A Liverpool Exemplar - Sir William Brown

Sir William Brown, 1857 by John Watson

Liverpool's Central Library and World Museum have their origins in wealth accrued through slavery. Originally named in honour of William Brown, who paid for the construction of the Free Public Library and Museum building, which he presented to the Lord Mayor of Liverpool on 18 October 1860. He was one of the premier importers of slave-produced cotton into Liverpool during the first half of the nineteenth century and the family were also the owners of many enslaved people on their plantations in the Deep South.
Sir William Brown was born on the 30th of May 1784 at Ballymena, County Antrim, the eldest son of a Belfast Linen merchant, Alexander. In 1796 young William spent 4 years in a boarding school in Yorkshire. On completing what he called a "Good middle class education" he returned to the family home in Northern Ireland. In 1801 he left Ireland to join his father in business in Baltimore USA where his father established the firm of Alexander Brown & Sons, linen merchants. Having learnt a great deal about business, both from his father and his American hosts, he returned home in 1808 tasked with setting up a Liverpool branch of the firm and by 1810 had quickly set up a business in the booming town. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars the company would grow exponentially through the buying and selling of slave produced cotton. According to the company’s historian, Aytoun Ellis, 'It was not unusual for Alexander Brown & Sons to deal in as many as 30,000 bales of cotton in one transaction, and soon the Browns were handling 75 per cent or more of the American cotton, these huge shipments to Liverpool being William’s responsibility.' William realised that Liverpool, as the port of entry for American Exports, was the 'place to be'. Gradually though he moved out of linen and in to cotton before eventually coming out of merchandising altogether and into merchant banking, where his fortune was to be made. The hazards of the trans-Atlantic trade, especially during the war of 1812 with the U.S.A induced him to relinquish his ties with the Baltimore connection.

He was made a Freeman of the City of Liverpool in 1824 then in 1831 helped to establish the Bank of Liverpool. Brown became one of the leaders in Liverpool commerce, and in 1832 took a principal share in the reform of the system of dock-management then in vogue at that port. However his main tangible contribution to the city was the William Brown Library. In 1852 Liverpool only had a temporary library, but its popularity showed that something more permanent was needed. The costs of this, £40,000, were entirely met by Brown. In 1856, William agreed to pay the full cost of erecting an edifice to house Liverpool’s free library and museum, and on the 15th of April 1857 he would have the honour of laying the foundation stone. In gratitude to him for donating the monies for the completion of the library and museum, Shaw's Brow, the thoroughfare on which they were erected, was renamed William Brown Street. The Library was opened on the 18th of October 1860 and was described as "a gift to the inhabitants of Liverpool." Joseph Shipley, who had retired back to his native Delaware in 1850, bequeathed £1000 for the purchasing of books as 'an old resident of Liverpool' who wanted to show some appreciation to the people of the city where he had made his fortune. It was with Shipley’s donation that the library’s copy of Audubon’s ‘Birds of America' was acquired for the princely sum of £168 during the same year the library opened. Today there are only 119 complete copies of the book known to survive and it is one of the most valuable books in existence,

In Liverpool, William Brown's offices were at Union Court, just behind the Bank of England. He also built investment properties: Browns Buildings in Water Street (the statues from the roof of which are now at the entrance to Calderstones Park) and Hargreaves Building in Chapel Street. His business, both mercantile and banking, had continued to increase, and by 1844 he was in possession of a sixth of the trade between Great Britain and the United States. "There is hardly," declared Richard Cobden at this period, "a wind that blows, or a tide that flows in the Mersey, that does not bring a ship freighted with cotton or some other costly commodity for Mr Brown's house." He was a generous benefactor who, it was said, gave £100 (equivalent to perhaps £80,000 today) to every Liverpool charitable appeal that came to his attention. During the 1850s the company began to focus primarily on financing shipping firms bringing goods to Britain, selling the last of their plantations in the United States by 1860, just a year before the outbreak of the American Civil War that would lead to the abolition of slavery in the States. In acknowledgement of his appeal to both nations, in1858 Nathaniel Hawthorne, then United States Consul in Liverpool would say that, " he grasped, as it where, England with his right hand and America with his left."
Sir William Brown, as he was to become, had quickly became involved in the Liverpool Civic scene. In 1846 he was elected M.P for South Lancashire and re-elected in 1847,1852 and 1857.

In 1862, on the recommendation of Lord Palmerston he was made a Baronet in the New Years Honours List. This was stated to be "in recognition of his eminent commercial position and generous conduct towards the public of Liverpool.” He did not live very long to enjoy his honour. On the 3rd of March 1864 he died at his home on Richmond Hill, Anfield, Liverpool aged almost 80. His vault lies on the East Wall of St James Cemetery. The Wirral historian, writer and public speaker David Hearn, aka 'The Dusty Teapot' regards William Brown as "the man who made Liverpool".

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