Recollections of a Busy Life: Being the Reminiscences of a Liverpool Merchant 1840-1910

THE TOWN COUNCIL

The council chamber in the Town Hall has of late years undergone many alterations. In my early experience it occupied only part of the present site, and at the eastern end we had a luncheon room. It was a shabby chamber, badly heated and ventilated; the Mayor's chair was placed on a raised dais at the western end, and the members of the Council sat at long mahogany tables running lengthwise. It was a comfortless room, and very cold in winter.

The Council met at eleven in the morning, adjourned for lunch at one o'clock, and usually completed its labours by four or five o'clock in the afternoon. But we had periods when party feeling ran high, and obstructive tactics were adopted. At such times we not infrequently sat until ten o'clock at night. Most of these battles took place upon licensing questions in which the late Mr. Alex. Balfour, Mr. Simpson, of landing stage fame, and Mr. McDougal took a leading part.

It was the practice to deliver long and well considered speeches. Some of these were excellent, many very dreary. The present conversational debates would not have been tolerated. We had some very able speakers, of whom I think the most powerful was Mr. Robertson Gladstone, the elder brother of the late Premier. He seldom spoke, but when he did he gave utterance to a perfect torrent of eloquence which seemed to bear everything before it. He was a remarkable man in many ways, very tall of stature, and broad in proportion, he wore a low-crowned hat and used to drive down in a small four-wheeled dogcart. He delighted to give any old woman a lift, and every Saturday morning he visited the St. John's market, and took infinite pleasure in bargaining with the market folk. Mr. J. J. Stitt was also a very fluent and effective speaker, perhaps too much after the debating society style. Mr. J. R. Jeffery was a good speaker, so was Mr. William Earle. One of the most useful men in the Council was Mr. Weightman, who had been the Surveyor to the Corporation, and became a most efficient Chairman of the Finance Committee. One of the most laborious members was Mr. Charles Bowring, the father of Sir William Bowring, Bart. Mr. Bowring was for years Chairman of the Health Committee. He had a big and difficult work to do, but he did it well, and was always courteous and considerate. Mr. Beloe was at that time Chairman of the Water Committee, and was largely responsible for the Rivington water scheme. I think Mr. Sam Rathbone was one of the most cultured and able men we ever had in the Council. He spoke with knowledge and much elegance, and everything he said was refined and elevating. Mr. John Yates – "honest John Yates" – was a frequent speaker, and always with effect. Mr. Barkeley Smith was our best and most ready debater, Mr. Clarke Aspinall our most humorous speaker.

The first important debate which took place in the Council after I entered it was on the proposal to purchase land from Lord Sefton for the purpose of making Sefton Park. It was a prolonged discussion and the decision arrived at shows that the Council in those days was long sighted and able to take large views and do big things. Not only was power taken to purchase land for Sefton Park but also to make Newsham and Stanley Parks, costing in all £670,000; and this movement to provide open spaces has continued to this day, and has been supplemented by private munificence, until Liverpool is surrounded by a belt of parks and open spaces containing upwards of 1,000 acres, and in addition many churchyards have been turned into gardens, and small greens have been provided in various parts.

I have often been asked if the work of the city was as well done with a Council of 64 as it is now with a Council of 134. I think the smaller Council took a more personal interest in the work. The Committees were smaller and better attended, and the Council more thoroughly discussed the subjects brought before them. With the larger Council and larger Committees more work and more responsibility falls upon the chairman and the permanent officials. I fear the larger and more democratic Council scarcely appreciates this fact, also they fail to see that if you want good permanent officials you must pay them adequately. We have fortunately to-day an excellent staff who do their work well with a full sense of their responsibility.

One peculiarity of the larger Council is the time given to the discussion of small matters, and the little consideration given to large questions of policy and finance. This I attribute to the fact that the Council contains many representatives who have not been accustomed to deal with large affairs, and who refrain from discussing what they do not fully understand. In this respect I think the present Council shows to some disadvantage.

