Lecture Reports 2019 -2020
LIVERPOOL AND THE SLAVE TRADE by David Hearn - 9th March 2020
The ever cheerful David first of all thanked those present, saying it took courage to come to talk about this subject! Our numbers were down on our usual figures, but this may have been due to the Coronavirus “stay at home” advice. David said it was also a “tricky subject” but one that needs to be discussed. He suggested that we had questions “as we went along” and so it became an interactive talk.
Our first image was one of a sailing ship which had recently been cleaned, not the sailing ship, but the oil painting! The cleaning had revealed small vent holes which were only seen on slave ships and so this was a slave ship. The history of banking in Liverpool has left what is now an invisible trail that goes back to the slave trade.
So a trail would start with Heywoods Bank to the Bank of Liverpool to Barclays Bank, then became the Midland Bank and now it’s HSBC but it all started with the, erhem, slave trade. David has traced the first slave ship from Liverpool to the year 1699. He estimates that Liverpool ships made around 5,000 voyages and carried about 1.5million slaves.
David had brought some very interesting artefacts with him, and first on the table was a model, not any model, but one similar to the one used by William Wilberforce in Parliament to show how the slaves were packed into the ship. The model was of the ship “Brook” owned by Liverpool merchants.
(See link:- http://museumcollections.hullcc.gov.uk/collections/storydetail.php?irn=154&master=443).
David believed that 10% of the slaves died en-route and also 10% of the crew (mainly from disease) He highlighted the various dates relating to the “abolition”. But it was going on in various forms as late as 1862. The Liverpool ship owners would disguise the reason for the voyage (eg “Going on voyage to Portugal”) but the cargo of muskets, gunpowder, knives etc was obviously not for Portugal, but West Africa.
The cargo manifest would show “copper nails” but when the ship was recovered from the sea bed, after it had sunk in a storm, it was found to be copper torks. These were used as a form of currency in West Africa. At this point Anna recalled that when we visited Greenfield Harbour, near Holywell, one of the items exported from there were copper torks. The torks were also known as “Manillas”.
Another ruse used by Liverpool ship owners to get around the anti-slavery laws was what are today known as “Flags of Convenience”. A senior diplomat from the United States came to Liverpool and provided a list of Liverpool ships still in the slave trade. The ship owner denied that the ships had ever been in Liverpool. How did the Americans know? Because they were full of “Liverpool goods”. (David listed them).
Question from the floor, “Why Liverpool”. David answered “Because we were good at it”. The Liverpool ship owners anticipated the end of the trade and prevaricated as much as they could, they “planted” a Liverpool ship owner with vested slavery interests into Parliament to make sure they were paid compensation for the loss of the business and their slaves. The sums were massive, even by today’s standards. David mentioned that the cost of the compensation to HM Government was not finally paid off until 2015!!
David emphasised that it was not a random process, it was highly organised, with the captain of the ship having to meet certain people in certain places at certain times. It was a well-run system. Thomas Leyland, a former slave owner and Liverpool “big wig” was possibly the richest Liverpool person ever, worth even more than the Moores Brothers. The meeting closed with slavery that goes on today, but really that is another story to tell.
Anna thanked David for the excellent talk and providing such interesting exhibits, glass beads from Italy, little cowrie shells from the Indian Ocean which were a symbol of wealth and, as such, very rare on the West coast of Africa - they were used to decorate headdresses or added to hair styles again as a sign of wealth. David also had some Liverpool Halfpennies from the 1790s - Britain often ran out of coins so private individuals would make some copper coins which went into general circulation - they often went beyond the town in which they were issued because the copper had a value anywhere - they have a picture of a three-masted barque on them, could they be a slave ships? The two coins in David’s collection were both issued by Thomas Clarkson who was ... you guessed it ... a slave trader.
The ever cheerful David first of all thanked those present, saying it took courage to come to talk about this subject! Our numbers were down on our usual figures, but this may have been due to the Coronavirus “stay at home” advice. David said it was also a “tricky subject” but one that needs to be discussed. He suggested that we had questions “as we went along” and so it became an interactive talk.
Our first image was one of a sailing ship which had recently been cleaned, not the sailing ship, but the oil painting! The cleaning had revealed small vent holes which were only seen on slave ships and so this was a slave ship. The history of banking in Liverpool has left what is now an invisible trail that goes back to the slave trade.
