Long time ago I know but I always remind my kids that their grandparents lived through this - my dad was bombed out of his home twice in Rose Vale and they were still on rationing in 1952 when they married.

I have been just been watching the DVDs of World at War (amazing 1970s series if you 'youngsters' have not seen it ) and been particularly interested in how important Liverpool was at that time - I think I read that 90% of US imports came through the Liverpool docks.

The other thing that hit me is how tough the Russians were and that without their resolve maybe we'd all be speaking German by now.

Hope my kids never have through one - total respect for people who serve their country in the military.

Another sad aspect of Liverpool being written out of the significant history of the UK and world affairs. It has been said that because Liverpool was so important that much of what went on, with regards to the heavy bombing and the troop movements, to say nothing of the Battle of the Atlantic itself that much of it had to be kept secret at the time, but this has continued since the war ended. I feel that the sacrifices, over and above the remarkable sacrifices of all of our cities, that Liverpool made during WWII, and the consequences of post war economic priorities and reorganisation play a significant part in our utter collapse later in the century, though this has never been fully analysed. The difference between what the city was in 38 and what emerged after the war is marked, and extremely striking.

I would like to do something from September next year. I don't know what, but this area in time is something I have wanted to examine for a long time. Something that would higlight on a day to day basis how the city was involved. Something that would reflect the veryday experiences of the population as well as the big important things. Would anyone else like to look at pulling something together? Maybe we could use this thread to knock some ideas round?

What do you think about the War Museum's offer?

http://www.liverpoolwarmuseum.co.uk/

I thought the BBC's account of the Batte of the Atlantic was Liverpool lite (as always).

The accounts that I have read always seem to be over focused on one aspect of the whole - either the relocation of the command structure to Liverpool and then its operations without much further reference to Liverpool, or the devastation visited upon the city - lots of pictures no analysis.

What would be useful would be a book (whatever) that provided more continuity.

For example:

What was Liverpool's economy like pre 2WW, which cities were its competitors, how were they seeking to queer our pitch? What was Liverpool like socially/culturally pre 2nd WW. What was Lime Street like? How did the different residential areas of the city differ. How was it viewed by the rest of the country/empire? This enables a before and after comparison.

What happened in Liverpool during the 2WW? Not just the official view but the 'street' view. What opportunities opened up? What was it like having all those black and white Americans strutting the streets?

How did Liverpool and Liverpudlians contribute to the overthrow of facism (maybe linked to those Liverpudlians who fought in the Spanish civil war. The BNP complains that Liverpool is a very difficult place to organise in. I suspect that this is because its population is particularly anti-fascist). The Battle of the Atlantic is but one key strand.

What were the effects of the the devastation on Liverpool's economy? Why was so much of the city centre left as a series of bomb sites? Why wasn't the Custom House rebuilt.

How did what happend in this period shape the Liverpool of the 50s & 60s?

What was happening in Britain during this time as it turned into the sickman of Europe? How did this impact on the national psyche / Liverpudlian psyche?

Are events from that period still casting a shadow on Liverpool at the end of the first decade of the 21st Century?

If as you claim, Liverpool's contribution has been airbrushed out or watered down - what are the reasons for this?

Yes, exactly.. context and, sadly, for most in the UK, revelation!

The museums portrayal has always been pretty poor too.

The museums portrayal has always been pretty poor too.

You're telling me. This is on the homepage:

2005 is going to be an important year for many people; as it recognises the 60th Anniversary of VE Day, which signified the beginning of the end of World War 2. Veterans Awareness week is also taking place, and here at the Western Approaches, we are hoping to be able to offer a number of specially organised events, which will tie in with both of these. For more information, please contact the marketing department.


2005 was great but I wouldn't want to live in it forever. I might give the museum a ring later to see if it's still exists. Maybe it has been incorporated into the World Museum?

Western Approaches was never an official museum. It was a private venture by Bill Davies, no less - just about the only thing he ever built. It probably still is, but under Horton House's current owners.

^^

That explains things. Just got off the phone - the 'museum' is closed for the winter anyway. Reopening on 1/3. Very friendly staff.

Great thread!

Loads of stuff I would like to know from that era too.

What were the effects of the the devastation on Liverpool's economy? Why was so much of the city centre left as a series of bomb sites? Why wasn't the Custom House rebuilt.

How did what happend in this period shape the Liverpool of the 50s & 60s?


From a basic overview (how correct I have no idea) seems to be:

Post WW1 Liverpool did reasonably OK during the recession and was starting to address it's well documented social problems re: housing etc.

Confidence was still high enough to warrant projects such as the Queensway tunnel etc.

(The 'Goldrush' population boom years of the previous century created huge difficulties in town planning with resultant huge social inequality. The Irish influx of the famine years was essentially left for the city to deal with at local level ---- afterall, why would a protestant country help Roman Catholics?