An immense work has been done municipally during this period in re-modelling and re-making Liverpool. In the 'sixties the streets of Liverpool were narrow and irregular, the paving and scavenging work was imperfectly done, the system of sewerage was antiquated, and the homes in which her working people had to live were squalid and insanitary; cellar dwellings were very general. To change all this demanded a great effort and a large expenditure of money, but in the 'seventies and 'eighties we had men in the Council capable of taking large views.

Although the improvement of Liverpool has been so remarkable, it is difficult to say to whom it is mainly due; there have been so many active public-spirited men who have given the best of their time and thought to the promotion of municipal undertakings. Liverpool has been fortunate in possessing so many sons who have taken an active interest in her welfare, and have done their work quietly and unobtrusively. The re-making of Liverpool has been accomplished in the quiet deliberation of the committee room, and not in the council chamber.

The Town Hall – Its Hospitality

The hospitalities of the Town Hall were in my early years limited to dinners, and most of these took place in the small dining room, which will only accommodate about forty guests. When the fleet visited Liverpool the Mayor gave a ball, but these occasions were rare. To Dowager Lady Forwood, who was Mayoress in 1877, the credit belongs of introducing the afternoon receptions, which have proved so great an attraction. The Town Hall and its suite of reception rooms are unique, and although built over 100 years ago, are sufficiently commodious for the social requirements of to-day. The late King, when Prince of Wales, on his visit to Liverpool in 1881, remarked to me that next to those in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg he considered them the best proportioned rooms in Europe.

The Lord Mayor receives an allowance of £2,000, and is in addition provided with carriages and horses. In olden time this allowance was ample, but it is no longer so, and it is impossible to maintain the old traditional hospitality of the Town Hall unless the Lord Mayor expends a further £2,000 out of his own pocket, and many Lord Mayors have considerably exceeded this sum. It has often been urged that the allowance should be increased. I doubt if this is desirable. The invitations to Town Hall functions might be more strictly limited to representative people, or the entertainments might, as in Manchester, be placed in the hands of a Committee, but it must not be forgotten that more is expected of the Lord Mayor in Liverpool than in other places. He is not only the head of the municipality, but of all charitable and philanthropic work. The initiation of every undertaking, national as well as local, emanates from the Town Hall. All this throws upon the Lord Mayor duties which directly and indirectly involve the dispensing of hospitality, and I do not think the citizens would wish it should be otherwise.

Although Mr. Alderman Livingston was always supposed to have a candidate ready for the office of Mayor, and loved to be known as the "Mayor maker," the finding of a candidate for the office has not been always easy. I remember in 1868 we had some difficulty. The caucus decided to invite Mr. Alderman Dover to accept the office. I was deputed to obtain Mr. Dover's consent. I found him at the Angel Hotel smoking a long churchwarden clay pipe; when I told him my mission he smiled and replied that his acceptance was impossible, and one of the reasons he gave was that if his wife once got into the gilded coach she would never get out of it again. However, after much persuasion he accepted the office, and made a very good and a very original Mayor. In those days we had a series of recognised toasts at all the Town Hall banquets:

"The Queen,""The Prince and Princess of Wales, and the other Members of the Royal Family,""The Bishop and Clergy, and Ministers of other denominations,""The Army and Navy and Auxiliary Forces,"

and very frequently

"The good old town and the trade thereof."

This was a very serious list, as it involved two or three speakers being called upon to reply for the church and the army. Mr. Dover prepared three speeches for each toast, which he carefully wrote out and gave to the butler, with instructions to take a careful note of those present, and to hand him the speech which he considered had not been heard before by his guests. So the butler, after casting his eye over the tables, would hand a manuscript to the Mayor, saying "I think, your Worship, No. 2, 'Royal Family,' will do this evening." At the close of his mayoralty he offered to sell his speeches to his successor, and he handed to the charities a cheque for £500, which he had saved out of his allowance as Mayor.

