100 YEARS AGO:

IT is reported that a motor collision took place at Ombersley on Monday evening. A motor car containing Lady Sandys was proceeding through the village in the direction of Kidderminster, and when near the Cross Keys, a car coming in the opposite direction collided with it.

Lady Sandys had two friends with her, but neither she nor they were injured, although the front of the car was wrecked. The occupant of the other car was not so fortunate. He received severe cuts about the head and was attended by Dr Ghent.

150 YEARS AGO:

EDWARD Holmes of Broad Street, Worcester, labourer, was charged at the city police court with cruelly illtreating and over-driving a donkey. Captain Hunter preferred the information, having observed the incident. He said that as he was coming into Worcester he saw a cart containing four men and three women being drawn by a small donkey, not much bigger than a large dog, which was being driven down hill at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour. The poor animal was quite overpowered and fell down in the road, appearing utterly unable to proceed any further or even to stand.

In consideration of defendant being a labouring man and that this was his first offence, the magistrates fined him in the mitigated penalty of 6d with 12s.2d costs and cautioned him to be more merciful to his beast in future.

● A lad named Richard Burrow was charged at Worcester Police Court with stealing gooseberries from the garden of Messrs Russell & Dorrell at Henwick and was sentenced to 21 days’ hard labour.

200 YEARS AGO:

ON Friday, as a poor child about three years old was playing at Droitwich, where there was brewing taking place, it accidentally fell into a boiling tub and was so much scalded that it died in a few hours.

● S Brown, surgeon dentist from Birmingham, begs to inform the inhabitants of Worcester that he intends being at the Rein Deer Inn, Mealcheapen Street, Worcester, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week where he may be consulted on all diseases of the teeth and gums. His method of crowning stumps and setting teeth in gold is upon a new principle so as to render them perfectly sweet and comfortable to the wearer.

250 YEARS AGO:

LAST Thursday a dreadful fire broke out at the widow Parkes’s near Hanbury Hall, Droitwich, which entirely burnt down a five-bay barn in which were supposed to be upwards of 200 bushels of grain, a cow house, a straw house, a cart house, two pig cots and a perry mill. A mare in foal perished in the flames but by what means this fire began is not known.

● On Tuesday last, as a lad was standing to see the cruel diversion of throwing at cockerels, he received a most violent blow on his head with a stick which fractured his skull so that his life is despaired of.