Last updated 11:56, Tuesday, 18 March 2008

From the Files

150 Years Ago

THRASHING BY STEAM: We have this week to record the introduction into this locality by Mr Freeman of Carlisle of one of Hornsby’s Travelling Steam Threshing Machines, which commenced operations on the farm of Mr Wright of Harraby on Monday last where from seventy to eighty Carlisle bushels of wheat were thrashed and dressed in about five hours. A considerable number of townsmen and neighbouring farmers attended to witness the operation and seemed highly satisfied.

125 Years Ago

AULD WILL RITSON’S multitude of friends will much regret to hear that he is leaving Wasdale Head. Since he left the hotel, Auld Will has been living at Downadale, a short distance away, within easy distance of his old haunt, but for some reason or other he has received notice to quit his place and he is about to do so at once. Auld Will’s new quarters, I understand, will be Littleground, below Backbarrow, and about a mile beyond Strands. Wasdale Head without Auld Will Ritson is hard to conceive. To many people it will have lost its greatest attraction.

100 Years Ago

MOTOR DRIVING: There is one aspect of public safety on the highway, a matter which is rapidly becoming more serious with the increase of motor traffic, that does not appear to have had attention. Hitherto all legislation in the interest of safety has been always in the direction of crippling motor traffic by restriction of speed, and on the other hand there is no adequate precaution taken that motor drivers shall be of approved knowledge and capacity. In some countries, France for example, a driver cannot obtain a licence by simply paying for it, he must have a certificate of proficiency. That is an important guarantee to public safety that it would be well to have in this country.

75 Years Ago

DUE to improved demand for coal, the Whitehaven Colliery Company’s William Pit, which has been closed for five months, reopened this week. It is hoped that by next week, a hundred hewers and a similar number of shifthands will be employed in the pit.

UNEMPLOYED people in Whitehaven have been issued with seeds, potatoes, fertilisers, lime and tools as part of the Allotment Scheme. Persons entitled to benefit under the scheme are those who are unemployed, partially employed or seriously impoverished. Last year, the seeds supplied were of excellent quality and produced great crops.

WHITEHAVEN is a more sober place than last year according to the annual Licensing Sessions.

There are 208 licensed houses in the division which equates to one licensed houses to each 225 inhabitants. Twenty-two persons were proceeded against for drunkenness which is a decrease on last year.

50 Years Ago

HARD pad, one of the most contagious and deadly dog maladies, is rife in West Cumberland, where the areas worst hit are Kells and Mirehouse. Veterinary surgeons have confirmed an epidemic.

IT must have been an amusing sight at School House Brow, Gosforth, on Friday night.

Clad in evening dress, members of the Whitehaven Chamber of Trade and many guests were returning home by bus following the annual dinner dance at the Scawfell Hotel, Seascale, when they had to get out and push their way through snow.

MOTOR boats which tear over Lake Derwentwater with the noise of their engines echoing against the surrounding hills may be banned.

The Parliamentary Committee of Cumberland County Council has recommended that a new by-law be drafted to prevent noisy motor boats.

It is proposed that nobody will use a boat unless the engine is fitted with a silencer to reduce the noise.

25 Years Ago

NEWS that the vast Sellafield works is not to draw extra water from Wastwater or Ennerdale has been greeted with delight by conservationists.

BNFL has announced that it can instead boost its supplies from boreholes in the Calder valley and the St Bees sandstone aquifer and from the recently closed Beckermet iron ore mine.

EGREMONT have reached the final of the Rugby Union Cumberland Cup for the eighth time since the war with a resounding 25-4 win over Upper Eden.

John Creighton, Mark Beckwith (2), Peter Hall and Peter Wilson scored Egremont tries.

SOME 30 competitors entered this year’s Shrove Tuesday Pancake Race along Whitehaven’s Lowther Street watched by hundreds of shoppers.

The runners, many in fancy dress, flipped their pancakes from the Post Office to King Street and police halted traffic for the occasion. Radio Cumbria provided commentary and Whitehaven News reporter David Siddall finished in a commendable fourth place.