Working and transport patterns lead to dreadful conditions for those living around the docks compounded by sectarianism etc)

The takes a pounding in WW2, but the port remains open and plays a vital role, without which we would probably be talking German now.:)

The city is devastated, the council is skint, the country and commonwealth are bankrupt. Large swathes of our bombed city are left desolate, and even by the time rationing is ended, Churchill is back in power and turns his back on the Commonwealth to trade with Europe, essential he says, to avoid a third world war.

Result: The still devastated port of the Commonwealth and World trade is on the wrong side of the country. Unlike every other city in the country and Europe, it does not get rebuilt. There is no reason to.

So the city is past its sell by, and left to sort its problems locally, the government burying its head in the sand almost.

Hence a skint city is reduced to demolishing a building such as the Custom House because it simply has no money to rebuild. More than any other building, this was THE symbol of the decline of the great mercantile port. In London, it would, I imagine have been rebuilt without question.

Jobs dry up overnight, the middle and upper classes (the city 'leaders') leave, with the working classes belatedly shifted from port based jobs to 'alien' car factories etc.

Although the port employment would have declined due to containerisation etc, this would have happened over many years and coping would have been much easier than the catastrophic decline that was at least in part caused by national government policy.

With hindsight, just about all the problems witnessed by the city could have been predicted, even to the last desperate stand of Militant in a city stripped of its 'leaders'. A descent into chaos was inevitable.

The city became a guinea pig for all manner of social initiatives, most failing abysmally.

And now finally, the WW2 bombsite that was Chavasse park, is redeveloped after 60 years by a private developer. Hope springs eternal.

Phew! Rant over.:nuts:

couldn't have ranted it better myself!


there was also the governments obsession with maintaining London's role as the prime financial centre, to the cost of other cities with a trading heritage and system, especially Liverpool, which was the prime pre-war international mercantile city.

What was the council and the chamber of commerce saying about the impact on the city's economy during the war (loss of material assets etc) and what direction should the city go in after the war?

What was the long term effect of much of the city's trading infrastructure beign taken over and off to London 'for the duration', never to reappear!

What was the impact of post war nationalisation of local commercial and civic assets, gas, water, electricty..and of course, the docks ? How did this compound the dissapearence of above asset bases and profit sources (no longer coming into the city.

How much did Liverpool's devastated infrastructure have on the city's ability to revive as a properly functioning city? I think the Custom's house as prime symbol of the city's collapse is the perfect one.

Longer term... for example, how come when The Beatles went to Hamburg (a city hugely devestated during the war) in the late 50s' they saw a city that was rebult and vibrant, highlighting just how fucked and pock marked Liverpoool still was as a result of much less physical damage in said war?

What I am interested in is timelining when such events happened, what was said and then putting that into the context of these things impacted longer term.

What was the long term effect of much of the city's trading infrastructure beign taken over and off to London 'for the duration', never to reappear!

What does this mean, exactly, Tony? Actual exchanges, based in Liverpool, being closed down whilst others trading in the same commodities in London carried on? Which ones?

You've said this before, and it's very interesting, but I'm not sure what you are saying actually happened.

Check out what happened to the Cotton Exchange for one. Taken under government control for the duration of the war, only returned to Liverpool 7 years after the fall of Berlin, when, of course, much of the associated sector had withered on the vine.

Good enough though, the cotton exchange, even in isolation is still today the prime cotton trading centre in the world!

^^Okay, cotton is a big one. I've just googled it and you're right. The Government took over all cotton trade in the UK during WWII and did not allow anyone to trade the stuff until years after the war. Wtf? :?

I can now believe that other commodities markets in Liverpool met the same fate. You might be onto something here. It is so difficult to find information about this aspect of Liverpool's decline. In fact, it's only you that has brought up these issues. I had hoped that the large Belchem edited Liverpool 800 volume might have had something in it, but zilch.

You're wrong about Liverpool being an important cotton trading centre now, unfortunately. For historical reasons, the International Cotton Association (a business club that sets standards and establishes industry regulations) is based in the city, but there is no cotton trading carried out in the Cotton Exchange building. Nor in Manchester's (historically much less important, of course, concerned with the selling of cotton from one woollyback to another, whereas Liverpool's exchange controlled the internationl trade of the stuff worldwide.) cotton exchange either. You can get married in the Liverpool Cotton Exchange and buy shoes in Manchester's.

To', I think you may need to decide whether you want to examine the story of Liverpool during the 2ndWW and/or use the war and what happened afterwards to illustrate what happens to mercantile cities like Liverpool in over-centralised states when the shit hits the fan. This probably explains why Germany and the US still have several great cities and the UK and France just one (the capital).

