Catalogue description LIVERPOOL CITY MISSION

The records are valuable both for the study of religious and social history. The annual reports (287LCM/3 below) give statistics and descriptions of working class life and provide an insight into the problems of economic slump, disease, overcrowding, alcoholism as well as those associated with an international port and industrial centre. They also quote extracts from agents working diaries, none of which have survived.

The archive is also a record of the social and spiritual interest of leading members of the community. Sir James Picton, Sir Donald Currie, Sir W P Hartley, Sir John Sandemann Alien MP and Samuel Smith MP were all associated with the work of the Mission at various times.

Deposited 15 October 1976 on permanent loan by the Superintendent, Rev David V Jebson (ref CML/1976-386). Records less than 30 years old (except printed material) may only be consulted with the authorisation of the Mission (Jubilee Hall, Kensington, Liverpool L7 8SN). This list is a revision of that first prepared on receipt of the records.

287LCM/1-2 Minutes, 1829-1971

287LCM/3 Annual reports, 1830-1952

287LCM/4 Investment ledger 1930-1943

287LCM/5 Agents' records, 1952-1955

287LCM/6 Pocketbooks and scrapbooks, 1930-c1948

287LCM/7 Publications, 1929-1982

287LCM/8 Tuebrook Baptist Church, 1877-1973

287LCM/9 Liverpool Medical Mission, 1862-1933

287LCM/10 Photographs, pictures, mid C19-mid C20

A history of the Mission Voice in the City, written using these records, is available in the Searchroom.

Liverpool City Mission

• Liverpool, Merseyside

Originally called the Christian Instruction Society (rather than the more formal 'Society for Promoting the Religious Improvement of the Poor of Liverpool and the Neighbourhood') the organisation changed its name to Liverpool Town Mission in 1837, and to Liverpool City Mission in 1898. Its object was to "... promote the Religious improvement of the poor, especially of such as do not attend the public services of Divine Workship." (annual report, 1930 etc).

By 1930 it had 33 halls including one in Tarbock, two in Bootle and seven in Wirral. Its sphere of operations was " ... the poor and working class districts of the whole of Merseyside" (1931 annual report). The Bromborough and Eastham Missions were affiliated in 1900.

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