A Merseyside pub was the scene of a young child being sold.
The Wheatsheaf in Rainford, St Helens, saw a 40-year-old man purchase a young girl.
The incident happened in 1906 and papers reported on it at the time.
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At the time, the ECHO reported that a worker from a local colliery was drinking in the pub when a woman came in with a young girl and two men. At some point the woman had remarked that she wished someone would take the child.
The collier, who had been drinking, offered the woman 'four bob' for the child, and the woman accepted.
The man then reportedly took the child to his wife and asked her to sign a document making them the legal guardians of the child. His wife refused and so the man returned the child to the woman who had sold her.
However, after this, the man decided to pay extra for the child, and promptly took her home to his wife once again.
The ECHO in 1906 reported: "The miner has still got the child, which is a little girl with curly golden hair, and about two years of age, and she is being better looked after by his wife and mother than by the callous woman who sold her."
A few months later in 1907, the Wigan Observer provided an update, naming the miner as Thomas Thompson, and reporting that he had been charged with being drunk in charge of a child in Skelmersdale.
The paper read: "Mr. Superintendent Jervis stated that a few months ago prisoner met some people who were tramping about the country in a public-house in Rainford.
They had two children with them, which they said they were prepared to sell, and prisoner bought the youngest (a girl) for 4s.
On Saturday he took the child to Skelmersdale, and there got drunk, and was found by the police in that condition in charge of the child."
Thompson was reportedly fined '10 bob' and costs, or fourteen days. The little girl was adopted by a new couple.
