Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.24 million.

On the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary, Liverpool historically lay within the ancient hundred of West Derby in the county of Lancashire. It became a borough in 1207, a city in 1880, and a county borough independent of the newly-created Lancashire County Council in 1889. Its growth as a major port was paralleled by the expansion of the city throughout the Industrial Revolution. Along with general cargo, freight, and raw materials such as coal and cotton, merchants were involved in the slave trade. In the 19th century, Liverpool was a major port of departure for English and Irish emigrants to North America. It was also home to both the Cunard and White Star Lines, and was the port of registry of the ocean liners , , , and .

In 2019, Liverpool was the fifth most visited UK city. It is noted for its culture, architecture, and transport links. The city is closely associated with the arts, especially music. The popularity of the Beatles, widely regarded as the most influential band of all time, led to it becoming a tourist destination. Liverpool has continued to be the home of numerous notable musicians and record from the city have released 56 No. 1 hit singles, more than any other city in the world. The city also has a long-standing reputation for producing countless actors and actresses, artists, athletes, comedians, journalists, novelists, and poets.

Liverpool has the second highest number of art galleries, national museums, listed buildings, and listed parks in the UK; only the capital, London, has more. The former Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City includes the Pier Head, Albert Dock and William Brown Street. In sport, the city is best known as the home of Premier League football teams Liverpool FC and Everton FC, with matches between the two rivals being known as the Merseyside derby. The annual Grand National horse race takes place at Aintree Racecourse.

Several areas of Liverpool city centre carried World Heritage Site status from 2004 until 2021; the city's vast collection of parks and open spaces has been described as the "most important in the country" by England's Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest. Its status as a port city historically attracted a diverse population from a wide range of cultures, primarily Ireland, Norway, and Wales. It is also home to the oldest black community in the UK and the oldest Chinese community in Europe.

Natives of Liverpool (and some longtime residents from elsewhere) are formally referred to as "Liverpudlians" but are usually called "Scousers" in reference to scouse, a local stew made popular by sailors in the city; "Scouse" is also the most common name for the Liverpool accent and dialect. The city celebrated its 800th anniversary in 2007 and was named the 2008 European Capital of Culture, which it shared with the Norwegian city of Stavanger. Its selection as a European Capital of Culture has been credited with kickstarting its economic renaissance.

Etymology

The name comes from the Old English ''lifer'', meaning thick or muddy water, and ''pōl'', meaning a pool or creek, and is first recorded around 1190 as ''Liuerpul''. According to the ''Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names'', "The original reference was to a pool or tidal creek now filled up into which two streams drained". The place appearing as ''Leyrpole'', in a legal record of 1418, may also refer to Liverpool. Other origins of the name have been suggested, including "elverpool", a reference to the large number of eels in the Mersey. The adjective "Liverpudlian" was first recorded in 1833.

Although the Old English origin of the name Liverpool is beyond dispute, claims are sometimes made that the name Liverpool is of Welsh origin, but these are without foundation. The Welsh name for Liverpool is Lerpwl, from a former English local form Leerpool. This is a reduction of the form "Leverpool" with the loss of the intervocalic (seen in other English names and words e.g. Daventry (Northamptonshire) > Danetry, never-do-well > ne’er-do-well).

In the nineteenth century, some Welsh publications used the name "Lle'r Pwll" ("(the) place (of) the pool"), a reinterpretation of Lerpwl, probably in the belief that "Lle'r Pwll" was the original form.

Another name, which is widely known even today, is Llynlleifiad, again a nineteenth-century coining. "Llyn" is pool, but "lleifiad" has no obvious meaning. Professor G. Melville Richards (1910–1973), a pioneer of scientific toponymy in Wales, in "Place Names of North Wales", does not attempt to explain it beyond noting that "lleifiad" is used as a Welsh equivalent of "Liver".

A derivative form of a learned borrowing into Welsh (*llaf) of Latin lāma (slough, bog, fen) to give "lleifiad" is possible, but unproven.

