Archives
- A vision of Britain through time (University of Portsmouth) This is a massive site, including maps, statistical trends and historical descriptions. It’s got information from the Victoria County Histories, and is a great starting point for local history research.
- Beyond 2022 | Ireland's Virtual Record Treasury The Public Record Office of Ireland was destroyed in a fire in June 1922. Many records, of interest to Liverpoudlians among others, were lost, but this project hopes to recover many via ‘substitute materials’ in other global archives.
- Churchyard Survey Data from All Saints Church, Childwall, Liverpool 2009 – 2021: Downloads There’s an ongoing project to digitise the headstones in All Saints Church, Childwall. This page contains the results as they stand today. No doubt more will be added over time.
- Connected Histories This is a handy search engine which brings together 25 different archives to cover in one go. Naturally, it takes some trial and error not to return a million results, but this is a very useful way in to some important archives.
- Currency converter – The National Archives This is a fun tool. Type in any amount of money (pounds, shillings and pence) and a year, and it will tell you how much money that would be worth today. Turns out that for the price of my house I could have bought 300,000 horses. That’s inflation for you.
- Heritage Gateway Using this site, you can search across national and local records of England’s historic sites and buildings. It seems a bit out of date, so I’m not sure how current it is, but some of the resources still work, even if images are sometimes broken.
- Liverpool And Merseyside Remembered (Web Archive) A celebration of the ‘ordinary’ folk who fought in the two World Wars. There is an alphabetised list of surnames with some quite decently long descriptions of those people.
- Liverpool Record Office Digital Archive This is a fantastic collection of images and other documents available online for you to search and browse. For Historic Liverpool readers, I recommend the Engineers, E James, Housing and Image Bank collections.
- Sefton Council Library & Local Studies Images of Sefton, from the 1850s onwards, and so which include Crosby and Southport. There are also ‘featured collections’ which gather photos under thematic groups, like Bomb Damage (covering housing) or Docks.
- Visit Us – The Florrie Archive Not many places like the Florrie have their own archive! You can visit in person to find out all about the people who made the place what it is. This website gives their contact details and how to plan a visit.
Articles
- A History of Headstones in Liverpool – Sarsfield Memorials Liverpool Sarsfield is a family-run memorials business, but they took some time and webspace to talk about the history of cemeteries and headstones in LIverpool
- Booze and robots – We Made This Just a silly little post here, but interesting none the less: letterheads from some businesses in 1930s-40s Liverpool, including ‘Robot Salesmen’, which was apparently a real thing! (See their new site for details).)
- Dr. Wendell A. Howe: Liverpool Wendell Howe appears to be a seasoned time traveller, and has passed through many places and temporalities on his journey. This collection covers his visits to our own fair city, and his observations.
- Frederick Law Olmsted and the Creation of Central Park – The Atlantic (Web Archive) Inspired (‘flabbergasted’ in fact) by Birkenhead Park, Frederick Law Olmsted saw how parks could revolutionise leisure time (and stop people frolicking in graveyards). This article charts his journey through Britain, to Central Park in New York.
- Guardian picks of the week, 23rd October 2010 Liverpool Landscapes was my blog, 2007-2016, and once upon a time the Guardian deemed it a good idea to include it in a blogroll on Liverpool, and plonk Dave Cameron in speedos at the top of the page. Perhaps the height of my fame.
- How do you research the history of a street? – Blog, Liverpool Museums The research into Galkoff’s Butchers delved into the history of the whole street, and maps were central to this. Here, the staff on the project give a little insight into how you can use maps to find out about the history of a whole area.
- The Mersey, river of life | Society | The Guardian An interesting personal account of walking along the banks of the Mersey. Colin Ward contributed to a book – Mersey: the river that changed the world – and this is a summary of his reasons for doing so, picking up on some of the modern conservation work.
Audio
- BBC Radio 4 – Archive on 4, Lern Yerself Scouse Paul Farley cooks a bowl of scouse for Willy Russell, Gillian Reynolds, Michael Angelis and Roger McGough, and chats to them about all things accent and dialect.
