From the Evening News, August 19, 1976

25 YEARS AGO

THERE is not just money in oil. There is money in oils. A record £2,838 was paid for pictures and prints on display last week in the Bolton Precinct. This compares with £1,967 last year. Colourful landscapes and still-life paintings sold well, and even the occasional abstract painting was not given the brush off by the town's discerning art viewers.

BROTHERS Colin and Iain Wilson have plenty to smile about. They have just won the Wayfarer Class world sailing dinghy championships for Britain. The brothers, regular sailors at the Delph Sailing Club at Egerton, travelled to Toronto, Canada for the championships.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, August 20, 1951

YESTERDAY the circus came to town - and so did the people. They came in their thousands, and they came from all the out-districts as well as within the borough.

Huge crowds gathered everywhere in town. Men, women and children swarmed and jostled around Trinity-st. station in the afternoon sunshine, where the huge animals were to move their bulk from rail trucks and enter on their popular parade through town. Many people came to town on foot, and lined Bradshawgate, Deansgate, Oxford-st., Ashburner-st., or gathered round the circus site in Moor-lane.

The only casualties: A 73-years-old man who was overcome by the heat and fainted outside Cheadle Square ambulance depot, and a boy knocked down by a cat!

125 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, August 19, 1876

SOME weeks ago we had to relate a case of deception practised upon a young woman living in this town by an engine tenter, who originally hailed from Burnley. It will be remembered that the parties were married, and furnished a house in Gaskell-street, but within a week afterwards the wife discovered that her husband had both a wife and family in Burnley. The discovery being demonstrated to the husband by the appearance of the first wife in Bolton, he disappeared. A warrant was issued against him, and on Friday week Detective Gaskell apprehended him in Halifax.

The next morning he was brought before the magistrates, charged with bigamy, and Mr Hall stated that the prisoner - James Segar - married a woman named Alice Ann Openshaw, his former wife being then alive. The first marriage took place at Burnley, and the second on the 29th June last, at the Trinity Church in Bolton. He asked for a remand, as the witnesses in the case were not ready. The prisoner was then remanded for a week, his application for bail being refused, it being stated that he had been to America and other places. The bench, therefore, were of opinion that now he had been caught he should be kept secure.