Ricky Tomlinson Who Do You Think You Are?

You all right, kid?

-Two nice cups of tea there, please.

-Yeah, of course.

Liverpudlian actor Ricky Tomlinson has had audiences glued to their

screens for the past four decades.

Most famously in the hit comedy The Royle Family.

Dad! Stop fiddling with yourself!

I'm not fiddling with myself, I paid a quid for these underpants,

I've got 50p worth stuck up my arse!

Ricky lives in Liverpool with his wife, Rita,

and regularly performs at his own club in the city.

Oh, I'm a Scouser, kid.

I'm a Scouser, you believe me, yeah?

HE LAUGHS

There's a certain warmth about Liverpool people.

They make you welcome. I think it's

because we're used to strangers coming into the town.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

We had people in from Wigan last night.

Four of them in a van. And on the back was a notice,

"There are no pies kept in this van overnight."

LAUGHTER

Born in 1939, Ricky was the second of Albert and Margaret Tomlinson's

four children.

The truth is, we were poor. So was everyone else.

But we were very lucky because my dad always worked,

and my mum always worked.

And we never went short of anything to eat.

I'm so proud of the way she worked to get us where we are today.

Three bloody jobs!

My mum was tremendous. She was the driving force of the family.

And I think something she instilled into myself and my three brothers is

the work ethic. We're all grafters.

He looked at me and he went, "Don't you miss the building game, Rick?"

LAUGHTER

Ricky began his working life at the age of 15, as a plasterer.

But building site safety was no laughing matter.

Health and safety was practically nil.

Fellas would fall off scaffolds, scaffolds would collapse.

Fellas would get buried alive.

It was horrendous.

Ricky became a union organiser,

and in 1972 encouraged fellow building workers to join the first

national building strike.

I thought, "Someone's got to make a stand. Someone's got to say something."

Ricky was later arrested, and

charged with conspiracy to intimidate

and sentenced to two years in prison.

He still contests his conviction.

I think I've probably got the way I am from my dad's family.

The fighting spirit, if you will. I'm not taking no for an answer.

And my dad, 27 years on nights as a baker,

I thought the only people who worked in the night were burglars!

When he died, it knocked us for six.

55. Cancer.

I get quite emotional.

When they've gone, that's when you realise there's that hole there.

I should have asked my dad about his side of the family.

I would just like to know a simple thing - who were the Tomlinsons?

Where did they come from?

Who were they? What did they do?

What's their background? Simple as that.

Anyway, now, listen, what I want you

to do, sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

Ricky's come to Everton Park,

built on the site of the streets where he grew up after they were

demolished in the 1960s.

It wasn't like this when we were kids.

Obviously, this was all built up and stuff.

We're probably walking over somewhere where my dad's bakery

used to be. Kelly's Bakery.

He's meeting his older brother, Albert.

I didn't think I was going to make it up that hill!

Well, you've took your time, mate! I'm freezing.

RICKY LAUGHS

-Hey!

-My God, things have changed around here.

They've changed for the better though, haven't they?

I'm just looking at this here. I've never noticed it before.

That could be me, that.

Look at the cobbles there. We used to play football on that and dive to

save the ball. Look, not a blade of grass anywhere.

This was all built up.

-You can still see the Mersey clear here, look.

-Yeah.

It was one of the busiest ports in the world.

There wasn't a windmill in sight in them days.

-And look at them now!

-Like being in Holland.

THEY LAUGH

All our lot comes from where that block of flats is now.

That was the Tomlinsons' roots, wasn't it?

That's where the Tommos lived.

Me dad's side of the family all lived down there.

We know tonnes and tonnes about my gran,

but we don't know that much about my grandad, do we?

-He was very quiet, wasn't he?

-Always in the background.

I want to know more about him.

So I think the best thing we can do is go and have a glass of beer.

-I'm all for it.

-Come on.

-Let's go.

RICKY LAUGHS

Can I have my walking stick back?

Here we go.

My gran and my grandad.

So that's as far as we've got!

-Not very far!

-Have you got any information for me at all?

First of all, here's an old photograph.

Grandad Tommo, and Granny Tommo.

-Is that my gran?

-It is indeed.

-It's not the gran I knew.

-It's not, no.

-Not the one you remember, is it, no.

-She's got teeth in that!

THEY LAUGH

Look at him in them days.

My grandad with the cigarette in his mouth.

He was actually quite dapper.

-Oh, yeah.

-Because I can only remember him as this little old

chap, sitting in the rocking chair.

He sort of groans, "Oh!" Like a welcome, "Oh!"

I never heard him speak.

Oh, he spoke. Not a lot.

But he had a broad Liverpool accent.

Go away! A real Scouser?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, very much so.

-Go away!

-But as I say, we never seen him dressed up like that.

-Never.

-He was always in his working gear, wasn't he?

-But look at the collar on his shirt.

Spotless. They had nothing, but they had dignity, didn't they?

-You know.

-That's it.

-They're at a wedding for someone.

Must have been a Protestant church if she's got dressed up to go there.

Wasn't she? She wouldn't have gone

-to a Catholic church.

-No, no, no.

-But grandad would.

He didn't give a monkeys one way or the other, did he?

Oh, no. But I'm made up that I can see him as a younger man.

Have you got another surprise for me?

This is Grandad Tommo's death certificate.

Died in 1947.

I'd be eight when he died, then, wouldn't I?

Richard Tomlinson, aged 60.

Asphalter's labourer.

So he was born in 1887.

-No.

-Yes.

-Was he?

If he died in '47 at 60.

It's only a young man by today's standards.

Yeah, but I can remember my mam saying that someone died at 60.

"Oh, well, they've had a good innings."