History

Early history

King John's letters patent of 1207 announced the foundation of the borough of Liverpool. By the middle of the 16th century, the population was still around 500. The original street plan of Liverpool is said to have been designed by King John near the same time it was granted a royal charter, making it a borough. The original seven streets were laid out in an H shape: Bank Street (now Water Street), Castle Street, Chapel Street, Dale Street, Juggler Street (now High Street), Moor Street (now Tithebarn Street) and Whiteacre Street (now Old Hall Street).

In the 17th century there was slow progress in trade and population growth. Battles for control of the town were waged during the English Civil War, including a brief siege in 1644. In 1699, the same year as its first recorded slave ship, ''Liverpool Merchant'', set sail for Africa, Liverpool was made a parish by Act of Parliament. But arguably the legislation of 1695 that reformed the Liverpool council was of more significance to its subsequent development. Since Roman times, the nearby city of Chester on the River Dee had been the region's principal port on the Irish Sea. However, as the Dee began to silt up, maritime trade from Chester became increasingly difficult and shifted towards Liverpool on the neighbouring River Mersey.

As trade from the West Indies, including sugar, surpassed that of Ireland and Europe, and as the River Dee continued to silt up, Liverpool began to grow with increasing rapidity. The first commercial wet dock was built in Liverpool in 1715. Substantial profits from the slave trade and tobacco helped the town to prosper and rapidly grow, although several prominent local men, including William Rathbone, William Roscoe and Edward Rushton, were at the forefront of the local abolitionist movement.

19th century

By the start of the 19th century, a large volume of trade was passing through Liverpool, and the construction of major buildings reflected this wealth. In 1830, Liverpool and Manchester became the first cities to have an intercity rail link, through the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The population continued to rise rapidly, especially during the 1840s when Irish migrants began arriving by the hundreds of thousands as a result of the Great Famine.

In her poetical illustration "Liverpool" (1832), which celebrates the city's worldwide commerce, Letitia Elizabeth Landon refers specifically to the Macgregor Laird expedition to the Niger River, at that time in progress. This is to a painting by Samuel Austin, ''Liverpool, from the Mersey''.

Britain was a major market for cotton imported from the Deep South of the United States, which fed the textile industry in the country. Given the crucial place cotton held in the city's economy, during the American Civil War Liverpool was, in the words of historian Sven Beckert, "the most pro-Confederate place in the world outside the Confederacy itself."

For periods during the 19th century, the wealth of Liverpool exceeded that of London,Ten facts about Liverpool
''The Daily Telegraph'', 4 June 2003 and Liverpool's Custom House was the single largest contributor to the British Exchequer. Liverpool was the only British city ever to have its own Whitehall office.

In the early 19th century, Liverpool played a major role in the Antarctic sealing industry, in recognition of which Liverpool Beach in the South Shetland Islands is named after the city.

As early as 1851 the city was described as "the New York of Europe". During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Liverpool was attracting immigrants from across Europe. This resulted in the construction of a diverse array of religious buildings in the city for the new ethnic and religious groups, many of which are still in use today. The Deutsche Kirche Liverpool, Greek Orthodox Church of St Nicholas, Gustav Adolf Church and Princes Road Synagogue were all established in the 1800s to serve Liverpool's growing German, Greek, Nordic and Jewish communities, respectively. One of Liverpool's oldest surviving churches, St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church, served the Polish community in its final years as a place of worship.

20th century

The postwar period after the Great War was marked by social unrest, as society grappled with the massive war losses of young men, as well as trying to integrate veterans into the economy. Union organising and strikes took place in numerous locations, including police strikes in London among the Metropolitan Police. Numerous colonial soldiers and sailors from Africa and India, who had served with the UK, settled in Liverpool and other port cities. In June 1919 they were subject to attack by whites in racial riots; residents in the port included Swedish immigrants, and both groups had to compete with native people from Liverpool for jobs and housing. In this period, race riots also took place in Cardiff, Newport and Barry, and there had been incidents in Glasgow, South Shields, London, Hull and