Liverpool Exchange and Town Hall c1674
The Making a Living gallery in the former Museum of Liverpool Life told the story of the working lives of Liverpool people over the last 200 years. Displays included:
The city of Liverpool was built on the activities of merchants who traded around the world in a huge range of commodities including cotton, sugar, grain, tobacco and people. In the eighteenth century Liverpool became Europe's leading port involved in the slave trade. In the nineteenth century cotton became the key import with the docks handling 80% of Britain's cotton trade.
The heart of Liverpool's commercial, business and political activity was the Town Hall and Exchange Flags. In the nineteenth century the Flags were crowded with merchants buying and selling goods. The building shown here, built in 1674, was replaced by the present Town Hall in 1754.
The activities of merchants created employment in the docks. Dock workers were employed as 'casual' labour. Each morning and lunchtime dockers gathered at stands, hoping to get picked for work. By 1929 the docks stretched for seven miles along the waterfront with 239 'stands'.
Dock work was divided between stevedores and porters. Stevedores were responsible for loading and unloading cargo. This was highly skilled work as the stability of a ship was dependent upon the proper distribution of cargo in the holds.
The most important piece of equipment for all dockers was 'the hook' - a hand held tool used for shifting heavy sacks:
"You had to have a good hook, one which would fit your hand and one which you could work with - otherwise after a day handling anything up to a hundred tons of cargo, they'd just be bleeding red raw and blistered."