ABSTRACT
The method employed by John Foster in Liverpool before 1824 was simply to use a confusing blend of direct labour and multiple small contractors; the Audit Commissioners eventually gave up trying to find out exactly how much the construction of Princes Dock had cost. James Cropper appears to have acted as a man of blameless Quaker virtue in exposing the scams John Foster was operating at Princes Dock, as well as some of which George Stephenson was suspected on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The construction and administration of the Liverpool docks undoubtedly involved a certain amount of corrupt activity at times. Scandal is normally the tool for purging the guilt of corruption, a vicarious corporate visit to the confessional which may be embarrassing at the time, but wipes the slate clean. Therefore corruption in which scandal is avoided is the worst and most pernicious form.