Be careful not to overdo the decline post war. I have Port of Liverpool yearbooks from the 50s and 60s that show a very busy port right up to the early mid 60s. The role of the port in setting working patterns (and attitudes towards work) in the inhabitants of the city provides a useful framework to examine the extent to which the city was able to adapt to a changing world.

When people tell Liverpool's story in the 20th century there is often a tendency to make generalised statements that don't stand up to even the most cursory scrutiny. For example, who started the story about its middle classes moving en masse beyond the city limits? Not a middle class Liverpudlian that's for sure.

^^

I'm more concerned by Liverpool based insurance and shipping companies shipping out. Cheers Cunard.

This would never have happened in San Francisco!

^^Lyon does alright. As do Bordeaux, even Marseilles by the standards of what happened to Liverpool. Lille is in better nick than most British regional cities.

Taking about ports, even Le Havre, squashed flat in the war and never a great international trading city like Liverpool hasn't experienced, anything like what Liverpool (or several other UK cities) did.

I imagine that Tony isn't referring to cargo loads, but to the trading infrasctructure, markets, exchanges and so on.

^^Lyon does alright. As do Bordeaux, even Marseilles by the standards of what happened to Liverpool. Lille is in better nick than most British regional cities.

Taking about ports, even Le Havre, squashed flat in the war and never a great international trading city like Liverpool hasn't experienced, anything like what Liverpool (or several other UK cities) did.

I imagine that Tony isn't referring to cargo loads, but to the trading infrasctructure, markets, exchanges and so on.

Compared to French cities ALL British cities are in poor nick. None of those you mention has the independence of German and US cities to plough their own trough.

The thing about the Port of Liverpool yearbooks is they don't just contain info about the port - they contain information about every aspect of Liverpool's economy from insurance companies, local banks, transport infrastructure, to adverts for every kind of economic activity. From this information it's not that difficult to extrapolate to the wider economic conditions that prevailed at the time. Indeed right up until the mid 60s the city's population was over 700,000. By then it was on the skids but no one in their wildest dreams could have predicted the 80s at that time.

I think that the role of state agencies in largely and effectively running Liverpool for at least five years after the end of the War was also devastating. I read an article in a Liverpool journal of that time pleading for the various Ministries and others to release their grip and allow enterprise to resume. Of course, the airport - a success before the war - was strangled by being retained by the Military, allowing a competitor airport to steal its custom.

Liverpool's sacrifice never was acknowledged or mitigated by way of compensation or priority for reconstruction, funds and the location of command and control functions. Having been bombed by the Germans, it was then ignored by the country it had so valiantly fed and defended. So really it was hit twice. And the ambivalence of Britain to Liverpool may in part be a sublimated guilt for this historic betrayal, and in Liverpool's case by a wary contempt for a country that rewarded its sacrifice with daylight robbery. A great and noble city was shat on by an ungrateful nation. Three things exlpain that. First of all, the context - rationing and tight control was a national thing, and just happened to hit Liverpool harder than say Manchester or Birmingham because the military and Government had placed such reliance on Liverpool and were strongly entrenched here. Secondly, Britain was, unlike much of Europe, already in a period of quite advanced anti-urbanism. The suburbanisation and (in local governance terms balkanisation) of our urban areas was already well advanced by 1939. The hatred of cities is a strong strain from the early 1930s and so any concept of appreciating the vitality of individual urban cultures was lost on policy makers of the time. Britain was a supremely centralised and nationalistic entity in the aftermath of WW2. Finally, we know that another city has for many years been competing, by any means possible, to steal wealth, status and functions from Liverpool - they were doing it then just as they do it now. Even from the 1950s we can see evidence of the "North West" project being used by Manchester to take Liverpool's jobs and functions.

Still, in 2008, the country doesn't quite know how to look one of its great cities in the eye and understand it, let alone nurture it or cherish it or treasure it. It remains a curiously awkward relationship. And I believe the response to WW2 conditioned a lot of that response, on both sides.

... Be careful not to overdo the decline post war. I have Port of Liverpool yearbooks from the 50s and 60s that show a very busy port right up to the early mid 60s. The role of the port in setting working patterns (and attitudes towards work) in the inhabitants of the city provides a useful framework to examine the extent to which the city was able to adapt to a changing world. ....
The two huge things that changed everything were the jet airliner revolution and the containerisation revolution. So the pertinent question is, I think, why was Liverpool somehow unable to adapt and cope with the freight part as other port cities did. Especially since the Seaforth Container port was built and quite leading in its early days. The loss of profit from handling international passengers was inevitable and unavoidable. Heck today a market rate air ticket to the Antipodes costs (inflation adjusted) about the same as a "Ten Pound Pom" assisted passage back in the Fifties.

