The International
 Shipperies Exhibition

A Massive Undertaking

The Liverpool Mercury always had delusions of grandeur, manifesting itself in self-righteous monologues in one paragraph to patronising diatribes in another, but the impending arrival of Queen Victoria sent the whole newspaper into the literary equivalent of a swoon.  Months before her arrival there were small articles which grew bigger as the time grew nearer, rising to a crescendo of jingoism in the week before. 
 
The reason for her visit was to formally open the International Shipperies Exhibition in May, 1886, to be held in Wavertree Park ( Botanic Park to many ).  The Queen was no stranger to Exhibitions and had opened the greatest of them all to date which was the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in 1851.  She had taken a special interest in that one because her Prince Consort, Albert had been a prime mover in its inception.  Napoleon the Third and Eugenie had visited the Crystal Palace and he was so impressed that he immediately ordered that Paris should hold her own Exhibition which was held in 1855 on the Champs Elysees.  Paris became fascinated by the idea of Exhibitions and began to have one after the other, culminating in the greatest of them all in 1889 when the Eiffel Tower was the centre of attraction.  The cities of the British Empire had also taken up the idea with Toronto holding an Exhibition in 1878 and others were in as far flung parts of the Empire as Delhi.  Even the United States began to take an interest and in 1893, the Chicago Exhibition had as its centre-piece the Ferris Wheel. The main idea of these Exhibitions was to celebrate the achievements of the particular country which was holding them, to showcase the latest scientific inventions and to promote trade between participating countries but in England there was also a grander scheme which was to celebrate and bring together the countries of the Empire. The Liverpool Exhibition boasted every element of a successful Exhibition and an added attraction was the arrival on the Mersey of  Brunel's The Great Eastern which could be boarded by sightseers who little knew they would be some of the last to see the great ship.  It was only two years later that it could be seen on the Mersey as a sad hulk awaiting the scrap yard.  

 The highlight of the Queen's visit was of course the opening ceremony of the International Exhibition of Navigation, Travel, Commerce and Manufacture, shortened by most people to the Shipperies Exhibition.  The Exhibition was adjacent to and overlooking Wavertree Park and its Botanic Gardens and the combined effect of the Exhibition and an established and scintillating gardens was stunning.  For anyone who had never previously visited the area the effect could have been nothing less than overwhelming and could not have been covered in a day.  The amount of work required to bring the Exhibition to fruition was staggering and even before any aesthetic work could be done the preliminary work was overwhelming.  There was firstly the little matter of purchasing the land which was in the ownership of the inhabitants of Edge Lane Hall and the estate which had fallen into disuse.  Plans to demolish the house were shelved and it remained as part of the Exhibition.  An unexpected turn of events was the soft ground which was too marshy to maintain the Exhibition Hall and no less than 2,000,000 bricks were cemented as footings.  The Pavilion itself was the centre-piece of the show and in what amounted to an incredibly bold decision the Exhibition organisers decided to purchase the gigantic Antwerp International Exhibition Hall.  The iron framework and tons of glass were duly transported by ship to Liverpool docks from Antwerp but not before several pieces of ironwork were lost overboard in a gale. The ship was lucky to survive the battering and the whole adventure could have literally foundered there and then but after a collective sigh of relief the building finally reached the showground.  The building had a "Crystal-Palace" look about it and many of the exhibits were to be housed within its cavernous interior.  There was a road built which traversed Edge Lane to Wavertree Road { called Exhibition road ---the art-deco Littlewooods building stands where the road was built } and a temporary railway station built next to a new rail-line.  The infrastructure was coming together and like many another similar project momentum was gathering and after the initial set-backs had been met head-on and overcome there was no stopping it.  Several European countries were main contributors and the rail system was the key to transporting the exhibits ---as such several European governments cut the carriage rates to accommodate the vast amount of materials being carried and to help in such a prestigious undertaking.  Once the framework of the "Crystal-Palace" had been put in place and the thousands of glass panes inserted  everything else began to fall into place around its stupendous 100 foot high domes.


The show-ground was to be filled with what the Liverpool Mercury called "a heterogeneous aggregation of exhibits" but what we would call an eclectic collection of exhibits and displays celebrating Liverpool's great maritime heritage as its theme. As the day drew nearer,  the Liverpool Mercury's coverage grew longer and more detailed but they weren't above a little snippet of gossip here and there although it was a far cry from today's screaming headlines.  In between descriptions of the Royal train at Edge Hill, they happened to mention that the Queen would be accompanied by the brother of John Brown and that the Queen was now aged 67.