So a trail would start with Heywoods Bank to the Bank of Liverpool to Barclays Bank, then became the Midland Bank and now it’s HSBC but it all started with the, erhem, slave trade. David has traced the first slave ship from Liverpool to the year 1699. He estimates that Liverpool ships made around 5,000 voyages and carried about 1.5million slaves.
David had brought some very interesting artefacts with him, and first on the table was a model, not any model, but one similar to the one used by William Wilberforce in Parliament to show how the slaves were packed into the ship. The model was of the ship “Brook” owned by Liverpool merchants.
(See link:- http://museumcollections.hullcc.gov.uk/collections/storydetail.php?irn=154&master=443).
David believed that 10% of the slaves died en-route and also 10% of the crew (mainly from disease) He highlighted the various dates relating to the “abolition”. But it was going on in various forms as late as 1862. The Liverpool ship owners would disguise the reason for the voyage (eg “Going on voyage to Portugal”) but the cargo of muskets, gunpowder, knives etc was obviously not for Portugal, but West Africa.
The cargo manifest would show “copper nails” but when the ship was recovered from the sea bed, after it had sunk in a storm, it was found to be copper torks. These were used as a form of currency in West Africa. At this point Anna recalled that when we visited Greenfield Harbour, near Holywell, one of the items exported from there were copper torks. The torks were also known as “Manillas”.
Another ruse used by Liverpool ship owners to get around the anti-slavery laws was what are today known as “Flags of Convenience”. A senior diplomat from the United States came to Liverpool and provided a list of Liverpool ships still in the slave trade. The ship owner denied that the ships had ever been in Liverpool. How did the Americans know? Because they were full of “Liverpool goods”. (David listed them).
Question from the floor, “Why Liverpool”. David answered “Because we were good at it”. The Liverpool ship owners anticipated the end of the trade and prevaricated as much as they could, they “planted” a Liverpool ship owner with vested slavery interests into Parliament to make sure they were paid compensation for the loss of the business and their slaves. The sums were massive, even by today’s standards. David mentioned that the cost of the compensation to HM Government was not finally paid off until 2015!!
David emphasised that it was not a random process, it was highly organised, with the captain of the ship having to meet certain people in certain places at certain times. It was a well-run system. Thomas Leyland, a former slave owner and Liverpool “big wig” was possibly the richest Liverpool person ever, worth even more than the Moores Brothers. The meeting closed with slavery that goes on today, but really that is another story to tell.
Anna thanked David for the excellent talk and providing such interesting exhibits, glass beads from Italy, little cowrie shells from the Indian Ocean which were a symbol of wealth and, as such, very rare on the West coast of Africa - they were used to decorate headdresses or added to hair styles again as a sign of wealth. David also had some Liverpool Halfpennies from the 1790s - Britain often ran out of coins so private individuals would make some copper coins which went into general circulation - they often went beyond the town in which they were issued because the copper had a value anywhere - they have a picture of a three-masted barque on them, could they be a slave ships? The two coins in David’s collection were both issued by Thomas Clarkson who was ... you guessed it ... a slave trader.
“WELSH COPPER” by Dr Rob Toomey - 13th January 2020
USUAL WARNING FROM EDITOR: These notes were compiled in half light on a large envelope, and I’d just had a pint of strong beer at the Post Office pub. Some of the facts should be checked if being used for a PhD dissertation. About 35 members gathered amidst the encircling gloom of a “great storm”, to hear an excellent and well-presented lecture. In fact the great storm either didn’t happen or it somehow by-passed Liverpool.
Rob urged us to visit the sites of interest in North Wales, often only an hour to an hour and a half from Liverpool! He gave us his star rating for each location. The lecture started with an image of the “Mold Gold Cape”, which is regarded as so important that it featured at No.9 in the BBC Radio 4 programme, “A History of the World in 100 Objects”. It is 500 years older than Tutankhamen and was found in a burial mound at Mold in 1833. But why were we looking at something made of gold? Rob believed that this was such a valuable item that it could have only been made for someone VERY wealthy, he believes that the “owner” of the Great Orme copper mine had it made, to pose and show how important he was. Great Orme copper was found in malachite ore among the limestone. Wealth and power came to the person who owned the Great Orme copper mine. The mine is about half-way up the Great Orme, and close to the tramway. It was only discovered as late as 1987 when the digging for a car park revealed the remains, which date back to 1000 BC.
