HMS Foudroyant (1798)
HMS Foudroyant was an 80-gun third rate of the Royal Navy, one of only two British-built 80-gun ships of the period (the other was HMS Caesar. Foudroyant was built in the dockyard at Plymouth Dock and launched on 31 March 1798. Foudroyant served Nelson as his flagship from 6 June 1799 until the end of June 1801. Foudroyant had a long and successful career, although she was not involved in any major fleet action, she did provide invaluable service to numerous admirals throughout her 17 years on active service. In her last years she became a training vessel for boys, her designer was Sir John Henslow. She was named after the 80-gun Foudroyant, which Swiftsure and Monmouth, both 70-gun ships, Hampton Court, had captured from the French on 28 February 1758. Foudroyant was a one-off design, she followed French practice of favouring large two-decked, third rates mounting 80 guns rather than the typical British preference for building three-decked second-rate ships mounting 98 guns. The two ship types, despite the difference in absolute gun numbers, had similar gun power but the British thought the second rate had a more imposing appearance and some advantages in battle, while they considered the 80 gun ship as faster and less'leewardly'.
Foudroyant was first commissioned on 25 May 1798, under the command of Captain Thomas Byard. On 12 October Foudroyant was with the squadron under Captain Sir John Borlase Warren in Canada engaged a French squadron under Commodore Jean-Baptiste-François Bompart in the Battle of Tory Island; the British captured four of the eight French frigates. Foudroyant was only minimally engaged, though she did suffer nine men wounded, went off in unsuccessful pursuit of the French frigates that had escaped.. In 1847 The Admiralty awarded the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "12th October 1798" to all surviving claimants from the action. Byard's command lasted only until 31 October when, after bringing the ship back to Plymouth, he died. Commander William Butterfield took temporary command of the ship until he transferred to Hazard just twelve days later. Captain John Elphinstone took up command of the ship on 26 November 1798, in Cawsand Bay. Lord Keith hoisted his flag in Foudroyant on 28 November, she departed to join the Mediterranean Squadron on 5 December.
After arriving at Gibraltar, Keith shifted his flag to Barfleur on 31 December, Captain Elphinstone left the ship the following day. His replacement was Captain James Richard Dacres. Dacres' command lasted for four months, before Captain William Brown replaced him on 22 March 1799. On 30 March Foudroyant was among the several British warships in sight, so entitled to share in the prize money, when Alcmene captured the Saint Joseph or Hermosa Andalusia, off Cadiz. Foudroyant sailed from Gibraltar on 11 May, calling at Port Mahon before arriving at Palermo on 7 June. At this time, Brown transferred to Vanguard, Captain Thomas Hardy took over the command; the following day, Lord Nelson hoisted his flag in Foudroyant. Over the following months, Foudroyant was involved in the efforts to return the Neapolitan royal family to Naples. Nelson's fleet arrived in Naples on 24 June; the fleet consisted of a total of 18 ships of 1 frigate and 2 fire ships. The British landed 500 British and Portuguese marines in support of the Neapolitans on 27 June, all under the command of Captain Sir Thomas Troubridge, of Culloden.
The next day they captured the castles Nuovo. On 29 June they commenced the siege of Fort St. Elmo; the first batteries were in place by 3 July, with the last still being constructed on 11 July. The British and Russian forces commenced the bombardment on 3 July and the French capitulated on 11 July, forestalling the need for an assault. On 10 July His Sicilian Majesty arrived in the Bay of Naples and hoisted his standard on board the Foudroyant. There the king and his ministers remained until after the capitulation of Fort St. Elmo. A series of reprisals against known insurgents followed; the Neapolitans conducted several courts martial. Whilst Foudroyant was in Naples harbour, Nelson began his affair with Lady Hamilton. Foudroyant departed Naples on 6 August, in company with the frigate Syren, the Portuguese ship Principe Real. Foudroyant transported the Sardinian royal family to Leghorn on 22 September. On 13 October, Foudroyant entered Port Mahon harbour, Captain Sir Edward Berry replaced Captain Hardy as acting captain.
