In 2024, Everton are due to start playing in their new stadium at Bramley-Moore dock.
Built on the River Mersey and with a capacity of 52,000, it promises to transform the club’s
future and also be a source of civic rejuvenation.
But Bramley-Moore dock has a troubling past and it’s one which needs confronting.
In a blogpost published in 2021, Dr Joe Mulhern, a historian and fellow of Durham University,
described how John Bramley-Moore – after whom the dock is named - was not only a slave
owner, but a businessman who profited from the slave trade long after it was outlawed
by Britain
Bramley-Moore would always deny his links to the slave trade but Mulhern was able to
establish that he imported manufactured goods from factories in Manchester through Liverpool.
Lots of these products then had a secondary use in the slave trade, an industry which
has an important distinction from slavery – even though both are connected.
Mulhern believes it is beyond doubt that Bramley-Moore was extremely close to the horrors of slavery
in Brazil.
In 1830, an Anglo-Brazilian treaty turned slavery into piracy.
A year later, the British slave trade to Brazil was made illegal but it continued for more
than 20 years — a period where the trading of slaves increased because of merchants like
Bramley-Moore, who were able to help Brazilians not prohibited by new British laws by offering
them lengthy credit terms to charter the ships that continued to bring slaves to Brazil from
Africa.
In 1839, John Moore & Co publicly supported Manoel Pinto da Fonseca, who was already trading
slaves with such success that he later became the second largest slave importer in Brazilian
history during the illegal era.
Once back in Liverpool, a ship called the Guiana owned by Bramley-Moore and another
merchant sailed to Brazil before being chartered by well-known slave traders, who carried tobacco
and alcohol across to Africa, where it was captured by the British Navy for aiding and
abetting the slave trade.
“This was at the height of British naval suppression in the Atlantic, so the rewards
must have been enormous,” says Mulhern.
“It means we can say that Bramley-Moore has some of the most provable, direct links
to the slave trade of any British merchant.
Others had similar connections, but they didn’t have their ships captured.”
Though the scandal appeared in parliamentary papers, it did not impact upon Bramley-Moore’s
ascent.
Within two years, he was appointed as an alderman and by the end of the same decade he was Liverpool’s
mayor.
The latter achievement was accelerated by his role as the chairman of Liverpool’s
harbour board, from which position he expanded the docks — helping him sail even bigger
ships carrying more cargo in and out of the city.
Mulhern’s writing prompted a fair amount of discussion among Everton’s fanbase, across
social media and message boards.
There tended to be agreement that the club needed, in some way, to recognise the history
of the site it was inheriting.
Everton have long been working with local authorities about how to deal with the matter.
Liverpool, as a city, was in the midst of finally confronting its own past.
Seventeen of its 43 docks are named after famous people and seven of those have links
to the slave trade.
Liverpool was developed on the blood money generated by a narrow field of businessmen
but that grim reality was only recognised properly for the first time when the International
Slavery Museum opened in 2007.
Since then, many of the streets named after slave owners and traders have been marked
with plaques that detail the truth.
Slavery was not, as some even today claim, simply of its time.
The abolitionist movement is testimony to that: many were appalled at what was happening
and this explains why, in 1833, it was forbidden by Britain.
This, however, did not stop John Bramley-Moore.
Had it not been for the dock extension of the 1840s, inspired by John Bramley-Moore,
then perhaps Liverpool wouldn't have developed into the place it became.
This gets to the heart of an uncomfortable conversation for the city of Liverpool because
without men like Bramley-Moore, it would not be where it is now.
Though it cannot — and should not — recognise his contribution towards the city’s growth
in any proud way, it should still be able to tell it.
Ultimately, he was out for himself.
Just as Liverpool and its health was not on his mind as he set off for Brazil determined
to make a name for himself in 1828, he knew that the northward advance of the docks 20
or so years later would help line his own pockets, sending him into a political career
where it seems he did very little for the people of Liverpool by intent.
According to Mulhern, Bramley-Moore “deliberately obfuscated” his links to the slave trade.
He was born John Moore, but that he became John Bramley-Moore in later life was part
of that process, and about more than just the acquired cache of a hyphenated surname.
Later, when he was called before parliament to give evidence about the slave trade, he
continued to deny any involvement, “not just by him but any British merchants, which
we know is not true,” says Mulhern.
In 1901, Bramley-Moore was considered important enough to have an entry in the Dictionary
of National Biography, which defines him as “a young man who went out to the Brazils
to engage in trade.”
“The description can appear innocuous – unless you know Brazil received more Africans than
any other country in the history of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade,” says Mulhern.
In 1888, Brazil became the last country in the western hemisphere to abolish slavery.
More than 45 percent of the world’s slaves had landed in the country and long after Bramley-Moore
moved to Liverpool, they continued to work the lands.
From his offices on the banks of the Mersey, he continued to make lots of money – becoming
one of Brazil’s biggest exporters of coffee.
Having grown beans on his estate back in Rio, he had a direct knowledge of what became a
global industry through labour and the suffering of others.
Post-script: For the full story of John Bramley-Moore’s life and his extended family’s struggle
with his past, read Simon Hughes’ article on
The Athletic.