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Liverpool History Updates Daily

@imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social
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On this day in Liverpool history...

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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
#Onthisday in 1840 the "Mad Duke" who created Southport died in jail. William Sutton, a publican in North Meols, had the crazy idea of building a bathing house and hotel in what was then the middle of nowhere. The place thrived and a town sprung up around, but Sutton died in a prison for debtors.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Tragedy struck at Speke airport #onthisday (21 May) in 1956 as Léo Valentin, the French birdman who flew with wooden wings, plunged to his death at an air show. In the horrified crowd of 100,000 were 3 kids who went on to fame: writer Clive Barker & future Beatles George Harrison & Paul McCartney.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
#Onthisday (20 May) in 1872, Liverpool's greatest park was officially opened despite public outcry about the £250,000 it cost. Designed by Frenchman Édouard André (and fabulously named local architect Lewis Hornblower), the park is named after the man who once owned the land: the Earl of Sefton.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Andy Burnham may soon become only the 2nd ever prime minister from Liverpool. The 1st one died #onthisday (19 May) in 1898. William Ewart Gladstone was born into a slave-owning Scottish merchant family at 62 Rodney St and grew up in Seaforth. He served as PM a record 4 times between 1868 and 1894.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
#OnThisDay in 1958, Howard Gayle, #Liverpool's first black player, was born in Toxteth. He only played 5 times for the Reds but helped them win the '81 European Cup. In 2016, he rejected an MBE because of 'all of the Africans who have lost their lives, or who have suffered as a result of Empire.'
Howard Gayle playing for Liverpool against Bayern Munich in 1981
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
#Onthisday (17 May) in 1832, the UK's first cholera epidemic reached Liverpool. Over the next 4 months, nearly 5,000 cases were reported, with 1,523 deaths (a 31% mortality rate). Most of the dead were poor people living in cellars in the slums, with Irish immigrants particulary badly affected.
Black-and-white 19th-century drawing showing Death (a skeleton wearing a crown) dispensing water from a pump to a poor family (two parents and three children)
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Which Liverpool monument is made from melted-down French cannons from the Battle of Waterloo? It is the 25ft statue of the Duke of Wellington, which has looked down over the city from his column on the corner of Lime St and William Brown St for 166 years today. #liverpool #history #onthisday
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
#Onthisday (15 May) in 1926, two of Britain's best screenwriters were born to a Jewish family living at 55 Croxteth Rd, Liverpool 8. Peter Shaffer won an Oscar for his most famous work, Amadeus (1984). His twin Anthony was best known for three '70s films: Sleuth, The Wicker Man + Death on the Nile.
Tom Hulce as Mozart in Amadeus, having his arm in the air conducting in front of a packed opera house.Film poster for Sleuth (1972) showing the face of Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine, both men holding magnifying glasses to their left eyes.Edward Woodward in The Wicker Man, standing with his hands raised in front of a giant wicker man.Film poster for Death on the Nile showing Peter Ustinov as Poirot in front of the pyramids and the sphinx.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
#Onthisday (14 May) in 1966, Bob Dylan was in Liverpool on tour, playing the Odeon on London Rd. That afternoon, he wandered round the city and this iconic photograph of him surrounded by local kids was taken on Dublin St, near the docks. #liverpool #bobdylan #itsalrightlaimonlybleedin'
Bob Dylan in 1966 sitting on steps on a Liverpool street surrounded by local kids.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
#onthisday in 1872 the feminist, social reformer, pro-refugee, anti-Nazi MP Eleanor Rathbone was born. The first woman on Liverpool city council, she also campaigned successfully nationally for universal women's suffrage, family allowances paid to mothers, divorce law reform and widow's pensions.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Do you know the Liverpool connection with the only British prime minister ever to be assassinated? On this day in 1812, Tory prime minister Spencer Perceval was shot dead in the lobby of the House of Commons. The assassin, John Bellingham was a disgruntled merchant who lived on Duke St in town.
