Liverpool
Liverpool (/ˈlɪvərpuːl/) is a city in north
west England. A borough from 1207 and a city from 1880, in 2014 the city
council area had a population of 470,537 and the Liverpool/Birkenhead
metropolitan area one of 2,241,000.
Liverpool sits on the eastern side of the Mersey
Estuary, and historically lay within the ancient hundred of West Derby in the
south west of the county of Lancashire. The expansion of the city in the Industrial
Revolution paralleled its growth as a major port, and participation in the Atlantic
slave trade. Liverpool was the port of registry of the ocean liner RMS Titanic,
and many other Cunard and White Star ocean liners such as the RMS Lusitania,
Queen Mary, and Olympic.
The city celebrated its 800th anniversary in
2007, and it held the European Capital of Culture title together with Stavanger,
Norway, in 2008. Several areas of Liverpool city centre were granted World
Heritage Site status by UNESCO in 2004. The Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City
includes the Pier Head, Albert Dock, and William Brown Street. Tourism forms a
significant part of the city's economy. Labelled the "World Capital City
of Pop" by Guinness World Records, the popularity of The Beatles
and other groups from the Merseybeat era and later contributes to Liverpool's
status as a tourist destination. Liverpool is also the home of two Premier
League football clubs, Liverpool and Everton, matches between the two being
known as the Merseyside derby. The world-famous Grand National horse race takes
place annually at Aintree Racecourse on the outskirts of the city.
Liverpool's status as a port city has contributed
to its diverse population, which, historically, was drawn from a wide range of
peoples, cultures, and religions, particularly those from Ireland and Wales.
The city is also home to the oldest Black African community in the country and
the oldest Chinese community in Europe. Natives of Liverpool are referred to as
Liverpudlians (or less commonly Liverpolitans) and colloquially as "Scousers",
a reference to "scouse", a form of stew. The word "Scouse"
has also become synonymous with the Liverpool accent and dialect.
Culture
As with other large cities, Liverpool is an
important cultural centre within the United Kingdom, incorporating music,
performing arts, museums and art galleries, literature and nightlife amongst
others. In 2008, the cultural heritage of the city was celebrated with the city
holding the title of European Capital of Culture, during which time a wide
range of cultural celebrations took place in the city, including Go
Superlambananas! and La Princesse.
Music
Liverpool was
the birthplace of The Beatles
Liverpool is internationally known for music and
is recognised by Guinness World Records as the World Capital City of
Pop. Musicians from the city have produced 56 number one singles, more than
any other city in the world. Both the most successful male band and girl group
in global music history have contained Liverpudlian members. Liverpool is most
famous as the birthplace of The Beatles and during the 1960s was at the
forefront of the Beat Music movement, which would eventually lead to the British
Invasion. Many notable musicians of the time originated in the city including Billy
J Kramer, Cilla Black, Gerry and the Pacemakers and The Searchers. The
influence of musicians from Liverpool, coupled with other cultural exploits of
the time, such as the Liverpool poets, prompted American poet Allen Ginsberg to
proclaim that the city was "the centre of consciousness of the human
universe".[204] Other musicians from Liverpool include Billy
Fury, A Flock of Seagulls, Echo and the Bunnymen, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Frankie
Vaughan and more recently Anathema, Ladytron, The Zutons, Atomic Kitten, Heidi
Range and Rebecca Ferguson. Elvis Costello, whose mother is from Liverpool,
moved to Birkenhead aged 17 and formed his first band.
Philharmonic
Hall, home of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
The city is also home to the oldest surviving
professional symphony orchestra in the UK, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
Orchestra, which is based in the Philharmonic Hall. The chief conductor of the
orchestra is Vasily Petrenko. Sir Edward Elgar dedicated his famous Pomp and
Circumstance March No. 1 to the Liverpool Orchestral Society, and the piece had
its first performance in the city in 1901. Among Liverpool's curiosities, the
Austrian émigré Fritz Spiegl is notable. He not only became a world expert on
the etymology of Scouse, but composed the music to Z-cars and the Radio 4 UK Theme.
The Mathew Street Festival is an annual street
festival that is one of the most important musical events in Liverpool's
calendar. It is Europe's largest free music event and takes place every August.
Other well established festivals in the city include Africa Oyé and Brazilica
which are the UK's largest free African and Brazilian music festivals
respectively. The dance music festival Creamfields was established by the
famous Liverpool-based Cream clubbing brand which started life as a weekly
event at Nation nightclub. There are numerous music venues located across the
city, however the Echo Arena is by far the largest. Opened in 2008 the
11,000-seat arena hosted the MTV Europe Music Awards the same year and since
then has held host to world-renowned acts such as Andrea Bocelli, Beyoncé, Elton
John, Kanye West, Kasabian, The Killers, Lady Gaga, Oasis, Pink, Rihanna, UB40.
