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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

CHAPTER I. EARLY YEARS.

A Great City—its people and its institutions, as seen by a contemporary presents incidents that do not specially appeal to the historian, who is more concerned with the larger features and events which mark its growth; but those incidents may serve as sidelights upon the movements and the spirit of the times, and woven round the outlines of a life which has been threaded in the weft of its activities, may afford a background to bring into more prominent relief and give juster proportion to the characters and the actions of the men who have built up its prosperity.

My story will therefore be of the men and the incidents of my time, which I think may perhaps possess more than a passing interest, and I hope serve to awaken pleasant memories.

As I do not intend to write a record of my family life, which with its abounding happiness—some great sorrows—successes and disappointments—must be a sacred thing, I shall only make such references to my family, or to those friends still happily with us, as may be necessary to my narrative.

My great-grandfather, who was born at Plymouth, was a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and served on board the "Foudroyant." He was killed in action, and his widow, in recognition of his courage, was awarded a Post Captain's pension. She had one son, my grandfather, George Forwood, who came to Liverpool, where in 1812 he joined Mr. John Moss as partner in the Otterspool Oil Works (Mr. Moss was the father of the late Sir Thomas Moss, Bart.). My grandfather appears to have been a man of considerable ability. Mr. Hughes, in his History of Liverpool Bankers, describes him as "an exceedingly able man, possessing some public spirit." His published letters and pamphlets on economic subjects show that he took much interest in the pressing questions of the day, and was very active in promoting the repeal of the Corn Laws and in the amendment of the Poor Laws.

My father, the late Thomas Brittain Forwood, was born in Russell Street in 1810, and was educated at Dr. Prior's school in Pembroke Place; he received what was known as a good classical education, and up to the close of his life his knowledge of Latin was fresh and accurate, and he could quote freely and aptly from Latin authors.

He was gifted with a love for mechanics, and he claimed to have made a locomotive when a boy, using as cylinders two surgical syringes.

He entered the office of Leech, Harrison and Co. in 1824, when he was 14 years of age, became a partner at the age of 27, and retired in 1862, when he purchased the estate of Thornton Manor, in Cheshire; here he resided for the remainder of his life. My father was endowed with a quick and bright intelligence, and was a most excellent correspondent in days when letter writing was a fine art. He had a love and capacity for hard work.

He was too much absorbed in his own business to take an active part in public life, but he was for a time a vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce, and took a leading part in the effort to obtain a reduction in the railway charges levied upon Liverpool traffic. He was for twenty-two years a member of the Mersey Dock Board, and chairman of the