-Exactly.

-It's a good job it doesn't apply now,

me and you would be well gone!

THEY LAUGH

Oh, another one! Let's have a look at this one.

This is my mam and dad's marriage certificate.

Look at the dates on that, will you?

May 1936.

-Now, hang on!

-November '36.

Oh, just-in-time!

THEY LAUGH

Mum was three months pregnant when she got married.

Well, look at this. Look at this.

Richard Tomlinson, carter.

I'm a little bit flummoxed about this now.

I can't remember ever, ever hearing my grandad being a carter,

-in my life.

-I've only ever known him as an asphalter.

Yeah. You know what, this brings memories back now.

There was tonnes of carters around in them days.

But everything was horse-drawn then, wasn't it?

-Everything.

-Practically, yeah.

-Your bin wagons, your milk floats,

-your bread.

-But why they've got my grandad down there as a carter,

I don't know. I wonder if there was anyone in his family before him that

was a carter? Let's dig a bit deeper, see what he was up to.

Until the 1950s, carters and their

horse-drawn wagons were a common sight,

transporting goods throughout Britain.

And there were more working horses on the streets of Liverpool than in

any other city outside London.

I'm a bit surprised that no-one ever mentioned my grandad was a carter.

I'm really interested to find out where this journey's going to lead.

So I think the best place for me to

go is to the library to see if they've got any records.

There must be more knocking about.

At Liverpool's Central Library, Ricky is meeting genealogist

Olivia Robinson to see what else he

can discover about his grandad's family and

how far back he can trace the Tomlinson line.

-It's a lovely building.

-It's amazing.

So what do you know already?

-He was a carter...

-OK.

..on one of these certificates, and on another he was an asphalter.

-Yeah.

-He was born roundabout 1886, and he was 60

when he died. That's about all we've got at the moment.

OK, right.

Now we know which year he was born in,

we're going to have a little look for his baptismal record.

-Right.

-So if I can give you this.

-Yeah.

You'll have to guide me here, kid.

Now, where do we go now?

That needs to go under the glass plate.

Put it all the way through.

Now, if you push that for a couple of seconds.

-Good heavens.

-And stop.

-There's loads, isn't there?

-Yeah.

Loads and loads.

We're into July now.

There's loads on a daily basis there, isn't there?

You're trying to scan them all.

You get quite good at looking for the length of the name,

-and the T at the beginning.

-Ah.

Tomlinson. There's the name there, yeah.

Richard and Sarah?

-That's the mum and dad.

-Yeah.

-Oh, blimey!

-So this is your grandfather.

-Yeah.

And this is your great-grandfather and your great-grandmother.

I can s... Blimey, look at that.

I'm going to write this down now so I won't forget.

What's the trade?

Carter. Well, blimey!

Well, what do you know!

HE LAUGHS

His dad was a carter.

He's obviously followed his dad into the same trade.

Can we go a little bit further back, you've got me guessing now, kid?

This is an entry of birth.

This is 1847, from Dale Street, Liverpool.

Richard, boy, was born to...

William Tomlinson. Oh, that's my great-grandad's parents, is it?

-No!

-Yeah, this is your great-grandfather.

So he was the son of William Tomlinson and Mary Tomlinson.

Oh! Carter, there you go. The old carter again.

What's that there?

That is her mark.

-Oh, her mark.

-Her mark.

-Couldn't write.

Blinking heck!

So here we have their marriage certificate.

1845.

William Tomlinson, and Mary Leicester.

And this is interesting, the residence at the time of marriage,

Hill Street. I've never heard of it. I wonder where that is, kid?

By the docks, in Liverpool.

The docks, yeah, that's where all the commerce was, wasn't it?

Everything came into the docks.

And it would have been impossible to run without carters to transport

goods onwards from the docks.

So we're real Scousers, really, aren't we?

You would have a job to prove that you weren't Scouse.

And if you read along, this is the groom's father's name.

Richard Tomlinson. Once again, rank or profession, carter.

-He'd have then been working in the 1820s, 1830s as a carter.

-Yeah.

Can we get any further back at all from that?

Because civil registration only started in 1837,

it's actually very difficult to

get... Well, it's impossible to get birth certificates before that date.

We can't get any further back with Richard.

We've been Scousers right back there to around about

the 1820s, 1830s, 1840s we've got proof of.

So there you go.

And we're grafters right back in the carter fraternity.

200 years.

-I'm not royalty after all!

-Well, Liverpool royalty.

Oh, Liverpool royalty, yeah.

I'd rather be descended from a carter, kid, than from royalty.

Great, that.

I've had a wonderful day.

I've learned so much about my family.

I'm so proud of them, that they were all workers.

200 years of grafting, being carters in this wonderful city of mine.

It's opened a magical box for me.

I can't wait to see what else is in that box.

Ricky has discovered that he comes from four generations

of Liverpool carters.

The earliest record he's found takes him back to the beginning of the

19th century, when his

great-great-great grandfather, Richard,

was working on Liverpool's docks.

In the early 1800s, Liverpool was fast becoming Britain's

busiest port.

Huge numbers of carters were needed to handle goods arriving from across

the Empire. Including nearly all of Britain's cotton imports bound for

Lancashire's mills and factories.

As a former union organiser, Ricky is keen to find out more about

Richard Tomlinson's working conditions.

I wonder what it was like down here in the 1800s.

I feel a little shiver going up my back when I think about my three times

great-granddad, Richard,

with his horse and cart, waiting for the ships to be unloaded

in the 1830s.

I want to know how long they worked, how hard they worked.

There's so much I want to know.

There's so much I've got to find out.

He might have stood here, where I'm standing now.

And I wonder what he'd have thought of me being an actor!