Queen to L7

The Exhibition was to be formally opened by the Queen in person and she was to spend three days as a guest of the city.  As one of the foremost cities of the Empire and one of the greatest ports in the world the visit of the Queen was a unique accolade and set the seal not only upon the Exhibition but all that Liverpool stood for in the Victorian canon.  It was also a personal triumph for the Lord Mayor, David Radcliffe, whose energy and foresight had instigated the whole thing and it earned him the title Sir David Radcliffe during the Queen's visit.  The Queen's home during her stay was Newsham House on Judges Drive within the rural setting of Newsham Park where she had the unique experience of listening to a concert from a theatre in the city via the cutting edge invention called the telephone ---the listener was called an" ear- witness".  Just a short distance away on the other side of the park the Queen paid a visit to the Seamen's Orphanage.  The orphanage is a massive building, erected in 1874, and its very size is a testament to Liverpool's heavy involvement with the sea and the price many paid with their lives.  There was an embarrassing moment for the matron when the ritual of signing the visitors book came around ---the Queen of course was accustomed to signing such things and signed as usual "Queen Victoria" followed by her titles which made quite a long list.  The matron signed on a line further down with the one word "Fanny" which was her Christian name.  The Queen was reported to have found this highly amusing and so did everyone else when the Mercury dutifully reported the incident.  The orphanage today has fallen into disuse.  Its original purpose is thankfully redundant and the building stands for all the world like a prisoner in the dock awaiting sentence. 

 

Victoria began the opening ceremony in front of the imposing St.Georges Hall where a crowd of thousands were gathered.  Most of the crowd had umbrellas raised but despite the rain, the Queen drove in an open carriage, past the cheering crowds, past the Wellington Monument, turning up London Road and onto Princes Park, driving past Edge Hill and onto the main entrance along the newly built Exhibition road.  The main entrance was half-way along Botanic road where she was met by the Band of The Grenadier Guards playing Rule Britannia.   The words of the tune escaped most people but even if they had noticed " Britons never, never, never will be slaves" they would have been completely oblivious to the ironies of how and why Liverpool had such a scintillating maritime history.  A Wavertree man,  Mr O.Connor had designed an ingenious key which Chubb had engineered in gold and presented free of charge to the city.  The Queen was formally presented with the key and no doubt Mr O'Connor had some anxious moments as she turned it in its lock to open all twelve gates to the main building at one time.


The Shipperies Exhibition

By this time the Liverpool Mercury had gone into raptures and having seen the Exhibition in all its glory one journalist was inspired to give out the following advice ;
" By the expenditure of a few shillings the busy artisan or labourer who lives at a distance may transport himself and his family from his place of toil to where the accumulated treasures of the Exhibition, together with its auxiliary amusements are open to them."
The queen was then escorted around the showground with its maritime theme well represented within the setting of the fabulous gardens and parkland and the first thing she would have seen would have been the life-size copy of the Eddystone Lighthouse, 170 feet tall. Within the same context, the rowing boat that Grace darling and her father carried out their famous rescue was also on show. Grace Darling was a lighthouse keeper's daughter on the Farne Islands, off the coast of Scotland.  When the Forfarshire was wrecked in a great storm in the winter of 1831, a number of survivors were stranded on rocks and in immediate danger of being washed away by the heavy seas.  Grace and her father twice rowed across and took off the survivors in their small boat ----- a measure of their courage is that the  storm was so fierce that the lifeboat was unable to be launched.  Grace's exploits immediately captured the imagination of the public, Wordsworth was moved to write a poem in her praise and she was elevated to the  sisterhood of Victorian heroines and became a household name throughout the era. 
 