What appears to be the case is that Liverpool was run down, or perhaps not properly helped in postwar recovery, in the decade or so before the Harold Wilson government. By then the damage was done despite Wilson's being from Huyton. Best guess this was a combination of collective punishment by the Tory governments of the day for being left-wing and of the political convenience of investment steered towards Manchester Ship Canal - which was never really that much of a financial success. Containerisation was more far-reaching than anyone guessed, for example it ended the shipping of live cattle to Birkenhead and made ships that would fit in the South docks too small to be profitable.

Although much freight is moved by diesel traction on todays railways, at the time (1950s) electrification (via nuclear power generation of cheap electricity) was seen as the future. Much was made of the electrification of the Woodhead route at the time - the linking of Yorkshire and Lancashire heavy industries. So it was a huge loss that Liverpool rail was electrified only for passenger traffic and the Port of Liverpool was not able to benefit from rail electrification when the planned upgrade of the Chat Moss line was cancelled at the last possible moment. The loss of electrification to the Container Port prevented it taking off to overcome stunted growth. Bulk cargoes struggled on, such as iron ore at the relatively new Bidston dock, but those again were rail-oriented.

Well Liverpool has its chance again in a changing world with the coming Post-Panamax terminal and the hope that the Mersey barrage (talked about for well over 100 years) may finally happen. Let's just hope the needed infrastructure behind these constructions is not neglected again and proper advantage can be taken of them. The opportunities are there, but also is the chance to throw the good fortune away by failing to follow up properly.

I think that the role of state agencies in largely and effectively running Liverpool for at least five years after the end of the War was also devastating. I read an article in a Liverpool journal of that time pleading for the various Ministries and others to release their grip and allow enterprise to resume. Of course, the airport - a success before the war - was strangled by being retained by the Military, allowing a competitor airport to steal its custom.

Liverpool's sacrifice never was acknowledged or mitigated by way of compensation or priority for reconstruction, funds and the location of command and control functions. Having been bombed by the Germans, it was then ignored by the country it had so valiantly fed and defended. So really it was hit twice. And the ambivalence of Britain to Liverpool may in part be a sublimated guilt for this historic betrayal, and in Liverpool's case by a wary contempt for a country that rewarded its sacrifice with daylight robbery. A great and noble city was shat on by an ungrateful nation. Three things exlpain that. First of all, the context - rationing and tight control was a national thing, and just happened to hit Liverpool harder than say Manchester or Birmingham because the military and Government had placed such reliance on Liverpool and were strongly entrenched here. Secondly, Britain was, unlike much of Europe, already in a period of quite advanced anti-urbanism. The suburbanisation and (in local governance terms balkanisation) of our urban areas was already well advanced by 1939. The hatred of cities is a strong strain from the early 1930s and so any concept of appreciating the vitality of individual urban cultures was lost on policy makers of the time. Britain was a supremely centralised and nationalistic entity in the aftermath of WW2. Finally, we know that another city has for many years been competing, by any means possible, to steal wealth, status and functions from Liverpool - they were doing it then just as they do it now. Even from the 1950s we can see evidence of the "North West" project being used by Manchester to take Liverpool's jobs and functions.

Still, in 2008, the country doesn't quite know how to look one of its great cities in the eye and understand it, let alone nurture it or cherish it or treasure it. It remains a curiously awkward relationship. And I believe the response to WW2 conditioned a lot of that response, on both sides.

Some interesting themes here that could be topics for a PhD thesis. In particular the awkward relationship post WW2 as a result of the city's sacrifices during the war. Unfortunately they probably won't find fertile ground in a local history department. The approach to Liverpool's history by Belchem et al is lamentably prosaic. I must admit that I never quite understood why Salford and not Liverpool was chosen for the war museum. It seems a particularly mean spirited choice to me.

The two huge things that changed everything were the jet airliner revolution and the containerisation revolution. So the pertinent question is, I think, why was Liverpool somehow unable to adapt and cope with the freight part as other port cities did. Especially since the Seaforth Container port was built and quite leading in its early days. The loss of profit from handling international passengers was inevitable and unavoidable. Heck today a market rate air ticket to the Antipodes costs (inflation adjusted) about the same as a "Ten Pound Pom" assisted passage back in the Fifties.

What appears to be the case is that Liverpool was run down, or perhaps not properly helped in postwar recovery, in the decade or so before the Harold Wilson government. By then the damage was done despite Wilson's being from Huyton. Best guess this was a combination of collective punishment by the Tory governments of the day for being left-wing and of the political convenience of investment steered towards Manchester Ship Canal - which was never really that much of a financial success. Containerisation was more far-reaching than anyone guessed, for example it ended the shipping of live cattle to Birkenhead and made ships that would fit in the South docks too small to be profitable.

