Jules Verne and the Heroes of Birkenhead.

Part 2.

In Eight Novels - Jules Verne’s love affair with Birkenhead.

By John Lamb

(Former Head of Geography, The Liverpool Blue Coat School, England)

Part 2. In Eight Novels - Jules Verne’s love affair with Birkenhead.

Above –The hidden symbolism of Jules Verne’s Robur the Conqueror (1886) is clearly displayed on the Birkenhead town crest and Robur’s flag (top right).

Jules Verne (1828 -1905) is rightly known as the father of modern science fiction, his most famous books such as Around the World in Eighty days, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and its sequel The Mysterious Island have sold in their millions and his total works known as the ‘Voyages Extraordinaires’ have been translated into more languages than William Shakespeare.

Jules Verne c1865.

To the older generation the film versions of his books are a part of our childhood with James Mason playing both Captain Nemo in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and Professor Lidenbrock in Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1959). David Niven gives a masterful performance as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) and the giant crab and wasp steal the show in Ray Harryhausen’s 1960 version of ‘Mysterious Island’. More recently Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson returned in ‘Journey 2 The Mysterious Island’ (2012) to bring Captain Nemo’s Nautilus back to civilization – a submarine craft, which, as we have seen was largely forged in the shipyards of Birkenhead.

Why Birkenhead?

Jules Verne did not venture outside France until the relatively advanced age of 31 – and when he did, the first place he came to visit was Liverpool and Birkenhead.

Why Birkenhead? The answer lies in the

culture of enterprise amongst the town’s entrepreneurs, scientists and town planners, whose advances, both in war and peacetime, directly affected the Victorian world. As yet, the disciples of progress have not been able exactly to match this instance of Damascus, but it is said that they have great faith in the future of BIRKENHEAD.” (Benjamin Disraeli 1847)

Birkenhead in 1865.

The contemporary accounts of other writers are important as Verne was an avid consumer of books and periodicals in his quest for what became known as the ‘encyclopaedic novel’.

One writer who may have influenced Verne was Frederick Law Olmsted, the celebrated American town planner, who visited Birkenhead in 1851 to view the first public park in the world. Olmsted based his design for Central Park, New York on Sir Joseph Paxton’s Birkenhead Park, and his writings are a good a source as any to gain an outsider’s view of this, the ‘City of the Future’.

Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903)

In his 1852 book ‘Walks and Talks of an American farmer in England’ Olmsted wrote of Birkenhead: ‘All about the town, lands, which a few years ago were almost worthless wastes, have become of priceless value; where no sound was heard but the bleating of goats, and braying of asses complaining of the pasturage; there is now the hasty click and clatter of a hundred busy trowels and hammers. You may drive through wide and thronged streets of stately edifices, where there were only a few scattered huts surrounded by quagmires. Docks of unequalled size and grandeur are building, and a forest of masts grows along the shore; and there is no doubt that this young town is to be not only remarkable as a most agreeable and healthy place of residence but that it will soon be distinguished for extensive and profitable commerce. It seems to me to be the only town I ever saw that has been really built at all in accordance with the advanced science, taste and enterprising spirit that are supposed to distinguish the nineteenth century.’ Walks and Talks of an American farmer in England. Frederick Law Olmsted 1852.

There is no evidence that Verne read Olmsted, although he certainly knew about Birkenhead Park and he will allude to it in

later works. What is important at this stage is that Olmsted captures the moment, the atmosphere, and the potential not of a city

but of a small growing town to achieve greatness. The Opening of Birkenhead Park Illustrated London News 1847

Olmsted acknowledged the importance of Birkenhead Park in creating his own design for Central Park New York. Both parks will unite to play further roles in our story.

