1 FLOATATION
Time starts in the sea.
Life starts in the sea.
We came from the sea
And we will return to it one day.
Breathe now.
Swallow deep.
I find myself floating on the river, as if weightless, not swimming or even wet, just being carried down-river, aware of the dark, grey undercurrents that eddy around me, yet not being swallowed up by them or distracted from a straight course, looking at both the city of Liverpool to my left and Wallasey and Birkenhead to the right, in their dark, silent death throes.
The moon shapes the shoreline and shines down on the insurance building, a building that has come to symbolise an entire city. At the very top of the building are sculpted two birds; the so-called ‘Liver Bird’ remains mysterious, semi-mythical. Is it a cormorant or some extinct creature, an emblem for a city that is itself forever the subject of its own romance?
History and mythology flow through the city like the Mersey, washing away some things, uncovering others. History is always in flux, never fixed and the endless ebb and flow of the tide laps against the sandstone walls of collective memory and creates its own patterns and pathways. These pockmarked rocks reveal and conceal the fossils of our evolution, desert creatures, pre-human deities, tiny relics of the universe.
When did we begin to swim?
When did we begin to breathe?
I’m not of the water or the air, not of the land or the sea, not awake and not asleep, just floating on the tide, floating and watching, listening and feeling. What is this place?
Liverpool and Irish Sea Tide Table 2021
All times shown are GMT, 0000 is midnight. Add one hour during British summer time.
0100 hrs Sunday 28 March to 0200 hrs Sunday 31 October
CAUTION
The tidal information here presented is subject to certain perturbing effects due to weather conditions and should be used with caution during times of storm. In particular strong onshore winds and low barometric pressure may cause levels to exceed the predicted values.
FOR COASTAL AND SEA RESCUE CALL 999 AND ASK FOR THE COASTGUARD
Average High Water Time Differences
When applied to high water at Liverpool (Gladstone) will give the approximate time of HIGH WATER at the places listed. Note that low water time differences can be quite and not shown on this table.
Portpatrick +0.25 Hale Head +0.30 Porthmadog -2.45
Breathe Now
Swallow Deep
When did we begin to walk?
When did we begin to think?
When did we begin to speak?
When did we begin to see?
It is a region, this seven-mile sequence of granite-lipped lagoons, which is invested … with some conspicuous properties of romance; and yet its romance is never of just that quality one might perhaps expect … Neither of the land nor of the sea, but possessing both the stability of the one and the constant flux of the other—too immense, too filled with the vastness of the other, to carry any sense of human handicraft—this strange territory of the Docks seems, indeed, to form a kind of fifth element, a place charged with daemonic issues and daemonic silences, where men move like puzzled slaves, fretting under orders they cannot understand, fumbling with great forces that have long passed out of their control …
Walter Dixon Scott, Liverpool, 1907
Liuerpool
Leuerepul
Lyuerpole
Lyhetherpole
Litherpoole
Livpul
Liverpool
I wash up in one of the docks. I begin to float. I rise up, high above the city and I see the past and I see the present and I feel the future. How did this happen? Why did this happen?
2 TRADE WINDS
DOCKS
Under the first Dock Act, 1708, the mayor, aldermen, bailiffs, and Common Council became the trustees of the proposed dock, and were empowered to construct the dock and to levy dues. They were not incorporated, but used the corporation seal; managing the first and successive docks through committees, which were as completely under their control as any other council committees.
By an Act of 1811, however, they were separately incorporated and given a seal of their own; the finances of the docks were separately administered from those of the corporation, by a statutory committee of twenty-one members appointed by the trustees (i.e. the Town Council), but the Town Council still claimed and exercised the right of voting sums from the dock funds, and of overriding the actions of the committee.
The control of the docks by a close corporation, which was in no way representative of the ratepayers or of those who used the docks, led to much discontent and discussion, and in the end produced a new Act, that of 1825, whereby, though the trust remained unaltered, the committee was changed by the inclusion of eight members elected by dock ratepayers.
The council still retained a majority, thirteen of the committee being councillors, while the chairman was also selected from among the members of the committee by the council. The Act also provided that the proceedings of the dock committee could only be overridden by a majority of two-thirds of the council, and only at the meeting of the council immediately following that of the committee.
By an Act of 1851, the number of the committee was raised to twenty-four, half of whom were to be dock ratepayers, while the chairman was to be elected by the committee itself. But the power of revision still remained with the Town Council. Outside of both council and committee there had been from the first an independent body of auditors, numbering nine under the Act of 1708 and appointed in equal groups by the corporation, the justices of the county of Lancaster, and the justices of the county of Chester.
An Act of 1734 raised the number to twelve, four nominated by the council, eight by the dock ratepayers. By an Act of 1841 the mayor, the chairman of the dock committee, and the senior borough magistrate, were appointed revisers of rates.
Even with these safeguards, however, and even though the council was now a representative elected body, dissatisfaction was felt with this system of administration, which identified the interests of the dock estate with those of the municipality. This expressed itself in controversies on the rating of the dock estate, and in the agitation for the Act of 1851, which was originally an attempt to alter the constitution of the dock committee so as to leave the council only the mere shadow of control, but which was amended to the effect already described.
It also lowered the voting franchise for dock ratepayers. But the strongest opposition came from the merchants of Manchester and the railway companies, which resented the traditional charges for town dues; this went so far that a society was founded in Manchester called ‘The Society to secure the right appropriation of the Liverpool Town Dues.’
In 1857 they promoted a Bill, based upon the recommendations of the Commissioners of the Board of Trade, who had in 1853 reported in favour of the appointment of independent bodies of conservators for the regulation of public harbours, and of the transference to them of all dues levied by municipal corporations.
