Liverpool duel. An incident which caused a tremendous stir in Liverpool was the duel fought between Mr William SPARLING and Mr Edward GRAYSON, both well known men in the town. Mr SPARLING was engaged to be married to a niece of Mr GRAYSON. A short time after the engagement was announced it was broken off by the intended groom.
One night GRAYSON was taking a friend home to dinner in his carriage and remarked that SPARLING was a villain. His companion, a certain Major BROOKS foolishly repeated the remark to SPARLING who wrote and demanded an apology. After a lengthy correspondence it was eventually decided to fight a duel.
The duel was fixed for Sunday morning February ?, 1804, and was to take place at Dingle Glen. The second of GRAYSON was Dr McCARTNEY, and his opponent was supported by Captain COLQUITT who commanded a frigate then in the river. At sunrise on that cold Sunday morning a carriage drew up at the church known as the Ancient Chapel, Toxteth, and SPARLING and the Captain alighted and crossed the fields. The carriage was soon joined by another carrying Dr McCARTNEY and a Mr PARK, who was a well known surgeon. Mr PARK was against the duel and refused to accompany Dr McCARTNEY to the glen. When GRAYSON arrived on foot accompanied by a servant, there was a short argument and then GRAYSON followed his opponent across the fields, Dr McCARTNEY carrying a case of pistols.
Those waiting at the Ancient Chapel heard several shots and GRAYSON'S servant ran towards the glen. As he turned a corner on the footpath and came under the trees he met SPARLING and Captain COLQUITT hurrying away. They shouted to him that his master had been wounded and then hurried on to the carriages where they told PARK to assist GRAYSON, they then hurried away as quickly as possible to Liverpool.
GRAYSON had been badly wounded but he was able to move to his home in Wavertree where he died exactly seven days after the duel.
At the Inquest the Coroner gave a verdict of murder and in April 1804 SPARLING and COLQUITT stood trial for murder at Lancaster. The judge was Sir Alan CAMBRE and he summed up in favour of the prisoners with the result they were found not guilty. SPARLING lived at St Domingo House, Everton.
After the trial for murder William SPARLING left Liverpool and St Domingo House was rented by the Government and the Duke of Gloucester lived there for some years.
The Government eventually bought the whole estate and built barracks on it, but the scheme was not a success and the property was put for sale in small lots. It took a few years for the lots to be bought by builders, the result that Everton was developed with small property.
St Domingo House became a school for young ladies run by the Misses CURRIE until the middle of the last century when it was bought by the Roman Catholic authorities and became St Edwards College. The College has now moved out to West Derby and Corporation flats cover the old site.
Keeping of outstanding features
The stone giants from the old Browns buildings, Water St are preserved as entrance gates in Harthill Rd and some of the carvings from St Peters Church are in the Liverpool Museum. At Stanley Park stands a figure known as, The Nymph of the Dingle, it is a semi nude statue holding an empty urn and illustrates the poem of the name by ROSCOE, in the days when the Dingle was one of the most beautiful places in the country.
At the Turner Memorial Home is another statue called, The Lady of the Dingle, this statue stood under the trees looking over the Mersey. The legend of the Lady of the Dingle goes back to the 18th century, when the revival of classical learning prompted scholars to create a nymph who used to sport in the stream and under the trees at the Dingle. This statue was the work of William SPENCE, a Liverpool sculptor who was responsible for such fine work. Statues of Mercator, Columbus and Captain Cook stand round the Sefton Park Palm house and are the work of Leon CHAVILLAND.
May 22nd, 1939
In a short time Gillmoss less than a mile east of Norris Green, will become part of the Liverpool housing estate. The East Lancashire Road passes within 300 yards from Gillmoss Church, but the road is screened by trees and hedges and it is still possible to imagine Gillmoss is in the heart of the country.
Gillmoss takes its name from the family of GILL from one of the many mosses in the West Derby district, Page moss Blackmoor moss and Pilch moss, all these names are now perpetuated in the names of roads.
Many people go to Gillmoss to see the historical church and do not realise the present building is comparatively modern. It was opened on July 21st, 1824, and is dedicated to St Swithin. The monument on the right of the entrance is to the Rev J. COPE, S.J, who was responsible for the church being built. The church was run by the Jesuits until 1887 when it was transferred to the secular clergy. The plans for St Francis Xaviers church and school were drawn up in the presbytery at Gillmoss. Over the door to the church is a cross, with arms of equal length. This is part of the arms of the Molyneux family, of which Lord SEFTON is the head. It is due to his predecessors that the church became necessary.