Boathouse and Bridge Central Park, New York Boathouse and Bridge Birkenhead Park

Jules Verne refers to Birkenhead or Laird’s shipyard in seven of his novels, all of them fairly evenly spaced throughout his 40-year collection of adventures called the Voyages Extraordinaires. It is an impressive list, and the references are quoted here in full, starting with Jules Verne’s first visit to Birkenhead in 1859 and recorded in his book ‘Backwards to Britain’ (1859). Backwards to Britain by Jules Verne (1859)

In 1859, at the age of 31, Jules Verne’s took his first trip abroad, he landed at Liverpool, and took a ferry across the River Mersey to Woodside, Birkenhead. He wrote about his visit in his semi-autobiographical novel ‘Backwards to Britain (1859). The novel was only released in 1989 after initially being rejected by Verne’s publisher Pierre Jules Hetzel. Further analysis of the content suggests some parts of Backwards to Britain may have been written after 1859.

After a long walk, which enabled the two friends to discover all these extraordinary sights without pausing to dwell on details, they reached a floating wharf on iron rafts which rose and fell with the tide, making it easier to reach and leave the Birkenhead ferries. The steamboats used for this crossing are equipped with rudders at both the helm and the bow: by using them alternately, the ferryman does not need to manoeuvre and thus saves precious minutes. The boats are always crowded with passengers and, although the crossing lasts barely ten minutes, every ferry is equipped with a compass, since fog is common on the river and can blot out the opposite shore.

Waiting for the ferry to Birkenhead c1880. Illustrated London News. With Jonathan in tow, Jacques jumped in to one and for the modest price of one penny they crossed over to Birkenhead. People of all social ranks crowded on deck. There was no distinction between first class and second-class seats. Tradesmen, fishwives and workers sat side by side without bothering their neighbours: any distinction would have wounded the British sense of equality. Jonathan found himself sitting next to a poor girl with an empty basket who was returning to Birkenhead at the end of her day’s work. The sweet pretty features of her worn face were moving to behold: her head sunk on her bosom, her crossed bare feet, the apathy of her careless posture, all betrayed a hopeless resignation. Jonathan entered into conversation with the poor girl and learned that her mother had died on giving birth to a fifth child and that her father had abandoned the distressed family. Being the eldest sister. She had four children to bring up. Until now she had succeeded not in feeding them, but in delaying the time when they would starve to death. She told Jonathan of her sufferings with dry eyes where tears had long since ceased to flow. Nothing was more depressing than this story, which is the fate of so many Liverpool workers.

Aboard the Ferry to Birkenhead c1880. Jonathan gave the girl a few coins and her only surprise seemed to be that a foreigner should take an interest in her. On reaching the landing-stage, she soon disappeared, without looking back. What a grim fate awaited that girl! A life of misery if she concentrated on doing her duty, of shame if she heeded the advice of her dangerous charms. Jules Verne Backwards to Britain (1859, not published until 1989 –Butcher translation). Here Jules Verne is fully aware that Birkenhead may not be the paradise envisaged by Frederick Law Olmsted and Disraeli, indeed his view is more Dickensian than Utopian. Nevertheless, Jules Verne will later take a sideswipe at the great American author Nathanial Hawthorne and his own disparaging comments about the ‘brown bread’ nature of the clientele of Birkenhead Park. The Adventures of Captain Hatteras by Jules Verne (1864)

Jules Verne’s epic collection of 54 novels is called the Voyages Extraordinaires and the collection starts on the Mersey at Birkenhead with Verne’s first novel - The Adventures of

Captain Hatteras (1864).

Aventures du Capitaine Hatteras – Le Anglais au Pole Nord (1864)

The novel, set in 1861 describes a British expedition to the North Pole led by Captain John Hatteras and is heavily influenced by the 1847 exploits of the Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin and his search for the Northwest Passage. In the novel, Richard Shandon’s ship, the Forward is built in Birkenhead. The rumours built up over the last three months were still enough to keep the Liverpudlian tongues wagging… …The brig had been built in Birkenhead, a veritable suburb on the left bank of the Mersey, linked to the port by the ceaseless to and fro of the steamboats…

Little but little, the brig had taken shape in the shipyard, with

her qualities of strength and elegance impressing the experts. Not a day passed that Shandon did not visit Birkenhead. The day of departure, 5 April, arrived. Soon the Forward was out of the docks, and, directed by a Liverpool pilot, whose

small cutter followed at a distance, it found the current of the Mersey. The two topsails, the foresail, and the brigantine were quickly hoisted, and, under this sail, the Forward, worthy of its name, after rounding the headland of Birkenhead, headed at full speed into the Irish Sea.