Although much freight is moved by diesel traction on todays railways, at the time (1950s) electrification (via nuclear power generation of cheap electricity) was seen as the future. Much was made of the electrification of the Woodhead route at the time - the linking of Yorkshire and Lancashire heavy industries. So it was a huge loss that Liverpool rail was electrified only for passenger traffic and the Port of Liverpool was not able to benefit from rail electrification when the planned upgrade of the Chat Moss line was cancelled at the last possible moment. The loss of electrification to the Container Port prevented it taking off to overcome stunted growth. Bulk cargoes struggled on, such as iron ore at the relatively new Bidston dock, but those again were rail-oriented.

Well Liverpool has its chance again in a changing world with the coming Post-Panamax terminal and the hope that the Mersey barrage (talked about for well over 100 years) may finally happen. Let's just hope the needed infrastructure behind these constructions is not neglected again and proper advantage can be taken of them. The opportunities are there, but also is the chance to throw the good fortune away by failing to follow up properly.


If you think about it - following the independence of India and Pakistan the writing was on the wall for the Empire. I don't fully buy the change in geographical reality. The US was and is an important market and politically it has always been more influential in this country than the EU. The city should have adapted as it did to Southampton's dominance in the transatlantic liner market by building Riverside station to ensure that it became the gateway between Europe and the US. The port could have developed and maintained strong links with Hull or Grimsby or even Newcastle to tap into the North European market instead of allowing the rail spur past Aintree that connected to the Exchange - Victoria line to be removed!

I suspect history will see MDHB as one of the villains of this phase of our history. Whilst Seaforth etc was a step in the right direction, I suspect it was too little too late. The southern docks were just allowed to rot - no serious attempt was made to utilise them for other purposes. The MDHB sat on its assets, aquired other ports and continued to regard dockers as trouble-makers to be kept in line and treated them as such creating a lot of bad blood. The casualisation of Liverpool's workforce (dock and factory) ensured that more durable skill bases never really developed in sufficient numbers to sustain the city in hard times.

And then capitalism triumphed over social cohesion in the 80s and we are where we are today.

Some interesting themes here that could be topics for a PhD thesis. In particular the awkward relationship post WW2 as a result of the city's sacrifices during the war. Unfortunately they probably won't find fertile ground in a local history department. The approach to Liverpool's history by Belchem et al is lamentably prosaic. I must admit that I never quite understood why Salford and not Liverpool was chosen for the war museum. It seems a particularly mean spirited choice to me.


Some Phd that would be!

Manchester for the Imperial War Museum? Another grace and favour award of the most high profile museum apart from the natural history museum in London.

For an all-inclusive museum it would surely have made sense to combine it with the Western Approaches in some way, rather than the WA being relegated to barely a footnote? But hey ho.

The story is that the then useless Liverpool Labour council didn't think to bid for it. Wirral did, however, and lost out to Salford.

If you think about it - following the independence of India and Pakistan the writing was on the wall for the Empire. I don't fully buy the change in geographical reality. The US was and is an important market and politically it has always been more influential in this country than the EU. The city should have adapted as it did to Southampton's dominance in the transatlantic liner market by building Riverside station to ensure that it became the gateway between Europe and the US.

The Empire was bankrupt after the war and mortgaged to the Americans. However the shift to trading with Europe meant we were on the wrong side of the country. It was easier to supply London and the south from southern ports.

However, could not the government have insisted on the use of Liverpool? Would improved freight rail links to the capital and south have helped? The lack of support for ancilliary services of a port ...... ship building and repair etc were industries which surely should have been saved and supported.

However, centralisation in the UK only helps London, and is mainly used to ensure its positioning in the financial services industry.

The story is that the then useless Liverpool Labour council didn't think to bid for it. Wirral did, however, and lost out to Salford.

That, unfortunately, I can believe!

I will have to do a bit of digging myself. When you think how long folk compile all these little snippets (I've been reading stuff on Liverpool since I was a kid) it all becomes a little merged.. good for impression, but not so good for highlighting specifics. The Cotton Exchange is the only one I can clearly remember off the top of my head, but there wher others. A look at how the whole economy was pulled together in order to prosecute the war should indicate the effect this will have had on our local infrastructure though. I will see what I can find specifically.


^^Okay, cotton is a big one. I've just googled it and you're right. The Government took over all cotton trade in the UK during WWII and did not allow anyone to trade the stuff until years after the war. Wtf? :?

I can now believe that other commodities markets in Liverpool met the same fate. You might be onto something here. It is so difficult to find information about this aspect of Liverpool's decline. In fact, it's only you that has brought up these issues. I had hoped that the large Belchem edited Liverpool 800 volume might have had something in it, but zilch.

