Timeline of Liverpool

Prior to 18th century

• 4000 BCE - The Calderstones erected.
• 902 - The first known settlement of Irish people In the Liverpool area, these were Vikings and Irish people who left Ireland and were permitted by Anglo-Saxons rulers to settle in Wirral and near what would later become Liverpool.
• 1089 – The West Derby Hundred is recorded in the Domesday Book.
• 1150 – Birkenhead Priory, the oldest surviving building on Merseyside and credited with establishing the Mersey Ferry.
• 1207 – 28 August: Liverpool and its market chartered by King John.
• 1229 – Charter granted by Henry III authorizing a merchants' guild.
• 1237 – Liverpool Castle.
• 1266 – Liverpool passed into the hands of Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster.
• 1292 – John De More becomes Lord Mayor of Liverpool.
• 1295 – Borough sent two members to the first royal parliament.
• 1349 – The Black Death plague hits Liverpool killing 240 of its population of 1000 people.
• 1565 - The first official list of Liverpool ships recorded 12 vessels, the largest being the 40-ton bark Eagle.
• 1588 – Borough represented in Parliament by Francis Bacon.
• 1598 – Speke Hall built.
• 1639 – Jeremiah Horrocks, astronomer, is one of the first to observe a Transit of Venus.
• 1662 – Population 775.
• 1644 – Town besieged by forces of Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
• 1648 - The first cargo from America to Liverpool, the ship named Friendship, a vessel of 30 tons under the command of Captain James Jenkinson, the trade focused on exchanging goods like cloth, coal and salt from Lancashire and Cheshire regions for American products such as sugar and tobacco.
• 1674 – Town Hall rebuilt.
• 1684 – Richard Atherton becomes Lord Mayor of Liverpool and secures the surrender of the Liverpool Charter, which was delivered to George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys, known as Judge Jeffreys, at Bewsey Old Hall in 1684. The notes on the Liverpool Charters refer to Atherton as the first modern Mayor of Liverpool.
• 1699 - December 1; The Liverpool Merchant, The first Liverpool slave ship to sail from Liverpool marking the beginning of the Liverpool slave trade.

  18th century

• 1700
• * The Bessing slave ship begins operating.
• * Population: 5,714.
• 1702 – Croxteth Hall built.
• 1704 – Woolton Hall built.
• 1708 – Blue Coat School founded.
• 1715 – opening of the world’s first enclosed commercial wet dock Old Dock.
• 1717 – Bluecoat Chambers built.
• 1718 – Blue Coat hospital opens.
• 1720 – Population: 10,446.
• 1722 – Ranelagh Gardens open.
• 1724 – 25 August: Animal painter George Stubbs born.
• 1726
• * Liverpool Castle demolished.
• * Ye Hole in Ye Wall pub on Hackins Hey opens.
• * John Okill shipbuilder, on Nova Scotia Docks.
• 1730 - Black people in Liverpool is the oldest and longest established black community in Uk and Europe.
• 1734 - Robert Morris born on Dale st
• 1737 Canning Dock built.
• 1740 - Jewish community established, the first in the North of England. Stanley Street also the location for Liverpools first Synagogue in 1751.
• 1741 - HMS Liverpool launched on by John Okill shipbuilding, was the first Royal Navy ship named after the city a 681 tons and 44-gun, fifth-rate frigate.
• 1742 - Rathbones in business.
• 1748 - John Newton workplace and later home for sixteen years from 1748 to 1764 later wrote Amazing Grace.
• 1749 – Royal Infirmary opens.
• 1752 - Richard Chaffers Liverpool porcelain manufacturer.
• 1753 – Salthouse Dock built.
• 1754 – Liverpool Town Hall built.
• 1756 – Liverpool Advertiser newspaper begins publication.
• 1757 - Sankey Canal opens Henry Berry appointed engineer.
• 1757 - June 10; The Liverpool ship launched.
• 1758- Fawcett, Preston and company, the engineering company established by George Perry with William Fawcett joining the company in 1784.
• 1758 – Circulating library established.
• 1758 - HMS Venus launched by John Okill shipbuilding.
• 1758 - HMS Liverpool launched from the River Mersey.
• 1761 - Peter Baker established shipbuilding company Baker & Co near Salthouse Dock.
• 1763 - Octagon Chapel, Liverpool built.
• Leasowe Lighthouse built, located on the Wirral Peninsula in Merseyside, is widely recognised as the world’s oldest brick-built lighthouse, it was commissioned by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company to guide ships safely into the Port of Liverpool, William Hutchinson installed what may have been the first Parabolic reflector in a Lighthouse.
• 1766 – City directory published.
• 1768 - Thomas Creevey, Politician and writer born.
• 1770s – Scotland Road laid out.
• 1771
• * Bidston lighthouse built.
• * George's Dock opens.
• 1773 - Shipowner merchant brought commercialisation and mass production of Marsala wine to the British Empire.
• 1773 - Duke's Dock built.
• 1773 - Peter Baker &Co Shipbuilding Company built the Kent a 11,00-ton ship, which was the largest ever constructed in Liverpool at that time.
• 1775 - Banastre Tarleton leads the British Legion in the American War of Independence.
• 1776- Robert Morris becomes one of Founding Fathers of the United States.
• 1776/7 - William Hutchinson established the world’s first recorded Lifeboat station on Formby beach.
• 1778/9 – 120 privateers were fitted out in Liverpool, carrying 1986 guns and 8745 men.
• 1778 - Anglo-French War begins, the Mentor ship owned by Peter Baker captured Carnatic.
• 1778 - HMS Penolope launched, by Peter Baker shipbuilding, captured by her Spanish prisoners in 1780 during the Anglo-Spanish War.
• 1778 - HMS Hyaena launched.
• 1979 - Carnatic Hall built.
• 1780 - HMS Adamant launched, by Peter Baker shipbuilding, she served during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars in a career that spanned thirty years.
• 1779 – Medical Library founded.
• 1780 - HMS Daedalus launched, by John Fisher shipbuilding of Liverpool.
• 1781 - HMS Assistance launched, by Peter Baker shipbuilding,
• 1784 – Liverpool Musical Festival begins.
• 1784 - The first cargo of American cotton was unloaded in Liverpool, this initial shipment consisted of only eight bags of cotton.
• 1785 – Liverpool Georgian Quarter constructed.
• 1785 - Kings Dock and Queens Dock built.
• 1787 - Greenbank House built, Shipowners Rathbone family lived here.
• 1788 – St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church built.
• 1790 - James Maury as the first Consulate of the United States, Liverpool serving the role for 40 years, the first consulate established by the United States.
• * Lime Street laid out.
• 1791 – School for the Blind founded.
• 1792 – Holy Trinity Church, Wavertree, consecrated
• 1795 - William Bullock founded the Bullocks Museum of Natural Curiosities.
• 1797 – Liverpool Athenaeum founded.
• 1799 - Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby was born, three-time Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the longest serving party leader.

