75 ©• Of *; ' V ^ ' A HISTORT OF LIVERPOOL < a u A HISrORT OF LIVERPOOL BY RAMSAY MUIR HI ANDREW GEDDES AND JOHN RANKIN PROFESSOR OF MODERN HIS70RT IN 7HE UNIVERSnr OF LIVERPOOL WITH MAPS y ILLUSTRATIONS SECOND EDITION <?J3iZ^ PUBLISHED FOR THE UNIVERSITT PRESS OF LIVERPOOL BT WILLIAMS ^ NORGATE, HENRIETTA STREET, LONDON, W.C. i(pj 1)^ C. Tinling and Co., Ltd. Printers to the University Press of Liverpool 53 Victoria Street To John Rankifj^ Esq, Prefaace This book is an attempt to present the life-story of the community of Liverpool in a concise and consecutive narrative, designed rather for the citizen than for the professed historical student. It makes no claim to be regarded as a final or authoritative treatment of its subject ; for, though it contains new facts or new views upon a good many points, its author is well aware that a vast deal of painstaking investigation will still be necessary before any such treatment will be possible. On the other hand it does not aim at being suitable for use in elementary schools : I am glad to think that a little book, designed for that purpose, is being prepared by an abler pen. Nor does this book pretend to supersede preceding works on the same theme : its scale and plan having necessitated the omission of great masses of fact for which the inquirer will still repair to Baines and Picton. In view of the purpose of the book, it has been thought wise not to load its pages with references to authorities. I have, however, added in an appendix a short descriptive essay on the principal sources from which information can be drawn on the history of Liverpool. Perhaps I may take this opportunity to say that on all questions related to the vexed and difficult subject of municipal viii Preface government I have assumed without argument the conclusions put forward in my Introduction to the History of Municipal Government in Liver- fool. That work has now been before the public for eight months ; and as during that time its conclusions have not on any material point been refuted or even impugned, I have felt myself justi- fied in assuming that they were accepted. I owe many and deep acknowledgments. Mr. William Farrer has placed me under an inex- pressible obligation by lending me his splendid collection of transcripts, etc., for the mediaeval period ; I have had the advantage of being able to use Miss E. M. Platt's voluminous and pains- taking transcripts for a later period ; and Mr. R. large J. McAlpine has placed at my disposal his MSS. collections for the History of Municipal Government in Liverpool during the Nineteenth Century. I do not attempt to enumerate my obligations to those scholars whose work has been made available by publication : perhaps they will regard the Appendix as one long expression of obligation. Professor Mackay, Mr. W. Fergusson Irvine, F.S.A., Mr. R. D. Radcliffe, F.S.A., Mr. J. H. LuMBY, and Mr. T. H. Graham have been good enough to read my proofs for me, in whole or in part, and have saved me from many blunders. The proofs of the difficult final chapter (in which I have solved the difficulty of knowing what and whom to mention by omitting the bulk of the facts, and almost all names) have been also very Prejace ix kindly read for me by the Vice-Chancellor of the University, the Town Clerk (Mr. E. R. Pickmere) and the Medical Officer of Health (Dr. E. W. Hope). With such generous aid, I am almost encouraged to feel that the book ought to be a good one. But I am responsible not only for any blunders which these kindly critics may have overlooked, but also for any deeper defects which they may have felt to be beyond remedy. My great debt to those who have provided me with the illustrations by which the book is embellished is duly acknowledged in the notes which I have appended to the ' List of Illus- trations.' In conclusion, it is inevitable that this succinct rendering of a long story should contain slips of detail or mistakes of emphasis, as well as (I doubt not) more serious errors. I shall be much in- debted to any reader who will be good enough to indicate to me any of these which he may discover. RAMSAY MUIR The University^ Liver-pool^ Easter, 1907 Contents Page DEDICATION v PREFACE vii LIST OF CONTENTS xi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii A HISTORY OF LIVERPOOL :— Introduction i Chapter I. The Berewick of Liverpool, 1066-1207 7 Chapter II. The Foundation of the Borough, 1207-1229 16 Chapter III. The Baronial Lords of Liverpool and the building of the Castle, 1 229- ... 