Jules Verne The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (1864).

There is one intriguing line from Verne, as the Forward lies anchored off Birkenhead. Thus, on the Nautilus, which was lying at anchor near her, a group of sailors were trying to make out the probable destination of the Forward. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869) by Jules Verne. As we have already seen, Birkenhead is the spiritual and physical home of Captain Nemo and the Nautilus.

“But how could you construct this wonderful Nautilus in secret?”

‘Each separate portion M. Arronax was brought from different parts of the globe. The keel was forged at Creusot, the shaft of the screw at Penn and Co’s, London, the iron plates of her hull at Laird’s of Liverpool, the screw itself at Scott’s at Glasgow.

The reservoirs were made at Cail & Co at Paris, the engine by Krupp in Prussia, its beak in Motola’s workshop in Sweden, its mathematical instruments by Hart Brothers of New York; etc and each of these people had my orders under different names.’

I set up my workshops on a small desert island in the middle of the ocean. There with my workmen, that is my good companions whom I instructed and trained, I completed our Nautilus’

Jules Verne Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869)

Captain Nemo’s explanation to Arronax (modelled by Verne himself).

The further adventures of Captain Nemo will be revealed in both the novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869) and its sequel The Mysterious Island (1874). A Floating City (1871) by Jules Verne.

In 1867 Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s SS Great Eastern successfully laid the first fully operational telegraphic cable across the Atlantic – perhaps the greatest technological achievement of the Victorian Age – an achievement that had its inception in Birkenhead.

Later that year the vessel was converted back into a passenger liner by Laird’s shipyard of Birkenhead. The Great Eastern had been newly commissioned by the French Emperor Napoleon III to sail to the United States to collect American delegates who wished to attend the Great Paris Exposition of 1867. There would be a number of special guests on board and one of those guests leaving Tranmere, Birkenhead would be the French novelist, Jules Verne.

Jules Verne’s novel A Floating City describes his departure from the deep-water anchorage of the Tranmere Sloyne that day and continues the author’s lifelong fascination with Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s SS Great Eastern.

The Great Eastern - a ship that was completed with money from Birkenhead, sailed from Birkenhead and whose remains, lie to this very day, interred in the mud of Birkenhead.

First of all the anchor had to be raised. ‘The Great Eastern’ swung round with the tide; all was now clear,

and Captain Anderson was obliged to choose this moment to set sail, for the width of the ‘Great Eastern

did not allow of her turning round in the Mersey.

A quarter past one sounded from the Birkenhead clock-towers, the moment of departure could not be

deferred, if it was intended to make use of the tide. The greater part of the passengers on the poop were

gazing at the double landscape of Liverpool and Birkenhead, studded with manufactory chimneys.

It was not long before the ‘Great Eastern’ was opposite the Liverpool Landing-stages. There were thousands of spectators on both the Liverpool and Birkenhead sides, and boats laden with sight-seers swarmed on the Mersey.

Our last salutation reached us from the platform of the lighthouse and the walls of the bastion.

Jules Verne A Floating City (1871) (condensed) T he Great Eastern at the Tranmere Sloyne, A Floating City (1871).

The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians in South Africa (1872) by Jules Verne.

Lairds shipyard’s small role in this novel illustrates once again the high regard that Jules Verne held for all the shipbuilders of Birkenhead.

"We will go round the cataract, Mr. Emery," replied the Colonel, "No doubt, Colonel," answered William Emery, "but this steamboat is too heavy...." "Mr. Emery," interrupted the Colonel, "this vessel is a masterpiece from Leard and Co's manufactory in Liverpool. It takes to pieces, and is put together again with the greatest ease, a key and a few bolts being all that is required by men used to the work. You brought a waggon to the falls, did you not?"

In the twinkling of an eye the partitions vanished, all the chests and bedsteads were lifted out, and now the vessel was reduced to a mere shell, thirty-five feet long, and composed of three parts, like the "Mâ-Robert," the steam-vessel used by Dr. Livingstone in his first voyage up the Zambesi. It was made of galvanized steel, so that it was light, and at the same time resisting.