  19th century

1800s–1840s

• 1801 – Population: 77,653.
• 1802 – The Lyceum, Liverpool built, housed England’s first subscription library.
• 1803 – Botanical Gardens open.
• 1805 – Extension to Liverpool Town Hall completed providing the main ballroom and council chamber
• 1807
• * 185 Liverpool ships were engaged in the slave trade, carrying 49,213 slaves in 1807.
• * March – Slave Trade Act in the United Kingdom and Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves in the United States outlaw the Atlantic slave trade. On 27 July Kitty's Amelia sails on the last legal British slaving voyage.
• * Liverpool Cricket Club formed.
• * Bibby Line shipping company in business.
• 1808 - Exchange Buildings.
• August : Exchange Buildings built.
• 1809 - William Ewart Gladstone Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was born.
• October 25; The world’s oldest animal charity branch was established at a meeting held in Bold Street, Liverpool in a coffee house, originally named the Society for the Suppression of Wanton Cruelty of Brute Animals, it was founded 15 years before the national RSPCA was established in 1824.
• 1810 - Sir William Brown established Brown Shipley, as the eldest son of Alexander Brown who founded Alex. Brown & Sons the oldest investment banking firm in the US.

• 1810 - the spire of Church of Our Lady and St Nicholas, Liverpool collapsed during morning service killing twenty one children from a local orphanage.
• * Williamson Tunnels started.
• * Prince's Half-Tide Dock built.
• 1814 - Kingsmill ship became the first vessel to sail to and trade with India after the East India Company lost its monopoly on the trade with India in 1813, sailing from Liverpool and owned by Liverpool merchant John Gladstone.
• 1815 - Liverpool trades with India after the East India Company monopoly was lost.
• 1815 – Manchester Dock built.
• 1815 - the first steamship Mersey Ferry, Paddle steamer Elizabeth.
• 1816 – Leeds and Liverpool Canal constructed.
• 1816- Swire is founded with John Samuel Swire taking the reins in 1847.
• 1817 – Liverpool Royal Institution established.
• 1818 - Black Ball Line in business, The first scheduled trans-Atlantic crossing, and first to sail between America and European ports on regular schedules, Packet ships running between Liverpool and New York City.
• 1819 – SS Savannah completes first steamship transatlantic sailing.
• 1820 - Hannah vessel wrecked located at Hannah Point, Liverpool Beach in Antarctica
• 1821 - Prince’s Dock built.
• 1822
• * City of Dublin Steam Packet Company operates Steamships between Liverpool and Dublin.
• * The old St John's Market was designed by John Foster Junior and built.
• 1823 – Marine Humane Society founded.
• 1824/28 — John Laird pioneer shipbuilder goes into business with is father William Laird establishing William Laird & Son.
• 1825 – Liverpool Mechanics' School of Arts and Philomathic Society established.
• 1826
• * St James Cemetery laid out.
• * Old Dock closed.
• 1827 – Law Society established.
• 1828 – Baths and wash houses in Britain first established in Liverpool.
• 1828 - William Fawcett engineer, pioneering William Fawcett maiden voyage, the earliest first P&O ship.
• 1829 – Canning Dock opens.
• 1829 — Stephenson's Rocket wins Rainhill trials
• 1830
• * Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. the world’s first inter-city railway.
• ** Crown Street railway station and the first ever train shed opened.
• ** Broad Green railway station is the world’s oldest railway station in continuous use.
• ** Wapping Tunnel opened.
• ** The Liverpool Rubber Company was founded, credited with designing the first rubber-soled sports shoes, attaching canvas as uppers to rubber soles, Theses early shoes, sometimes “ called sand shoes “ are considered by many to be the first sneakers or British trainers.
• * Isle of Man Steam Packet Company is the world’s oldest continuously operating passenger shipping company.
