History

The Historical Context

The 1840’s saw a massive influx into the area of Irish immigrants who settled in Vauxhall.  They primarily lived and worked by the docks just to the north of the city centre, housed in poor quality high volume housing where disease and social deprivation was rife.  The workforce was largely low paid and involved in semi-skilled work.  The 1930s saw the demolition of the slum areas of Vauxhall, and their replacement by council-owned walk up tenement blocks.  While a huge improvement on the overcrowded and unhygienic court housing that had existed before, these blocks would soon create their own social problems.  Much of this was removed by the enormous destruction inflicted on Liverpool in the Second World War, recognition of the city’s huge importance to the war effort, its vital role in bringing food and other goods into the country from the USA, and its importance as an industrial base.  Liverpool was the second most heavily bombed city in the UK, after London.

The area’s proximity to the dock complex in the north of the city, and the inaccuracy of many of the bombing raids, meant that large residential parts of the Vauxhall area were left in complete ruins: one particularly heavy raid in December 1940 killed nearly one hundred people (including entire families) in Blackstock Street.  The victims of this raid are remembered to this day by a commemorative plinth located on the junction of Vauxhall Road and Carruthers Street. 

The destruction of the war required an enormous rebuilding effort that continued through the 1950s and 1960s, years which also saw a boom in the dock trade central to the city’s economy.