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On the Waterfront / Part 2

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On the Waterfront / Part 2 02ON THE CULW NTOTERFRA TURE,: HERITAND REGENERA A GTION E OFT POR CITIES SHOCK CITY: SAILORTOWN LIVERPOOL Professor John Belchem University of Liverpool ON THE WATERFRONT: CULTURE, HERITAGE AND REGENERATION OF PORT CITIES AP GE 2 Liverpool’s ‘otherness’ has been upheld and inflated Outside the main narrative frameworks The ‘community’ mentality of the in self-referential myth, a ‘Merseypride’ that has shown of modern British history, Liverpool Scottie-Road ‘slummy’ – the prototype considerable ingenuity (and some self-pity) in adjusting has long been characterized as different, scouser – co-existed with a broader the proverbial exception within the culture, a seafaring cosmopolitanism to the city’s changing fortunes as it collapsed from the nation. In the north of England but which made Liverpool, the gateway second city of empire to the shock city of post-colonial, not of it, Liverpool (and its ‘sub-region’ of empire, particularly receptive to post-industrial Britain. By exploring ‘sailortown’, the of Merseyside) was (and has continued (unEnglish) foreign ideas (syndicalism, maritime-urban interface immediately inland from to be) highly distinctive, differing sharply for example) and to American popular in socio-economic structure, cultural music. A cultural intersection on the the waterfront, this paper offers wider comparative image and expression, political affiliation, geographical margin,‘edge city’ perspectives which point to Liverpool as exemplar not health, diet and speech from the adjacent Liverpool is thus a critical site for as exception. A ‘shock’ city apart in Britain,‘sailortown’ industrial districts.The industrial investigation of northern-ness, Liverpool established many of the representational conurbations of the north grew out Englishness, Britishness and the of conglomerations of small towns and (pre-devolved) United Kingdom.1 clichés identified with transience, drink, prostitution and villages, augmented by short-distance foreignness that became universal in major port cities rural in-migration which tended to Much has been written about Liverpool’s throughout the globe. It is thus somewhat ironic that the reinforce their culture, character and exceptionalism within the British context. current regeneration of Liverpool privileges the waterfront status as regional centres. Long distance Repudiated by some as an external in-migration – the multi-ethnic, mainly imposition, a stigma originating from and city centre but has yet to extend to the sailortown celtic inflow – transformed Liverpool the days of the infamous slave trade which once occupied the crucial space in-between. and its ‘scouse’ culture, setting it apart and/or the impact of the Irish famine from its environs. In Liverpool, competing influx, Liverpool’s ‘otherness’ has and conflicting inflexions of celticism been upheld – and inflated – in (Irish,Welsh, Manx and Scottish) have self-referential myth. been particularly pronounced, tensions (awaiting full scholarly investigation) at the very centre of the multi-national United Kingdom. Beyond the ‘inland’ Notes Irish Sea, Liverpool’s private celtic empire, 1. John Belchem, Merseypride: essays in Liverpool exceptionalism, 2nd edn, Liverpool: the great seaport looked to the oceans, Liverpool University Press, 2006. adding an external dimension to the Steve Higginson and Tony Wailey, Edgy Cities, city’s cultural life and its migrant mix. Liverpool: Northern Lights, 2006 ON THE W NTOTERFRA : HERITTURE,CUL GA E AND REGENERATION OF PORT CITIES PAGE 3 This ‘Merseypride’ has shown Paul Du Noyer has described Liverpool As Milne shows, Hugill identified In the early twentieth century, considerable ingenuity (and some as ‘a sort of sunless Marseille’, defiantly sailortown – an edgy place of relative Valparaiso’s worst waterfront bar self-pity) in adjusting to the city’s non-provincial, the capital of itself: liberation from the privations of work at was managed in succession by an changing fortunes as it collapsed It’s deeply insular, yet essentially sea – as a generic seaport phenomenon, Irishman and a West Indian; Kobe’s from the second city of empire outward-looking: it faces the sea a world-wide urban sub-type. He also China Dog tearoom was run by a to the shock city of post-colonial, but has its back turned on England. set out a convincing chronology of its Malay; and Singapore had cafés run post-industrial Britain. By exploring There were local men for whom development, from the booming by Italian women. Names cloistered the maritime-urban interface on the Sierra Leone was a fact but London waterfronts of the sailing ship era visiting mariners from anything alien waterfront, this conference offers a only a rumour.They knew every dive through