I don't know. He might have jumped in there and drowned himself!

How you doing, kid?

Ricky is meeting Museum of Liverpool curator Sharon Brown

-and farmer Jaz Thomas...

-How are you, squire?

-Ricky Tommo, nice to meet you.

-..with his horse, Ruby.

-She's magnificent, isn't she?

-Oh, she's a smasher.

-They're huge.

-I've never been this close to one.

-Yeah.

Magnificent Shire horse,

typical of the type used on the streets of Liverpool

in the 1820s, 1830s.

Lovely. She's so docile, but I wouldn't like to see her kick off,

-would you?

-No, exactly. Could you imagine standing behind with a big

-load?

-I wouldn't be behind it, love. I'd be miles away.

I wouldn't be behind her!

We have a 37 hour week now, or a 40 hour week.

Was there any set limits in them days, for the week's work?

-At that time, no.

-No.

There weren't. It could be 12 to 15 hours a day.

So when you're great-great-great-grandfather,

Richard, was a carter in the 1820s, 1830s, it was a really hard life.

It was a real skill, even though it wasn't considered a skilled job.

Nothing moved without the carters.

Now listen, Ruby. I came here to find out about my ancestors.

Now your ancestors probably worked down here...

with my ancestors, so come on, be a good gi... Oh, wow!

It would take a little bit of Dutch courage for me to try it.

HE LAUGHS

Forward, get up!

Carters used to do this 12 or 14 hours a day, eh?

-Seven days a week.

-Seven days a week.

They spent more time with their horses than they spent with their

-families.

-As far as the missus goes, that might not be a bad thing!

THEY LAUGH

Come on, my beauty.

I think she's leaving us a message here, isn't she, kid?

RICKY LAUGHS

She's saying, "My arse," aren't you?

THEY LAUGH

Riding a horse and cart,

I actually had a feel of what it must have been like in the 1830s,

1840s, when my great-great-great-grandad was working there.

I've got an illustration here that

shows you how busy it would have been on the port.

It's the sort of scene Richard Tomlinson would have been

-involved in.

-There's dozens and dozens of horses.

By 1840, Liverpool's docks were importing over a

million tonnes a year.

More than the port of London.

But with only one rail link serving the seven miles of docks,

carters were vital for moving goods on and off the quays.

There was a lot of resistance to railways being developed right into

the docks. It was much more efficient by horse and cart.

-They could do without the railways, yeah.

-And then there's another image

here, which shows you things being loaded onto

the cart from a warehouse.

Any idea what date that would be?

1830s, 1840s.

So that would be around about the time of Richard Tomlinson.

Yeah, it would, yeah.

Blinking heck! He could be any one of them carters, couldn't he?

-He could, yeah.

-Look at that, there's no

health and safety, is there?

-Can you imagine that going on today?

-There'd be no chance, would there?

No. So did the carters ever, sort of, organise themselves into a trade

union, even though, I suppose, in them days,

it wouldn't be called a trade union?

Did they ever organise that?

Not at that time, no.

There must have been thousands of serious injuries.

Did they ever keep a log of the injuries?

They didn't keep a log of accidents.

It would just be a matter for your company to deal with.

But they did start to reports deaths.

This is from a local paper, February 1839.

"Deaths on the same day, Aged 60,

"Mr Richard Tomlinson, cart owner."

Go away!

Oh, my God!

"The deceased met with his death by being crushed between one of his own

"carts and a lorry."

A lorry was a term for a larger horse-drawn vehicle.

He's literally had the breath squashed out of him.

Well, that's a turn up for the book, that, isn't it, kid?

I don't know what to say.

-Talking about health and safety and then...

-Yeah.

-It's shocking.

-Oh, blimey, what a way to die, eh?

I'm quite saddened, really, to read about that.

Age 60, dead. And the way he died, but...

for me, I want to know now what happened to the rest of his family.

I was absolutely appalled to see the conditions that my ancestors

worked in.

They were like worker ants.

They were creating all the wealth for this country,

and yet they had none of it.

And having seen the death that my great-great-great-grandfather Richard suffered,

I just want to know what happened to his family.

After his three times great-grandfather Richard's

tragic death in 1839

Ricky wants to find out what happened to his son, William,

also a carter, and his wife, Mary.

Ricky knows that in 1845 his great-great-grandparents

were living close to the docks.

He's meeting historian John Belchem at The Casa, a docker's bar,

to see what else he can find out.

If you look at that 1851 census you will see that the family size

has been enhanced.

So just looking at this we've got William, and Mary,

and they've got four children up to now.

There's three more to come, so they have seven, in all.

Well, he wasn't too tired after work to enjoy a family life, was he?

Well, I mean, yes.

So they moved to 26 Hygeia Street. Where would that be?

Now, I've got a map here, Ricky,

which might give you some idea of it.

So having started off down by the docks, we're now over Everton Brow,

into suburban Liverpool.

Literally upwards, geographically and socioeconomically.

-They're doing OK. We're on the up there.

-You are indeed.

Why do you think they may have moved so far away from the docks,

considering his work would still be on the docks?

His work certainly would be there,

but I think the date is very significant.

1851. It's a very timely move by your ancestors,

because Liverpool had been drastically transformed

by the incredible influx of people from Ireland, fleeing the famine.

In 1845 the potato crop in Ireland failed,

bringing seven years of famine that decimated the Irish population.

One million people died, and over a million more left the country.

Tens of thousands of Irish people made Liverpool their new home.

How would the local population,

which I would imagine would be predominantly Protestant,

-how would they deal with it?

-In very, very harsh terms.

But they were very much stigmatised as being Irish Catholic,

and therefore different, and therefore a problem.