• * Liverpool merchant James Atherton founder of New Brighton, Merseyside Seaside resort with the Uk longest Promenade.
• 1831 – Population: 165,175.
• 1831 - William Fawcett engineer, pioneering SS Royal William credited with being the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean almost entirely under steam power from the River Mersey
• 1831 - Bank of Liverpool in business.
• 1832 - Kitty Wilkinson public wash house pioneer during the 1826-1837 cholera pandemic, that killed 1,523 people the epidemic caused widespread fear and even led to Riots in the city.
• * Church of St Luke built.
• 1833 - The Liverpool East India Association group efforts contributed to the East India Company monopoly being broken with China the Port of Liverpool direct trade with the east expanding rapidly after the East India Company Act 1833.
• 1834 - Waterloo Dock built.
• 1835
• * City boundaries expand.
• * First elected Town Council replaces Common Council.
• 1836
• * Literary, Scientific and Commercial Institution and Liverpool Town Borough Police established.
• * Liverpool & London & Globe Insurance established.
• * The world’s oldest main line terminus Liverpool Lime Street railway station opens.
• 1837 – Liverpool Chess Club formed.
• 1838 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel SS Great Western the largest passenger ship in the world sails from Liverpool between 1838-1845.
• 1838 - Gustav Christian Schwabe moves to Liverpool financier of Bibby Line, Harland & Wolff and the White Star Line shipping line.
• 1839 - The first British ocean going iron war ship the Nemesis built by John Laird Sons & Company and George Forrester and Company.
• The Grand National was inaugurated at Aintree Racecourse, Lottery won the 1839 Grand National.
• * Customs House Built.
• * Royal Insurance Building, Queen Avenue, Liverpool built for Royal Insurance in 1845.
• 1840
• * Liverpool College and Liverpool Philharmonic Society founded.
• * July ; Liverpool was the birthplace of Cunnard with the first Transatlantic Crossing of Britannia departing from Liverpool to Boston.
• 1842
• * St. Francis Xavier's College established.
• * Robertson Gladstone becomes mayor.
• 1843 – Princes Park laid out.
• 1844
• * Canning Half Tide Dock opens.
• * Royal Mersey Yacht Club established.
• 1845 – White Star Line was founded in Liverpool by John pilkington and Henry Wilson, it focused on the Uk-Australia trade, which increased following the Victorian gold rush in 1951.
• July 26; Isambard Kingdom Brunel pioneering SS Great Britain maiden voyage, the largest ship in the world and the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
• Lamport and Holt merchant shipping company business.
• 1846 – Royal Albert Dock opens.
• 1847 - William Henry Duncan on January 1 appointed as Liverpool Medical Officer of Health his appointment made Liverpool the first city in the world to establish such a position.
• 1848
• First integrated sewerage system in the world, this new sewerage system prevented raw sewage from contaminating drinking water, life expectancy in Liverpool was 19 years old and doubled after appointed engineer James Newlands retired.
• * Liverpool, Crosby and Southport Railway opened.
• * Bramley-Moore Dock built.
• * Stanley Dock built.
• * Cope Bros & Co in business.
• * Church of Saint Francis Xavier consecrated.
• 1849 - Cholera claimed 5,308 lives in the major port city of Liverpool the most number outside London.
• * Philharmonic Hall opens.
• * Victoria Tunnel and Waterloo Tunnel opened connecting Edge Hill railway station to Liverpool Riverside railway station.
• * Gustav Wilhelm Wolff settles in Liverpool from the age of fifteen spending most of his working life, co-founding Harland & Wolff ship yard in 1861.
• * Edwin Waterhouse co-founded account practice of Price Waterhouse, that now forms part of PwC opening its first office outside London in Liverpool in 1904.