The Molyneux family were Catholics and remained true to their beliefs through the turbulous times of Henry V111, and Elizabeth and the Protectorate. When the West Derby chapel was taken over by the Commissioners of the king in 1552, those who remained faithful to the old beliefs went for worship to Croxteth where there was a small church in what was Barrett’s Hall now Croxteth Hall.. For 200 years the chapel was used and a succession of priests officiated there, and many were the fines inflicted on the people for attending. The last to officiate there was the Benedictine, the Rev Bernard Bennet BOLAS who stayed until 1769, when the chaplaincy ceased owing to the 8th viscount Molyneux afterwards the Earl of Sefton changing his religion.
The first Earl was 20 years of age when he signed and publicly reset the document showing the errors of the Church of Rome, this document is preserved at Croxteth Hall. He made provision, however, for those who remained in the old faith and built a new section on to a farmhouse at Gillmoss. An upper room of the new section joined the upper room of the old building and thus formed a chapel. Curtains were hung at the windows and outwardly the building looked nothing more exciting than a sleepy prosperous farmstead.. The entrance to the secret room was through a small door at the back.
In passing it is interesting to note that at Little Crosby is a pair of cottages, which at one time were one building, and were used as a secret church.
Although the first Lord Sefton was an ardent Protestant space was preserved at the Gillmoss chapel for Catholic guests at Croxteth Hall, one of the distinguished people who worshiped there was Comte d’ Artois attended by the Duc de Berri. The Comte d’ Artois brother of Louis XV1, who was guillotined, became Charles X, of France for a while and the Duc de Berri was the last of the same branch of the Bourbons.
A pew in the present church of St Swithin is still reserved for guests from Croxteth Hall. Under a similar ancient right there is a pew for the Weld-Blundell family at Sefton Church, in this case the pew has to be occupied by the head of the family once a year and it is observed by the head guest to the church when there is no service being conducted.
There is much of interest at the church of St Swithin, the many paintings supposed to have come from Croxteth Hall and over the altar is a fine reproduction of the da Vinci, Last Supper. There are two altar stones made of rough slate used in Elizabethan times, and there is a beautiful ciborium , on the rim are the words, The gift of ye ? Mary Molyneux to Croxteth 1738 pray for her.
May 30th, 1939
The appeals being made for volunteers for National Service and other forms of protection against an enemy make one realise that history repeats itself. The series of crisis we are now going through have a parallel in the Napoleonic scare at the beginning of the last century.
Napoleon, now a hero to many historians, was in his day such a menace that parents would use his name to terrify their children into obedience. The tremendous excitement in May, 1803, when war was declared with France, reached a state bordering on hysteria in Liverpool. Seaports were particularly vulnerable, and a meeting of merchants was called at the Liverpool Exchange to decide on the defences of the town and river.
One merchant, John BOLTON, offered to equip and raise a regiment at his own expense, and a recruiting booth was set up on Exchange flags. Within two hours a full complement of 800 men enlisted. Other regiments of cavalry, artillery and riflemen were also raised. A register was made of the male population between the ages of 16 and 60 and arrangements made to call up each one. The Boatmen, who earned a precarious living on the river, volunteered to man a battery.
The census of 1803 shows that in Liverpool there were 13,134 men between the ages of 16 and 60, and that there were 148 willing to serve on horseback and to supply their own horses. There were 2,676 willing to serve on foot and supply their own muskets and clothing, and arms and uniforms were to be supplied at the expense of the town to at least 5,250.
The proposed defences of the river included the construction of a fort close to Perch Rock Lighthouse and a battery on the other side of the river at Seaforth. The arrangements for the fort were very much delayed, and it was not until 20 years later that the fort came into being. It is now called New Brighton Battery.
A frigate, the Princess, was commissioned as a receiving ship and stationed at the mouth of the river. Her duties were to examine incoming ships. This system was also carried out in the Mersey during the Great War.
