Shaping the Vortex: The Late Eighteenth-Century Liverpool Community of the Trade Directories

By 1800 Liverpool was the third largest city of the British Isles, probably its fastest growing, and one of the hubs of an expanding global empire. Technologically it was the most advanced seaport in Europe with a fabulously valuable dock estate and port facilities which surpassed even those of London. Moreover, far from having a bland focus on commerce alone, Liverpool possessed a sophisticated far-from-provincial literary and artistic culture; not for nothing was the phrase “Manchester men and Liverpool Gentlemen” coined. Yet the preceding half century had also been one of dramatic flux and turmoil for this port city. Rapid population growth, heavy inward migration and economic transformation had occurred against a backdrop of almost constant European warfare and associated fluctuations in international trade. Although there is a significant historiography of Liverpool’s participation in the transatlantic slave trade, the internal dynamics of the city during this deeply formative period have been largely neglected. This is perhaps surprising given that Liverpool has an unusually complete set of eighteenth-century Anglican parish registers and the most comprehensive series of trade directories outside the metropolis. This paper focuses on the Liverpool community, or possibly communities, of the late eighteenth century by drawing upon a recently-completed database of the Liverpool trade directories published between 1766 and 1827. It argues that the oft-quoted methodological issues related to the use of trade directories have undermined the immense value of such data in understanding the dynamics of a commercial community at a time of unprecedented stress. Over 80,000 records of the “principal inhabitants” will be analysed to provide an indication of occupational trends, residential patterns and cultural activities. This will allow preliminary conclusions about the extent to which these internal characteristics shaped Liverpool’s phenomenal commercial success.