Southport

Southport[] is a seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. It lies on the West Lancashire coastal plain and the east coast of the Irish Sea, approximately north of Liverpool and southwest of Preston. At the 2021 census, Southport had a population of 94,421, making it the eleventh most populous settlement in North West England and the third most populous settlement in the Liverpool City Region.
The town was founded in 1792 by William Sutton, an innkeeper from Churchtown, who built a bathing house at what is now the south end of Lord Street. The area was previously known as South Hawes, and was sparsely populated and dominated by dunes. The area became popular with tourists due to the easy access from the nearby Leeds and Liverpool Canal, and by 1848 had a railway connection. The resort increased during the Victorian era and contains examples of Victorian architecture and town planning. Lord Street was developed as a wide, tree-lined shopping street, and attractions such as Southport Pier, which is the second longest seaside pleasure pier in the British Isles, were constructed. A particular feature of the town is the extensive tree planting. This was one of the conditions required by the Hesketh family when they made land available for development in the 19th century. Hesketh Park at the northern end of the town is named after them, having been built on land donated by Rev. Charles Hesketh.
Extensive sand dunes stretch for several miles from Woodvale to Birkdale, the south of the town. The Ainsdale dunes have been designated as a national nature reserve and a Ramsar site. Local fauna include the natterjack toad and the sand lizard. Southport hosts events, including an annual air show on and over the beach, the largest independent flower show in the UK in Victoria Park, and the British Musical Fireworks Championship. The town is at the centre of England's "Golf Coast", and has hosted the Open Championship at the Royal Birkdale Golf Club.

Etymology

The town gets its name from the South Port Hotel; built around 1797.

History

10th–17th century

There have been settlements in the area now comprising Southport since the Domesday Book, and some parts of the town have names of Viking origin.
The earliest recorded human activity in the region was during the Middle Stone Age when mesolithic hunter-gatherers were attracted by the abundant red deer and elk populations, as well as the availability of fish, shellfish, and woodland.
Roman coins have been found at Halsall Moss and Crossens, although the Romans never settled southwest Lancashire.
The first objective evidence of an early settlement in the region is in the Domesday Book, in which the area is called Otergimele. The Domesday Book states that there were 50 huts in Otergimele, housing a population 200. The population was scattered thinly across the region, and it was at the northeast end of Otergimele, where blown sand gave way to alluvial deposits from the River Ribble estuary, that a small concentration of people occurred.
It was here that a primitive church might have been built, which gave the emerging village its name of Churchtown, the parish being North Meols. A church called St Cuthbert's is still at the centre of Churchtown.
With a booming fishing industry, the area grew and hamlets became part of the parish of North Meols. From south to north, these villages were South Hawes, Haweside, Little London, Higher Blowick, Lower Blowick, Rowe-Lane, Churchtown, Marshside, Crossens, and Banks. As well as Churchtown, there were vicarages in Crossens and Banks.
Parts of the parish were almost completely surrounded by water until 1692 when Thomas Fleetwood of Bank Hall cut a channel to drain Martin Mere to the sea. From this point on, attempts at large-scale drainage of Martin Mere and other marshland continued until the 19th century, since when the water has been pumped away. This left behind a legacy of fine agricultural soil and created a booming farming industry.

18th century

In the late 18th century, it was becoming fashionable for the well-to-do to desert inland spa towns and visit the seaside to bathe in the salt sea waters. At that time, doctors recommended bathing in the sea to help cure aches and pains. In 1792, William Sutton, the landlord of the Black Bull Inn in Churchtown and known to locals as "The Old Duke", realised the importance of the newly created canal systems across the UK and set up a bathing house in the virtually uninhabited dunes at South Hawes by the seaside just four miles away from the newly constructed Leeds and Liverpool Canal and two miles southwest of Churchtown.
When a widow from Wigan built a cottage nearby in 1797 for seasonal lodgers, Sutton quickly built a new inn on the site of the bathing house which he called the South Port Hotel, moving to live there the following season. There was no port, but "Southport" soon became the name of the town. The locals thought him mad and referred to the building as the Duke's Folly, but Sutton arranged transport links from the canal that ran through Scarisbrick, four miles from the hotel, and trade was remarkably good. The hotel survived until 1854, when it was demolished to make way for traffic at the end of Lord Street, but its presence and the impact of its founder are marked by a plaque in the vicinity, by the name of one street at the intersection, namely Duke Street, and by a hotel on Duke Street which bears the legacy name of Dukes Folly Hotel.

