William Rathbone : a memoir / by Eleanor F. Rathbone.

  • Eleanor Rathbone
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: William Rathbone : a memoir / by Eleanor F. Rathbone. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    are ruined 3 therefore it is hoped the Bill may pass, being to promote the service of God.1 In 1730 town, in spite of its pretensions to rank as a the third port in the kingdom ” (London and Bristol being, of course, the first and second), was insignificant in size and singularly wanting in architectural beauty. I11 the words of a native writer : The inhabitants lived for the most part in mean and exceedingly narrow, tortuous streets, between the brow of the hill on which the Town Hall now stands and the margin of the river. The houses were chiefly of brick, and without the charms of shape, colour, or carving. There was a quay protected by a sea-wall, and but one completed dock. The old Custom-house stood where now stands the Sailors’ Home. Well-to-do merchants were just beginning to build themselves better dwellings in Hanover Street, Church Street, and Duke Street. No highway as yet entered the town. ,.He who would to Liverpool had to go there on horseback or on foot. No carriage could take you nearer to Liverpool than Warrington. The mails went out and came in on horseback, and so late as 1775 one letter-carrier sufficed for the whole correspondence of the town. The growth in the business of this William Rathbone was not untypical of that of the town generally. Beginning as a timber sawyer, he seems to have become in turn a timber merchant, 1 Picton’s Memorials of Liverpool, vol. i. p. 145.