E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten
Pye Merseyside Tales
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7509-6445-6
Verlag: The History Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Curious and Amazing True Stories from History
E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten
ISBN: 978-0-7509-6445-6
Verlag: The History Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Well known across Merseyside and the North-West, KEN PYE is the author of over ten books on the history of his home city and its city region, and is a widely recognised expert in his field. Ken's works include Discover Liverpool and The Bloody History of Liverpool; A Brighter Hope, about the founding and history of Liverpool Hope University; two volumes of his anthology of Merseyside Tales; Liverpool: The Rise, Fall and Renaissance of a World Class City; An A to Z of Liverpool and Liverpool Pubs.
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Weitere Infos & Material
MERSEYSIDE TALES
THE WILD WEST COMES TO LIVERPOOL
In 1847 the great American Wild West legend Buffalo Bill was born in Iowa, USA. His real name was William Frederick Cody and, when little more than a boy, he became a rider for the pioneer mail delivery service the Pony Express. In 1861 he began working for the US Army as an Indian scout and he fought in the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865.
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show programme cover.
(Discover Liverpool Library)
Cody earned his more familiar nickname when he became a hunter for the Kansas Pacific Railway in 1876, tracking, shooting and killing North American bison, more commonly known as buffalo. This was to supply fresh meat for the workers building the great railway that was connecting the east and west coasts of the fledgling country. Bill was an expert shot with a rifle and very skilled at his trade; so much so that he was said to have killed 4,280 buffalo in eighteen months, and his record was forty-eight of the great animals killed in just fifty minutes.
The problem was that he, and the riflemen he had working for him, almost completely wiped out the species and drove the Plains Indians into starvation as a result. This was one of the causes of the Indian Wars in which Cody fought, gaining popular fame as a ‘Wild West Hero’ for single-handedly killing Yellowhand, the Cheyenne chief.
Cody became renowned across America and then around the world as the great ‘Buffalo Bill’ and, in 1884, he began to capitalise on his fame by creating a travelling Wild West Show. He toured the world with this spectacular entertainment, taking it to the greatest cities of the world and, of course, one of the greatest at the end of the nineteenth century was Liverpool. He first brought his show to the ‘crossroads of the British Empire’ from 6–18 July 1891, where it was performed twice daily in Newsham Park – and what a show it was!
The men and women of this great extravaganza, with their animals and equipment, arrived at Knotty Ash station on Sunday 5th aboard a single train of seventy-two carriages. These were carrying 200 performers, including cowboys, rough-riders and Native American Indians. There were also 200 horses, dozens of covered pioneer wagons and a herd of buffalo! They made their way through the suburbs of Liverpool to the park, attracting vast crowds of astonished onlookers en route.
Thousands of people came from across Merseyside every day, paying 1s a time to see the show. In the huge outdoor arena they witnessed the roping and branding of cattle, the horsemanship skills of the rough-riders and the recreation of a Sioux Indian attack on a wagon train. This featured the real-life Native American Indian chiefs Short Bull, Kicking Bear and Long Wolf.
Scousers had never seen anything like this before and gasped in awe at the authentic sights, sounds and smells of the men and animals, and of the gunshots, flames and smoke. They cheered in exhilaration at the nick-of-time rescue of the Pioneers by the American Cavalry in all their uniformed glory. Extra ferries had been laid on to carry spectators across the river, and extra trams and omnibuses brought people from across the city and beyond to shout in thrilled excitement as the one-and-only, authentic, actual Deadwood Stage Coach was attacked by bandits.
Adults and children alike were amazed to see the world-famous sharpshooter Annie Oakley (known as Little Sure Shot) shoot the pip out of an Ace of Spades at 100yds distance! But to see the great man Buffalo Bill himself ride into the arena, leap down from his horse and sweep off his hat in a spectacular bow really brought the crowds to their feet.
Here he was in person, just as they had seen him in photographs in the newspapers and in sketches in the ‘penny dreadful’ comics they had all been reading. With his long, flowing white hair, curling moustache and neatly trimmed goatee beard, and in his white buckskins, fabulous boots with engraved buffalo figures, and wearing his silver six-guns with their pearl handles, Buffalo Bill brought the Wild West to life in Liverpool.