Black-and-white drawing showing John Bellingham shooting the British prime minister Spencer Perceval with a pistol.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
40 years ago yesterday (10th May 1986) was the first all-Merseyside FA Cup final. Gary Lineker opened the scoring for Everton, but Liverpool came back to win 3-1 and leave this writer in tears in the back garden where we were watching the game (I was only seven at the time). #football #EFC #LFC
Gary Lineker of Everton and Mark Lawrenson of Liverpool in the 1986 FA Cup Final.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
#Onthisday (9 May 1936), Glenda Jackson was born in Birkenhead. She grew up in Hoylake and went on to win two Oscars as an actress and serve for 23 years as a Labour MP. Another celebrity born on the Wirral on this day is Paul Heaton, singer of the Beautiful South (born in Bromborough in 1962).
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
#Onthisday in 1941, the Mersey ferry Royal Daffodil II was sunk by German bombs during the May Blitz, the worst bombing Liverpool ever endured. In July 1942, the ship was salvaged and it returned to ferry service the next year: a symbol of the spirit of the city.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
On this day (7 May 1915): German u-boats sunk the passenger ship Lusitania en route from New York to Liverpool, killing 1,197 of the people onboard. The ship's captain (who survived) was from Liverpool as were many of the 405 crew who died. The attack ultimately contributed to the US joining WWI.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
On this day in 1991, John Parrott became the only Scouser to ever win the World Snooker Championship. It was some redemption for the man who later became Duncan Ferguson's brother-in-law, his 18-3 defeat in his previous final (1989) remains the heaviest in the history of the tournament. #snooker
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Another on this day in Liverpool history for May 5, the birth of Echo and the Bunnymen's singer Ian McCulloch in 1959. #liverpool #history #echoandthebunnymen
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
On this day (5 May), Dixie Dean scored his 60th league goal of the 1927-28 season for champions Everton, setting a record that remains unbroken. Dean needed a hattrick vs Arsenal to beat the previous record (59) and completed it with a header 8 minutes from time. #everton #football #footballhistory
Black and white image of Everton player Dixie Dean running out of a tunnel on to a football pitch carrying a ball.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
Today's #Liverpool vs #ManchesterUnited game comes almost exactly 132 years after their first encounter, a playoff at Ewood Park in 1894 that saw Liverpool's splendidly mustachioed team beat United (then called Newton Heath) 2-0 to win their first promotion to Division 1 and relegate their rivals.
A coloured image of Liverpool's team in the 1893-94 season showing the blue and white shirts they then wore.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
#Onthisday in 1941, the worst attacks in Liverpool's history began. During the 8-night May Blitz, German bombers dropped 100s of tonnes of high explosives in their most concentrated attack on any British city outside London. 1,900 people were killed, 1,450 seriously wounded and 70,000 made homeless.
Photograph of the Queen Victoria Monument in Liverpool city centre surrounded by the destruction of the May Blitz in 1941.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
#Onthisday in 1881 the great Victorian poet-priest Gerard Manley Hopkins, serving at St Xavier's Church in Everton, attended the Liverpool parade of horses. The poet was no fan of the city though, "Liverpool is of all places the most museless. It is indeed a most unhappy and miserable spot." #poetry
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Did you know that one of the first people in the world to have gender reassignment surgery was a Scouser? Born George Jamieson in #Liverpool #onthisday in 1935, she became April Ashley in 1960 and modelled for Vogue before being outed as a transgender woman by the Sunday People newspaper in 1961.