The Town Council fought the Bill with all its power, especially objecting to the confiscation of its traditional town dues; but eventually withdrew its opposition in consideration of a payment of £1,500,000 for the loss of the town dues, and of certain other modifications. By the Act thus passed the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board was constituted, and took over the control both of the Liverpool and of the Birkenhead Docks, and the right of collecting not only dock dues but also the ancient traditional town dues.
The board has continued to collect the town dues, despite the fact that opposition to these dues was one of the principal causes of its establishment. The board consists of twenty-eight members, four of whom are nominated by the Mersey Conservancy Commissioners (the First Lord of the Admiralty, the President of the Board of Trade, and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster); while the other twenty-four are elected by all persons paying rates on ships or goods to the amount of not less than £10 per annum.
Members of the board must be resident within 10 miles of the boundary of the borough or port of Liverpool, and must have paid rates on ships or goods to the amount of not less than £25 per annum. The office of Chairman of the Dock Board is commonly regarded as the most honourable at the disposal of Liverpool citizens.
The history of the actual dock estate may be conveniently divided into three periods, (fn. 9) corresponding to the periods in the history of its governing body:—
I. Between 1709 and 1825, when the docks were under the direct control of the corporation, the following wet docks were opened:—
1. Old Dock, opened 31 August 1715; closed 31 August 1826.
2. Salthouse Dock, opened 1753; altered 1842; enlarged 1855.
3. George’s Dock, opened 1771; enlarged 1825; closed 1900.
4. King’s Dock, opened 1788; closed 1906, the name being preserved for two new branches of the Wapping Dock.
5. Queen’s Dock, opened 1796; enlarged 1816; deepened and half-tide dock added 1856, and closed 1905; enlarged 1901; branches added 1901, 1905; altered 1906.
6. Union Dock, opened 1816; thrown into Coburg Dock 1858.
7. Prince’s Dock, opened 1821; half-tide dock added 1868.
The total area of wet docks in 1825 amounted to 46 acres 3,179 sq. yds.; the lineal quayage to a little over 2 miles. The dock dues paid in the same year amounted to £130,911. It may be noted that the first London Dock was not opened until 1802.
II. Between 1825 and 1857, when the docks were under the control of the Dock Committee, the Old Dock was closed (1826), and the following new docks were opened:—
1. Canning Dock, opened 1829; previously a basin known as the Dry Dock, opened 1753; enlarged 1842.
2. Clarence Docks, &c., opened 1830; enlarged 1853.
3. Brunswick Docks, opened 1832; enlarged 1848, 1858, 1889; branch dock added 1878; altered 1900.
4. Waterloo Dock, opened 1834; reconstructed as E. and W. Waterloo Docks, 1868.
5. Victoria Dock, opened 1836; altered 1848.
6. Trafalgar Dock, opened 1836.
7. Coburg Dock, opened 1840; altered from Brunswick Basin; enlarged 1858; altered 1900.
8. Toxteth Dock, opened 1842; closed to make way for new works, 1884.
9. Canning Half-tide Dock, opened 1844.
10. Harrington Dock (bought), opened 1844; closed to make way for new works 1879.
11. Albert Dock, opened 1845.
12. Salisbury Dock, opened 1848.
13. Collingwood Dock, opened 1848.
14. Stanley Dock, opened 1848; partly filled in 1897.
15. Nelson Dock, opened 1848.
16. Bramley Moore Dock, opened 1848.
17. Wellington Docks, opened 1850; half-tide dock closed 1901.
18. Sandon Dock, opened 1851; half-tide dock added 1901; altered 1906.
19. Manchester Dock (bought), opened 1851.
20. Huskisson Dock, opened 1852; branch docks added 1861, 1872, 1902; altered 1896, 1897; enlarged 1900.
21. Wapping Dock and Basin, opened 1855; two King’s Dock branches added 1906.
The water area in 1857 amounted to 192 acres 129 sq. yds., or an increase of over 82 acres in twenty-five years; the lineal quayage was about 15 miles; and the river-wall, when the Dock Board came into existence, already extended for just over 5 miles. At the same time the Dock Committee and the Corporation had acquired the Birkenhead Docks, which do not fall within the purview of this work.
It is clear that the old Dock Committee did not lack energy. For the ten years preceding the establishment of the Dock Board the dock dues averaged nearly £250,000. It was on the security of these that the capital for the construction of the docks was raised; and no profits were used for purposes other than the service of the port.
III. During the fifty years of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board more time and money have been spent on the enlargement and reconstruction of the existing system than on the creation of new docks. The new docks of this period are:—
1. Canada Dock, opened 1858; enlarged 1896; altered 1903; branches opened 1896, 1903, 1906.
2. Brocklebank Dock, opened 1862; known until 1879 as Canada Half-tide Dock; enlarged 1871.
3. Herculaneum Dock, opened 1866; enlarged and branch dock added 1881.
4. Langton Docks, opened 1879.
5. Alexandra Dock (and three branches), opened 1880.
6. Harrington Dock, opened 1883.
7. Hornby Dock (and branch), opened 1884.
8. Toxteth Dock, opened 1888.
9. Union Dock, opened 1889.
During the last thirty years, however, the board has been mainly occupied in reconstructing large sections of the dock system, so as to accord with that remarkable change in the size of vessels resorting to the port which has brought it about that while the tonnage of the port has since 1880 increased 66 per cent. the number of vessels has in the same period actually declined from 10,000 to little over 6,000.
The new type of gigantic steamships demanded a wholesale reconstruction of the docks to which they resorted. The docks have accordingly been grouped in systems, each adapted to the needs of different kinds of trade, and each equipped with its appropriate warehouses, sheds, cranes, graving-docks, &c. T
he southern system, including the Herculaneum, Toxteth, and Harrington docks, was vastly enlarged between 1881 and 1888; the Canada-Huskisson system, at the north end, was radically reconstructed between 1890 and 1906, with the result that the largest American liners now use it in place of the Alexandra-Hornby system, which at the time of its construction represented the last word in dock engineering; the Brunswick-Wapping system, in the south-central region, which includes some of the oldest of the docks, was completely rearranged, enlarged, and deepened so as to admit the biggest vessels, between 1900 and 1906.