Visual arts
William Brown
Street, also known as the Cultural Quarter is a World Heritage Site consisting
of the World Museum, Central Library, Picton Reading Room and Walker Art
Gallery
Liverpool has more galleries and national museums
than any other city in the United Kingdom apart from London. National Museums
Liverpool is the only English national collection based wholly outside London.
The Tate Liverpool gallery houses the modern art collection of the Tate in the
North of England and was, until the opening of Tate Modern, the largest
exhibition space dedicated to modern art in the United Kingdom. The FACT centre
hosts touring multimedia exhibitions, while the Walker Art Gallery houses one
of the most impressive permanent collections of Pre-Raphaelite art in the
world. Sudley House contains another major collection of pre-20th-century art.
Liverpool University's Victoria Building was re-opened as a public art gallery
and museum to display the University's artwork and historical collections which
include the largest display of art by Audubon outside the US. A number of
artists have also come from the city, including painter George Stubbs who was
born in Liverpool in 1724.
The Liverpool Biennial festival of arts runs from
mid-September to late November and comprises three main sections; the
International, The Independents and New Contemporaries although fringe events
are timed to coincide. It was during the 2004 festival that Yoko Ono's work
"My mother is beautiful" caused widespread public protest when
photographs of a naked woman's pubic area were exhibited on the main shopping
street.
Nelson Monument
at Exchange Flags. The other British hero of the Napoleonic Wars is
commemorated in Wellington's Column
Literature
Felicia Hemans (née Browne) was born in Dale
Street, Liverpool, in 1793, although she later moved to Flintshire, in Wales.
Felicia was born in Liverpool, a granddaughter of the Venetian consul in that
city. Her father's business soon brought the family to Denbighshire in North
Wales, where she spent her youth. They made their home near Abergele and St.
Asaph (Flintshire), and it is clear that she came to regard herself as Welsh by
adoption, later referring to Wales as "Land of my childhood, my home and
my dead". Her first poems, dedicated to the Prince of Wales, were
published in Liverpool in 1808, when she was only fourteen, arousing the
interest of Percy Bysshe Shelley, who briefly corresponded with her. [217]
A number of notable authors have visited
Liverpool, including Daniel Defoe, Washington Irving, Thomas De Quincey, Herman
Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Hugh
Walpole. Daniel Defoe, after visiting the city, described it, as "one of
the wonders of Britain in his "'Tour through England and Wales.[218]
Herman Melville's novel Redburn deals with the first seagoing voyage of 19
years old Wellingborough Redburn between New York and Liverpool in 1839.
Largely autobiographical, the middle sections of the book are set in Liverpool
and describe the young merchantman's wanderings, and his reflections.[217]
Hawthorne was stationed in Liverpool as United States consul between 1853 and
1856.[219] Charles Dickens visited the city on numerous occasions to
give public readings.[220] Hopkins served as priest at St Francis
Xavier Church, Langdale St., Liverpool, between 1879 and 81.[221]
Although he is not known to have ever visited Liverpool, Jung famously had a
vivid dream of the city which he analysed in one of his works.[222]
Of all the poets who are connected with
Liverpool, perhaps the greatest is Constantine P. Cavafy, a twentieth-century
Greek cultural icon, although he was born in Alexandria. From a wealthy family,
his father had business interests in Egypt, London and Liverpool. After his
father's death, Cavafy's mother brought him in 1872 at the age of nine to
Liverpool where he spent part of his childhood being educated. He lived first
in Balmoral Road, then when the family firm crashed, he lived in poorer
circumstances in Huskisson Street. After his father died in 1870, Cavafy and
his family settled for a while in Liverpool. In 1876, his family faced
financial problems due to the Long Depression of 1873, so, by 1877, they had to
move back to Alexandria.[217]
Her Benny, a novel telling the tragic
story of Liverpool street urchins in the 1870s, written by Methodist preacher Silas
K. Hocking, was a best-seller and the first book to sell a million copies in
the author's lifetime.[223] The prolific writer of adventure novels,
Harold Edward Bindloss (1866–1945), was born in Liverpool.
The writer, docker and political activist George
Garrett was born in Secombe, on the Wirral Peninsula in 1896 and was brought up
in Liverpool's South end, around Park Road, the son of a fierce Liverpool–Irish
Catholic mother and a staunch 'Orange' stevedore father. In the 1920s and 1930s
his organisation within the Seamen's Vigilance Committees, unemployed
demonstrations, and hunger marches from Liverpool became part of a wider
cultural force. He spoke at reconciliation meetings in sectarian Liverpool, and
helped found the Unity Theatre in the 1930s as part of the Popular Front
against the rise of fascism, particularly its echoes in the Spanish Civil War.