Black and white photo of April Ashley's face from a modelling shoot in the 1960s.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
On this day in 1956 the first modern container ship left New Jersey for Texas. The Liverpool connection? Container ships, which can be unloaded in hours by cranes rather than in days by humans are the main reason why our docks, which employed tens of thousands in the '50s employ a few hundred today.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
On this day in 1916, Ireland's #EasterRising began as rebels seized Dublin's General Post Office (GPO) and declared independence from the UK. What's the #Liverpool connection? At least 50 rebels were from our city, including the man who some say first flew the Irish flag over the GPO: Joe Gleeson.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
What links this lot? Harold Wilson & Edward Heath; Mr Kite, the Hendersons & Pablo Fanque; Edgar Allan Poe; Sir Walter Raleigh; Mao Zedong; Elmore James; Charles Hawtrey; BB King, Doris Day, Georgie Wood & Matt Busby. They're the only real people named in #Beatles lyrics who weren't band associates
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
23rd April is the anniversary of Shakespeare's birth and death. What's the Merseyside connection? Ferdinando Stanley of Knowsley Hall was patron of Lord Strange's Men, a troupe of actors Shakespeare may have joined which was the first group to perform his first play: Henry VI. #scouseshakespeare
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
On this day (23 April) in 1977, one of the most controversial Merseyside derbies ever saw referee Clive Thomas wrongly disallow a late #Everton winner in an FA Cup semi-final at Maine Road. #Liverpool went on to win the reply 3-0, but they ended up losing the final 2-1 to Manchester United.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
On 22 April 1858 James Baines, "the most perfect ship afloat", burned down in Liverpool's Huskisson Dock shortly after returning from India. The loss cost its owner, Mr James Baines, £170,000 (c.£20 million in today's money) because its insurance policy had expired 3 days earlier. #liverpoolhistory
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
20 April 2005 saw the world premiere in Helsinki of Barlinnie Nine, a piece of classical music by Finnish composer Osmo Tapio Räihälä paying tribute to the #Everton striker #DuncanFerguson. Coincidentally, on the same night, Ferguson scored the only goal in a 1-0 win over Manchester United.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
On 19th April 1883, businessman Thomas Agnew founded the Liverpool Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the first such society in Britain. Other cities followed his lead, and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) was founded in 1889 #liverpool #history
Image of ten poor children outside the offices of the LSPCC in the 1880s.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
On this day (18th April, 1892) #Everton played their last home game at #Anfield losing 5-2 to Bolton. Things then got much worse for the Blues when the ground they vacated was filled by a new team: #Liverpool FC. And tomorrow sees the first #merseysidederby at Everton's new #HillDickinsonStadium
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Two tragedies occurred on 15 April in #Liverpool #history. First the sinking of the Titanic (1912), a Liverpool-registered ship, with the loss of c.1,500 lives. Second the Hillsborough disaster (1989) where grossly negligent policing killed 97 Liverpool FC fans whose families still wait for justice.
St George's Hall in Liverpool lit up in red with the words Truth and Justice projected on to the exterior.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
On 10 April (1911) a #Merseyside #football legend was born in #Birkenhead. On Boxing Day 1935, playing for #Tranmere Bunny Bell set the record for most goals in a match (9 in a 13-4 win vs Oldham), missing a pen in the same game. He later moved to #Everton but WWII effectively ended his career.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
On 9th April 1811 the foundation stone was laid of St Luke's, the Bombed Out Church. Left a shell after being bombed in the 1941 May Blitz, the church is now one of the world's most poignant war memorials. Inside, a single liver bird survived on a stained glass window not destroyed by the bombs.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
On 8 April 1989, former #LiverpoolUniversity student Amha Selassie was proclaimed final emperor of Ethiopia. The son of Haile Selassie (of #Rastafarian fame), Amha Selassie studied in #Liverpool in the late '30s, but was only ever emperor in exile in the UK and then in the US where he died in 1997.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
On this day in 1847 the inspiration for New York's #CentralPark opened in #Birkenhead. One of the world's first publicly funded parks, Birkenhead Park was designed by George Paxton, who also made Princes Park. Central Park's designer visited in 1858 + took the "People's Garden" idea back to NYC.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