The accommodation, however, being still inadequate, a large new system of docks is now (1908) under construction at the extreme north end of the line.
In 1900 the George’s Dock, one of the oldest of the series, which lay between the city and the pierhead, was closed by arrangement between the Dock Board and the Corporation. Part of its site was utilized for the magnificent domed building in which the offices of the Dock Board are now housed; two of the main shoreward thoroughfares were continued across the site of the dock direct to the pier-head; and the main entrance to the city has thus been materially improved and dignified.
The total water area of the docks (excluding those on the Cheshire side of the river) now (1908) amounts to 418 acres 320 yds., and the lineal quayage to 26 miles 1,083 yds. The continuous dock-wall fronts the river for a distance of 7¼ miles.
In addition to the docks controlled by the Dock Board, the London and North-Western Railway has three docks at Garston, now within the limits of the city, which have a water area of 14 acres 2,494 yds.
As the period of the Dock Board’s administration has been the period of the rapid development in the size of ships, which is in no port more marked than in Liverpool, a large part of the Board’s work has consisted in maintaining a clear channel in the river. The task of dredging the bar which impedes the entrance to the river was seriously begun about 1890. Carried on by dredgers of unusual magnitude and power, it has cost not far short of half a million of money during the last fifteen years, but the result has been to provide a clear deep-water passage, lacking which Liverpool might have found it impossible to maintain her control over ocean trade under the new conditions.
No account can here be given of the other works of the Board, of its vast warehouses, of its appliances for the disembarkation of cargo, or of the immense floating stage, 2,478 ft. long, whereby the landing of passengers at all times is rendered possible despite the very great rise and fall of the tides in the Mersey.
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CARGOES
A walk around maritime Liverpool
Tea from China, bananas from Jamaica, timber from Sweden, rice from India, cotton from America, hemp from Egypt, sugar from Barbados…
These are just some of the goods that arrived at Liverpool’s docks. In the nineteenth century, 40 per cent of the world’s trade passed through Liverpool.
This walk explores Liverpool’s proud maritime industry. Find out more about the products shipped from around the world. Discover warehouses where goods were stored, streets where ropes were made and a pub where sailors drank.
Explore some of the city’s major landmarks, as well as some lesser-known sights, and see why Liverpool is truly a global gateway.
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Georgian Liverpool and the Slave Trade
Contrary to popular belief, Liverpool did not invent the slave trade (which has been around for 1000s of years). Furthermore, more of the city’s wealth came from state-sponsored Piracy (Priveterring) (sic) as opposed to slavery. Very few slave trade journies (sic) actually resulted in a profit.
Research also shows that only 10-30% of ships leaving Liverpool during the period were actually destined for Africa or the Caribbean.
The Truth About the Liverpool Slave trade
Liverpool played a huge part in the slave trade, but it did not play as big a part in Liverpool’s own history. The idea that Liverpool was ‘founded on slavery’ is a a modern-day myth.
The slave trade in Africa had been long practised by Muslim slave traders for hundreds of years. They took far more people from Africa over a much longer period than any Europeans did. Frighteningly, there are more people in slavery today than were shipped over from Africa in the whole of the 1700s.
At the end of the 1700s, some Liverpool men called to abolish the African slave trade. I took the actions of Liverpool politician William Roscoe to stand up and call for an end to British ships involvement with it. Roscoe’s motives, however, have been questioned. His desire to end slavery may have been motivated by the huge financial compensation the slave traders received rather than any moral stance against slavery itself.
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Liverpool street names the slavery connection
Bold Street is named after Jonas Bold, who originally leased the land from Liverpool Corporation in around 1785-6. He also owned the plot at the top of the street, which is now the site of St Luke’s Church. At the bottom of Bold Street is the Lyceum Club, built by the architect Thomas Harrison and opened in 1802. It was built to house the Liverpool Library, which is thought to be the oldest public subscription library in the country. Many of the founder members of the Lyceum traded in enslaved Africans. Prior to Bold acquiring the land it had been home to the rope-works of the slave traders Joseph and Jonathan Brooks, hence the area using the Rope – walks title today.
Parr Street is named after Thomas Parrr (1769-1847) who in 1799 built the fine house that still stands on the corner of Parr Street and Colquitt Street. He was a slave trader and banker in Liverpool; he owned the massive ship called “Parr” which had berths for 700 slaves. The vessel is reported to have exploded off the west coast of Africa in 1798, which may indicate that it was carrying gunpowder to exchange for African slaves
Tarleton Street – The Tarleton family produced three generations of slave traders. The most famous member of the family was Banastre Tarleton (1754-1833) who fought for the British during the American War of Independence. He had a strong opposition to the ending of the slave trade and voiced his opposition in the House of Commons. His grandfather was the first Tarleton to trade in enslaved Africans, his father was also involved, as well as his three brothers, John, Clayton and Thomas. General Banastre Tarleton used his fame as a colonial war hero to ensure he became MP for Liverpool in the 1790 parliamentary elections. Once elected he utilised his position as MP to protect his family’s business interests, fighting relentlesly to ensure that the slave trade was preserved by the British Government. As an MP for Liverpool his stance on the African trade was the norm. With the exception of William Roscoe, all of the town’s MPs during the late 18th and early 19th century, were opposed to the abolition of the slave trade. A portrait of Banastre Tarleton after Sir Joshua Reynolds now hangs in the National Gallery in London.