Work in the City Council

On entering the Council in 1868 I was placed upon the Watch Committee, and remained on that committee for fifteen years. The work was of a very routine character; we had, however, an excellent chairman in Mr. F. A. Clint, and I have never forgotten the lessons I received from him in the management of a committee, and how to get the proceedings of a committee passed by the Council. "Never start a hare" was his motto, "you never know how it will run, and the amount of discussion it may provoke." Another lesson which he taught me was always to take the Council into your confidence. "Tell them everything, and if you make a mistake own up to it;" and there can be no doubt that there is great wisdom in adopting this course. Deliberative assemblies are naturally critical and suspicious: but treat them with confidence and they will return it; once deceive them, or keep back what they are entitled to know, and your task thereafter becomes very difficult.

Mr. Alderman Livingston was the deputy-chairman, and was quite a character in his way. In personal appearance he resembled Mr. Pickwick, and his ways were essentially Pickwickian. In the selection of Mayors he was always very much in evidence, and he was before everything a Tory of Tories. Politics were his delight, and even when quite an old man he did not shirk attending the November ward meetings, where his oracular and often amusing speeches were greatly enjoyed by the electors.

At one period during the agitation against licensees of public-houses, the Watch Committee was composed of all the members of the Council with Mr. S. B. Guion as chairman; and the committee met in the Council Chamber, but a committee of this size was too unwieldy for administrative business, and the arrangement did not last long.

The Burning of the Landing Stage

The original George's Landing Stage was replaced by a new one in 1874, and this was connected with the floating bridge and the Prince's stage, the whole forming one floating stage, 2,200 feet in length. On the 28th July, a few days after the completion of this work, I was attending the Watch Committee when word reached us that the landing stage was on fire. We could scarcely believe the report, as it was about the last thing we thought likely to be burnt. We hurried down to find the report only too true; huge volumes of dense black smoke enveloped all the approaches. The fire, commencing at the foot of the northern bridge leading to the George's stage, spread with great rapidity. The fire engines were brought on the stage and immense volumes of water were poured upon the burning deck, but the woodwork was so heavily impregnated with tar that the flames were irresistible. We worked all afternoon and all night, and in the end only succeeded in saving the centre of the stage at the foot of the floating bridge, for a length of about 150 feet. And this was only done by cutting a wide gap at either end, over which the fire could not leap. It was very arduous, trying work, as the fumes from the tar and creosoted timber were very nauseating. The portion salved was very valuable in preserving a place for the Birkenhead boats. The other ferries had to land and embark their passengers from temporary platforms and the adjacent dock walls.

The Water Committee

In the 'seventies I joined the Water Committee, at a time when further supplies of water for Liverpool had become a pressing necessity. We had opened the Beloe "dry dock" at Rivington (so called because many people believed when this reservoir was being made it would never be filled), and it was felt that no further supply could be obtained from this source; nor could we rely upon any further local supply from the red sandstone, although Mr. Alderman Bennett made long speeches in his endeavour to prove that the supply from the red sandstone was far from being exhausted.

When it was decided to seek for a new watershed our attention was first directed to the moors round about Bleasdale, some ten miles north of Preston, but the prospective supply was not sufficiently large. We then turned our attention to Hawes Water, in Cumberland, the property of Lord Lonsdale, and appointed a deputation to inspect this lake. We dined and stayed all night at Lowther Castle, and drove to the lake next morning. We came away much impressed with the quality of the water and the cleanness of the watershed, as there were no peat mosses or boggy lands to discolour the water.

Mr. Deacon, our young water engineer, had however a more ambitious scheme in view; he proposed to impound the head waters of the Severn in the valley of the Vyrnwy. The battle of the watersheds, Hawes Water versus the Vyrnwy, was waged furiously for several years. The committee made many visits to the Vyrnwy, taking up its abode at the Eynant Shooting Lodge, a very picturesque spot (now submerged) standing at the western end of the lake. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Anthony Bower, the chairman and deputy-chairman of the committee, were strongly in favour of the Vyrnwy scheme.

Alderman Bennett continued to be the persistent advocate of obtaining additional supplies from the wells, and his opposition to every other scheme was only set at rest by the Council authorising Mather and Platt to put a bore-hole down at Bootle at a point which he selected; with the result that no water was found. During all this period Mr. J. H. Wilson had a very arduous task, demanding great patience and endurance, and to him and to Mr. Deacon belong the credit of ultimately securing the adoption of the Vyrnwy scheme.

