October 28, 2020

Royal Liver Board Room - 1930s I have undertaken this History of Royal Liver Friendly Society by concentrating on key and core chronological periods in the overall growth and development of the Society. It is the intention to publish this work in e-book form as soon as possible. These key…

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This Website is dedicated to the organisation which created the world-famous Royal Liver Building, Liverpool. This organisation was the Royal Liver Friendly Society and this Website is designed, in part,  to complement the existing Facebook Page @RoyalLiverBuildingCentenary - 1911-2011. It is our intention to tell this story of the Royal…

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There must be many people on Merseyside and further afield who have worked in the Royal Liver Building and have developed a strong attachment and affection for it. In this initial Website Post we shall try to bring out some of the key elements which went to Royal Liver’s creation…

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The Liver was formed on the 24th July 1850 by 9 workingmen in a Public House – the Lyver Inn on St Anne’s Street in Liverpool. It would be a reasonably safe bet that a good number of those original 9 members of Royal Liver were first generation Irish Immigrants,…

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THE FIRST 10 YEARS – 1850 – 1860 INTRODUCTION Royal Liver Friendly Society (RLFS) was a Friendly Society formed in Liverpool during the mid-Victorian era (July, 1850 to be precise). One of the main catalysts for the creation and formation of Royal Liver was the Irish Potato Famine of the…

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ONE OF THE FOUNDING FATHERS OF ROYAL LIVER John Bates Lawrence is regarded by many as the “leading light” and driving force behind the Society upon its formation in 1850 and during its immediate formative years over the next decade. He served as a Trustee of the Society from 1850…

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1861 - 1886 - GROWTH LEADING TO REFORM Building on the growth and development achieved by Royal Liver in its first decade of existence (1850 - 1860), the Society recruited two "Managing Secretaries" (perhaps what we might now describe as Joint Managing Directors) in the persons of James Atherton and…

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Edward F Taunton - Secretary of Society - 1886 - 1887 Whilst John Bates Lawrence is identified as the man who was most prominent in the formation of the Society, it was the actions of Edward F Taunton which led to one of the most significant hinge-points in Royal Liver’s…

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Pride in 50 Years of Service to our Members As the Society celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 1900, it was able to reflect that it had overcome the traumatic experiences of the 1880s and whilst it did not emerge from that experience totally unscathed it must have been the stronger…

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