Judas burning was a Dingle Good Friday tradition unknown anywhere else in the UK. Children built effigies and carried them through the streets asking for "a penny for Judas's breakfast" before burning them in the late morning. The last Judas burnings took place in the '50s or early '60s. #liverpool
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
On this day (1st April) in 1976, John Lennon's dad, Alf, died (9 days after Paul McCartney's dad). Born in Liverpool in 1912, Alf was raised in the Blue Coat orphanage, running away to join a music hall troupe. Alf was off working at sea when John was born in 1940 and had little to do with his life.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
On this day (29 March 1913), a boy was born in Garston who went on to become "the UK's most powerful man". Jack Jones was a docker's son who fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War and later led the UK's biggest trade union. A 1977 poll showed 54% of the public saw him as more powerful than the PM.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Hard to believe now but on this day in 1911, Bootle elected a Tory MP, Andrew Bonar Law, who later became the first prime minister from a Merseyside constituency. His 211 days reign made him the shortest serving PM of the 20th century, but still seem like an absolute lifetime relative to Liz Truss.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
On this day in #Liverpoolhistory (27th March)... Robbie Fowler was fined £900 by UEFA because, after scoring against Brann Bergen in a European game the week before, he revealed a T-shirt in support of the 500 Liverpool dockers sacked for refusing to cross a picket line. 1997
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
On this day in #Liverpoolhistory (25th March), Liverpool's status as capital of the Atlantic slave trade was thankfully destroyed by parliament's vote to abolish that evil. Of Liverpool's two MPs, one (Isaac Gascoyne) voted for the slave trade. The other (William Roscoe) voted for abolition. 1807
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
On this day in #Liverpoolhistory (24th March)...the most famous Grand National saw Devon Loch, the Queen Mother's horse ridden by the author Dick Francis, mysteriously collapse in the home straight just 40 yards from certain victory. The fall handed victory to another Dick, David Dick on ESB. 1956.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
It's derby day and I'm in New York so what better day to post adopted-New-Yorker Bob Dylan singing Liverpool folk song "Johnny Todd," better known as the the Z-Cars theme tune that will welcome the two teams onto the Goodison pitch for the final time this evening. www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXjd...
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Bob Dylan sings Z-Cars/Johnny Todd
YouTube video by Everton The Gear
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Great photo of Liverpool under moody skies as seen from the steps of the museum by the photographer Edward Chambré Hardman (1898–1988). Hardman was born in Dublin but spent most of his life in Liverpool, living and working at 59 Rodney Street.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
Just listening to this lovely record by Michael Head and wondering if there is any other songwriter who makes so many references to places in Liverpool? In this tune he sings, "I used to visit Keith's when I lived on the Lane / But then we all realised Thatcher was insane...."
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Merry-Go-Round
YouTube video by Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band - Topic
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
"Of all the seaports in the world, Liverpool, perhaps, most abounds in the...land-sharks, land-rats and other vermin, which make the hapless mariner their prey... And yet, sailors love this Liverpool and upon long voyages to distant parts of the globe, will be continually dilating upon its charms."
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
Front cover of the Real Thing's 1977 album "4 from 8" referencing the four band members having grown up in L8. After a massive hit with "You to Me Are Everything", the band focused on more socially conscious material on this record with "Liverpool 8", "Children of the Ghetto" and "Stanhope Street".
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
One of my favourite images of an imaginary Liverpool—a postcard showing Edwin Lutyens' design for the Catholic cathedral. The colossal classical/Byzantine edifice, often called the greatest building never built, would have taken 200 years to complete and been the second-largest church in the world.
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Liverpool History Updates Daily @imaginaryliverpool.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
Marking the start of winter, here's a snowy scene in the painting "St Mark's Liverpool" by the Scouse artist Brian "Braaq" Shields (1951-97). Shields frequently referenced his hometown in his work, although despite its title this doesn't really look like Liverpool to me - maybe an imagined version?
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