25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

March 30, 1974

A SISTER midwife at Bolton District General Hospital has been chosen as Northern Nurse of the Year. In the contest, run by the Daily Express, Lisa Teekasingh, aged 26, of Chorley Old Road, Bolton, was chosen to represent the North in the national competition on April 14.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

March 30, 1949

WHICH is older, Nelson-sq. or Victoria-sq? asks a reader. It is a difficult question, but it would seem that if we are discussing public properties, Victoria-sq. has the honour. The records state that in 1826, Benjamin Hick, the eminent engineer, marked it as a public square when he gave an elaborate gas column, which later was incorporated in a circular iron drinking trough.

In the middle of the last century the square was being used as a market by local farmers, butchers, and greengrocers, and townsfolk were proud of it long before the Town Hall was built.

Nelson-sq. has a different story. It first seems to have taken on some of the dignity of the square when the Infirmary and Dispensary (now the Education Office) was built in 1825, but there is reason for believing that there had been a market on the future Victoria-sq, site some time before this.

An old writer says that long before the Samuel Crompton memorial was erected in 1862, Nelson-sq. was a cattle market, surrounded by iron railings. On three sides were low-built cottages, several of which were occupied by chimney sweeps, and the square seems to have been still privately owned for years later as the owner allowed a travelling curiosity proprietor to erect a tent nearly covering the entire space in which was exhibited the skeleton of a whale.

125 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

March 31, 1874

A TELEGRAM dated Suez, 29th inst., received at the London New York Herald offices, says: 'The Walwa arrived off Suez on Saturday night, having a Mr Arthur Laing and Mr Jacob Wainwright on board, with the body of Dr Livingstone. He had been ill with chronic dysentery for some months, and seems to have had a presentiment that the attack would prove fatal. At Millala he had said "Build me a hut to die in". He suffered greatly, groaning night and day. His last entry in his diary was on April 27th. He spoke much and sadly of home and family. After death the internals were taken out of the body and buried in a tin box under a large tree. The remains were then preserved in salt and dried in the sun for twelve days. Dr Livingstone's remains were then taken to Zanzibar done up as a bale to deceive the natives, who objected to the passage of a corpse. Dr Livingstone's clothing, papers and instruments accompany the body.

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