A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



other public bodies of limited powers, so that there 

 was no single body responsible for the general over- 

 sight of the health and well-being of the town. The 

 corporation, while, as we have seen, it retained con- 

 trol of public improvements and of the dock estate, 

 had to perform these functions out of the revenue 

 from its estate and from the town dues and other tradi- 

 tional payments, and as these were inadequate to the 

 purpose these functions had not been fully performed, 

 while their partial performance had formed so grave a 

 strain upon the resources of the corporation that the 

 value of the borough estate had been seriously dimin- 

 ished."' But for this condition of things the borough 

 might very well have been the owner of the greater 

 part of the land on which it was built ; as it was, a 

 large part of the corporate estate, secured originally by 

 the burgesses' usurpation of the waste in the 15 th 

 century, had been sold to meet the corporate debt.™' 

 Finally, the exclusive political privileges of the free- 

 men and their exemption from the payment of town 

 dues had become an anomaly and an injustice, be- 

 cause the body of freemen, which since 1777 had 

 not been increased except by the customary modes 

 of inheritance or service, no longer at all repre- 

 sented the community. There were in 1833 only 

 3,000 freemen^' out of a population of 165,000, 

 and many of the 3,000 were non-resident. This 

 number included few of the principal merchants, 

 and only seven out of the 200 doctors practising 

 in the town.*'" It was composed principally of 

 artisans, to whom their privileges were chiefly valu- 

 able for the money to be made out of them in 

 bribes at elections. Hence Liverpool had become 

 so notorious for its political corruption that in 1830 

 a bill for the disfranchisement of the borough was 

 only prevented by the prorogation of Parliament from 

 passing into law.*" 



The unsatisfactoriness of the old institutions was 

 shown also in the sphere of poor-law administration, 

 which had been perhaps the most efficient department 

 of borough government. The committee which had 

 for so long controlled the administration of the Poor 

 Law was not recognized by law, and was liable at any 

 time to be overridden by the overseers, if they chose 

 to disregard its orders. In 18 14 the committee tried 

 in vain to persuade the open vestry to make an 

 application for a private Act legalizing their posi- 

 tion ;'" after two years' discussion the proposal was 

 rejected,'^' and in 1 8 1 7 a Mr. Dennison, being elected 

 overseer, justified these fears by paying no attention 

 to the committee, and launching upon lavish expen- 

 diture.™ The Sturges-Bourne Act of l 8 1 9 "«' came 

 in the nick of time to prevent the breakdown of the 

 system, for its adoption legalized the position of the 

 committee by turning it into a select vestry, and for 

 some years it was able to do admirable work.™ But 

 in the excitement of the agitation for the Reform 

 Act party feeling crept in here also and showed 

 itself by constant appeals to the open vestry 

 and to polls of the whole body of ratepayers on 

 the smallest points.™ The survival of the open 



vestry in so large a population was a nuisance and 

 a danger. 



Liverpool was thus ready for the Reform movement, 

 and it is not surprising that in the reforming Parlia- 

 ment of 1830 and in its successor the Tory town was 

 for the nonce represented by Whig members. The 

 Reform Act of 1832 itself began the process of local 

 reconstitution. Not only did it enfranchise the rate- 

 payers, placing them on a level, for the purposes of 

 parliamentary elections, with the freemen, but, for 

 the same purpose, it enlarged the borough's boun- 

 daries, including within them the populous suburbs 

 of Everton and Kirkdale, the northern half of Tox- 

 texth, and part of West Derby,*'* and thus foreshadow- 

 ing the full absorption of these districts for municipal 

 purposes also. 



But the legislation which followed the Reform Act 

 was of far greater local import. The two great 

 commissions — that on the Poor Laws and that on the 

 Municipal Corporations — which the Reformed Par- 

 liament sent out to investigate the condition of local 

 government both reported not unfavourably on Liver- 

 pool : the Poor Law Commission found the town, 

 indeed, to be among the best administered in 

 England,"' while the Municipal Corporations Com- 

 mission, though it disclosed many grave defects, found 

 no evidence of serious maladministration.'^* But the 

 changes introduced by the two great Acts were of 

 such a character as to mark the beginning of a new 

 epoch. The terms of the new Poor Law did not, 

 indeed, involve any such wide change in Liverpool as 

 in other places ; it established finally the authority of 

 the popularly elected select vestry, and put an end to 

 the defects and uncertainties of the Sturges-Bourne 

 Act ; but the authority of this body was still confined 

 to the limits of the old township and parish, the new 

 and populous outlying districts being left to the 

 administration of the Toxteth Board of Guardians 

 or the West Derby Union. The Municipal Reform 

 Act was far more serious in its results. It made the 

 Town Council for the first time in its history a 

 popularly elected body. It placed the election in 

 the hands of the body of ratepayers, to whose level 

 the freemen were now in practice reduced. It 

 empowered the council to take over the functions of 

 the Watching, Lighting, and Cleansing Board ; that 

 is to say, it turned it from being the mere admini- 

 strator of the estate of a privileged minority into a 

 body responsible for the health and general well-being 

 of the whole community, and thus rendered possible, 

 and indeed suggested, an indefinite enlargement of 

 municipal functions. Finally, in one of its schedules, 

 it enlarged the boundaries of the municip.il borough so 

 as to correspond with those of the parliamentary 

 borough as fixed in 1832. 



The history of Liverpool since 1835 has been one 

 of rapid and steady development on all sides, un- 

 marked by outstanding or conspicuous episodes. It 

 is impossible to follow its course in detail ; and it will 

 be most convenient to summarize it under headings, 

 in a more or less tabular form. 



«88 picton, Liv. Munic, Rec. ii, 224-6. 



■s^Ibid. ii, 338-9. 



rS85 Munk. Corp. Com. : Rep. of Inquiry in 

 Li'v, 50. 



«86 Ibid. 325. 



6S7 Walpole, Hist. Engl, i, 125 ; Picton, 

 Liu. Munic. Rec. ii, 333. 



fiss * Address to all who arc assessed to 



the Poor-rates ... by the Parish Com- 

 mittee, 1814.' 



S'K Vestry Minutes, 6 Aug. 1816. 



™Ibid. 181 8 and 1819; Picton, 

 Memorials, i, 391-2. 



*» S. and B. Webb, Hist. Local Go-v. 

 i, 159. 



693 Vestry Minutes, passim. 



36 



"8 L/f. Chron. April and July 1832; 

 Vestry Minutes, April 1833. 



'•'■' The area was increased from 1,860 

 to 5,210 acres. 



"9= Poor Law Com. Rep. 



"* Munic. Corp. Com. Rep. (Liv.), 295, 

 400. 



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