change and marginalisation in or unfamiliar: timely opportunity to consider wider in Buenos Aires, but had no idea of the age of steam, to the sanitisation of perspectives of cultural regeneration the Cotswolds. And Liverpudlians the dockland zone in the mid-twentieth and urban branding. A ‘shock’ city apart speak with merry contempt for their century. While Hugill sought to keep in Britain, was Liverpool similar to other Lancashire neighbours, displaying all the memory alive, the regeneration great world sea-ports? Viewed in this the high indifference of a New Yorker industry has subsequently reinvented way, Liverpool may well appear as for Kansas.4 (and relocated) ‘sailortown’ in kitsch Notes exemplar and not as exception.2 fashion, adding ‘heritage’ cultural cachet 2. Owing much to the work of Franco Bianchini, the ‘Cities on the Edge’ programme,‘a unique This account accords pride of place to fashionable waterfront redevelopment. cultural exploration of six European port cities’ Liverpool can be incorporated into to ‘sailortown’, a distinctive space and which ran throughout Liverpool’s year as international comparative socio-economic culture – identified with transience, When they landed in foreign ports visiting European Capital of Culture, opened up some important comparative perspectives. and demographic analysis of port cities drink, prostitution and foreignness – mariners perforce ventured a short but commended by my colleague Robert replicated in major port cities across crucial distance inland, away from the 3. W.R. Lee,‘The socio-economic and demographic characteristics of port Lee with dependent labour markets, the globe.The term was first deployed dockland and commercial waterfront, cities: a typology for comparative analysis?’, long distance in-migration and exposure in impressionistic style by Stan Hugill, to an urban area of bars, brothels, Urban History, 25, 1998, pp.147-72. to infectious disease – in its case, one of the last mariners with memories boarding houses and other services. On the Liverpool-Irish, see John Belchem, ‘Irish fever’.3 Its distinctive cultural of British deep-water sailing ships. True to Du Noyer’s characterisation, Irish, Catholic and Scouse: the history of the Liverpool-Irish, 1800-1939, Liverpool: character is probably best captured Usually dismissed as a collection of they seldom penetrated beyond the Liverpool University Press, 2007. through more specific comparison nostalgic tall tales, Hugill’s book has familiar cultural and spatial boundaries with other ‘edge’ cities, de-centred been unduly neglected, but is now of this ‘sailortown’ area. In ports where 4. Paul Du Noyer, Liverpool: Wondrous Place: Music from the Cavern to the Coral, London: major ports like Naples and Marseille receiving the attention it deserves Europeans were recent arrivals, Virgin, 2002, p.5. with similar ‘second city’ pretensions through the exciting research of sailortown remained a European or 5. Stan Hugill, Sailortown, London: Routledge and picaresque reputations. another of my Liverpool colleagues, inter-colonial enclave. Bars, lodging and Kegan Paul, 1967. 5 Graeme Milne. houses and shops were run by expatriates What follows owes much to Graeme Milne’s from all parts of the maritime world. current research on ‘sailortown’. ON THE W NTOTERFRA : HERITTURE,CUL GA E AND REGENERATION OF POR CITIES T AP GE 4 Antwerp, Amsterdam and Hamburg by among others,‘British Jack’,‘Loafing their own, that they have established a with portions of Pitt Street, the each had a bar called ‘Channel for Jack of the Stars and Stripes’,‘Spanish rule forbidding a “darkey” or coloured lodging place of Chinese cooks, Orders’, while Marseille and Liverpool Jack’,‘Maltese Jack’,‘Jack of Sweden’, man to pass thorough it – a popular stewards, deck-hands, firemen etc. both had a ‘Flags of all Nations’. Ports ‘Jack the Finn’ and ‘Dark Jack’. By the law, worthy of Charleston, or any who have been coming to Liverpool worldwide had bars with ‘Liverpool’ in mid-nineteenth century,‘cosmopolitan’ other slave town in America’.7 in increasing numbers for the last their names.The numerical supremacy Liverpool had become a favourite During the1860s, the Frederick Street 8 or 9 years.The African is still in of British mariners forced other stopping-off point for African-American locality, the epicentre of cosmopolitan evidence, some of the oldest seamen and foreign bartenders seamen, descended from victims of the Liverpool, was the scene of at least one inhabitants being of this race, and alike to learn English. triangular trade. Relishing ‘the friendly murder and of ‘numberless outrages’ their children and grandchildren reception extended to them’, they were against Manila seamen and other foreign flourish in the same quarters.9 Given the dominance exerted by able to enjoy what Herman Melville
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