The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-10-12 00:00:00

NOTICES.

The History of the Hundred of Wirral, with a Sketch
of the City and County of Chester, compiled from the
earliest authentic records. By William Williams Mor-
timer. London: Whittaker and Co. Birkenhead: Law
and Pinkney. Chester: George Pritchard and Edward

Parry.
Had it ever been the case that there had previously been
extant anything like a history of that now important por-
tion of the county of Chester, which is comprised in the
Hundred of Wirral, this volume, detailing as it does, the
vast changes which the locality has sustained during the
past ten years, would have deserved to be regarded as a
valuable addition to our stock of topographical literature.
Hitherto, however, no such history has existed, the only
notices, very brief, of Wirral being to be found in county
histories, by far the best of which—that of Mr. Ormerod
—having been published by subscription, the larger size
for fifty guineas, and the smaller for twenty-five, with a
very limited number of copies indeed, is now almost shut
from the sight of all save the few gentry in the county, in
whose libraries it is to be found. Other historians, whose
works are more easily to be got at, confine themselves
almost entirely to notices of the city of Chester, and other
important localities in the county, the northern portion of
Wirral, at the time they were written, not having emerged
from obscurity. Indeed the only attractive portion of its
history, or of the enquiries suggested by it—viz., the fact
whether the present peninsula of Wirral has always existed
in its present shape—belonging quite as much to the his-
tory of the port of Liverpool as to Cheshire, the history
of the few hamlets which it contained excited little or no
interest.

The application of the powers of steam to the propul-
sion of vessels, and the appearance of a steam boat on the
Mersey in the year 1821, for the first time, imparted im-
portance to the northern and hitherto neglected portion
of the Hundred, facing the port of Liverpool. Birken-
head from this time commenced its onward progress,
gradually at first, but with the certainty of continuous in-
crease. The strand from Bebington to Liscard became a
favourite resort for our mercantile classes and their fami-
lies in the summer months; and neat houses for their ac-
comodation began to diversify the hitherto neglected
country in the interior of the peninsula. The project of
forming a handsome town at Birkenhead was first enter-
tained in 1824, by the late Wm. Laird, Esq., and a por-
tion of Hamilton-square was erected, and the streets im-
mediately adjacent were laid out. The same gentleman
directed his attention to the capabilities of Wallasey
Pool; and in 1827 the entire property was purchased by
him, in conjunction with Sir J. Tobin, and surveyed for
dock purposes by Messrs. Nimmo, Telford, and Robert
Stephenson. In the following year it was purchased by
the Liverpool Corporation; and the idea of its conversion
into docks being abandoned, the locality seemed fated to
remain in its comparative insignificance for another half
century, and certainly would not for some time to come
have called for any great notice from the antiquarian
or historian. The rapid progress, however, which it has
made during the last ten years, have again changed the
face of things; and the thousands, now congregated along
the whole eastern shore of the Hundred, must feel a na-
tural interest to learn the past condition of the soil upon
which they have located themselves, the names, titles,
and conditions of its old families, the history of the frag-
ments of antiquity—of the monuments of the industry and
power of the generations which have gone before them,
and which the hand of modern improvement is fast sweep-
ing away,—and to trace the process by which the solitary
wastes and the barren strand have been subdued and con-
verted into the busy resorts of commerce or the luxurious
homes of modern wealth. With them we hail the ap-
pearance of the present volume. We know of no man
more capable than Mr. Mortimer of producing a work of
the kind, requiring as it does the exercise of great industry
and research, together with an extensive acquaintance
amongst those county families, from whose old records so
much calculated to throw light upon the past is to be de-
rived. With respect to the recent progress of the Hun-
dred, and especially of Birkenhead, he has witnessed the
whole proceedings; and, indeed, of some of their details
he may say with Eneas "quorum pars magna fui." We
must, however, proceed to give a brief description of the
arrangement of the work.
The opening chapter, from page 1 to page 50, is occu-
pied with a brief sketch of the history of England, from
the earliest ages of which we have record, to the division of
the soil amongst the Norman followers of the Conqueror ;
and although the author apologizes for the length of this
chapter, yet such length has been plainly rendered neces-
sary to enable the reader to comprehend thoroughly the
position of the country at the period from which the prin-
cipal families in the hundred date their titles. The re-
trospect is also interesting from the fact that Chester, its
capital, was a city of note both in the time of the Romans,
and as having been in the time of the Saxons the capital
of the kingdom of Mercia, and its chief defence for many
centuries, both before and after the conquest, against the
hostile incursions of the Welsh.

