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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2015
During the second half of the eighteenth century the shipping industry of the port of Liverpool continued to expand, as it had done since about 1660, as the port’s trade increased and became more diversified, both geographically and in terms of the commodities which it handled. Though the surviving statistical evidence is not entirely reliable and statistics produced at different times during the period are not strictly comparable with each other, there being, for example, no system of general ship registration before 1786 from which statistics of vessels owned within the port could have been calculated, it does appear that during the second half of the eighteenth century the amount of shipping owned within the port more than doubled, if not trebled. In 1751, 220 vessels were reputedly owned there, while on 30 September 1793, 606 vessels were officially on the Liverpool shipping register. Several thousand vessels were owned within the port at different times and for varying lengths of time during the period under review, for example, in the period from August 1786, when the system of general ship registration commenced, to December 1799, 1,571 vessels were either registered for the first time under the 1786 Ship Registry Act at the port of Liverpool or, having been purchased by Liverpool owners, were transferred to the Liverpool register from the registers of other ports. Clearly, opportunities for employment as ships’ captains were considerable. Indeed, such was the size of the Liverpool shipping industry in the second half of the eighteenth century that more than 2,000 individuals found employment as such, including several—possibly between 100 and 150—who were Catholics, though a precise figure is impossible to calculate on account of the difficulty of identifying captains who were of this faith.
1 For the development of the port of Liverpool see Hyde, Francis E., Liverpool & the Mersey: the development of a port 1700–1970 (Newton Abbot 1971)Google Scholar, Muir, Ramsay, A history of Liverpool (London 1907, republished Wakefield 1970)Google Scholar and Parkinson, C. Northcote, The rise of the port of Liverpool (Liverpool 1952)Google Scholar.
2 Wallace, James (?), A general and descriptive history of the ancient and present state of the town of Liverpool… (Liverpool 1795), p. 254 Google Scholar. The figure of vessels on the Liverpool Shipping Register in 1793 was found in PRO, Customs 17/15, State of navigation, commerce, and revenue 1793.
3 This figure includes a small number of Liverpool registered vessels which were sold and re-registered at other ports and later repurchased by Liverpool owners and registered again at Liverpool.
4 For fuller discussion of these sources see Pope, D. J., ‘Liverpool Catholic shipowners in the second half of the eighteenth century’, North West Catholic History, Vol. 29, 2002, pp. 15–49 Google Scholar, and David J. Pope, ‘Liverpool’s Catholic mercantile and maritime business community in the second half of the eighteenth century’, Part 1, Recusant History, Vol. 27, No. 2, October 2004, pp. 244–79, and the works cited there.
5 The principal exceptions were foreign-built vessels taken as prizes from an enemy in time of war and legally condemned in a British Admiralty court. It is not clear why copies of Certificates of Plantation Registry granted at British ports other than Liverpool, were made in the Liverpool Plantation Registers, though sometimes the date of the copying is close to the date of the re-registering of a vessel at Liverpool and was perhaps done to provide evidence that the earlier owners had entitlement to the vessel and therefore to her sale. It should also be noted that a number of vessels owned at other British ports acquired Certificates of Plantation Registry at Liverpool.
6 The Plantation and Wool Registers are housed in the Merseyside Maritime Museum; copies are also available on microfilm in the City of Liverpool Record Office. The Liverpool Shipping Registers from 1786 onwards are housed in the Merseyside Maritime Museum. The register books are also available on microfilm in the City of Liverpool Record Office. A transcript of the registers for the period 1786–8 is contained in Robert Craig and Rupert Jarvis, Liverpool registry of merchant ships (Manchester: Chetham Society Publications, Third Series, Vol. XV, 1967).The introduction of this book provides an account of the development of registry law and comments on the problems of interpretation and value of the registers.
7 For a brief account of the founding of the Register of Shipping see Wright, Charles and Fayle, C. Ernest, A history of Lloyd’s from the founding of Lloyd Coffee House to the present day (London 1928), pp. 84–7Google Scholar. The eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century volumes of Lloyd’s Register have been reprinted; copies of the reprinted volumes are available in both the Liverpool Central Library and the Merseyside Maritime Museum.
8 The Naval Office Shipping Returns are housed in the Public Record Office in Classes CO and T. They have been microfilmed by Microform (Wakefield) Limited.
9 The Registers of Mediterranean Passes together with indexes of them are housed in the Public Record Office (Class Adm 7). The volumes of them up to 1784 are also available on microfilm produced by Microform (Wakefield) Ltd and include an explanatory introduction by David Richardson. The same company has also produced microfilm of the Liverpool Plantation Registers.
10 Pope, D. J., ‘The eighteenth century Liverpool newspapers as a source for maritime history’, Part 1, Maritime History, Vol. V, No. 2, Winter 1977, pp. 116–35Google Scholar. During the eighteenth century a number of minor changes to the titles of the two principal Liverpool newspapers were made; throughout the present article they are referred to as Gore’s General Advertiser (hereafter Gore’s Gen Adv) and Williamson’s (from 1794 Billinge’s) Liverpool Advertiser (hereafter Wmson’s (Billinge’s) Lpl Adv).
11 Individual issues published in many of the years for which Lloyd’s List survives, are missing. The surviving copies of Lloyd’s List for the period 1741–1826 were reprinted by the Gregg Press, London, in 1969; copies of these reprinted volumes are available in the Liverpool Central Library.
