Edward Askew Bainbridge was the proud Chairman of Everton
Football Club when they lifted the F.A. Cup for the first time in 1906 and in
1914 he was once again involved with a team playing in the cup final. However,
by this time his allegiances had changed as by then he was a director of arch rivals
Liverpool F.C.
The Everton board reflected the club’s origins as a chapel
project and it may be that Bainbridge, as a pub licensee, indeed the son of a
licensee, sat uneasily amongst his teetotal fellow directors. His father’s
origins were in Westmoreland, baptised in the small village of Beetham near
Milnthorpe. The family having moved to Liverpool, Edward Bainbridge was by the
1880’s the proprietor of the ‘Woodman’ public house at 342 Great Howard Street
L5. By 1901 we find him running the impressive ‘Plough Inn’ at 172 Rice Lane.
He later lived at 10 Wembley Gardens L9 (a fitting address for a cup winning
chairman). In the 1920’s he lived at 267 County Road L4 and 44 Cedar Road L9,
and for most of the 1930’s at 29 Lynwood Road L9.
Outside of football he enjoyed sporting prowess in his youth
as a sprinter and also represented England as a bowls player.
