A Liverpool Exemplar - Lizzie Christian

Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Christian was born in 1898 in Hawke Street, Brownlow Hill, the eldest of twelve children. This diminutive woman epitomises many working women of her time, as maintaining a household involved hard physical labour, most of it carried out by women, as a woman was also obliged to go out to work and this automatically doubled her workload. Not only was she expected to financially provide, but she was fully responsible for caring and raising her children. Going to the fruit and flower markets in Queen Square and Cazneau Street, off Scotland Road meant an early start for her. In the early years things were more seasonal than they are now and you would find several horses and carts around. The cart sellers would be quite often women who wore Black shawls, Black skirts and  Black boots and they all looked about 80 yrs old as being in the wind, rain or sun all day, they all had skin like leather.

Lizzie married at 20, and brought up seven children. She supported her family by scrubbing steps, then by selling flowers from a big basket, to 'posh' people in the suburbs of South Liverpool, and then from her famous flower stall in Clayton Square. She also sold from other pitches including Great Charlotte Street, Central Station and near the old ABC cinema and was at her barrow from 9am to 6pm, six days a week, and on Sundays you'd find her outside the old Newsham General Hospital, in Belmont Road. She was a tiny woman, with a weathered face, trade mark headscarf, boots coat and shawl, working in rain, hail, snow or sunshine.

A legend in Liverpool for more than 60 years, her pitch in the city centre was as well known as Owen Owen or Lewis's. She knew everyone - from judges to 'working girls', from local MP's like Bessie Braddock to the local villains, and to most of the stars of the time, and what's more they all knew her. Stephen Shakeshaft the renowned photographer for the Daily Post & Echo recalls, "I was living in Wirral. I was a 16-year-old lad. I'd get the train to Central Station and walk through St Johns Market, which was a maze of little cobbled lanes, past stallholders who spoke to me every morning. The first thing I saw walking into St John’s Market was a parrot on a stand and the fruit market with Lizzie Christian, who'd give me an apple each day."

She would want to stay at her pitch until the last of her regulars had been. She would say, "His Honour the Judge is always here by 5.15 and I wouldn’t want to let him down." There spoke a hard-working and resourceful woman who'd given birth in the workhouse while her husband fought in the Army in Afghanistan. Lizzie was no stranger to controversy, having had to move from her regular spot outside what was then the new St. John’s Precinct. Her resolve was especially so after she'd been moved to Cases Street as she was worried her customers wouldn’t know where she was.

She passed away in 1977 and there is a painting dedicated to her above Coopers pub nearby to where the stall is still run by family members on Cases Street.

see also:- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2020/10/a-liverpool-exemplar-peter-ellis.html