Have a look at this Liverpool Mail from the 1850s.

"We allude to the systematic importation of Irish

"for the sole purpose of begging.

"Last week 2,700 arrived, and on Sunday no fewer than 830.

"These people must live. If they do not beg they must steal.

"Work, they will not."

-Terrible.

-Indeed, yeah.

They were starving, looking for a better way of life, a job, and whatever. Where would they live?

They stayed close to the docks, which really become

overwhelmingly Irish and Catholic.

That would be one of the reasons that my family

would want to move out.

You have these clear areas of sectarian territory developing

in Liverpool in the 1840s.

This way it's Catholic, that way, Protestant.

So with these immigrants fleeing the famine,

what sort of jobs would they do?

-They wouldn't be carters, would they?

-They certainly wouldn't be carters,

but I'm not saying that absolutely every single one of the carters was Protestant,

but overwhelmingly they were English-born Protestants.

The Irish Catholics did the lower grade jobs and become dockers.

-Yeah.

-Have a look at this print, Ricky.

The quayside is absolutely jam-packed

with sailing ships, isn't it?

Liverpool as a dock flourishes, in part,

because of this ready supply of cheap labour.

So, William Tomlinson, my great-great grandfather, carter,

working on the docks, how would this influx of Irish cheap labour,

how would that affect him and his business?

I think, probably, very well in the end.

I mean, this is good times for the port.

And Liverpool is on its way to becoming the maritime metropolis

of the world. So the more the docks are flourishing,

the greater the need for carters.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know

that there must have been incredible wealth about at that time.

Made by the carters, the dockers,

but it was only for the few, wasn't it?

Yes, for the merchant princes who took great pride in living

in what they called the great second city of Empire.

In the 1850s Liverpool was booming.

Within a generation exports had more than doubled,

and imports of raw materials like timber, grain and cotton,

vital for Britain's industries, soared.

While profits for the city's merchants rocketed, wages,

hours and conditions for those working on the docks,

like William Tomlinson, remained unregulated.

All I know is roundabout this period that William was working,

he seemed to be in regular work, he was an established carter.

The docks and the trade coming in was amazing.

Lots and lots of money, lots and lots of commerce,

but I don't think it actually filtered down.

So I'd like to know what happened to William.

That's the next step in my journey.

Ricky has asked his friend, journalist Paddy Shennan,

to see if he can uncover anything about William in Liverpool's

newspaper archives.

Have you been able to find out anything at all about him for me?

I went through the newspapers.

Eventually I found something about William Tomlinson.

-Oh.

-A small piece here, if you'd like to read it.

September 1st 1859. Blinking heck!

"Fatality to a carter - William Tomlinson.

"The horse suddenly started forward,

"he was crushed between the cart wheel and a pile of staves."

-It's horrific!

-We have William dying, aged only 40.

In very similar circumstances to his own father.

-They were disposable, weren't they?

-Yeah.

-You know, probably,

the next morning there was someone

there on the dock taking his place, you know?

"He was taken to the Southern Hospital where it was found that

"his bowels were seriously injured, and he died the same night."

They've paid a heavy price, haven't they, the Tomlinsons?

God, I hope there's no more.

It's awful sad, don't you see?

-Heartbreaking, isn't it?

-Father and son.

"The poor widow said she had to go home from the hospital, leaving her

"injured husband to attend to her baby who was dying, also."

She's dashing home

-because she's got seven children, and one of them is dying.

-Yeah.

She must have been having a nervous breakdown.

"A verdict of accidentally killed was returned,

"and the jury complained that the surgeons of the Southern Hospital

"had, without any authority, opened the body of the deceased."

-Why have they opened him up?

-It's not explained.

It obviously, from what they...is being said there,

the jury has actually brought it up, that shouldn't have happened.

So he was definitely dead, definitely taken to the hospital,

-and someone took a decision - open him up.

-Yeah.

-What for?

-There was no need to do what they've done.

But there's got to be a reason. Was there any skulduggery?

It doesn't make sense. But, as far as the newspapers were concerned,

this was it. This was where it ended.

I want to know why. Why they opened him up.

To discover why a postmortem was performed on William,

Ricky is meeting an expert on Victorian medicine,

Dr John Baxter.

So, my great-great-grandfather, why, if he was dead,

why do you think they would want to open him up?

So, let's be clear that what they

did to William was completely illegal.

When you carry out a postmortem

it is generally to find out what happened,

but we know he was crushed to death,

so there was no need for them to go in to the body.

Something which shouldn't have happened, happened.

-Why? Why did they do it?

-This is an anatomy theatre of that era.

During the 1800's surgeons and anatomists were struggling to get

bodies to practise upon.

So in William's case they have taken the chance of a fit and healthy man,

who was quite strong, to go into his body, cut it up,

and see his internal organs in that very short time his wife was away.

I know you can't be sure, like, but in your opinion,

what would they have done to William's body?

Well, typical postmortem would have sliced open the chest cavity

and down through the intestines,

down to the bowels which were mentioned in the report.

They would then have removed the brain from the back of the head

and after that stuffed the organs back in, or even removed some.

So Mary, my great-great-grandmother,

she must have made some sort of formal complaint, mustn't she?

There must have been a complaint.

My research shows that it was Mary who did make the complaint.

And the jury and the coroner agreed

with Mary that there'd been some malpractice going on.

I feel a little bit better that she's had the courage and the

strength to make this objection.

She was brave enough to stand up about the condition that

her husband's body was in.

It wouldn't have looked very pretty at all.

So what would have happened to William's body?

So this is the burial records here. Look at the bottom line, here.

"September the 4th, William Tomlinson."

All of them people are buried on September the 4th.

