25 YEARS AGO

A CHARTER giving borough status to the new Bolton Metropolitan District has been granted by the Privy Council. This means that the District Council, which comes to power on April 1, will be able to elect a mayor and to maintain the various dignities of borough status. It has also been announced that Horwich has become a town - officially. And it is to have a mayor and deputy mayor.

50 YEARS AGO

ITMA is dead. Barely 24 hours after its founder and leader, Tommy Handley, died in a London nursing home, Mr Ted Kavanagh told a reporter: 'The show will definitely end. Tommy, 'that man', is dead, and the show could not possibly go on without him.

125 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, January 11, 1874

YESTERDAY morning, about ten minutes to eleven, a fire broke out at Messrs Greenhalgh and Shaw's, Shaw-street, Halliwell. Flames were first observed in the 'opener' of a scutching machine, round which was a quantity of loose cotton. A young woman, who was working at the end of the frame, by some means got her dress ignited, and in attempting to escape from the room set more of the loose cotton on fire. An alarm was raised, buckets were obtained, the hands set to work, and a few minutes afterwards, just as Messrs Butler and Murton's, and Mr W. Tristram's fire engines came up, the fire was nearly extinguished, and the engines happily were not required. The machinery in the room escaped any damage, but the damage to the cotton is estimated at £100, which is covered by insurance. The young woman above mentioned was very little hurt, for the fire on her dress was immediately smothered; but the manager of the mill in superintending the efforts of the employees to suppress the fire had his face severely scorched.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.