LOCAL government history was almost certainly made at Worcester Guildhall this week exactly a century ago.

Surely there can have been no other case of a city or town council in Britain ever debating whether or not to send a notorious local drunk into exile.

Yet this is precisely what happened at the meeting of Worcester City Council in this week of 1901.

The Journal reported that it was the Mayor, Councillor J.A Steward who proposed a City Watch Committee recommendation that the council spend £25 a year to send the infamous local drunk Samuel "Nobby" Guy to the Royal Victorian Inebriates Home at Bristol for three years.

The Mayor explained that "Nobby" had just appeared at the City Police Court for the 60th time for being drunk and disorderly, and the magistrates were now distraught about what to do with him. Increasing jail terms and even hard labour had failed to cure his drinking and anti-social behaviour.

"If the council agrees this proposal today, it will be the first time that, in effect, a pension has been granted to a man for his misdeeds, and I very much hope it will be the last," stressed the Mayor.

"However, it will be for the man's good, and I am sure citizens will be pleased by his absence for three years."

The city council agreed overwhelming to pay for "Nobby's" exile.