Roscoe Street is named after William Roscoe,e (1753-1831) who was without doubt one of Liverpool’s greatest sons. Roscoe was an attorney, author, banker, poet, botanist, politician, art collector and abolitionist. He was one of the founder proprietors of the Athenaeum Club in 1797, a club which exists to this day, he was also instrumental in the establishment of The Liverpool Botanic Gardens in 1802, which opened to the public 38 years before Kew Gardens in London. In 1822 his influence led to the opening of the Royal Institution in Colquitt Street and his collection of early Florentine paintings, of world importance, can be seen in the Walker Art Gallery After winning election to parliament in 1806 he was an MP for Liverpool, and voted in support of Wilberforce’s motion to end British involvement in the slave trade. His efforts to end the slave trade were not appreciated in Liverpool and on his return from Parliament he was accosted by a mob on Castle Street. In fact later on that same night one of his party, Edward Spencer, was murdered during a brawl which, it is thought, was sparked by the incident earlier in the day. This event was to lead to him leaving public office. Although nominated in 1807, Roscoe was not re-elected.
Sir Thomas Street – Sir Thomas Johnson is known as “The founder of modern Liverpool”. He served as mayor in 1695 and Was also one of Liverpool’s earliest recorded slave traders, financing the second documented slave ship to leave the port. Along with Robert Norris of Speke Hall, In 1700, Johnson financed the voyage of ‘The Blessing’ to the Gold Coast (West Africa) and then on to Barbados, where the enslaved Africans were to be exchanged for cotton, ginger and sugar. Johnson was also involved in the “Virginia Trade”, which saw Liverpool merchants deal in slave-produced tobacco. In 1708, as MP for Liverpool, he pushed for the building of Liverpool’s, and arguably the world’s, first commercial wet dock, which subsequently opened in 1715. As a result of the construction of this dock there was a dramatic increase in Liverpool’s overseas trade and many slave ships were to dock here during the eighteenth century. Johnson was to invest heavily in the South Sea Company, whose main interest was the transportation of slaves to the Spanish colonies in the Americas. By 1720 the company was losing money and was failing. Johnson found himself in financial difficulties and lived out his final years on a small pension.
Blackburn Place in Liverpool 8, is named after John Blackburne, (1693-1786) Originally from Orford near Warrington, John Blackburne was a slave trader who is named on the list of merchants trading with Africa in 1752. His father John Blackburne senior served as mayor of Liverpool in 1760 and was an active member of the town’s elite. Blackburne made a fortune in Liverpool and used some of his wealth to refurbish Orford Hall. In addition to slave trading he was a salt merchant who owned the salt works adjacent to Liverpool’s second wet dock, which opened in 1753. Originally it was named the South Dock, but due to the proximity of Blackburne’s salt works it quickly became known as the Salthouse Dock. Blackburne was also an investor in canal building; many Liverpool slave traders invested their money in other interests to take advantage of industries springing up around southern Lancashire. These included salt manufacture, banking, shipbuilding, rope-making and coal mining.
Cropper Street was named after James Cropper (1773–1840), a merchant and philanthropist, he moved from Winstanley to Liverpool at the age of 17 and was apprenticed to the Rathbone Brothers, the first Liverpool merchants importing cotton from America. He later established his own company Cropper, Benson & Co, and his business proved to be a highly prosperous one, and the wealth generated from it enabled Cropper to engage in a number of religious and philanthropic activities. The main focus of his attention was the campaign for the abolition of slavery; he wrote pamphlets and sent them to William Wilberforce at an early stage in the anti-slavery campaign. His activities however were very unpopular in Liverpool and many of the West India merchants who owned plantations in the Caribbean were critical of him. In 1823–4 he was subject to a series of attacks in the columns of the Liverpool newspapers by Sir John Gladstone.
“Now, if there was ever a question upon which I would desire to submit all that I have ever said to a candid enquirer, it is that of negro slavery.”
Gladstone, speaking in 1837
William Gladstone’s views on slavery and the slave trade have received little attention from historians, although he spent much of his early years in parliament dealing with issues related to that subject. His stance on slavery echoed that of his father, who was one of the largest slave owners in the British West Indies, and on whom he was dependent for financial support. Gladstone opposed the slave trade but he wanted to improve the condition of the slaves before they were liberated.
In 1833, he accepted emancipation because it was accompanied by a period of apprenticeship for the ex-slaves and by financial compensation for the planters. In the 1840s, his defence of the economic interests of the British planters was again evident in his opposition to the foreign slave trade and slave-grown sugar. By the 1850s, however, he believed that the best way to end the slave trade was by persuasion, rather than by force, and that conviction influenced his attitude to the American Civil War and to British colonial policy.
As leader of the Liberal party, Gladstone, unlike many of his supporters, showed no enthusiasm for an anti-slavery crusade in Africa. His passionate commitment to liberty for oppressed peoples was seldom evident in his attitude to slavery.
The Gladstone family were latecomers to the business of slave ownership. John Gladstone was a Liverpool merchant, who first acted as an agent and manager for absentee plantation owners and then became chairman of the Liverpool West India Association. Like many others, he was tempted by the prospect of rich rewards from sugar production, particularly in Demerara, which became a British colony after its capture from the Dutch during the Napoleonic Wars.
In 1812 – five years after the abolition of the slave trade – he bought his first plantation in Demerara followed by further large acquisitions in both Demerara and Jamaica. By 1833, John Gladstone had become one of the largest slave owners in the British West Indies. In that year, he valued his West Indian estates at £336,000, which constituted over half of his total assets. His plantations were financially lucrative but they also attracted criticism from abolitionists in Britain.
In 1823, John Gladstone’s ‘Success’ plantation was the centre of a slave insurrection, which was harshly repressed, and the death in prison of a white missionary, accused of inciting the slaves, prompted protests in Britain. John Gladstone defended his record in a debate in a Liverpool newspaper with a Quaker merchant, James Cropper. He did not personally visit his plantations, but pressed his agents in Demerara to improve conditions for his slaves.
