WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



LIVERPOOL 



being concerned in the organization of a Jacobite 

 rising,*" he was confiscated, and the constableship 

 passed out of his hands.'" In 1699 the burgesses 

 obtained a lease of the castle for a year,*" thus for the 

 first time bringing its precincts under their control. 

 In 1704. they obtained from the Crown a lease*" 

 of the castle and its site for fifty years with power to 

 demolish its ruins. Disputes with Lord Molyneux, 

 who still claimed the hereditary constableship, delayed 

 the settlement, and it was not until 1726 that the 

 last relics, the wall at the top of Lord Street, dis- 

 appeared.*" The acquisition of the lordship and of 

 the castle by the burgesses marks the conclusion of the 

 period of struggle with feudal superiors which has 

 hitherto been the staple of burghal history ; and, no 

 less than the great development of trade, makes this 

 period the real beginning of modem Liverpool. 



The establishment of Liverpool as a separate parish 

 is another sign of the same tendency. The arrange- 

 ment whereby the tithes paid by Liverpool to Lord 

 Molyneux had during the Commonwealth period been 

 devoted to the provision of a minister for the new 

 parish of Liverpool had, of course, with other Com- 

 monwealth arrangements, been suppressed at the 

 Restoration. But the rapid growth of the town made 

 some readjustment inevitable. In 1673 Blome noted*'* 

 that the chapel of St. Nicholas, though large, was too 

 small to hold the inhabitants of the town, and this 

 inadequacy became accentuated as the influx of popu- 

 lation continued. In 1699, in response to a petition 

 from the Corporation,*'* Liverpool was cut off from 

 the parish of Walton, and created into a separate 

 parish with two rectors appointed and paid by the 

 Corporation. Compensation to the rector of Walton 

 and to Lord Molyneux was also paid by the Corpora- 

 tion.*" The borough thus became ecclesiastically as 

 well as administratively Independent. Under the same 

 Act which constituted the parish, a new church, that of 

 St. Peter, was erected on the continuation of Lord 

 Molyneux's road across the waste, henceforth to be 

 known as Church Street. But the creation of the 

 parish involved the institution of the vestry as a 

 separate poor-law authority, levying its own rates ; *" 

 and this marks the beginning of a subdivision of 

 administrative authority which was to be greatly 

 extended during the next century. 



The new temper of the burgesses, induced by their 

 prosperity, is further exhibited in the use they made 

 during the period of their Parliamentary franchise. 

 Contested elections had been rare before the Restora- 



tion, but almost every election after 1 660 was acri- 

 moniously contested. Lord Derby, who had once 

 regularly nominated to one of the seats, was still 

 influential, and his support often suiRced to turn the 

 scale ; but he was now only one of a group of mag- 

 nates who wrote to use their influence at elections,*" 

 and after the Revolution his preferences were entirely 

 disregarded. The wealthy merchants who now con- 

 trolled Liverpool were not to be dictated to. Party 

 feeling had run high, and influence in elections now 

 mainly took the form of bribery, which became 

 rampant in this period. 



The bitter feud of two organized parties is indeed 

 the chief feature of municipal history during these 

 years. Since the fever of the Civil War the great 

 issues which divided the nation affected the town as 

 they had never done before ; and under the stress of 

 strife between Puritans and Cavaliers, or Whigs and 

 Tories, the forms of borough government underwent 

 a series of remarkable changes, always Influenced by 

 the synchronous events in national history. The 

 rising port had emerged from its backwater into the 

 full stream of national life. 



Puritanism had been strong In Liverpool, and con- 

 tinued to be strong under Charles II. The Act of 

 Uniformity drove forth two of the ministers of Wal- 

 ton and Liverpool ; but there remained a substantial 

 number of Nonconformists.*'** No less than five alder- 

 men and seven councilmen, together with the town 

 clerk, refused to take the oaths in 1662-3,*" being 

 almost one in three of the council ; though many 

 who were Puritan in sympathy, like Colonel Birch,*'" 

 who had been governor of the town under the Com- 

 monwealth, made no difficulty about accepting the 

 oaths. Wandering Nonconformist preachers like 

 Thomas Jolly **' found ' many opportunities ' and 

 ' much comfort ' when they came to Liverpool ; and 

 on the issue of the Declaration of Indulgence a 

 licence was obtained for a Presbyterian conventicle In 

 ' the house of Thomas Christian,' as well as for two 

 chapels in Toxteth Park.*"* The rector of Walton 

 writes in 1 693 of the presence In Liverpool of 'a 

 number of fanatics from whom a churchman can 

 expect little justice.' *"' 



The presence of this substantial element of declared 

 Nonconformists, backed by a number of Conformists 

 who were Puritan In their sympathies in both poli- 

 tical and religious affairs, brought it about that Liver- 

 pool was the scene of acute and acrimonious party strife 

 down to, and even after, the Revolution. In 1662 a 



«» Hitt. MSS. Com. Rep. xiv. App. iv, 

 292 fF. 302. He received a commission 

 from the exiled monarch giving him ' in- 

 structions for the care and government of 

 Liverpool.' 



*T' There was much competition among 

 the local nobility to obtain the succession. 

 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. i, zo, 2i ; iii, 2joh. 



<7' Picton, Liv. Munic. Rtc. i, 292 fF. 



*T^ A full abstract of the lease is given 

 by Picton, Liv. Munic. Rec. ii, 33 ff- The 

 condition was at first imposed that part 

 of the castle should be used as an armoury 

 for the local militia ; but in 1 709 Lord 

 Derby as lord lieutenant empowered the 

 removal of these arms to the custody of 

 the mayor. Ibid. 41. 



*?• Picton, Liv. Mmic.Rec. ii, 61. 



*^* Loc. cit. 



<75 Picton, Liv. Munic. Rec. i, 325. 



«« Ibid. 



*77 It would appear, however, that 

 Liverpool had acted as a poor-law autho- 

 rity for some time before it became a 

 separate parish, no doubt under the terms 

 of 13 & 14 Chas. II, cap. 13, which 

 provided that in certain counties of the 

 north of England populous townships 

 should have overseers of their own, distinct 

 from those of the large parishes of which 

 they formed parts. From 1682, when the 

 records begin, a poor-rate was levied and 

 administered by elected * overseers of the 

 poor.' The amount raised rose from ^40 

 in 1682 to ;^ioo in 1698, the year before 

 the Act constituting the parish was 

 passed. There is no marked change 

 either in the amount raised or in the 

 mode of administration after the Act. 

 Vestry Minutes, i, 



<78 OrmondMSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. new 

 ser.), iii, 367. 



25 



*!^^ In 1669 the Bishop of Chester re- 

 ported to Archbishop Sheldon that at 



* Leverpoole was held a frequent conven- 

 ticle of about 30 or 40 Anabaptists, mostly 

 rich people,' while ' two conventicles of 

 Independents ' were held in Toxteth Park, 



* the usual number of each is between 

 100 and 200, some of them husbandmen, 

 others merchants with severall sorts of 

 tradesmen' ; Lambeth MSS. 639, quoted 

 Bate, Declaration of Indulgence, App. viii. 



•"79 Picton, Li'v. Munic. Rec. i, 238, 

 240. Cf. for presence of * fanatics ' in 

 Liverpool, Cal. S.P. Dom. 1665-6, p. 

 243. 



"80 Ibid. 



■"81 Notebook ofT. Jolly (Chet. Soc. new 

 ser. xxxiii), 60. 



<aia Bate, op. cit. App. Ixx and xxxii. 



"8' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiv, App. iv, 

 279. 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



