Animal-baiting

At the opening of the Sefton Playground and Gymnasium in 1862, Liverpool's mayor, Mr Hutchinson, boasted that a marked improvement had taken place during the present century, not only in people's recreational pursuits but also in their temperament. Bull-baiting, bear-baiting, cock-fighting and other cruel sports had disappeared, replaced by amusements having a ‘rational character and a tendency to exalt and invigorate the mental faculties’. The opening of the facility was part of an on-going attempt by the authorities to bring regulation, order and moral improvement to the boisterous lower classes. ‘Rational recreation’, as it became known, prescribed playing fields, exercise and fresh air as healthier counter-attractions to the rowdy public houses, brutal sports and gambling.

Yet the mayor was only partly correct. It was true that some baiting sports had disappeared from Liverpool's streets. In the mid-eighteenth century, to celebrate the election of the town's mayor, a chained bear was baited with large mastiffs every October at the White Cross, at the top of Chapel Street. In the late eighteenth century there was also a bull-baiting arena at the top of Lord Street. All classes took part in the rowdy ‘sport’, betting on whose dog could hold onto the bull for the longest. Around 1783 a group of drunken sailors took an exhausted bull from the annual wake at West Derby village and dragged it into the Theatre Royal in Williamson Square. To the surprise of the ladies, it popped its head out of the centre box.