And they're all buried in lane 14. What exactly does that mean?

What you're pointing out there is the layer number. Layer number 14.

What you have here is William buried in a pauper's grave,

alongside other people, other poor people. On the same day.

So there'd have been no headstone, no marker, no nothing.

No headstone, no marker, no. They'd have been tightly packed together.

That's basically how William, sadly, ended up.

It's very, very sad.

So Mary went home because she had a very, very sick child.

Do we know what happened to the baby?

We'll look at this document just here.

"Certified copy of an entry of death.

"The 20th of September, 1859.

"George Tomlinson, male, two years of age.

"Son of William the carter."

-Died of diarrhoea.

-Yeah.

-God, bless.

How can you get upset about something that

happened nearly 150 years ago?

But I am. I'm so angry.

They're getting buried in a pauper's grave, with no dignity,

with nothing, yet Liverpool is booming.

It's absolutely booming.

There's loads and loads of money for the few.

Maybe this is why I have this...

..the politics that I've got. I don't know.

But, I mean, that's absolutely scandalous.

I'm thinking about Mary. Her world's collapsed.

She's lost her husband, she's lost her little lad...

..and she's got them other six kids in the house.

30-odd years of age.

No income. No support.

No nothing. What's going to happen to her now?

Land of Hope and Glory, my arse!

'I could never forgive them people

'who treated my family and my people,'

my Liverpool people, the way they did.

I'll never forgive them.

I feel really, really bitter for the position that...

..Mary's found herself in.

And that's why I've got to go on. That's why I've got to find out what

happened to her, and what happened to the rest of the kids, and...

the sooner I find out, the sooner I can be at ease with myself.

-Do you want a cup of tea now?

-Yes.

-Or do you want to wait?

-No, I'll have it now.

-Now. OK.

Back home Ricky is trying to find out what happened next to his

great-great-grandmother, Mary,

and her children with the help of his wife, Rita.

-What's the matter?

-I'm not sure how I get into this.

You need to master this.

At my age, I'm not bothering now!

I know, but you know, still, I'm not here all the time, am I?

-It's not just about this...

-I won't be using it all the time.

There you go. What are you looking for?

I want to find out what happened to Mary, and what happened to the kids.

Where they went, where did they end up?

Did they go in the workhouse or the poor house, call it what you will?

-OK.

-So how do we do that now?

-We need to look at the census, don't we?

-I think he died in 1859.

-She was still alive then, wasn't she?

-Yeah.

Well, let's go to the 1861 census then.

Let's put her name in.

Mary Tomlinson.

-Lived in?

-Liverpool.

Give me a child that would have been alive at that time.

Richard was the name of my great-grandad.

I think I'm doing this right, I'm not sure.

-There she is.

-That's the one.

-She'd have been 35 in 1861.

-Yeah.

-Are they her kids then?

-One, two, three, four, five, six...

Yeah. Her and six kids.

Elizabeth, her eldest, is 15.

Then we've got Richard, who is my great-grandad, he's 14.

-William, Catherine, Thomas and Mary is six.

-Yeah.

-Richard was an errand boy.

-Yeah.

-He wouldn't be earning much.

-How is Mary keeping them all together?

-I don't know.

How is she making it pay?

I think that says Dryden Street.

-Municipal ward of...

-Scotland.

Scotland Ward, wouldn't it?

That would have to be towards the dock area.

"13 Stewart's Building."

They didn't live there before. They'd moved up to the Everton area,

which was further away from the dock.

But it was a slightly, slightly better area.

Hang on. Look at this.

-That's 13, where Mary is.

-Yeah.

I think there was another family living there.

Charley Hackett.

A dock labourer. Doesn't that say lodger?

-Yeah.

-With his wife.

-She's obviously took them in.

-Maybe.

There's her and the six kids, that's seven.

Hackett and his wife, eight, nine.

And two kids - 11 of them!

Blinking heck!

There'd be no chance of them paying the bedroom tax, would there?

Bloody hell! 11 of them in the one house.

They'd have been on a rebate.

I need to find out whether she does well for herself,

whether she marries again.

She must have been an amazing woman.

I'll be looking for you, Mary. I'm coming looking for you.

Stuart's Buildings, where Mary lived in 1861, have been demolished.

So Ricky and Liverpool Museum curator Dr Liz Stewart,

-are heading to see a similar building nearby.

-So, just here.

How would you describe this? Is it a tenement?

This is the last surviving example of court and cellar dwellings.

Very famous in Liverpool in the 19th century.

So we have an alleyway leading into a courtyard

which would be shared by a number of families,

living in these small back-to-back houses.

So no back-yards, no back windows.

Just a door, and a window, to the front of the house.

The houses must have been pitch-black.

-Honestly, they must have been like moles, mustn't they?

-Yeah.

This photograph shows court housing, it dates to about 1900,

but conditions wouldn't have changed significantly from the 1860s.

This could be where we're standing now, actually, couldn't it?

No play area for the kids. All sorts of filth over the floor there.

Shocking.

I assume that they would be the toilets.

Well, this isn't the original block of toilets.

So in Stuart Buildings, where your great-great-grandmother lived,

there were 16 houses, eight down each side,

probably two privies at the end of the courtyard.

-So you're talking about 60 people per toilet.

-Yeah.

-I've got four toilets in my one house!

-Exactly.

-Crazy.

It must have been horrendous, mustn't it?

This document from the 1860s, the borough engineer,

describes the toilet conditions.

"The passage is generally terminated by the privy, and ash pit,

"common to all the wretched dwellings.

"With its liquid filth oozing through their walls

"even when the middens have been filled, so as to overflow the court,

"no-one cared to take responsibility."

That's terrible.

