Geoffrey Wright - Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths Around Southport

W e would particularly like to thank Matthew Tinker and his team in the Reference Department of the Atkinson Library, Southport, and Sam Cookson (photographs) for their assistance in this publication.

Also, the Southport Visiter , Southport Champion , Daily Post , Cedric Greenwood, Stephen Copnall and southportgb.com .

Lord Street West and the memorial lamp to the founder of Southport, William Duke Sutton. Authors collection

A lesson for all those a bit too quick with their fists. A fatality took place outside the Shakespeare Hotel , on Scarisbrick New Road when, during a drunken brawl, the loser was knocked to the ground, hit his head on to the curbstone - and was picked up dead!

L ess than 100 yards from his home, there was Much Ado about something when Thomas Greenwoods local pub, the Shakespeare Hotel , hit the headlines when a fatal fight took place just outside on the Scarisbrick New Road corner, on Saturday, 16 July 1870.

The Shakespeare which was more like a tavern, situated on the corner with Virginia Street (then called Gorsey Lane) and the end of William Street had only come into existence some seven years earlier to replace the old Black Horse Inn , Trap Lane (now Southbank Road).

The drunken brawl involved a John Barton who punched Richard Ackers to the ground, and who hit his head on the kerbstone and was picked up dead. Richard Ackers, who was a gardener in 1868, lived at 116 William Street (this part of the road is now Shakespeare Street). The house along with No 114 was a semi called Laurel Villas.

After the death of Richard Ackers, the house was taken over by an Elizabeth Ackers, who turned it into a lodging house. She disappeared around 1878 and the family name fails to appear in street directories at this time.

It is unclear who John Barton was as no details were given in the court reports but we have a choice of a couple, recorded in street directories: a bath-chair proprietor from Hawes-Side is recorded in 1868 and 1870; as is a carter from Back Fleetwood Street (off Manchester Road) in 1868, who had moved to Hawes-Side by 1870, then Hall Street (1873 and 1876). However, a third John Barton is recorded in 1870, in Zetland Street, who could be the man listed in 1873 and 1876, as an oyster dealer in Southports fish market. Take your pick.

The modern-day Shakespeare pub basically unchanged since the day of Barton and Ackers fatal fight in 1870. Authors collection

Reported under Police Court in the Southport Visiter on Friday, 22 July 1870 following a case of drunkenness including an assault on a policeman this manslaughter case had been heard the previous Tuesday, before the Mayor, J Glover; R Wild; W Halliwell, and R Craven, Esquires all well-known and respected characters in Southport.

Richard Ackers now tree-hidden house and front garden, originally in William Street. Sam Cookson

The entrance to the original police station, inside todays Town Hall. Authors collection

John Barton was brought up on remand, charged with having feloniously killed Richard Ackers, then an asphalter. Bartons brief, a Mr Barker, called his evidence for the prisoners defence, in the shape of John Howard, a pipe layer from Scarisbrick, who said:

On Saturday night, about ten oclock, I was at the front of the Shakespeare Hotel , when I saw the prisoner, Ackers, and [another man] Rimmer come out. Ackers came out first and the other two came out together. Ackers walked on and then turned round and the prisoner came and stood up in front of him. I heard the prisoner say Stand off. I saw them holding up their fists and squaring up at each other and the prisoner struck the defendant about the face or chin. The latter fell over. The blow was not a heavy one. I cannot tell whether Ackers was drunk or sober. Afterwards the prisoner and the witness Rimmer began fighting. I went by the side of Ackers as he lay on the ground, and the prisoner stood by and remained there two or three minutes. I heard someone say that Ackers was killed, and the prisoner then went away, walking towards his home.

Mr Barkers application for bail was accepted the prisoner in 100 and two sureties at 50 each, and the Bench committed the prisoner for trial at the ensuing Liverpool Assizes.

When charged and cautioned by the Mayor, Barton said: It was an accident, and I am very sorry that it occurred. It was merely in self defence. All we know after that is that at the Assizes, Barton was acquitted.