John Bramley-Moore — Lord Mayor of Liverpool and Slave Trader

I'll be honest, when I first came across the links between Bramley-Moore and slavery last summer at the height of the racial justice protests, my heart sank. Amid the violent clashes over Winston Churchill's statue in London and the fevered rhetoric around the hauling down of Edward Colston's in Bristol, the last thing you wanted was Everton to be dragged into a bitter fight over racism and “cancel culture”, particularly, as Stephen explains, it takes some digging to find out the extent of JBM's transgressions in the first place but they were brought up on Twitter last year.

As a historian by education, prone to nostalgia in general and given to acknowledging and learning from history rather than erasing it, I am reflexively resistant to the notion of changing the names of places and landmarks unless it's for a very good reason and after very careful consideration and debate. You can't escape history but you can reckon with it and, with the information about JBM out there, it's not something you can brush under the carpet either because someone is bound to bring it up at some stage.

That's why I like Stephen's impulse to create something that acknowledges and contextualises JBM's role in the slave trade rather than simply ignoring the past and doing away with a name that has become synonymous with the new stadium.

(Regardless of who takes up the naming rights, might end up being what we all call it forever. It's not guaranteed, of course — Ashburton Grove has a nice ring to it but The Emirates name stuck; likewise the Etihad Stadium replaced Eastlands but not many people referred to Middlesbrough's Riverside as the Cellnet Stadium.) In so doing the club would be seen to be addressing a potentially uncomfortable association.

That approach would also be in keeping with the City of Liverpool's approach thus far, in consultation with the International Slavery Museum, which is, to these eyes, well-considered — namely, to steer away from renaming roads and places but instead use the opportunity to erect plaques to explain that part of Liverpool's maritime history.

Acknowledge it, address the matter, admit that yes, judged now it was not the City's finest moment, but also remember historical context and that was then and this is now. Just don't go OTT pandering to the Wokerazzi doing it.

When Parliament abolished the Slave Trade, they decided they had to buy out every single known slave owner, the majority being very poor already, as said. They documented every pay-out to every named individual. There were hundreds of thousands such people. The Parliamentary records still exist.

The excellent (IMO) TV historian David Olusoga did a whole program on this a couple of years ago and it's well worth a viewing.

Getting back to our soon to be submerged new stadium, I don't think we should ignore Bramley-Moore's behaviour but, rather like the Yanks do with Thomas Jefferson, place it in the context of its times and then go hell for leather for naming rights off a 100% perfect individual/organisation who'll forever be beyond criticism (Kenwright, Moshiri and Usmanov need not apply).

Simples!

As a 'professional' historian – ie, university professor specialising in English History 1500-1800 – your comment about the poor being encouraged to buy a part of a slave is, Jesus, laughable. Your 'knowledge' of the 1598/1601 Poor Law that was not repealed until 1834 is below that of one of my undergraduates who has never studied it.

There is nothing worse than 'knowledge' being paraded and dressed up in 'fake news'.

This is up there with you know who won the election:

'When Parliament abolished the Slave Trade they decided they had to buy out every single known slave owner, the majority being very poor already, as said. They documented every pay-out to every named individual. There were hundreds of thousands such people. The Parliamentary records still exist.'

Indeed they do, Don. There are, as I'm sure you know the Commons Journals. And Hansard began reporting in 1798 and became verbatim in 1811.

Show me one scrap of evidence from that 'public' record for your twaddle, Mr Alexander.

Hundreds of thousands of poor people with a stake in slaves. You're funny, Don, but in truth dangerously misleading and insulting to the 18th & 19th Century poor.

Mutton dressed up as lamb.

And to Lyndon's follow-on point. You can't erase history. You shouldn't ever try to. But you can acknowledge and learn from it – good and bad.

My Grandfather always educated me on Liverpool's part in the slave trade and made sure I knew how unjust and savage it was. As a Burma veteran who staged through Indian on his way to and back from War, he also took me to an exhibition on India in the original Liverpool Museum behind St George's Hall when I was about 10. I'll never forget him lecturing me on how the British had oppressed those people and held them back. And that one day they would be an influential and powerful nation. That was 40 years ago and less than 40 since he'd returned from the region and the fighting.

The Germany I spent a few years in as a child in the 70s lived in self-imposed shame and tried to ignore their more recent past. They were afraid to raise their own flag or be patriotic.