They must have been walking in human dirt, mustn't they?

I find it distressing to know that my great-great-grandmother

Mary lived in conditions like this.

Liverpool's commercial success lured more and more people to the city.

By 1861 the population had reached almost half a million.

A 25% increase in a decade.

More than a fifth of the population were living in overcrowded

court and cellar dwellings, like Mary and her children.

God bless us!

Oh, my goodness me.

-Pretty grim, isn't it?

-It is, isn't it?

Very, very small space. If you think of the house with 11 people in it.

You've got a shared living room,

probably on the ground floor, and then these two bedrooms above.

-Dickensian, isn't it?

-This is the garret.

Perhaps she rented out the better room to be sure of having lodgers,

so it could be that all seven of

them were sleeping in a room like this.

She's definitely on a downward spiral coming here, isn't she?

She would have felt quite a difference between Everton

and Dryden Street. You've got the 1847 Ordnance Survey map,

-so we've got Dryden Street here.

-Yeah.

-Just off Scotland Road.

-The Irish Catholic area.

Yes, she's living amongst Catholics, as a Protestant,

in a very densely built-up area.

So we can see Stuart Buildings, this very long, narrow court,

so many houses crammed into that space.

-It's a ghetto, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-I wonder how she was living.

There was no sort of hand-outs in them days, was there?

In situations where you have a widow, not earning an income,

there was the outdoor relief, but there were very strict, sort of,

moral conditions for people to be able to claim that.

Outdoor relief was financial assistance the parish provided

to help keep some of its poorest inhabitants out of the workhouse.

Widows like Mary were closely watched to check they sent their

children to school, didn't drink alcohol and remained chaste.

The young ones are listed on the census as scholars,

but she couldn't really afford to lose the income of the older ones by

trying to send them to school.

A couple of them were seamstresses,

and a couple of the lads were errand boys.

They'd be bringing in, well, maybe two shillings a week,

amongst the three of them.

So gathering the money for the rent, which might be around three or four

shillings a week, would be very difficult for her.

They were grafters though, weren't they? They were workers, you know.

So Mary obviously is very, very proud.

She's managed to keep this family, with six children,

out of the workhouse and hold the family together

in very difficult circumstances.

God knows how long the family had to

live in conditions like this, you know.

Well, we've looked in the 1871 census,

and we don't see her in Liverpool at all.

Oh! So we don't know what's happened to her really then, do we?

We don't know where she's gone.

Where do I go from here? Where do I go? Where do I go? Where do I look?

Well, it's possible that she's died.

Likely with the conditions they've been living in.

Well, this is one part of the journey I haven't liked.

I'm really sad to find out that Mary ended up here with her kids.

It must have been horrific.

The state of the toilets,

no light, candlelight.

Damp.

Damp of a morning, getting up. Damp of a night going to bed.

Pretty grim.

I'm going to plod on. I'm going to find out what happened to her,

'and I just hope that her fortunes take a turn for the better.'

The last record Ricky can find shows that in 1861 all the Tomlinsons were

still together.

The older children were working, and the youngest two,

Thomas and Mary Ann, were attending school.

He is hoping the Liverpool Archives might hold some information

on what happened to the family next. And why Mary vanishes.

I've lived here practically all my life, I've never been in this room.

-Isn't it gorgeous?

-It's absolutely fantastic.

-This lovely dome.

-Look at that.

It's like going back in time, isn't it?

Can you hear the echo?

That's why you've got to be quiet in the library.

I'm looking to try and find out what happened to my

great-great-grandmother.

There's no mention of her in the 1871 census.

Well, the obvious place to look is in the workhouse records.

And we haven't found Mary in the workhouse records at all.

But I've got something for you to look at.

"Kirkdale Industrial Schools." What is an industrial school?

The idea, underpinning the industrial school,

is that you train kids of the poor to be useful citizens.

Boys, typically, are trained to be carpenters,

girls are trained to be domestic servants.

-Cheap labour, I'm afraid. I'm very cynical.

-Cheap labour, yeah.

Yeah, Mary Ann Tomlinson, 1855.

-So this is the daughter of Mary.

-This is Mary Ann.

When was Mary Ann admitted?

If we look in the admissions column.

1862. How old would she be there then?

Seven.

Blinking Heck!

"Deserted by mother."

How could she be deserted by her mother?

This phrase, deserted by mother, suggests that Mary is alive.

It's unlikely that Mary would have chosen to put her kids in here,

if we look at the boys register we find Thomas,

who's two years older than Mary Ann.

So what we must assume at this stage is that she's in so...

such a dire state of poverty

and need that the only way for her kids to survive

is to admit them to the industrial school.

Do we know what life would be like for them kids?

Their daily, sort of, lives, here?

Pretty harsh.

You might be interested in reading the report of a poor law inspector

who came to Kirkdale in 1866.

"I am unable to report that the school is any satisfactory state.

"Some of the bedsteads are constructed to hold three children,

"the close, disagreeable and unwholesome atmosphere

"of some of the sleeping wards is aggravated by wet beds.

"These beds are not removed and changed daily, as they should be."

So these kids are sleeping in each other's urine.

Good God! I don't know.

And was there no sign of their mum ever again?

-Have we got no sign?

-We've no signs of her at all in the 1860s.

But if we look at the register for births, marriages and deaths.

-This is 1871.

-This is 1871.

She's got married again? Get out of it!

Aged 44. Married a John McFee.

Unbelievable.

Now that we know her married name is there anything else we can find out about her?

So let's have a look in the census, the 1871,

and see if we can find her.

-Mary McFee, yeah.

-And there she is.

-Yeah.

According to this she's...she's had another three children.

John, James and William.

