Sir William Bower FORWOOD - Recollections of a Busy Life: Being the Reminiscences of a Liverpool Merchant, 1840-1910 ... [An Enlarged Edition of Some Recollections of a Busy Life.] Illustrated with Seventeen Plates

Recollections of a Busy Life: Being the Reminiscences of a Liverpool Merchant, 1840-1910 ... [An Enlarged Edition of Some Recollections of a Busy Life.] Illustrated with Seventeen Plates — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Recollections of a Busy Life: Being the Reminiscences of a Liverpool Merchant, 1840-1910 ... [An Enlarged Edition of Some Recollections of a Busy Life.] Illustrated with Seventeen Plates" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...45

---

RECOLLECTIONS

OF A

BUSY LIFE.

---

i005.jpg

Painted by S. Walters.] [Engraved by R. G. Reeve.

View of the Port of Liverpool, 1836.

---

RECOLLECTIONS
OF A BUSY LIFE

BEING THE

REMINISCENCES

OF A

LIVERPOOL MERCHANT

1840-1910.

BY

SIR WILLIAM B. FORWOOD
D.L. J.P.

ILLUSTRATED WITH SEVENTEEN PLATES

"Work for some good, be it ever so slowly;

Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly;

Labour! True labour is noble and holy."

LIVERPOOL:
HENRY YOUNG & SONS
1910.

---

To my Children

and

Grandchildren.

---

PREFACE.

---

Many of the following pages were written for private circulation. Influential friends have, however, urged me to publish them, as they may appeal to a wider circle of readers. I have consented, with diffidence, but have availed myself of the opportunity to add some chapters upon local affairs, which I trust may be of public interest, and recall pleasing memories of bygone times.

W. B. F.

Bromborough Hall ,
December 1st, 1910.

---

A FOREWORD.

---

There are but few men whose lives are worthy to be written for general publication, but there are many who have accumulated recollections and experiences which must be interesting and instructive to those of their own kith and kin, and it is for these I am about to jot down a few reminiscences of a life which has been largely spent in public workin helping to build up the fortunes of a great seaport, in the local government of an important Municipality, and in the administration of Justice. Should these pages fall into the hands of friends I am sure they will be read with kindly and sympathetic feelings, and strangers will, I hope, accord to them the consideration and indulgence due to a narrative written only for private publication.

Life is said to be short, but when I look back upon the events which have crowded into mine I seem to have lived a long time, and one cannot but reflect that if the prospect had always looked as long as the retrospect, how much more patience and deliberation might have been thrown into the ordering of one's affairs, and how entirely this might have altered the course of events and changed the goal of one's endeavours. It is perhaps a merciful and wise ordinance that no man can reckon beyond the day that is before him, and therefore each day should be so lived as to be typical of our life; for it is the only portion of time of which we may truly say it is our own, and at our own disposal for good or for evil.

As each life, therefore, has its ambitionssmall or greatits conquests, its trials, and its failures, so each day has to bear its own burden of trials and anxieties; and as the daily life is lived, and the daily task accomplished, so will our life's work be fulfilled; but how few there are who can look back and say their lives have been a success, and that they have accomplished all they should or all they might have done.

A great philosopher and thinker, who passed away only recently, stated, on the Jubilee of his Professorship, when his contemporaries were saying that future generations would proclaim him as having accomplished greater things than Sir Isaac Newton, that "his life had not been a success, that he had given his time and his mental powers to the solution of practical problems of everyday life rather than to the claims of the higher philosophy;" and so, in our more humble spheres each of us must feel that we have neglected opportunities, and perhaps the opportunities which we most regret having neglected are those by which we could have done good to our fellow-men, and not those which made for the satisfying of our ambition.

