Introduction

Very few cities in the world are famous enough to need no further address. No-one needs to ask where New York is, or San Francisco, Beijing, Paris, London, Sydney, Moscow, Hong Kong, Athens, Rome ... or Liverpool. No matter where you go in the world (outside Britain), say you come from Liverpool and people’s faces light up with big smiles. It’s almost certainly going to be one of two things that people associate with Liverpool: football or music. In the USA, it’s music; in Brazil it’s football; Japan – music; Greece – football.
But whatever foreigners think of when they hear the word ‘Liverpool’, it is positive. In Britain, the image is rather different. You’d think that Liverpool sprang into being 30 years ago, fully formed as a depressed northern city populated by work-shy, bolshie trouble makers, comedians and criminals. As for industry, or culture, or learning – tsk! Everyone knows the docks are dead, the city is a hideous blot, Scousers are stupid and aggressive, and they wouldn’t know culture if they fell over it. Everyone knows that.
When I first came to this city taxi drivers – having established that I wasn’t from round here – would commiserate with me at having to move to Liverpool. ‘It’s not so bad, love. Why do you come ‘ere, anyway?’ They’d be pleased when I ticked off a dozen reasons why I’d left London and moved up here, and told them that it had taken me half a day, on my first visit, to decide that this was the city for me. I had gone back, put my flat on the market, sold up and escaped north without a backwards glance.
It’s not just that Liverpool people are friendly, or that I could afford to buy a house here. It’s not only that Liverpool is warmed by the Gulf Stream or that the air is cleaner here than most other cities, or that it has 2,500 listed buildings and as many acres of park and woodland. It’s the kindness of strangers, the human scale of the city, the lightness of heart, the battling spirit, the imagination, the passion and the expression.
When southern friends and family heard I was moving here, they said: ‘You’re mad!’ or ‘How brave!’. They all changed their minds when they came up here to visit. I felt instantly welcome here; I’m proud to call Liverpool home, and can’t imagine living in another city.
As Liverpool reaches the end of its first thousand years, it can look back on a story that has been turbulent, thrilling, pioneering, desperate, joyful, ruthless, shaming, wealthy, powerful, depressing, glorious, hopeless, and hopeful. Like any city, Liverpool has its problems. Half a million people living in a small space will create dramas, tragedies and comedies; in this city the dramas are more exciting, the comedies funnier and the tragedies as tragic as anywhere else.
In the 1960s Liverpool was one of the coolest cities on the planet; by the 1980s it was the pariah city of Britain. How quickly people forget – within living memory Liverpool has been one of the world’s most powerful trading cities and the main link between the Old and New Worlds. But it’s not the first-ever radio broadcast that people remember, or the beginnings of the railways and the canals; not the world’s largest Anglican cathedral or the start of the NSPCC and the RSPCA. The name Toxteth doesn’t remind people of the Domesday Book and King John’s hunting park. Liverpool is more famous for an ordinary road in a pleasant suburb (Penny Lane) than for a sporting event watched by over a billion people each spring.
Writing this book has given me a new perspective on Liverpool: looking at 1,000 years of the city’s life, the shape of its growth and the turning points in its story, how its strengths in one century became its weaknesses in another, the heights of its power, the speed of its decline and the guts with which it is regenerating itself.
Geographically English, Liverpool is not an English city. From its earliest days Liverpool has attracted people from other places, people with an appetite for the new and the different – people with the courage to travel and explore, people with ideas, and people with the vision to back them. Risk takers, pioneers, entrepreneurs, inventors, reformers – this is not a place for quiet contemplation, but for doing, changing, trying.
God knows Liverpool has got a long way to go. But this is an extraordinary city, with a world-leading past and a world-class future; how exciting to be in at the start of its renaissance and the first of its next 1,000 years.
– Arabella McIntyre-Brown