They'll be half-brothers to the rest of the Tomlinsons.

-That's ten kids she's had. Isn't it?

-It is.

-That's a second family.

-According to this the oldest child there is nine.

Which means it must have been born in...

..1862.

That's the date that the kids get admitted to the industrial school.

Oh, yeah. She was obviously pregnant.

And this probably explains Mary's dilemma.

So Mary, as a widow, was in an abyss of poverty.

She was getting some relief from the parish,

one of her options would be to find a new breadwinner,

a new dad for the kids.

She seems to have done this, big risk...

-But he wouldn't take the kids on.

-She's pregnant. She's not married.

So this is an illegitimate child,

and the poor law is nothing if not moral.

They would have withdrawn her relief at the minute they realised she was pregnant.

Oh, I've got you. I've got you, yeah.

Mary has been left utterly destitute...

..with no choice but to put her two youngest children into the industrial school.

They've gone into the workhouse, and she's had a whole new family.

He only marries Mary once they leave the poor house,

and they can earn their own living.

-It speaks volumes about him, doesn't it?

-It does.

It makes me very, very angry to realise the way she's ended up, through no fault of her own.

This guy she's married, in my opinion,

-to use a Liverpool expression is a bit of a

-BLEEP.

Very sad, isn't it?

The family, as far as we can see from these documents, has broken up.

Have you any idea what happened to my great-grandfather, Richard?

If we look further in births, deaths and marriages, on the register,

I think you might be interested to see this.

-This is 1884.

-1884.

So Richard Tomlinson, who is now 32,

he's marrying a girl called Sarah Ellen Lavery, my great-grandmother.

-Your great-grandmother.

-Richard's occupation - he's now a carter.

Look at the witnesses.

William McFee. It's his half brother.

And actually, later on, we find

another half sibling living with Mary Ann.

-Oh, good.

-We thought the family had fallen apart.

-Yeah.

And yet what this shows is that they're obviously still in touch.

My great-great-grandmother's managed to keep the family together somehow,

by hook or by crook.

I think we must conclude that Mary is an extraordinary woman.

But, sadly, the same year Richard gets married Mary died of a stroke.

What a life. What a life.

'I feel quite saddened to know the way the majority of my ancestors seem to have lived.'

They were toilers, grafters, labourers, call them what you will.

Carters and whatever.

And yet they had such a pitiful life.

Now, I've got to finish this journey.

'My great-grandad, Richard, did he fare any better?

'Did the city treat him any better? Did conditions get any better?

'That's what I want to know.'

Ricky knows that his great-great-great-grandfather

Richard and his great-great-grandfather William

were both killed in carting accidents.

By 1884 his great-grandad, also called Richard,

was working in the same risky profession.

Ricky is meeting historian

Sam Davies to see if conditions improved

for Liverpool carters like Richard.

The last bit of information I've got

is that they got married in the 1880s.

Well, 1880s, you know, was an important period

in Liverpool's development.

This is from the Illustrated London News in 1886,

which tells you something about the city at that point.

"Liverpool: Port, docks and city.

"Thanks to modern science and commercial enterprise,

"has become a wonder of the world, it is the New York of Europe.

"No town in England shows greater signs of activity," - fair enough -

"in the distribution of wealth."

They didn't distribute it very, very far from what I found out.

Liverpool had the highest portion of millionaires per head of population

of any town in England, outside of London.

-Go away!

-And yet it also had some of the worst housing,

worst working conditions, there was an enormous disparity.

In the 1880s Britain was a global manufacturing powerhouse.

Its factories producing nearly a quarter of the world's goods.

But there was growing discontent among the working classes.

And for the first time so-called unskilled workers,

like waterfront labourers,

began to form unions to fight for better conditions.

This is an extract from the Liverpool Review, 1890.

"The Carters' New Union.

"Until a few weeks ago the carters were all sixes and sevens,

"but now the prospect is changed,

"and the carters are going to obtain many reasonable reforms,

"or some of the masters will have a bad quarter of an hour."

I like the irony of that.

-The bosses will have a bad quarter of an hour.

-Yeah, yeah.

-God bless!

I'm a union man, as you know.

And I have been for many, many years.

And I'm just wondering do you think my great-grandfather, Richard,

may have been involved in the union in that day and age?

Well, we don't have any records, so we can't be absolutely certain,

but I think it's very likely that your great-grandfather,

being a regular carter, he'd have been in the union.

By the early 1900s most of

Liverpool's waterfront workers were unionised.

But the dockers, seafarers and carters all joined separate unions.

And they were divided on more than just trade lines.

Carters, in particular, were a sort of, slightly,

a cut above the dockers and the seafarers.

Slightly better paid. Slightly better off.

But especially important was the carters' union was

very specifically seen as a Protestant union.

And the dock workers would be predominantly Catholic?

To a great extent, yeah, absolutely.

It's a class division once again, isn't it?

A class division this time based on religion.

Would there be any animosity between the Protestants and Catholics?

Oh, yes. Absolutely. In fact, sectarian issues become significant.

And you do get an increase in incidents, riots,

attacks and so on associated with Catholics or Protestants,

culminating, really, in a major outbreak of sectarian rioting.

It's hard to visualise, isn't it?

The hostility and the division that went on.

Would my family, being Protestant,

be affected by this trouble that was going on at the time?

I think it was unavoidable for them. Have a look at the 1911 census.

Here is your family, at that point.

This is my great-grandad,

Richard Tomlinson, he's the head of the family.

And then we've got Richard, so that would be my grandad Tommo,

he's aged 24, and he's single. General carter...

-Elias Street, now where was that?

-Well, we've got a map here,

which shows the city in the early part of the 20th century.

