FREE ONLINE LECTURE, 18 NOV: Liverpool as the ‘Second City of Informal Empire’: Blue Funnel and Shanghai, 1865-1914
2-3pm, Wednesday 18 November 2026 (by Zoom) Seeking employment as a Ship’s Surgeon c.1905, Irish medic J.J. Abraham was advised to find ‘a ship bound East… and one belonging to a good company… Liverpool’s the place! London’s not in it with Liverpool when it comes to shipping!’ Abraham’s subsequent voyage, documented in his best-selling travelogue first published in 1911, was on SS Clytemnestra of Liverpool’s Blue Funnel Line (Ocean Steam Ship Company [OSSCo] or Alfred Holt & Company). Blue Funnel’s takeover of Glasgow-based and Manchester-linked China Mutual in 1902 confirmed the Liverpool line’s position as the UK’s leading cargo carrier to the ‘Far East’. Simultaneously, Blue Funnel was central to the growth of Liverpool’s Chinatown reckoned twice as large as London’s by the early-twentieth century. Pioneering direct steamship services from the UK to China, from its inception and first voyages (1865-6) much of Blue Funnel’s activity was concentrated on the premiere, British-dominated treaty-port of Shanghai. However, in examining seaborne ‘Informal Empire’ to the outbreak of World War One, this talk also recognises the limits of Liverpool’s influence. Blue Funnel’s reach was circumscribed by its ambiguous position betwixt industrial and financial capitalism, and strained relations with London powerbrokers. Moreover, by the end of the nineteenth century, Liverpool’s shipowner elite confronted uncertainty in China arising from internal instability and international commercial and power-political rivalry from which Shanghai was not immune.Professor Nick White: A former president of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Nick White is Professor of Imperial & Commonwealth History at Liverpool John Moores University and Co-Director of Liverpool’s Centre for Port & Maritime History. His previous publications include The Empire in One City? Liverpool’s Inconvenient Imperial Past (Manchester, 2008) (ed. with Sheryllynne Haggerty and Anthony Webster). Inter alia, Nick is currently working on a study of Liverpool’s experience of decolonisation in the twentieth century.Please email membership@hslc.org.uk for the Zoom link to this free online talk.Painting of the 9,076 GRT Cyclops approaching Hong Kong. U-123 sank her in 1942 with the loss of 87 lives. The painting is in the Museum of Liverpool; the artist is unknown.
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The Society is a charity which exists for educational purposes to promote the study of any aspect of the history of the Palatine counties of Lancashire and Cheshire.

The aims of the Society are achieved principally through public lectures and the publication of an annual volume of Transactions. The Constitution of the Society is published in volume 145 of Transactions for 1996.

Articles published in Transactions, a peer reviewed journal, reflect recent high quality research and scholarship on the two counties.

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Vol 175 (2026)
This volume is not available in digital form on our website at present. HSLC members receive a copy of this volume plus online access to this and other recent volumes through Liverpool University Press.ContentsRESEARCH NOTESThe Hidage of the Pre-Conquest Estate of Bromborough, Wirral, by Rowan Patel John Dalton in the Witness Box, by Rajkumari Williamson Jones and Terry WykeARTICLESRossendale to Crewe: North-West Historians G.H. Tupling and W.H. Chaloner, by R.C. Richardson Early Medieval Manchester, by John Blair A Disputed Will and a Fracas in Rufford in 1620: Jane Hesketh and Her Inheritance, by David J. Breeze Alcoholism, Domestic Violence and Murder: Assessing English Sentiments of Irish Immigrants in the Nineteenth Century, by Brandon Reece Taylorian How Permanent is Permanent? The Case of the Liverpool Civic Service League, 1911–1921, by Pat Starkey Secularisation in Local and Longitudinal Perspective: Churchgoing in Bolton Since c.1800, by Clive D. FieldReviews of: Hannah Barker, Carys Brown, Kate Gibson, Jeremy Gregory, Faith in the Town: Lay Religion in Northern England, 1740–1830 Peter N. Lindfield (ed.), The Intimacies of George Shaw (1810–76): Diaries and Letters of a Gothic Architect, Antiquary, and Forger G.H. Bennett, The 1922 General Election Reconsidered: High Politics and the Birth of the Modern British Election Iain Dale (ed.), British By-Elections 1769–2025: The 88 By-Election Campaigns That Shaped Our Politics Adam Sisman, The Indefatigable Asa Briggs
Vol 174 (2025)
This year's volume includes six articles and six book reviews. This edition focuses mainly on Lancashire and later historical periods but offers fresh insights into a wide variety of subjects ranging from Liverpool’s ‘new’ police force to a questioning of traditional interpretations of the impact of the Lancashire Cotton Famine. While one article asks what the creation and governance of the model village, Port Sunlight, tells us about Edwardian ideals of self-improvement and welfare, a scheme for a modern garden city in Withington, Manchester did not materialise.
Vol 173 (2024)
Special issue marking 170 years since the Preston Lock-Out and Strike, 1853-1854. In addition to a context-providing introduction by the guest editorial team, the volume contains nine articles relating to the Strike, a research note focusing on the the bicentenary of the University of Manchester and nine book reviews.

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FREE ONLINE LECTURE, 18 NOV: Liverpool as the ‘Second City of Informal Empire’: Blue Funnel and Shanghai, 1865-1914
2-3pm, Wednesday 18 November 2026 (by Zoom) Seeking employment as a Ship’s Surgeon c.1905, Irish medic J.J. Abraham was advised to find ‘a ship bound East… and one belonging to a good company… Liverpool’s the place! London’s not in it with Liverpool when it comes to shipping!’ Abraham’s subsequent voyage, documented in his best-selling travelogue first published in 1911, was on SS Clytemnestra of Liverpool’s Blue Funnel Line (Ocean Steam Ship Company [OSSCo] or Alfred Holt & Company). Blue Funnel’s takeover of Glasgow-based and Manchester-linked China Mutual in 1902 confirmed the Liverpool line’s position as the UK’s leading cargo carrier to the ‘Far East’. Simultaneously, Blue Funnel was central to the growth of Liverpool’s Chinatown reckoned twice as large as London’s by the early-twentieth century. Pioneering direct steamship services from the UK to China, from its inception and first voyages (1865-6) much of Blue Funnel’s activity was concentrated on the premiere, British-dominated treaty-port of Shanghai. However, in examining seaborne ‘Informal Empire’ to the outbreak of World War One, this talk also recognises the limits of Liverpool’s influence. Blue Funnel’s reach was circumscribed by its ambiguous position betwixt industrial and financial capitalism, and strained relations with London powerbrokers. Moreover, by the end of the nineteenth century, Liverpool’s shipowner elite confronted uncertainty in China arising from internal instability and international commercial and power-political rivalry from which Shanghai was not immune.Professor Nick White: A former president of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Nick White is Professor of Imperial & Commonwealth History at Liverpool John Moores University and Co-Director of Liverpool’s Centre for Port & Maritime History. His previous publications include The Empire in One City? Liverpool’s Inconvenient Imperial Past (Manchester, 2008) (ed. with Sheryllynne Haggerty and Anthony Webster). Inter alia, Nick is currently working on a study of Liverpool’s experience of decolonisation in the twentieth century.Please email membership@hslc.org.uk for the Zoom link to this free online talk.Painting of the 9,076 GRT Cyclops approaching Hong Kong. U-123 sank her in 1942 with the loss of 87 lives. The painting is in the Museum of Liverpool; the artist is unknown.

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