Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Slavery Wirral

Good afternoon. Hope you are all well.

Just been reading a book called Britain Overseas, (the story of the Empire).It was given as a school prize to my grandmother in 1909. After sitting on the book shelf here for many years, I decided to have a look at it.

Trying to find if Wirral hosted slaves, I came across this from 2010 :

https://www.wirralglobe.co.uk/news/4879875.wirrals-slave-trade-links-revealed/

As there is a paragraph in the book in relation to the Gulf of Guinea , the Gold Coast from where the British Guinea coin got it's name , my question is,

Could 'Guinea Gap' have been named in connection to slaves arriving on Wirral , maybe the place they disembarked ?

Thanks Bert. I always thought the discovery of Guineas/treasure was an old wives tale.

The photo would indicate it could have been access to/from sailing boats, but I suppose not necessarily slave ships or if any type of ship did arrive there.

It is highly unlikely they disembarked slaves in England, slavery has not existed here since the Norman times, as soon as a slave set foot on English soil they became a freeman. The slave traders couldn't risk losing a whole cargo, that would be a massive loss.

Yes, must admit, I wasn't really thinking straight about slaves arriving on our shores, although I suppose certain slave ships could have arrived Wirral side.
However, there has been mention that 'guinea' cold have been derived from 'ginnel' : a narrow passage between buildings; an alley.

Just another thought. Nothing important. Hope you are ok DD.

http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/em/_streets/guinea.php

snip ;

Most of this little street disappeared when the buildings around the old Lower Market were destroyed in the bombing of May 1942. There is a small passageway between South Street and George Street which is roughly where Guinea Street joined South Street. The street dates back to the time of Henry II - the name comes from the ancient word ginnel or gennel for narrow passage way.

An interesting item on Wiki.
Liverpool article on the slave trade.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_slave_trade

Very interesting , Thank you OldGuy.

I'm fine apart from having stupidly high blood pressure, we had three years of stressful chaos with a series of successive events and I assumed my blood pressure would fall now I've got back to a normal relaxed life, it hasn't. NHS is being slightly less than helpful, five doctors over a period of years discarding results as false, eventually I will come across one who will question why a repeated test is always atypical and why I am nowhere near dead on my feet like the results suggest I should be. I am fairly sure I know the reason and have found some studies that back me up, but the conversation never gets that far - the repeated results are all false, take these pills (which haven't worked at all for years).

How are thee and thine?

All this destruction of any history to do with the slave trade annoys me, unlike some other European countries we simply didn't have the slaves here or even offshore, amazingly we had higher morals than many other countries. If you are looking at slavetrade money then everything in England and much further afield can be traced back to that even contemporary housing and food.

As to Guinea Gap, it amazes me its been a slipway because of its length and steepness, however it was. I've nearly come a cropper a few times walking down/up there when there are wet leaves on the ground, especially when I've been on a lead. There must have been a wheelhouse of some sort at the top, I wouldn't have thought that horses or men could haul boats up there. I also suspect it would have been steeper before the prom was built. All conjecture of course.

I'm fine apart from having a spell in hospital at the beginning of the year. They're stll no clearer as to how I ended up the way that I was, but like yourself, I could tell them but they won't listen. Had every type of exploration, test, xray, scan.. but when Pixolax has an adverse affect and one goes to the GP, for advice. No answer there ! But a prescription for Molaxole ! (look them up ). Take 2 a day. 'don't need it ' says I, 'take one a day then' says he' ??? A couple more crackers like that on a similar prescription package,... if we don't laugh we'd cry or say something stronger.

Hoping you have more luck and results of a positive nature. I feel fine, just brassed off. All others are well thanks.

Slavery in Liverpool, was huge from all accounts, and I suspect that if anyone decided to try and reinvent the city by re naming, and removing, I doubt there'd be much left.

But one point is , that although many slave ships belonged to people who sailed them from Liverpool, firstly, they may not have all originally come from Liverpool, and also, I would expect that most of them already had huge wealth to be able to build the ships in the first place.

The Mersey must have looked pretty full, the dock that is spoken about in Wikipedia link above from Old Guy, which docks would have been used during those years, it wouldn't have been Herculaneum Dock ?

Glad to hear you are on the up, I can suggest some greasy spoons who can beat Pixolax hands down.

Ignoring the smaller coastal traders There were around 500 ships trading at Liverpool at the height of the slave trade, less than 150 were involved in the trade triangle, probably around 40 to 50 were at Liverpool at any one time. I would imagine they would stay in docks for the minimum amount of time to avoid dock fees but after most of the long journeys there would be a substantial amount of repairs to be done to the ships.

A lot of the profit from the triangular trade wasn't the slaves, it was goods on the other two legs, however the cotton trade etc relied on slave labour to pick cotton etc so could be be classed as dirty money.

The ship owners and traders were usually separate, the traders would partly or fully fund/commission a trip then make their money out of the goods. Sometimes it was a lot more complicated, the ship, crew, captain and goods were all separate entities and there might be passengers on some legs. You may remember some of that from The Onedin Line where iirc James was fighting to do the whole package himself but kept on having setbacks.

The docks were more central around where the pier head is now, the Three Graces were built in the 20th Century way after the slave trade and on top of some of the old docks which linked up to the canals for onward transportation.

Again iirc, to the north was ship building and there were docks growing to the south on cheaper land. Eventually before the 20th century the ship building died out, the trading docks moved to the north, passenger were central and Birkenhead took over all the ship building. I think the last ship built in Liverpool was around 1895???

Thanking you.

Stay healthy ,DD.

I knew I'd read something about a slave ship and WIrral. Named after Neston.

After selling his interest in the Neston John Evans travelled to Jamaica, probably to be a merchant or plantation owner. However, diseases such as yellow fever were common there and he died in Kingston in 1761, aged just 27.

His gravestone states ‘Here Lieth the body of Mr John Evans, late of Neston in Cheshire'.

https://www.aboutmyarea.co.uk/Chesh...vered-The-Story-of-the-Slave-Ship-Neston

I see the subject of reparations has raised its head again, its totally impractical, very few countries were not party to the slave trade themselves at some time or another. But as a country we weren't responsible, it was individuals that were involved in the slave trade, slavery was illegal in the UK unlike many other countries.

Then in turn, would we seek reparations for the Vikings, Romans etc.

How about prisoners of war, were they not used as slaves by many countries?