25 YEARS AGO

BOLTON'S decision to suspend its exhibition of blank canvasses has brought a storm of protest from the art world. The 15 blank canvasses in different colours by artist William Turnbull, were on permanent loan from the McAlpine Collection to Bolton's Art Gallery. Bolton Arts Committee decided to remove them and return them to the lender after a councillor described them as 'nothing but a con trick'. But Sir Norman Reid, director of the Tate Gallery, has written to the Council saying he considered them to be the work of 'one of the most important painters and sculptors of his generation.'

50 YEARS AGO

LAST night's severe thunderstorm caused widespread damage in Bolton and the surrounding districts and brought to a climax the worst August since 1930. Blackburn-rd. was closed for many hours, when subsidence in Astley Bridge made the road unsafe. When a 30 yards stretch of wall and railing crashed over into the valley, gas mains were cut and electricity and telephonic communications disrupted.

OVER 100 acres of land at four farms in the Over Hulton and Middle Hulton districts have now been requisitioned by the Ministry of Fuel and Power for open-cast mining, and boring is still in operation on other farms in the area. Farms which have been affected are Addises Farm, Umberton Farm, Israel's Farm and Four Lane Ends Farm.

125 YEARS AGO

WILLIAM Barker, of Whitehall-street, Tottenham, in the employ of Mr Coxwell, the aeronaut, who ascended in a balloon from Manley Park, Manchester, on Monday evening, had a narrow escape from being killed. He ascended in his balloon (capable of carrying 18,000 cubic feet of gas) about ten minutes past six. At twenty minutes past six he got near Stand Edge, on the Diggle side of the hill, and let out the gas to enable him to descend. He had been at a height of about 2,300 feet. When he began to descend, the stone walls which divide the fields on the hillside appeared to him to be hedges, and he threw out the grappling irons. They, however, did no more than pull the walls down; and as there was a moderate breeze blowing the balloon was carried forward, trailing along the basket car in which Mr Barker was seated. Wall after wall was thrown down, and Mr Barker gradually became insensible, and did not know where he was. William Hutley, gamekeeper, and Robert Garside, a shepherd, who were on the moors and saw the balloon when it struck the first wall, followed for about two miles in its track, and at length came upon the body of Mr Barker, who was insensible from the injuries he had sustained through contact with the walls. He had evidently been pitched out of the balloon. He was taken to the Great Western public house, where he was attended to. He is very much cut and bruised, but it is thought no bones are broken. The balloon was captured at Hey Green, in the valley lying wide of Stand Edge Hill.