The Irish Potato famine
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In the years leading up to the great Irish famine the pre-famine population of Liverpool is estimated at around 250,000. Liverpool's prosperity and dock trade meant that the population was already growing quickly, in the ten years, between 1831 and 1841, it had  risen by some 43%.  Even before the mass immigration of the 1840’s large numbers of Irish people had been coming to Liverpool. As early as 1819 the numbers of Irish immigrants were high enough for there to be both Orange and Green riots in the city. Gores's records "Riot, caused by the procession of an Orange Society, who were attacked and put to flight by the Irish, July 12." Emigration was already gathering pace as people left Ireland - by 1845 1.5 million had left. In September of 1845 a fungal infection of potato leaves in Ireland set into motion a series of events which were to shape the history not only of Ireland, but of Europe and North America.  The failure of the Irish potato crop in 1845 & 1846 resulted in a quarter of the Irish population emigrating within 10 years. The events are well documented elsewhere, however it is the events in Liverpool which concern us here, as well as the eventual effect that the influx of population into Liverpool, eventually came to have on Toxteth. The numbers involved are difficult to imagine but a review of the number of incoming Irish paupers was ordered by the magistrate, Edward Ruston in December 1846. The results of the survey published in the Liverpool Courier on June 16, 1847 revealed "that between the 13th day of January and the 13th day of December 1847, both days inclusive, 296,231 persons landed in this port from Ireland." If you compare that to the then existing population (about 250,000) it is no surprise that the city was simply overwhelmed. The northern sections, around Scotland and Vauxhall wards, were the areas where these immigrants first settled.  As the cheap housing and lodging houses became full, then they moved into cellars and abandoned properties. Poor housing, poor nutrition and cramped, crowded conditions were ideal for the spread of disease.  Louse-borne Typhus and dysentery epidemics resulted, TB was rife. There were a horrifying 142,000 people to each square mile - the average life expectancy was just 17 years.   This was just the first wave and few cities can rival the population overload experienced by Liverpool from 1841 to 1851 when, the population jumped 286,000 to 376,000.  This was almost entirely due to the influx of Irish refugees. As has been mentioned above, a large number settled in the North End of Liverpool close to the docks where they had arrived. The proportion of Irish born residents in this area was so high that the area was referred to as "Little Ireland." The density of the population in this area at that time is difficult to comprehend. Do stop for a moment, take a breath and ponder this:- In 1841, when the average population density for England and Wales was 275 per square mile. The density in Little Ireland was calculated to be equivalent to 657,963 per square mile. That is the same as putting one and a half times the entire 2002 population of Liverpool into one square mile. (Official Liverpool City Council population figure for 2002 is 441,477) On June 21, 1847, in an attempt to provide some help for Liverpool, the government passed new laws allowing local authorities to deport homeless Irish back to Ireland.  Within a very short time the first immigrants were herded onto boats for return to Dublin and Cork, where they were simply abandoned on the docks. One estimate suggests that 15,000 Irish were sent home this way during the rest of 1847. By the autumn of 1847 the influx of immigrants into Liverpool had subsided and the pressures both on housing and sanitation began to ease. (Attempts by immigrants to enter at other ports meant that Glasgow used similar laws in an attempt to control overcrowding and fever).  Further outbreaks of typhus did still occur in Liverpool however.  The large influx had created other problems for Liverpool. In 1849 some 23,000 children were said to be running wild in the dockland area. As well as a destination, Liverpool was also a port of transit. Many Irish people travelled on to America in search of better prospects. In the hundred years from 1830 to 1930, 9 million emigrants sailed from Liverpool to America.  In the early 1840s almost 1000 ships a year, with up to 200,000 emigrants, left Liverpool for America. Each emigrant had to pass a "medical examination" before sailing. At the peak of emigration, 3000 per day went through this process. 1847 was an especially bad year for emigrants with 17,465  - that is 1 in 6 - dying on their way to North America. By 1851 over 20% of Liverpool's population was estimated to be Irish.  There was a second wave of Irish immigration into Liverpool but this time in a reverse ditrection. By 1855 emigration was falling off, Ireland was no longer starving.  Wages in England had risen but unemployment had started to become a problem in America. In fact so significant were these factors that in 1854 and 1855 a total of 30,000 unemployed immigrants sailed back from America to Liverpool. By 1880 Liverpool’s population exceeded 600,000. This massive influx of people into Liverpool and the subsequent terrible housing conditions that they endured meant that there was a great need for new housing, in new areas.  This need coincided with the development and expansion of Toxteth. It is notable from my own family tree that all of Irish ancestors appeared first of all in Vauxhall and Scotland wards, and then migrated towrads Toxteth from the 1860s onwards as this was built up.  Perhaps yours are the same.