I recommend A Ready Man: Hugh Stowell Brown, preacher, activist, friend of the poor, Wayne Clarke's well-told story of an influential man of Liverpool and the world, about whom I knew little before reading this book.
Wayne Clarke, A Ready Man: Hugh Stowell Brown, preacher, activist, friend of the poor. Click image for an author signed copy, £4.99 from Wayne's eBay store.
Wayne rightly places Brown front and centre, but the book is enriched by the chapter on Wayne's search for, and recovery and restoration of, the statue in Brown's honour (Having once been abandoned to the floor of a barn in Croxteth Hall Farm it now sits proudly in its original position on the site of Hope Street Baptist Chapel).
This is a remarkable achievement, particularly in our era where the prevailing instinct is more concerned with removing or moderating monuments. Brown was no slave trader, and what strikes me most about his monument is that it was 'Erected by the Citizens of Liverpool'.
His endorsement of frugality, teetotalism and education was clearly an inspiration to the city's aspirational working people, who gathered in great numbers to hear him, and I think that his sermon which Wayne reproduces as an appendix, 'Penny Wise and Pound Foolish' feels as fresh and relevant to today's self-combusting consumer society as when Brown first preached it.
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