During its first 400 years, apart from plague and civil war the population of of Liverpool remained around 1,000 people living in cottages made with wood clay and bricks. People had very few possessions, even the merchants; we know this through what was bequeathed in wills.
William Secum a merchant of Haberdashery, spices, stationary and dyes, left playing tables, two pictures, a looking glass, £9 worth of silver.
Richard More, one of the wealthiest people in the town listed: a wardrobe valued at ¬£15, a stuff gown, four pairs of breeches, two doublets, two jerkins, a cloak, a horseman’Äôs coat, a pair of silk stockings, three shirts, two hats, a coarse waistcoat, two pairs of boots, a pair of shoes, a pair of garters and a sword.
This seems very little by today’Äôs standards and most would have been made locally or passed down from other family members.
Edward Marsh and James Whitefield are Liverpool folk heroes. Very little is known of Marsh and Whitefield, they may have worked for the deputy mayor, John Sturzaker, who instructed them to pull the bridge down. They did not attend council meetings so they were of no particular standing within the town. They were probably commoners living in a one or two roomed hut with their family, owned one set of clothes, a mug, a knife and a plate. As commoners they had an extraordinary effect on Liverpool’Äôs development bringing the common rights and rightful income back into the town’Äôs control.