- Paradise Lost: The Rise and Fall of the Eldonian Dream – BBC Sounds The inspiring yet saddening story of how the Eldonian Village was set up by a pioneering group of Scousers, but in recent years has seen risks to its public ownership
Documents
- Liverpool by Scott, Dixon, 1881-1915; Hay, J. Hamilton, ill On openlibrary.org, a history of Liverpool, painted by J Hamilton Hay, and described by Dixon Scott. More of a memoir than a history book, and in fact credits Muir’s 1907 ‘History of Liverpool’ as a source.
- Meols: The Archaeology of the North Wirral Coast: Downloads Meols, on the north coast of Wirral, is an incredibly important multi-period site, with finds from the Roman, medieval and post-medieval periods. This report, freely downloadable, is the professional final word on work in the area, including a catalogue.
- The history of Everton by Robert Syers An 1830 history of Everton which somehow made it into the Library of Toronto, and then to be scanned for the Internet Archive.
Local history
- BOOTLE free Font – What Font Is This one’s a little different to the others: fancy making a sign or poster with a recognisably musical font? Free for personal use, ‘Bootle’ is a font to add a little Beat to your publications.
- Build2Understand One way to understand the past landscape is to try recreating it, and technology is making this easier all the time. This website uses OpenSim, and has reconstructed various bits of the rail landscape of Liverpool.
- CITiZAN – Coastal Map CITiZAN is the Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network, and works to draw attention to the archaeological sites at risk from coastal erosion. This map of theirs lets you look into the sites around Liverpool and the rest of Britain
- Liverpool cotton history – Liverpool Cotton History This site is a product of Nigel Hall’s own original research. Hall is, judging from the Recent Articles page, an experienced researcher in this area, and this website, consisting of articles and a illustrations, is a nice looking one.
- Liverpool Court Houses in 3D – Museum of Liverpool A brilliant experiment in virtual reality – explore court housing a little like using Google Streetview, and listen to re-enacted testimony from residents and investigators alike. Immersive and detailed.
- Liverpool Discovers (Web Archive) For a few weeks in 2011, there was an art trail around Liverpool and Wirral highlighting amazing inventions from the banks of the Mersey. There’s also a few reminders of the great and the good of the city. The website still has a few interesting snippets.
- Liverpool timeline by Brian Naughty Brian Naughty’s website also has a timeline of Liverpool, but it’s this page on Woolton which is of more detail. There are links to specific topics and buildings, and plenty of photos too.
- Lost Liverpool This blog, like the one about Fazakerley Hospital, was written by ‘Barbara’, and although nothing has been added since 2011, it remains a great little archive of articles about all sorts of topics, from land auctions to lost buildings.
- Memories of Mr Seel's Garden (Web Archive) This was a project to look into the veg garden owned by Mr Seel (of Seel Street) and through that to learn about peoples’ relationship with their food. Although much of site doesn’t work anymore, there’s still plenty worth exploring.
- Mike Royden's Local History Pages Mike Royden has over a dozen websites to his name, so I encourage you to explore them all, but this is the main Liverpool one, and there are plenty of articles and pages to get your teeth into. You can also find out about the books Mike’s written.
- Ron's Liverpool Tram Site One of those brilliant labours of love which has been based on one man’s lifelong passion for trams. There’s all sorts from people to cars to today’s preservation efforts. Well worth a browse.
- Sandfield Tower, West Derby, Liverpool Sandfield Tower was built in 1851 for Joseph Edwards, one of West Derby’s wealthy merchants. Sadly, the Tower has been vacant for a long time, victim to arsonists and vandals. This website charts efforts to publicise and save it.
- St. George's Church, Everton 1814 – 1982 – Lancashire OnLine Parish Clerk Project A short history of St George’s church is an introduction to its births, marriages and deaths records (or, more correctly, baptisms, marriages and burials). There are also register records for St. George’s School.
