PROGRESS AND REFORM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Twenty years before steam locomotives were used to draw passenger trains
over the earliest railways in Cheshire, a steam packet boat had been
built to ply between Liverpool and the Cheshire port of Runcorn. This
boat was called simply 'The Steam Boat', and was the first steamer ever
seen in the River Mersey. The sailing packets were frequently becalmed,
but the new ship could make her voyage in all weathers.
A number of steam-tugs were built soon afterwards to tow the big
sailing-ships that entered the Mersey to the ports to which they were
bound, and the first steam ferry-boat crossed the Mersey from Liverpool
to Tranmere. In a few years the Cheshire shore of the Mersey was lined
with docks and quays at Birkenhead, Seacombe, Woodside, Tranmere, and
Eastham. At the last-named port Liverpool passengers could get on the
coach for Chester and the midland towns.
In 1819, the year in which Queen Victoria was born, the Savannah, the
first steamship that crossed the Atlantic, was seen in the River Mersey.
The Savannah took twenty-eight days over the passage, lowering by many
days the record of the fastest sailing-vessels hitherto. This was
thought a great feat in those days, but the huge 'ocean greyhounds' that
the boys and girls of Wirral see riding at anchor off Birkenhead, now
make four or five crossings in the same period of time.
Just as Crewe owes its rapid rise to the coming of the railways, so
Birkenhead's prosperity dates from the beginnings of steam navigation.
Both of these towns are growths of the nineteenth century. At the
beginning of the century Birkenhead was a small village of less than a
hundred inhabitants. It is now Cheshire's greatest town, and contains a
population of more than 100,000, or, if we include the populous suburbs
which have sprung up on either side of it, nearly twice this number.
[Illustration: BIRKENHEAD & THE MERSEY]
The old village clustered round its ruined priory, which is still in the
heart of the modern town. A triangular piece of land, now covered by the
streets of New Brighton, Liscard, Wallasey, and Seacombe, was cut off
from Birkenhead and the rest of Wirral by a broad and swampy river
called Wallasey Pool. Mr. Laird, the founder of the famous shipbuilding
company of that name, bought some land on the edge of the Pool. He saw
that here was a firstrate place for dockyards and wharves, which would
be protected from south-westerly gales by the natural rampart of Bidston
Hill and the high ground of Oxton.
In a few years Wallasey Pool was turned into a huge basin capable of
holding hundreds of big ocean-going ships. In the 'Great Float', as this
basin is now called, you may see ships of every nation. Twenty pairs of
lockgates connect it with the Mersey, and there are ten miles of quays
with a network of quay railways laid along them.
The big ship-building yards of Messrs. Cammell and Laird give employment
to many hundreds of the working-men of Birkenhead. Here are built some
of our largest merchant vessels, as well as ships for the British Navy,
chiefly gunboats and torpedo boat destroyers. One of the Lairds was
Birkenhead's first member of Parliament. You may see his statue in front
of the Birkenhead Town Hall.
Two other men whose names are closely linked with the shipping of the
Mersey will always be remembered by the people of Wirral. William Inman
and Thomas Ismay were the founders of fleets of ocean liners. With a
portion of the wealth that he derived from his business, Inman built
churches for the villages of Upton and Moreton. Ismay lived at Dawpool
Hall, and is buried in the churchyard of Thurstaston.
The first street-tramway in Europe was laid along the streets of
Birkenhead, from Woodside Ferry to the Park, by an American called
Train. The cars were built at Birkenhead, and drawn by horses; the
length of the line was less than two miles. Now tram routes are spread
all over Eastern Wirral, and are to be found in the streets of all
large towns. But the horses are gone, and the cars are now driven by the
cheaper and more serviceable method of electricity. Our tram-cars are
one of the greatest conveniences in the busy life of a town.
Prior to the year 1832 Chester was the only Cheshire town which had its
own members of Parliament. The county returned two members, one for the
north division and the other for the south. The big manufacturing towns
which had increased so rapidly in size and population had no
representatives, while numbers of small towns and villages in other
parts of England returned one and sometimes even two members to the
House of Commons. The workers of the busy industrial districts felt that
this was very unfair, and demanded to be allowed to be represented.
After a long struggle Reform Bills were passed, and now Stockport is
allowed to choose two members, and Stalybridge and Birkenhead one each.
The number of county members has also been increased from two to eight,
one from each of eight divisions, to which the names Hyde, Macclesfield,
Altrincham, Knutsford, Crewe, Eddisbury, Northwich, and Wirral have been
given.
