Violence on our streets is an issue that still destroys lives and communities, as this story from the Eccles and Patricroft Journal of 100 years ago so vividly demonstrates.
It’s even worse when it happens between neighbours.
But an argument over childcare spiralled out of control in October 1915 and led to an almost unprecedented fine for the agressor.
Harry Wilkinson was a widower with five children who lived at Davis Street in Eccles.
His next-door neighbour Annie Sapseed had been looking after his children while he was at work.
Wilkinson believed that Ms Sapseed was not backward in punishing his children when they stepped out of line, and had in the past thrashed them for cheekiness.
But it all boiled over on the evening of 24 September.
Eccles Magistrates Court heard that around 8.20pm Ms Sapseed was on her doorstep watching local children skipping rope in the street, when one Wilkinson child ran through the rope, breaking it.
The woman accosted the young girl telling her that she was “stupid”, and if the rope hasn’t broken she could have hurt herself.
Suddenly Mr Wilkinson ran out of his house and accused her of hitting his children: she denied this and called him a liar to his face.
It was all too much for Harry, who punched her in the eye, sending her tumbling to the ground. Hospital reports found there was a fear Ms Sapseed could have lost her eye, such was the force of the blow.
Sarah Bowers appeared for the defence and told the court that she heard a quarrel in the street and went out to see what was happpening, and saw Mr Wilkinson strike Mrs Sapseed in the face, causing it to bleed heavily. She called him a coward, to which he replied, “Well, it’s done now”.
Wilkinson went on to threaten to punch another woman if she didn’t stop interfering, which hardly helped his defence.
In reply Harry told the court that he had “put his hand up to stop her hitting my daughter, when my fist accidentally came into contact his her face”
In support Harry’s daughter Olive was called to testify, saying that Mrs Sapseed had struck her father three times in the face before he retaliated, and that she had constantly hit her brothers and sisters.
He told the court that the woman was a nuisance and that they had been quarreling for weeks about the children and she would not stop thrashing them.
Mrs Sapseed retorted that Mr Wilkinson’s children were “very impudent” towards her, and bullied her children and taunted them about her son who was away fighting in the First World War.
The Chairman of the court said that Mrs Sapseed had been acting in a neighbourly manner in looking after Harry’s children and that she had done so at his asking.
He found Mr Wilkinson guilty of assault and fined him £1 with costs and a further £1 with costs or else he would go to prison for a month with hard labour.
Wilkinson paid the fine rather than risk leaving his family at the mercy of Eccles Borough, who would have placed the children into care, while Davis Street reportedly became a more peaceful area after that court ruling.