12 Nicholas Cox, ‘Sources for maritime history (II): the records of the Registrar-General of Ships and Seamen’, Maritime History, Vol. 2, No. 2, September 1972, pp. 168–88, and Pope, D. J., ‘The Liverpool Muster Rolls’, Bulletin of the Liverpool Nautical Research Society, Vol. 42, No. 3, Winter 1998, pp. 97–102 Google Scholar. See also Davis, Ralph, ‘Seamen’s sixpences: an index of commercial activity, 1697–1828’, Economica, New Series, Vol. XXIII, No. 92, November 1956, pp. 328–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and The rise of the English Shipping industry in the 17th and 18th century (Newton Abbot 1962, new impression 1972), and Behrendt, Stephen D., ‘The captains in the British slave trade from 1785 to 1807’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Vol. 140, 1990, pp. 79–140 Google Scholar. The Muster Rolls of Liverpool and other ports are to be found in the Public Record Office (Class BT98).
13 Sanderson, F. E., ‘Liverpool and the slave trade: a guide to sources’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Vol. 124, 1972, especially pp. 170–2.Google Scholar
14 Eltis, David, Behrendt, Stephen D., Richardson, David and Klein, Herbert S., The Trans-Atlantic slave trade: a database on CD-Rom (Cambridge University Press 1999)Google Scholar.
15 Copies of the registers are available in the City of Liverpool Record Office—282H1G (St. Mary’s and Chorley Street), 282PET (St. Peter’s) and 282SWI (St. Swithin’s); the Sefton Hall Chapel registers are available on microfiche produced by the Liverpool and SW Lancashire Family History Society. A copy of the earliest registers of St. Mary’s, marriages 1741–54 and baptisms 1741–73, contributed by Mrs. Seymour Spencer and edited by Joseph S. Harrison with historic notes by Joseph Gillow, is to be found in Catholic Record Society, 9, Miscellanea, Vol. VII (London 1911), pp. 179–333. The 1767 returns are contained in Worrall, E. S., Return of Papists 1767 Diocese of Chester (Catholic Record Society Occasional Publications No. 1 1980)Google Scholar.
16 The third of McAuslane’s five voyages ended in the loss of the Peggy at the ‘Piel of Fowdry’ on her voyage from Jamaica to Liverpool; ‘the crew saved themselves in their boat, but the ship is lost’ (Wmson’s Lpl Adv 16 Nov 1759).
17 For Liverpool and the Slave Trade see Roger Anstey and P. E. H. Hair (eds.), Liverpool, the African Slave Trade, and Abolition… (Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire Occasional Series, Vol. 2, 1976) and David Richardson, Suzanne Schwarz and Anthony Tibbles (eds.), Liverpool and Transatlantic Slavery (Liverpool 2007).
18 Gore’s Gen Adv 25 Dec 1767 and 16 Feb 1770; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 25 Dec 1767; Liverpool Muster Rolls 37/1788, 191/1797 and 347/1799 (PRO BT98/48, 57 and 59). John Sharpe’s will was proved in the Chester Consistory Court on 10 March 1770. For Roger Charnley see also the will of James Taylor, master of the ship Lune from Liverpool, proved in the same court on 22 October 1799, and the documentation relating to the act of probate (Lancashire Record Office [hereafter Lancs RO] WCW). Another probable slaving voyage commanded by a Catholic, was that of the Fortune, Captain Green which ‘in 1746…, on her voyage from Africa to Jamaica, was captured and carried to Porto Cavalla, with 354 slaves on board’. Green was probably the Catholic Francis Green who was commander of the Cape Coast, which sailed for Africa at some date during the second half of 1742 and was ‘taken on the Coast of Africa by a Spanish privateer’ (Gomer Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers and Letters of Marque with an account of the Liverpool Slave Trade (Liverpool and London 1897, reprinted New York 1966), pp. 472 and 659). The voyage of the Fortune has not been included in the voyages in the slave trade undertaken by Catholic commanders.
19 The dates are the years in which the voyages commenced. Vincent May continued to command vessels employed in the African trade after abolition; indeed, he died in West Africa in 1824—‘on the 2d of June, in Bonny River, Africa, [died] Captain Vincent May, of the ship Kingston, aged 44’ (Gore’s Gen Adv 4 Nov 1824). However, May’s employment as a ship’s captain appears not to have been continuous; he is listed as such in Gore’s Liverpool Directories 1805, 1807, 1816, 1818, 1821 and 1823, but not in those for 1810, 1811, 1813 and 1814, where the occupation of the only Vincent May listed is a hatter, in Lord Street, Liverpool.
20 In addition to those employed in the slave trade, a small number of other Liverpool vessels traded with Africa during the period under review, for example for tropical woods.
21 The percentages, especially those for the entire period 1775–92, understate the death rates, since some individuals were taken on at Liverpool for more than one voyage and therefore appear more than once in the crew lists. The size of the task in following the careers of all the individual seamen employed on Liverpool slaving vessels for which crew lists survive, made it impossible to take these duplications into account.
22 These statistics do not, of course, comprise all the deaths of captains during their voyages, as not all crew lists have survived, some of them being lost, when vessels were wrecked or captured. However, it is doubtful that the omission of these deaths significantly distorts the conclusion reached here, if it does do at all, since a number of these wrecked and captured vessels, were slavers.
23 Lloyd’s List 28 May 1771.
24 Liverpool Muster Rolls 226/1793 and 347/1799 (PRO BT98/53 and 59).
25 See also Liverpool Muster Rolls 326/1806 (PRO BT98/66), where the date of Barrett’s death is recorded as 26 April 1806.
26 Liverpool Muster Rolls 73/1784 (PRO BT98/44); Gore’s Gen Adv 13 Nov 1783; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 6 Nov 1783 and 22 Apr 1784; a Mediterranean Pass for the voyage was issued on 16 August 1783 (PRO Adm 7/ 102 No. 4791).
