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« on: Saturday 21 February 09 09:36 GMT (UK) »
Morning Everyone
I really do appreciate all your help, what I am wanting to do is put together a history of the Hanover (also Blaklers) and this is just the start of my research!
Allan - send your grandson up here and I will send my Labrador down to you .... very fair swap lol
I have been on Yoliverpool but not asked about photos but will - never thought about it. It was only when I came across this website that I thought it would be nice to get some old picture of the Hanover and find a little more out about the history of the place.
For those that are interested here is where my family fitted in to the history of the Hanover....happy reading!
62 Hanover Street was the town house or a Mr Earle, a prosperous Liverpool merchant and ship owner. It is one of possibly only two remaining houses in the city built at an angle to the street so that the merchants who resided there could see what ships were arriving at the port without the inconvenience of leaving their houses.
We do not know when the house was converted into a hotel, but in about 1923 Mrs Margaret Blackler, the wife of Richard Blackler the founder of Blacklers store in Elliot Street, purchased the hotel as a going concern for Mrs Child’s Husband James who was a Liverpool dentist. Apparently he was a bit of a philanderer and was ejected from the family house and lived in Room 17 at the hotel instead. He tried to run the hotel from there but without a great deal of success. On Mr Child’s death Mrs Child approached her daughter, May McMillan to see whether her husband would agree to take over the management of the hotel. At the time John McMillan was the Traffic Manager for P & O Shipping in Liverpool and he did manage to get the Hotel running efficiently but was hampered by Mrs Child continually breathing down his neck. He was not allowed to spend money on refurbishment until 1951 for the Festival of Britain when the Festival Cocktail bar and the Lounge Bar were created.
Mrs Child died in 1962 leaving the hotel to her daughter May McMillan. John McMillan died in 1966 leaving his widow to struggle on with running the hotel with the help of accountants. After a year Ian McMillan took over the management of the hotel and switched the emphasis from the accommodation and food sales to bar sales. He created four new bars, the Cavalry Bar in the cellar, the Shire Bar on the right as you entered the hotel, and the Tartan Bar on the left where the reception area and stairs now are and finally the Portcullis Bar. Geoffrey Stringer was the designer and panelling taken from Oxford colleges was used for the woodwork. During the 60’s and 70’s they were without doubt the most popular watering hotels in Liverpool. Ian McMillan says that Friday and Saturday nights where memorable occasions.
In 1970 Mrs May McMillan died and Ian & Maureen McMillan and their family (daughters Samantha (thats me!) and Fiona) went to live in Painswick in Gloucestershire. Soon after Ian McMillan decided to put the hotel up for sale and move his family to the Channel Islands. Mrs Egan the manageress ran the hotel for three years until it was sold to Ernie Williams the owner of the Lord Nelson Hotel.
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