One night in January, 1804, shots were fired from the Princess. It was a particularly boisterous night and the shots caused an uproar in the town. Artillery was rushed to Everton and along the North Shore, and soldiers ran about the town looking for their regiments. The townspeople looked out of their windows on that fearful night on a scene of confusion. Horses harnessed to cannon galloped over the cobblestones, warning beacons flared on the hills to the north and east, and it was believed that the evil wind was carrying the French to sack and burn Liverpool. In the light of the morning it was discovered that the Princess had drifted from her moorings and was almost on the shore at the Red Noses. The shots that she fired were signals of distress.
At the end of the Napoleonic War the volunteer movement died down for about 50 years but it can truthfully be stated that the modern volunteer movement started in Liverpool. This modern movement from which the Territorials developed stated in Liverpool in 1853. In that year a military club was formed for drill and exercise. The president of the club was Lieut Colonel BOUSFIELD, who was an M.P, for Bath. He appealed to the Government for official recognition to give the club a military status but the Government refused to do anything in the matter.
June 12th, 1939
It is exactly 17 years since Reynold’s waxworks in Lime Street closed down, it was situated opposite St George’s Hall at the top of St John’s Lane. It was intended at the time that a super cinema should be built on the site, but the scheme did not materialise and the building is still standing.
Reynold’s waxworks for almost 75 years was doing good business and there was nearly always a crowd of people wandering about it. It was opened just after the Crimean War by Alfred John Reynolds, a native of Bristol. He made his own figures and remarkably lifelike they were. He also had waxworks at Manchester, Bradford and Leeds, but Liverpool became the principal one.
The building was originally intended to be a Masonic Temple but at the last minute negotiations fell through. Reynolds had a stucco front erected and started business in opposition to a well established concern Allsops waxworks, also in Lime Street. At Allsops, young men of the day called, Champagne Charlies, would stand among the figures and take up a rigid attitude. When visitors stopped to look at them thinking they were made of wax they would their eyes and jerkily shake an arm. Reynolds succeeded in closing down his rival.
The inside of the building in its latter days was rather musty, although the marionette shows at Christmas were magnificent. The building had galleries and countless nooks and corners. On the staircase and in front of the tableaux were wax figures dressed as ordinary people, into these visitors would bump and make the usual apology, this was considered a tremendous joke.
After 17 years it is difficult to recall the many tableaux. There was particularly grim representation of Queen Elizabeth signing the death warrant of Mary Queen of Scots, and Henry V111 stood there in the centre of the six wives. William 1 and Bismark were seen altering the map of Europe and there was a figure of the Sleeping Beauty which when you placed a penny in a slot would seem to breathe.
The Chamber of Horrors was a strong attraction. The lighting was red and green and the different stands were enclosed in a kind of stone wall. A particularly lurid representation was of Charles PEACE in the condemned cell. He had a red light shining on his face and he sat facing the bars in the door biting his nails. The only clergyman in the whole exhibition was a certain Rev William DODD who was executed for forgery.
Reynolds waxworks had the distinction of being the first place in Liverpool where motion pictures were shown. It was late that it should have been closed to make way for a cinema although it did not materialise.
It is a fact that Reynold's figures were so lifelike that when Lord BEACONSFIELD died and there were no photographers available, photographers took pictures of the Reynold's figure and sold hundreds of them. Alfred John REYNOLDS was succeeded by his son Charles and it is not generally known that the present Alfred REYNOLDS the composer is the son of Charles.
Alfred REYNOLDS was educated at the Liverpool Institute and studied music under HUMPERDINCK the composer of Hansel and Grettel. Alfred has written the music for , The Fountain of Youth, The Duenna, Lionel and Clarissa, Derby Day, and 1066 and all That.
At the same time as Reynold's waxworks was started an extraordinary music hall was opened in Liverpool. This was the Malacoff in Cleveland Square. It was started by a certain Dan LOWREY, who put a statue of himself as one of his Irish characters over the entrance. It developed into a sailor’s dive, though there were a couple of boxes reserved for captains and other gentlemen.
LOWREY has opened another place of amusement for sailors in Bevington Bush. He called it the Nightingale Palace of Amusement, and charged 3d, 4d, and 6d for admission. This money included the price of refreshment. It ran for many years first with melodrama and later with variety. Eventually it became the Casino Temperance Hall, and then faded into oblivion.