Buildings
and Institutions
There are numerous buildings and
institutions in
Evered Avenue Library in Rice Lane Walton, was one of many libraries in Britain and throughout the USA, endowed by the Andrew Carnegie Trust.
During his
lifetime, Carnegie gave away over $350 million. He died in Lenox,
Andrew Carnegie was born in
The Reverend James Fell was originally the Chaplain at the Mersey Mission to Seamen in Liverpool, and later travelled to San Francisco shortly after the Gold Rush. At that time San Francisco was one of the wildest places on earth and the most lawless part of it was the notorious Barbary Coast area on what is now called Fisherman’s Wharf.
It was here in 1881 the Rev. James Fell started the Sailor’s Institute in San Francisco.
The Reverend Fell, who carried a six-shooter was said to have cleared the bars and brothels single handed within ten years The ministry faded after several decades and the Institute closed in 1940. The Rev Fell returned to Liverpool ( he believed there might be even more bad guys there ) and the Mersey Mission to Seamen, and later retired to live in the Lake District. WHEW !
William Brown Street Library
William Brown 1884 – 1864
born in Antrim Ireland ,William aged sixteen set sail for America with his
father and mother. The family settled in Baltimore where his father continued
in the linen trade.
In 1809, with the firm outgrowing local trade, William was sent back to the UK,
to establish a branch in Liverpool.
Following the death of his father, the
business, under the control of himself and his three brothers, continued to
expand: William was based in Liverpool, John in Philadelphia, George in
Baltimore, and James in New York
William Brown will be best remembered in
Liverpool for the munificent gift he bestowed on his adopted town, namely the
Liverpool Public Library and Museum whose construction costs (reported to be
£40.000) he covered. Subsequently, the corporation named the library building
and the street where they stand after Brown. William Brown died at his home,
Richmond Hill, Liverpool, on 3 March 1864.
Liverpool Exchange
Flags
Albion House
– White Star Line
Albion House, James Street, Liverpool, England. It was built for Ismay, Imrie and Company
shipping company, which later became the White Star Line.
The significance of Albion House (formerly the White Star headquarters) to the Titanic is that the
disaster was announced to the wives and families of the crew from the safety of the first floor balcony.
Bruce Ismay, the chairman of the White Star line, lived in Waterloo and White
Star liners would sound their sirens as they went past his house.
Ismay was later vilified for saving himself
when the Titanic went down.
At the time of the Titanic disaster, White Star had been taken over by J P Morgan, the American
financial magnate. Later on, it was to be merged with Cunard.
The Lyceum – Bold Street
This gentlemen's club, library and reading room at the corner of Bold Street, was founded in
1799 by a group which included the slave trade abolitionist William Roscoe.
When American author Herman Melville ( Moby Dick ) visited Liverpool in
1841 as a young sailor of nineteen, he wished to visit the Lyceum as his father
, a prosperous American businessman, had thirty years before.
The Athenaeum
The Athenaeum by Bluecoat Chambers is a haven in the heart of Liverpool that offers a distinguished setting and an atmosphere unrivalled in the city of Liverpool. It was founded in 1797 to provide a meeting place where ideas and information could be exchanged
In 1848, the American author Washington Irvine wrote
in his sketchbook, "One of the first places to which a stranger is taken
in Liverpool is the Athenaeum; it contains a good library and a spacious
reading room and is the great literary resource of the place."
The Boston Athenæum, one of the oldest and most distinguished independent libraries in the United States, was founded in 1807 by members of the Anthology Society,
Their purpose was to form "an establishment similar to that of the Athenæum and Lyceum of Liverpool in Great Britain; combining the advantages of a public library [and] containing the great works of learning and science in all languages."
Woolworths - Church Street.
The English branch of the originally Pennsylvania-founded Woolworths stores, F W Woolworth & Co, Ltd was founded by Frank Woolworth in Liverpool, England in 1909 primarily due to Frank Woolworth's
ancestry Frank claiming he had traced his ancestry through the Founding Fathers to a small farm in middle-England. When Frank eventually travelled to England in 1890, he docked in Liverpool and travelled by train to Stoke on Trent for the purchase of China and glassware for Woolworths ranges, but also noted
his love of England in his diary and his aspirations for bringing the Woolworths name to England.
Several locations for the first Woolworths store were considered by Frank Woolworth himself along with future locations, but the initial store locations were decided as 25-25A Church Street and 8 Williamson Street Liverpool - the reasoning being that Liverpool was claimed to be the "second city of the British
empire".
As a means of adherence to American trading tradition; allowing only viewing of items on the first day of the shop's opening.
This included guests being given complimentary tea whilst being entertained by a traditional brass band in the refreshment room and was reported positively by the local newspaper, the Liverpool Courier who praised the decor of the stores along with the value and range of items on sale there.
The stores eventually incorporated lunch counters throughout America, after the success of the lunch-counters in the first store in the UK, situated in Liverpool.
These served as general gathering places, a precursor to the modern shopping mall food court