A great increase has taken place in the value of property in every part of the town. In Castle-street sixty years ago a house and shop could be had for £30 per annum. The premises in which Roscoe’s Bank was carried on, and now occupied by Messrs. Nixon, were purchased by Mr. Harvey who, finding his property remaining unoccupied for so long a time, began to despair of letting it, and grew quite nervous about his bargain. On the formation of Brunswick-street, projected in 1786, this handsome thoroughfare was cut through Smock-alley
and the houses in Chorley-street, and swept away a portion of the old Theatre Royal in Drury-lane; it then ran down to the old Custom-house yard, on the site of which the Goree Piazzas and warehouses were erected. Drury-lane was formerly called Entwhistle-street, after an old and influential family who filled high offices in the town in their day.
Any one can fancy what Castle-street must have been when the market was held in it, by filling Cable-street with baskets of farmers’ produce, and blocking it up with all sorts of provisions and stalls, in which the usual marketable commodities would be exposed for sale.
The introduction of Gas in the town was an immense stride in the march of improvement; yet there were not a few persons who bitterly complained of the Gas Company so often disturbing the streets to enable them to lay down their pipes. Frequent letters appeared in the papers of the time to that effect. Previous to 1817 the town was wretchedly lighted by oil lamps which used to go out upon all trifling occasions and for insufficient reasons. They only pretended to show light at the best of times. The lamps were not lit in summer nor on moonlight nights. They were generally extinguished by four or five o’clock in the morning.
The gentry were at one time attended by
link-men or boys in their night excursions. These links were stiff, tarred ropes about the thickness of a man’s arm. They gave a flaring light with any quantity of bituminous-odoured smoke. In front of one or two of the old houses of Liverpool I have seen a remnant of the link days, in an extinguisher attached to the lamp iron. I think there is (or was) one in Mount Pleasant, near the house with the variegated pebble pavement in front (laid down, by the way, by a blind man). The link-extinguisher was a sort of narrow iron funnel of about six inches in diameter at the widest end. It was usually attached to a lamp-iron, and was used by thrusting the link up it, when the light was to be put out.
People in those days seldom went out at night without a lantern, for what with the ruggedness of the pavements and the vile state of the roads it was by no means safe to life or limb to go without some mode of illuminating the way.
Gas was introduced in 1816 and 1817. Only one side of Castle-street was lighted at first. While we now acknowledge the invaluable introduction of this fluid, when we consider the vast area over which it casts its pleasant and cheerful beams, and the price we also pay for such an unmistakable comfort and blessing, we shall not fail to peruse the first advertisement of the Gas Company with intense interest. With this belief
I insert a copy of it. The rate of charge and the mode of ascertaining the quantity of light consumed cannot but prove curious to us and rather puzzling perhaps to understand.
LIVERPOOL GAS-LIGHT COMPANY.
Scale of Charges per Annum for Burners of various sizes, calculated for lighting to the hours below mentioned:—
Till
8 o’Clock.Till
9 o’Clock.Till
10 o’Clock.Till
11 o’Clock.Till
12 o’Clock.One
Argand.
£ s. d.
£ s. d.
£ s. d.
£ s. d.
£ s. d.No. 1,
3 0 0
3 18 0
4 16 0
5 12 0
6 8 0
No. 2,
2 14 0
3 5 0
4 0 0
4 14 0
5 8 0
No. 3,
2 2 0
2 14 0
3 7 0
3 18 0
4 10 0
One
Batwing.
2 14 0
3 5 0
4 0 0
4 14 0
5 8 0Persons who wish to take the Light, may make application at the Company’s Office, Hatton-garden, where their names will be entered numerically in a Book, and Branch-pipes laid in rotation, the Company only contracting to fix the pipes just within the house, and to supply the Light when the interior is fitted up, and made air-tight and perfect, which must be done by each individual, and approved by the Company’s Engineer.
No extra charge will be made, if the Light be extinguished in a quarter of an hour after the time contracted for, and on Saturday evenings the Company will allow burning till twelve o’clock.
The Rents will be collected at the commencement of each Quarter, and will be apportioned as follows: Two-thirds of the above prices for the two winter quarters, and One-third for the two summer quarters. If the Lights amount, by the above table, to £10 per annum, a Discount of 2½ per cent. will be allowed; if to £20, 5 per cent.; if to £30, 7½ per cent.; if to £40, 10 per cent.; and if to £50, 12½ per cent.
By Order of the Committee,
CHARLES ROWLINSON,
Secretary.6th June, 1817.