100 years ago

So great was the demand for domestic servants in Australia that women immigrants were being engaged by wireless telegraphy while on the high seas and before the ship had even sighted land.

This and many other interesting facts were given in an interim report on Australasia and New Zealand by the Dominion Royal Commission. Not only were women engaged as domestic servants by wireless, but the report stated that would-be employers went out in tugs to meet the incoming ship.

“On the day of its arrival in port, or on one of the following days, according to the varying customs of different places, something recalling the scene of the hiring fair took place at the receiving home of the labour bureau. Intending employers attended in hundreds, and all the servants with any pretensions to skill and character were engaged at once.”

 

50 years ago

The villagers of Rillington, near Malton, were about to gather with picks and axes ready to demolish a bridge that nobody wanted.

The step had been decided at a parish council meeting at Rillington when, during a discussion that lasted one-and-a-half hours, members heard that the rural council wanted nothing to do with the bridge and the county council disowned it. The East Riding Parish Councils’ Association would not accept responsibility for the bridge. The District Auditor would not allow any money to be spent on it – and all because the bridge was in need of repair.

The bridge – one of several which crossed a beck in the village – currently had a gaping hole in it. It provided an access to the Methodist chapel and was often used as a car park. Members of the parish council were informed that the cost of repair would be £50, while the cost of demolishing the bridge would be £100.

The legal position was that if anybody touched the bridge they would become the owner and would have to maintain it in the future. After a lengthy discussion the members decided they would all gather with pickaxes to demolish it.

 

25 years ago

An article told of how Hospital Radio, or wireless as it was then known, had been founded at the York County Hospital some 64 years before.

Mr TJW Hanstock, a keen amateur wireless enthusiast, had constructed and installed a wireless receiving set which had been housed in an alcove in a small room in the Watt wing of York County Hospital. Mr Schumacher, a York electrical engineer, installed the wiring throughout the wards. The installation eventually consisted of 200 pairs of headphones and 70 loudspeakers.