Garrett died in 1966.[224]
The novelist and playwright James Hanley
(1897–1985) was born in Kirkdale, Liverpool, in 1897 (not Dublin, nor 1901 as
he generally implied) to a working-class family.[225] Hanley grew up
close to the docks and much of his early writing is about seamen. The Furys
(1935) is first in a sequence of five loosely autobiographical novels about
working-class life in Liverpool. James Hanley's brother, novelist Gerald Hanley
(1916–92) was also born in Liverpool (not County Cork, Ireland, as he claimed).[226]
While he published a number of novels he also wrote radio plays for the BBC as
well as some film scripts, most notably The Blue Max (1966).[227]
He was also one of several script writers for a life of Gandhi (1964).[228]
Novelist Beryl Bainbridge (1932–2010) was born in Liverpool and raised in
nearby Formby. She was primarily known for her works of psychological fiction,
often set among the English working classes. Bainbridge won the Whitbread
Awards prize for best novel in 1977 and 1996 and was nominated five times for
the Booker Prize. The Times newspaper named Bainbridge among their list
of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".[229]
J. G. Farrell was born in Liverpool in 1935 but
left at the outbreak of war in 1939.[230] A novelist of Irish
descent, Farrell gained prominence for his historical fiction, most notably his
Empire Trilogy (Troubles, The Siege of Krishnapur and The
Singapore Grip), dealing with the political and human consequences of
British colonial rule. However, his career ended when he drowned in Ireland in
1979 at the age of 44.
Helen Forrester was the pen name of June Bhatia
(née Huband) (1919–2011),[231][232] who was known for her books
about her early childhood in Liverpool during the Great Depression, including Twopence
to Cross the Mersey (1974), as well as several works of fiction. During the
late 1960s the city became well known for the Liverpool poets, who include Roger
McGough and the late Adrian Henri. An anthology of poems, The Mersey Sound,
written by Henri, McGough and Brian Patten, has sold well since it was first
being published in 1967.
Liverpool has produced several noted writers of
horror fiction, often set on Merseyside – Ramsey Campbell, Clive Barker and
Peter Atkins among them. A collection of Liverpudlian horror fiction, Spook
City was edited by a Liverpool expatriate, Angus Mackenzie, and introduced
by Doug Bradley, also from Liverpool.[233] Bradley is famed for
portraying Barker's creation Pinhead in the Hellraiser series of films.
Performing arts
The Empire
Theatre has the largest two tier auditorium in the UK
Liverpool also has a history of performing arts,
reflected in several annual theatre festivals such as the Liverpool Shakespeare
Festival which takes place inside Liverpool Cathedral and in the adjacent
historic St James' Gardens every summer, The Everyword Festival of new theatre
writing, the only one of its kind in the country,[234] Physical
Fest, an international festival of physical theatre, organised by Tmesis,[235]
the annual festivals run by John Moores University Drama department and LIPA,
and by the number of theatres in the city. These include the Empire, Everyman, Liverpool
Playhouse, Neptune, Royal Court and Unity theatres. The Everyman and Playhouse
are now both part of one company, and both houses produce their own work as
well as receiving touring productions.[236][237] The Everyman was
rebuilt between 2011 and 2014, with the previous building being demolished and
a new venue constructed on the same site.[238][239] Some notable
actors from Liverpool include; Rex Harrison (Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady),
Malcolm McDowell (Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange), Tom Baker (fourth
incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who) and Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy
in the Harry Potter films).
Nightlife
Liverpool has a thriving and varied nightlife,
with the majority of the city's late night bars, pubs, nightclubs, live music
venues and comedy clubs being located in a number of distinct districts. A 2011
TripAdvisor poll voted Liverpool as having the best nightlife of any UK city,
ahead of Manchester, Leeds and even London.[240] Concert Square, St.
Peter's Square and the adjoining Seel, Duke and Hardman Streets are home to
some of Liverpool's largest and most famed nightclubs including Alma de Cuba, Blue
Angel, Bumper, Chibuku, Heebie Jeebies, Korova, The Krazyhouse, The Magnet, Nation
(home of the Cream brand, and Medication, the UK's largest and longest running
weekly student event), Popworld as well as countless other smaller
establishments and chain bars. Another popular nightlife destination in the
city centre is Mathew Street and the Gay Quarter, located close to the city's
commercial district, this area is famed for The Cavern Club alongside numerous
gay bars including Garlands and G-Bar. The Albert Dock and Lark Lane in
Aigburth also contain an abundance of bars and late night venues.