You're wrong about Liverpool being an important cotton trading centre now, unfortunately. For historical reasons, the International Cotton Association (a business club that sets standards and establishes industry regulations) is based in the city, but there is no cotton trading carried out in the Cotton Exchange building. Nor in Manchester's (historically much less important, of course, concerned with the selling of cotton from one woollyback to another, whereas Liverpool's exchange controlled the internationl trade of the stuff worldwide.) cotton exchange either. You can get married in the Liverpool Cotton Exchange and buy shoes in Manchester's.

^^Lyon does alright. As do Bordeaux, even Marseilles by the standards of what happened to Liverpool. Lille is in better nick than most British regional cities.

Taking about ports, even Le Havre, squashed flat in the war and never a great international trading city like Liverpool hasn't experienced, anything like what Liverpool (or several other UK cities) did.

I imagine that Tony isn't referring to cargo loads, but to the trading infrasctructure, markets, exchanges and so on.

Yes, I mean the whole interlinked busienss of making money and retaining profits for the city. 'Jobs' are OK but as we leaned in the 70s' jobs' are not enough to stabalise an economy, the whole infrastructure has to be there underpinning it, or else all your checks and stuff just go straight off to London.
Liverpool is in the same condition now, quite a lot of 'jobs' knocking round, not too much wealth, even fewer Liverpool enterprises holding and redistributing the profits that are being generated here!

Yes babaloo. I think what we have been discussing here is a mega research initiative for some university department. What I would like to look at is the day to day stuff that happened to teh city and its relateed interests, but having the wider picture of the impacts, say a ships sinking and men being lost, had both immediately and more long term? It would be 99% just tellign the story of the city's experiences during the war.

I've just been thinking, with my new allotment I could 'Dig for Victory'!!!!

I will have to do a bit of digging myself. When you think how long folk compile all these little snippets (I've been reading stuff on Liverpool since I was a kid) it all becomes a little merged.. good for impression, but not so good for highlighting specifics. The Cotton Exchange is the only one I can clearly remember off the top of my head, but there wher others. A look at how the whole economy was pulled together in order to prosecute the war should indicate the effect this will have had on our local infrastructure though. I will see what I can find specifically.

It sounds like Liverpool should have done a runner out of the UK immediately post war as Singapore did from the Malaysian Federation.

:lol: Yes, a free city .. building on our global links forged over the previous century and a half. In actual fact wes hould still do this.

There is an innocent thread on the London sub-forum about "London's Banks". I've not clicked on it, but I assume its about their head offices. But, of course, they are not London's banks: they are national banks that are headquartered in London. And those banks are each amalgamations of very many local and regional and even nationally based banks.

I imagine I am maybe the only one here who is ridiculous enough to have read the Competition report into Barclay's proposed takeover of Martins Bank. What struck me in reading that report was that there was nothing within the terms of reference that required that investigation to consider the impact on regional or local commerce - the entire premise was that customers, nationally, were the primary consideration. It was a national policy that was apparently place-blind. Except, of course, it wasn't really place-blind as it involved the centralisation of banking and other financial command and control services in one city and the denudation of other banking centres in the country. One local body (from memory the Chamber of Commerce) was referred to as decrying the loss of a local Board of Directors and local influence, but that was a footnote really.

So national competitiveness was seen as requiring the most efficient system of national banking. Everyone was to get more efficient banking services as a result. However, the spatial consequences were damaging to the national economy. Liverpool, losing Martins Bank, became a less vibrant economic and commercial centre, and therefore contributed less to the national wealth. Instead of being a Hamburg (or Rotterdam) it became........we know what. So national wealth may not have been enhanced by a policy that encouraged a small number of national banks based in London at the expense of a rather larger number of banks that were based in different centres. Although Martin's had national reach, it was relatively small and strongest in the North and London.

This pretty much conforms to Tony's version of events. National policy was geared towards encouraging efficient national provision and in as much as the Government has regulated the market it has done so in such a way as to encourage and support centralisation. This contrasts with Germany or the USA where the national Governments (of these Federal countries) have protected regional centres and as a consequence those economies have outperformed the obsessively centralising states such as Britain and France.

In an age in which (paradoxically smaller) Spanish and other foreign banks can buy British Banks, what is the relevance of this? Well quite a lot. Had it been allowed to survive, Martins might have itself taken over Banks in other countries, and Liverpool might therefore now be home to an international banking force, not just a British one. Is it feasible to break-up the big banks, at least one or two of them, and require regionally based provision? I think it is. Customers need choice. Do you want to save and borrow with a locally based institution, or with a huge anonymous one? I'd prefer a Liverpool-based bank if I were given a choice.

I'd like to see Barclays split up, and Martin's reformed.

