An American in Liverpool

When the American pioneer chemist and educator Benjamin Silliman
arrives in Liverpool in 1805 he stays in the Liverpool Arms Hotel, presumably on Water Street at that time (it later moves to Castle Street).

He does a whirlwind tour of the cultural highlights of the city before travelling to Manchester and ultimately London and Edinburgh.

Silliman is not one to be easily impressed. He trained in law but in two years swapped to chemistry and natural history, giving the first science lectures at Yale. He meets with luminaries William Roscoe at Allerton Hall and with Joseph Priestley in Manchester

On the morning of May 7th he visits Liverpool's "small museum". His reaction:

...not extensive but is well worth seeing

Bullock's Museum

The proprietor of the museum, William Bullock, was a jeweller and goldsmith but also a proficient taxidermist. Possibly he started collecting "curiosities" as a hobby before making it into a business; he was well-placed in Liverpool to collect unusual and exotic items from seafarers returning to port.

At the time Silliman visited the museum it comprised four "compartments": one devoted to painting and sculpture, two to natural history and one to armour and weapons, the latter appealing most to Silliman.

By this time the museum would have been at the corner of Church Street and Whitechapel (formerly Frog Lane), opposite Bates's Hotel (and its popular newsroom) and on ground formerly occupied by a poorhouse (the museum had previously been in Lord Street). Entrance was 1s.

According to Samuel Holme, Bullock also had a marble yard at the bottom of Bold Street.

Bullock in London (a brief detour)

Bullock moved to London in 1810 and enjoyed great success there with what was still called the Liverpool Museum. Soon a new building was erected in Piccadilly, the Egyptian Hall, with appropriate architectural features.

At this time he published a catalogue of exhibits. Of course, the British Museum was already established but beyond that there was not much competition. Bullock was a consumate showman yet organised his exhibitions to promote understanding. He was a member of several learned societies even though this did not always sit well with his promotional activities.

One innovation was the display of stuffed animals in a natural setting with wax foliage in front of a semi-panoramic painted backdrop. Bullock's first such display was entitled The North Cape with a Family of Lapps and featured not only two Lapp dwellings, one each for summer and winter, but a family of real live Lapps plus a reindeer! This was an early response to the "dead" feel of the natural history diorama even before this staple of museums had been widely adopted.

Bullock also fostered the fine arts, displaying Gericault's large painting Raft of the Medusa with great success first in London and then taking it on the road. The public were fickle, however, and in Dublin he was out-competed by a rival moving panorama of the Medusa which told the story of the shipwreck through multiple scenes.

In the 1820s there was much interest in the mineral resources of newly independent Mexico. Ever the adventurer, Bullock invested time and money unprofitably in silver mining but still found time to collect specimens for display in London.

Now we return to Silliman's excursion...

...then a quick walk to Bold Street and the Rotunda

a fine panorama of Ramsgate with embarkation of the troops, gave me a few minutes of pleasant entertainment

by which we may understand that he refers to the recently opened Rotunda in Bold Street.

...then a visit to the School for Indigent Blind on London Road

To round off the morning Silliman visited the School for the Indigent Blind established by Edward Rushton in 1791 and based at the time in a building designed by John Foster Jnr located on London Road.

And finally

...a visit to a Guinea slaving ship which distresses him deeply. He rails against the trade which will, with Roscoe's help, be abolished in 1807.

Postscript

While in London Silliman makes a point of visiting the British Museum but is unhappy with the rushed nature of his visit. Following his return to America in 1806 he would go on to amass his own collection of rocks and minerals for teaching purposes. After his death these would form the core of Yale's famous Peabody Museum.

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