Memory Corner October 3rd 2019

Friday October 3rd, 1794

DISCOVERY OF A PLOT TO ASSASSINATE THE KING!  On Saturday John Pierce La Maitre and William Higgins were apprehended on a charge of having concerted a plan to assassinate our most gracious Sovereign.  [The accused] were to be in the pit of the Theatre on the first night of the King’s visiting it.  The alarm of “pickpocket” was to be [raised], and while the audience were in a bustle a poisoned dart was to be blown through a tube at the breast of His Majesty.

 

Friday October 1st, 1819

EXECUTED – S Hooley and J Johnson (a black) were executed at Chester on Saturday, further to their sentence for burglary.  They have made disclosure of receivers of stolen goods, which are likely to be the means of diminishing the number of robberies in that county.

UPWARDS OF £1000 is subscribed for relieving “those persons who were illegally wounded, maimed or imprisoned at [the ‘Peterloo Massacre’] at Manchester…”

 

Friday October 1st, 1869

Shrewsbury Market Hall, pictured in 1874

OPENING of the new General Market and Corn Exchange at Shrewsbury.  After the years of anxious suspense which have elapsed since the market was first talked of, and after the expenditure of a necessarily large sum of money in its erection, it is natural that the opening should have been looked forward to with a great deal of interest, and by many, no doubt, with a good deal of impatience.  Date after date has been fixed for its completion…but at last the day has come, and most heartily do we congratulate the public on its arrival.

 

Friday October 3rd, 1919

1919 railway strike

THE RAILWAY STRIKE – the great railway strike, the possibilities of which were not generally realized until a week ago, began at midnight last Friday, and has become general throughout Britain… Shrewsbury is seriously affected by the strike and about 1000 men ceased work in response to the mandate of the National Executive.  Although the strikers have established an elaborate system of picketing, the pickets have been instructed to confine themselves to peaceful persuasion, and there has been a gratifying absence of disorder.

 

Friday October 5th, 1979

BOTTLE BANK CALL – a Shropshire woman this week suggested that a bottle bank should be set up in Shrewsbury – to save waste and raise thousands of pounds for charity.  Mrs Rita Waters, of Dingley Hall, Westbury, says that a similar scheme that has been running in Reading, in conjunction with a Yorkshire glass firm, for the past six months has already raised more than £1,000.  Mrs Waters said that specially modified skips – they take three different coloured bottles – could be placed at suitable sites such as supermarket car parks so that shoppers can get rid of their empty bottles when they do their shopping.

 

Thursday October 6th, 1994

TODAY the Chronicle begins publishing the results of a major investigation into the Shrewsbury drugs scene.  Our three-week series will cover every aspect of a sub-culture which many people are reluctant to admit exists in the county town.  Chronicle reporter Jo Robathan was told several times that any drug could be obtained for her, from any area of Shrewsbury.  All she had to do was ask.  She also discovered that dozens of groups are operating across the town in a complex network of dealers, runners and contacts.

 

Thursday October 8th, 2009

A ONCE dilapidated playground on a tiny Greek island has been restored to its former glory to fulfil the dying wish of a Shrewsbury mother-of-three.  Chronicle readers rallied round to support a fundraising appeal launched in memory of Chris Hollick.  Chris died in Severn Hospice last August, and she and her husband Allan had always holidayed on Trikeri, off the eastern coast of Greece, and made many friends there.  Mrs Hollick’s dying wish was to see the island’s playground restored and her husband started a registered charity to raise the money.