The Liverpool of to-day is a city very different from the Liverpool of the 'sixties and 'seventies, indeed it is difficult to recognise them as being one and the same; the streets remain, but they are widened and improved, and their inferior and often squalid surroundings have disappeared; and if our modern architecture is not always of the best, our new buildings at least impart dignity and importance. Shaw's Brow, with its rows of inferior, dingy shops, a low public-house at the corner of each street, has given way to William Brown Street, adorned on one side by our Museum, Libraries, Art Gallery, and Sessions House, and the other by St. George's Hall and St. John's Gardens. The rookeries which clustered round Stanley Street, and were occupied by dealers in old clothes and secondhand furniture, have been replaced by Victoria Street, which is margined by banks and public buildings. The terrible slums which surrounded the Sailors' Home and Custom House, veritable dens of iniquity, have disappeared.
Drawn by William P. Herdman.]
North Side of Shaw's Brow,
NOW WILLIAM BROWN STREET.
Drawn by William P. Herdman.]
South Side of Shaw's Brow,
NOW WILLIAM BROWN STREET.
The dirty ill-paved town is now the best paved and the best scavenged town in the United Kingdom. With the growth of the town and the extension of tramways, residential Liverpool has been pushed further out until it can get no further, and it is now finding its way into Cheshire. No private dwelling-house of any importance has been erected on the Liverpool side for many years. The charming suburb of Aigburth has long since been destroyed, but the greatest change has taken place in the docks. The old docks have had to be remodelled to give sufficient depth of water and quay space for the larger vessels now employed, and special docks have had to be constructed for the Atlantic steamship trade. In the 'sixties the Prince's dock was filled with sailing ships trading to India and the West Coast of South America. They discharged on the west side and loaded on the east side. It was quite a common thing for a sailing vessel to occupy four and five weeks loading her outward cargo. On the walls of the docks and on the rigging of the ships, posters were displayed notifying that the well-known clipper ship ——, A1 at Lloyd's, would sail for Calcutta or Bombay, and giving the agent's name, etc.
At the south end of the Prince's dock was the George's basin, a tidal basin through which ships going into the Prince's or George's dock entered. I remember seeing one of Brocklebank's Calcutta ships, the "Martaban," enter this basin under sail; it was done very smartly, and the way in which the canvas was taken in and the sails clewed up and furled, was a lesson in seamanship. The George's dock was dedicated to schooners, mostly fruiterers from Lisbon or the Azores, and during the herring season fishing boats used to discharge in one corner, the fish girls going down planks to get on board to buy their fish. The Mariners' church, an old hulk in which Divine Service was held every Sunday, occupied another corner.