Refined copper is soft but about 2000 BC it was found that if tin was added in a certain ratio then it made the much harder product we know as bronze. Rob said, “If you had bronze you had the equivalent of a nuclear weapon today” and he went on “Great Orme copper mine was like the Ruhr and Silicon Valley all rolled into one as regards wealth!”. The Great Orme is believed to have five miles of tunnel, some up to 70m deep. Some of the tunnels are so small that it was presumed that children did the mining. Rob scored this place three stars in his visit guide. And now our story moved to Anglesey and the 1760’s.
The people of Amlwch complained that “mae'r dŵr yn blasu'n ddrwg” (their water tasted bad). The local bigwig (for they still wore them then, Ed.) tried to get better water with the idea of drilling for a spa. This resulted in the discovery of copper ore on Parys Mountain. Later, a port was built at Amlwch to export the copper. In the 1770’s the Royal Navy discovered that if you plated the wooden hulls of ships with a thin layer of copper it made them faster and stopped a certain type of worm eating the wood. This was a stimulus for a massive demand for copper. Liverpool became the centre of the copper industry, buying and selling the metal and rolling it into sheets. it was a big industry for Liverpool.
By 1785 Parys Mountain was the largest copper mine in Europe. By 1792 a monopoly on copper production existed and the open-cast system for extracting the copper ore was very successful, although unfortunately it was all worked out by the end of that century. Today three cavernous pits remain, half a mile long and up to 200m deep, all very colourful as vegetation doesn’t like to grow on chemical remains. There’s a visitor centre today at Amlwch. Rob scored Parys two-stars on his visit guide. 3 Our speaker then turned his attention to Greenfield Valley, near Bagillt in North Wales. This is where copper ore was smelted and processed, three rolling mills using waterpower from the adjacent stream rolled copper ingots into copper sheet. Rob scored this two-stars on his visit guide.
Turning to Merseyside, Rob explained to us how St Helens became a centre for the copper industry. This may seem to the outsider a strange choice, but the reason is simple. To make one ton of copper you need four tons of coal, so it was cheaper to take the copper ore to the coal rather than vice versa.
The Sankey Canal was built in 1757 and the Stanley Bank works (covered in many previous newsletters) from 1772. The industry continued but eventually went into decline, starting when foreign ores (non-Welsh) began to arrive from the early 1830’s. By the 1850’s it was nearly finished. Producers in Cuba and Chile found that they could refine the ore themselves and just export copper ingots. (Side note, John Horne recalls seeing flat-bed lorries loaded with copper ingots going from Liverpool Docks to Prescot in the 1950’s. The reason they weren’t in covered vans, which might discourage pilferage, was that the ingots needed to be lifted by crane they as were so heavy).
Finally, Rob recounted the story of Swansea copper. Transhipping ore from coaster to canal barge, at Liverpool, and then processing the ore and returning the finished product via the same route was expensive, the port of Swansea was in the situation where the ore could be taken from ship to furnace in a shorter and less expensive way. In time Swansea became the top copper place to go to, moreover it was close to ore from Cornwall (both tin and copper) being just on the other side of the Bristol Channel. There’s not much to see in Swansea these days, which is sad for a town once known as “Copperopolis”. (Two-star score from Rob). So our lecture came to an end and after refreshments there were the usual questions from the floor where we learned some new words to throw into a conversation in the “snug” or at breakfast.
One word that attracted me was, “isotopic”. Isotopic testing of copper, gold etc. can now indicate where and when it was smelted. Ergo “Audrey, have these corn flakes been isotopically tested? They taste off to me”. The usual round of applause was given to our speaker. I knew this was a “keynote lecture” when I looked round and saw two other scribes also taking notes! Rob waived his fee, preferring a donation to the homeless charity “Emmaus”.
USUAL WARNING FROM EDITOR: These notes were compiled in half light on a large envelope, and I’d just had a pint of strong beer at the Post Office pub. Some of the facts should be checked if being used for a PhD dissertation. About 35 members gathered amidst the encircling gloom of a “great storm”, to hear an excellent and well-presented lecture. In fact the great storm either didn’t happen or it somehow by-passed Liverpool.