27 Wmson’s Lpl Adv 29 July 1784 and 27 Jan and 23 June 1785. A certificate of plantation registry for the Brothers was granted at Liverpool on 13 August 1783, when she was described as a square sterned brig of 70 tons or thereabouts, built at Rhydland [Rhuddlan], Flintshire, in 1783. The description of the Cousins in the London register of shipping employed primarily in foreign trade, No. 436, 24 July 1787, is sufficiently similar to that of the Brothers as to indicate that she was the same vessel—a square sterned brig of 78 registered tons, built at Rhuddlan in 1783 (PRO BT107/8).
28 Henry and James Billinge were brothers of Thomas Billinge, the contemporary Liverpool newspaper proprietor. On his two voyages to the West Indies in the years 1781–2 Thomas Harrold commanded the Barton and the Tryal (Liverpool Muster Rolls 231/1781 and 57/1783 (PRO BT98/41 and 43)). On the return journey of the second voyage, ‘from Bermuda for this Port’, the Tryal ‘was taken, and on the 17th August was retaken by a vessel bound from New York to Oporto. The Tryal is put into Limerick having received considerable damage’ (Gore’s Gen Adv 31 Oct 1782; see also Lloyd’s List 5 Nov 1782 and Wmsons Lpl Adv 31 Oct 1782).
29 The totals in this list may not represent all the voyages made by the named persons as captains of vessels; they are likely to be inexact for the 1740s, when there are significant gaps in the surviving runs of Lloyd’s List; moreover, the present writer’s investigation of this decade has been less thorough than that into the second half of the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century. However, enough evidence has been examined to suggest that it is doubtful that further research into the 1740s would reveal other Catholic captains who commanded vessels in Liverpool’s West Indian trade on a regular basis.
30 Billinge’s Lpl Adv 28 April 1800.
31 On her second voyage to Antigua in 1744 ‘the Friendship, Neale, from Cork for Antigua’, was ‘taken by a Privateer belonging to St. Sebastians’ (Lloyd’s List 14 Dec 1744). It should be noted that vessels which sailed from Liverpool for the West Indies, often called at Cork in order to take on provisions, not only for the voyage but also to be sold in the Caribbean.
32 One of the voyages to Jamaica was not completed—Lloyd’s List 20 Jan 1749 reported that ‘the Rose, Sherlock, from Leverpool for Jamaica, is lost on the Coast of Wales, but the Men are saved’.
33 Lloyd’s List 6 Jun 1749, 10 Mar 1752 and 12 Dec 1755; PRO Adm 7/86 No. 1258 and 7/87 No. 657; Lancs RO WCW. Rush may have made an earlier voyage to Maryland as a ship’s captain; Lloyd’s List 27 Jan 1749 announced the arrival at Liverpool of the ‘P. William, Rush’, from that place.
34 Wmson’s Lpl Adv 18 Feb 1757; see also Gomer Williams, op. cit., pp. 170 and 665, and Lloyd’s List 22 Feb 1757.
35 Little has been written on Liverpool whaling, though the present writer has researched the subject in some depth as part of his investigation of the port of Liverpool in the second half of the eighteenth century. Printed works which contain references to Liverpool whaling include Anon, , ‘Proposals for the sale of the Ship “Golden Lion”’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Vol. 1, 1848–49, pp. 19–22 Google Scholar, Richard Brooke, op. cit., pp. 238–42, Ramsay Muir, op. cit., p. 247, Smithers, Henry, Liverpool, its commerce, statistics, and institutions, with a history of the cotton trade (Liverpool 1825), pp. 96–9Google Scholar, and Gomer Williams, op.cit., pp. 80–4. For the history of British whaling in general see Jackson, Gordon, The British whaling trade (London 1978)Google Scholar. Whalebone is not the skeleton of a whale or even a part thereof but ‘an elastic horny substance growing in thin parallel plates in [the] upper jaw of certain whales’ (Shorter OED, new edition, Oxford 1929). ‘It forms an apparatus most admirably adapted as a filter for separating the animals, on which the whale feeds, from the seawater on which they exist’ ( Scoresby, W. jun., An account of the Arctic regions; with a history and description of the Northern whale-fishery, Vol. II (Edinburgh 1820 Google Scholar; reprinted Newton Abbot 1969), p. 415). For a fuller description of whalebone and its uses see ibidem, pp. 415–20 and 435–7.
36 Liverpool Muster Rolls 11/1775 (Otter 1774), 57 and 338/1776, 347/1777 and 209/1778 (Liverpool), 209/ 1784 (Betty), 275/1785 (Everton), 277/1787, 281/1788 and 320/1789 (Brilliant) (PRO BT98/35–8, 44–5 and 47–9); Gore’s Gen Adv 7 Apr 1775, 2 Aug 1776, 14 Mar and 22 Aug 1777, 19 Aug 1784, 25 Aug 1785, 23 Aug 1787, 4 Sep 1788 and 10 Sep 1789; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 26 Mar and 3 and 10 Sep 1773, 5 Aug 1774, 7 Apr and 11 Aug 1775, 15 Mar 1776, 22 Aug 1777, 21 Aug 1778, 19 Aug 1784, 25 Aug 1785, 20 Aug 1787, 1 Sep 1788 and 6 Apr and 14 Sep 1789; PRO T64/276A/295 (Otter 1774) and 296–9 (Liverpool), An Account of the Number of Ships which have been employed in the Whale Fishery to Davis’s Streights and the Greenland Seas with their respective Names… (1774–8). After her Arctic voyage in 1785 the Everton under Gwin’s command made a voyage to Gibraltar, where she was lost on 22 January 1786 (Liverpool Muster Rolls 97/1787 (PRO BT98/47)).
