Liverpool
Liverpool names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 1 of them is described by more than one encyclopedia.
Liverpool a city of England
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a city of England. It is situated in the county of Lancaster on the right bank of the estuary of the Mersey. It is about three miles from the open sea. In size and commercial importance it is the third city of the United Kingdom . The quays, docks, and warehouses rival those of London. Birkenhead, across the Mersey, occupies much the same geographical relation to Liverpool that Jersey City bears to New York . The twenty-two miles of wharfage of Liverpool, including docks, are supplemented by nine miles of wharfage at Birkenhead. These works are so extensive that charges of over $1,000,000 a year are collected from shipping. An equal sum is derived from immense warehouses constructed at public cost. Immediately in front of the center of the city is an immense floating platform sustained on pontoons. It is two-fifths of a mile long and eighty feet wide. It is connected with the city by seven light bridges and a floating bridge for heavy traffic 550 feet in width. It cost nearly $2,000,000. This float, or "landing stage" as it is called, rises and falls from fifteen to twenty-one feet with the tide. Ferries ply back and forth between it and a similar float on the Birkenhead shore. Small seagoing steamers, and the tenders of ocean liners take their passengers and expressage from the float. Liverpool was established originally in the reign of Henry II , as a stronghold and a center of operations against northern Ireland. A local business, with ports on the Irish Sea, grew up. In 1709 a small artificial harbor or wet dock was constructed with floodgates to be closed at high tide , so ships might ride at the wharf within, though the tide without had gone down. This was the first dock of the kind. The discovery of America opened up a large West Indian business, and, during the prevalence of the slave trade, Liverpool was the world center of this nefarious business. The Liverpool slaver took aboard a cargo of hatchets, knives, colored cloth, beads, mirrors, bracelets, necklaces, pinchbeck ornaments, and other gewgaws, and set sail for the coast of Africa, where these commodities were exchanged for a load of negroes. The negroes were taken to the West Indies and exchanged for a cargo of rum, molasses, and sugar. The profits of a single trip were enormous. It is said that five-sixths of the slave trade centered in Liverpool. As late as 1807, when the traffic was forbidden, there were 185 Liverpool ships to be put out of the trade. They had carried 43,755 slaves from Africa to America in that year. The present trade of Liverpool is almost beyond computation. Liverpool ships are found in all quarters of the globe. The traffic with the New World centers in Liverpool. American wheat, flour, meat, and cotton land chiefly at Liverpool. Until of late Liverpool was the chief port of outlet and inlet for the manufactures and the raw materials of Manchester. Liverpool merchants were much opposed to the construction of the Manchester ship canal, which permits a part of the former business to pass on to Manchester without being transferred at their wharves. Liverpool is a well built city. The public buildings are of more than ordinary architectural interest. St. George's Hall, a combined music hall and law court, is one of the finest modern buildings in Great Britain. A free library, museum, and gallery of arts have been established at public expense. The affairs of the city have been managed with intelligence and fidelity. The present population is about 753,203. Liverpool is of great interest to the engineer and merchant, but its buildings, however imposing and commodious, are too modern to attract the ordinary tourist. Travelers take train, usually for Chester or London, without stopping to look about. The water of the river is indescribably dingy and dirty, giving rise to the pardonable pun, "The quality of Mersey is not strained." See Lancaster ; England ; Slave Trade
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a county of Lancashire, on the estuary of the Mersey; 202 miles N. W. of London, and 31 miles W. of Manchester. It is also a county by itself for some purposes. Among the noteworthy buildings are the Town Hall, rebuilt in 1745, occиpying one side of the square; the Exchange Buildings, Custom House, Postoffice, Dock Office, St. George's Hall (a magnificent structure of the Corinthian order, covering over three acres), the Free Public Library and Museum (having over 100,000 volumes), Walker Art Gallery, Picton Reading and Lecture Rooms. The University College, Liverege, and Nautical College are , pool College the principal educational institutions. There are many charitable establishments and hospitals. A superb new system of waterworks was completed in 1893, by means of which water is conveyed from Lake Vyrnwy, in Wales. Sefton Park, of 250 acres in the S. part, is elaborately landscaped. The other principal parks are Stanley, Shiel, Newsham, Edgehill, and Wavertree. The docks of Liverpool are among the greatest of the world's engineering works. They are formed for the most part by excavating the river bed, by dredging inside a sea-wall built in the river. The protecting wall is 11 feet thick, and 40 feet high from its foundations. There are nearly 40 of these inclosed docks, with a total water area of 381 acres and 35 miles of quays. A great landing stage for passengers, covering four acres, extends along the river above the docks. It is floated on boiler-plate pontoons, having hinged bridges connecting it with the sea-wall. Liverpool has lines of steamships to all important foreign ports. The construction of large merchant and war vessels is carried on extensively, and there are large engine, cable, and anchor manufactories, brass foundries, sugar breweries, refineries, glass-staining works, and numerous manufacturing industries. There are about 100 Anglican and 44 Roman Catholic Churches, with 170 churches of the various Protestant sects. The Church of St. Peter is the diocesan cathedral. Pop. (1918) 753,353.
Liverpool JENKINSON, EARL OF
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JENKINSON, EARL OF, an English politician; born June 7, 1770. He entered Parliament under Pitt's auspices in 1790, and on his father being created Earl of Liverpool in 1796 he became Lord Hawkesbury. As foreign secretary in the Addington ministry he negotiated the 1836 treaty of Amiens, and he became home secretary in 1804. On the assassination of Percival in 1812 he became premier, min B and held that position till 1827. His st went opposition to all liberal measures, the London severity with which he repressed internal scovered disturbances, and his prosecution of Queen Caroline, rendered him extremely unpopular. He died in London, England, Dec. 4, 1828. L
Liverpool UNIVERSITY OF, an institution for higher education
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
UNIVERSITY OF, an institution for higher education, founded in Liverpool, in 1881. From 1884 to 1903 it was a part of Victoria University. It was then reorganized and made an independent university. It includes the departments of art, science, engineering, law, and medicine. Much attention is given to the university extension course. It has about 1,500 students.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 account calls Liverpool the third city of the United Kingdom, with a population of 753,203 and buildings "too modern to attract the ordinary tourist" — travellers, it says, went straight on to Chester or London. The city peaked at around 850,000 residents in the 1930s and then fell steadily as the docks declined; roughly 490,000 live within the city boundary today, and container traffic long ago shifted downriver to the purpose-built Seaforth terminal, while the great floating landing stage described in such detail is gone. Far from being skipped by tourists, Liverpool is now visited for the Beatles, the Albert Dock galleries and two twentieth-century cathedrals (the Anglican one, begun in 1904, finished only in 1978), and it was European Capital of Culture in 2008. The slave trade the article describes so bluntly is now confronted head-on in the city's International Slavery Museum, opened in 2007.
Written for this edition, 2026.