23 1 399 Chapter IV. The Life of Liverpool during the Middle Ages 40 Chapter V. The Anarchy of the Fifteenth Century, 1399-1485 55 Chapter VI. The Age of the Tudors, 1485-1603 . 65 Chapter VII. Trade and Society in Tudor Liverpool 83 Chapter VIII. The Beginning of a New Growth, 1603-1642 102 Chapter IX. The Three Sieges, 1642- 1660 . 116 Chapter X. The Beginning of Modern Liverpool, 1660-1700 135 Chapter XI. Rising Prosperity, 1700-1756 . 162 Chapter XII. The Slave Trade, 1 709- 1807 . 190 Chapter XIII. The Age of Wars and Privateering, 1756-1815 207 Chapter XIV. Inventions and Commercial Advance, 1760-1835 242 Chapter XV. Civilisation in Liverpool, 1760-1835 269 Chapter XVI. The Nineteenth Century, 1835- 1907 295 Conclusion 339 APPENDIX : NOTE ON AUTHORITIES ... 341 INDEX , 351 List of Illustrations 1. King John's ' Charter ' Frontispigce Three-rjuarters scale of the original. Reproduced by kind permission of the Town Clerk, from a photograph by Brown, Barnes and Bell. An exact and very beautiful facsimile is issued by the Corporation. 2. Conjectural Map of Liverpool in the Fourteenth Century . ... To face page 9 Drawn, from the calculations and measurements of Mr. W. Fergusson Irvine, F.S.A., by Mr. L. K. Adams, B.A., of the University School of Architecture. The small strips near the streets represent burgages. Each of the larger strips is drawn to indicate the average amount of the agricultural holding of a single burgage tenant. The names of the fields, and the directions in which the strips lay, are definitely ascertained facts ; the actual divisions between the strips are conjectural only. 3. Liverpool Castle. E. W. Cox. To face page 25 This view is taken (by kind permission of Mr. W. Fergusson Irvine, the Secretary) from the coloured lithograph with which the late Edward W. Cox illustrated his paper, ' An Attempt to Recover the Plans of the Castle of Liverpool,' read before the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, November 6, 1890. Mr. Cox had a remarkable genius for this sort of work, and the results of his investiga- tions have been generally accepted by scholars. The draw- ing has deliberately sacrificed perspective, in order to show the arrangement of the Castle within the walls. The small pointed building at the back, half-way down the slope to the Pool, is the Castle dovecot. 4. The Liverpool Tower. W. G. Herdman To face page 56 From the drawing in the possession of John Rankin, Esq. Herdman's drawing is copied, substantially without change, from an earlier engraving. The street on the right in the drawing is Water Street, on the left, Prison Weint. xiv List of Illustrations 5. The Old Custom House. JV. G. Herdman To face page 88 From the water-colour drawing, in the possession of John Rankin, Esq. The Custom-house is the plain building in the centre of the picture, into which goods are being carried from the boats. It stood on the strand at the bottom of Water Street, which is shown running inland to the left, beside the Tower. 6. The Tower and Old St. Nicholas', from Mann Island To face page 104 From Gregson's Portfolio of Fragments. From an oil- painting by Richard Wright, a Liverpool artist, 1735- 1765 (.'). The water-line is shown coming up to the edge of St. Nicholas' Churchyard and the outer wall of the Tower, over the made ground now occupied by the Pier- head and the dock railway. The spire of St. Nicholas' here shown is that which fell in 18 10. 7. Map of Toxteth Park . ... To face page 112 From a photograph of a large map made for Lord Sefton's Estate Office in 1769, kindly lent me by R. D. Radcliffe, Esq., F.S.A. Note Lodge Lane, leading from ' Smedom Lane ' to the Higher Lodge (now Park Lodge, the resi- dence of Sir Rubert Boyce), from which the predecessor of UUet Road leads to Brook House. 8. Liverpool in the Seventeenth Century. W. G. Herdman To face page 120 From the drawing now in the possession of John Rankin, Esq. This drawing, like others of the same subject, is based upon an oil painting of date c. 1680, preserved in the Town Hall, where it was recently discovered by Mr. R. Gladstone, Junr. Water Street is shown in the centre of the picture with the Tower on the left and the Custom-house on the right. At the top of Water Street is the Town-hall (built in 1673). Note the fourteenth- century tower of St. Nicholas'. List of Illustrations xv 9. Liverpool, from Duke Street. W. G. Herdman 'To face page 144 From the drawing in the possession of John Rankin, Esq. St. Peter's Church (built in 1701) is shown on the right, still in open fields.