THE New Year marks 155 years since the Advertiser was founded by Thomas Hutton.
However, he was more than just the founder of the paper, he was a man who took a great interest in the town to which he came to at the age of 14 as an apprentice.
For seven years he dreamed of founding his own newspaper and in September 1853, he produced the first four-page edition.
Hutton took over the paper’s premises on Church Street in Ormskirk in 1849, when the railways removed the need for stables for 50 horses on a mail coach route.
In 1982, Hutton’s only remaining granddaughter Dorothy published a book chronicling the family history in which she described how her grandfather learned that the families around Scarth Hill, Ormskirk, did not attend church. So Hutton bought two cottages, had them altered and founded the Scarth Hill Mission.
Dorothy, who was 99-years-old, told the Advertiser at the time: “When he found the men would not come inside he took his Bible in his hand and addressed them in the open air, saying ‘When the mountain would not come to Mahomet - Mahomet went to the mountain.”
Dorothy, who was the last of 10 sisters to pass away, lived in Colwyn Bay and wanted to present her family records in a permanent form by writing her book.
Hutton was known as very conscientious in the supervision of the Advertiser, connected with almost every institution in the town, exercising his influence for the highest welfare of his peers.
He died in 1889, being succeeded by his eldest son William Leak Hutton. Thwarted by ill-health from pursuing a vocation in the Ministry, William maintained his interest in religious matters and was a teacher in the town’s Sunday school.
William also gave £5,000 in 1907 for the first enlargement of Ormskirk Grammar School and became a manager and trustee of the Ormskirk Savings Bank.
He founded the Ormskirk and Southport Agricultural Society and in his own time bought a small-holding and experimented with several types of potato.
The Advertiser is not the only existing memorial to the Hutton’s in Ormskirk. Fairfield House on Ruff Lane, Ormskirk, was originally the Hutton home before it was converted into nurses’ quarters.
Ormskirk Hospital is now built near the site of Fairfield House. The Huttons later moved to Moss Bank in Long Lane, Aughton, although it has been demolished and the site re-developed.
William Leak’s successor was his only son, Harold Garth Hutton. He was a keen Scout, becoming county commissioner and receiving Scouting’s highest award, the Silver Wolf badge, from Chief Scout Lord Rowallen.
He was a keen Freemason and was also one of the original founders of the Rotary Club of Ormskirk.
On the death of his father in 1928, he told Advertiser employees of his grandfather’s wishes for the newspaper: “Neutral in politics yet upholding all the rights of true citizenship in our free born country – a paper clean and pure and one which could be read by every member of the family without bringing a blush to the cheeks.”
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