So Elias Street is just down here.

-Elias Street.

-It's just off Great Homer Street, there.

That's the traditional boundary between Catholics and Protestants.

They live just on the Protestant side.

All the riots started with marches taking place on Great Homer Street.

They would have been right on their doorstep where they were living.

Right in the firing line, really.

It would be very difficult to grow up in that sort of environment

without being affected by it in some way.

From what you know of your family, and what you remember,

were any of them bigoted in any way?

No, my grandad Tommo wasn't, I can never remember him being, sort of,

in any way bigoted at all.

Maybe he had more sense than we give him credit for.

He just wasn't involved.

Ricky's updating Rita on what he's recently found out.

The carters actually organised themselves,

and I'm delighted to say that my grandad was probably one of them

that was a member of the carters' union.

So your ancestors must be like you then?

-Yeah, obviously.

-Firebrands and want justice for everyone.

Stuff like that. It must be in the genes.

It must be. But at that time there

was a divide in the working class in Liverpool.

-In what way?

-Religious. A religious divide.

Although the little bit I know of my

grandad, he had nothing to do with it.

He wasn't a bigot in any way, shape or form.

But the boundary was sort of Great Homer Street.

One side was the Catholics, towards the docks,

and the other side was the Protestants, up towards Everton.

That's why all your lot were up with the Orange Lodge,

-and us lot were down...

-Yeah, amongst the

-BLEEP!

-Yeah.

-I saved you from all that.

-Sod off! Calm down.

But it does fire me up. I mean, you and me sitting here now,

you're a Catholic, I'm a Protestant.

-Yeah.

-That, that, you know, 100 years ago,

that would have been practically impossible.

So something must have happened to unite them,

despite their religious beliefs?

Because it's not like that now,

it hasn't been like that for many years.

There was obviously a sea change, wasn't there, at some time?

Something must have happened.

Ricky is meeting social historian Mark O'Brien.

My grandad and my great-grandad were carters, but as you will know,

at the time there was a religious divide.

Oh, the working class in Liverpool was terribly divided before 1911.

But that starts to change, particularly with the arrival of one

person called Tom Mann.

The founder of the National Transport Federation.

-Oh, yeah.

-Here he is inspiring workers.

Would my grandad have had a chance to listen to him?

Oh, no question. He was close to the carters.

He was absolutely involved with their union.

His message to Liverpool workers is to unite,

to make class a type of identity

which was different from being a Catholic or being a Protestant.

-You're a worker. A worker, first and foremost.

-Yeah.

In August 1911 Thomas Mann called for all workers,

Protestant and Catholic, carters and dockers,

to walk out in solidarity with striking railway workers.

For the first time in Liverpool's history

they put aside their religious differences and united.

So that's here, that's where we're standing now.

-Yes.

-That's wonderful, that, isn't it?

I'm made up to see they're like that.

Instead of in rags and whatever.

It shows that they still had pride and dignity within themselves.

I just wish I was amongst it, but I hope, probably,

my grandad would probably be amongst that crowd there, being a carter.

The carters' union was absolutely central to all of this.

Your grandfather, and possibly even your great-grandfather

would almost certainly have been in that crowd, Ricky.

I'm very proud, and I'd like to think they were there, yeah.

How many thousands do you reckon was there?

Reports from The Times say 100,000. It was an extraordinary moment.

And the whole of the Liverpool working class were together for the

first time, displaying solidarity.

So they've kept on going, haven't they?

They keep getting knocked down, but they're like a rubber ball, they bounce back.

That's why I'm so proud, you know, being a Scouser.

I'd be part of that crowd.

Agitating for a better living for everybody, you know?

-Tremendous.

-I can imagine that.

-What followed that?

-There was panic in the establishment,

they were worried about law and order,

they were worried also about revolution.

The Home Secretary, Winston Churchill,

feared the strikes which were bringing Liverpool to a standstill

might spread across the country and cripple Britain's economy.

He ordered 2,000 troops onto the city's streets, and sent a gunboat,

the HMS Antrim, to the Mersey.

The city goes into meltdown.

The most extreme events took place around Great Homer Street.

I don't know if you know

-Great Homer Street.

-Yeah, that's where my family were from.

There was a regiment of hussars, and there were workers there protesting.

The hussars raised their rifles and

minutes later two workers had been shot dead.

Get out of it!

One was a carter, one was a docker.

At the funeral procession some days later

hundreds of workers turned out to mourn and show solidarity.

They didn't see them as Protestant or Catholic,

they saw them as workers who'd fallen.

That was a breakdown of the bigotry then, wasn't it?

Well, I'm made up in a way, because my grandad,

he would have been out there listening to that,

and I think he had the sense and the foresight to say, "Forget that,

"forget the religion.

"Practice your religion if you want to,

"but don't use it as a weapon against anyone else."

I'm proud to think that my grandad, my grandad Tommo as we called him,

he would have learned so much from that.

And any bigotry that may have been around at the time within him, gone.

Disappeared.

'It's been an incredible journey. I've laughed and I've cried.

'I've been angry, I've been upset.

'But it's really nice to be here, while it's so peaceful and quiet.'

The waterfront now is wonderful.

People come from all over the world to see it.

But it wasn't like that in the days of my ancestors.

They were grafters. They were carters.

They worked on the docks day in, day out.

And they passed the trade down to their sons.

And even though they were classed as the lowest of the low,

they started forming unions, they got rid of that religious divide.

And the women made something out of nothing.

They had hardship most of their lives, but they carried on going.

They reared their children, they try to make things

better for their children.

So I'm just, I'm just so proud of them all.

They made Liverpool what it is.

'I love the city, and I love the people.

'I don't want to live anywhere else.'