When I visit now (every year on several occasions), I see a much more confident nation that has come to terms with its past because it eventually confronted it and acknowledged it. But they didn't erase it. You can visit sites where some of the most recent atrocities imposed on humans by other humans imaginable took place.

They haven't been torn down or erased. They have been left to stand as a memory to the victims. And a reminder and lesson as to why we should never forget the lessons of the past and go there again.

Erase them and they are forgotten. It upsets me, in today's often angry and outraged about everything society, that we are scared to talk about these type of things. We should never forget and always reflect.

Thanks again, Stephen.

The following is from an article published in early 2018, critical of the Government on account of a departmental tweet at the time on slavery compensation. It cites 46,000 slave owners and my "hundreds of thousands" sought to include their family members as beneficiaries;

"It was one of those tweets by a public body you couldn't quite believe. “Here's today's surprising #FridayFact” HM Treasury declared last week. “Millions of you helped end the slave trade through your taxes.” Attached to the tweet was an image of slaves in chains with the caption: “In 1833, the British government used £20m, 40% of its national budget, to buy freedom for all slaves in the empire. The amount of money borrowed for the Slavery Abolition Act was so large that it wasn't paid off until 2015. Which means that living British citizens helped pay to end the slave trade.”

The slave trade was actually abolished in 1807. The 1833 Slavery Abolition Act abolished, as the name suggests, slavery itself. A Treasury so loose with its facts might explain something about the state of the British economy. Worse, however, was the claim that British taxpayers helped “buy freedom for slaves”. The government certainly shelled out £20m (about £16bn today) in 1833. Not to free slaves but to line the pockets of 46,000 British slave owners as “recompense” for losing their “property”. Having grown rich on the profits of an obscene trade, slave owners grew richer still from its ending. That, scandalously, was what the taxpayer was paying for until 2015."

I'm not out to point-score, Paul, but I just share the opinion of slave history that many others do, and the way the British Establishment dealt with it at the time and ever since.

As soon as I saw the subject being discussed here. I thought if any subject was going to lure you from TW exile this would be it.

Authority and knowledge. Trumps ill informed speculation all day long.

Hope you and yours are keeping well

We could instead have the "CheapCo"" or the "Microsoft" Stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock (insert the name of your choice). Then it's the original dock that carries the stigma (and rightly so), whereas the new stadium can have a squeaky clean new name which offends no-one. And we can have the appropriate signage and memorials to show that we are well aware of the dubious origins behind the dock's name.

Other clubs have The Stadium of Light, etc etc - so we could choose something similar (a play on the School of Science, maybe) although that may be inviting trouble...

The only problem in this day and age is finding a name that doesn't offend someone.

The "Neutral Zone" Stadium, or the "Wishy-Washy" Stadium, anyone?

It will be interesting how we name the stands. Let alone the stadium!

Airbrushed from the vaults of history and never happened, Brian. I saw the loft conversion on Sunday from the Main Stand when Ade "kindly" pointed it out!

I look forward to what I'm sure will be a fascinating debate over the naming of the stadium and the ultimate treatment of the dock's odious history. I'm sure it will be Topic 1 on this site as the stadium approaches completion.

A quick glance in the proggie showed the Villa Board to be made up of only the great man's son and his doctor ! Say no more.

Haha sounds about right

It will not be named the Bramley-Moore Dock Stadium but, if the owners of Everton FC are interested in history, they could place a plaque on the old building that is being upgraded, of who John Bramley-Moore was, and of his history and the history of the dock.

Danny #10,

Mentioning your grandfather, my father-in-law also fought in Burma while in the Army. He volunteered to join an expeditionary force led by Orde Wingate, who – from what I have read about him – was quite a nutcase. My wife always said her dad got back from the war a lot later than the other soldiers and suffered with malaria.

Why do us Brits never fight for what is our recompense? We could then use it to recompense any we have abused. We just sit here.

Perhaps rather than financial compensation we could take Chiesa or Barella.

But a few days earlier, we were in Williamstown, a reproduction of a pre-independence town. There was a drama and at the end, we went to speak with him. His dad was in the forces and back in the 60s there were places he could not go – but the whites were happy for him to defend their country.

He then told a couple of examples from history. If an owner started beating a slave, then by raising his arm to protect himself the slave was guilty of attacking his owner and it was punishable with death. Having then hanged the slave, the owner could then apply for compensation for the loss of the slave, his asset.

