Our Stay at Port Sunlight

We arrived at Liverpool station and were met by Joe and Emily McArdle, Joe is the brother of our friend Clare Parks in Brisbane and they were kindly having us stay with them for a couple of nights. After we had lunch Emily dropped us at the Port Sunlight Museum where we watched a video about the history of Port Sunlight. It is an unbelievable story about the Lever Brothers who on 3/3/1888 decided to build a village to house the workers who worked in their factory which produced the Sunlight Soap which is known around the world. Port Sunlight industrial village is said to be the finest and most complete example of early urban planning in the UK. William Lever was a man way ahead of his time, he believed that providing his staff (of which there were many thousand) with good accommodation, lots of green space, an education and a bit of culture, they would be happy at home and would work well in the factory. In a time when most people lived in slums in the area, he provided excellent housing, there were rules involved like, you could only live in the house as long as you remained working at the factory, and any children had to be educated. So he commissioned 30 diferent architects who entered a competition to design homes for his village, but he put in the fine print that all entries in the competition would then become his property. So when the competition was completed he then used all the different architects designs to build the village of Port Sunlight. He also built a school for the children, a church, and because he believed in educating his workers about the arts he build at theatre (which is still active today) and the prestigious Lady Lever Art Gallery which he filled with his personal collections of art. There is also a Lever Brothers War Memorial,the second largest in the country. He built a hall which is best known as the venue for Ringo Starr's first gig with the Beatles. He had a mens club and a girls club, sporting areas and a swimming pool as he believed in excercise to keep his workers fit and healthy. Wandering around the village it is just amazing to see all the different architectural styles, all the parks and gardens which are still maintained at a cost of £1 per year to the residents!!! And he used to take his whole factory staff away for trips to places like Venice, he would put them all on the train, he had built his own train line and port to export his product. William Lever was later knighted and became Lord Lever Hulme, he and his wife both have tombs next to each other outside the Christ Church opposite to where Emily and Joe live, the tombs are amazing, the have life size statues carved statues lying down on the top of the tombs which I assume look like themselves!!It is really quiet here and you can just wander around the village, there is a walking tour which Joe took us on last night after tea and told us all about the history of the place, it is so interesting and hard to believe that Lord Lever had the foresight to create such a place for his workers way backin 1888.