AND THE CHILDREN’S TEETH ARE SET ON EDGE: ADAM HODGSON & THE RAZING OF CATON CHAPEL

AND THE CHILDREN'S TEETH ARE SET ON EDGE In 1864 the medieval chapel in Caton, near Lancaster, was razed to the ground and replaced by the neo-gothic Church of St Paul. Behind this event lies the surprising story of the Hodgson family which was strongly involved in the development of the Liverpool slave trade during the 18th Century and the reaction of its next generation to the continued existence of slavery and to the profound social problems that came with the rapid development of the port. The story takes the reader from the Seven Years War with France through the American and French Revolutions and includes the visit of Thomas Clarkson to Liverpool in pursuit of evidence against the slave trade. The family invested heavily in the development of cotton and silk mills in Caton. Adam Hodgson the second son of the slave trader Thomas Hodgson became a leading cotton broker and banker in Liverpool in the 19th century. Adam Hodgson was an Anglican Evangelical committed to social and moral reform in what became the unhealthiest town in England. The story of this generation of Liverpool merchants encompasses the abolition movement, the effects of the Irish Famine, and the rebellion of the Chartists and Repealers. At heart a free-trade Tory, threats to the established church from the reformers led Adam Hodgson to become increasingly committed to an Ultra-Tory Anti-Catholic position. Finally, the destruction of the chapel and its rebuilding is shown to have been the result of the collapse in the cotton trade because of the American Civil War – the war to end slavery. St Paul’s Church Caton can thus be seen both as a monument to the slave trade and to the movement for its abolition.