Until the passing of the 'Reform Bills' only those who possessed
property were allowed to vote, the great majority of the people of
Cheshire had no say in the government of the country at all. The Reform
Bill of 1832 gave the vote to many more people, to every man in fact who
paid a rent of ten pounds or more a year for his house. Thus much of the
power which had previously belonged to the rich passed into the hands of
the poorer classes.
One of the first results of the Reformed Parliament was the passing of a
number of Factory Acts. The cry of the children at work in the mills had
long been heard through the land, and the people were indignant at the
cruelties put upon them by some mill-owners. As early as the year 1802
Sir Robert Peel, a Lancashire manufacturer, had persuaded Parliament to
pass an Act to improve the condition of the factories. The Reformed
Parliament now made it illegal to employ children under nine years of
age, or to make boys and girls under thirteen work for more than twelve
hours a day. Later Acts have still further shortened the hours of work
for women and children, and in many other respects have made the lot of
all the working classes more tolerable. Manufacturers are now compelled
to keep their factories clean and wholesome, and fit to work in. Factory
inspectors are appointed to see that the laws are carried out, and those
whose lives are spent in dangerous occupations, such as coal-mining or
the making of chemicals, are protected by strict rules which lessen the
danger to life and limb.
The greatest evil from which the poorer classes suffered in the early
years of the nineteenth century was the high price of bread. This was
due to the heavy duty put on corn imported from foreign countries. In S.
Peter's Square, Stockport, is a statue of Richard Cobden, who for six
years was Stockport's member of Parliament. Cobden saw that the poverty
of the working classes could not be lessened until this corn-tax was
removed. He pleaded eloquently on their behalf, and in the end he was
successful. The growers of corn grumbled, but as Cheshire is not so much
a corn-growing as a pastoral county, the farmers of Cheshire were not
greatly hurt.
Cobden also persuaded Parliament to take away or to lessen the duties on
imported raw materials, such as cotton, wool, and silk, on which the
prosperity of the Cheshire workers so much depended. The result was that
the manufacturers were able to pay the people who worked in their mills
better wages. Thus, with cheaper bread and wages higher, the lot of the
industrial classes became brighter. Soon also the duties on manufactured
goods brought to Cheshire from abroad were removed, and the system of
Free Trade, under which Cheshire has become rich and prosperous, came
into being.
Among the leaders of the working classes were some who wanted far
greater changes. In the museum at Vernon Park are some iron pike-heads
taken from these men when they tried to arm the people and urge them to
fight for their 'rights'. The aims of the Chartists, as these reformers
were named, were set forth in a document which they called the People's
Charter. Among other things, they demanded votes for all men, yearly
Parliaments, vote by ballot, and payment of members of Parliament. But
the bulk of the people took alarm, for it was thought that if every man
had a vote, too much power would be put into the hands of the working
classes. The Chartists were tried for causing riots, and many were put
in prison. One of the Chartist leaders was James Stephens, who is buried
in Dukinfield churchyard.
In 1861 a great disaster befell the cotton trade. In that year civil war
broke out in America between the Northern and the Southern States of the
Union. The Southern States were the seat of the cotton-growing
plantations, which were worked by millions of negro slaves. The English
people had put an end to slavery in their own colonies, and the Northern
States of America wished to do the same. When the Southerners desired to
extend the cotton industry to other new States, the Northern States
refused to allow it, and war broke out.
The war brought much distress to the cotton workers of Cheshire, for the
ports of the Southerners were blockaded by the warships of their
enemies, and the ships which had brought their cargoes of raw cotton to
the Mersey could do so no longer. The result was a cotton famine. The
looms were idle, and thousands of workpeople were thrown out of
employment in Stockport, Stalybridge, and the other towns and villages
which depended for their daily bread on a constant supply of the raw
material.
Attempts were made by ships sent from England to run the blockade of the
ports of the Southern States. At Birkenhead a ship called the _Alabama_
was built in the dockyard of Messrs. Laird for the use of the cotton
planters. The ship entered the harbours in the night-time or during
fogs, and succeeded several times in bringing small supplies of cotton.
She was caught at last, but not before she had destroyed sixty or
seventy vessels of the Northern fleet, and she very nearly brought about
a war between England and America.
The war lasted four years. Then peace was restored, and the cotton was
once more brought to the starving spinners and weavers of East Cheshire.
During the famine the poor had been supported by sums of money raised in
the large towns of England, and many years passed before the cotton
industry reached its former prosperity.
The memory of the hard days of the cotton famine has been handed down to
the grandchildren of those who suffered. Within the last few years the
cotton merchants and manufacturers have started an association for
growing cotton in our own English colonies, so that the workers may not
depend entirely on the cotton produced by foreign States.