Like his current political hero, George Canning, John Gladstone wanted to treat slaves more humanely and to improve their religious and moral education. In an 1830 pamphlet, he defended slavery but advocated gradual amelioration, with a view to emancipation when it was safe and not unjust to the planters. His stance was fully supported by his eldest son, Thomas, who became a Tory MP in 1832, and by his second son, Robertson, who was in business with his father and an active member of the Liverpool West India Association.
The influence of John Gladstone’s commercial interests on the early political career of his fourth son, William, has been under-estimated by historians. Colin Matthew, for example, claimed that Gladstone’s view of Conservatism left him ‘curiously dissociated from his own mercantile origins’.
Yet for the first thirty and more years of his life, William was largely dependent on his father for both his income and political expenses. His father gave him a large annual allowance and also paid half of his election expenses at Newark. In addition, Gladstone received assets worth at least £120,000 from his father before or after his death in 1851. Much of that wealth, particularly in the early 1830s, derived from his father’s plantations.
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The Case and Southworth records (see 380 MD 33-36) cover the years from 1754 to 1767. They are the surviving commercial manuscripts of a Liverpool merchant firm with a branch house in Kingston, Jamaica. Thomas Case was listed in the Liverpool trade directory for 1766 as a merchant in Water Street. He owned a number of ships, became a member of the African Company of Liverpool, and held shares in eighteen slaving vessels. Two of these ships, the Fortune and the Bee, were vessels where he was the sole owner; the others were co-owned with his brother Clayton and other Liverpool merchants such as William Boats and William Davenport.
Thomas Case entered into an insurance brokerage business with William Gregson in 1774. This was dissolved in 1778, however, when bankruptcy proceedings were issued against Case after he fell into financial difficulties. Nicholas Southworth, who managed the Kingston end of the Case & Southworth partnership, had captained three slaving vessels from Liverpool to Africa and the Caribbean in 1746, 1748 and 1752. Southworth was the part owner of several slave vessels in the 1750s and 1760s but he never co-owned vessels with Case. The partnership of Case & Southworth appears to have flourished until the records end in 1767.
The records of Case & Southworth are bound volumes with detailed information on the import of hardware, textiles and provisions from British and Irish merchants via Liverpool to Kingston; the sale of lots of slaves in Kingston; and imports of sugar, rum, pimento and wood at Liverpool. Both ends of the business, at Liverpool and Kingston, acted on commission, but sales were much more valuable at the Jamaican end (largely owing to the slave sales) than on Merseyside. The Liverpool house under Case sold on behalf of far fewer people than the Kingston branch under Southworth. This resulted from the much larger population of the Lancashire port and its hinterland compared with the much smaller white population in Jamaica.
The Account Book (see 380 MD 33) and the Journal (see 380 MD 34) include a mass of daily transactions. At first sight these list a bewildering array of sales but they can be collated and analysed to indicate some interesting patterns in consumer behaviour. Some of the detailed accounts of slave sales, giving the purchasers, date of purchase, size of lot sold and prices gained, are duplicated in the two Sales account books (see 380 MD 35-36) but some are not. The Case and Southworth account books are some of the most detailed sales’ records of Africans in the British slave trade available in any British archive.
Thomas Leyland (c.1752-1827) was a merchant, banker, millionaire and three times Mayor of Liverpool. In 1766 he won a lottery prize of £20,000, which he used to build up his business affairs. He was involved in various trading partnerships. He built up much of his mercantile fortune from participation in the slave trade, and was particularly active in that traffic as well in various other trades in the last two decades of the eighteenth century.
Leyland had an interest in sixty-nine slaving voyages from Liverpool. The ships in which he was concerned delivered an estimated 22,365 Africans to the Americas. He was associated with some other important Liverpool merchants but he also linked up with smaller fry. Thus, for example, he was part owner with David Tuohy in the slave ship Kitty in 1789. In 1802 Leyland entered into a banking partnership with Clarke and Roscoe, a firm of Liverpool bankers.
After this was dissolved in 1806, he set up his own bank in Liverpool with his nephew Richard Bullin in 1807. Through amalgamations, his banking business later became part of the Midland (now HSBC) Bank. Thomas Leyland left a fortune of £600,000 in 1827, making him one of the wealthiest decedents in Britain at the time. In addition to the records made available here, further documents relating to Leyland’s slave trading and banking career survive in the HSBC archives and among the Dumbell Papers at Liverpool University Library. A good many of Leyland’s ships’ books relating to the slave trade were unfortunately destroyed by bomb damage during the Second World War.
Thomas Leyland’s letterbook, 1786-88, (see 387 MD 47) kept by Captain James Brown when he commanded the Liverpool trading ship Gossypium on a total of eleven voyages between Liverpool and New Orleans between 1844 and 1846 (six from Liverpool to New Orleans and five return voyages to Liverpool); a letter book (see 387 MD 48) containing copies of letters written by Brown himself between 1843 and his death on 23 October 1851, and by his executors; and a collection of accounts connected with the voyages of the Gossypium (see 387 MD 59) is a large bound tome comprising 2,262 business letters in a legible hand on 780 numbered pages.
Material on Leyland’s involvement in the Liverpool slave trade can be found among the letters. There are also many examples of dealings in commodities with far-flung business connections in England, Ireland, Scotland France, Spain, Holland, Portugal and the United States. Leyland dealt in various commodities, including wine, salt, barley, tallow, earthenware, cotton, sugar, oranges, bark, coal and rice. More detailed information on Leyland’s involvement in the slave trade is found in the five ships’ account books, covering the period 1793-1811 (see 387 MD 40-44).