19th century

Southport grew quickly in the 19th century as it gained a reputation for being a more refined seaside resort than its neighbour Blackpool. Southport had a head start compared to all the other places on the Lancashire coast because it had easy access to the canal system. Other seaside bathing areas could not really get going until the railways were built some years later. The Leeds and Liverpool canal brought people from Liverpool, Manchester, Bolton and Wigan amongst others. By 1820 Southport had over 20,000 visitors per year.
Southport Pier is referred to as the first true "pleasure pier", being one of the earliest pier structures to be erected using iron. A design from James Brunlees was approved at a cost of £8,700 and on 4 August 1859 a large crowd witnessed the driving home of the first support pile. The opening of the pier was celebrated on 2 August 1860.
On the night of 9 December 1886, the worst lifeboat disaster in the history of the UK occurred off the shores of Southport. A cargo ship called the Mexico was on its way to South America when it found itself in difficulty. Lifeboats from Lytham, St. Annes, and Southport set off to try to rescue those aboard the vessel. The crews battled against storm-force winds as they rowed towards the casualty. The entire crew from the St. Anne's boat was lost and all but two of the Southport crew were too. In all, 28 lifeboatmen lost their lives on that night, leaving many widows and fatherless children.
A memorial was erected in Duke Street Cemetery and there is a permanent display in the museum at The Atkinson on Lord Street. There is also a memorial inside the Lifeboat house, now operated by the Southport Offshore Rescue Trust. Mexico was just one of many shipwrecks in the Southport area.

20th century

From 1894 to 1912 Birkdale and the adjoining village of Ainsdale were separate from Southport and administered by Birkdale Urban District Council before becoming part of the county borough of Southport in 1912. This was a huge expansion of the town.
In 1914, a very short romance story between a "2 park road Southport" private soldier and French lady took place in Valenciennes in north France during early First World War as described by Andrée Ducatez's Journal.
In 1925, the RNLI abandoned the station at Southport and left the town with no lifeboat. In the late 1980s, after a series of tragedies, local families from Southport raised the funds to buy a new lifeboat for the town, stationed at the old RNLI lifeboat house. The lifeboat, operated by the Southport Offshore Rescue Trust, is completely independent from the RNLI and receives no money from them. It relies entirely on donations from the general public.
On 16 March 1926, Henry Segrave set the land speed record in his 4-litre Sunbeam Tiger Ladybird on the sands at Southport at. This record lasted for just over a month, until broken by J.G. Parry-Thomas.

21st century

Southport elected their first ever Labour MP in the 2024 general election.
On 29 July 2024, three girls aged 6, 7 and 9 were murdered in a mass stabbing at a dance workshop on Hart Street, with eight children and two adults left injured. The next day a vigil was held for the victims. Later that evening, riots broke out and a mosque near Hart Street was attacked after social media posts spread incorrect rumours about an Islamist link to the murders. Cars, including a police vehicle, were set on fire. More than fifty police officers were injured. Rioters travelled to Southport from other areas and included far-right supporters. A shop was looted and members of the community came together to help the shopkeeper and clean up the streets.
Following the murders, thousands attended vigils and laid floral tributes to the victims in Town Hall Gardens. In June 2025, the families of the three murdered girls visited Downing Street to show the prime minister plans for a regeneration of the Gardens. The prime minister pledged £5 million towards the project, with the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and Sefton Council having both allocated £2.5 million towards it.

Governance

In 2024 Southport elected its first ever Labour MP since the creation of the constituency in the 1880s, with Labour politician Patrick Hurley succeeding Conservative incumbent Damien Moore. Prior to that, Liberal Democrat John Pugh was the MP for Southport, holding the seat for 16 years until his retirement in the 2017 General election.
Southport, as part of the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, one of the six boroughs of the Liverpool City Region. It is governed by the Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, and the combined authority, which is responsible for areas of transport, trade and strategic governance of devolved powers in the town and wider Sefton Borough.