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PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
This little volume has been twice published, and this issue of it is in ready response to the “third time of asking” by an appreciating public, largely, as we imagine, made up of families associated in some way or other with “Old Liverpool” as it appeared in the earlier part of the present century. The traditions of the “Good Old Town” naturally have an interest to many of us who are also quite able and equally willing to estimate at their full value the modern development and rapid progress of
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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
In the year 1852, Liverpool a Few Years Since , by “An Old Stager,” was republished in “a more abiding form” than it had previously assumed in the columns of the Liverpool Albion . The little book sold off rapidly, notwithstanding its being somewhat expensive, as compared with the wonderfully cheap publications of the day, and it is now out of print. It has many a time and oft been suggested that a further and cheaper issue would be acceptable to the Liverpool public, The publisher has, theref
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PREFACE.
PREFACE.
The original intention of the Author was to amuse the younger readers of the Albion , by dashing off a few sketches of “men and things,” as he recollects them in Liverpool a few years since. For this purpose all that was worth telling, he thought, might be comprised in about two papers, or chapters. The public, however, like hungry Oliver Twist, revelling on the thin workhouse gruel, flatteringly asked for “more”; and with this request he, not being of a nature akin to that of Mr. Bumble, has
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CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
W e are not great at statistics. We do not pretend to be accurate to an hour in dates, chronology, and so forth. We write, indeed, entirely from memory, and therefore may perhaps occasionally go wrong in fixing “the hour for the man, and the man for the hour,” as we dot down a few of our recollections of the “good old town of Liverpool,” from the time when we cast off our swaddling clothes, crept out of our cradle, opened our eyes, and began to exercise our reasoning powers on men and things a
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CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
B ut the peace of which we spoke in our last chapter was nothing but a hollow and armed truce, which gave both parties time to breathe for a few months. England was suspicious. Napoleon was ambitious. The press galled him to the quick. At all events, “the dogs of war” were hardly tied up before they were again “let slip”; and then into what a bustle, and what a fever of excitement, do we remember old Liverpool to have been plunged. What cautions and precautions we used to take, both by land
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CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
W e spoke of the old guardship, the “Princess,” in our last chapter. Many and many a time have we walked on her deck, until we thought that we ourselves might grow into a Nelson, a St. Vincent, or a Collingwood. Her captain, who used to take us on board with him, in the days of which we speak, was Colquitt—Captain Colquitt, of course, when afloat, but, on shore, among his friends, and he had many, Sam Colquitt, glorious Sam, pleasant Sam, clever Sam, up to anything, equal to anything, with a n
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CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER IV.
B ut when the war, at the beginning of the century, was renewed with Napoleon, the preparations against him were not confined to the water. We had not only our guardship in the river, but the town itself was stoutly garrisoned against any enemy. We had always several regiments of regular soldiers or militia quartered here. But, besides these, O! what drumming and fifing and bugling and trumpeting there used to be among the regiments of our own raising; for old Liverpool did her duty well and
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CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER V.
W e spoke, in our last chapter, of the false alarms by which the soldiers forming our garrison were once or twice called together in the night, to try their zeal and alacrity; and we said how terribly alarmed were the women and children on such occasions. But we can, as truly as proudly, add that their fears did not extend to our brave and gallant volunteers. They rushed to their gathering spots, wild and eager for the coming danger, and, we verily believe, were sorely disappointed when they f
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CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VI.
W e have already said that, in the days of which we are speaking, the Cheshire side of the Mersey, now bridged to us by steam, was a terra incognita to the general inhabitants of Liverpool. Almost as little was known of Aigburth, Childwall, Knotty Ash, Walton, West Derby, and so forth. Our fashionables were then satisfied to live in their comfortable town residences, without looking upon a country house and garden, and hothouse, as necessary to their existence. And we question whether they we
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CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VII.