I led the section of the committee in favour of the Hawes Water scheme. There was no question as to the Vyrnwy yielding an abundant supply, but the opposition contended that it was brown peaty water, and would remain brownish after being treated by filtration, and the cost would greatly exceed that of Hawes Water. I spent days on the moors at Vyrnwy collecting samples of water. My samples were brown and bad; the samples collected by Mr. Deacon, on the contrary, were clear and translucent. The committee were divided as to the relative merits of the two schemes, and the Council were equally divided.

When the question came for the ultimate decision of the Council the debate lasted two days, and I spoke for one hour and a half. We thought the Hawes Water scheme was winning, when the Mayor, Mr. Thomas Royden, rose and spoke for half an hour all in favour of the Vyrnwy. His speech turned many waverers, and the Council voted in favour of the Vyrnwy by a small majority of three.

It was a great debate, perhaps the most important we have had in the Council, certainly in my time. Mr. Royden (now Sir Thomas Royden, Bart.) was an effective speaker, both in the Council and on the platform; his voice and his genial smile were a valuable asset of the Conservative party.

I was greatly assisted in drawing up a pamphlet in favour of Hawes Water, and in conducting the opposition, by the town clerk, Mr. Joseph Rayner. Mr. Rayner was an exceedingly able man, but unfortunately died comparatively young.

It fell to my lot, as Mayor in 1881, to take the Council to lay the foundation stone of the great Vyrnwy dam. It was on a very hot day in July; the stone was laid by the Earl of Powis, who made a very eloquent and poetical address, comparing the Vyrnwy with the fountain of Arethusa which would spring up and fructify the valley, and convey untold blessings to the great community in the far-off city of Liverpool.

The building of the dam, and the laying out of the banks of the lake, called for many charming visits to the Vyrnwy; and although I was not in favour of the adoption of this scheme I now believe on the whole the Council did the wisest thing, as there can be no question of the abundance of the supplies secured by the city.

Parliamentary Committee

For twelve years I was chairman of this committee, and had much interesting work to carry through Parliament. The widening of St. Nicholas' Place and the throwing of part of St. Nicholas' churchyard into the street was a great improvement, relieving the congestion of traffic at this point.

We also endeavoured, during my term of office, to extend the boundaries of the city. We had a fierce fight in the House of Commons. The local boards of the districts we intended to absorb assailed us with a perfect torrent of abuse, and criticised severely our system of local government. We failed to carry our bill, the chairman of the committee remarking that Parliament would not grant any extension of city boundaries when it was objected to by the districts to be absorbed; but he added, "We are quite satisfied from the evidence you have given that Liverpool is excellently governed in every department." We made a mistake in pushing forward this bill on "merits" only, we should have done some missionary work beforehand, and arranged terms and conditions with our neighbours. My successor in the chair of this committee, Sir Thomas Hughes, profited by our experience, and succeeded where we failed.

We were greatly assisted in our Parliamentary work by Mr. Harcourt E. Clare, who was most able and diplomatic, and an excellent negotiator. His appointment as Clerk of the County Council, though a gain to the county, was a serious loss to Liverpool.

Manchester Ship Canal

With the attitude of Liverpool in regard to the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal I was very prominently identified. I had to conduct the opposition to the Canal Bill through three sessions of Parliament, six enquiries in all. The Dock Board took the labouring oar, but it fell to me to work up the commercial case, to prove from a commercial point of view that the canal was not wanted, and would never pay. I prepared a great mass of figures, and was under examination during the six enquiries altogether about thirty hours. Mr. Pember, Q.C., who led the case for the promoters, paid me the compliment of saying I was the only witness he had ever had who had compelled him to get up early in the morning to prepare his cross-examination.

