Allerton and South Liverpool is the city’s suburban heartland, offering a refreshing alternative to the city centre. It is an area of history, and it comprises of many beautiful parks, vibrant high streets, with shops, restaurants, bars and libraries. It has a number of public transport links including buses and trains and the John Lennon Airport as quickly accessible as is the M62 motorway. But why all this talk of Allerton and South Liverpool.
Allerton and surrounding areas have a close connection to the Beatles. Penny Lane, John Lennon’s home “Mendips” Menlove Avenue, Strawberry Field, we could mention so many more, but the other important connection is the former home of the McCartney family at number twenty, Forthlin Road.
Sir Lancelot Keay, an architect who was notable for being appointed as the “Director of Housing” in Liverpool was responsible for creating the housing estate at Speke and the social housing at Allerton and for in fact the creation of the houses in Forthlin Road. Forthlin Road was part of the Mather housing estate, and it was constructed by the Liverpool Council. These estates were built in order to provide working class families with alternative housing to the inner-city tenements. The houses on Forthlin Road were constructed between 1949-1952. McCartney’s house was a two-storey mid terraced house and was built by Costain’s for the sum of £1369.9s.1d and the land that the Mather estate was built on was bought from the Police Training College. Today if you look out of Paul and Mike’s bedroom window your view is clearly of the Merseyside Police Mounted Section, Operational Support Unit based at Greenhill Road Allerton. A good friend of mine Peter Hodgson found footage from a film on You Tube which captured the boys on top of the roof watching an event on the 22nd of June 1957. The footage was converted into a still photo and Mike McCartney featured it in his book “Mike McCartney’s Early Liverpool” and this is what Mike had to say about it. “It was the police training college, horse show. Tickets were a fortune, so us McCartney boys would climb onto the shed roof each year with our deck chairs, so we could see it for free”. In the photo you see the white shirts of the boys sitting on the outhouse roof of the third terraced house from the right, and that was Paul and Mike. Peter recently set about an experiment to set the time the photo was taken by using the sun shadow on the wall of the last house. Peter discovered that the time the photo was captured would have been (take a minute or two) at 5 pm. Peter’s next discovery was that at 5 pm on the very same day, the 22nd of June 1957 Lennon was playing with the Quarrymen on the back of a coal lorry at Rosebery Street and they were the star attraction. Fourteen days later history was made when John met Paul at the Woolton Village Fete on the 6th of July 1957. These are the fascinating coincidences that amaze us Beatles historians and I have to remark on how good my friend Peter is at finding them. It was in fact Philip Kirkland that brought the connection of the Quarrymen at Rosebery St playing at the same time as Paul watching the event from his shed roof.
In the year of 1955 a family moved from 12 Ardwick Road in the Speke area to 20 Forthlin Road and they were James “Jim” and Mary Patricia McCartney and their two boys James Paul and Peter Michael, who at the time of the move were aged thirteen and eleven respectively. After they took up residence at 20 Forthlin Road the McCartney’s, would have been totally unaware of how the move would change their lives and those of the other residents in a very short time and Forthlin Road would be given status on the world map. At least a thousand books written by Beatles historians about the lives of the Beatles including their childhood homes flood the bookseller’s shelves and thousands of websites tell the story of the McCartneys living at 20 Forthlin Road including the National Trust who have owned the property since 1995.
In 1964 Paul McCartney decided it was time for his father Jim McCartney to move to a new home across the water from Forthlin Road and so Jim took up residence at a large house called “Rembrandt” Baskervyle Road Gayton Wirral. Jim McCartney married Angie Williams (widowed) on the 24th of November 1964 at St Bridget’s Church, Carrog, North Wales and they moved into “Rembrandt” with Angie’s small daughter Ruth. Jim McCartney was struggling with the copious amounts of fans flooding Forthlin Road and so he moved to get away from it all. However, that wasn’t the end of the story for the other residents on Forthlin Road whose lives were still affected after the McCartney’s left. Even to the present day, residents look out their windows to see a constant stream of tour guides followed by avid Beatles fans from all over the world just to catch a glimpse of the childhood home of the one Paul McCartney.
According to a newspaper article in the Liverpool Echo on the 8th of August 1998, a council tenancy card had been found at 20 Forthlin Road for Jim and his boys and the tenancy was dated 1957 and according to the card the first tenant at the house was a Mrs Hawkins, however the Liverpool Electoral Register for 1952 only lists residents at number 18 & 22, no recording made at number 20. By 1953 the residents at number 20 were Robert and Elizabeth Penman and it was the Penman’s that passed the tenancy to Jim and Mary McCartney in 1955.
When the McCartneys did a moonlight flit in 1964 to the Wirral they had handed over the tenancy agreement to Mr and Mrs Ashley Thomas and Sheila Jones nee Fielding. Ashley Jones married Sheila Fielding at St Pauls Church Toxteth in July 1950. Ashley Jones who was born on the 27th of September 1924 lived at 20 Forthlin Road till his death in April 1990 and five years later Sheila living on her own, was getting fed up with the continual hordes of fans, so she sold the property to the National Trust. Sheila Jones nee Fielding was born on the 17th of March 1923 and passed away in April 2003, thirteen years after her husband Ashley. On the 22nd of June 1981 the Jones family bought 20 Forthlin Road from the Liverpool Council on the “Right to Buy Scheme” which was introduced by Margaret Thatcher. Ashley and Sheila Jones had three children who were born in the 1950’s, Ashley R Jones born January 1952, Keith Jones born January 1954 and their daughter Sheila born February 1956. It was Sheila Junior that met with Mike McCartney, Peter Nixon from the National Trust and Mrs Sheila Jones herself to negotiate the sale of 20 Forthlin Road to the National Trust and with Paul’s consent. Mrs Sheila Jones had been approached by a Japanese investor, but Sheila was concerned for her neighbours, as she couldn’t be sure of the investor’s intentions for the property. The McCartney’s were given the first option to buy but they refused, and it was sold to the National Trust. Sheila was said to have moved to be near her daughter Sheila who lived in Heswall.
