Father James Nugent was a pioneer for child welfare, poverty relief and social reform whose lasting legacy continues today through the work of the charity  Nugent Care, which operates throughout Merseyside and the North West. Born in Hunter Street, Liverpool in 1822, the son of a grocer, he was one of nine children and educated privately. […]

John Jackson, a member of the first cricket side to tour overseas, died in Liverpool’s workhouse in 1901 and is buried in the city’s Toxteth Park cemetery. Jackson was born in 1833 in Bungay, Suffolk but his family moved to Southwell in the East Midlands while he was in infancy. After first playing for a local […]

One of the statues in front of St George’s Hall, nearest to the entrance to the heritage centre, commemorates Major General William Earle, a Liverpool born army commander killed in Sudan in 1885. Earle was born in Hope Street on 18th May 1833, one of ten children born to Hardman Earle, a broker, and his […]

Harry Evans was born in 1873 in Mertyhr Tydfil, one of ten children. He was the son of a local choirmaster and showed such talent at music that his local church appointed him as their organist when he was aged just nine. Harry’s church paid for him to remain at school until aged fourteen and […]

One of the statues in St John’s Gardens, Liverpool commemorates ship owner and politician Sir Arthur Bower Forwood. Born on 23rd June 1836, Forwood was the son of Thomas Brittain Forwood of Thornton Hough on Wirral. His middle name Bower was as a reference to his mother’s maiden name. He was educated at Liverpool College […]

The first integrated sewage system in the world was developed in Liverpool in 1848 and overseen by newly appointed Borough Engineer James Newlands. Born in Edinburgh in 1813, Newlands was one of nine children. After distinguishing himself in mathematics and natural philosophy at the High School of Edinburgh in the late 1820s he became apprenticed as […]

Hugh Walter McElroy, the chief purser on the Titanic, was born at 3 Percy Street in Liverpool’s Georgian Quarter  on 28th October 1874. Hugh’s parents were staunch Roman Catholics Richard and Jessie McElroy who originated from County Wexford in Ireland. When he was seven his parents moved to 6 Eversley Street in Toxteth. When Hugh […]

The tomb of William MacKenzie, situated in the graveyard of the former St Andrew’s Church in Rodney Street, Liverpool, is often talked about. It is said that he is not buried there, but instead sat above ground and also that his ghost roams the locality. William Mackenzie was born near Nelson in 1794, the eldest […]

William Wethered was born in Bristol in 1864, the son of a colliery proprietor. He moved to North West England in 1881 and took an interest in saltworks near Fleetwood, which was taken over by United Alkali Co in 1890. He became a director of this if this company which would later go on to […]