» Liverpool Connects with Charleston and a Research Question Solved 

This is the ninth blog post in a series written by Georgette Mayo, Avery Research Center’s Processing Archivist, reflecting on her trip to London and Liverpool in October 2024.

On a rainy evening in November, I traveled to see my Liverpool friend, Linda Iley, Athenaeum Proprietor, speak at the Charleston Library Society. She, along with fellow Proprietor Ann Hughes, discussed the Anthurium’s history, their experience as Proprietors, and life in Liverpool. 

In their informative presentation, Iley and Hughes spoke on their recent proprietorship. As mentioned in the “Day 2-Part 3” blog entry, women were not admitted as Proprietors until 1996. “The Athenaeum members are known as Proprietors and are limited in number to 500, all having a vote and an entitlement to a share in the proceeds of [the] sale of the Institution if it should be dissolved.”¹ 

During her talk, Iley mentioned a topic that piqued my interest during the Athenaeum visit. Roy Boardman, the Athenaeum’s general manager, had briefly spoken about an American Confederate outpost in Liverpool during the Civil War. Iley stated that Rumford Place was the outpost’s location. This was the vital information I needed to research further.   

During the Civil War, Fraser, Trenholm, and Company of Liverpool and Charleston, South Carolina (1860-1866) “was a prominent commercial house with close ties to the Confederate States. George A. Trenholm, the senior partner of the Charleston office, became Secretary to the Confederate States Treasury in 1864. Charles Kuhn Prioleau, a South Carolinian, was the senior partner of the Liverpool office.”² 

The “Fraser, Trenholm and Company made an enormous contribution to the Civil War effort of the South, acting as banker of the Confederate Government and financing the supply of armaments and other essential goods in return for cotton. The company also participated in blockade running, built vessels for the Confederate Navy in Liverpool, including the Alabama, was a commerce-destroyer, assisted in the floating Confederate loans, and encouraged support in Europe for the South.”³ 

Rumford Place, off from Liverpool’s Old Hall Street, also hosts several “houses” named after ships, their captains, and a Confederate agent in the UK.  The “Hidden Liverpool’s Post” on Facebook displays several of the memorial plaques, including the Charleston House 12 Rumford, named for the Fraser, Trenholm, and Company.  Additional information regarding this company is written in John D. Pelzer’s master’s thesis, “A Merchants War: The Blockade Running Activities of Fraser, Trenholm and Company during the American Civil War,” Ball State University, 1988. 

It was great to see several London/Liverpool delegation members in attendance, along with Dr. Bernard Powers, a College of Charleston Professor Emeritus in the Department of History and the director of the Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston (CSSC). Dr. Powers confirmed the American Confederate outpost in Liverpool and mentioned the Bank of England’s involvement in the Civil War before my deep-dive research.  And, of course, it was terrific to be briefly reunited with Linda Iley, my new Liverpool friend. 

Footnotes

1.  Burns, Proprietor Paul. The Athenaeum Liverpool 1797-2024. Great Britain, The Athenaeum Liverpool, 2024. ↩︎
2. “Civil War and the Confederacy: The Business Records of Fraser, Trenholm & Company  of Liverpool and Charleston, South Carolina 1860-1877, from the Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool” http://www.ampltd.co.uk/collections_az/cw-confeds/description.aspx Accessed 29 January 2025.  ↩︎
3. Ibid. ↩︎

Image Credits

1. Hidden Liverpool. “Rumford Place was the location of the offices of Fraser Trenholm, the cotton brokers that acted as the British bankers for the Confederacy during the American Civil war.” Facebook, August 27, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Dp5pbT84K/.
2. Long, Gabriel. Linda Iley, Athenaeum Proprietor, with Georgette Mayo. Photograph. November 14, 2024.