28 C O N T E X T 1 0 8 : M A R C H 2 0 0 9 Stythe in 1713 in order to take over management of the school. In the subsequent years he invested in a number of slave ships, some of the wealth from these ventures probably contributed to the expansion of the work of the Blue Coat, as Blundell pledged 10 per cent of his annual income to the institution. The school had originally been housed in a small timber building, but within a short time the benefactors were inundated with so many applications that a larger building was required. The old school was dismantled and a new one was built in the Queen Anne style, between 1717 and 1725. In 1763 the building was further extended by Bryan’s son, Jonathan, who was more deeply involved in the slave trade than his father. Throughout the 18th century many of the main benefactors of the school were slave traders. The Blue Coat, the oldest edifice still standing in Liverpool city centre, has Grade I status. Hughes refers to it as ‘Liverpool’s ancient gem’. Fox Bourne noted that Bryan Blundell ‘found in his philanthropy no argument in joining in the slave trade’. He was not alone. Many of Liverpool’s most successful slave traders were also the town’s most noted philanthropists.The Earles, Heywoods, Cunliffes and Blundells all contributed to the foundation of the Liverpool Infirmary that stood on the site now occupied by the magnificent St George’s Hall. Another and more significant building that all these merchants contributed to was the Liverpool Exchange, known today as Liverpool Town Hall. The Grade I listed building was designed by JohnWood of Bath. Building commenced in 1749, although a plaque on the exterior of the hall states that the work was begun a year earlier. The construction firm tasked with building the Exchange was owned by Joseph Brooks, a member of Liverpool’s slave trading elite.The exterior is decorated with an entablature that contains the bust of an African woman, an elephant, and other exotic flora and fauna, acknowledging the sources of trade that contributed so much to increasing the town’s wealth. In Brunswick Street stands the Grade II listed Heywood’s Bank, Liverpool’s oldest surviving purposebuilt bank, erected in 1800. This was the place of business of Arthur and Richard Heywood, prominent Liverpool merchants who were the sons of Arthur Heywood, a successful Liverpool slave trader who had founded the bank in 1773 with his brother Benjamin. Ten out of the 14 important Liverpool banks founded after 1750 were owned by slave traders. Quentin Hughes refers to Heywood’s Bank’s classical façade as being ‘very elegant and well proportioned’. John Gladstone, father of the famous prime minister, used some of the wealth he acquired through sugar production on his slave plantations in Demerara and Jamaica to build churches in Liverpool and elsewhere. Unfortunately, only the Grade II listed St Andrew’s Church (1823) on Rodney Street, near to the house where William Gladstone was born, has survived. It is currently derelict, after suffering a major fire in the 1980s. Built in 1794, the Grade II listed Holy Trinity Church, Wavertree, was financed by the slave trading Backhouse family. Sir John Betjemen referred to Holy Trinity as ‘Liverpool’s best Georgian church’. The Grade II listed St Mary’s, Edge Hill, was built by Edward Mason, a Liverpool slave trader, who used his finances to build and endow the church in 1812. Staying in Edge Hill, we also have the Grade II listed Edge Hill train station, the oldest surviving passenger railway station in the world. Stephenson built the station in 1836 as the new passenger terminus to the Liverpool to Manchester Railway. The company that founded the railway was owned in part by Caribbean plantation owners the Gladstone, Moss and Earle families. Although lauded as the first passenger railway, its main use was to transport slave-produced cotton to the mills of Lancashire. Two Liverpool salt merchants who also had slave trading interests, John Ashton and John Blackburne, were the major shareholders in the building of the Edge Hill Station St Mary’s Edge Hill, built by Edward Mason Blackburn House
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