The Golden Age
Victorian Heritage

Liverpool's Birthday

Liverpool's Charter was granted in 1207 which makes the year 2007 momentous in marking the city's 800th birthday.  Liverpool is unique in many ways but one of them that is rarely remarked upon is that while other cities retain their origins and evolve slowly so that change is imperceptible, this city is not like that at all.  A feature of Liverpool is that it has always been subject to dramatic and tumultuous changes, blackboards vigorously wiped clean and a whole new plan put into place.  As a result, there are very few reminders of Liverpool's past, with the oldest buildings in the city centre of comparatively recent vintage; the Town Hall was built in 1745 and the Bluecoat building just a few years earlier.  Why this should be so is not always clear but it has to be said that successive civic blunders from as far back as the demolition of Liverpool Castle right up to the loss of the Cavern and all points in-between, have been a major reason.

But it has not been the only reason; the 1940 to 1942 Blitz changed the face of the city dramatically, levelling whole areas and leaving the only recourse to clear away and start again.  It was the perfect opportunity to create a city like no other, to supplement the splendid Victorian heritage already in place and build on a grand scale toward a city that would last centuries.  It was simply an unhappy coincidence that the time to rebuild came at a time when European and British architecture had reached an absolute nadir and a golden opportunity was dashed upon the concrete rocks of 60's featureless nonentities.  Not just in Liverpool but all over the country, 60's architecture has become synonymous with concrete and glass monstrosities with no aesthetic values whatsoever and where even the purely functional didn't function.  The architecture of the 1960's is universally detested and the wonder is that the people who spawned such mediocrity had the temerity to place it alongside the classical lines of Victorian buildings and in some cases to obscure them.


City of Culture

The year following this great event, Liverpool becomes European Capital of Culture and the city is going through one of the most frenetic and wholesale alterations in its history.  Much of the building work is being carried out under wraps and it remain to be seen if the lessons of the past have been absorbed.  It is fair to say that there will be nothing whatsoever to stand comparison with the likes of St. Georges Hall or the Albert Dock and perhaps a little unfair to make comparisons but in any analysis of what is excellent in Liverpool the needle invariably swings to the Victorian era and in many ways this was Liverpool's Golden Age.  To be quite clear upon this subject, The Golden Age in this context refers to the architecture, art and commerce of the city and if the voices from the past could be heard, there would be a vast majority living in grinding poverty or escaping the Irish Famine who would call this description laughable.  There would also be a great number who would state that it was built upon the Slave Trade and although it was abolished in 1807 in England, it's no coincidence that the Golden Age followed on the heels of the wealth accrued from this barbaric industry.

It is a matter of conjecture and amazement that not one building of any note  has been erected in the city, built in the local sandstone, since the last century.  The Victorians had no J.C.B.'s, no cranes, no machinery at all ----and yet they built on a grand scale, iconic buildings which will last centuries using levers and pulleys which would have been quite familiar to the builders of ancient Rome.  The year 2000 signals the end of the sandstone era and even the Three Graces built in 1906 were built of limestone----although it could be said that they arose from the last gasps from the latent energy of the Victorian era.
All these things are what makes the Herdman Collection so valuable as a chronicle of Liverpool throughout the 19th century and as such it is of incalculable worth.


The Herdman Collection

" I have done more for art in England than any man living" were William Gawin Herdman's words to Lord Derby in 1864 and while it may have been exaggerated in respect of England, it was certainly true in respect to Liverpool.  The Herdman family are to Liverpool what Canaletto is to Venice.

William Gawin Herdman was born in 1805 and his illustrious career spanned much of the Victorian era.  However he sketched from an early age and was perspicacious enough even at the age of 12 to draw many buildings in the city which were from previous eras, many of which were demolished in his own lifetime.  He continued in later life by painting old sketches which are lost to us today.