Foreword to the first edition

Over the years, many books have been written about our great city, its people, its architecture, its history, its sporting achievements, its humour, its successes and its failures. This book has all of these elements and more, but it is the first of its kind, combining the story of Liverpool’s past with wonderful images of Liverpool today and an enthusiastic look at the excellent prospects for Liverpool’s future. I was born in Aberdeen and spent most of my life in Scotland but, having lived and worked here in Liverpool
for the best part of 10 years, I am proud to describe myself as an adopted Liverpudlian.
My 10 years here represent just 1% of the first 1,000 years of Liverpool which this book describes, but I am a great enthusiast for the city and fully committed to its regeneration, especially as we approach the 800th anniversary of the granting of the city’s Royal Charter in 2007 and, I hope, its designation as European Capital of Culture in 2008.
I know that both of the authors of this attractive book are as dedicated to Liverpool as I am, even though they too are relative newcomers. Arabella McIntyre-Brown, who wrote the text, was born in West Sussex and came to Liverpool in 1988. Guy Woodland, who took the photographs, was born in Karachi and came here in 1979. Both are passionate about their adopted city.
Such passion is common amongst Liverpool’s citizens, whether they be born and bred here or recent converts like myself. It is a testimony to the qualities and strengths of Liverpool that it has such a positive effect on so many people, including a large proportion of the many thousands of students who come to the city to study each year. Some of that attractiveness is down to the complex and rich history of Liverpool, but much is due to the friendliness of its people, the excellence of its cultural and sporting activities and, of course, the beauty of its architecture and open spaces. All of these are captured in some way in this book.
Many institutions and companies are also committed to Liverpool, especially those which have their origins in the city. Typical of these is the University of Liverpool, created by the citizens of Liverpool in the 19th century ‘for advancement of learning and ennoblement of life’. The University today is proud of its roots and of its role as a key player in the heart of Liverpool. As a research-led university with excellent teaching, we are also working hard with a whole range of partners from business and industry to help bring wealth back to the city and help to restore Liverpool to its former glory.
As the University looks forward to celebrating the centenary of the granting of its own Royal Charter in 2003, I am delighted that we are able to sponsor the publication of this new book, which I am sure will be welcomed by all the many fans of Liverpool, wherever they may be living today. If you are not already a fan, then I am sure that you will catch more than a sense of what Liverpool was, is and will be, as you leaf through the pages that follow.
- Professor Philip Love CBE DL
[then] Vice Chancellor, University of Liverpool

Contents of the first edition

• Foreword by Philip Love, Vice Chancellor of the University of Liverpool
• Introduction by Arabella McIntyre-Brown
• Liver Birds: Two dozen birds – but where are they?
• Chapter 1 Timeline: From Neolithic settlement to the start of the third millennium – a brief history of Liverpool from marshland to global gateway
• Chapter 2 Performance: Writers, poets, actors, musicians, comedians, singers and – yes, OK – the Beatles
• Chapter 3 Sporting life: Golf, athletics, swimming, tennis, and the rest. World-class racing, including the world’s single biggest sporting event. And football ...
• Chapter 4 Import/export: How Liverpool and the world have influenced each other
• Chapter 5 Moving: Liverpool is never still; this is a city whose purpose has always been to move people and things, by road, rail, air, and water
• Chapter 6 Working city: At one point half the nation’s trade was done in Liverpool; the city still influences a surprising amount of business around the world
• Chapter 7 2D–3D: More listed buildings than any city outside London, and a phenomenal collection of art and artists
• Chapter 8 Dark days : A three-month siege, cholera, war, slavery, and personal tragedy under the spotlights
• Chapter 9 Law : Police, the accused, lawyers and surprising statistics
• Chapter 10 Society: Ordering, governing and caring for the city and its people – politics, religion, public health and philanthropy
• Chapter 11 Learning: Education from pre-school to University; pioneering medicine and science – and who really invented radio
• Chapter 12 Living: Home, at play and out to lunch; a million trees and the world’s most extravagant pub
• Chapter 13 Renewal: Picking up the pieces and creating the future
• Chapter 14 Language: Names, Scouse and lernin’ ter speakh prrroper
• Bibliography
• Index
• ... and the last shall be Firsts