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Hull and then by rail to Liverpool where they took ship for New York. Emigrant traffic was a major part of the earning capacity of the passenger liner companies in Liverpool and of the five and a half million men, women and children who had left British shores since 1860, four and three quarter million of them had gone from that great seaport. For two reasons Liverpool was able to deal with this vast flood of humanity – firstly, the port had the tonnage available and secondly it had the railway network which served the city, bringing those millions not only from all over Britain but from other countries as well. Mr Lloyd and his officials would meet them at Central Station and they would march them through the streets, peasant stock for the most part, men, women, youths, girls, babes in arms, silver-haired infants and grey, bald-headed patriarchs, silent and staring, to the welcome of the house in Great George Square. For a few days they would be sheltered and fed, waiting for the sailing of their ship in the steerage accomodation which would be another temporary home until they reached their final destination. They had that stunned look of those who are afraid beyond describing of what they are about to do but are powerless to change their fate, only the children treating the upheaval as a great adventure. They were well-cared for during their stay and their rooms, though small, hardly more than divided cubicles were scrupulously clean and quite comfortable. They ate Mrs Whitley’s nourishing food and each batch of emigrants was inspected daily by the doctor from the Medical Committee for the rules regarding the health of the travellers was strict and must be complied with before they were allowed to sail. The house was registered and the conditions under which they lived whilst awaiting passage must be strictly observed.
    It had not always been so! Mr Lloyd, whose father and grandfather had both worked in the emigrant trade had tales to tell of the harrowing conditions which had once prevailed. The emigrants had had to provide their own food for the journey and before the weary traveller had ventured more than a yard or so from the transport – often on their own feet – which had carried him to the city he was accosted by ‘runners’ or ‘man-catchers’, which, as the name implied snared the unwary and swiftly parted him from what few belongings he had. He was swindled by lodging house keepers, porters, ships chandlers and even those from whom he bought his passage.
    Now, twenty to thirty thousand went annually from Liverpool alone, their steerage accomodation costing them two pounds ten shillings a head and in the past fifty years or so the population of the United States of America had quadrupled. They came from Europe, Scandinavia and Ireland, bound for America, Canada and Australia and their temporary presence in Liverpool, most dressed in their native costume added a new interest and colour to the streets of the city.
    Meg, Martin and Tom worked amongst them and Meg had become Mrs Whitley’s right hand, or so the cook said, for none of the other maids, even the willing Emm had the capacity to understand what was needed in the often ticklish reception of two hundred bewildered foreigners. She was efficient and business-like and yet she had an intuitive understanding of their needs. Her sharp wit and common sense, even at twelve years old quickly had them arranged into the obligatory order of age, sex and marital status for families were kept together and the unmarried men and women were strictly segregated. Tom and Martin took charge of the younger men and would stand no larking about, something neither Mr Lloyd, nor Mrs Whitley would allow amongst the people in their charge. She and Meg attended to the unattached women and to the families, and order, and propriety reigned!
    Meg might have lived in the house all her life, so well did she take to the task of caring for the perplexed and exhausted travellers.