37 Wmson’s Lpl Adv 2 Aug 1790; Gore’s Gen Adv 5 Aug 1790.
38 Wmson’s Lpl Adv 5 Aug 1774; PRO T64/276A/295.
39 Gore’s Gen Adv 23 Aug 1787; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 20 Aug 1787.
40 Ralph Davis, op. cit., p. 290.
41 Brooke, Richard, Liverpool as it was during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, 1775 to 1800 (Liverpool and London 1853), pp 505–09.Google Scholar
42 Billinge’s Lpl Adv 10 Feb 1800; Gore’s Gen Adv 6 Feb 1800; LiverpoolMuster Rolls 378/1800 (PRO BT98/ 60). The Brothers, which had been registered at Liverpool No. 10, 9 Jan 1787, was re-registered there No. 167, 24 Sep 1800, ‘the Certificate of Registry having been carried away by the enemy’. The circumstances of the vessel’s capture and of her return to her owners have not been ascertained. The vessel’s crew list for this voyage, which noted that the vessel was taken into Vigo, records the dates from and to which wages were paid to the captain and crew, 23 October to 23 December 1799 and 8 May to 17 July 1800 (Liverpool Muster Rolls 378/1800 (PRO BT98/60)). Her arrival at Liverpool from Oporto with a cargo consisting primarily of wine, was recorded in Billinge’s Liverpool Advertiser 21 July 1800.
43 Liverpool Muster Rolls 68 and 411/1791 (Martha), 408/1791, 156 and 449/1792 and 175/1793 (Sisters), 68 and 258/1794, 118/1795, 219/1796, 162/1797, 38 and 118/1798, 355/1799, 378/1800 and 305/1801 (Brothers) and 14 and 208/1803, 8/1804, 323/1805, 285/1806, 79 and 352/1807, 191/1808 and 219 and 395/ 1809 (Nimble) (PRO BT98/5l–6l and 63–9). It was impracticable to include references to the entries in the local newspapers of the arrivals and sailings of the vessels commanded by Cudd and Hamilton (for the latter’s voyages see next note).
44 Liverpool Muster Rolls 66 and 196/1788, 181/1789 (Hannah), 170/1790 (Fanny), 77 and 344/1791, 230 and 395/1792, 80 and 271/1793 and 7 and 240/1794 (Oporto) (PRO BT98/48–54).
45 Gore’s Gen Adv 20 Oct 1769, 31 Oct 1777 and 11 Feb 1780; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 20 Dec 1776, 31 Oct 1777 and 4 Feb 1780; Liverpool Muster Rolls 90/1777 (Hope) and 326/1777 and 52/1780 (Dick) (PRO BT98/37 and 40). Details of outward cargoes have not been discovered—unlike imports they are not recorded in the local newspapers—though it seems likely that the four vessels under Doran’s command sailed either in ballast or with cargoes of salt, as did many of the vessels which sailed from Liverpool to ports in Northern Europe.
46 Liverpool Muster Rolls 247/1775, 174/1776, 269/1777 and 49 and 167/1779 (PRO BT98/35–7 and 39); Gore’s Gen Adv and Wmson’s Lpl Adv 2 Jun and 13 Oct 1775, 5 Jul 1776, 26 Sep 1777 and 20 Nov 1778.
47 Lloyd’s List 17 Mar, 22 May and 13 Nov 1741 and 20 Mar 1744. There were two Catholic ships’ captains of the surname Rush in Liverpool in the 1740s and early 1750s—Denis and Michael, brothers from Galway in Ireland. The entries in Lloyd’s List record only the surnames of captains and, as no other evidence relating to the Mary & Ellen has been found, it is not possible to determine whether Denis or Michael Rush were her commander.
48 Lloyd’s List 31 May 1751; PRO Adm 7/87 No. 683.
49 Lloyd’s List 13 Feb 1750 and 26 Apr 1751.
50 Wmson’s Lpl Adv 28 Sep 1759.
51 Liverpool Muster Rolls 125 and 268/1785 and 20/1786 (PRO BT98/45–6); Wmson’s Lpl Adv 16 Jan 1786.
52 Liverpool Muster Rolls 109/1789 and 98/1791 (PRO BT98/49 and 51); Gore’s Gen Adv 5 Mar, 23 Apr and 9 Jul 1789 and 12 May 1791; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 9 Mar, 20 Apr and 6 Jun 1789 and 16 May 1791.
53 Liverpool Muster Rolls 66/1790 and 98/1791 (PRO BT98/50–1); Gore’s Gen Adv 21 Jan 1790 and 17 Feb 1791; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 18 and 25 Jan 1790 and 21 Feb 1791. For an earlier voyage under Chaffers’s command—to Mogadore in North Africa—see above. Chaffers had also made a voyage to Dominica in the West Indies in command of the Alice, a voyage which lasted from 22 August 1785 to 22 June 1786 (Liverpool Muster Rolls 158/1786 (PRO BT98/46); Gore’s Gen Adv 29 Jun 1786).
54 Liverpool Muster Rolls 360/1793 and 276/1794 (PRO BT98/53–4); Gore’s Gen Adv 10 Oct 1793 and 31 Jul 1794; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 7 Oct 1793 and 4 Aug 1794. Some two and a half months after his return from his second voyage to Oporto in the Rochdale Chaffers took command of the Owen, which on a voyage from Liverpool and Madeira for Jamaica ‘foundered at sea the 9th January’ 1794; ‘the crew saved in the boat, and landed on the north side of Jamaica’ (Billinge’s Lpl Adv 9 Mar 1795). Though Chaffers evidently survived this shipwreck, no reference to him thereafter has been found.
