Remembering Liverpool Structures - The Cotton Exchange

Liverpool’s association with the cotton trade is a long and globally influential one with cotton once the largest and most important trade in the city, accounting for almost half of the imports and exports that went through the port. The first recorded cotton dealing in Liverpool was a newspaper advertisement for an auction of 28 bags of Jamaican cotton in 1759. In 1770 Joshua Holt became the first Liverpool Cotton Broker trading solely in cotton, and by 1787 cotton had become one of Liverpool’s major imports. By 1795 Liverpool would permanently overtake London as the leading British cotton importer, and later the trade was said to be only second to the port in terms of global fame. The Liverpool market was supplied by dozens of merchants and hundreds of specialist cotton broking firms, with offices in and around the commercial heart of Liverpool. Cotton merchants and brokers used to congregate on the specially created area of 'Exchange Flags' in 1808, behind Liverpool Town Hall, to transact business and where the floor would be white with the fluff of cotton samples. The cotton futures traders stood in the open air on the Flags shouting their trades, which must have been exciting for visitors to Liverpool to see. 1841 would see The Liverpool Cotton Brokers' Association established and in 1866 John Rew would evolve a world first 'futures' scheme. Despite problematic times growth continued, and in 1911-12 Liverpool imported a staggering 5,230,399 bales of cotton.

Liverpool’s cotton traders, who had been based in Castle Street, had moved to Exchange Flags in 1808 and in 1896 finally moved indoors to Browns Building, Exchange Flags. This soon proved too small so in March 1903 property was acquired in Old Hall Street which covered just over an acre. A competition was held to design the new building and from the 24 sets of plans submitted by Liverpool and Birkenhead architects, the winning entry came from Messrs Huon Matear and Frank Simon of the Temple, Dale Street. This led to the building of the Old Hall Street building, built by the Waring-White Building Company with 2000 men and completed in just 17 months taking up a whole block between Old Hall Street and Bixteth Street. The original estimated cost was £150,000, which rose to nearer £300,000 on completion. It had the whole panoply of the very latest features at the time, including 12 electric lifts, synchronised electric clocks, telephones and direct cables stretching as far as New York, Bremen and even Bombay and a spacious main hall in the centre of which was the cotton ring, or pit.

Thousands of people turned out to cheer on the Prince and Princess of Wales when they officially opened the new building on the 30th of November 1906, at a time when Liverpool was at the heart of the world cotton trade, with the welcome speech being delivered in the presence of some 3,000 guests. It boasted a massive neoclassical facade and exterior decoration which included statues and a columned portico opening onto the street, another towering row of columns higher still, and two baroque corner towers, as ornate as anything on St Paul’s Cathedral. The columns are monoliths of larvikite, quarried in Norway and polished in Aberdeen. Inside was the exchange itself, a vast hall with a striking Terrazzo floor surrounded by an elaborate colonnade and topped with a stunning glass roof.

The Exchange closed during World War II and following the war the new Labour Government decided to retain Government control of the cotton supply. In 1954 legislation was passed whereby the buying and selling of raw cotton was returned to private enterprise and on the 18th of May 1954 the Liverpool Cotton Market was re-opened. However the global industry continued to contract, trade was not good and the Liverpool Cotton Association's home became simply too big for it. So it was sold in 1962, and eventually the decision was taken to demolish the old facade The side elevations survived but the fine colonnaded facade was unceremoniously replaced by a dreary modern frontage in 1967 with its conversion into an office block called Cotton House. A sad loss for the building that symbolised Liverpool's ranking as No.1 in the cotton trade and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. 

see also:- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2021/10/remembering-liverpool-structures-custom.html