ORMSKIRK holds many historical tales and stories which date back centuries.
Historian Mona Duggan from Haskayne has tracked down most them in her books.
Her new book brings together accounts of the people of Ormskirk in a detailed history, starting with the hunter-gatherers appearing on the shores of Formby right up to the tragedy of the Ormesher sisters’murders in the late 1950s.
The murders at the sisters’ home at 8 Asmall Lane in Ormskirk was never solved, despite 1,000 of Ormskirk residents’ fingerprints being taken.
The Advertiser covered the investigation in great detail reporting that the two sisters, Margaret, 69 and Mary, 67, were found battered to death on Sunday, May 6, 1956 shortly before noon.
The town was stunned by the news as both sisters were well-known in the town and the district.
Mary Ormesher owned a sweet and tobacconist shop and was known to many of her friends and customers as “Auntie Polly”.
It is understood that every Saturday night, Mary would take the short walk from the shop on Church Street to her home with the day’s takings.
Josephine Whitehouse, a friend who lived above the shop, would walk Mary home, but on the evening of May 5, she was visiting relatives in Southport.
It was when she took Mary a cup of tea to the shop on Sunday morning, a regular custom, she found the shop locked up. Worried, she went to their home but got no answer.
She went to their next-door neighbour Tom Cummings, and together they went to the back door and made the terrible discovery.
Cummings told the Advertiser: “There were two bottles of milk on the doorstep and the rest of the yard was in a state of disorder.
“Blood was splattered on the walls, the dustbin was overturned and pieces of broken bottle were strewn about.
“I pushed the back door open about a foot and I saw Polly inside the door. There was blood everywhere. She was lying on her back still fully clothed. I dashed to the police.”
Margaret’s beloved black spaniel dog Trixie was believed to have been silenced during the attack with a heavy blow from the murderer, to stop her alerting attention to the scene.
Chief Supt Cecil Lindsay was in charge of the investigation and told the Advertiser at the time: “These two women had been subjected to a most brutal and violent attack. It is believed that a number of weapons had been used.
“In both cases there were very serious injuries about the head and the upper part of the bodies and there was every sign of a violent struggle. Mary Ormesher normally took her takings home in an attache case which was left at the scene of the crime with some silver in.”
The police believed that robbery was the motive of the crime as both women were fully clothed and the scene looked like part of the attack took place in the back yard. An 18 carat gold, blue sapphire and diamond ring and a diamond and emerald watch were also taken.
Throughout the course of the investigation police followed leads including a man on a blue bicycle, a man who had absconded from a mental institution near Warrington and information from anonymous letters.
They searched all over the area with police dogs, covering the Ormskirk churchyard, Ruff Wood, Edge Hill College and even the brickworks in Burscough. Police also took on the gruelling task of fingerprinting all males over the age of 16, ward by ward.
To this day, the Ormesher murders remain a mystery. Countless appeals were made for bloodstained clothes and cash and the missing jewellery.The nearby reservoir was drained and searched and fingerprints found on a smashed wine bottle, brass poker and candlestick which were used to batter the elderly women, did not match any on file.
On his retirement in 1958 after 37 years police service, Cecil Lindsay regarded the Ormskirk case as the one he would have liked to have solved above all the others.
He said: “I still feel this man will be found either through his own conscience or the consciences of the people who must know he did it. He must be suffering a living death anyway after doing what I saw he had done.”
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