The first Jewish settlers in Liverpool were a handful of immigrant hawkers, probably of German origin, who in the mid-18th century exchanged their packs for small shops in the area of the Custom House. The exact date of their arrival is uncertain, but they were well-established by 1756, when John Wesley spoke of the tolerance of the townspeople towards the Jews 'who live among them'. By this time they had established a small place of worship in Cumberland Street (roughly on the site of the present head Post Office), with a burial ground behind. The settled Jewish population was minuscule, however, and it was often necessary to scour the lodging houses of the Wirral for Jewish pedlars to make up a minyan.
As Liverpool expanded as a port of international standing in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, further Jewish immigrants were attracted to the town, some from Germany and Holland, many from other parts of Britain, as the centre of gravity of the Anglo-Jewish population shifted from the market towns and ports of the South to the new industrial and commercial centres of the Midlands and the North. Liverpool's Jewish population increased from perhaps 100 in 1789 to over 400 in 1810 and nearly 1,000 by 1825. Most of the newcomers were shopkeepers, dealing chiefly in jewellery, clothing and ships' stores, but a few developed an early interest in banking and the overseas trade. An assured communal elite headed by the Samuel, Yates, Montagu, Mozley and Joseph families forged strong links with the upper and middle ranks of the wider society, participating in the administration of the borough, helping in 1798 to found Liverpool's leading cultural organisation, the Athenaeum, and in other ways identifying closely with the prospering commercial and professional middle-class. Troughton, writing in 1810, spoke of the 'taste and opulence' of Liverpool's Jewish inhabitants, although there was also a substantial lower order of pedlars and petty shopkeepers struggling for survival.
Communal institutions kept pace with this increasing population and developing confidence. More spacious synagogal accommodation was rented, first in Turton Court, near the Custom House in 1775, then in 1789 at 133 Upper Frederick Street, in a house capable of holding 70 worshippers. Finally, in 1807 Henry Samuel laid the foundation stone of the community's first purpose-built place of worship in Seel Street, with seating for 169 male and 121 female worshippers. Designed by a well-known local architect, Thomas Harrison of Chester, and fronted with an elegant facade of Ionic columns, the Seel Street Synagogue was a clear symbol of the community's growing stature and acceptance. Soon after its formal consecration in 1808 it became the first synagogue in the provinces in which sermons were delivered regularly in the English language.
The first Jewish charity in the provinces was the Liverpool Hebrew Philanthropic Society, founded by Moses Samuel in 1811. Aiming to 'afford relief to poor inhabitants ... of the Jewish persuasion during the inclement season of winter', the society provided small weekly allowances to widows, orphans, the aged and the infirm between New year and Passover. It was used to develop yet another link with middle-class Liverpool, leading civic dignitaries being invited to its lavish annual anniversary dinners.
In Liverpool, as elsewhere in the English provinces, continuing expansion and social diversification led to synagogal division and dispute. In particular, newcomers, resenting the monopoly of the power exercised by the older-established members, sought to give the synagogue a more democratic structure, arguing that the constitutions of synagogues should reflect the growth of democracy in the country at large. This was the argument that Barnett Lyon Joseph put to the Seel Street seatholders in 1838. When the privileged members rejected it, Joseph led a rebellion of seatholders, which set up a rival 'New Hebrew Congregation' in Hanover Street. Periodic discussion between the two places of worship failed to achieve a reunion and in 1857 the secessionists built a permanent rival synagogue in Hope Place. The split was political and social rather than religious. Unlike neighbouring Manchester, Liverpool did not produce a Reform movement in these early years, perhaps because no member of the Jewish elite felt that the acceptance of the community depended on a 'modernisation' of its forms of service.
The community remained united, too, in the development of its educational and charitable institutions. In particular, as the battle for the Jewish Emancipation gathered pace during the l830s, the community sought a means of 'anglicising' its poorer and more foreign members and rendering them 'respectable and useful' members of Liverpool society. It was these considerations which led in July 1841 to the establishment of the 'Liverpool Hebrew Educational Institution' to provide ten Jewish boys with religious instruction and 'a sound practical education'. In 1852, when it was attended by around 120 pupils, the school was moved to a larger site in Hope-Place, adjoining the New Synagogue, where it was to remain for over a century. An Infants Department was added at the expense of the local merchant, Abraham Hoffnung, in 1873, by which time the school was attended by 300 boys and girls. A Clothing Society (1866) and a Soup Fund (1870) ensured that they were suitably clothed and adequately fed.
In the field of charity, model institutions created by the most coherent and best-organised community in the provinces included a Jewish Ladies Benevolent Society (1849) 'for the relief of poor married women during sickness, confinement and the week of mourning', a Liverpool Hebrew Provident Society (1850), which offered weekly allowances to those in more desperate need, a Society for Visiting and Aiding the Sick, and a Hebrew Free Loan Society (1861), which enabled poorer immigrants, many of them former hawkers, to obtain small, interest free loans to set themselves up in more stable trades. A Liverpool Jewish Choral Society, set up in 1871 to provide the New Synagogue with a trained choir, also staged amateur 'entertainments' in aid of the community's charities. In May 1876 communal philanthropy was given the kind of efficiency then favoured in the wider society by the foundation of the Liverpool Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor, which offered financial support to those deemed, after thorough investigation, to be 'deserving', while taking steps to discourage the settlement in Liverpool of 'casual beggars' and the permanent dependence of the resident poor on communal charity. An apprenticeship scheme devised by the Board was a further incentive to the poor to seek secure means of permanent self-support.
The community's 'progressive' image further enhanced its repute in the town. In 1863 Charles Mozley, then president of the Hebrew Educational Institution, became Liverpool's first Jewish Mayor.
A high point of these early developments was the building in Liverpool of one of the most imposing and beautiful synagogues in Anglo-Jewry. A special committee of communal leaders set up in 1870 to bring new synagogues into being included Edwin Samuel, Baron Benas, George Yates and David Lewis, founder of the clothes shop which was to evolve into one of Britain's first departmental stores. The committee acquired a site on Princes Road from the Earl of Sefton and the foundation stone of the building was laid in December 1872. On 29 August 1874 the final Sabbath Service was held at Seel Street and on 3 September the Princes Road Synagogue was consecrated by the Chief Rabbi, Dr. Nathan Adler, to the accompaniment of the new Jewish Choral Society. Far and away the most ornate synagogue in the English provinces, Princes Road symbolised the assurance of a community then numbering some 3,000 people
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