... I imagine I am maybe the only one here who is ridiculous enough to have read the Competition report into Barclay's proposed takeover of Martins Bank. ...
This pretty much conforms to Tony's version of events. National policy was geared towards encouraging efficient national provision and in as much as the Government has regulated the market it has done so in such a way as to encourage and support centralisation. This contrasts with Germany or the USA where the national Governments (of these Federal countries) have protected regional centres and as a consequence those economies have outperformed the obsessively centralising states such as Britain and France. .... I'd like to see Barclays split up, and Martin's reformed.
I worked for one of the Overseas divisions of Barclays shortly after that time in the HQ computer department. I could be wrong, but as I remember it the big focus of banking at the time was computerisation of retail banking.

Mind you, it wasn't just banking affected, there were mergers and consolidation everywhere, it was going on wholesale throughout commerce encouraged by the Labour government of the day. It seemed like there was a merger every other week in the defense/electronics/engineering industries. I think, at the time, America was seen as the country likely to come to dominate the world's economy and the way to fight it was by building bigger and therefore stronger, industries. In Wilson's view, a mixed (socialist/capitalist) economy could not help itself but to win out over the larger American economy eventually because of Britain's allegedly superior health system (NHS), education (University grants for all) and public ownership of natural monopolies (Electricity, mining, waterways, railways, buses, local government services, council housing and so on). It is well-known for example that forming ICL by a forced merger of ICT and EELM was a monumental blunder.

And so it was in banking, at the time largely focused on computerisation. It took a team of maybe 20 highly paid programmers to keep a banking suite running on the mainframes of the day (typically IBM/360 series). Computers that cost perhaps a million pounds each (25 million in today's money?) not counting things like teams of people doing data capture (punched cards etc.). And decimalisation was known to be coming soon, all the computer programmes would have to be rewritten (mostly in Assembler code) and exhaustively, I mean exhaustively, tested and all by a non-movable deadline (Decimalisation-day). So making Martin's into Barclays was seen as a way of avoiding a lot of that cost by merging the computer departments.

Then in 1970 Wilson was voted out of office and Ted Heath's catastrophic Industrial Relations Act soon destroyed whatever was left of British productivity. Everything changed in short order and an awful lot of very bad commercial decisions were made.

Not sure the 'world museum' still has it but I remember there was section in there about wartime Liverpool.

I doubt it will ever happen but wouldnt it be good if the new Museum of Liverpool had a section on the wider impacts of the war on the city.

I am learning a lot from this thread and its giving me a lot to ponder - any recommended reading or resources on the subject??

I worked for one of the Overseas divisions of Barclays shortly after that time in the HQ computer department. I could be wrong, but as I remember it the big focus of banking at the time was computerisation of retail banking.

Mind you, it wasn't just banking affected, there were mergers and consolidation everywhere, it was going on wholesale throughout commerce encouraged by the Labour government of the day. It seemed like there was a merger every other week in the defense/electronics/engineering industries. I think, at the time, America was seen as the country likely to come to dominate the world's economy and the way to fight it was by building bigger and therefore stronger, industries. In Wilson's view, a mixed (socialist/capitalist) economy could not help itself but to win out over the larger American economy eventually because of Britain's allegedly superior health system (NHS), education (University grants for all) and public ownership of natural monopolies (Electricity, mining, waterways, railways, buses, local government services, council housing and so on). It is well-known for example that forming ICL by a forced merger of ICT and EELM was a monumental blunder.

And so it was in banking, at the time largely focused on computerisation. It took a team of maybe 20 highly paid programmers to keep a banking suite running on the mainframes of the day (typically IBM/360 series). Computers that cost perhaps a million pounds each (25 million in today's money?) not counting things like teams of people doing data capture (punched cards etc.). And decimalisation was known to be coming soon, all the computer programmes would have to be rewritten (mostly in Assembler code) and exhaustively, I mean exhaustively, tested and all by a non-movable deadline (Decimalisation-day). So making Martin's into Barclays was seen as a way of avoiding a lot of that cost by merging the computer departments.

Then in 1970 Wilson was voted out of office and Ted Heath's catastrophic Industrial Relations Act soon destroyed whatever was left of British productivity. Everything changed in short order and an awful lot of very bad commercial decisions were made.


Excellent points. One of the most damaging aspects of the British economy is thinking that corporates work better and are better than a multitude of smaller, especially entrepreneur owned business. The concept of Muncipal corporatism led directly to the horrific LA re-organisations in the 70s as well! A vital mistake that the GB government made was that merging was a good tactic. At least these big US companies had grown through success, rather than aquisition (and therefore elimination) of competitors. 'National' economic strategies by statist minded governments stifle innovation. Of course, none of this really mattered in Liverpool as all we were doing then was waiting for the excess (branch plants) of any activity, anybosy's except our own!


Big corporations, whether state or private was seen as the future, but as one commentator said in the 90s' US corprates nearly killed the US economy by killing innovation and drive in their search for ever greater beauracracy in the previous 50 years!