55 Liverpool Muster Rolls 287/1790, 283 and 398/1791 (Nevis), 348/1791 (Charles) and 205/1792 (Ann); Gore’s Gen Adv 12 Aug 1790, 28 Apr, 1 Sep and 1 Dec 1791 and 12 Jan, 22 Mar and 4 Oct and 1 Nov 1792; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 16 Aug 1790, 25 Apr, 16 May, 29 Aug and 28 Nov 1791, 16 Jan, 19 Mar and 1 Oct 1792 and 14 Jan 1793. Flanagan had probably commanded another vessel, the Margaret, on two voyages to Bordeaux in 1787, though she appears not to have been a Liverpool vessel; she was not registered at Liverpool at this date nor do crew lists for these voyages survive among the extant Liverpool crew lists. It is probable that she was a Dublin vessel with a Liverpool partowner and the same vessel as the Margaret which was registered at Liverpool, 6, 14 Jan 1788, and owned by Henry De La Main of Liverpool and Robert Murphy of Dublin, merchants. Two advertisements in the contemporary Liverpool newspapers gave notice that anyone wishing to take advantage of shipping space on board the Margaret, at Bordeaux for Liverpool and at Liverpool for the French port, should apply to Henry Delamain, merchant, or Henry Weiss, broker, at Liverpool, or Robert Murphy, merchant in Bordeaux (Gore’s Gen Adv 31 May and 2 Aug 1787; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 4 Jun and 6 Aug 1787). The Margaret, Flanagan, arrived at Liverpool from Dublin in March 1787, from Bordeaux with mostly brandy and wine in July ‘the first Vessel, since the commencement of the Commercial treaty,’ and from the same French port mainly with cotton in either late November or early December (Gore’s Gen Adv 29 Mar, 26 Jul, 2 Aug and 6 Dec 1787; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 26 Mar, 30 Jul and 3 Dec 1787). The entries in the newspapers of the Margaret’s arrivals from Bordeaux describe her captain as James Flanagan.
56 PRO Adm 7/87 No. 1697; Lloyd’s List 7 Nov 1752.
57 PRO Adm 7/91 No. 748, 7/92 No. 2665 and 7/94 No. 1256.
58 PRO Adm 7/98 No. 2441; Gore’s Gen Adv and Wmson’s Lpl Adv 28 Apr 1775.
59 Gore’s Gen Adv 25 Aug and 27 Sep 1775 and 7 Jun 1776; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 29 Sep 1775 and 7 Jun 1776; PRO Adm 7/100 No. 1465.
60 Liverpool Muster Rolls 150/1790 (PRO BT98/50). For Dowe’s earlier voyages see ibidem, 28/1786 (Seville Packet), 26 and 341/1787, 61, 266 and 355/1788 and 59 and 335/1789 (Nelly) (PRO BT98/46– 9); Gore’s Gen Adv 26 Jan and 28 Dec 1786, 14 Jun and 25 Oct 1787, 31 Jan, 30 May, 11 Sep and 6 and 27 Nov 1788 and 29 Jan 1789; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 11 Jun 1787, 22 Oct 1787, 28 Jan, 26 May, 8 Sep and 17 Nov 1788 and 2 Feb 1789. Before these voyages Dowe had made a voyage to Lisbon as captain of the High Green in 1781 (Liverpool Muster Rolls 199/1781 (PRO 98/41); Wmson’s Lpl Adv 30 Aug 1781).
61 PRO Adm 7/86 Nos. 884, 1778 and 2368.
62 Lloyd’s List 28 Feb 1752 a Mediterranean Pass for a voyage to the Mediterranean was granted on 13 September 1751 (PRO Adm 7/87 No. 923).
63 PRO Adm 7/94 No. 242; Gore’s Gen Adv 5 Feb 1768.
64 Liverpool Chronicle 2 May 1804, where the death of John Bunker was reported—‘On the 15th inst. at Dublin, Capt. John Bunker, late of the brig Friends, of this port, and many years a constant trader to Dublin—His vessel was wrecked at Balbriggan in a tremendous gale of wind in the month of December last’. For the voyages of the Aurora, the Venus, the Henry and the Friends under Bunker’s command see Liverpool Muster Rolls 155/1775 and 5 and 132/1776 (Aurora), 350/1776, 126 and 219/ 1777, 48 and 241/1778, 159/1779, 77/1780, 51/1781 and 57/1782 (Venus), 101 and 186/1782, 139 and 272/1783, 103 and 276/1784, 84, 217 and 322/1785, 135/1786, 44 and 343/1787, 237/1788, 261/1789, 378/1790, 253/1791 and 289/1792 (Henry), 415/1792 (Dublin) and 271/1794, 150/1795, 149/1796, 7 and 302/1797, 333/1798, 118/1799, 143 and 465/1800, 92/1803 and 224/1804 (Friends) (PRO BT98/35–52, 54–60 and 63–4). No Muster Roll for the 1793 voyage of the Elizabeth under Bunker’s command exists; his appointment as her master was endorsed at Dublin on her certificate of registry on 9 February 1793 and he was listed as her captain, when her arrival at Liverpool was listed in the Liverpool newspapers (Liverpool Shipping Register No. 9, 7 March 1789; Gore’s Gen Adv 21 Feb 1793; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 25 Feb 1793). The present writer has not viewed the Liverpool Muster Rolls for the years 1772–4 and 1802 (PRO BT98/33–4 and 62), as they are not available on microfilm through the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints. Also, though he has viewed the surviving Muster Rolls for the period 1810–24, he did not make extensive extracts from them, his main purpose being to copy crew lists of Liverpool whaling vessels. To have provided a list of references in the newspapers to the voyages made by the regular Irish traders was impracticable; however, such vessels can usually be quickly found in the lists of arrivals published in the newspapers.