- St. James Cemetery This seems to be a one-stop shop of all kinds of information and resources relating to the cemetery surrounding the Anglican Cathedral. This includes a burial search of about 16,000 people, so might come in useful for family historians.
- Streets of Little Italy – Liverpool's Italian Families This site covers all aspects of Italian families who moved to Liverpool along with the better known Irish, Scottish and Welsh migrations of the 20th century. Debra D’Annunzio, its creator, is making sure their stories aren’t forgotten.
- Sugar Refiners & Sugarbakers Database Brian Mawer’s website and book cover sugar refining at the national level, though I’m linking to his Liverpool page as a starting point for you. There are maps, photos and a blog to get your teeth into (so to speak…).
- The history of Liverpool : from the earliest authenticated period down to the present times by John Corry – HathiTrust Digital Library An illustrated general history of Liverpool. Has illustrations of many of the buildings, as well as a couple of maps.
- The Priory and the Cast Iron Shore « The Site of Priory Woods, St Michaels in The Hamlet This blog deals with a small area of Liverpool known as the Cast Iron Shore (due to an iron foundry and an iron-framed church here). There are great posts about Toxteth and the surrounding area too. Well worth subscribing.
Maps
- A plan of the town of Liverpool with all the late improvements (1790) – Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal This zoomable map shows the town when it was still in its infancy, and is another of John Gore’s great creations. The BNP is the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, with its Biblioteca Nacional Digital online archive
- Atlas of Hillforts Sadly there are only two dots on this map in Merseyside – Camp Hill and Landican in Wirral – but it’s still an interesting interactive journey into late prehistory.
- Classification of Multidimensional Open Data of Urban Morphology (MODUM) – CDRC Mapmaker It’s interesting to see how modern mapmakers classify the city’s streets. For one thing we can see how historic development shapes the modern landscape. This map shows Liverpool to have Victorian Terraces, the Suburban Landscape, and more.
- Compare maps – David Rumsey Maps David Rumsey might be the king of map collecting. This tool is similar to some of those on Historic Liverpool – but with a much bigger, global collection!
- Explore georeferenced maps – Map images – National Library of Scotland The National Library of Scotland has put up a great handful of tools for exploring old maps, and they have been aligned with modern maps to make it easy to explore Liverpool then-and-now.
- Find a surname – Irish Ancestors Find all sorts of information out about Irish surnames, of which Liverpool has a fair few! A map shows where families lived, and there are related names plus origins of names.
- Fire insurance maps and plans North West – British Library (Web Archive) Insurance maps are astonishingly detailed plans, and the ones for Liverpool are no exception. These maps, now archived by the UK Web Archive, are beautiful and fascinating in equal measure.
- Gore's Plan of Liverpool (1817), with the environs – Gallica Gallica is the online repository of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF), and this is a zoomable map of Liverpool in the early 19th century.
- Liverpool Blitz Map Timeline – Paul Gallagher I found this map via the Liverpool Echo: it animates (in date order? I’m not sure) the bombs which fell on Liverpool during the Blitz. Because it’s on the Carto website, it’s easy to re-use the data on your own maps if you know what you’re doing.
- Liverpool: Docks, Liverbirds and Beatles A virtual tour around the area of the Old Dock, Customs House and the surrounding foreshore. It was created by Chris Kolonko, the North Community Archaeologist for CITiZAN, who work towards conserving and preserving coastal areas of Britain.
- Map of LIverpool – Harvard Image Delivery Service This is a great map, but I’ve found the performance of the page a little unreliable, and there’s little info. It looks like early 18th or late 19th century, and has a great level of detail.
- Medieval Liverpool – StoryMapJS The medieval period is a largely forgotten one in Liverpool’s history – at least to the general public. This guided ‘tour’ of medieval Liverpool helps rectify that, with sites starting at the river and covering the castle, streets and buildings.
- New Popular Edition Maps A wonderfully specific project: Map the country of the 1940s and 1950s and collect postcode data while doing so. A clever idea to reward contributors with some old maps.
