Quote Originally Posted by fortinian View Post
Well, there were only five or so docks in Liverpool at the height of the slave trade. They were:

The Old Dock (opened 1715)
Canning Dock (opened 1732)
Salthouse Dock (opened 1753)
Georges Dock (opened 1771)
Queens Dock and Kings Dock (opened 1785)*

The Old Dock was probably used for the slave trade because it was the only dock in Liverpool when it began. As for Georges Dock, I cannot tell you why.

Dukes Dock (opened 1773) was a private dock, mainly dealing with canal traffic.
Going from this...

By the 1730s about 15 ships a year were leaving for Africa and this grew to about 50 a year in the 1750s, rising to just over a 100 in each of the early years of the 1770s. Numbers declined during the American War of Independence (1775-1783), but rose to a new peak of 120-130 ships annually in the two decades preceding the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. Probably three-quarters of all European slaving ships at this period left from Liverpool. Overall, Liverpool ships transported half of the three million Africans carried across the Atlantic by British slavers.

...the dates don't seem quite right to favour those two docks.

Also, since the slaves were generally not on board in Liverpool, why would one dock be preferred over any other?
Isn't it just a transatlantic goods shipping issue at Liverpool?

The link is here for the quote...

http://www.liverpoolinpictures.com/S..._Liverpool.htm