William Roscoe was born in Liverpool on 8 March 1753 near what is now Hope Street. At that time, this part of Liverpool was rural and this provides some clues about William Roscoe’s later interests. His father, a market gardener, kept a public house called the Old Bowling Green at Mount Pleasant where William was born. Inspired by his mother’s love of poetry, when William was nineteen he wrote a poem 'Mount Pleasant' which won the esteem of critics. Between 1759 and 1765 he attended school in Paradise Street, Liverpool and left school at the age of twelve, having learned all that his schoolmaster could teach. Assisting his father in the work of the garden, he also spent his leisure time on reading and study. This self-taught man would become the father of Liverpool culture. At fifteen he had begun to look for a suitable career but a month's trial of bookselling was unsuccessful, so in 1769 he was articled to a solicitor. Although a diligent student of law, he continued to read the classics, making conversance with the language and literature of Italy which was to dominate his life. His interest in design led William to learn Latin, French and Italian in order to understand better the ideas and works of Leonardo de Vinci. In 1773 he helped to found the Liverpool Society for the Encouragement of the Arts of Painting and Design.
Going into business as a lawyer in 1774, in 1781 he married Jane, the second daughter of William Griffies, a Liverpool tradesman. While living at Allerton Hall, which he bought in 1799 from his friend Jane Hardman, it was to his children that he wrote some of his most loved and popular poetry. 'The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast' was written for his young son, Robert, and was published in 1807 quickly becoming a nursery classic. (The William Roscoe's School badge is a butterfly and the school have a butterfly garden.). In 1796 Roscoe gave up legal practice, and toyed with the idea of going to the bar. Between 1793 and 1800, studying botany, he paid much attention to agriculture and in 1802 led a group of Liverpool botanists who created the Liverpool Botanic Garden as a private garden, initially located near Mount Pleasant.
A prominent Unitarian who, as an opponent of the slave trade, he published several pamphlets and in 1806 was elected Whig MP for Liverpool on an anti-slavery platform where his outspokenness against the slave trade meant that abolutionism and Unitarianism were linked together in the public mind. As a staunch liberal, his pamphlet 'A General View Of The Slave Trade' had caused ructions throughout a city that had benefited hugely from the reprehensible industry at the time. In 1807 the Slave Trade Act was passed, abolishing slavery throughout the British Empire. William Roscoe’s bravery in confronting his contemporaries has been celebrated ever since. The role of MP was not for him however, and at the dissolution of Parliament the following year he stood down. During his brief stay though, he was able to cast his vote in favour of the successful abolition of the slave trade. For this he paid a price being assailed in Castle Street, as he stepped from his coach and horses, by a mob of sailors and others mired in the slave trade, who beat him to the ground. However this attack simply led to him redoubling his efforts refusing always to be ground down by defeat or intimidation.
A keen promoter of cultural development during Liverpool’s commercial growth, William was the first president of the Liverpool Royal Institution in Colquitt Street and was a founding member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool in 1812. In 1815 he was made a Freeman of the City of Liverpool. He also succeeded in restoring to good order the affairs of a banking house in which his friend William Clark, then resident in Italy, was a partner. This led to his introduction into the business, which eventually proved disastrous, forcing sale of his painting collection in 1816 much of which were bought to become (indirectly) a foundation of the Walker Art Gallery. On the dispersal of his library, the volumes most useful to him were secured by friends and placed in the Liverpool Athenaeum of which he had been a founding member in 1797. The sum of £2,500 was also invested for his benefit.
Among those he cared for most were the destitute and the oppressed, as he supported two orphaned families as well as his own children and took personal responsibility for the education of several young people. These included young girls and children who had no means of supporting themselves but who clearly had potential and talent, again demonstrating how far he was ahead of his times. In the last three years of his life we find him busy founding a Liverpool Association for Superseding the Use of Children in Chimney Sweeping – a cause which Lord Shaftesbury would bring to fruition.
On June 30th, 1831 aged 78, William succumbed to influenza and died. He was interred in the burial ground abutting Renshaw Street Chapel, close to where he had been born. This burial ground, known now as Roscoe Gardens on Mount Pleasant, was donated to the city as open green space.
In 1853 he was honoured by the city of Liverpool when the Roscoe Centenary Festival was held.
see also:- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2020/12/a-liverpool-exemplar-pauline-clare.html
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