There were numerous maritime inventions on show and a local man Mr. W.S. Roberts of 57 Deane Road ( just a stone's throw from the showground ) had on display his Spontaneous Boat Release mechanism which was universally acclaimed for its combination of simplicity and ingenuity.  the Austrian entry of a Signalling Apparatus was so acclaimed as to be bought by several countries for use in their ships.  The number and quality of the inventions were reported to be of great interest to the numerous seamen who attended the show.
Most of the non sea-going fraternity would have been more interested in the exhibits representing countries from around the Empire which were as exotic as they were unattainable --for every mariner who had travelled the world there were a hundred "artisans" who would never travel further than New Brighton and London might as well been on the moon.  The Liverpool Mercury was also impressed by the representatives from around the world and went into detail about the African village and its elephants, camels, bulls etc.  There was a gypsy encampment, Ashanti village, an African village, and so on and it seems that the public were encouraged to enter each of the dwellings where they could mix with the natives and imagine life as it was lived around the globe.  For anyone in any doubt, the Liverpool Mercury explained it all ;
"One can visit the habitations of Asiatics,  Africans and Laplanders and living temporarily in either of these may imitate Elia in the whimsical humour which enabled him at will to become somebody else"



The show was ahead of its time in encouraging customer participation and the rides which were available were favourites with adults and children alike. The "captive balloon" was the largest ride ascending to a maximum of 250 feet while the elephant and camel rides were for the less adventurous and the Canadian toboggan ride was positively hair-raisingly fast.  The Mercury was fascinated by the rides and went into great detail about them all but seemed to be particularly attached to transport pulled by human beings with the following observation on the African representative ;
"Covered hammocks of African origin, the bearers of which are negroes who although of low stature possess remarkable physical powers of endurance".

The same journalist was less specific upon the subject of rickshaws and reported vaguely ;
"But what it will be asked is a Rickshaw ride.  Well it is a sort of perambulator for grown-up persons and it came from Japan".
After some thought his editor decided not to enter him for the Pulitzer that year.

It was worth visiting the show to see the superb floral displays and gardens alone and these had been further enhanced by the participation of various horticultural firms who were anxious to show off their wares within such a prestigious setting.  Electric lighting was still a source of wonder and apart from "transforming the exhibits into a Fairyland" the exhibitors were able to work long into the night.  Messrs Dickson and Son who boasted the title "The Queen's seedsmen" were given the task of decorating much of the showground and used traditional bedding schemes with flower displays and plants in containers while Messrs James Samuelson who sold nuts took the opportunity to display a tree or shrub pertaining to each nut.  Mr G. Hutchinson who sold fruit, did exactly the same thing and against each fruit was shown its relevant tree or shrub.

But it wasn't just the horticultural firms who took the opportunity to advertise ; Isaac Dixon and Co of  The Windsor Ironworks had its offices and factory in Spekeland road which was just across Picton road and literally two minutes away.  Iron was very much in vogue at that time and Dixon's impressive boast was that they could build anything of iron and transport it anywhere and gave examples of their work.  On the face of it, there wouldn't seem to be a great demand for such buildings but strangely enough, it was a very lucrative trade at the time, in places where there was a distinct lack of building materials.  Dixon's had built their factory adjacent to the railway station and they transported and built in situ  prefabricated iron buildings anywhere in the country.  One of their main outlets was in the north of Scotland and there are several buildings built by Dixons still standing.  There was no lack of competition and several other firms throughout the country offered the same service.  The Concert Pavilion in Caernarvon, holding 10,000 people seems to be their most impressive building but the range and variety are astonishing.  There's no sign now in Spekeland Road that Dixons ever existed and they vanished as quickly as the fashion in iron buildings.



There were of course adverts for overseas travel and the posters are fascinating for the number of ships available, the prices and one of them The Vancouver is " lighted by electric light" .  Some of the ships have separate bathrooms for men and women and there are assisted passages for agricultural labourers and their families, also to domestic servants.



A Victorian Melodrama

The name William Cross appears throughout the annals of the showground and always in connection with animals and birds.  It seems that all the animal and bird imports were managed by Mr Cross who also advertised throughout the show of his firm in Earle St in the city centre which boasted it was "the largest importer of wild beasts, birds and reptiles in the world" and one advert states that he imported no less than 80,000 parrots each and every year.  This is an astonishing figure by any standards and Mr. Cross seems to be bent on single-handedly altering the ecology of the planet.  His advertisement and work stand out as an indictment of the monumental arrogance shown towards animal and bird life at that time.

