Parliamentary debate in the House of Commons on the impact which the large number of Irish pauper immigrants had on the city of Liverpool. Hansard Parliamentary Debates, xcii (dated, 7 May 1847), cc. 424–7

SIR B. Hall ¹ wished to ask a question of the Home Secretary on the subject of the vast influx of Irish paupers into Liverpool, which had been represented in a petition to that House from the select vestry of Liverpool, from which petition he would read the statement of facts:- “ That, by official returns, the number who have come into the port from Ireland since the 1st of January is 150,750; that of these only 48,186 have emigrated, leaving 102,564 who are either wandering about the Town of Liverpool and the neighbouring villages, or spreading, as mendicants, throughout the whole Kingdom. That, in addition to these numbers, officially returned, your petitioners believe that 27,218 have arrived since the 1st of December, to which must be added the multitudes who have come into Glasgow and the seaports of Wales. That 250 persons have recently been sent over to Liverpool by the mayor of Wexford, the cost of whose passage was defrayed by a public subscription raised by the inhabitants of Wexford, and 130 of whom immediately became chargeable, and demanded and received parochial relief; and that your petitioners are informed by authority, that such proceeding on the part of the mayor and inhabitants of Wexford was not contrary to any known law, and that the only redress your petitioners have is one which they would be reluctant to have recourse to – the removal of these poor persons under the provisions of the Act 8 and 9 Victoria, col.17, which Act, moreover, from its complicated and expensive process, is found ineffective, and the local magistrates have not deemed it expedient to attempt to put it in force. That the number of immigrants has increased, is increasing, and, so far from diminishing, will, as your petitioners confidently believe, and as they were warned would be the case, increase more rapidly as the weather improves, and the facilities of travelling become greater, more especially 200as it appears that the wealthy inhabitants of Ireland may subscribe to send destitute persons over to England for relief without committing a breach of any law. That this immigration is a great and heavy burden upon the ratepayers of the parish of Liverpool, but that the pecuniary burden is comparatively trifling, and the least of the evils of which they have to complain. That some of the immigrants come