25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, November 4, 1971

FAREWELL, Lancashire . . . hello, Greater Manchester - that's the message in the Local Government Reform Bill presented to Parliament today by Environment Secretary Mr Peter Walker. Mr Walker has wrenched southern Lancashire out of the County Palatine and created a new Metropolitan County of almost three million people centred on Manchester. The new structure will take shape in 1974.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, November 4, 1946

A COMMOTION was caused in Bank-st., Bolton, just before dinner time today, when a cart horse tethered to the iron standards in front of Bank-st. Chapel, fell through a wooden trap-door into the cellar below. The horse was standing on the boards in front of the premises of Herbert Rigby, leather merchant, when the boarding collapsed and it fell half-way into the cellar. It was decided not to try to pull the horse out, but instead to manoeuvre it into the cellar and lead it out by the normal entrance. But the horse was too big.

In the end a message was sent for some Corporation workmen who set about digging up the ground for a few yards in front of the shop. Over an hour later the horse was led out into the world above again, watched by a crowd of over 100 people.

125 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, November 3, 1871

THE season of railway accidents has begun with more than usual earnestness and violence. Yesterday at a place near Wigan, a goods guard, in attempting to get into a train whilst in motion, was thrown under the waggons and his body terribly mutilated. In the same neighbourhood another man fell from a railway engine and sustained shocking injuries. There was also a collision near Blackburn, which, however, caused nothing more serious than fright to the passengers. A passenger train ran into a goods train on the Caledonian Railway on Wednesday night, when a fireman was killed and a driver seriously hurt. The mail train from Edinburgh to the south met with an accident near Newcastle, by the breakage of an axle, but, fortunately, the passengers escaped with slight injuries.

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