Liverpool a few years since: by an old stager

There must be many old stagers still surviving amongst us who can remember the two managers of the Theatre Royal, Messrs. Knight and Lewis. The latter was the father of Mr. Thom...

Our shops frequented by the fashionables were “few and far between” in those old times. We had not then reached the bustling age of competition, colossal plate-glass windows, an...

An election was an election, indeed, in those days. It was not merely a rush to the hustings for a few short hours, and then all over. There was no getting the lead by ten o’clo...

We have spoken in a former chapter of the oil lamps, which, “few and far between,” just made darkness visible, and of the old watchmen, who were supposed or not supposed to be t...

Whether we consider the magnificence of its estate, the amount of its revenue, or the extent of its influence, the Liverpool Corporation might ever be compared to a German princ...

The Church, in the days we are speaking of, was in a very torpid and sleepy state, not only in Liverpool, but throughout the land. None of the evangelical clergy had then appear...

The two rectors of those old days were the Rev. Samuel Renshaw and the Rev. R. H. Roughsedge. They were both men past the meridian of life, at the earliest period to which our r...

Travelling was both a difficult and a dangerous operation in former days. We do not know when a direct communication by coach between Liverpool and London was first established;...

Some people have very strange notions of the duties of the historian and the biographer. They fancy that our part is to suppress or distort the truth, and to substitute flattery...

It would be a strange picture of “Liverpool a few years since” which did not exhibit Mr. (afterwards Sir) John Gladstone in the foreground of the canvas. He had, in those early...

Among the great West Indian merchants of the days we are writing of, we must not forget to place the James and France families. The representative of the latter resides at Bosto...

A little back from Water-street, between it and St. Nicholas’s Church, stood an ancient Tower in those days. It was one of the remaining antiquities of Liverpool. It had origina...

Liverpool society, like that of every other place, has always been divided into sets; how formed, by what mysterious line separated into divisions and sub-divisions, and section...

We spoke, in the last chapter, of St. George’s as the church which the mayor and corporation always attended. Once, when Mr. Jonas Bold was Mayor, it happened that Prince Willia...

In our last chapter we mentioned the names of some of the wits and illustrious in jest of whom Liverpool could boast a few years since. We now descend the scale, to speak of a c...

In Mount Pleasant lived, in those good old times, Sir George Dunbar, the representative of an ancient race in Scotland, and a model gentleman, both in appearance and manners. He...

In Rodney-street, likewise, lived Fletcher Raincock, one of the most remarkable characters of his day. He had few equals in a legal capacity, and no superiors in literary attain...

He who undertakes to be the chronicler of Liverpool society at the commencement, and in the early years, of the present century, must not forget to mention the old and respectab...

A little higher up than Colonel Bolton’s, but on the same side of Duke-street, stood the noble palace mansion of Moses Benson, one of the merchant princes of the old times of wh...

We spoke, in our last chapter, of the false alarms by which the soldiers forming our garrison were once or twice called together in the night, to try their zeal and alacrity; an...

But the peace of which we spoke in our last chapter was nothing but a hollow and armed truce, which gave both parties time to breathe for a few months. England was suspicious. N...

We spoke of the old guardship, the “Princess,” in our last chapter. Many and many a time have we walked on her deck, until we thought that we ourselves might grow into a Nelson,...

We have already said that, in the days of which we are speaking, the Cheshire side of the Mersey, now bridged to us by steam, was a _terra incognita_ to the general inhabitants...

But when the war, at the beginning of the century, was renewed with Napoleon, the preparations against him were not confined to the water. We had not only our guardship in the r...

This little volume has been twice published, and this issue of it is in ready response to the “third time of asking” by an appreciating public, largely, as we imagine, made up o...

We are not great at statistics. We do not pretend to be accurate to an hour in dates, chronology, and so forth. We write, indeed, entirely from memory, and therefore may perhaps...

Old Coaches. Macadam. Coachmen. The Umpire. The 164 Bang-up. Pleasures of travelling on the old roads. Hours kept by our grandfathers and grandmothers. Visiting. Sedan Chairs. R...