There's a lot to admire about the Victorians, not least their energy, their can-do philosophy, their initiative and their invention.  Their architecture was bold, their literature renowned and their art was innovative.  But when it came to the natural world they rampaged across the planet with no thought whatseover for ecology and a complete disregard for flora and fauna wherever they found it.  The Victorians were great collectors and in their day they made Great Britain into one huge attic full of everything of interest the world had to offer.  Tiger skins from India, Marbles from Greece, statues from Rome, mummies from Egypt, butterflies from South America, birds from Africa,  orchids from New Guinea, insects, rocks, plants, paintings and on and on ----- it wasn't enough to look or even touch, they had to possess.  It was a national obsession to stuff, pin, exhibit and gloat over whatever took their fancy.  They killed and removed and trapped anything and everything with no thought for the damage they were doing---their philosophy was to take it no matter what and ship it home no matter how and if any proof is needed of their profligacy it can be seen in every museum and stately home throughout the country.
The strange thing about their lack of sensitivity for other living creatures is that it occurred when the world was awakening to the wonders of the world around us and naturalists such as Buffon and Lamarck and Agassiz were showing how ecology affects us all.  Stranger still, is that arguably the greatest Victorian of them all, Charles Darwin was actively extolling the wonders of the natural world in a manner which David Attenborough would have understood and applauded.

The complete disregard for the natural world by the Victorians was not unique and was certainly carried out by others throughout the world but what was unique was the Victorian's reason for the damage they caused.  That reason was simply a child-like obsession to  possess whatever took their fancy and in that way they encouraged such people as William Cross who would have no doubt had to resort to other work in the absence of their obsessive desires.

Even as late as the 1950's, animal life was being treated with an arrogant disregard.  There was a pet-shop at the top of Smithdown road for many years which sold animals in conditions which would not be allowed today with the main attraction being a number of chimpanzees in the window on display.  One of the most unthinkingly cruel acts in those days was the purchase of tortoises as pets.  They could be bought at any pet shop in their dozens, they cost half-a-crown and nearly every family had one.  The mortality rate in the winter was nearly 100% as nobody could maintain enough heat to keep them alive and worse still another batch came in the shops in spring to replenish those that had died.  There was no overt cruelty involved ---in fact most people were caring and thoughtful about their exotic pets but the fact is that just like the Victorians we were taking from nature with no thought for the environment.


Aftermath

The Crystal-Palace which had cost so much and was so impressive was possibly a source of contention with Dixon's Ironworks who could claim with some justification that they could have built a new one for far less cost with the added advantage of being across the road.  Strangely, and for no apparent reason, the Crystal-Place had been dismantled by 1900 and stranger still, Dixon's Windsor Ironworks of Spekeland Road were commissioned to build a new one to be called The Tournament Hall which they duly carried out as required.   The Tournament hall was similar to the iron and glass building it replaced and housed 15.000 spectators.  Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show played there in 1903 to full houses and local shopkeepers became used to serving Sioux warriors and cowboys who wandered up and down Wavertree Road in their spare time.  Bishop Chavasse had asked Bill if he would entertain an open-air Sunday Service and so a motley collection of Cowboys, Indians and Congregationists all found themselves singing Onward Christian Soldiers, Rock of Ages, O, God Our Help in Ages Past and many others.  Inevitably, the rain came down but the Service still took place with the Indians in particular taking a great interest in this strange but invigorating form of worship.

Buffalo Bill and The Wild West Show was on its second visit to the city, having previously played at Shiel Park, over the road from Newsham House in 1891.  There were 350 boys and girls at this show from the Bluecoat Hospital School who had been allowed in free as a goodwill gesture.   The star of the show was Annie Oakley " Little Sure Shot" but she was rivalled by the appearance of a horse called Untamed which nobody could ride and had allegedly killed three men. 
In actual fact, Buffalo Bill had paid a visit to Liverpool in December 1887 not as a showman but as a tourist.  Playing in Manchester, Buffalo Bill took the train to Lime St Station accompanied by several of his Indians, Mexicans, Cowboys and others.  He hardly travelled incognito and was welcomed by a crowd of 30, 000 cheering Liverpudlians who followed him everywhere.  The whole company went to see a play called Shadows of a Great City on the Court Theatre and returned on the same day having been assured that if they ever played Liverpool then they would be assured of an enthusiastic reception.
There is an oral tradition that persists to this day that anyone who had visited the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show had seen Sitting Bull but although it's a nice story it has no foundation in fact whatsoever.  The great chief did work in the show it's true but for one season only in 1886 when the show toured America and never left its shores.  Apparently, Sitting Bull was a great success and everyone wanted to see the victor of so many battles but he declined the offer to stay with the show and tour Europe.  It was a fatal mistake for the great chief as he voluntarily returned to the reservation where he was killed in suspicious circumstances in 1890.  The source of the misunderstanding is that Sitting Bull's son was taken to be the iconic chieftain himself and given that his name was Young Sitting Bull it's easy to see where the confusion arose.