Foudroyant was back in Palermo by 22 October. Nelson remained ashore. In November, after weathering a storm in Palermo harbour, Foudroyant departed once more, this time with Culloden, ran aground in the Straits of Messina. With Culloden's assistance, it was possible to haul the ship into deep water. On 6 December a large part of the 89th Regiment embarked on Foudroyant; the soldiers landed on Malta on the 10th. Foudroyant was back at Palermo on 15 January 1800, when Lord Nelson hoisted his flag in her once again, she sailed on to Livorno, arriving on the 21st. There Foudroyant received salutes from Danish and Neapolitan frigates, two Russian ships of the line. On 26 January Foudroyant was in company with Minorca and Queen Charlotte when she recaptured the Ragusan polacca Annonciata, Michele Pepi, master, she was carrying grain from Tunis to Genoa. Sicilian soldiers embarked on 11 February, Foudroyant sailed the next day for Malta, in company with Alexander and Success. Audacious, Corso joined them later.
On 18 February, the British s
Kenneth King (artist)
Kenneth King, born in Dublin, Ireland in 1939, is a marine artist, a Chaplain in the Royal Navy before he became a full-time artist. King's studio, "Straid Studio-Gallery", is in Glencolmcille, a Gaeltacht or Irish language speaking region in County Donegal, Ireland. King's father was Richard King, best known for his designs of Irish postage stamps and his work in stained glass. King specialises in depicting the naval and merchant shipping of Ireland, as well as seascapes of the country's coastline and lighthouses, he has been commissioned by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Irish Shipping, An Post, Bord Iascaigh Mhara, the Maritime Institute of Ireland and the Office of Public Works. The National Maritime Museum of Ireland has paintings, by Kenneth King, of all the Irish ships lost during World War II. Irish Shipping had commissioned King to paint pictures of all their ships; when Irish Shipping was liquidated, the receiver sold the collection at auction. The Maritime Institute of Ireland acquired some of the paintings.
At the instigation of Des Brannigan President of the Institution, the Institute commissioned King to paint pictures of the other Irish Ships lost during the war. This collection is on display in the National Maritime Museum of Ireland; the collection lacks one image: the Naomh Garbhan which hit a mine off the Waterford coast and sank with the loss of three lives on 2 May 1945. Recent exhibitions by King include: 2014'Vitality of the Sea' exhibition of marine oils, Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co. Cork. 2013'Kenneth King: Saol agus Saothar' - An Gailearaí, Na Doirí Beaga, Co Dhún na nGall. 2012'Bound for Blue Water' - an exhibition of marine oils, Rosses Point, Co. Sligo. Kenneth King and Works by Marianne O'Kane Boal Media related to Kenneth King at Wikimedia Commons 1 painting by or after Kenneth King at the Art UK site
Blyth, Northumberland
Blyth is a town and civil parish in southeast Northumberland, England. It lies on the coast, to the south of the River Blyth and is 13 miles northeast of Newcastle upon Tyne, it has a population of about 37,339. The port of Blyth dates from the 12th century, but the development of the modern town only began in the first quarter of the 18th century; the main industries which helped the town prosper were coal mining and shipbuilding, with the salt trade and the railways playing an important role. These industries have vanished, but the port still thrives, shipping paper and pulp from Scandinavia for the newspaper industries of England and Scotland; the town was affected when its principal industries went into decline, it has undergone much regeneration since the early 1990s. The Keel Row Shopping Centre, opened in 1991, brought major high street retailers to Blyth, helped to revitalise the town centre; the market place has been re-developed, with the aim of attracting further investment to the town.