These volumes follow a set format. They include a letter of instruction to the ship captain; invoices of merchandise shipped; a list of the crew; tradesmen’s notes and disbursements for the cargo and for the outfit; accounts of slave sales and charges on sales; and disbursements made at the point of sale, presented as debit and credit accounts.
John Newton is the best-known captain in the history of the British slave trade. He was the captain of three slaving voyages between 1748 and 1754, and sailed on a further voyage as a mate. He documented his experiences on these voyages in detailed logs. Later in life he became an evangelical minister in the Church of England, renounced his involvement in the slave business, and became a prominent abolitionist who testified against the slave trade before committees of the House of Commons in 1789 and 1790.
Newton was a prolific writer on the slave trade and on spiritual matters, and was also the author of the hymn ‘Amazing Grace.’ His copy letters reproduced in this publication (see 920 MD 409) were written to the Anglican clergyman David Jennings. The letters cover the 1750s, when Newton was still active in the slave trade. They include details on his experiences on board Africa-bound vessels that can be fruitfully dovetailed with his diaries, logs and other writings from the period. The letters to Jennings are particularly interesting in tracing Newton’s growing spiritual awareness as his voyages in the slave trade progressed. They provide a broader view of the implications of involvement in slave trading than one gathers from the purely business orientation of many other sources reproduced here.
The Robert Bostock letterbooks, covering the period 1779-92, include much business correspondence on the slave trade (see 387 MD 54-55). Bostock was both a ship captain and a merchant. He was captain and first owner on three Liverpool slaving voyages, in 1769, 1770 and 1786. He was the first owner of fourteen other Liverpool slaving voyages between 1787 and 1793, and took shares in twelve other slaving voyages from the Mersey.
In Africa Bostock traded with the Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Windward Coast and the Bight of Biafra. He delivered slaves to Antigua, St. Kitts, Barbados, Grenada and Jamaica. His letters include instructions to ship captains about the conduct and destinations of their African voyages; advice on the purchase of slaves and commodities in Africa; requests to London merchant houses for financial guarantees for payment of slave sales; the average prices for which captains should sell slaves in different Caribbean islands; and communications with factors and agents about economic conditions in the Caribbean.
Bostock’s letterbooks are especially useful for their abundant evidence of contemporary prices paid for slaves in the West Indies. One detailed sales’ list of slaves at Antigua for September 1784 is included in his first letterbook (see 387 MD 54, fols. 16-18).
Several smaller items among these microfilms include interesting additional details on the Liverpool slave trade. The sailing instructions of 16 October 1700 for the captain and supercargo (i.e. travelling agent) of the ship Blessing is the first business letter that survives on Liverpool’s transatlantic slaving (see 920 NOR 2/179). Deposited in the Norris Papers, it offers advice on the loading of provisions at Kinsale, Ireland, and the purchase of slaves on either the Gold Coast or at Whydah, in the Bight of Benin.
The slaves were to be sold in the West Indies. The instructions state the preferred options of the ships’ owners about which Caribbean island market would produce the best sales. John Tomlinson’s Account Current with John Knight (see 380 MD 127) covers shares in slave vessels between 1757 and 1777. Tomlinson was the first owner of thirty Liverpool slaving voyages that disembarked some 5,900 slaves to markets in North America and the Caribbean. Though little contemporary material has survived about Knight, he was a major Liverpool slave trader with an interest in 111 voyages over thirty years (1744-74) that delivered over 26,000 Africans to America. All save one of Tomlinson’s slave trading voyages were made in partnership with Knight.
The logs kept on board H.M.S. Agamemnon, the Count du Nord and the Madampookata, with related papers (see 387 MD 62/1) include daily entries about the progress of these slaving vessels. These records were apparently kept by Thomas Dixon, and are all in one volume. The descriptive entries are particularly interesting when the ships were based on the West African coast. Details of the course of the ships, their latitude and longitude, and remarks on provisioning, stores, watering, painting and cleaning are also provided.
The log of H.M.S. Agamemnon covers the period 1 October 1782-10 June 1783. The remarks for the Count du Nord extend from 29 September 1783 to 10 June 1784. The descriptions on board the Madampookata cover the period 29 March 1785 to 22 January 1786. The log of the brig Ranger concerns a slave voyage from Liverpool to Lisbon, Anamaboe and Jamaica in 1789-90 (see 387 MD 56). The account of the sale of slaves from the brig Mars deals with a slave auction at Savannah, Georgia in January and February 1804 on behalf of the Liverpool merchants McIver, McVicar and McCorquodale (see MD 97).
The pages filmed from volume 10 of the Holt & Gregson Papers (see 942 HOL 10) comprise important contemporary statistics on the Liverpool slave trade and material relating to the abolitionist movement. For the most part, these are separately compiled contemporary documents that were gathered together in this volume.
The most significant documents on the Liverpool slave trade found here are: an account of the ships, cargoes and capital employed in the African slave trade from Liverpool on 3 March 1790 (fols. 367-9, 445); a calculation of the loss that might be sustained by and at Liverpool should an abolition take place (fols. 371-3, 443); the number of men who have been discharged by the different masters and tradesmen of Liverpool previously employed in the African slave trade and now out of work (fols. 375-7, 447);
Mr. Tarleton’s calculation of the trade of Liverpool to Africa and the West Indies and of the ships employed therein, 1787 (fol. 419); letters relating to abolitionism (fols. 429-431, 433, 437-439); a list of the vessels which sailed from Liverpool to Africa in the period January 1786-January 1787 (fol. 473, 477); and a list of the vessels sailing from Liverpool for Africa from 1 January 1787
The Irish began pouring into Liverpool in increased numbers in the 1830’s. Competition among steamer lines and subsequent cheaper fairs (sic) encouraged more Irish to travel to England at this time. Over 1,500,000 Irish came to Liverpool between 1847 and 1853. Some moved on, but those that stayed congregated in the already established Irish enclaves “in the south end area of Park Road, Park Lane and St James Street and in the north end area of Vauxhall, Scotland, Everton and Exchange.” (Swift, Gilley; Boyce, 1999, p. 278). These Irish communities were located near the docks
The Irish Community in Liverpool developed around St Anthony’s Church. It was originally built in 1804 by French refugees, was torn down in 1833, a new church taking its place. (Swift, Gilley; Boyce, p. 278). There is a great website “St. Anthony’s Church Database Project” that has searchable records online! This site even has pauper burials. It is well worth checking out if your Irish Ancestors spent time in Liverpool. Another good site to check out that has records from this church as well as others in Liverpool is Hibernia.