Education
University of
Liverpool's Victoria Building
See also: List
of schools in Liverpool
In Liverpool primary and secondary education is
available in various forms supported by the state including secular, Church of
England, Jewish, and Roman Catholic. Islamic education is available at primary
level, but there is no secondary provision. One of Liverpool's important early
schools was The Liverpool Blue Coat School; founded in 1708 as a charitable
school.
The Liverpool Blue Coat School is the
top-performing school in the city with 100% 5 or more A*-C grades at GCSE
resulting in the 30th best GCSE results in the country and an average point
score per student of 1087.4 in A/AS levels.[241] Other notable
schools include Liverpool College founded in 1840 Merchant Taylors' School
founded in 1620.[242] Another of Liverpool's notable senior schools
is St. Edward's College situated in the West Derby area of the city. Historic
grammar schools, such as the Liverpool Institute High School and Liverpool
Collegiate School, closed in the 1980s are still remembered as centres of
academic excellence. Bellerive Catholic College is the city's top performing
non-selective school, based upon GCSE results in 2007.
Liverpool John
Moores University's James Parsons Building
Liverpool has three universities: the University
of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University and Liverpool Hope University. Edge
Hill University, originally founded as a teacher-training college in the Edge
Hill district of Liverpool, is now located in Ormskirk in South-West
Lancashire. Liverpool is also home to the Liverpool Institute for Performing
Arts (LIPA).
The University of Liverpool, was established in
1881 as University College Liverpool. In 1884, became part of the federal Victoria
University. Following a Royal Charter and Act of Parliament in 1903, it became
an independent university, the University of Liverpool, with the right to
confer its own degrees. It was the first university to offer degrees in
biochemistry, architecture, civic design, veterinary science, oceanography and
social science.
Liverpool
Community College's Arts Centre
Liverpool Hope University, which was formed
through the merger of three colleges, the earliest of which was founded in
1844, gained university status in 2005. It is the only ecumenical university in
Europe.[243] It is situated on both sides of Taggart Avenue in
Childwall and has a second campus in the city centre (the Cornerstone).
The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine,
founded to address some of the problems created by trade, continues today as a
post-graduate school affiliated with the University of Liverpool and hothaw an
anti-venom repository.
Liverpool John Moores University was previously a
polytechnic, and gained status in 1992. It is named in honour of Sir John
Moores, one of the founders of the Littlewoods football pools and retail group,
who was a major benefactor. The institution was previously owned and run by
Liverpool City Council. It traces it lineage to the Liverpool Mechanics
Institute, opened in 1823, making it by this measure England's third-oldest
university.
The city has one further education colleges, Liverpool
Community College in the city centre. Liverpool City Council operates Burton
Manor, a residential adult education college in nearby Burton, on the Wirral
Peninsula.
There are two Jewish schools in Liverpool, both
belonging to the King David Foundation. King David School, Liverpool is the
High School and the King David Primary School. There is also a King David
Kindergarten, featured in the community centre of Harold House. These schools
are all run by the King David Foundation located in Harold House in Childwall;
conveniently next door to the Childwall Synagogue.
Sport
Football
The Merseyside
Derby is the football match between the two biggest clubs in the city,
Liverpool in red and Everton in blue.
The City of Liverpool is the most successful
footballing city in England. Football is the most popular sport in the city,
home to Everton F.C. and Liverpool F.C.. Between them, the clubs have won 27
English First Division titles, 12 FA Cup titles, 10 League Cup titles, 5 European
Cup titles, 1 European Cup Winners' Cup title, 3 UEFA Cup titles, and 24 FA
Charity Shields. The clubs both compete in the Premier League, of which they
are founding members, and contest the Merseyside Derby, dubbed the 'friendly
derby' despite there having been more sending-offs in this fixture than any
other. However, unlike many other derbies, it is not rare for families in the
city to contain supporters of both clubs.
Everton F.C. were founded in 1878 and play at Goodison
Park and Liverpool F.C. were founded in 1892 and play at Anfield. Many
high-profile players have played for the clubs, including Dixie Dean, Alan Ball,
Gary Lineker, Neville Southall and Wayne Rooney for Everton F.C. and Kenny
Dalglish, Alan Hansen, Kevin Keegan, Ian Rush and Steven Gerrard for Liverpool
F.C.. Notable managers of the clubs include Harry Catterick and Howard Kendall
of Everton, and Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley of Liverpool. Famous professional
footballers from Liverpool include Peter Reid, Gary Ablett, Wayne Rooney, Steven
Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Tony Hibbert. The City of Liverpool is the only
one in England to have staged top division football every single season since
the formation of the Football League in 1888, and both of the city's clubs play
in high-capacity stadiums.
Source:
Wikipedia
