The Whisky-Selling Livermores

They were as unholy a pair as ever bedevilled a police department.

Notorious for their chosen calling, the whisky-selling Livermores, known respectively as Liverpool Jack and Whisky John, became courtroom regulars during their careers.

As far as is known, they weren’t related, although it seems surprising that there could have been two John Livermores in such a tiny outpost as Fort Victoria in the 1860s. But no matter, bootleggers they were. 

Meet these blackguards from our past in this week’s BC Chronicles.

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PHOTO: The Bastion Square police barracks, which doubled as Victoria’s jail, became the two bootlegging Johns’ second home. —BC Archives