- Old maps of Liverpool – Old Maps Online Another great collection of maps, with tools to identify then by place, using a map to hone in on the right location. Some of them take you to the excellent NLS website for a closer look.
- Old series Ordnance Survey maps of England and Wales This site notably offers downloads of their maps at massive sizes. I’ve chosen to link to this one map of Liverpool, but use it as a stepping off point for exploration.
- Open Domesday Anna Powell-Smith and the University of Hull created this map of the places named in Domesday. Liverpool historians will be aware that Liverpool wasn’t mentioned, but West Derby and other local places were. This site helps you browse, or reuse the data.
- Rail Map Online There are actually three maps here – rail, canal and trolleybus – all of which offer an interactive (modern based) map where you can click to find out some summary info and a link to Wikipedia. Amazing resource, considering it’s just one chap’s hobby!
- Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade – Database (timelapse) This timelapse animation shows the number of voyages of ships with enslaved Africans on them heading for the New World. Although it only shows one side of the ‘triangle’, you can’t argue with the immediacy of how the data is presented.
Photos
- In pictures: Looking back at Liverpool through the decades – Liverpool Echo Fifty photos of Liverpool, Bootle and Kirkby, mostly from the last 40 years but with a handful from the early 20th century. Notable for the huge numbers of smiling faces! And also pre-pedestrianised Church Street.
- Inacityliving Ged Fagan has compiled a huge number of photos – in fact, the site seems to host (and may always have) the vast photo collection of Bob Edwards (Liverpool Picturebook), a site which disappeared soon after Bob’s passing. Search, or browse by postcode.
- Liverpool Parks A project by artist Nils Norman to walk and photograph Liverpool’s parks. There are the usual suspects, like Sefton and Newsham, but the site covers all kinds of green spaces, like Allerton Tower and St. John’s Gardens.
- Merseyside Archive Images – Bernard Rose Bernard Rose is one of the best photographers Liverpool has for historic photos (and modern ones), and this Flickr album shows off some great shots from the 1970s and 80s. Most coverage is of the waterfront, but there’s plenty of variety.
- No 75 Duke Street A simple series of photos of doorways and street frontages from around 2005. Many of theses streetscapes, in the south-east part of the centre, have undergone great change since then, making this a valuable resource.
- Pecker69's Photostream – Flickr It’s hard to categorise these photos, except perhaps to note that they are all from around Woolton / Belle Vale, and range from 1900 to about 1980. I’ve not seen any of these images before – an invaluable resource!
- WhatWasThere – Put history in its place! One of many similar websites that puts photos on a zoomable map. It’s looking a little outdated now but there are a few pictures of Liverpool. I recommend going straight to ‘Browse photos’, which is where the map itself, is.
Societies
- Liverpool Architectural Society The Liverpool Architectural Society is a society for professional architects, but also welcomes anyone interested in building design. They organise visits to buildings (old and new, no doubt) as well as trips further afield.
- Merseyside Archaeological Society An active and friendly society covering the whole of Liverpool, Wirral and the rest of the county. They have regular talks, a newsletter and journals, which are all well worth investigating.
- Merseyside Industrial Heritage Society I became aware of the Merseyside Industrial Heritage Society when they published a small book cataloguing industrial heritage features of the county, edited by Maurice Handley and Paul Rees, the former a member of the Merseyside Archaeological Society.
- West Derby Society The West Derby Society was established in 1977 and is still very active. They hold regular meetings and go on summer outings, and are often campaigning on local preservation issues like Sandfield Tower.
Video
- Liverpool In 1972 – Colour (1972) – YouTube Pretty grim few minutes of test footage for an Anglia TV documentary about Liverpool, filmed in 1972. There’s no sound, which kind of adds to the solemn mood, but everywhere life goes on regardless. Inspiring in a way.
These are sites which I haven’t necessarily used as sources – some are just interesting snippets or news items.
Some of my other bookmarks are related to the technology used to construct this site. More details of this technology can be found on the page About Historic Liverpool.
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