The birthplace of modern railways?

Any number of places might claim to be the birthplace of modern railways but one that doesn't generally feature is the Clayton Square office of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway Company (L&MR) which opened in Liverpool some 190 years ago. This was before the company had track, stations or locomotives. The last vestiges of the office were removed as recently as 1986 when the shopping centre pictured above replaced the southern part of the square.

[update: Liverpool1207 on Twitter points to this clipping which gives further background to number 18 and indicating that, empty at the time, it may have been substantially if not completely rebuilt in 1910 to serve as auction rooms]

The Clayton Square office

The office in Clayton Square was the main Liverpool base for the fledgling L&MR. Lister Ellis had been deputed by fellow L&MR Board members to negotiate for a house in the square at the meeting of 5th June 1826 (Carlson, p.183), the enabling act for the company having been passed just a month previously.

As well as a meeting room for Directors (who were predominantly Liverpool-based), the Clayton Square office provided accomodation for staff such as Henry Booth (treasurer) and Thomas Gooch. Gooch was assistant to the Principal Engineer George Stephenson and converted his sketches into working plans. Smiles (cited by Carlson, p.199) says that the Directors Room had a chart on which assistant engineers would record progress on their particular section while visiting Clayton Square fortnightly to collect wages for their workers.

The choice of Clayton Square may have resulted from its proximity to the business district frequented by the directors and from a desire for a reasonably prestigious but affordable address that was available immediately.

However, the Directors had separate offices in the Clarendon Buildings on South John Street and in mid-November 1829 were surprised to learn, according to Thomas (1980), that the "upstairs part of the company office" (presumably Clayton Square) was being used by surveyors engaged in another Stephenson project, the Stockport Junction Railway. Although Stephenson had a degree of latitude, his assistants Locke and Dixon, full-time employees of the L&MR, had been moonlighting on this contract. Stephenson was forced to apologise and terminate his direct involvement this line although the following month Locke resigned from the L&MR to support Stephenson's side interests. Whether Booth played any role in the discovery of the misuse of Clayton Square is unclear.

In 1830 Clayton Square comprised a mix of hotels, shops and offices but my surmise is that the L&MR occupied the oldest and arguably grandest location, Clayton House, a mansion that had seen a very different tale of enterprise some 80 years previously. If I am right, this would have been house number 18 although Horwood's 1803 map apparently shows it as 19.

The origins of Clayton Square

The developer of Clayton Square was Mrs Sarah Clayton (1712-1779), perhaps better known in St Helens for her collieries at Parr. These were ideally placed for the arrival of the Sankey navigation in the 1750s and hence the highly profitable shipping of coal to the growing city of Liverpool. Mrs Clayton became a wealthy woman in her own right as well as by inheritance from her father William Clayton. He died in 1719 and was a tobacco and sugar merchant who rose to be mayor and MP for Liverpool but was also one of the first engaged in running slave ships. Mrs Clayton is remembered not only for two fine portraits (by William Hoare and Joseph Wright of Derby) but also as owner of one of the few private horse-drawn carriages in 1750s Liverpool.

Mrs Clayton started to develop the square in 1745 following the death of her mother and most likely saw it as housing wealthy merchants in a secluded area away from the crowded and bustling port. The original field leased since the time of her father was given over to orchards, garden and pasture. The square itself was quite slow to grow, Mrs Clayton's residence in Clayton House being the original nucleus. By 1769 there were 3-4 additional buildings and it is unclear whether it was entirely finished by the time she died ten years later. She had in any case moved from the square by this time as her coal business had been bankrupted by fierce competition and reduced demand during the American War of Independence.

By 1830 it seems likely that Clayton Square had run its course as a desirable location for a merchant's residence. Picton writing somewhat later calls it "gloomy and monastic" (he had an office there as did several other architects, including Peter Ellis). Construction of St John's Market in 1822 led to the opening of shops and restaurants in the square with the new Elliot Street going through the middle of the east terrace to the market beyond.

Clayton House

In 1826, according to the usual business directories, numbers 18 and 19 Clayton Square were occupied by auctioneers Winstanley & Son who were closely associated with local notables such as William Roscoe and the Liverpool Royal Institution. Their business was run from number 18 and their home located in number 19. This agrees with the notion that the space in the larger and more prestigious number 18 would more readily function as an auction room. Subsequently the firm relocated to Church Street and presumably the next tenants were the L&MR.

[Update: the tender document dated August 1826 for the Wapping tunnel shows the company address as 17 Clayton Square. However, it is not impossible that an additional building was inserted and the numbering updated accordingly]

By 1836, however, the L&MR had a base nearby at the newly built Lime Street station and Gage's map shows Clayton House as the Bull Hotel (see map above) and by 1840 it was the Clayton Arms Hotel. The proximity of Clayton Square to the new station favoured its development as a hotel-based "camping ground" for visitors arriving by train.

By the 1850s the building had become a performance space known as Clayton Hall and in the 1860s was refashioned into the Prince of Wales Theatre under noted manager Alexander Henderson. Later still it became a cinema and ultimately for a brief period a chapel before being demolished in the mid-1980s.

The former Clayton House (red arrow) in 1865. CC-BY-SA 4.0 Int, Historic Liverpool.

As with many houses on the square, Clayton House gradually extended backwards into the area bounded by Clayton Lane and may have had stables or a coach-house there.

The square as a public meeting space

At various times Clayton Square has served as a venue for public meetings and hustings. Perhaps its largely enclosed space and relatively small size helped with acoustics. A number of houses had balconies that may have afforded platforms for public addresses. In 1819, for example, the radical William Cobbett addressed a crowd from an open carriage on his return from America. Support among the crowd was apparently mixed and the acoustics not helped by an ongoing storm. The notion that Clayton Square was a place for public deliberation may not have featured in the L&MR's list of useful qualities but there was certainly a need to persuade the public that theirs was a serious endeavour.

Visual evidence

I have thus far been unable to locate images of the early Clayton House although photographs were taken in 1923 of the northern half of the square that give some feel for how the largely symmetrical layout must have looked. By this time, however, Clayton House itself had been transformed significantly and other nearby buildings had been substantially modified or rebuilt so photos of the Clayton House south side are less reliable witnesses for 1830.

A painting by John Pride in 1914 of the west and north side gives useful confirmation that a significant portion of the square was formed of unclad brick as suggested by the photo. This was likely true of the south side as well.

Photos of the north side on the other hand confirm that a successor to the L&MR, the London & North-Western Railway (LNWR), had a parcel office identified as number 7 on the 1890 fire insurance map (the photo also shows travel adverts). This was to be demolished prior to the construction in 1923 of the large building that became the department store Owen Owen and persists to the current day as a branch of Tesco supermarket.

Significance

Much remains to be determined regarding the organisation and day-to-day operation of Clayton House during the residence of the L&MR. Its later conversion to a performance space suggests that it may have had a large central hall or atrium. Clearly it provided a focus for directors and investors concerned that the delivery of the L&MR should be timely and cost-effective. The parallels between the L&MR and Mrs Clayton are not insignificant given the importance of coal and more efficient transport to both enterprises. One wonders whether her fate may have spurred the L&MR to greater efforts.

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