Buffalo Bill would have got along with the Victorians quite well ---apart from killing Indians in hand-to-hand knife fights 
{ Yellow Hand was the victim } his efforts to single-handedly  make the buffalo extinct were prodigious.  To be fair to Buffalo Bill in later life he was horrified at the thought that he had contributed to the near extinction of the American Bison and his treatment of the whole tribe of Indians within the show is nothing but exemplary.  But some people never change and in May 1888 before the show was due to return to America there was an auction of unwanted animals and there at the front with his hand held high was none only but Mr William Cross who bought 1 Buffalo, 4 Elk and 1 Bear.

 In 1925, the site of the Shipperies Exhibition had altered dramatically --- Edge Lane Hall had been demolished in 1912 and the grounds were all but derelict.  The City Council were looking for somewhere to house their fleet of brand new trams and Dixon's Tournament Hall was deemed unsuitable for the purpose and so yet another historic building, a mere 35 years old, fell to the bulldozers.  In its place a vaguely art-deco, purpose-built tram sheds was erected consisting of an iron framework and a great deal of glass --- strangely reminiscent of the Tournament Hall.  This  eventually became the bus depot after the sad demise of the trams.  Everybody except the City Council mourned the axing of the tram system and even today there are aficionados who weep at the mention of the Green Goddesses which were swept away in the manner of the Overhead Railway.  A little vision would have seen both institutions retained and in use today, no matter what the authorities say.  The abiding nostalgia for the trundling trams meant nothing compared to creating a bus network and the site eventually became the biggest bus depot in Europe during the 1950's.   The building was finally demolished in its turn in the 1990's and in the space of just 100 years three iconic buildings had been built and demolished on the same site.  The area now stands derelict awaiting its latest incarnation which may even be an iron framework and a glass surround.

The International Shipperies Exhibition was a resounding success.  it opened on May 11th 1886 and remained open until  8th November of the same year.  The number of visitors throughout the show was a staggering 2. 6 million and an equally astonishing 450,000 exhibitors.  It was a celebration of Liverpool and the Empire at a time when both remained in all their pomp but Edge Hill and Liverpool 7 would never again reach such heady heights and would fall into a slow, inexorable decline.

The Exhibitions around the world are a fascinating subject in their own right and as time went on they became more and more sophisticated, no doubt engendered by the rivalry which existed between countries holding them.  The Paris Exhibition held by Napoleon the Third was to rebound upon him in an unexpected manner as the wealth and creativity of French science was supplemented by a parade of the strength of the French military.  Napoleon just could not resist the temptation to exhibit the cream of French arms ---unfortunately, the Emperor Wilhelm of Prussia was in the audience and his realisation that the French army was years out of date led directly to Napoleon's downfall at Sedan in 1870.  The later French Exhibition of 1889 left a far better legacy with the Eiffel Tower still proudly symbolic of French ingenuity, the Petit Palais and the Grand Palais recently renovated and many sculptures and fountains still scattered throughout the city.  The centre-piece of the Chicago Exhibition was Ferris's wonderful feat of engineering the Ferris wheel and his legacy is often reproduced throughout the world, most recently with The London Eye.  The Toronto Exhibition still has a monumental, sculptured frontage to its business park.  There is nothing of value whatsoever to recall the International Shipperies Exhibition and it might never have taken place but for two reminders ----- a pub in Holt road called The Shiipperies and a frieze on the front of the Picton Library.

The frieze on the façade of the Library is a relief showing Queen Victoria in her carriage on her way to the Exhibition and surrounded by officials and a mounted guard.  It is a beautifully sculpted work of art but is so far away and high up that very few people take notice.  The frieze on the other frontage of the building is a sculpture of the handing over of the city's charter.