65 Liverpool Shipping Register No. 148, 7 Nov 1786. For the voyages of the Charles, the Friends and the Sutton under Bunker’s command, to 1809, see Liverpool Muster Rolls 142/1795 (Charles), 126/1798 (Friends) and 253/1799, 74/1800, 366/1801, 150/1803, 73/1805, 206/1807, 48/1808, 435/1808 and 228/ 1809 (Sutton) (PRO BT98/55, 58–61, 63, 65 and 67–9).
66 Liverpool Mercury 13 Sep 1816.
67 Liverpool Muster Rolls 243/1775, 158/1776, 4 and 189/1777, 38/1778. 17/1779 and 25/1780 (Nelly), 66/ 1781, 10/1782, 52/1783, 118/1784, 251/1786 and 54/1787 (Hannah) and 262/1788, 6/1790, 40/1791, 411/ 1792, 238/1794, 21 and 294/1796, 132/1798, 216/1799 and 441/1800 (Irene) (PRO BT98/35–44, 46–8, 50–2, 54, 56 and 58–60). Another Catholic captain of a regular Dublin trader the Dublin was James Hanlon, who commanded her on four voyages in the period from about July 1774 to May 1775; he also commanded the Eliza on voyages to Dublin in 1776–7 and to London from 29 December 1775 to 24 February 1776 (Liverpool Muster Rolls 93/1775, 96/1776 and 150/1777 (PRO BT98/35–7); Gore’s Gen Adv 2 Sep 1774 and 7 Apr and 12 May 1775; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 26 Aug and 25 Nov 1774, 7 Apr and 12 May 1775 and 18 Apr 1777).
68 Liverpool Muster Rolls 24/1779 (Polly) and 33 and 107/1780 (Cooper) (PRO BT98/39–40); Gore’s Gen Adv and Wmson’s Lpl Adv 18 Feb, 27 Apr and 29 Jun 1780.
69 Liverpool Muster Rolls 124, 206 and 370/1797 (PRO BT98/57); Billinge’s Lpl Adv 24 Apr, 31 Jul and 4 Dec 1797. Cassidy appears to have been an unfortunate captain, since he lost two vessels within a short time of taking command of them. On 6 March 1793 his taking command of the Hannah, registered at Liverpool, No. 178, 4 August 1787, was recorded in the Liverpool Shipping Register, which also noted that the Hannah was lost in 1793. Cassidy’s appointment as captain of the Ferret, registered at Liverpool, No. 244, 28 September 1787, was recorded in the Liverpool Shipping Register on 31 December 1794; the registry of the Ferret was closed, as she was ‘Taken by French, 1796’. The circumstances of the loss of neither vessel have been discovered. Other voyages to Ireland under Catholic command include those of the Sally, John Doyle, which arrived at Liverpool from Waterford on 11 September 1776 (Liverpool Muster Rolls 251/1776 (PRO BT98/36)) and the Three Brothers, Matthew Handwith, which arrived at Liverpool from Dublin in December 1790 and from Limerick in April 1791 (Liverpool Muster Rolls 34 and 159/1791 (PRO BT98/5l); Gore’s Gen Adv 16 Dec 1790 and 28 Apr 1791; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 13 and 20 Dec 1790 and 2 May 1791).
70 A Certificate of Wool Registry for the Douglass, under Pendergast’s command, was granted to Liverpool on 1 June 1767 to her owners, who included Pendergast.
71 Wmson’s Lpl Adv 24 Jun 1774.
72 Liverpool Muster Rolls 47/1780 (for Dowe) and 110/1781 and 118 and 238/1782 (for Connor) (PRO BT98/40–2). The first of these two vessels named Hawke remained in service as a packet until mid- March 1779; the second came into service in July 1779.
73 For the voyage of the Pennant to Gothenburg see above; for her voyages to Cornwall see Gore’s Gen Adv 17 Mar 1769 (a(rrived from) 12 Mar Truro), 9 Jun 1769 (a 2 Jun from Truro); Gore’s Gen Adv 29 Jul 1768, Liverpool Chronicle 28 Jul 1768 (a 22 Jul St. Ives and Truro); Wmson’s Lpl Adv 8 Apr 1768 (sailed 1 Apr to Plymouth), 20 May 1768 (a 14 May Falmouth), 28 Oct 1768 (a 21 Oct Truro), 17 Mar 1769 (a 12 Mar Truro), 9 Jun 1769 (a 2 Jun Truro), 7 Dec 1770 (a Truro). The Liverpool copper works were moved in 1771 to neighbouring Toxteth Park, where they remained in production until 1793 (W. H. Chaloner, ‘Charles Roe of Macclesfield (1715–81): an eighteenth-century industrialist’, Part II, Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, Vol. LXIII, 1952–3, pp. 52–96).
74 Gore’s Gen Adv 16 Jun and 14 Jul 1775; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 9 Jun 1775. A Patrick Doran made regular voyages to Glasgow and Greenock in a number of vessels, the Fly (1772–3), the Nancy (1773–4), the Jane (1785–6) and the Mary (1788), but it is uncertain whether he was the same Patrick Doran as the commander of the Pennant and Swift; however, given his name it is probable that he was a Catholic, though he has not been included among the Liverpool ships’ captain identified as having been Catholics.
75 Liverpool Muster Rolls 129/1777 (PRO BT98/37); Gore’s Gen Adv and Wmson’s Lpl Adv 18 Apr 1777. The two newspapers describe the cargo differently, the former as barley and the latter as ‘wheat &c’.
76 Muster Rolls 400/1790 (PRO BT98/50); Gore’s Gen Adv 25 Nov 1790; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 22 Nov 1790. The same vessel under Flanagan’s command arrived at Liverpool from London in March 1790, though whether this was the conclusion to a coastal voyage to and from the capital or the vessel had called at London on a return voyage from overseas is unknown (Liverpool Muster Rolls 100/1790 (PRO BT98/ 50); Wmson’s Lpl Adv 15 Mar 1790). The other port from which considerable quantities of clay were shipped to Liverpool in the eighteenth century was Teignmouth.
