Three subjects are branded onto the Liverpool psyche: football, music and seafaring.
While the first two remain in rude health, maritime matters have long taken a dive in the city – even though shipping is the very reason Liverpool became the second city of the British Empire.
Instead of preserving Liverpool’s seafaring history, National Museums Liverpool (NML), which is responsible for the city’s historic port, has instead decided to pursue the fashionable obsession with ever louder apologies for the city’s part in the transatlantic slave trade.
The biggest victim of the NML’s seemingly unstoppable emotional self-flagellation on our behalf has been its decision to scrap De Wadden, a 107-year-old schooner dubbed ‘Liverpool’s Cutty Sark’ (the great tea clipper preserved in Greenwich). The ship is to be replaced by a transatlantic slavery ‘contemplation and reflection room’.
As the port’s last commercial sailing ship, De Wadden more than earned her right to be preserved. She was purchased by NML’s Mersey Maritime Museum in 1987 to rest in Liverpool’s equally historic Canning Graving Dock. Built in 1917 in the Netherlands, De Wadden traded around the Irish Sea for decades, even dodging wartime U-boats to carry vital freight to Ireland.
It is completely unnecessary to replace De Wadden with a slavery reflection room, which looks like a cross between a glorified shed and a budget Aztec pyramid
Why, then, has NML destroyed one of its largest historic exhibits, a ship which represented the thousands of cargo sailing vessels which made the city world famous? Does nobody there like ships and seafarers?
It is not like Liverpool does not already commemorate its links to slavery. The city already has the large and comprehensive International Slavery Museum round the corner. It is completely unnecessary to replace De Wadden with another slavery reflection room, which looks like a cross between a glorified shed and a budget Aztec pyramid.
The move is part of the Waterfront Transformation Project which NML boasts will ‘transform Canning Quaysides and Dry Docks into a space for education, contemplation and recreation’. In other words, an artificial social engineering agenda will replace real maritime engineering.
NML’s director Laura Pye told me that De Wadden was beyond repair, and a restoration and future maintenance bill of £5 million was untenable. The transformation of the docks will cost £15 million, supported by £10 million from the government’s Levelling-up fund. A further £58 million is to be spent on revamping the Slavery and Maritime Museums.
Was it really impossible to raise £5 million to rescue De Wadden? Could the money not have been raised with a public fundraising campaign? After Cutty Sark was ravaged by fire, £35 million was raised for her restoration. But then that was is in London of course, rather than a city which keeps squandering its unique potential.
As a Liverpool city guide of many years standing, I know a fully restored De Wadden would have been an eye-catching exhibit in the bland area outside the Museum of Liverpool. The thousands of cruise liner passengers landing at the nearby Pier Head will instead be baffled by the new reflection room, sitting inside a dry dock meant for a ship.
It’s concerning that Liverpool, once the world’s greatest seaport, has practically no historic ships berthed in its docks, unlike its rivals around the UK. My emails to city tourism chiefs about De Wadden’s plight were ignored. Neither was there a response from Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram, whose office overlooked De Wadden.
The outcry from Merseyside’s large ship-loving community over De Wadden’s destruction has been tremendous, with several key figures meeting senior museum curators to plead De Wadden’s case unsuccessfully.
Jim Graves, founder of MAST (Merseyside Adventure Sailing Trust) Chair, says: ‘breaking up De Wadden is an abomination and an insult to Merseyside’s heritage in general and seafarers on these sailing ships in particular… Nobody at NML seems remotely interested in Liverpool’s seafaring history, which is the cornerstone of our very being. At MAST we’re educating young people about sailing and instead of De Wadden being the jewel in our crown, we’ll have nothing for them to see.’
The curators’ intransigent attitude is encapsulated by the waterfront project’s consultant artist, Theaster Gates, who has stated: ‘It heartens me that a city is willing to grapple with its complex history and make space for the unfortunate truth of violence against other people. Even better, Liverpool is making space for celebration, community, and new histories.’
New histories? Most of the city’s residents are heartily sick of now being held responsible for the inhumane actions of greedy merchants three centuries ago.
Liverpool should take note. Historic ships are like any finite physical resource, much like old buildings. Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever – taking their history with them.
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