The Liverpool
Cotton Market
In the infancy of the trade, when the arrivals into
Liverpool were small and intermittent, the cotton imported was for the most
part sold to dealers, who retailed it to spinners in Manchester, Blackburn,
Bolton, and other centres. Sometimes it was sold direct to the dealers by
private treaty; at other times by
auction, either by the importers themselves or by brokers in their employ.
The first known reference to raw cotton shipped to Liverpool
from the West Indies appeared in a letter written in 1703 by Liverpool merchant
Robert Norris. The expansion of the British cotton industry in the second half
of the eighteenth century created a demand for the cotton fibre. As the cotton
industry grew, increasing quantities of cotton entered Liverpool rather than
London. By 1800, as cotton cultivation continued to spread in the Atlantic
basin, Liverpool developed a sophisticated cotton market. A Lancashire dealer
wanting to purchase cotton on the Liverpool market could, by the early nineteenth
century, choose from thousands of bales entering Liverpool‘s docks each week,
and from at least fifteen varieties of cotton, ranging in quality and price.
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Photograph by Mike Peel: www.mikepeel.net |
Increasingly, a group of specialised brokers with expertise and knowledge in the raw cotton trade acted as middlemen on the Liverpool cotton market connecting buyers and sellers in speedy transactions. In 1808, an Exchange Building opened, but while cotton brokers took offices there, they preferred to conduct their business in the open square. By 1815, Liverpool was the undisputed British port for cotton imports and its merchants played the principal role in securing cotton to supply Lancashire cotton factories.
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Exchange Flags |
The cotton market continued to meet out of doors until the
1880s. The Flags were a place to meet and swap information about the cotton
market. New technology like the telegraph and telephone played a major part in
moving the cotton men indoors. A new building in Old Hall Street was erected in
1905-06 to a design by Matear and Simon. Its façade was in Neoclassical style,
with Baroque towers at the angles. Its exterior decoration included statues.
Inside the building was the latest technology for communicating with cotton
trading elsewhere in the world, including telephones, and cables linking
directly with New York, Bremen and Bombay.
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Liverpool to Manchester Railway |
Later improvement in transport and communication helped the
cotton trade to improve and expand. The development of the railway and in
particular the opening of the Liverpool to Manchester line in 1830, improved
reliability in transporting cotton to the Lancashire towns. In 1841 The Liverpool
Cotton Brokers' Association was established and the Transatlantic Telegraph
Cable system reduced long distance communication from weeks to minutes. In
1911-12 Liverpool imported 5,230,399 bales of cotton.
The cotton market was affected by both world wars, in 1914 at the outbreak of World War 1 the markets in Liverpool and New York were closed and although they later re-opened much of the demand for cotton was being met by Japan and India. During World War two large numbers of men were called up.The decimation of the American crop of 1921 by the ravages of the Boll Weevil and the Wall Street Crash of 1929 which led to the Great Depression had a severe effect on the Liverpool Cotton Market. By 1931 Liverpool’s cotton imports were at their lowest for 62 years.
After the second world war, the Lancashire cotton industry
went into decline. This was partly based on a lack of investment in new
technology and partly due to production moving to countries where labour was
cheaper. Cotton processing increasingly takes place close to where the crop is
grown.
Developing countries now account for over 80% of global
cotton consumption. This is because labour costs in the developed countries
have risen, so cotton processing and production has moved to countries with
lower labour costs.
Today, there are still about 4000 companies involved in the
textile industry in the North West. However, the raw cotton is no longer spun
into yarn in the UK. Yarn and finished fabric is manufactured closer to where
the cotton is grown, in India, Pakistan and increasingly China. Textiles tend
to be designed in the UK and then made overseas
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Liverpool Cotton Exchange |
The front of the Old Hall Street Cotton Exchange was
replaced with a modern-style façade designed by Newton-Dawson, Forbes and Tate
in 1967–69, and the former main exchange hall was replaced by a courtyard. In
addition to offices, the building also incorporates retail facilities.
Sources
Liverpool Central Library
Liverpool Records Office
English Heritage
International Cotton Association
Wikipedia -Image