A Convoy arrives in Liverpool by Charles David Cobb (b.1921)

Oil on canvas, 61 cm x 91.5 cm
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/collections/artsea/paintings/cobb.asp

http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj185/Portobello-Red/AConvoyArrivesinLiverpoolCharlesDav.jpg

This painting was commissioned by the Maritime Museum for its displays commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic in 1993. This aerial view looking north from above the South Docks shows the convoy coming up the Mersey with Liverpool on the right hand bank and Birkenhead and the Wirral to the left.

The first ships in the convoy are entering Brunswick Dock at the southern end of the docks and other ships are heading for the Birkenhead Docks and the North Docks. On the Liverpool side, the Landing Stage and the Port of Liverpool Building with its distinctive cupolas are the only specific features visible. A lone barrage balloon is a reminder of the threat from air attack which was a regular feature of life in the city.

At the request of the Maritime Museum, this painting was based on an earlier canvas of the same scene commissioned by the Royal Naval Museum at Portsmouth in 1976. The artist served in the Royal Navy in the Western Approaches during the war.

On completing the present painting, he commented 'I can only try to relive what I saw nearly 50 years ago, which was a very sombre scene of a battered city and port.'

Not sure how true it is but what was the story on Tate and Lyle's closure. Although mass European stocks allegedly led to its downfall in 1981, Ron Noon's 'Boys from the whitestuff' documentary has it earmarked for closure as early as 1971 but workers fought that off and shows that reason for closure as a smokescreen. Wasn't it's London site subsidised by the Government in favour of Liverpool? Seem to recollect something in the echo at the time. Generations of locals from Vauxhall Road worked in there, it decimated the area as did all the closures along the canal, Tillotsons, the B.A., Athol st gas works, Bibbys etc.

I don't recall the southern site being subsidised, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't. What I DO remember, clearly though, was their director saying that the future of sugar in the UK was going to be beet, a regulation of the EEC so Liverpool was on the wrong side of the country as most beet is grown in Europe. Within 6 months of the plant closing in the north end T&L sugar was proudly boasting on its bags that it was all good ol' cane sugar, from exactly the same plantations it had come from for generations (to Liverpool!

We must also remember that indirect subsidy did Liverpool no favours as port and other infrastructure 'investment' was ploughed into the S.E to enable us to gear up for our future as Euro-traders. Another fact... direct trade with the EU has gone down as a proportion of overall trade since we joined!

Liverpool is still the natural and logical centre of a global trading network, but this inate advantage is skewered to the S.E. The city should naturally be able to take advantage of the 're-globalising' of trade and trading patterns over the last twenty years, but things like that don't come into strategic planning in the UK.

....as I remember it the big focus of banking at the time was computerisation of retail banking.....

Very interesting post Holly.

I suppose the point I am struggling to make (might take a few posts and help from / discussion with others before I get there) is this:

Efficiency and competition for customers were paramount considerations. You are right, it would be less efficient nationally to have a hundred teams of programmers writing script compared to just one team. But those criteria were inadequate, because there was and is also the issue of spatial competition and outcomes - that is how we ensure that areas compete successfully. We don't just need companies to be efficient and comete, we also need areas to be efficient and compete. A national policy that centralises, without corrective action, can ultimately be inefficient, because it creates over-heating in some places (or what economists will sometimes admit are the costs or disbenefits of agglomeration) and dereliection in others (the oft neglected flip side of agglomeration benefits).

So one national bank would have been very efficient (just one team of programmers) but very poor for competition ( and hence ultimately inefficient in that only competition ensures efficiency in the long-run). Policy was to retain competition (for customers), but ignored the impact of this on place-competition and competitiveness. The consequence is that whereas Liverpool could have been a city like Hamburg - wealthy, making a huge net addition to the national wealth, it became an economic disaster-area. Britain was the poorer, not just Liverpool (and the hate-mongers who wish to see the city poor in the national press are cutting off their nose to spite their face, because the country cannot be wealthy if it has major cities that are underperforming).

We live in a far more complex economy now, in which it is possible to see boutique banks sitting alongside global monoliths that are a thousand times larger - and yet both types can serve a purpose, increase choice, be profitable and increase wealth.

A project should be initiated - with Treasury backing - to investigate how to restore banking to the English regions and historic banking cetnres, so that a healthy percentage (10% for starters?) of retail banking takes place with non-London based institutions. I don't really care if they share back office functions (I suppose nowadays Martins would simply have bought in those skills from someone else) but we need to see a Board of Directors of a Liverpool Bank meeting in Liverpool to discuss how they invest the savings of people from Greater Liverpool and beyond.

We aren't truly an enterprising or even a properly capitalist nation until we restore banks to our great cities.

Can't even begin to think what they went through:ohno:

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