Stop thinking about Illuminati and unicorns you buggers. I can’t compete with that!
0 Comments
No, not Dylan Thomas again, but the beginning of the blog. I promised when I started to go a little way into the researching and writing of a book, and I’ve got a little sidetracked recently with facts. So, following your week of land leases ( lovely wasn’t it?), we shall now be having a week of writing. It’s more interesting than you imagine.
Unless you’re imagining the Illuminati and unicorns. If you’re imagining me talking about Illuminati and unicorns then yes, it may be less interesting. Not uninteresting, but less interesting. I’ll give you that. In addition to his work with Dr Duncan on public health and eradicating cholera, his time in the Crimea working on a sanitary commission alongside Florence Nightingale, and his invaluable work as Borough Engineer, Mr James Newlands ( 18a Abercromby Square, 1868-71) was also an author of textbooks. The Carpenter and Joiner's Assistant went through countless editions from 1869 onwards, becoming and then remaining a standard textbook on the subject for over a hundred years. Newlands was a real Renaissance man, painter, flautist, author, engineer, carpenter, architect and sometime chemist. I’ll be including a significant amount on this gentleman in the book. Because leases were granted in natural lifetimes plus years, leaseholders would take out contracts as executors on behalf of children, as shown below in the 1816 lease taken out by Hollinshead on behalf of ten year old Tom Gladstone.
Got a bit distracted there, almost started writing the book. My point is, the leaseholders of the Square were in main the elite landholders. But when you read of the plots of land held by the Earles or the Littledales for example, they were frequently different plots to those the leasholders lived in themselves.
Littledales lived at number 4 for example, but owned plots and houses on the South and North of the Square as well. So you can't assume a land lease related to the occupant. A further difficulty comes in the lessees themselves. There were a number of reasons for this which I'll cover fully in the book, but a major one was the new Botanic Garden at the top of Oxford Street. Built in 1802, and a part of the MossLake fields development, the Botanic Garden was a wonder of the town, and for a while the major tourist attraction all visitors would be taken to.
Immediately before the gates travelling up Oxford Street was a freshly laid out Square and gardens, reputedly the equal of those in London. And the merchants and mighty of the town who wanted to be admired wanted to be there. And be seen. By 1820 the West side was already partly occupied, and once one powerful or influential man moves in, others swifty follow. Build it, and they will come. I'm currently slogging through land leases and records for the early years of the Square, which is a fascinating but frustrating process. In the early years of the nineteenth century even the richest residents would more frequently rent rather than buy town properties in Liverpool.
Part of the reason for this was the fluctuating fortunes of people, and the need for relatively easy mobility. This was especially relevant in the early years of the 1900s. Liverpool began as a very small town of just a few streets by the river, but the expanding fortunes of the town mean a rapid expansion of residential areas, and most importantly for the very image conscious well-off who lived in the town centre, the relocation of the most fashionable people. Over the course of a hundred years this quickly moved from near the Exchange itself outwards, through Hanover Street, Duke Street, and Rodney Street, where a number of the luminaries of Abercromby Square were born. Even though the Gladstones and Henry Booth were born on the newly built and fashionable Rodney Street, within twenty years it had ceased to be the place to be. And the subject of my study took over. |
Archives
March 2024
Categories |