77 Gore’s Gen Adv 14 Jul 1769.
78 In the simplest of terms a flat was a barge with sails, localised to the Mersey and the nearby inland waterways and employed mainly in these and neighbouring coastal waters. For the history of the flat see Bennet, D. G., ‘The flat: part one’, The Mariner’s Mirror, Vol. 58, No. 3, Aug 1972, pp. 251–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘The flat: part two’, ibidem, Vol. 59, No. 4, Nov 1972, pp. 403–19, Pope, D. J., ‘The flat’, ibidem, Vol. 60, No. 1, Feb 1974, pp. 84–91 Google Scholar, and Stammers, Michael K., Mersey flats and flat men (Lavenham 1993)Google Scholar.
79 The account of the wreck of the Leeming was found in Wmson’s Lpl Adv 24 Jan 1791; for the wreck see also Gore’s Gen Adv 27 Jan 1791 and Liverpool Muster Rolls 99/1791 (PRO BT98/51); for the Ellen’s voyage from Red Wharfe see Liverpool Muster Rolls 83/1782 (PRO BT98/42); no muster roll of the Happy exists. Cullen’s will was proved in the Chester Consistory Court on 7 June 1811 and again 30 April 1846 (Lancs RO WCW).
80 Wmson’s Lpl Adv 16 Jan, 20 Feb and 7 Aug 1761.
81 Liverpool Muster Rolls 148 and 309/1775 and 71/1777 (PRO BT98/35 and 37); Gore’s Gen Adv 6 Jan 1775 and 21 Feb 1777; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 30 Dec 1774 and 21 Feb 1777.
82 Liverpool Muster Rolls 59/1804 (PRO BT98/64); Liverpool Chronicle 15 Feb 1804. The Liverpool registry of the Denure, 129, 21 August 1802, was closed as ‘this Vessel was Lost on the Coast of Ireland in 1803 and all her papers p. Affidavit of Francis Sadler [sole owner] dated 16 Jany 1827’—as the Denure arrived at Liverpool in February 1804, it seems that Sadler’s memory was at fault, at least in terms of the date of the vessel’s loss. Curphy commanded another vessel, the Mary, on a voyage to the British Fishery in the Autumn of 1804. The Liverpool Chronicle 10 October 1804 reported her arrival therefrom with a cargo of ‘470 bls white herrings H. Holmes and Sons, 77 do. 6 half do. white herrings 4 kitts red do. Leece and Drinkwater’. However, as no crew list of the Mary or any record of her having been registered at Liverpool has been found, it appears that she was not a Liverpool vessel.
83 Wmson’s Lpl Adv 18 Feb 1757; Lloyd’s List 22 Feb 1757; Billinge’s Lpl Adv 6 July 1795 and 25 June and 12 Dec 1796; Liverpool Chronicle 6 Feb 1805; Gore’s Gen Adv 7 Feb 1805; Gomer Williams, op. cit., pp. 170 and 665 (Austin), 563 (Jane), 334 (Crescent), 340 (Susannah), 344–6 (Backhouse) and 396–7 (Lord Nelson). For details of these engagements and others involving Catholic commanders see Pope, David ‘Liverpool Catholic Ships’ Captains and the Wars of the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries’, North West Catholic History, Vol. 33, 2006, pp. 5–18.Google Scholar
84 The four vessels were the Charlotte and Lucy (Tarleton), and the Fanny and Jenny (Brown and Tarleton at different times). The ownership of the fifth vessel the Eagle, commanded by Tarleton, has not been ascertained. John Tarleton was one of the executors of Brown’s will, proved in 1763 (Lancs RO WCW).
85 Even if all the Catholic shipowners in the various eighteenth-century Liverpool shipping registers were identified and a full analysis of Liverpool shipowning in the period from about 1745 to 1807 were made, it is unlikely that many, if any, other ‘Catholic’ vessels would be discovered; certainly, the conclusion that Catholic ships’ captains were primarily employed by non-Catholic shipowners would not be undermined. One possible additional ‘Catholic’ vessel is the slaver and snow Greyhound, for which a Certificate of Plantation Registry was granted at Liverpool on 4 September 1750, which was commanded by Maurice Roche [of Liverpool] and owned by him and Richard Flyn, John Grainger and Oliver Bird, the last three all of Dublin.
86 All the wills were proved and all the letters of administration were granted in the Chester Consistory Court and are housed in the Lancashire Record Office (WCW).
87 The relevant Acts of Parliament are 19 Geo 3 c 66 (1779), 23 Geo 3 c 58 (1783), 29 Geo 3 c 51 (1789), 35 Geo 3 c 30 (1795), 44 Geo 3 c 98 (1804), 48 Geo 3 c 149 (1808) and 55 Geo 3 c 184 (1815).
88 This grant of 9 March 1848 was an administration with will limited to property in the neighbourhood of Liverpool, held by Tariton; probate of his will has not been found nor has his date of death. The entry in the Act Book of the Chester Consistory Court reads—‘Limited Admon with Will annexed of Gilbert Tarlton late of the Kingdom of Great Britain but last of the Island of Montserrat Mariner deceased was Granted unto John Follett of No. 1 Sambrook Court Basinghall Street in the City of London Esquire to a Chattel right or Interest for the residue of a Term of 900 years in Certain pieces or parcels of Land being part of the Common or waste Land called the Breck within West Derby in the County of Lancaster the Exors having all died without proving the said Will in England’ (Lancs RO WC33).
