LOOK BACK IN TIME from the pages of the Herald December in years gone by

Because of the festive season, local news is a little thin on the ground. So, this week we briefly look back to the year 1888. 

In that year the first patent for a pneumatic bicycle tyre was awarded on October 31 to Scottish veterinary surgeon, 

John Boyd Dunlop. Advised by a physician to have his sickly son ride a tricycle, Dunlop devised the tyres to cushion the 

boy’s ride on cobbled streets in Dublin, using rubber sheeting and strips of linen from an old dress of his wife’s. 

Dunlop rubber had it’s beginnings in a firm established by Dunlop with entrepreneur, W H Duncross. 

He subsequently sold the patent rights to Duncross and made only a small amount of money from his invention. 

In London, Jack the Ripper was making headlines with the murders of  Mary Ann Nichols, Elizabeth Stride, Annie Chapman 

and Catherine Eddowes and Mary Kelly. Scotland Yard could find no solution to the mystery. 

Here in Beith the town’s newspaper of 22 December 1888 was reporting matters of a rather more mundane nature. 

Beith Thistle played Glasgow Carunna at Knockbuckle Park (site of new Beith Primary School) and there was a 

considerable number of spectators, some of whom had gained entry through the questionable mode of climbing the dyke, 

the meanness of which should be above grown-up people. The game was a good one and Beith won by 5 goals to nil 

due to superior passing and a fair amount of good luck. 

The newspaper was criticising local shopkeepers for being less-than-enthusiastic in decorating their windows for 

the festive season. In former years almost every window was tastefully decorated with holly and evergreens of all descriptions. 

In contrast, Mr William Lang’s Cross House third annual Fancy Fair was described as being like an Aladdin’s Cave 

which attracted large crowds of shoppers. 

The first in what was intended to be a series of concerts in connection with Spier’s School Athletic Club took place in the 

Grand Hall of the school. The spacious hall was comfortably filled with a select audience, the elite of the district. 

The pieces chosen to be performed were mostly of a higher class than usually attempted by amateurs, but nevertheless 

they were performed with a taste and refinement seldom heard from non-professionals.

A lecture was held at Greenhills School which was delivered by Mr C C Maxwell Esq. of Dundee on the subject of the 

Art of Public Speaking. This was a lecture of solid instruction, deep knowledge, flowing eloquence, apt illustration and 

pointed humour. For well nigh two hours the attention of the audience never flagged and it was almost with a sigh of regret 

that they found that even the best of speakers must stop. 

At a special Beith JP Court on Monday, John Hamilton, woodcutter, was tried under the Prevention of Crime Act, he 

having been found by the police constables at 3 o’clock on Sunday morning trying to break into the Saracen’s Head Hotel, 

with the aid of a large iron clever. He pleaded not guilty but was convicted and sent 60 days to prison.

There was an article entitled “Washing Made Easy” which described in very considerable detail how clothes could be 

better washed using  paraffin oil to heat the water in a basin using good quality yellow soap.

In the adverts column a local tailor was looking for a stout boy to serve as an apprentice tailor; John Kennedy of South 

Nettlehirst was offering a reward for a black and tan collie pup which had strayed and Thomas Blackwood, flesher, 

Beith had found a black-faced Wether lamb with a red keel on the shoulder. The owner could uplift same on payment of 

expenses. The 82nd meeting of Beith Co-operative Society Ltd was being held in the St. Inan’s Hall when a full attendance 

of members was requested. 

And finally, a notice was placed to trespassers in pursuit of game and poaching. Any person found trespassing on any 

pretence whatever on the lands of Hill-o-Beith, Fulwoodhead, Netherton or Overton would be prosecuted with the 

utmost rigor of the law.