A little higher up than Colonel Bolton’s, but on the same side of Duke-street, stood the noble palace mansion of Moses Benson, one of the merchant princes of the old times of which we are speaking, with its gardens and pleasure grounds, bounded on one side by Cornwallis-street, and on the other by Kent-street, and extending backwards to St. James-street. In Duke-street also lived his son, Ralph Benson, one of the pleasantest and most agreeable men we ever met with, but somewhat, indeed, too muc
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CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER IX.
I n Mount Pleasant lived, in those good old times, Sir George Dunbar, the representative of an ancient race in Scotland, and a model gentleman, both in appearance and manners. He was originally in business in Liverpool; but when the family title descended to him, the pride of ancestry was stronger than the pride of “the merchant prince” within him, and he retired from vulgar trade, cut sugar hogsheads and rum puncheons, and was no more seen on the “Rialto,” discussing markets and inquiring the
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CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER X.
H e who undertakes to be the chronicler of Liverpool society at the commencement, and in the early years, of the present century, must not forget to mention the old and respectable families of Gildart and Golightly. And who is this easy, good-tempered soul, whom the mind’s eye now brings before us? It is Mr. William Rigg, profanely called “Billy Rigg” by his familiars. And who comes next? Henry Clay, frank, jovial, light-hearted fellow, once Mayor of Liverpool, and a generous and hospitable ch
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CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XI.
L iverpool society, like that of every other place, has always been divided into sets; how formed, by what mysterious line separated into divisions and sub-divisions, and sections, and cliques and coteries, we can no more tell than we can explain the causes at work to produce the eddies of the tide. There they are, and we must take them as we find them. It is so, always was so, and ever will be so. But, in enumerating the old stagers of half-a-century ago, more or less, we have passed them in
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CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XII.
S ome people have very strange notions of the duties of the historian and the biographer. They fancy that our part is to suppress or distort the truth, and to substitute flattery for it; that we should deal in sickening and nauseous eulogy only,— “In sugar and spice, And all that’s nice,”— and exert our energies in the vain effort to extract sunbeams from cucumbers, or to make deal boards out of sawdust. The child, walking in the churchyard, and reading the epitaphs, exclaimed, “Mother, where
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CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIII.
A mong the great West Indian merchants of the days we are writing of, we must not forget to place the James and France families. The representative of the latter resides at Bostock Hall, not far from Northwich, in Cheshire. The present Mr. James sat for some years in the House of Commons, and gave evidence of talent far beyond mediocrity. There was also a spice of originality about him which commanded attention whenever he spoke. It was but seldom, however, that he opened his lips. Senatori
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CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XIV.
I n our last chapter we mentioned the names of some of the wits and illustrious in jest of whom Liverpool could boast a few years since. We now descend the scale, to speak of a class whom we would mildly call “the practical jokers.” The Spectator makes glorious old Sir Roger de Coverley horribly afraid of the club of Mohocks who, many years since, pushed their horse-play in the metropolis into positive ruffianism, and perpetrated the most savage outrages under the name of fun and frolic. But
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CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XV.
A little back from Water-street, between it and St. Nicholas’s Church, stood an ancient Tower in those days. It was one of the remaining antiquities of Liverpool. It had originally belonged to the Lathoms of Lathom, and subsequently passed, by the marriage of the heiress of that family, into the hands of the Stanleys, some generations before the elevation of that illustrious house to the Derby title. At a later period it had become an assembly-room, and, last of all, by one of those strange v
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CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVI.
I t would be a strange picture of “Liverpool a few years since” which did not exhibit Mr. (afterwards Sir) John Gladstone in the foreground of the canvas. He had, in those early days, already taken his position, and was evidently destined to play a conspicuous part in this busy world. We never remember to have met with a man who possessed so inexhaustible a fund of that most useful of all useful qualities, good common sense. It was never at fault, never baffled. His shrewdness as a man of bus
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CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVII.
