"THE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF OUR CITY"

A century ago a quarter of the world's map was coloured red. The British Empire, the greatest empire the world has ever seen, was in its hey-day and no-one disputed that its second city and port was Liverpool. Ships filled the Mersey, the docks were forested with masts and every day the noisy, crowded streets pulsated with the clangour of prosperity. Teams of sweating, muscle-rippling carthorses raised sparks from the roads as they slithered and strained to pull heavily laden wagons over the stone setts; wagons piled high with bales of raw cotton and tobacco, sacks of sugar and grain, kegs of rum and baulks of timber, on their way from the docks to the warehouses. The yells of the carters mingled with the shouts of the coach-drivers and the shrill cries of the flower girls, the paper boys and the match sellers. It was a period which saw Liverpool's population rise to more than six hundred thousand and the merchant princes begin to move away from the overcrowded city centre into the cleaner air of the leafy areas to the south and 'over the water' into Wirral. It was also a period when Liverpool for all its wealth had the biggest workhouse in Britain, the highest infantry mortality rate and more than three thousand prostitutes, while a large part of its population lived at near-starvation level in squalid, foul-smelling cellars or in crumbling houses in the notorious 'courts'. Many were even without a roof over their heads and men, women and children alike spent their nights huddled in shop doorways, in narrow alleyways, under arches, on basement steps and in any corner which afforded some protection from the elements.

Poverty in Victorian times was not solely a Liverpool problem; it was everywhere. An observer of the English scene at the time described these wretched people as ' the submerged tenth' and the phrase became a popular euphemism among the middle and upper classes. In Liverpool's case that fraction was possibly on the low side. The number of paupers who had to beg, borrow and - without hesitation - steal to stay alive was beyond count. 

As soon as a child from the slums was old enough it was taught how to beg and it soon learned how to steal. Many were sent out on the streets soon after daybreak and ordered not to return until they had 'earned' by begging or other means a specific sum - say, sixpence or a shilling. Some might be given a penny with which to buy two halfpenny boxes of matches. They would take up a position on the Landing Stage or outside one of the railway stations or big stores and offer the matches for sale to 'the gentry'. More often than not the gentleman accosted would part with a penny and not take the matches merely to get rid of the dirty, ragged 'street Arab' who was pestering him to buy. If the matches were actually taken the penny would buy another box and leave a halfpenny change. In this way their earnings increased. 

Begging and street-trading were only two of the devices. Rag-collecting, shoe-shining, carrying travellers' baggage, street-singing, turning cartwheels, picking pockets, snatching from market stalls and barrows, robbing drunks who had fallen unconscious in the street, and stealing from the docks were all prevalent. Theft from the docks was particularly rife. At one time, gangs of Liverpool slum children were so highly organised that they set up 'markets' in the cellars of empty warehouses where unscrupulous shopkeepers came to buy. As soon as the youngsters had sold everything and shared the receipts they scampered off for more. But there were exceptions. In 1879, the Rev. Silas K . Hocking, a Methodist minister in Liverpool, wrote a heartrending story about two of them. Appearing first as a serial and then in book form, Her Benny -based on living characters - was an instant best-seller. 

'They are not all bad,' he wrote, "as many people seem to think. Many of them try hard to earn an honest living, though they find it a difficult matter, especially when at home they receive no encouragement, while in the streets temptation is being continually put in their way ..."

Silas Hocking vividly describes the neighbourhood in which his story is set. 'On the western side of Scotland Road - that is to say, between it and the docks - there is a regular network of streets, inhabited mostly by the lowest class of the Liverpool poor. And those who have occasion to penetrate their dark and filthy recesses are generally thankful when they find themselves safe out again. In the winter those streets and courts are kept comparatively clean by the heavy rains; but in the summer the air fairly reeks with the stench of decayed fish, rotting vegetables, and every other conceivable kind of filth ... The children that seem to swarm in this neighbourhood are nearly all of a pale, sallow complexion, and of stunted growth. Shoes and stockings and underclothing are luxuries that they never know, and one good meal a day is almost more than they dare hope for. Cuffs and kicks they reckon upon every day of their lives; and in this they are rarely disappointed ...'

In a town like 19th-century Liverpool where the rich were very rich and the poor were wretchedly poor it must not be thought that the former were blind to the latter's plight. The well-to-do generally were magnanimous in response to appeals for help and many prominent men and women took practical steps to alleviate suffering wherever they could. Indeed, many of them looked upon assistance to the lower classes as being something of an obligation imposed upon them by the fortuity of their own station in life. Throughout Victorian England there were hundreds of committees, societies and institutions established for bringing relief to the destitute, providing shelter for the homeless, food for the starving, education for the illiterate and salvation for the sinners. In Liverpool, which had seen the establishment of the world's first school for the blind, the world's first Medical Officer of Health and the first Council houses, William Rathbone (in keeping with his family's long philanthropic tradition) had initiated the first District Nurses and Kitty Wilkinson had set up the first public wash-house in her own home. Josephine Butler founded homes for the impoverished sick and another for waifs and strays, Canon Major Lester set up Ragged Schools and the great Father Nugent devoted most of his adult life to helping the poor, the deprived and the intemperate. There were many others who in one way or another had worked hard to raise the quality of life among the deprived section of the populace. Yet there was a grey area where little or nothing was done because no-one thought much could be done. 

Cruelty to children was not a crime. Corporal punishment generally was an accepted part of life. In the armed forces and the public schools it was routine and even in the better-class homes 'spare the rod and spoil the children' was a fully accepted dictum. Among the lower orders - as in the case of little Benny Bates - parental punishment, however severe, was considered to be no-one's business but the parents'. Even when chastisement went beyond reasonable bounds and a child suffered cruelly, it was still considered to be something in which no-one had any right to intervene. It was an aspect which gave some people misgivings when the formation of a society for the prevention of cruelty to children was mooted. Might they not be infringing the liberty of the subject?

When Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837 at the age of 18 there was no such offence in English law as 'ill-treatment' or 'neglect' of children and she was an old lady of 70 before the Prevention of Cruelty to, and the Better Protection of, Children Act became law in 1889. 

Quoted with permission from 'All they need is Love' by Alan Brack (The story of the Liverpool Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children 1883-1983)