We also got into an interesting conversation with our server in the restaurant who was Afro-American (AA). Her mother was against her working there because it was so "white" and we had noticed that very few AAs were among the visitors. We mused if all the people working in the gardens and doing the menial tasks were AAs, would people notice and be shocked? All three of us concluded - probably not.

I don't think those of us on this side of the pond really understand. Not sure we do yet either. But the essence is you do get equality by lowering the privileged, that causes resentment – you get it by raising the disadvantaged.

I find it interesting what Danny says about not erasing history but confronting it and being educated by it. What better way to hit home than having some physical reminder of the past.

I'd like to see a monument and a plaque of some sort at the site that tells this story of slavery so that it can educate future generations and not be forgotten.

I've had the idea of having a free ‘history trail' around the stadium site that could act as a link with the past and is accessible both physically and educationally for fans and even casual visitors, even schools, on non match days.

We may even poach a few new supporters off the back of it ? The investment could make commercial sense as well as being a social one. It would create more footfall for businesses in the locality. A grant to support it, fully or partially, could be applied for.

I could do some research and work on it Farhad, if you're reading.

He adopted Liverpool as his home city and Everton as his team. He would never really talk too much about Burma, other than occasionally over a half a glass of bitter in the Arkles. Yes, a red pub, but it was his local as he only lived about 6 doors down on Arkles Lane in later life.

He was very proud of Liverpool and educated me on the history and heritage on many trips to the museums, buildings and city centre.

It will be an interesting and potentially emotive debate on the stadium name, Mike. I personally think the sponsorship will just take over and the site name will remain, much in a similar manner to Eastlands / The Etihad.

But then as much as I see myself progressive, I also like a bit of history and heritage. So it would be nice to see something relating to the city and maybe Goodison Park? Don't get me wrong: I'm not into this "New Goodison Park" type of labelling; it's not Goodison. But a reflection on our past in our future home. Maybe that's where stand naming and even the plazas surrounding the stadium come into play?

All we can do is debate, unless we're asked for opinion and consensus by the club. That would be a nice gesture from them in my opinion.

The Old Lady has hosted more top division games than any other ground in the UK, is the joint oldest football stadium in continuous use and holds countless firsts. She needs to be respected and remembered.

My father-in-law was from the Four Squares in Liverpool. I am not sure of what Regiment he was in but, from an old photo, the cap badge looks like a gun carriage. Both him and his mate volunteered to join this expeditionary force and the wife said their caps were like what the Australian caps are with the brim turned up one side, and I don't know if it is the correct name but the wife said they were called the Chindits.

Like most men at that time, they never talked much about the wartime, they just said it was something that had to be done and they done it. But he did one night open up a bit while he had been drinking, and the tales he told about what they had to eat to survive and how their native guides would go out at night and come back with body parts would make your hair curl.

Royal Artillery in Burma. India and Far East against the Japanese. Horrendous.

Our country's part in slavery was deplorable from whichever angle you look at it. If you look at history though, slavery has unfortunately been practiced by almost every civilisation since time began.It still exists today, as you well know.

You can go on forever dredging up history to self flagelate but why? What is the point?

People interested in such matters know the major ports, including Liverpool, grew up on slavery, Those who don't prefer a karaoke bar and lecturing about this stuff at every opportunity just turns the message to white noise. Totally counter-productive.

It's a footy stadium, not one of the Stations of the Cross. The name Bramley-Moore will be superceded by something commercial and in 10 years no one will remember Bramley-Moore Dock.

(No apology for "white" btw).

No.

Two-thirds of all trade went through London in 1700. London was by far the major port but lost its prominence to Liverpool over the next century, a city, Liverpool, that grew from 22,000 in 1750 to 443,900 in 1861, primarily as a consequence of Atlantic trade and related jobs, including the triangle.

Liverpool grew on slavery. The other main 'beneficiary, was Bristol, but Bristol was already an established port in 1500 when Liverpool was a fishing village and latest estimates suggest that whereas Bristol 'benefitted' from slavery by 440% our city did so to the tune of 18,000% of tonnage and wealth from a much smaller base.

A minor 'beneficiary' was Whitehaven. No English port on the south or east coast or north of Whitehaven benefitted from slavery in any significant way and the same is true of Scottish ports who always looked east rather than north with the exception of the Glasgow area.