William Emery was truly astounded at the simplicity of the work and the rapidity with which it was executed.

Jules Verne - The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians in South Africa. (1872) – condensed.

In 1858 the great explorer and missionary David Livingstone set off from Birkenhead aboard the steamship Pearl on his second African expedition. The steel sections of the Lairds built

Ma Robert, named after Livingstone’s wife, were stored in the hold.

David Livingstone, the explorer, missionary, and abolitionist will have two other significant roles to play in our adventure – he is indeed a true ‘Hero of Birkenhead’

The Survivors of the Chancellor (1874) by Jules Verne.

The “Chancellor” is a fine square-rigged three-master, of 900 tons burden, and belongs to the wealthy Liverpool firm of Laird Brothers. She is two years old, is sheathed and secured with copper, her decks being of teak, and the base of all her masts, except the mizzen, with all their fittings being of iron.

The Survivors of the Chancellor follows the desperate fight for the survival aboard a ship bound for Liverpool with a cargo of slowly burning cotton in the hold. The crew and passengers finally abandon the ship in a makeshift raft and take their chances with the burning heat, storms, sharks … and each other.

Jules Verne - The Survivors of the Chancellor (1874)

An Antarctic Mystery (1897) by Jules Verne.

Solidly built, copper-bottomed, very manageable, well suited for navigation between the fortieth and sixtieth parallels of south latitude, the Halbrane was a credit to the ship-yards of Birkenhead.

This is Jules Verne’s sequel to Edgar Allen Poe’s 1838 novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.

The crew of the Halbrane eventually find Pym’s body at the foot of a gigantic magnetic mountain in the shape of an ‘Ice Sphynx’ The metal parts of his boat having been ripped apart by the irresistible magnetic forces.

Jules Verne - An Antarctic Mystery (1897)

Traveling Scolarships (1903) by Jules Verne.

The Alert was three years old, built in Birkenhead in the yards of Simpson and Company. It had only made two voyages to India, to Bombay, Ceylon, and Calcutta, and then had returned directly to Liverpool, its port of registry.

Traveling Scholarships follows the adventures of a group of students whose ship The Alert is taken over by a group of pirates en route to Barbados. This was the last Jules Verne novel to be translated into English (2013) and his last to mention Birkenhead.

Jules Verne Traveling Scolarships (1903)

Jules Verne was obviously very fond of his ‘veritable suburb’ despite the obvious poverty and inequality that he had previously witnessed in the town. As we shall see, the town of Birkenhead will have a far greater influence on the ‘Father of Science Fiction’ than it first appears, but before we explore this, perhaps we need to know more about the great Jules Verne himself.

Next in Jules Verne and the Heroes of Birkenhead. Part 3. Who Was Jules Verne?

I dream with my eyes open.

Jules Verne

Illustrations for Part 2

-Acknowledgements-

Page and Photographic Acknowledgement P Photograph 1a TRIXES Large French Flag 1b Heraldry-wiki.com 1c Talbot Flags 1d Wikisource – La Bibliotheque Libre 2a Wikisource – La Bibliotheque Libre 2b Heraldry-wiki.com 2c Wikisource – La Bibliotheque Libre

2d Bonjourparis.com 2e Pinterest 2f Heritage Auctions 2g Walmart.com 2h Movieposter.com 2i Filmbankmedia 3a Gettyimages 3b nycgovparks.org 4a pxpixels 4b Pending 4c Friends of Birkenhead Park 5a Illustrated London News 6a Pending 7a Wikisource – La Bibliotheque Libre 7b Wikisource – La Bibliotheque Libre 8a Wikisource – La Bibliotheque Libre 8b Wikisource – La Bibliotheque Libre 9a Wikisource – La Bibliotheque Libre 9b Wikisource – La Bibliotheque Libre 10a Wikisource – La Bibliotheque Libre 11a Wikisource – La Bibliotheque Libre 11b Wikisource – La Bibliotheque Libre 12a Wikisource – La Bibliotheque Libre 13a Heraldry-wiki.com