1807: Roper & Cole
I’m often drawn to this era in Liverpool’s history. If I could go back in time to some point in the town’s development (perhaps with the exception of witnessing the Calderstones in use), then this would be right up there.
Liverpool had been a parish of its own (emerging from under the wing of Walton-on-the-Hill) for over a century. But it was only just on the cusp of its transformation from town to city.
It was around this time that Liverpool put on a growth spurt. The earliest suburbs were starting to differentiate themselves from the city centre. But the docks were still in their relative infancy (there are only ten basins on this map), and gardens rubbed shoulders with roperies.
This map captures this process in full swing.
Click the buttons with this icon to zoom to that part of the map.
A Beauty of England (and Wales)
The engraved words around the edge of the map tell us who produced this map and when. One G. Cole made an original drawing, from which J. Roper made the engraving. The map was produced for a book, The Beauties of England and Wales, Vol IX, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, published in 1807 by Vernor, Hood & Sharpe, booksellers of Poultry, London (old map).
The main decoration is an engraving of St Paul’s Church, which once stood in St Paul’s Square, just to the west of the railway as it enters Exchange Station. The unbuilt portions of Liverpool, even where depicted between dense streets, is a wonderful green colour.
In the top centre is a slightly simplified version of Liverpool’s coat of arms. There are two liver birds (OK, maybe cormorants), one with wings aloft and the other looking more relaxed. They are flanked by Neptune and Triton holding flags of another liver cormorant and a ship respectively.
Liverpool landmarks
There is a very useful list of landmarks in the top right, which name the correspondingly numbered buildings.
You’ll now see that there are some interesting groups of buildings scattered across the town.
In place of perhaps the greatest Liverpool building, St George’s Hall, are the Seaman’s Hospital, the Infirmary, and St John’s Church. Many will already be aware of the church that once stood in St John’s Gardens (on St John’s Lane!), but the other buildings are less well-known.
The Infirmary is essentially one of the forerunners of the great Liverpool medical institutes like the Royal Liverpool University Hospital and the Royal Infirmary, and opened in 1749. The Seaman’s Hospital was run for the benefit of former mariners who had fallen on hard times, including their families. It was part funded by sailors departing from the port itself, according to John M. Wilson in his The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870)
Institutions on the future site of St George’s Hall
Birth of the institutional landscape
Liverpool’s ‘university quarter’ is one of its more well-known areas, full of famous institutions, cultural landmarks and its two cathedrals.
When this map was made, the foundations were being laid for this ‘institutional landscape’, with the workhouse on Brownlow Hill, a correctional institute and a fever ward nearby. Alms houses were not far away on Hope Street. This is the edge of the town in 1807, with St James Walk (where the Anglican Cathedral would one day stand) being essentially in the countryside.
The ‘institutional landscape’ only just beginning to take shape on Brownlow Hill
Another age
On the river front, gardens rub shoulders with roperies on Wapping. Ladies Walk, which Picton noted was once a romantic and tree-lined lane, is at the end of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal with its industry. And there is a fort and barracks on the Mersey, reflecting international tensions and the threat of a French invasion.
Signs of the times: barracks and a public bath house
Further reading
The publishers of this map, Vernor, Hood & Sharpe, have quite a history: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol1/pp416-424 (accessed 15th Feb 2022)