Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/739

 LIVERPOOL 715 tributed by Mr Joseph Mayer, F.S. A. Sir Andrew Walker erected the art gallery which bears his name at an expense of 35,000. The Picton circular reading-room, and the Rotunda lecture-room were built by the corporation at the cost of 25,000. The library contains nearly 100,000 j volumes. An annual exhibition of paintings has been established, the sales from which average about 12,000 per annum. A permanent gallery has also been formed, which is now being enlarged at a cost of about 12,000. The literary and philosophical society was established in 1812, and still flourishes. There are also philomathic, geological, chemical, historic, and various other societies for the cultivation of almost every branch of knowledge and inquiry. An art club has been established with great success, and possesses an excellent club-house and gallery. The royal institution, established by Roscoe iu 1817, pos sesses a fine gallery of early art, and is the centre of the various literary institutions of the town. Education. Elementary education has always met with cordial support in Liverpool, and is now carried on with vigour by the school board, supplemented by voluntary schools. For middle class and higher education there have existed for many years three institutions, which have been very successful, viz., the school attached to the royal institution, the collegiate institution in Shaw Street, and the Liverpool institute high school. A further effort has been successfully made resulting in the foundation of University College, the inaugural meeting of which was held on January 14, 1882. This college is affiliated to the Victoria university of the north-west of England. The sum of 135,000 has been raised by voluntary subscrip tion, to which 30,000 have been contributed by the corporation. Seven chairs have been endowed, and pro fessors appointed, and a suitable building has been pro vided. Recreation and Social Life. There are eight theatres, besides many minor music halls and places of amusement. The most fashionable and exclusive is the Philharmonic Hall, which is a large handsome building open only to proprietors, where concerts take place every fortnight dur ing the season. The Philharmonic concerts, and the balls at the Wellington Rooms (the Almacks of Liverpool), afford the principal opportunities for the gatherings of the fashionable world. The Alexandra theatre, the new Court theatre, the Prince of Wales theatre, and Hengler s cirque are all that could be desired in point of decoration and the mise en scene. The minor houses are conducted on the whole with great propriety and success. Population. According to the censusof 1881 (preliminary report) the number of inhabitants within the parliamen tary and the municipal borough the limits of which are conterminous amounted to 552^425 persons, 271,640 being males and 280,785 females. At the end of the Nth century the population of Liverpool was 5145, but since then it has steadily increased as follows : 1710 8,163 1720 10,446 1753 22,000 1769 34,000 1785 41,000 1801 77,653 1811 94,376 1821 135,000 1831 205,572 1871 488,845 1881 552,425 If the boroughs of Bootle and Birkenhead, which are component parts of the port, are included, Liverpool has now a population of about three quarters of a million. Trade ami Commerce. The progress of the commerce of Liver pool during the present century is almost without a parallel. In 1800 the tonnage of ships entering the port was 450,060 ; in 1880 it reached 7,933,620 tons. In 1800 4746 vessels entered, averaging 94 tons ; in 1880 there were 20,249, averaging 440 tons. The only British port which can at all come into competition with Liverpool is London, the total trade of which, comprising exports and imports, amounted in 1S80 to 16,479,108 tons, against 14,496,364 in Liverpool. A large proportion of this, however, is a coasting trade, indicated by the smaller size of the ships, averaging 240 tons each in London as compared with 440 tons in Liverpool. The coasting trade in Liverpool has rather fallen off owing to the superior advantages of railway traffic. The proportion of steamers to sailing ships has very largely increased of late years. The return for 1881 gives 5,534,462 tons of steam navigation to 2,379,466 tons in sailing ships. If we take the value of the imports as a criterion, London is far in advance of Liverpool, the values in 1880 being 141,442,907 and 107,460,187, but the London imports consist, to a great extent, of very valuable commodities, such as tea, silk, indigo, wines, &c., whilst the Liverpool imports principally consist of grain, food, and raw produce, the materials for manufacture. If we look at the exports the balance is reversed, Liverpool, in 1880, having exported the value of 84,029,651, against 52,600,929 from London. In the number of ships regis tered as belonging to the port, Liverpool stands first in the world, the tonnage belonging to Liverpool being 1,554,871, against 1,120,359 in London, and 1,005,894 in the whole of the ports on the Clyde. The&quot; commerce of Liverpool extends to every part of the world, but probably the intercourse with America stands pre-eminent, there being five lines of steamers to New York alone, besides lines to Philadelphia, Boston, Halifax, Canada, New Orleans, &c. The size of the ships has greatly increased, having reached 8000 tons burden, with 10,000 horse-power. The imports into Liverpool comprise produce of every description from every region under the sun. Cotton, however, is the great staple, almost the whole trade of the commodity centring here. Grain comes next, American and Australian corn occupying a large proportion of the market. Within the last few years an enormous trade in American provisions, including live cattle, has sprung up. I Tobacco has always been a leading article of import into Liverpool, ! along with the sugar and rum from the West Indies. Timber, principally from Canada, forms an important part of the imports, the stacking yards extending for miles along the northern docks. At one time tea from China, and wool from Australia, promised to be imported with advantage, but the financial arrangements with London have drawn these trades almost entirely away. In regard to exports, Liverpool possesses decided advantages ; lying so near the great manufacturing districts of Lancashire and the &quot;West Eiding of Yorkshire, this port is the natural channel of transmis sion for their goods, and, if everything else fails, there are always coal and salt from Wales and Cheshire ready to make up a cargo. The consequence is that many ships, after discharging their home ward cargoes at London and the eastern ports, come round in ballast to Liverpool for an outward cargo. Manufactures. The manufactures of Liverpool are not extensive. Attempts have been repeatedly made to establish cotton-mills in and near the city, but have resulted in uniform failure. Engineer ing works, especially as connected with marine navigation, have naturally grown up, and have been carried on successfully on a large scale. Shipbuilding, in the days of the old wooden walls, in the early part of the present century, was active and prosperous, several frigates and sloops-of-war for Government having been built here, but the keen competition of the Clyde and the north of England drew away a large portion of the trade. There are now four shipbuilding establishments on the Mersey. In the year 1880-81 there were launched from these yards thirty-three iron ships, with a tonnage of 53,971 tons. At one period the soap manufacture filled a large space in the industry of Liverpool, but j it has almost entirely departed. During the latter half of last cen- tury and the beginning of the present, the pottery and china manu facture nourished in Liverpool. John Sadler, a Liverpool manu facturer, was the inventor of printing on pottery, and during the early period of Josiah Wedgwood s career, all his goods which required printing had to be sent to Liverpool. A large establish ment, called the Herculaneum Pottery, was founded in a suburb on the bank of the Mersey, and was carried on with success for many years, but the whole trade has long disappeared. One manufacture, established at an early period, still continues to flourish the watch and chronometer trade. Litherland, the inventor of the lever watch, was a Liverpool manufacturer, and Liverpool-made watches have always been held in high estimation. There are several extensive sugar refineries, and two large tobacco manufactories. Docks. The docks of Liverpool on uotli sides of the Mersey are under the same trust and management, and equally form part of the port of Liverpool. On the Liverpool side they extend along the margin of the estuary 6^ miles, of which miles is in the borough of Bootle. The Birkenhead docks have not such a front age, but they extend a long way backward. The water area of the Liverpool docks and basins is 333J acres, with a lineal quayage of 22 miles. The Birkenhead docks, including the great float of 120 acres, contain a water area of 160 acres, with a lineal quayage of 9 miles. The system of floating docks was commenced by the corpor ation in 1709. With the advancing demands of commerce the docks were extended north and south. They constituted from the