There was an old music hall song called ‘Two Lovely Black Eyes’ that made popular entertainer Charles Coborn famous in the early 1900s.
It was a comic but cautionary tale about petty arguments and their common end result.
This story from The Eccles and Patricroft Journal of March 1916 illustrates Coborn’s point perfectly.
Two ladies found knocking lumps out of each other on Patricroft Bridge in Eccles were hauled before magistrates to explain their shocking actions.
Mary Bowker appeared in the dock at Eccles Magistrates Court charged with assaulting Sarah Mawson on the evening of Saturday 4 March.
Mr Desquenes, representing Mary, rather wittily told the court that Mrs Bowker, “had had her lights darkened not according to the Defence of the Realm Act, but in contravention of the ordinary stature.”
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Unpicking his pun, the brief was referring to the law passed in 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War.
The Defence of the Realm Act was a sweeping piece of legislation that, among other things, allowed Britain to ramp up its war effort. As well as giving the government powers to seize property or land and censor journalists, homes and factories had to reduce their lighting so as not to attract German zeppelin bombing parties or enemy aircraft.
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From an hour and a half after sunset to an hour and half before sunrise, blinds had to be pulled shut, while trams and buses turned off their lights, hence the term ‘the black-out’.
I suppose it’s not quite as funny a gag when it needs a detailed explanation, but there you go.
The court heard that Sarah Mawson was approaching Patricroft Bridge from Worsley Road at 9.30pm when she saw Mary Bowker with another woman, who began hurling abuse.
She asked them if the insults were meant for her, and they obviously were because Bowker ran at her and struck her several times in the face.
Mary also had both her eyes blacked when her head was bashed on a butcher’s wall.
A crowd had gathered to watch this free boxing match, and it was only when the ladies appeared to have had their fill that they were separated.
Two witnesses, Susan Smith and Margaret Watson, appeared for Sarah Mawson in court and said that they had witnessed the whole shocking affair.
Mrs Bowker also had a character witness to vouch for her, Mary Jane Lingard of Egerton Street, Winton.
She denied the allegation that she and Bowker were drunk at the time but admitted to having had ‘a few glasses of beer’.
Well, the demon booze was stronger in those days, so I’m told.
The son of the accused, Peter Bowker, 15, also took the stand and told the magistrate that he had witnessed the so-called assault, and stated vehemently that his mother was the victim and not the other way around.
The Magistrate, clearly using the wisdom of Solomon, told the court that he had heard all the evidence and discovered that Mary Bowker had two previous convictions for assault and was “no shrinking violet”, no matter what the litany of character witnesses might say.
He added that he was saddened to hear that Mary’s husband was away with the army fighting in France.
Fining her 21 shillings and otherwise letting her off with a warning, he said it was a pity that she was spending his army pay on beer and fighting over here in Eccles.
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