Liverpool Blitz

T Roger S Wilson introduces a first-hand account of the destruction of Hunter Street Meeting House in Liverpool in the ‘May Blitz’ of 1941

by T Roger S Wilson 12th August 2016

The night that the old Liverpool Meeting House was blitzed Gordon Henderson was a young member of Liverpool Meeting.

The old Hunter Street Meeting House, which dated from 1791, had become surrounded by run-down property. Some years earlier Liverpool Council had indicated that they intended to acquire the Meeting house by compulsory purchase and clear the area. Friends negotiated with the council, and by 1941 a new Meeting house was almost complete on the other side of Hunter Street. About 100 yards away, at 97 Islington, there was another Quaker building called the Institute. This was used for adult education and for relief work during the war. Rebecca Castree had been for many years the caretaker of the ‘old’ Meeting house.