89 For Mandeville and other Liverpool Catholic merchants see David J. Pope, ‘Liverpool’s Catholic mercantile and maritime business community in the second half of the eighteenth century’, Part 1, Recusant History, Vol. 27, No. 2, October 2004, pp. 244–79, and Part 2, ibidem, Vol. 27, No. 3, May 2005, pp. 383–414.
90 Directories were published in Liverpool at regular intervals from 1766 onwards, most of them by John Gore and after his death in 1803 by his descendants. Copies of the directories are available on microfilm in the Local History Library, Liverpool Central Libraries, William Brown Street, Liverpool 3.
91 The phrase ‘under £20,000’ indicates an estate valued at £17,500 and under £20,000 under the Schedules of duties laid down in 1804 and 1808, and at £18,000 and under £20,000 under the Schedule of 1815 (44 Geo 3 c 98, Schedule (A); 48 Geo 3 c 149, Schedule, Part III, and 55 Geo 3, c 184, Schedule, Part III). For fuller discussion of the wealth of Liverpool’s eighteenth-century Catholic merchants and shipowners see Pope, David J., ‘Liverpool’s Catholic mercantile and maritime business community in the second half of the eighteenth century’, Part 2, Recusant History, Vol. 27, No. 3, May 2005, pp. 398–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
92 For further details see Pope, D. J., ‘Liverpool Catholic shipowners in the second half of the eighteenth century’, North West Catholic History, Vol. 29, 2002, pp. 15–49.Google Scholar
93 Liverpool Plantation Registers 22 Dec 1747 (Swath), 6 Apr 1751 (Whim) and between 6 and 23 May 1757 (Elizabeth which was registered at Tortola in the West Indies 4 April 1757).
94 The registry details of the Juliana were entered in the Liverpool Plantation Registers between 8 and 12 Nov 1748.
95 For the registrations of these vessels see the Liverpool Shipping Registers 46, 10 May 1793 (Union), 181, 19 Oct 1799 (Ocean), 48, 19 May 1796 (Lancaster Witch), 48, 7 Jul 1797 (Maria), 88, 23 May 1798 (L’Agreable) and 14, 8 Feb 1799 (Sally). The Union, a privateer carrying sixteen four-pounders, sailed ‘on a cruize for four months from 15 May’ 1793; under the command of Alexander Nicholson she ‘took a Swedish vessel, laden with brandy, from Barcelona for Calais’; after her return to Liverpool on 17 September 1793, she was put up for sale, eventually sold and re-registered at Liverpool, 42, 20 May 1794 (Gomer Williams, op. cit., p. 316; Gore’s Gen Adv 30 May and 17 and 24 Oct 1793; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 3 Jun, 22 Jul and 21 Oct 1793; Liverpool Muster Rolls 335/1794 (PRO BT98/54)). The registry of the Ocean was closed as she was ‘lost on the Coast of Africa in 1801’. For the voyages of the vessels partly owned by Thomas Kirkby see the Liverpool Muster Rolls 217/1797 (Lancaster Witch). 197/1800 (Maria) and 399/1799 and 338/1801 (L’Agreable) (PRO BT98/57 and 59–61). The entry of the Maria in the Liverpool Shipping Register describes Kirkby as a merchant, though he was in fact still employed as a ship’s captain—until 1799, when on 19 September he concluded a voyage from Liverpool to Africa, the island of St. Thomas in the West Indies and back to Liverpool in command of the Liverpool slaver the Nancy (Liverpool Muster Rolls 398/1799 (PRO BT98/59)).
96 Gore’s Gen Adv 2 Feb 1786; Wmson’s Lpl Adv 6 Feb 1786.
97 By 1790 she had moved to Stanhope Street and in Gore’s Liverpool Directory 1796 was listed as a shopkeeper at 34 Christian Street.
98 Gomer Williams, op. cit., p. 665.
99 For Kaye see Pope, David J., ‘Liverpool’s Catholic mercantile and maritime business community in the second half of the eighteenth century’, Part 1, Recusant History, Vol. 27, No. 2, October 2004, pp. 251–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
100 The term ‘under a figure’ means an amount below the figure and above the figure in the category below; thus, ‘under £100’ indicates that a personal estate, for the purposes of the payment of Stamp Duty, also known as Probate Duty, was valued at less than £100 but was worth £40 or above, ‘under £300’ means that the estate was worth less than this figure but £100 or more, ‘under £600’ means that the estate was worth less than this figure but £300 or more and ‘under £1,000’ means that the estate was worth less than this figure but £600 or more etc. In the period from 1779, when the level of Probate Duty was increased, the only distinctions in the values of personal estates which were made were ‘under £40’, ‘under £100’, ‘under £300’ and ‘above £300’, the last a very imprecise term. For present purposes if has been assumed arbitrarily that the values of the personal estates of the two Catholic ships’ captains in this last category, Benjamin Francis Hughes and Robert Syers, were less than £600.
101 This paragraph is derived from the contemporary Liverpool Directories. It was not possible to establish the exact dates of residence of the individuals listed.
102 In each of the two groups there were two individuals who each left personal estates ‘above £300’; it was assumed that all four men left ‘under £1,000’. The four Catholic captains whose estates were valued at ‘under £2,000’, include Gilbert Tarleton, the known value of whose property at his death so far identified, is limited to that of the land near Liverpool possessed by him (see note 88).
103 Bossy, John, The English Catholic community 1570–1850 (London 1975), p. 424 Google Scholar, and Danson, J. T., ‘Liverpool: memoranda touching its area and population, during the first half of the present century’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Vol. VIII, 1855–6, p. 23 Google Scholar. Danson obtained his eighteenth-century figures from the Appendix to the Report of the Commissioners, appointed in 1833 to enquire into the state of the Municipal Corporation of the country, published in 1835. His figure for 1801 he took from the National Census of that year.