At the end of the two-week run, a quarter of a million people had seen the show and £20,000 had been taken in ticket sales – £2 million in today’s money. Bill was so happy with his profits that, in May 1903, he came back to visit us again. This time, however, he stayed for three weeks after arriving in three trains of carriages. He brought with him over 500 horses, but there was no Annie Oakley. Even so, there were now even more Indians, from the Sioux and Cheyenne nations. There were over 100 rough-riders and, as well as a contingent of US Artillery and Cavalry, a detachment of English Cavalry ‘flew the flag’ for the British Empire in a show of militaristic alliance with our ex-colonial cousins from across the Atlantic Ocean.
This time the Wild West Show took place in a massive, purpose-built Exhibition Arena on Edge Lane Drive. This stood where the Corporation Bus Sheds were later built and where the extension to the Technology Park now stands. It was 185ft wide by 440ft long and had tiers of seats on three sides. Outside, and covering an additional 10 acres, was an accompanying exhibition of displays and attractions, including a recreated Indian Village. The most popular character in the show this time round though, apart from Buffalo Bill himself, was the Lakota Sioux Indian chief, from the Black Hills of South Dakota, Charging Thunder.
My nan saw the show this time round and she told me how, as a young girl, she was on Wavertree Road when Buffalo Bill, in his Buckskins, boots and gunbelt, went shopping, accompanied by Charging Thunder. The tall, somber Indian chief was dressed in a plain grey smock and leggings, with equally plain moccasins, and was wearing two feathers in the back of his hair. He seemed to be absolutely delighted with the shopping bags he was carrying, one in each hand, but which were both filled with nothing but cabbages. He was proudly showing these to the fascinated crowds lining the pavement, declaring to them as he did so, ‘Cabbages, Cabbages!’ Meanwhile, Bill was bidding the gawping shoppers a ‘Howdy Pardners!’ and a ‘Glad, ta see ya’ll!’, as locals no doubt responded with such comments as ‘Orlright der Bill la!’ and ‘Giz a go ovya guns Billy mate!’
Chief Charging Thunder’s life, however, was to change forever when the Wild West Show left Liverpool and moved on to Salford. Here, the 26-year-old Native American Indian chief decided to leave the show with one of Buffalo Bill’s horse handlers, a girl named Josephine. They married and moved first to Darwen but finally settled in Gorton, Manchester, where they set up home and raised a family.
Changing his name to George Edward Williams, he worked for many years at Belle Vue Circus where he looked after the elephants; his favourite of these was named Nelly! George and Josephine lived a happy married life until the former Lakota Sioux Chief caught pneumonia and, on 28 July 1929, sadly died at the age of only 52. He lies buried in Gorton cemetery as George Williams, with Josephine, who died in 1943, but their descendants still live in and around Manchester.
Buffalo Bill Cody himself, despite his worldwide fame and all the money he made, became bankrupt in 1915. He died in poverty in 1917, at the age of 70. His body lay in state in Denver, Colorado, for just a day, but 25,000 people filed past his coffin to pay silent tribute to the great Indian scout and showman.
The memory of his two visits to Liverpool, with his amazing and spectacular Wild West Show, lived long in the hearts and minds of Liverpool people, and we shall certainly never see the like of Buffalo Bill again!
THE WIDNES AND RUNCORN TRANSPORTER BRIDGE
Sometime in the ninth century, the daughter of Alfred the Great, Queen Ethelfleda of the Mercians (c. 870–918), built a castle on the shore at Runcorn, overlooking the river across to what is now the town of Widnes. From the reign of King John (1167–1216) a small ferryboat was rowed across the Mersey from Runcorn Gap to Widnes West Bank. The tolls levied for this went directly to the Crown, but if a traveller could not afford the boat ride then at low tide he could take his life into his hands and cross the river on foot, but he still had to pay a much smaller toll to the lord of the manor for the privilege of doing so!
The Widnes to Runcorn Transporter Bridge as it looked in 1939.
(Courtesy of Liverpool Athenaeum Library)
The ferry service operated almost continuously for centuries and a report on it written in 1835 stated:
The public are ferried across by a couple of men, who are not always to be found at a moment’s warning; next, the landing-place at Runcorn is at all times extremely incommodious; and thirdly, that on the other side is still worse; in fact, at low water, the passenger here steps out of the boat on a plank, lands on mud and sand, and after walking on this compost upwards of a hundred yards to the ferry-house, he has then a mile to proceed at all events.
In 1864, work began on the London and North Western Railway Company’s impressive Runcorn Bridge. This still...
