Liverpool Shipping Records: Imports and Exports, 1820-1900 - Part 4

Containing over 70,000 images, Liverpool Shipping Records: Imports and Exports, 1828–1900 documents 80 years of imports and exports to and from the city of Liverpool. This collection contains bills of entry derived from the reports and manifests of ships that docked in Liverpool. These documents offer unique insights into Liverpool's maritime history and the goods traded in Liverpool between 1828 and 1900. This collection, therefore, provides students and researchers with an overview of global trade networks and their interaction with the city of Liverpool.

The prosperity of the city during this period was built on its maritime success as one of England’s major docks. In the early eighteenth century, Liverpool merchants supplemented their existing trade links with Ireland and Europe with voyages around the Atlantic. Liverpool became heavily involved in various imperial trade networks, including tobacco, sugar, indigo, rice, rum, and cotton. Many of the goods traded in Liverpool were derived from the labour of enslaved people. Indeed, Liverpool and its merchants were major players in the transatlantic slave trade. By 1800, Liverpool was the largest slave trading port in the world and much of the city’s wealth and development relied on enslavement and the triangular trade.

In 1807, The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed and prohibited the trade of enslaved people throughout the British empire. This drastically changed shipping in Liverpool, which had previously been heavily involved in trading enslaved people. Merchants did, however, continue to trade goods produced by enslaved people and slavery continued its legacy in Liverpool’s trade networks.

During the eighteenth century, the wealthy city corporation poured millions of pounds into constructing wet docks that became the envy of other British ports. Liverpool rose to prominence demographically and commercially in this period.

Professor Kenneth Morgan, Brunel University

Insights

Bills of entry are printed records of imports and exports. The first bills of entry for Liverpool were printed around 1750 and over time they became more extensive, eventually serving as business newspapers for the local commercial community. By the late 1840s, the bills were printed daily, except for Sundays, giving a comprehensive overview of maritime trade in Liverpool. The documents, included in this collection, contain detailed information such as the names of ships; where they arrived from; where they embarked for; their captains; their tonnage; their date of arrival and departure; cargo details; and the names of the people and companies associated with each shipment on board.

The sources in this collection provide a detailed overview of the nature and development of Liverpool’s trade routes and relationships. They also highlight how trading priorities changed over time, particularly during the industrial revolution when Britain began exporting large volumes of goods manufactured using new technologies and processes. Crucially, the documents also illustrate how Britain’s commercial interests and networks laid the foundations for a vast, global empire.

The documents in this collection detail key imports and exports entering and leaving Liverpool. Pimento and logwood were shipped to Britain from Jamaica, while mustard seeds, liquorice root, and saffron came from India. Bacon and lard made their way from New Orleans, and wine, lemons, and oranges were imported from Spain. Meanwhile, Britain exported tobacco, paint, and sewing machines to Africa; cotton, soap, and tools to Singapore; whilst wine, leather, and glassware were shipped to Brazil.

Liverpool was a major slave trading port in the eighteenth century. This changed after the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, and later, the end of plantation slavery in most British colonies after 1833. Cotton then became the most important commodity in Liverpool. In 1784, the first cotton from North America arrived in Liverpool. By 1850, over 1.5 million bales of cotton were imported from America to Liverpool every year and cotton accounted for almost half of the city’s trade. The cotton boom relied on cotton produced from the labour of enslaved people, as slavery was not abolished in North America until 1865. Mills across Lancashire transformed this cotton into finished goods and garments, which were then exported across the globe from Liverpool’s docks.