They had names to conjure with in those days and in 1827, William Gawin married Elizabeth Darley Innes, and just as he was prolific in painting, Elizabeth was no less prolific in producing children.  Over the years, they had no less than 16 offspring ---only 6 of them outlived their father.  The family lived in London Road, Russell St, Clarence St and St. Domingo Vale and several of the children inherited their father's gift ---William, Patricia, Bertha Jeanette and Stanley were all artists in their own right.  William, who in the finest traditions of starving artists lived in a court in Hygeia St, actually has more paintings in the collection than his father.  While William Gawin Herdman was undoubtedly the doyen of the family, there's no doubt that several of the others also valuable work and such is the similarity that it is difficult to distinguish who painted what.  William Patrick was by all accounts an accomplished botanical artist specialising in painting ferns but his work has become lost in the mists of time and plays no part in the collection----perhaps the day will come when they will be rediscovered.  As the collection numbers over 1400 works of art of unvarying quality only a purist would attempt to distinguish one from the other and it's certain that the family would take pride in the knowledge that it is now known as the Herdman Collection.

When Herdman was painting, like so many before him he needed a patron and a certain William Bennett who owned a business in the city bought many of the pictures.  On his death, the paintings went to auction and became scattered.  How it came back together again is a detective story in its own right and only the Machievellian dealings of the Liverpool librarians over many years saw it housed as a whole within the precincts of Picton Library.  It is to the great credit of James Picton and the librarians that they recognized the worth of the paintings and spent so much time and effort in bringing them together in the Picton Library ---even as late as 1945, the library was buying up scattered portions of the collection which had found their way into other hands.
Herdman died in 1882 and was buried in Anfield Cemetery but his legacy lives on.  The few examples of his work shown here are just a fraction of his work.

This painting of the Canada dock shows a castellated building built by Jesse Hartley in 1859 and reminiscent of his faux-medieval gates to the Albert Dock entrance.  The building housed the machinery which drove the hydraulics which operated the dock gates. 

The Canada dock was so-called because it was the site of the ships landing timber from Canada whence they would be taken by horse to be transported to wherever they were bound.

Across the road over the Dominion Pub is a ship's figurehead of a Canadian lumberjack.  The pub today is up for sale and  it is quite possible if the building is converted into some other function that the Lumberjack will be lost in the construction work as having no value.

The dock today is cold and bleak with cormorants fishing in the water and massive machines loading scrap metal onto ships.




The building on the right is adjacent to the one in the Canada dock and very similar apart from having a clock on each of the sides.  Again, it is the work of Jesse Hartley who could never resist a touch of whimsy in all of his designs.  

Just opposite are the monolithic tobacco warehouses built in the 1850's and the largest in Europe. 
Presently mouldering beside the dock, they will no doubt be turned into luxury apartments in the near future.

Pure Theatre

Williamson Square has been a place of entertainment from the 15th century when it was known as Williamson's Field and was a gathering place for troupes of itinerant jugglers, troubadours and orators.  There were regular complaints to the City Fathers that the entertainment was attracting an unruly element and causing disorderly behaviour ---- a situation which persisted for many years and even up to and beyond the building of the first theatre.

The original Theatre Royal was part of  Williamson Square from 1771 but theatre-goers complained not only of the mud at the entrance but the fights and loutish behaviour of sailors and prostitutes infesting the building and spoiling the entertainment on show ----evidently theatre-going in those days was less than the elegant pastime it is credited with being today.  In 1802, the building was demolished and in its place the distinctive curved lines of the  New Theatre Royal graced Williamson Square attracting thespians from near and far.  

The great Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean appeared on-stage in 1815 and two years later the world famous clown Grimaldi was the star.  Grimaldi's clowning turned to tragedy when his son was killed in a brawl outside the theatre and it was apparent that the square's reputation for violence and disorder had never gone away.  Some years later, a mediocre actor named George Cook is remembered more for his acidic remark in response to being barracked ---a riposte which was all the more cutting for having more than a ring of truth about it.  The actors words have remained memorable far more than any of his performances.  Dripping with venom, Cook's reply to a stunned audience concluded with the words  " Every brick in your dirty town is cemented with a Negro's blood !! "

A very early performance of a play with the distinctive title Captain Driver in Oroonoka was banned because it was said to reflect the conduct of certain Liverpool slave merchants -------this was around the time of the Abolition Bill which was causing much ferment in the town and tempers were high mainly from shipping merchants who stood to lose their very lucrative trade transporting black africans across the Atlantic.

