Author: Ollie Cowan

James Dunwoody Bulloch
1823-1901

In 1861 Waterloo was at the centre of a spy ring created by an American secret agent called James Dunwoody Bulloch. Bulloch was a captain in the army of the Confederate States of America and had been sent to England with a mission to raise money for the cause, and commission ships to break the blockade of Confederate held ports.

He arrived with $1 million to commission 6 vessels including the famed CSS Alabama and chose Liverpool as the centre of operations due to the strong cotton links with the southern states and because Lairds shipbuilders was on the doorstep.

James Bulloch was born in Georgia in 1823 and had been a captain in the US navy before joining a private shipping company. When the state of Georgia seceded in 1861 with the other southern states to form the Confederacy, Bulloch could not turn his back on his home state. He offered his services to the Confederacy.

However, the Union navy set up a blockade of southern ports, stopping all shipping, so there was a need to get ships from elsewhere to break the blockade and take the fight to the enemy. Bulloch was appointed to commission ships in secret and he came to Liverpool, ostensibly as a private individual, to do it.

Captain Bulloch brought his family over to provide cover for his operations, but it was a risky business. Bulloch was forced to move regularly to avoid capture by Union agents and in Waterloo alone, he lived in houses on Marine Terrace, Cambridge Road and Wellington Terrace.

His greatest achievement was to commission and successfully launch the CSS Alabama, a surface raider and blockade runner. In its short life, this ship boarded 447 ships, taking 2000 Union prisoners.

However, it was cornered and sunk in a naval battle off the coast of Cherbourg in 1864.

When the Confederate cause was lost in 1865, Bulloch was branded a traitor, with a warrant for his arrest for treason. Forced to live in exile from his beloved home in Georgia, Captain Bulloch spent the rest of his days working as a cotton merchant, living in Waterloo and Liverpool where he died in 1901.

He was never pardoned by the US Government. Patriot or traitor – you decide.

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Christiana Hartley CBE

1872-1948

Resident of Lord Street, Southport, Christiana Hartley was a social rights activist, welfare rights campaigner, philanthropist, and Liberal Party politician.

Christiana Hartley was born to Martha O’Conner Horsefield and William Pickles Hartley, the founder of Hartley’s Jam company which is still active today. Her family were Primitive Methodists and these religious principles guided her social works later in life.

Christiana Hartley was a woman in a man’s world. Described as possessing ‘masculine vigour and directness’, Hartley held all the positions women, traditionally did not hold.

She served on the Board of Directors at William Hartley and Sons Ltd, she served on the Board of Guardians for poor relief, as a Justice of the Peace, magistrate, became a councillor and ultimately became the Mayor of Southport in 1921.

Her elevation to Mayor of Southport was said to have caused ‘trepidation’ among some male colleagues.

Christiana Hartley was not content to live the sheltered life of a middle-class woman, instead she spent time living among the poor in so-called ‘flophouses’ where multiple families would reside in one room.

Hartley never married, nor did she have children. Hartley preferred instead to dedicate her life to the poor children of Southport; earning herself the moniker: ‘The Children’s Mayor.’

Famously nonpartisan, Hartley donated her salary to a Labour Party project designed to help the poor of Southport and coaxed her father into matching her £500 donation.

Alongside her charitable donations, Hartley opened the two maternity hospitals and promoted education for girls by endowing two scholarships for women at the University of Liverpool and Girton College, Cambridge.

She was awarded a CBE in 1943 for public service to Southport and also received an honourary degree from the University of Liverpool for her philanthropic work.
Christiana Hartley is a role model to the women of Southport; demonstrating kindness, empathy and a refusal to accept the limitations of being a woman in a man’s world.

Hartley is described as possessing ‘clear and concise speech, patience and courage, a love of humanity, and was not afraid to speak her mind.’

Southport’s children and Southport’s history would be poorer without her contribution.

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