A House Through Time

In the first episode of this series, David follows the stories of the first inhabitants of the house, those who lived there in the 1840s and 1850s. In a remarkable piece of historical detective work David discovers how the house came to be built as a merchant's residence by a canny property developer at a time when Liverpool was one of the great trading ports of the British Empire. He then uncovers the story of the very first tenant, a customs clerk with a taste for fine furniture and the high life, and explores what happened to his lavish lifestyle when the money dried up.

David uncovers the extraordinary stories of a woman widowed in a cholera epidemic who turns the house from a single dwelling into a boarding house. He follows the trail of an ambitious Jewish immigrant from Denmark, struggling to stay afloat in the midst of a global financial crisis, and then sees what happens to a wheeler-dealer whose job is to enable hundreds of people to make new lives in America. David also traces the extraordinary story of the Robinsons - a seemingly successful couple in the watchmaking business. For them, the house is the backdrop to a family drama involving violence, infidelity and a tangle with the divorce courts. The story ends on the banks of the River Mersey, where an unidentified body dragged from the water has surprising connections to the house.

Historian David Olusoga follows the story of the house in Liverpool from 1891 to 1945, a turbulent 50-year period encompassing two World Wars and the Great Depression. He tracks the story of the Snewings, a large family of saddlers who live in the house for over four decades, and follows their business through challenging times - death in the family, cut-throat competition, the First World War and the age of the motorcar. On the Snewings' death, the Great Depression takes hold and Liverpool's inner city housing begins to decline. David sees the house become a shabby lodging house rented out to low income tenants. Amongs the multiple residents who share the house at the start of the Second World War he discovers Jack Greenall - a docker keeping a secret from his employers - who works in one of the city's most dangerous environments during the height of the Liverpool Blitz. Finally, David uncovers the poignant story of Robert and Sarah Ann Duffy. Robert, son of a lowly cotton porter, is born in the slums; his wife Sarah Ann, has had an unhappy childhood with her abusive mother. But the two meet and marry, and carve out a successful career in the tailoring business, eventually transcending the tragic circumstances of their pasts.