So, what of the other residents in Forthlin Road, many living there at the same time as the McCartney’s and remaining there after they had left.
At number 22 Forthlin Road lived David and Rhona Richards nee Moffatt and they had moved into Forthlin Road in about 1952 and before that living half a mile away at 11 Wheatcroft Road. They were neighbours of the McCartney’s until 1964 when they to leave their home at 22 Forthlin Road and moved to 71 Menzies Street Toxteth. It was on Menzies Street that another famous pop star Gerard Marsden “Gerry Marsden” was born on the 24th of September 1942 to Frederick and Mary Marsden nee McAlindin at 8 Menzies Street Toxteth. Gerry was managed by the Beatles manager Brian Samuel Epstein. The houses on Menzies Street were demolished in the 1970’s and so where the Richards went after I have no evidence although it’s possible, they moved to Skelmersdale. The fact that puzzles me, is that in 1949 the Richard’s lived in a detached house on Wheatcroft Road and then by 1952 they were living in a mid-terraced house at Forthlin Road and downsizing considerably. In 1964 they moved to a terraced house in the heart of Toxteth that six years later were demolished. Was it in 1964 they relocated due to the intense number of Beatles fans outside their home in Forthlin Road or had the family suffered some financial crisis. Nevertheless, the Richard’s family would have known the McCartneys and been witness to the birth of the greatest band ever and right on their doorstep.
Living on the other side of the McCartneys at 18 Forthlin Road was Thomas Gerard and Monica Bridget Gaule nee Rice who were married in October 1935 at Liverpool South Registry Office. They first lived at 6 Joliffe Street between 1935-1948 and were living only five hundred yards from the birthplace of Ringo Starr at 9 Madryn Street who was born on the 7th of July 1940. Ringo and his Mum Elsie moved to 10 Admiral Grove in 1944. Monica and Thomas had at least two children that I have found born in 1938 and 1939 and it is highly likely they would have known Ringo as a child and even attended the same school as the Gaule family remained at 6 Joliffe Street until 1949-50. When Paul and Mike McCartney arrived at 20 Forthlin Road at the age of thirteen and eleven they too would have befriended the Gaule family who lived next door and I wonder if they realised many years later the connection between their neighbours in the Dingle and those in Forthlin Road. Monica Bridget Gaule born on the 25th of April 1897 died at 18 Forthlin Road in October 1979. Her husband Thomas remarried a Gladys Howells in 1980 and remained at Forthlin Road till his death in March 1988 and he was cremated on the 31st of March 1988. Thomas’s occupation was that of a “chef” and it is clear from an article in the Liverpool Echo that he continued to rent out his previous accommodation at 6 Joliffe Street!!
A couple more families that are worth a mention are the Partington’s and Ireland’s.
William T Partington was born on the 25th of June 1923 and in 1939 lived with his family at 32 Duncombe Road South and at the age of sixteen was a “Senior Wages Clerk”. He married Vera Claydon in October 1948 at St Peters Church Woolton which was in the future play a huge part in the birth of the Beatles. Vera was born in Woolton in 1928 to William Henry and Matilda Partington nee Baker and lived at 6 Mason Street and Vera’s father was a “D.E. Greaser”. William and Vera lived at 17 Forthlin Road and Vera was still living in Forthlin Road on the Electoral Registers from 2003-2010. At the time of the sale of 20 Forthlin Road in 1995, Bill Partington gave an interview with the Liverpool Echo, and he described how Jim McCartney was extremely concerned for his neighbours, and his friends as after the Beatles hit the big time “hooligans” as Bill described them would flood the road looking for anything they could steal that might have a link to Paul McCartney. Bill went on to describe that he would go for a drink with Jim McCartney and one night Jim told Bill they were doing a moonlight flit. It’s also a fact that Vera’s parents were living right in the middle of Woolton and in fact lived opposite the Woolton Picture House, Mason Street. Were they at the village fete and then to find their daughter and son in law lived opposite Paul McCartney.
The last family of interest and mainly for myself was a Mr and Mrs Robert and Doris Louise Ireland nee Ramage. My two elder children’s (from my first marriage) grandfather was A.J. Ireland, and he was born in Edge Hill in 1927 and it would appear from quick research that Robert Ireland was possibly a cousin. We never knew the Ireland family from Liverpool as my father-in-law was not in contact with his Liverpool family. The Ireland’s lived at number 19 Forthlin Road neighbours to the Partington’s and living across the street to the McCartney’s and Doris actually died the year the house was sold to the National Trust.
There are many other neighbours that lived in Forthlin Road during the time the McCartney’s were in residence and including those I have researched many of these stayed on through the years that followed 1964 when the McCartneys left. The remaining residents were left to witness the road in Allerton where they had set up home, turn into one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world. In fact, all the immediate neighbours that I have covered apart from Sheila Jones and the Richard’s at number twenty-two stayed in Forthlin Road until they passed away.
They would have known Mary, Jim and the boys as the ordinary family living in their neighbourhood, helped Jim and the boys through the hard times after Mary's death in 1956 and indeed their children would have hung around with Paul and Mike. What a fascinating account of stories and memories these families at Forthlin Road could have written. All these people had a small part in this vast journey of four young boys from Liverpool.
A short history of Forthlin Road Allerton.
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