During Victorian times, Dickens, Irving, Paganini and even Blondin, the famed tight-rope walker, all appeared at the New Theatre Royal along with a certain player of the era called Junius Brutus Booth who was famous for his serious acting roles.  


Junius Brutus's son, John Wilkes Booth, later carried on the family tradition for the theatre by assassinating President Lincoln during a performance of Our American Cousins and is remembered for that single role far more than his father's whole career.  Booth bluffed his way into Lincoln's box in Ford's Theatre,  Washington, shooting the great man down, only five days after his momentous victory over the Confederate army, finalised by Lee's surrender.  The deranged assassin then leapt onto the stage brandishing a dagger while exclaiming Brutus's words when he stabbed Caesar  "Sic semper tyrannis" ---"thus die all tyrants".  Booth was cornered ten days later and shot down in his turn.

In 1896, The New Theatre Royal closed down and the building came into the possession of  a different Company altogether, the Union Cold Storage Company which ingeniously converted the old building into a cold storage unit where for many years massive slabs of ice could be seen by anyone who cared to peer into the Arctic- cold rooms.  The ice-house in its turn passed into history when the graceful lines of the old theatre were uncaringly torn down with the workmen complaining of the dust from the clouds of charcoal which had lined the walls to retain the cold.

The Liverpool F.C. outlet now stands on the site, housed in one of those ephemeral 70's buildings of glass and steel which is purely functional and has nothing whatsoever of the character of the building it has superceded.  It contrasts unfavourably with the old buildings still extant in the square.

Herdman's painting of the New Theatre Royal was completed in 1859 and for some reason omits the Star Tavern which would have been on the right-hand side of the canvas.  Herdman rarely missed painting anything of worth but on this occasion his omission could not be rectified when in 1866 the Star Tavern became the Star Music Hall.  For the following twenty years or so, the Star vied with the New Theatre Royal but closed down in 1898, two years after the closure of the New Theatre Royal, leaving the square unusually quiet and without purpose.  

Fortunately, the Star was renovated and re-opened in 1911 as the Playhouse Theatre which today overlooks the square, quietly resisting the encroachment of tasteless tat which passes for architecture these days.  There has been a modern foyer tacked on at the side which is deliberately circular in shape in recognition of the old Theatre Royal.
The Playhouse has had an illustrious history and the famous names that have played there are legion.  It is the oldest repertory theatre in the country.

Looking down Chapel St towards the river is the church of Our Lady and St. Nicholas with the Hargreaves building in the foreground.  The building is circa.1860 and the carved heads of explorers around the building tell that it was originally a shipping office.  This view is very little changed today.

The picture of Chapel St shown here is from the same angle.  St Nicholas' Church is quite recognisable but the buildings in the foreground are the prior to the Hargreaves building.  This picture is around 1829 so the new steeple is in in place on top of the church.

This picture shows James St looking up from the river.  The church at the top of the slope is St Georges church and stood on the exact site where Liverpool Castle once stood.  The massive monument to Queen Victoria now stands on this site.  The Queen Elizabeth 11 Law Courts stand in the background and the circular lines on the paving stones delineate the walls of the old castle.

St.Georges church as it was in 1829.  

This view of Dale St is little changed today.  On the left hand side the corner of the Town Hall is visible and the small street leads to Exchange Flags.  

Exchange Flags was so named because this was where merchants and ship owners gathered to exchange bills of lading.  The magnificent statue of the death of Nelson stands in the centre.  The Flags and the statue are impressive and the wonder is that Herdman chose not to paint them.  The statue of Nelson is often mistakenly attributed to be a monument to the Slave Trade in Liverpool because the dying Nelson is surrounded by four weeping slaves.  However, the "slaves" are merely allegorical, representing the Admiral's four greatest victories.

Another view of Dale St shows what is now Rigsbys public house.  At the time of this painting the site was  where the coaches began their journey to London, traveling of course up and along London road and past the equestrian statue of George the Third.








