Perils of Passage
Liverpool's waterfront must have been a fascinating place to visit in the first half of the Nineteenth Century. The growth of the dock estate in the period was prodigious, and…
Liverpool Zoological Gardens
Sadly, no trace remains of Liverpool Zoological Gardens, “a place of favourite and fashionable resort” in its day, which graced the south-side of West Derby Road beyond the old Necropolis…
In Memoriam
I was in Liverpool recently for a day and decided to go over the water to visit the U-Boat Story museum at Birkenhead, where salvaged German submarine U-534 lies at…
A Sentimental Journey
I was passing through Liverpool lately and thought I would take a sentimental journey (after the title of one of his solo albums) into the city’s South End to look at…
At The Landing Stage
I have written previously about the journalist Hugh Shimmin, who was such a vivid observer of Liverpool’s mid-Victorian low-life, and such a committed activist for improved social conditions in the…
Liverpool’s Own St Paul’s
One of the most prominent and distinctive buildings on nineteenth century Liverpool’s skyline would have been the beautiful, but now long demolished, St Paul’s church. I have a personal connection…
An Oriel Prospect
Liverpool must have presented a magnificent prospect to visitors in the second half of the Nineteenth Century, whether arriving by sea or rail. They could hardly fail to be impressed…
Hugh Shimmin’s Journalism
Writing in the 1850s and 1860s, often in his own publication the Porcupine, Hugh Shimmin invokes a desperate Liverpudlian landscape of squalid and overcrowded living, causal labour, acute poverty, hopeless drink…