Walton on the Hill History Group - Liverpool

The land on which the Hall was built had many owners after William the Conqueror parcelled out England as a reward for his mercenaries and the West Derby Hundred went to one Rodge of Poitou. one of the most prominent was Thomas Leyland.

 

In the year 1804, John Atherton's Grandson, John Joseph then the owner, sold the hall at auction and went to live in Ludlow. The hall was advertised as being: "A residence admirably suited to a commercial gentleman of the first importance." The advert reads more like a challange than anything else, but, read it as you will. Thomas Leyland head of a well-known banking house, promptly bought Walton Hall. Leyland was a man well liked and respected in the town and a sure indication of the esteem in which he was held lies in the fact that in 1780 he was elected to the Chamber of Commerce and on no less than three seperate occasions was invited to serve in the office of Lord Mayor, 1798-99, 1814-15 and 1820-21.

 

Thomas Leyland was born in the year 1752, the son of Richard Leyland of Knowsley. In 1768, Thomas was known to be working for Edward Bridge & Co., Coopers of Coopers Row , Liverpool. He was not there for long before he entered the service of Gerald Dillon, a Liverpool merchant. He must have shown great promise for, in 1774 he became a partner in the firm, for which he had to borrow £500 (about £32,000 today!) from friends.

 

The partnership enjoyed modest prosperity in trading with the Irish, dealing in corn, oatmeal and dairy produce, until the year 1776 when they had a great stroke of fortune. They won twenty thousand pounds in a lottery. His former employer, Edward Bridge, died in 1775 and his widow carried on the business. Financially secure with a bright future in prospect, on the 14th May 1777, at St. Thomas' Church, Thomas Leyland married Edward Bridge's daughter, Ellen, and set up house in Houghton Street nd on the death of his mother-in-law in 1782, Thomas inherited one third of her estate.

 

Meanwhile the two partners, with more than a little money at their backs, entered into the privateering business, buying shares in a ship called Enterprise and at the same time supplying her with victuals for her voyage. It is interesting to note that the cost of equipping and putting to sea of the Enterprise for the three years voyages that she made during part intrest of Dillon and Leyland was £5,015. She is known to have captured several prizes during the course of these voyages, the proceeds of any one of which may quite easily have offset the cost of the whole three cruises. So the profits from the business of privateering can be well imagined.

 

By the year 1780, the lottery winning partnership of Leyland & Dillon had broken up and the former was in business largely on his own account and very heavily involved in the revived slave trade. In the meantime Leyland had transferred his household from Houghton Street to Duke Street, but by now even this select thoroughfare had been forsaken for the aloof seclution of Walton Hall. He had taken up residece there in 1804 and two years before, at a time when his slave trading interests were yeilding him undreamt profits, he entered into the banking house of Clarkes and Roscoe as a senior partner. The firm then became known as Leyland Clarkes and Roscoe sympathetic to the abolitionist cause. In 1806 Thomas disolved the partnership and a year later founded the firm of Leyland and Bullins with his nephews Richard and Christopher Bullins; they ran the firm from offices in King Street, just of Paradise Street. In 1901 the were absorbed by the North and South Wales Bank and in 1908 became part of the Midland Bank.