Name/Title
1900/Mack: Liverpool docksDescription
This lovely autochrome postcard of Prince's Dock, Liverpool, circa 1907, gives an excellent impression of the vastness of the Liverpool shipping area and the sense of access to new and exciting regions which it gave. It has been chosen to represent the median point of the Macks' experience of the Liverpool shipping trade, which ran from approximately 1894-1905.
In a letter of 24 June 1953, RJ Mack writes of his fascination with ships "ever since I used to wander around the Liverpool Docks as a boy". RJ was born in January 1886, so these wanderings probably began around 1895.
His brother, Fred, who was nine years older, had begun work, circa 1893-4, with Macleod, Reid & Co of Liverpool. This was a tobacco importing business which had premises in Glasgow, Liverpool and London. RJ must have sometimes visited his brother's Liverpool office, which would have been very close to the Docks. Stanley Dock, in particular, was much concerned with tobacco imports, although it was not until 1901 that the vast, iconic Tobacco Warehouse was built there. Stanley Dock is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Some time during the 1890s, Andrew Chalmers & Company opened a branch office in James Street, Liverpool, adjacent to the Docks. The office was under the charge of a Mr Billows, and in 1898 Fred joined the company as Chief Assistant to Mr. Billows. He was then about twenty. Late in 1900, he was transferred to the London office of Andrew Chalmers, then located at 110 Fenchurch Street, and began his rise to taking over the company.
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The postcard has been coloured by the autochrome process, commercially introduced in 1907. "It uses microscopic, dyed potato starch grains (red-orange, green, blue-violet) as filters on a glass plate, creating a distinctive, soft, pointillist-like image."
Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autochrome_Lumi%C3%A8re) last accessed 24 April 2026.
The attached PDF provides more details of the Liverpool docks:
'Liverpool: The docks', in A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 4, ed. William Farrer, J Brownbill (London, 1911), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol4/pp41-43 [accessed 24 April 2026].