W e have spoken in a former chapter of the oil lamps, which, “few and far between,” just made darkness visible, and of the old watchmen, who were supposed or not supposed to be the guardians of our lives and property. The latter deserve another word. The old watchmen, or “Charleys,” as they were generally called, were perfect “curiosities of humanity,” and the principle on which they were selected and the rules by which they were guided were as curious as themselves. They seem to be chosen as
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CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
W hether we consider the magnificence of its estate, the amount of its revenue, or the extent of its influence, the Liverpool Corporation might ever be compared to a German principality put into commission. We have, in a former chapter, alluded briefly to its state and condition in those old days, when “All went merry as a marriage bell,” and no Municipal Reform Bill ever loomed in the distance. But we feel that we must say something more about such an important body. The old Liverpool self-e
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CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XIX.
T he Church, in the days we are speaking of, was in a very torpid and sleepy state, not only in Liverpool, but throughout the land. None of the evangelical clergy had then appeared in this district, to stimulate the pace of the old-fashioned jog-trot High Churchmen. Neither had Laudism revived, under its new name of Puseyism. Nothing was heard from our pulpits but what might have passed muster at Athens, or been preached without offence in the great Mosque of Constantinople. In fact, “Extract
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CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XX.
T he two rectors of those old days were the Rev. Samuel Renshaw and the Rev. R. H. Roughsedge. They were both men past the meridian of life, at the earliest period to which our recollection extends. There was a tradition among the old ladies, that Rector Renshaw in his younger days had been a popular and sparkling preacher of “simples culled” from “the flowery empire” of Blair. We only knew him as a venerable-looking old gentleman, with a sharp eye, a particularly benevolent countenance, and
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CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXI.
W e spoke, in the last chapter, of St. George’s as the church which the mayor and corporation always attended. Once, when Mr. Jonas Bold was Mayor, it happened that Prince William of Gloucester was present. By a strange coincidence, which somewhat disturbed the seriousness of the congregation, the preacher for the day took for his text, “Behold, a greater than Jonas is here.” Both Mayor and Prince, we believe, as well as the discerning public, fancied that there was something more than chance
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CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXII.
A n election was an election, indeed, in those days. It was not merely a rush to the hustings for a few short hours, and then all over. There was no getting the lead by ten o’clock in the morning, and winning at once by making a good start. Votes were then taken by tallies, or tens, each tally marching to the hustings, with a band of music and colours before it, and each party bringing up its tally in its regular turn. The curiosity, and excitement, and suspense, and anxiety were kept up, da
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CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
O ur shops frequented by the fashionables were “few and far between” in those old times. We had not then reached the bustling age of competition, colossal plate-glass windows, and “selling off under prime cost;” and so, as the Irishman said, making our fortunes by the amount of business transacted. One shop greatly patronised by the ladies was Wilson’s, near the old dock, that is, what was the old dock, but which was most unwisely filled up. The Custom-house now stands where the Jack Park, an
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CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXIV.
T ravelling was both a difficult and a dangerous operation in former days. We do not know when a direct communication by coach between Liverpool and London was first established; but we have been told that some sort of stage was started to Warrington and Manchester in the year 1767. We have indeed read in an old Liverpool Chronicle , January 21st, 1768, that John Stonehewer, a driver of the said stage, had broken his thigh by a fall from the box, a very likely accident in those old-fashioned d
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CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXV.
T here must be many old stagers still surviving amongst us who can remember the two managers of the Theatre Royal, Messrs. Knight and Lewis. The latter was the father of Mr. Thomas Lewis, so well known to the present and last generations. In Tyke and similar characters Knight was unequalled; while Lewis was the best Mercutio ever seen upon the stage. Both were gentlemen, and much liked in society. In those days, moreover, we had occasional visits from the celebrated John Kemble, and his as ce
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NOTES.
NOTES.
[38] Since removed, with other premises, for the Central Station. [160] We copy with much pleasure the following note, which appeared in the Albion of the 2nd August, 1862:—“ Old Abraham Lowe .— A Subscriber says , ‘The writer of the interesting papers upon Liverpool a Few Years Since has fallen into an error, which I wish to correct. “Old Abraham Lowe, the huntsman,” did not end his days in poverty, but enjoyed a small annuity, which was purchased for himself and wife for their joint lives
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