100 years ago

At the York City Police Court Maud Oliver was summoned by Annie Riley for unlawfully pawning three shirts and two towels on November 16th.

The Chief Constable said that the defendant was directed to take the articles back to some soldiers for whom Mrs Riley had been washing them, but instead of doing so she had pawned them.

William Robinson, manager at Mr G Merriman’s pawnshop in Petergate, said that he accepted the articles into pledge from the defendant.

She asked 3s 6d for them and he allowed her that amount. He did not question her as the shirts bore no mark by which they could be identified as military shirts. Detective-Inspector Bennett had ascertained that the articles had been pledged.

He had taken them back to Mrs Riley who identified them as being the articles she had washed and had given to the defendant to return.

The defendant said that her husband was out of work and the landlord had threatened to evict them from the house unless the rent was paid. That was the reason why she took the articles. She had never been in trouble before. She was bound over, and ordered to redeem the articles from the pawnbroker’s and return them to the owners.


50 years ago

It was all change at York Central Public Library. A complete reorganisation of the counter system and extension of the photo-charging scheme was the plan behind work currently being carried out. “Issues are up ten per cent this year,” said Mr OS Tomlinson, the City Librarian.

“But it became apparent at the beginning of last year that we should soon be exceeding the capabilities of our present photo-charging machine.

“We decided that the only way to cope with this increase was to buy another machine. At the same time this will enable us to put the children’s library issues onto the photo-charging system.

“To do this, we are turning the counters round.

“It will be an island counter, with two photo-charging machines on the site of the old IN counter.”


25 years ago

The man who brought Bingo to York as part of a long and colourful business career had died after a short illness.

Unassuming watchmaker Mr Ernest Shepherd was born in York in February 1922 and at various times owned the Empire Theatre – currently the Grand Opera House – a restaurant and a jewellers.

After training as a watchmaker he bought the jewellers, which traded as Shepherd’s of the Shambles in York’s oldest street and was still in existence.

He opened the historic SS Empire for rollerskating in 1958 and later introduced bingo to the city at the theatre, which also put on wrestling, boxing and dancing under his management.