We defeated the bill in the first two enquiries. At the close of the second enquiry Mr. Lyster, the engineer to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, completely gave the Dock Board case away. Mr. Pember remarked: "Mr. Lyster, you have told us that if we make our canal through the centre of the estuary of the Mersey we shall cause the estuary to silt up and destroy the bar. What would you do if you had to make a canal to Manchester?" Mr. Lyster jumped at the bait, and replied, "I should enter at Eastham and carry the canal along the shore until I reached Runcorn, and then I would strike inland." Next year the Manchester Corporation brought in a new bill carrying out Mr. Lyster's suggestion, and as Liverpool had no answer they succeeded in getting their bill.

There can be no doubt that the railways had for long years greatly overcharged their Liverpool traffic. The rate of 12s 6d per ton for Manchester goods for the thirty-two miles' carriage from Manchester to Liverpool was a gross overcharge. I had headed deputation after deputation to the London and North-Western Railway to represent this; Mr. Moon (afterwards Sir Richard Moon) always received us with much civility, but nothing was done. The Dock Board had the remedy in their own hands; they could have bought the Bridgewater Canal, and made a competitive route; but the prosperity of Liverpool was great, and they altogether failed to see that Manchester, with its Ship Canal, might one day be a serious competitor to Liverpool.

The promoters of the Ship Canal secured an option over the Bridgewater Canal, and this was really the backbone of their scheme. At the close of the first parliamentary enquiry, when the Canal Bill was thrown out, Mr. Wakefield Cropper, the chairman of the Bridgewater Canal, came to me and said, "The option given to the Ship Canal people has expired; can you not persuade the Dock Board to buy up the Bridgewater Canal, and this will put an end to the Ship Canal project?" I walked across the Green Park with Mr. T. D. Hornby, the chairman of the Dock Board, and Mr. Squarey, the solicitor, and told them of this conversation, and they both agreed with me that the Dock Board ought to make the purchase, but, unfortunately, nothing was done. In the following year the Ship Canal Bill was again thrown out, and Mr. Cropper again urged that we should secure the Bridgewater Canal. I called at the Liverpool Dock office in London and saw Mr. Hornby and Mr. Squarey; they both agreed that the purchase of the Bridgewater Canal ought to be made, but again no step was taken, and the Ship Canal made their third application to Parliament, and succeeded. I have always felt that the Dock Board thus missed a great opportunity, which in years to come may prove to have been the golden chance of securing the prosperity of the port.

Corporation Leaseholds

One of the most important enquiries in which I engaged was into our system of fines on renewals of the leases of the property belonging to the Corporation.

The Corporation owns a very large estate within the city. The first important purchase was made by the Corporation in 1674, when a lease for 1,000 years was obtained from Sir Caryl Molyneux, of the Liverpool Heath, which bounded the then town of Liverpool on its eastern side. This land had been sold on seventy-five years' leases, and as the leases ran out the lessees had the option of renewal on the payment of a fine; and in order to encourage the frequent renewal of these leases the fines during the first twenty years of a lease were made very light. It has been the practice of the Corporation to use the fines received as income in the year in which they are received. The fines received in the fifty years, 1835 to 1885, amounted to £1,762,000. This system of finance is radically wrong. The fines ought to be invested in annuities, and if this had been done these fines would now have returned an income of £66,000 per annum, and would have gone on increasing.

The committee, of which I was the chairman, held a prolonged enquiry, and examined many experts and actuaries, and our report is to-day the standard authority on the leasehold question. Our conclusions and recommendations are as sound to-day as they were then, but unfortunately the Council declined to accept or adopt them, and we still pursue the economically bad system of spending in the first year the fine which should be spread over the term of the lease.

When I retired from the Library, Museum, and Arts Committee in 1908, I was invited to take the chair of the Estate Committee, and found myself again face to face with the leasehold question. The revenue of the Corporation from fines on renewal of leases had fallen off to so alarming an extent that something had to be done to stop the shrinkage in revenue and restore the capital value of the estate. We had for so long used the fines as income that the position was a difficult one, and one only to be surmounted by a self-denying policy of accumulating a large portion of the assured income from fines for at least twenty-five years and encouraging leaseholders to extend their leases from seventy-five to ninety-nine years.