Back to index of Nerve 17 - Winter 2010

The Liver Birds - don't mention the war

Spare a thought for the artist who designed the Liver Birds.

Carl Bernard Bartels hailed from Stuttgart. After 20 years in Britain he won the competition to design the two Liver Birds. His artwork was installed in the summer of 1911 (see our May picture)

Alas three years later Bartels was interned as an 'enemy alien', He spent four years in a camp on the Isle of Man and was then deported. He only returned to London some years later.

Liverpool turned violently on its sizeable German population in May 1915 when Cunard's Lusitania liner was sunk by a U-boat with great loss of life. Bartels' name 'disappeared' from all public records.

Only in the late 1990s did Bartels' granddaughter demand that the artist be recognised. After some chivvying from local historians Royal Liver put up a granite plaque in 2008. The plaque's currently down for refurbishment but we show here a sneak preview before it goes up again for next year's centenary.

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