Recollections of a Busy Life: Being the Reminiscences of a Liverpool Merchant 1840-1910. Forwood William Bower
tons. She conducts one-third of the export trade and one-third of the import trade of the United Kingdom, and she owns one-third of the shipping of the kingdom, and one-seventh of that of the world. It has been a privilege to have been engaged in the commerce of the port during this remarkable expansion, and to have been associated with the conduct of public affairs during this period of growth and development in the city. Very much of this has been due to the enterprise and enlightenment of her own people. Liverpool shipowners have been in the vanguard of steamship enterprise, which has contributed so greatly to her prosperity; her merchants have built up her great trade in cotton and grain, and her citizens have not been slow to promote every sanitary improvement which made for the health and well-being of her people.
During the past fifty years the town has been re-sewered, the streets paved with an impervious pavement, and a new water supply has been introduced. The city has been encircled by a series of public parks and recreation grounds, baths and washhouses have been established, free libraries have been opened in the various suburban centres of population, cellar dwellings have been abolished, and rookeries in the shape of courts and tenement houses have been done away with, and in their place clean and comfortable working-men's cottages and flats have been substituted. The curse of drink has been effectively checked by the closing of twenty-five per cent. of the public-houses. To quote from Professor Ramsay Muir's interesting History of Liverpool: "Thus, on all sides and in many further modes the city government has, during the last thirty years especially, undertaken a responsibility for the health and happiness of its citizens unlike anything that its whole previous history has shown, and if any full account were to be given of what the city as a whole now endeavours to do for its citizens much ought also to be said of the extraordinary active works of charity and religion which have been carried on during these years."
The Liverpool of to-day is a city very different from the Liverpool of the 'sixties and 'seventies, indeed it is difficult to recognise them as being one and the same; the streets remain, but they are widened and improved, and their inferior and often squalid surroundings have disappeared; and if our modern architecture is not always of the best, our new buildings at least impart dignity and importance. Shaw's Brow, with its rows of inferior, dingy shops, a low public-house at the corner of each street, has given way to William Brown Street, adorned on one side by our Museum, Libraries, Art Gallery, and Sessions House, and the other by St. George's Hall and St. John's Gardens. The rookeries which clustered round Stanley Street, and were occupied by dealers in old clothes and secondhand furniture, have been replaced by Victoria Street, which is margined by banks and public buildings. The terrible slums which surrounded the Sailors' Home and Custom House, veritable dens of iniquity, have disappeared.
The dirty ill-paved town is now the best paved and the best scavenged town in the United Kingdom. With the growth of the town and the extension of tramways, residential Liverpool has been pushed further out until it can get no further, and it is now finding its way into Cheshire. No private dwelling-house of any importance has been erected on the Liverpool side for many years. The charming suburb of Aigburth has long since been destroyed, but the greatest change has taken place in the docks. The old docks have had to be remodelled to give sufficient depth of water and quay space for the larger vessels now employed, and special docks have had to be constructed for the Atlantic steamship trade. In the 'sixties the Prince's dock was filled with sailing ships trading to India and the West Coast of South America. They discharged on the west side and loaded on the east side. It was quite a common thing for a sailing vessel to occupy four and five weeks loading her outward cargo. On the walls of the docks and on the rigging of the ships, posters were displayed notifying that the well-known clipper ship – , A1 at Lloyd's, would sail for Calcutta or Bombay, and giving the agent's name, etc.
At the south end of the Prince's dock was the George's basin, a tidal basin through which ships going into the Prince's or George's dock entered. I remember seeing one of Brocklebank's Calcutta ships, the "Martaban," enter this basin under sail; it was done very smartly, and the way in which the canvas was taken in and the sails clewed up and furled, was a lesson in seamanship. The George's dock was dedicated to schooners, mostly fruiterers from Lisbon or the Azores, and during the herring season fishing boats used to discharge in one corner, the fish girls going down planks to get on board to buy their fish. The Mariners' church, an old hulk in which Divine Service was held every Sunday, occupied another corner.
The Albert dock was filled with East Indiamen discharging their cargoes of sugar, jute, and linseed, and tea clippers from China; they loaded their outward cargoes in the Salthouse dock, which adjoined; further south again, the King's and Queen's docks were occupied by small foreign vessels, trading to the continental ports. The old New York liners, sailing ships, loaded in the Bramley Moore dock; and the docks further north, the Canada being the most northerly, were filled with steamers trading to the Mediterranean, and the Cunard and Inman lines of steamers.
To-day one may hunt from one end of the docks to the other without finding a dozen sailing ships larger than a schooner. With the exit of the sailing ship much of the romance has been taken out of the life of Liverpool. It was a joy to walk round the docks and admire the smart rig and shipshape appearance of the old sailing vessel. The owner and captain, and, indeed, all connected with her, became attached to their ship and took a pride in all her doings. In those days the river Mersey was a glorious sight with probably half a dozen or more Indiamen lying to an anchor, being towed in or out, or sailing in under their own canvas.
The river Mersey, at all times beautiful with its wonderful alternations of light and its brisk flowing waters, has never been so beautiful since the old sailing ship days, when at the top of high water the outward bound fleet proceeded to sea, and the entire river from the Pier Head to the Rock Light was filled with shipping of all sizes working their way out to sea, tacking and cross tacking, the clipper with her taut spars and snow-white canvas, and the small coaster with her tanned sails all went to make up a picture of wonderful colour and infinite beauty.
The Dock Board
There is no branch of the public service of which Liverpool people are more proud than the administration of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. The members of the Board have always been recruited from our leading merchants, shipowners, and brokers, and they have been fortunate in selecting as their chairmen men of exceptional ability. I can recollect Charles Turner, M.P., Robert Rankin, William Langton, Ralph Brocklebank, T. D. Hornby, Alfred Holt, John Brancker; and the Board is to-day presided over by Mr. Robert Gladstone, who worthily maintains the best traditions of his office.
Of late years the members have been elected without any contests, but it was not always so. In the 'seventies there were severe contests, which arose not upon questions of personal fitness, but were prompted by trade rivalries. It had become the fashion for the various trades to nominate members who would look after the particular interests of their trade. Jealousy was aroused if one trade obtained larger representation than others. The interests of the steamship owners were opposed to those of the sailing-ship owner. The one wanted allotted berths to secure dispatch, the other quay space free and unappropriated. Cotton men wanted special facilities for cotton, and the timber people yard space for the storage of timber and deals. Each trade had its associations, and in addition there was a ratepayers' association, which sought to break up this system of trade delegation by electing independent men. The payment of £10 in dock dues gave a vote. So faggot votes were easily and extensively manufactured. Shipowners and merchants qualified every clerk in their employ. The nomination of members took place on the 1st January, and the election on the day following. The elections were hotly contested, but always in a gentlemanly way, and with much good humour. It required skill to fill up the voting papers so as to secure a majority for any particular candidate.
Among those who busied themselves over these elections I remember William Johnston, Robert Coltart, Worsley Battersby, Edmund Taylor, Arthur Forwood, G. B. Thomson, George Cunliffe, and James Barnes.
The ratepayers' association accomplished much good by the election of some men of independence. My particular desire at this time was to try and induce the Board to fund their debt. It was felt that such a large floating debt was not only cumbrous and inconvenient, but in times of financial stress, or with a cycle of years of bad trade, might be a source of danger. I urged the funding of the debt on the nomination days, and also through the press and Chamber of Commerce. It