Rob urged us to visit the sites of interest in North Wales, often only an hour to an hour and a half from Liverpool! He gave us his star rating for each location. The lecture started with an image of the “Mold Gold Cape”, which is regarded as so important that it featured at No.9 in the BBC Radio 4 programme, “A History of the World in 100 Objects”. It is 500 years older than Tutankhamen and was found in a burial mound at Mold in 1833. But why were we looking at something made of gold? Rob believed that this was such a valuable item that it could have only been made for someone VERY wealthy, he believes that the “owner” of the Great Orme copper mine had it made, to pose and show how important he was. Great Orme copper was found in malachite ore among the limestone. Wealth and power came to the person who owned the Great Orme copper mine. The mine is about half-way up the Great Orme, and close to the tramway. It was only discovered as late as 1987 when the digging for a car park revealed the remains, which date back to 1000 BC.
Refined copper is soft but about 2000 BC it was found that if tin was added in a certain ratio then it made the much harder product we know as bronze. Rob said, “If you had bronze you had the equivalent of a nuclear weapon today” and he went on “Great Orme copper mine was like the Ruhr and Silicon Valley all rolled into one as regards wealth!”. The Great Orme is believed to have five miles of tunnel, some up to 70m deep. Some of the tunnels are so small that it was presumed that children did the mining. Rob scored this place three stars in his visit guide. And now our story moved to Anglesey and the 1760’s.
The people of Amlwch complained that “mae'r dŵr yn blasu'n ddrwg” (their water tasted bad). The local bigwig (for they still wore them then, Ed.) tried to get better water with the idea of drilling for a spa. This resulted in the discovery of copper ore on Parys Mountain. Later, a port was built at Amlwch to export the copper. In the 1770’s the Royal Navy discovered that if you plated the wooden hulls of ships with a thin layer of copper it made them faster and stopped a certain type of worm eating the wood. This was a stimulus for a massive demand for copper. Liverpool became the centre of the copper industry, buying and selling the metal and rolling it into sheets. it was a big industry for Liverpool.
By 1785 Parys Mountain was the largest copper mine in Europe. By 1792 a monopoly on copper production existed and the open-cast system for extracting the copper ore was very successful, although unfortunately it was all worked out by the end of that century. Today three cavernous pits remain, half a mile long and up to 200m deep, all very colourful as vegetation doesn’t like to grow on chemical remains. There’s a visitor centre today at Amlwch. Rob scored Parys two-stars on his visit guide. 3 Our speaker then turned his attention to Greenfield Valley, near Bagillt in North Wales. This is where copper ore was smelted and processed, three rolling mills using waterpower from the adjacent stream rolled copper ingots into copper sheet. Rob scored this two-stars on his visit guide.
Turning to Merseyside, Rob explained to us how St Helens became a centre for the copper industry. This may seem to the outsider a strange choice, but the reason is simple. To make one ton of copper you need four tons of coal, so it was cheaper to take the copper ore to the coal rather than vice versa.
The Sankey Canal was built in 1757 and the Stanley Bank works (covered in many previous newsletters) from 1772. The industry continued but eventually went into decline, starting when foreign ores (non-Welsh) began to arrive from the early 1830’s. By the 1850’s it was nearly finished. Producers in Cuba and Chile found that they could refine the ore themselves and just export copper ingots. (Side note, John Horne recalls seeing flat-bed lorries loaded with copper ingots going from Liverpool Docks to Prescot in the 1950’s. The reason they weren’t in covered vans, which might discourage pilferage, was that the ingots needed to be lifted by crane they as were so heavy).
Finally, Rob recounted the story of Swansea copper. Transhipping ore from coaster to canal barge, at Liverpool, and then processing the ore and returning the finished product via the same route was expensive, the port of Swansea was in the situation where the ore could be taken from ship to furnace in a shorter and less expensive way. In time Swansea became the top copper place to go to, moreover it was close to ore from Cornwall (both tin and copper) being just on the other side of the Bristol Channel. There’s not much to see in Swansea these days, which is sad for a town once known as “Copperopolis”. (Two-star score from Rob). So our lecture came to an end and after refreshments there were the usual questions from the floor where we learned some new words to throw into a conversation in the “snug” or at breakfast.
One word that attracted me was, “isotopic”. Isotopic testing of copper, gold etc. can now indicate where and when it was smelted. Ergo “Audrey, have these corn flakes been isotopically tested? They taste off to me”. The usual round of applause was given to our speaker. I knew this was a “keynote lecture” when I looked round and saw two other scribes also taking notes! Rob waived his fee, preferring a donation to the homeless charity “Emmaus”.