An Eighteenth Century Capital of Culture? An examination of Liverpool’s historical battle to prove its cultural value

1. An Eighteenth Century Capital of Culture? An examination of Liverpool’s historical battle to prove its cultural value Theatre Royal Liverpool, circa 1795

2. “What use is culture to run-down Liverpool?” London Evening Standard “Bells ring in Capital of Culture” BBC News “This is the Detroit of England” London Evening Standard “Flying high in countdown for Capital of Culture bid” icLiverpool.co.uk

3. Theatre Royal Liverpool, circa 1805

4. “But it was rather a cause of wonder [...] that any doubt should arise to the permitting of a theatre to be established in so flourishing a place as Liverpool [...] But now genius is discouraged, and the public suffers inconveniences, from a restriction that is serviceable in no one point, but very harmful to many” (General Evening Post 2 March 1771) “to the Right Rev. The Lords Spiritual If your duty did exist as strongly in former instances as it does now, why were you silent when those fatal precedents were established? If it did not then exist, and now does, what new corruption in the morals of the stage has given rise to it? Whence has it sprung? Where do you fix it? Not in Liverpool, I trust, not in the place in question” (General Evening Post 12 March 1771)

5. Alexandra Appleton English Department University of Liverpool A.N.Appleton@liverpool.ac.uk