet, Haig and the four other Cumberland collieries made a huge operating loss of £958,000 in the last financial year.

Festival centre or “super Blackpool” for Lakes?

Proposals for a central festival centre or a “super Blackpool” on the fringes of the Lake District were put forward at a meeting between the Northern economic planning councils with the area’s tourism representatives.

25 YEARS AGO

Clean up as Mirehouse goes smokeless

Whitehaven’s biggest housing estate officially becomes a smokeless zone at the beginning of next month, but already residents are experiencing the health benefits of smoke control.

Almost 1,700 homes are affected by the order and from November 1 it will be an offence to allow smoke to be emitted from a chimney.

Hill sheep prices plummet

There is mounting anger over dramatic falls in ewe prices at Cumbrian auction marts.

Fell ewes in some cases have been sold for £10 a head, a third of the price three years ago.

October 18, 1990.