This engraving of George the Third was done in 1829.  The equestrian statue was originally meant to be erected in Great George's Square in what is now Chinatown but the site was altered at the last minute.  

The statue was raised by public subscription and apart from one or two minor details is an exact copy of the equestrian figure of Marcus Aurelius on the Capitol in Rome.  Most Liverpudlians are more intent on shopping in "the Harrods of the North" { in reality T. J . Hughes department store } which is now in the background than gazing at George the Third.  

One or two of the buildings shown in this picture are still standing and there is one across the road in which the paint is peeling to reveal an old advertisement for toffee which was the inspiration for Everton F.C.'s famous Toffee Lady.

The Municipal building with its mansard roof was nearing completion when this painting was done.  The building is now used as municipal offices and is nearly always in the shade.


The building as a finished entity is rarely seen in all its glory as it seems to be in perennial shade and flanked on all sides by other buildings.  It is notoriously difficult to photograph due to the discrepancies in the light evident in the picture.

This picture of St. Johns Lane shows the road in the foreground as a country lane ---today it is a busy thoroughfare in the centre of town and it is difficult to envisage the rural lane it was then.  The church of St. Johns is the centrepiece of the painting and the walls of St.Georges Hall can just be seen on the right hand side.  


The church cemetery was used as a burial ground for French prisoners of war during the Napoleonic Wars.  The church was demolished in 1898 and St.Johns gardens were landscaped soon afterwards.  

There is a plaque fixed to the rear wall commemorating the French prisoners of war and each year the French ambassador lays a wreath at the foot of the plaque.     






This picture shows St. Johns gardens at the turn of the century, landscaped after the demolition of St. Johns Church.  The trees are still saplings but over the years the gardens have become more and more shaded as the Plane trees grow larger and the Indian Bean trees [ Catalpa Bignoniodes } at the rear of the gardens have grown so large that they overshadow the statues in the summer months.  The centrepiece of the gardens is the monument to the Liverpool Kings Regiment and scattered around are statues of the great and good of the city.

This magnificent painting of St. Georges Hall depicts the centrepiece of what has become Liverpool's Forum.  On the left hand side the church of St. Johns is just visible.  The Hall was built around 1840 and the triangular frieze always dates any picture of this building   ---after 1940 it was never in place.  The frieze was a beautiful neo-Grecian work of art which was removed in 1940 as it was considered to be in danger of falling at that time.  The subsequent fate of the frieze is a little mysterious but the story goes that it was put in storage pending replacement ---- after that the trail goes cold but there are persistent rumours that it was broken into tiny pieces and used as road ballast.  If this is true { and nobody is owning up to wielding the hammer } it ranks high among the annals of municipal vandalism but it would be a nice ending if it turned up in some dusty alcove. 







The traffic in the picture is of course totally different to today and the statue of General Earle is not yet in place although the plinth is there and Queen Victoria's and Albert's equestrian statue are still to be erected and of course the War Monument.  The lions were still in London where they were to form part of a fountain which was never built and an enterprising council decision brought them to Liverpool where they stand today with their mouths slightly agape awaiting the water to pour out which never arrives.  Somebody recently put the lions in metal cages as part of a modern art exhibition but it wasn't popular with a public who thought it was to prevent vandalism.  
There were two huge columns at the front of St. Georges Hall which can be seen in rare pictures and they are extremely imposing.  Why they were taken down and where they are today is a mystery.

William Brown St looking up from Byrom St has a number of old houses still standing.  These  were soon to be replaced by the Technical College and since 2000 the new World Museum.  The World Museum houses many of the artifacts in storage during the war.  In the distance is Wellingtons Column.




Wellington's Column on the left  is at the top of William Brown St and depicts reliefs from Wellington's Peninsula battles.  It can just be seen in the distance in the picture of William Brown st.  There are steps within the column which are barred from public use and are restricted to maintenance staff.


At the base of the column is an original measure of yards in the pavement which were used by the many tailor's shops in London Road to measure their cloth.

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