ABSTRACT
THERE is an old Liverpudlian joke to the effect that Merseyside has the two best football teams in the country, Liverpool and Liverpool Reserves, and there is at least a prima facie case for suggesting that in the 1850s Liverpool had the two best dock engineers, Jesse Hartley and his son. But times were changing: in 1857 the old Liverpool Dock Trustees (who were effectively the Common Council wearing different hats) were dispossessed of their docks and replaced by a new nonprofit-making statutory body, the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. It was confidently expected that this new body, whose constitution promised to solve all the ills which had been so vehemently voiced,t would build yet greater success on the achievements of what had arguably been the most successful and dynamic port authority in the world.