The number of Catholic Churches in Liverpool increased dramatically during the 19th century. St. Mary’s and St. Peter’s were the primary Churches serving the Liverpool Catholics in the early 1800’s. The number of Catholic Parishes increased to 18 by 1870 and 24 by 1914. More than half of these parishes were in the following areas of Liverpool: Scotland, Vauxhall and Everton. (Belchem, 2006, p. 338).
The Irish arriving in Liverpool were vulnerable; they ran the gauntlet through a host of unsavory (sic) characters out to take their money upon their arrival at the port. Those that stayed in the Merseyside dock area and failed to move on in search of opportunity in industrial areas of Lancashire and Yorkshire or abroard (sic) were at greatest risk.
The sheer volume of Irish immigrants that arrived in Liverpool during the peak famine years exceeded the available housing, employment and taxed the sanitary system. The Poor Law Removal Act was implemented to counteract the large influx of Irish poor into England. “Between 1846 and 1853 there were 62,779 Irish removals from Liverpool alone…” (Swift, 2002, p. 74).
Liverpool taxpayers felt that these Irish poor were going to over-burden the Poor Law system. Many of the Irish were relegated to the lower paid, heavy labor jobs that promised little advancement such as the docks, soap and sugar processing plants, heavy chemical industry, porters in the warehouses and in construction. Liverpool wasn’t known as an industrial center like Manchester, the jobs were centered around the activities of the port for the most part. Irish women found employment even more difficult in Liverpool filling the lower echelon of jobs such as untwisting the fibers from old robe (oakum) which was then resold to caulk boats/plug leaks; selling the residual material obtained from crushing sandstone (used to clean steps) and the hawking of broken down boxes (chips). (Belchem, 2007, p. 27,32,37).
As the century progressed the Irish began to work there (sic) way out of the deleterious environment of the chemical processing and refinery workforce and began to dominate the work on the docks. There were inherent dangers to this work environment as well.
The Irish communities development around the Liverpool docks and the types of jobs they had at their disposal becomes clear with a closer look at how the port developed, the types of products imported and the warehousing system developed to handle it all. As the road and canal system developed, connecting Liverpool with other parts of England, transportation of products was facilitated. Pottery, coal and other products made and mined in Staffordshire, Woolen Cloth produced in West Riding, Yorkshire, Coal and Textiles among other items from Lancashire and manufactured goods from all over England were expeditiously transported to the docks of Liverpool for export.
London had the competitive edge over Liverpool in the 18th and early 19th centuries. They progressed to steam shipping before Liverpool and had the inside track on profitable Government contracts (like troop transport) giving them connections Liverpool didn’t have. London was a dominant force in Far East trade as well, but Liverpool got a much- needed boost in traffic to its port with the U.S. shipping fleets absence during the Civil War (and their failure to rebound after its conclusion).
Liverpool’s development focused on the use of big wooden ships as well as iron sailing ships. Iron ships had the benefit of being able to proceed forward without delays afforded by windless conditions like a steam ship. According to Graeme Milne’s book “Trade and Traders in Mid-Victorian Liverpool” these ships gave Liverpool a leg up on transporting “long, distance bulk goods.” (Milne, 2000, p. 41). The main drawback appeared to be their need for frequent repainting with lead based paint that put them out of commission.
The textile industry growth in Lancashire and Yorkshire also aided port expansion. Liverpool grew from 9 docks in 1821 with 46 acres of enclosed water to 72 acres enclosed by the 1850’s. (Milne, 2000, p. 67).
Efficiency of the port became a priority. Even a week’s delay at port during the off-season could mean encountering hazardous conditions and possible subsequent increases in insurance costs. Steam ships advertised their schedules and had to adhere to them as well. One of the biggest challenges was that many ships needed to anchor in three different areas: one to unload, one for maintenance and repairs and one to reload. (Graeme, 2000 p. 74, 86). Most of the cargo on ships was loaded/unloaded by “lumpers.” There were 1700 Irish employed as lumpers in the Liverpool port in 1834. (Macraid, 1999, p. 52).
Liverpool handled a vast array of imports and exports including furs and cotton that were brought in on steamships and petrochemicals that arrived by sail. They catered to the timber trade (providing land storage unlike other ports that offloaded into the water and floated the timber into storage bays). The tobacco trade had their own complex of warehouses. This industry provided considerable work for another Irish held occupation- “Carters.” The tobacco was “carted” back and forth between private warehouses and the port to be weighed.
Liverpool had a vast warehouse complex. Goods were allowed to be stored duty free until they were exported. There were 1900 Irish employed as porters in warehousing goods in the Liverpool docks in 1834. (Macraid, 1999, p. 52). Other imports of significance from the east included silk, cotton and tea, spices, seeds, cotton, wool, jute, sugar, rice and dyestuffs from India. Bat guano imports even made the less profitable ports on the Mersey lucrative. Liverpool also went aggressively after the “Contract Mail System Trade” Obtaining this contract gave them an inside track on making further contracts for other government funds. Finally they focused on developing the emigrant trade. After the cargo was loaded, passengers provided full ships that meant increased efficiency and profits. (Milne, 2000, p. 82, 91, 179, 189).
