Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

"In the summer of 1798, so great was the influx of persons of every description into this town, from Ireland, that house rent, and the price of lodgings were greatly advanced, and have continued exhorbitantly high since that period. Many respectable Irish families, who came over to Liverpool as a place of refuge from the horrors of rebellion and martial law, have settled here, and contributed at once to the wealth and population of the place. At the same time it must be acknowledged, that many very immoral characters of the lower classes have also emigrated from Ireland hither; but the vigilance of a well regulated police will, doubtless, repress the operations of criminality in this town, whether native or foreign."

John Corry's "The History of Liverpool, from the earliest authenticated period down to the present times" published in 1810.


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“With respect to Irish families, there were comparitively few of any class, either high or low, in Liverpool, until the rebellion of 1798; but afterwards the Union caused a considerable change in that respect. When the facility of coming over from Ireland is taken into account, the previous paucity of the Irish, may well seem extraordinary to those who now witness the vast numbers of Irish, of the lower class, who swarm by thousands in the small courts, alleys, and backstreets of some of the districts of Liverpool. A number of Irish, of all classes, came to Liverpool in 1798, who had left Ireland to avoid the miseries of rebellion, and the unhappy state of affairs which then prevailed there. That circumstance would, no doubt, add something to the population of Liverpool; but there were also the widely extending commerce of the port, and many other causes which combined to affect it, so that the incease of the population became very considerable before the close of the 18th century.”

Richard Brooke's "Liverpool as it was during the last quarter of the eighteenth century (1775 to 1800) published in 1853.


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