Victorian time capsules found as historic Blackburn school is pulled down (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Victorian time capsules found as historic Blackburn school is pulled down

6:20pm Friday 12th June 2009 in News By Ben Briggs

WHAT A FIND: Housing strategy manager Susan Kelly with one of the time capsules found at the Ragged School

A PAIR of 112-year-old time capsules are about to reveal their secrets after they were discovered in the foundations of a historic building.

The glass jars were found behind the foundation stone of the Ragged School, Bent Street, Blackburn, which was laid by MP Earl Compton on July 12, 1897.

The building has just been torn down to make way for a housing development that will provide care for older people in the town.

The capsules, which are both stuffed with newspapers from the time, will be opened on July 12 to coincide with the 112th anniversary of their burial.

A spokesman for Blackburn with Darwen Council’s housing strategy team said: “We are keen to bury our own time capsule when this new development is built.

“We expected to find one time capsule but two was a real surprise.”

The full extent of the jars’ content will not be known until they are opened, but a copy of the Northern Daily Telegraph from Monday, July 12, 1897, reveals what was going on the area at the time.

A copy of that paper in the Lancashire Telegraph archives reveals that a man from Longridge was in court for “threatening his neighbour with a revolver”, while a Blackburn fire beater was hauled before magistrates for being “drunk enough to be carried.”

The Ribblesdale Hotel, Northgate, Blackburn, also opened and was fully fitted with electricity.

Dianna Rushton, of Blackburn history project Cotton Town, said: “The town was a very different place then with the cotton mills still thriving and the capsule could reflect this.

“They found a time capsule when they took the Infirmary down and it seems to have been something they did in those days.”