The second chapter, pages 51 to 134, a most interesting
one, is devoted to a history of the city of Chester, from its
early obscurity to the time of the Romans, by whom it
was used as a place of great resort and strength, and an
important and flourishing port, and subsequently through
the Saxon era up to the present day, when it has almost
ceased to merit that title. We have in this chapter de-
tailed the share taken by its citizens in the various rebel-
lions and wars of the Saxon monarchs, in their resistance
to the Normans, in the civil wars of the Roses and, later,
the sufferings of the city from its loyal adherence to the
royalist cause, from which time its prominence ceased, as
we do not find that the citizens interfered in the attempt
to re-introduce the Stuart dynasty, after its expulsion
from the throne by the Prince of Orange. The ecclesi-
astic history connected with Chester is also luminously
traced. _ _ _ . .

Pages 135 to 170 are occupied with a general descriptive
account of the hundred, the state of its climate, roads,
cultivation, &c., together with a very interesting inquiry
into the probable condition of the estuaries of the Dee
and Mersey in early periods. Pages 171 to 304 contain
sufficient notices of various parishes and places in the
hundred, with the antiquities to be found in them ; and
page 304 commences a history of " Claughton and ancient
Birkenhead," which is traced from the Norman conquest
to the present day, and necessarily occupies a considerable
portion of the work extending to page 405. The past his-
tory and present condition of the now important town of
Birkenhead, together with every particular connected
with its general and financial affairs, form one of the
most important features of the work. We have al-
ready spoken of the peculiar fitness of Mr. Mortimer for
this part of his task ; and only feel bound to say here that
he has executed it with great judgment and fairness. It
may appear singular to a reader of this notice, not con-
versant with the affairs of the locality, that we should use
the latter word in speaking of such a publication. The
initiated, however, will understand us well ; and for those
who are not so it will be sufficient to explain that this
portion relates to the proceedings of, and has been written
amongst, a community which unfortunately is greatly
divided at present, and yet that it cannot be said to have
any leaning of praise or dispraise towards either. The
work concludes with a most interesting appendix, con-
taining extracts from some of the authorities who have
been consulted. It is also interspersed throughout with
valuable notes ; and contains a map of the hundred and
several illustrations.
We congratulate Mr. Mortimer upon the manner in
which he has executed his arduous task, and trust that his
work will meet the extensive sale which it deserves.

The Drawing Room Magazine for September and Octo-
ber. London : Houlston, and Stoneman, and Bogue.

This monthly publication, in addition to devoting a
considerable portion of its columns to articles of choice
literatire, affords much information interesting, and we
may almost say in the present day, indispensable, to ladies,
on the subject of fancy needle work. Each part contains
a number of beautifully executed coloured drawings of
ornamental and useful articles, which are accompanied
with ample directions for their manufacture. In the
number for October are given engravings of a knitted shell
mat, crochet cheese doyley, neck tie in. Grecian netting,
and crochet couch or chair cushion. The design of the
cover of the magazine is the most chaste and delicately
beautiful one we have ever seen.

Hogg's Weekly Instructor contains much that is valu-
able and entertaining, and is enriched with a beautifully
engraved portrait of Professor William Allen, whose name
was very prominently identified with the cause of slavery
abolition, and of whom a well written biography is given
in the pages of the number before us. Where so much is
excellent we are slow to find fault, but we think the style
and sentiments of the articles entitled " Reminiscences of
a tour to England," by the Rev. G. Gilfillan, are not, on
the whole, creditable to that gentleman, though portions
of them may be impartial and graffic.

The half-yearly volume of Sharpe's London Magazine
offers an extraordinary mass of excellent matter, as in-
structive as interesting, and is embellished with six large
exquisitely fine engravings. An attempt to enumerate
the contents of this volume is utterly vain, but they are
not the less valuable in kind, notwithstanding. The new
editor promises in the preface of this volume to render his
pages still more attractive by " introducing a higher and
purer style of writing than has hitherto been observable
in the pages, and to make perceptible in the tales and
stories a deeper and more elevated tone of feeling." He
also announces his intention of giving more frequent no-
tices and reviews of new publications.

Religion and Poetry. Nisbet and Co, London.

This work consists of a considerable number of selec-
tions from the poetical works of the Rev. R. Montgomery,
who, as our readers well know, has devoted his genius and
talents to the service of Christianity, and done all in his
power to cement the alliance of poetry and religion. The
compiler has classified the extracts under their appropriate
heads, and seems to have culled the most interesting
passages from the author's poems. A very effective and
elaborately written criticism, on the poetry of the rev.
gentleman, is given in the volume in the shape of an in-
troductory essay. The writer of it is Archer Gurney, the
author of " King Charles the First," &c. The critic's
opinion will no doubt be read with some degree of inter.
est, since, as he well observes, " there are few subjects on
which more conflicting opinions have been expressed than
the degree of merit attributable to Mr. Montgomery's
poetical works."