Heritage Walk Location 16: History

Princes Boulevard is a unique example of formal planning on a large scale in Nineteenth Century Liverpool, forming part of the setting for Princes Park which was designed by Joseph Paxton in 1842 as a private development for Richard Vaughan Yates. The grand mansions, with gothic and classical influences were built for the merchant and commercial classes, whose considerable wealth came from shipping and trade. At this time the port of Liverpool was pivotal within global commerce, due to its prior involvement in the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

From its inception the Boulevard had far reaching international connections. In 1890 the first dedicated museum of Japanese art was opened in the grounds of Streatlam Tower by James Lord Bowes, wool merchant and art philanthropist, who commissioned the building in 1872, designed by W&G Audsley. In 1891 Bowes hosted a Japanese ‘fancy fair’ in the museum, attracting 20,000 people over six days. But the Boulevard was more than just a playground for the rich. In 1886 the newly formed Liverpool Adult Deaf and Dumb Benevolent Society received a 2000-year lease from Lord Sefton for land on Princes Avenue and Parkway. In 1887 The Liverpool Adult Deaf and Dumb Institute, with lecture hall and chapel, was formally opened by H.R.H Princess Louise. In the 1980’s the building was taken over by The Igbo Community Association. In 1900, at 1 Princes Road, a nursing establishment was built by the David Lewis Trust for Liverpool Queen Victoria District Nursing Association ‘to promote the completion in this city of the system of nursing the poor in their own homes’. Built into its boundary wall is a Florence Nightingale Memorial, erected in 1913, containing a sculpture by CJ Allen.

After the First World War the character of the Boulevard began to change. The wealthy, and to some extent the middle classes, began to leave for the suburbs, vacating huge houses that could be split into flats and rooms that were ripe for multiple occupation. Around this time the more diverse community from the Southern Dock area, largely formed by black and migrant seafaring families, began to move up the hill to Liverpool 8. This movement was accelerated when the area around Pitt Street and Upper Frederick Street was heavily bombed during the Second World War. Successive waves of immigration in the post war period led to further settlement in the area around Princes Boulevard adding to its rich cultural mix.

Laurence Westgaph in front of some historical portraits.

A brief history of Black settlement and activism in Liverpool – by Laurence Westgaph

Liverpool is a city of immigrants and Black people have been a part of the town’s cultural make up for over 300 years. There has been a documented black presence in Liverpool since the early eighteenth century, a time when the population of the town was less than ten thousand people.

Liverpool’s long history of Black settlement was brought about by its dominance of trade with Africa and the Americas that began during the eighteenth century. Liverpool’s overwhelming command of the trade in enslaved Africans and commerce in the goods the enslaved produced meant that Black people would often be onboard the ships that sailed into the port. It was these Black settlers, both free and enslaved, who arrived in the growing port during the 1700s that paved the way for the proud, yet much beleaguered Black community that still resides in the city to this day.

Liverpool’s Black community was well established long before the SS Windrush steamed down the Thames in 1948. People of African descent have contributed to the everyday life of the city in a multitude of ways, long before Liverpool was actually a city.

Initially, Black people lived predominantly in the centre of Liverpool. Many settled in the area to the south of the Old Dock when houses were first built in the area, beginning in the 1790s. Due to the high numbers of Black people that resided here during the nineteenth century it became known as ‘Little Africa’, but is better known today as Chinatown, or to others, the Baltic Triangle.

Although Black people lived across the city, this area would remain the main centre of Black settlement until the Second World War, when German bombs laid waste to the houses due to their close proximity to the south docks. Although Black people had lived in Toxteth from the early nineteenth century the destruction brought about by the Second World War led many Black families to move across Parliament Street from L1 into L8 during the war years and beyond, due to its close proximity to where they had originally lived.

Although Black people have lived in the city for centuries racism has been an ever present of Black life in Liverpool.

Some of the earliest Black settlers in the port arrived here as slaves and as early as the 1830s Liverpool newspapers carried stories of racist attacks upon Black people. In 1839, one commentator mentioned that these attacks were taking place ‘nearly every day’. This ever- present phenomena has led to Liverpool’s Black community having a long tradition of uncompromising militancy in its opposition to racial injustice and violence, as demonstrated during the 1919, 1948, 1972 and 1981 disturbances.

During the 1970s-80s Liverpool was home to the most organised, uncompromising and unabashedly militant Black community in the country. Some of these activists were descendants of 18th and 19th century settlers, others were the sons and daughters of more recent arrivals from West Africa and the Caribbean.

Many of Liverpool’s activists were radicalised by observing the emergence of the Black Panther Party, founded in Oakland, California in 1966. Placards emblazoned with images of the Panthers were held aloft in Liverpool during The May Day March that took place 1^st May 1971, at a time when many of the Panthers’ leaders had been assassinated or were being held in prison. The influence of the Panthers would be visibly seen in the formation of the Liverpool Greenjackets, a direct-action group made up of young members of Liverpool’s Black community. Some of Liverpool’s 1980s protestors first became politicised as members of the Greenjackets.

But even long before the 1970s, Liverpool’s Black community demonstrated its awareness of the importance of international solidarity in the fight against racism and fascism. Pastor George Daniels Ekarte founded the African Churches Mission in Toxteth in 1931. He was an important Pan-Africanist who wrote and campaigned extensively to the necessity of establishing an international united front against racism.

During the 1980s the people of the area were at the forefront of protest against the policies of the Thatcher government. Opposition towards injustice in Britain also manifested itself in the championing of international causes.

One such struggle taken up by the community was the fight against Apartheid in South Africa. The Liverpool 8 Community organised marches, benefit concerts, fundraising events and welcomed political refugees into their homes, many people also involved themselves in direct action and boycotts.

Some of those same campaigners were still fighting to end racial violence in Liverpool into the 21st century, when the Campaign Against Racial Terrorism was established after the murder of Anthony Walker in 2005.

Black women were at the forefront of the Liverpool campaign to end Apartheid and were also in the vanguard of fighting racism in the city. Liverpool Black Sisters contributed greatly to community development in Liverpool throughout the 1980s, 90s and into the 2000s. The Sisters were behind the building of the Kuumba Imani Millennium Centre that stands on Princes Road. The centre ensures that their legacy lives on today through providing a venue for many of Liverpool’s current day activists to hold events and meetings.

On the side of the building is a stunning mural depicting Nelson Mandela, commissioned by Mandela8.

The Mandela8 organisation exists to ensure that the legacies of Nelson Mandela and the area’s own giants of activism are memorialised in Liverpool, whilst also engaging young people in the importance of activism in order to make change, through their Roots and Wings programme and other educational initiatives.

The struggle continues… Amandla!

Laurence Westgaph 2024