The Irish were heavily involved in dock construction on the Mersey, eventually becoming employed as stevedores employed on the vessel, as quay porters, sailors and ship’s firemen. (Brady, 1983, p. 30). By the early 1870’s, 2500 Irish held positions as Stevedores, Master Porters and Warehousemen and by the early 1890’s 458 Irish were Dock Laborers, 27 were watchmen, porters and messengers, 12 were carmen or carters and 129 Irish were Sailors, Ship-Fireman or Stokers. (Belchem, 2007, p. 39). Many of the jobs held by the Irish on the Liverpool docks were labor intensive with a significant risk of injury.
Deaths in Liverpool due to famine fever (typhus, dysentery, cholera) were high with repeated epidemics in 1847, 1848 and 1854. “Life expectancy in the docklands area of Liverpool became the lowest in the country.” (Swift, Gilley; Boyce, p. 280). The epidemic was so severe that floating hospitals were created on the Mersey and fever sheds were built. Overcrowded conditions in the cellars and lodging houses in the areas along the docks were a breeding ground for disease. A report provided by Dr. Duncan on the “Sanitary State of Liverpool in 1842” identified Lace, North and Oriel Streets as being the source of the largest number of fever cases. (Swift, 2002, p. 94).
The Irish and their “lifestyle” were held accountable for the outbreaks of dysentery and typhus that occurred. Typhus or “Irish Fever” as it was referred to inferred the Irish connection to the disease’s presence. Liverpool implemented sanitary acts to try to combat the unsanitary living conditions. Despite numerous interventions to improve the sanitary conditions in Liverpool such as installation of sewers, drains, increased privies in dwellings, street-cleaning crews, and numbers thinned in the most over-crowded areas, the problem still persisted in the late 1800’s in districts such as Scotland, Vauxhall, St Pauls and Exchange. (Swift, 2002, p. 76,77). Liverpool implemented a Sanitary Amendment Act in 1869 and other Housing Acts over the years whose primary objective was clearance of impoverished, unsanitary areas (especially by the docks). Railway companies also contributed to this demoliation as they developed their properties. (Belchem, 2006, p. 213). John Belchem gives detailed descriptions of the unsanitary living conditions that prevailed in the courts and cellars that were primarily inhabited by the Irish, in his book “Liverpool 800 Culture, Character and History.” Kevin O’Connor in his book “The Irish in Britain” provided some longevity statistics for Liverpool in 1840 which I found eye-opening: “In Liverpool in 1840, the average age of death was: gentry and professional persons 35 years; tradesman and their families 22; labourers (sic), mechanics and servants 15 years.” (O’Connor, 1972, p. 11).
Many Irish immigrants from Connacht and the more central and western counties of Ireland traveled to Dublin and on to Liverpool where a large percentage moved on to America and other destinations. Many stayed in Liverpool, (their numbers replenished by new immigrants from Ireland when they chose to move on into other areas of England as Industries developed elsewhere).
The main focus of my research is the following surnames: Brennan, Corcoran, Coffee and Gahagan (and all variations) who were born in County Mayo or County Roscommon Ireland. With that in mind, I intend to try to trace these surnames through the Liverpool Census Records, with particular emphasis on the St. Thomas, Dale Street, Howard Street, St Martin, St George and Mt. Pleasant Sub Registration Districts based on the findings I detail below.
I have noted Brennans born in County Mayo in the St Thomas and Dale Street Sub Registration Districts in the 1851 Liverpool Census, Surname Brannon born in Roscommon in the 1851 St Martin Sub Registration District and Corcorans born in Roscommon in the Howard Street Sub Registration District. In the 1861 Liverpool Census I found the surname Coffee and Gaughan born in Mayo in the 1861 St. Thomas Sub Registration District and Surname Brannan and Corcoran in The Howard Street Sub Registration District. In the 1871 Liverpool Census I found Corcorans born in Mayo in the St Thomas Sub Registration District, the Dale Street Sub Registration District and the Mount Pleasant Sub Registration District. Coffees who were born in County Mayo were present in the St. Thomas Sub Registration District. There were Corcorans born in Roscommon in the St Martin Sub Registration District and Geoghegans born in Roscommon in the Howard Street Sub Registration District. In the 1881 Liverpool Census I found Corcorans and Brennans born Mayo in the Dale Street Sub Registration District and a Brennan family that may have originated in County in the Islington Sub Registration District. There were Brennans and Corcorans that were born in Roscommon in St George Sub Registration District and Corcorans born in Roscommon in the St. Martin Sub Registration District.
Although my primary focus is the aformentioned surnames, I will be documenting general observations about the Irish families and their origins under each specific district with the compilations for each of my surnames.
This is a work in progress! I would love to hear from any genealogists who believe their Brennan, Corcoran, Coffee or Gahagan ancestors from Mayo or Roscommon may have been documented in the Liverpool census records so that we might possibly tie these families together and establish a migration trail from the same civil parishes and townlands.
I read some really great books that described what life was like for the Irish in Liverpool and how the port developed by authors like John Belchem, Donald M MacRaild, Roger Swift and Sheridan Gilley, Graeme Milne, L.W. Brady and J. R. Harris. I have used these and other resources to compile the information presented above. If you had Irish immigrant ancestors who travelled through Liverpool or spent time working along the Mersey I think you would find the following author’s books well worth a read for a insight in what life was like for them in the 19th century.
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REFERENCES
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A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 4. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1911.
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Walk around maritime Liverpool (discoveringbritain.org)
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The Liverpool Slave Trade. Georgian Docks and Privateering (historyofliverpool.com)
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https://www.statista.com/statistics/1010169/black-and-slave-population-us-1790-1880/
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Syntax - words n stuff 