From the early thirteenth century to the end of the sixteenth the Moore family had risen to become Liverpool's premier burgess family. They owned about half the properties in the borough and large estates around their nearby seat at Bank Hall and elsewhere in Lancashire. When Edward Moore inherited in 1606 he continued that tradition of well run estates and public service to Liverpool and Lancashire, which his son John Moore continued from 1633. Yet by borrowing
money, and mortgaging part of his estates, he began a process of economic decline from which, despite their social rise, his descendants could not recover. In relating their progress from 1606 to 1730, this research explains that and other matters to show how they fared in the great events and issues of those turbulent years.
Liverpool's MP as the Civil War loomed, from 1642 John Moore energetically served the parliamentary war effort in both active military service and further time in the Commons, where he was a judge and signatory for Charles l's trial and execution. Unfortunately, being only ever partially p~d by the government for his service, he borrowed even further and in 1650 died heavily indebted. His son Edward was unable to ever fully recover from that burden, and despite developing the estates and becoming a baronet, his own attempts to maintain a lifestyle beyond his means left them even more heavily mortgaged when he died in 1678. His spendthrift son Sir Cleave was incapable of managing hi-s inheritance, which despite his arrogant interference was controlled by its London mortgagees for many years. After extensive sales of his properties they were paid off in 1714, but further mortgages were only repaid when the whole remaining estate was sold to the Earl of Derby in 1724. Sir Cleave had already been living in the south, but the sale finally, and ignominiously, ended the Moore's 500 year association with Liverpool.