Great Western

Hello,

I’m researching a peculiar event that occurred in Liverpool in November 1864. Newspapers report that a large number of ‘glassblowers’ travelled from Dublin, Lonodn and Ashton to LIverpool, having been recruited to work in New York. A ship called the ‘Great Western’ was waiting but before all men had boarded some angry relatives complained to the police and the ship was deneid permission to sail. There is a strong suggestion that the men were being tricked into providing labour, or perhaps military service, for the Northern States which was at that time fighting the American civil war.  Certainly, the man who procured the workers was residing at the address of the radical John Baxter Langley who had shortly before been involved in preventing a Confederate blockade runner sailing from Newcastle…

Anyone know what was going on?

Dave George