Occasionally I post a photograph that really does not need too much text. The year is 1910 and seven boys are lined up for the photographer (there is an eighth boy half-hidden behind them). This is at the height of Liverpool’s prosperity. The Port of Liverpool building had just opened, the Cathedral was underway and the Liver Building scheduled to be completed the following year. Liverpool had more millionaires per capita than nearly any other city in the world – yet here are barefooted boys dressed in rags. The recent demonstrations about the unfair distribution of wealth throughout Europe and the United States bring into sharp focus the inequalities bred by capitalism – none more so than in today’s poignant image.

On Friday, my book on Picture Post on Liverpool will be in the shops. It contains a fascinating collections of photographs, published and unpublished, taken by photographers of the famous but now defunct magazine.
During my research, I made many unexpected discoveries. The most interesting story was that of an article on Liverpool’s slums that was written by Fyfe Robertson in 1956 (who many older readers will remember for his dry humour and sharp reporting on television). He was supported by his future son-in-law, photographer Thurston Hopkins. I can find no trace of Robertson’s journalism on Liverpool as the article was rather scandalously ‘spiked’ by the magazine’s proprietor, Edward Hulton, after Liverpool councillors (presumably Jack Braddock and others) complained that the impending article was a slur on the city. So the feature never appeared but the photographs survived (now in Getty Images archive for whose permission to reproduce today’s image I am grateful). And what a magnificent series they are! All unpublished, they give a shocking insight into the real poverty that was so evident in many neighbourhoods.
Remarkably, Thurston Hopkins is still going strong at 98. (He actually apologised for taking time in replying to my questions because he was so busy!).
One photograph he particularly remembered was of the young girl in a bed covered with newspaper. The girl’s grandmother had tipped him off (another stunning photograph of an old woman in an alley – ‘like out of a Rembrandt painting’ as Thurston described her). He was accused later of having staged the photograph but he said it was real enough. Every day, the girl’s mother would cover the bed with newspaper to keep the rain from ruining the bedclothes.
How many others lived in such appalling conditions? No wonder the Council wanted the article buried.
The book Picture Post on Liverpool is available from Waterstones, WH Smiths, the Book Clearance Centre and other shops from Friday, price £7.99

Available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1908457058

I am always very careful when making judgments about old photographs. What might seem obvious can often turn out to be nothing of the kind on closer examination. Today’s two photographs are a good example. If one only has one photo to examine, the conclusion is that here is a very sad scenario of a tired bootblack grabbing a few minutes sleep outside St George’s Hall. Put the two photographs together and you realise they are both staged for dramatic effect. Of course the boy probably is a bootblack but the photographer has probably paid him a few pennies to pose for dramatic effect. A more fanciful (and totally unlikely) explanation is that the photos are cunning product placements for Martindales, an old Liverpool company that once dealt in coal and associated products but are now central heating engineers.

St John’s Gardens

New Brighton beach, 1913

My last two posts generated an interesting discussion about childhood, poverty and happiness. I am sure that children from an early age understand poverty, or at least hunger and the cold of winter. However, a superficial look at the three young boys sunning themselves in St John’s Gardens gives the impression they haven’t a care in the world.
The same can be said for the well-dressed children playing on the beach at New Brighton. Halcyon days, although it would be wrong to make any assumptions about any of their futures. They would all be too young to fight in the impending War, fortunately, but the 1920s and 30s were difficult decades for many in the region. Without any judgement, two fascinating images of childhood.

Following the photograph of the barefoot boys by the canal, here are two more taken by the same unknown photographer. Again, the year is 1910. Just a century ago and Britain was the greatest empire the world had seen. The Edwardian confidence, that was so forcefully expressed in the new Pierhead buildings, had seemingly banished the worst excesses of Victorian poverty. Yet here we have further evidence of shameful deprivation almost in the shadows of the newly constructed Liver Building.

Three barefoot boys sitting on a bridge spanning the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. I am not sure of the exact spot but I am sure some reader will know it.
This is Liverpool only a century ago. The photograph, taken by an unknown photographer, shows how tough life was for those at the bottom of the pile. This was 1910 and Liverpool was boasting to the world how important it was by building a cathedral and totally reshaping Pierhead. There was still plenty of money at the top but all these lads had to look forward to was a World War in four years time that they would be lucky to survive unharmed.
What has happened in the last century has been truly remarkable: technology has changed all our lives. Poverty, however relative, still blights the city though. What will the next century bring – and how will photographs of today’s deprived communities be viewed in 2111?

There is no doubt what the celebrations are about. The slides taken by Pat Weekes are all dated 14 May 1967 – an auspicious day for all Roman Catholics since it marked the consecration of the new cathedral. St Andrew’s Gardens, or the Bullring, in its shadow, made the most of the occasion with a giant street party and some form of theatrical entertainment.
The hardened news photographer had long left after taking photographs of all the going-ons at the cathedral but for the enterprising amateur photographer, the real action was elsewhere, as Pat’s photographs show. Photographs of official events are invariably dull – usually choreographed line-ups of dignitaries and staged events. Historically they provide a record but there is usually much more fun to be captured away from the main action – from children tucking into jelly and jam tarts to earnest priests explaining ecumenical matters to respectful parishioners.

Following the last blog, which produced a fantastic response, I have posted another picture of boys at a gate being shooed away by an old man. This time the location can be easily identified as Liverpool Cathedral. The photograph was taken by Peter Leeson in the early 1970s. It is quite a grainy image and was not included in his book Goodbye Scottie Road – but I thought it was an interesting follow-on from the last blog, which has been fairly conclusively identified as Princes Avenue facing Parkway. The gates have gone but the row of houses on Parkway in the background still stand, unlike the row of Georgian houses which lined St James’s Road below the Cathedral. They all disappeared in the late 1970s.

Stan Zabecki sent me today’s photograph. A lovely photograph, it was taken by Frank Dugan, the American GI whose work has appeared here before. It is not an image I can remember from the portfolio Frank showed me back in the early 1990s. My first reaction was that it was taken at Princes Park Gates – but the ironwork is not of the park gates and, anyway, there would have been a church at the junction behind until the 1970s. There is a wide boulevard behind with three storey houses, so it seems to fit the location, but it could be Newsham Park or another place entirely.
The photograph was taken in 1954, so the location might have changed since then. Any ideas?

William Henry Street c1895

William Brown Street c1895

I was going to write about the new Museum of Liverpool but my two attempts to walk round have both been aborted after less than 20 minutes each due to the amazing number of people visiting. With the outside temperature in the mid 20s, it wasn’t the time to make any critical analysis, so I will wait until September when I expect it will get much quieter. My initial impression is that too much space has been allocated to the entrance/atrium, which has created congested gallery space, but I need to see how the exhibitions work without such a volume of people. The very positive note is that over 100,000 people have been through already – an encouraging sign of the level of interest in Liverpool’s history.
Today’s posts reflect the darker side of that history. Child poverty has never been eradicated from Liverpool and these photographs of barefooted boys are a reminder of how tough life was a century ago. The first photograph is, I am reasonably certain, of William Henry Street. Blackledge & Sons had a small chain of bakers shops and this one seems to be the most likely location (on the corner of Canterbury Street). (The only other possibility could be Great Crosshall Street). I am not sure what the boy of the left is carrying – maybe a bunch of flowers for his mum.
The second photograph is of Bentley’s bookshop in Shaw’s Brow/William Brown Street (on the site of where the Technical School – now part of Liverpool Museum – was built a few years later).