There is no point at all in 'whitewashing' our city here; the Toxteth lot make Colston look like Geoff Nulty.

History cannot be changed, I might wish that the Tarletons had been more like the Wilberforces, but it just isn't true.

However, I do feel that it might be a good idea for Everton to start looking for a name for the new stadium as soon as possible and to refer to it by its new name, rather than as the Bramley-Moore development.

Not over-keen on the Kenwright Arena, however!

I found this myself when I researched the Pickfords and Todd Naylor families for my friend (a Pickford). His relative, Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell, and the fraud and loss of the family fortune I did not tell him about. Yes, they did trade in South America.

I think that Lyndon in his last paragraph has the right approach, but don't have any confidence in those in charge at Everton, who will only react when it bites them on the ass.

Hope people have checked up the name Usmanov to ensure he is not a long-distance relative to anyone connected to things 200 to 300 years ago.

Back to my German experience. When I go to Berlin, there is still the Reichstag (Parliament), where one of the most evil dictators responsible for the most terrible attrocites and a World War once reigned. Now its a symbol of European unity. But the name hasn't changed.

Just a short walk away, The "Fuhrer Bunker" where he spent his last days before killing himself to escape justice and was burned by petrol is now covered by a car park. But there is a very detailed information board explaining what the site means. And symbolically, Germany's memorial to the 6 million is literally across the road.

Don't hide from history. It happened. It may have been right. It may have been wrong. You can't change it, just learn from it and make things better from the lessons learned. But you won't learn those lessons by closing your eyes, putting your hands over your ears, and pretending it never happened.

We could go on forever about this. The young US nation's treatment of the native American tribes?

I digress slightly. Bramley-Moore Dock. There is no shame in the name – just the historical context of the time.

Bramley-Moore Dock was named to honour a man who was a slave-trader. You can make the argument that times were different then, but this is the 21st century and I really don't see any reason to honour him any further in the name of our ground.

Having detailed information boards is a good thing, memorialising a slave-trader in the name of our ground is not, in my opinion.

My point is: don't hide from history and try to sweep it under the carpet.

Believe me, from my Catholic Liverpool upbringing, that's what many families have done in the past. We ignored wrongs. The "nothing to see here / it never happened" brigade will achieve less than accepting that shit happened and it was wrong. Acknowledging, confronting and learning from the past is way more powerful than ignoring it.

Of course don't glorify it. But don't ignore or erase it. Sorry to repeat myself, but Germany is a very good example of this.

If your answer is "no" can you give me a list of MAJOR ports of the 1800s NOT benefitting from the slave trade, please?

And don't be so sanctimonious no one is "white washing" history the question is why dredge (dyageddit? - maritime reference marvellous) such matters when a much better job of it exists just a few minutes up the road.

The club isn't building another maritime museum it's a footy ground ffs.

I recently read a pamphlet published in the late 19th or early 20th Century entitled “The White Slaves of Widnes“ which described the working conditions of men working as bleach packers in the local chemical industry in Widnes, about 12 miles from Goodison as the crow flies.

The job entailed mixing powder with chlorine gas by hand. No protective clothing apart from a self-supplied scarf wound round the mouth and nose; no Health & Safety then... It was heavy, piece work and only young men could cope. The chlorine caused all their teeth to fall out and turned their lungs to water by the time they were in their mid-20s.

Mortality was extremely high, but not shown in official figures as men who were overcome by chlorine gas were given a tot of brandy and then sent home. Hence they died at home, not at work. All this for a few pence a day.

No, these men were not slaves taken from their homes in chains and forced to work thousands of miles away; their chains were much more subtle. It was either work in terrible conditions for a pittance or starve. Leave your job and lose your home as it was owned by your employer – sounds like a great definition of freedom to me.

Apologies for rambling on a bit and probably off thread but my point is slavery is not solely about the slave triangle; there are other forms of slavery, closer to home and not nearly so well remembered. Should the factory owners, cotton masters and early capitalists be similarly vilified?

As others have said, it's just a footie ground and Goodison Park will just be another memory for my grandkids.

As Danny quite rightly says, let's acknowledge history, learn from it, and move on.

Oh well, another opportunity that never came to pass.

There's no chance the new stadium will be named The Bramley-Moore Stadium as the naming rights will be a significant part of offsetting the stadium loan costs.

My own view is that the Bramley-Moore slavery link (the man not the dock) should be recognised and what better place than in the pumphouse.