There can be no isolation more dreary than the isolation of an old age, cut off by the lack of training and habit from sympathy with humanity, alone in its selfishness, untouched by the joy of feeling and caring for others. But even short of this isolation of a selfish old age, there must come to all of us a feeling of disappointment that our part in helping forward the well-being of others has not been larger and more fruitful:

"Frail is the web the tired worker weaves

Left incomplete:

Fair was life's promise, scanty are its sheaves;

What are its laurels, but a few sere leaves

Withering beneath our feet."

I will, however, cease to moralise, and will conclude with this thought which, I think, forms an appropriate preface to an autobiography.

How much greater would be the sum total of human happiness if men would accept as their guide the experience of those who had gone before! How many disasters might be avoided! How many successful careers might be shaped and built up! But I suppose as long as men are as they are they will refuse to accept the experience of others, but will make their own, and through blunders and mistakes a certain proportion will arrive at success, but a larger proportion will struggle on, on the ragged edge and under the cold shade of adversity until the end of their days.

W. B. F.

Bromborough Hall,
Cheshire ,
January 21st, 1910.

---

CONTENTS.

---

PAGE.

CHAPTER I.EARLY YEARS

My Father

Edge Hill

Everton

Bootle

Seaforth

The "Great Britain," s.s.

Wrecks on the Seaforth shore

Walton

Aigburth

The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone

His last speech

1848Waterloo and Southport Railway: Opening

Edge Lane

Early School-days

Home Life

Wavertree Park

CHAPTER II.VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD

1857Sail in the "Red Jacket"

Australia

West Coast of South America

Easterly gales in the Channel

CHAPTER III.LIVERPOOL

Liverpool in 1860-1870

The Town

The Docks

The Dock Board

Election

Birkenhead

Bootle

The Exchange

Cotton Brokers

Commerce

Shipowners

Merchants

The American War of 1861-1865

Blockade Running

The Southern Bazaar

The Volunteer Movement

Intellectual Life

Society

CHAPTER IV.BUSINESS LIFE

My Father's Office

Financial Panics, 1857-1866

1861Wrecked in the "Great Eastern"

1861Arrested in New York

Leech, Harrison and Forwood

My brother Arthur

CHAPTER V.PUBLIC LIFE, 1867

1868President Philomathic Society

Professor Huxley

1868Elected to the Town Council : Early Experiences

Chamber of Commerce :

1870Elected Vice-President

1871-1874President of the Chamber

1878-1881Elected President of the re-constituted Chamber by the votes of the subscribers to the Exchange News Room

1870Fellow Royal Statistical Society

1872President of the American Chamber of Commerce

Next page

1234567...45

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Recollections of a Busy Life: Being the Reminiscences of a Liverpool Merchant, 1840-1910 ... [An Enlarged Edition of Some Recollections of a Busy Life.] Illustrated with Seventeen Plates»

Look at similar books to Recollections of a Busy Life: Being the Reminiscences of a Liverpool Merchant, 1840-1910 ... [An Enlarged Edition of Some Recollections of a Busy Life.] Illustrated with Seventeen Plates. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Kerry Thornley

The Dreadlock Recollections

James Stonehouse

Recollections of Old Liverpool

William Pittman Lett

Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants

Adye

Recollections of a Military Life

Captain Rees Howell Gronow

Recollections and Anecdotes; being a second series of Reminiscences of the Camp, the Court, and the Clubs.

William Sleeman

Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official

AJALT

Japanese for Busy People Book 1: The Workbook: Revised 4th Edition

V. Ramnarayan

Third Man: Recollections From A Life In Cricket

George Washington Julian

Political Recollections, 1840 to 1872

Alexis de Tocqueville

Recollections: The French Revolution of 1848 and Its Aftermath

Don Watson

Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: Portrait of Paul Keating PM (10th Anniversary Edition)

Joan Russell Noble

Recollections of Virginia Woolf by Her Contemporaries

Discussion, reviews of the book Recollections of a Busy Life: Being the Reminiscences of a Liverpool Merchant, 1840-1910 ... [An Enlarged Edition of Some Recollections of a Busy Life.] Illustrated with Seventeen Plates and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.