The Quayside has seen much redevelopment and has been transformed into a peaceful open space, the centrepiece of, a sculpture commemorating the industry which once thrived there. There were, on the opposite side of the river are the nine wind turbines of the Blyth Harbour Wind Farm, which were constructed along the East Pier in 1992, they were joined in 2000 by Blyth Offshore Wind Farm, composed of two turbines situated 1 kilometre out to sea. Although the original nine turbines have now been demolished, there is one larger turbine on the North Blyth side with building work taking place on a second turbine. Blyth is home to the non-League football club Blyth Spartans, famed for their 1978 "giant-killing" feats in the FA Cup, and in 16/17 season they won the NPL premier division finishing on 101 points. The place-name'Blyth' is first attested in 1130 as'Blida', takes its name from the river Blyth; the river-name comes from the Old English adjective'blithe' meaning'gentle' or'merry', still used today.
The town of Blyth is referred to as'Blithmuth' in 1236 and'Blithemuth' in 1250. Had this name persisted, the town would today be referred to as'Blythmouth', on the analogy of Tynemouth to the south. Little is known of the early development of the Blyth area; the oldest archaeological find is an antler hammer dating from the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age period, found at Newsham in 1979. Human skulls, a spearhead and a sword dating from the Bronze Age were found in the river in 1890, as well as a bronze axe, found at South Beach in 1993, a dagger found at Newsham. Although there is no conclusive evidence of a Roman presence in the area, an earthwork shown on early mapping of the area, at the location of present-day Freehold Street, is said to have been a Roman camp, but it has been argued that it may be of Norsemen origin or date from the Civil War. Debate surrounds a mosaic, found near Bath Terrace; the strongest evidence so far has been a single coin, dating from the reign of the Emperor Constans, found during excavations for a dry dock.
Four Roman coins were found when digging an air raid shelter in a back garden on Chestnut Avenue. Between the 12th and 18th centuries, there were several small settlements and some industrial activity in the area; the principal industries during this period were coal mining and the salt trade. Shipbuilding in the area dates from 1748; the modern town of Blyth began to develop in the first quarter of the 18th century. Up until 1716, the land around the Blyth area—the Newsham Estate—was owned by the Earls of Derwentwater, but when the third Earl, James Radclyffe, was executed for his part in the Jacobite rising of 1715, the land was forfeited to the crown. On 11 July 1723, the Lordship of Newsham was put up for sale by the Commissioners of Forfeited Estates at their office in the Inner Temple, London; the land was bought by his brother-in-law Richard Ridley. From the 12th century, most port activities were on the north side of the river, but under White and Ridley the first new quays and houses were built on the south side, from here the port began to prosper.
By 1730, a coaling quay, a ballast quay, a pilots' watch house and a lighthouse had all been built at Blyth harbour. In 1765 the first breakwater was constructed, in 1788 the first staith with an elevated loading point was erected. Deep mines were sunk at Cowpen Colliery and Cowpen Square in 1796 and 1804 and by 1855, a quarter of a million tons of coal was being shipped from Blyth, rising to three million tons by 1900; the only industry not to survive during this prosperous time was the salt trade, taxed during the 18th and early-19th centuries. During the Napoleonic Wars, the tax was increased to provide funds for the military and though the tax was abolished in 1825, the industry went into terminal decline. Having had fourteen salt pans at the beginning of the 18th century, exporting over 1,000 tons of salt annually, Blyth's salt industry closed in 1876, with the destruction of the last salt pan. From the mid-19th century, several important events occurred which allowed the port of Blyth to expand.
First, in 1847, a railway line was constructed. This line combined with the existing line between Seghill and North Tyneside to form the Blyth and Tyne Railway. In 1853, the Blyth Harbour and Docks Board was formed in 1858 the Harbour Act was passed allowing dredging of the harbour to begin. In 1882, the formation of the Blyth Harbour Commission led to the building of new coal loading staiths, as well as the construction of the South Harbour; as trade in Blyth continued to
Japanese cruiser Matsushima
Matsushima was a Matsushima-class protected cruiser of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Like her sister ships, her name comes from one of the traditional Three Views of Japan, in this case, the Matsushima archipelago near Sendai in Miyagi prefecture. Forming the backbone of the Imperial Japanese Navy during the First Sino-Japanese War, the Matsushima-class cruisers were based on the principles of Jeune École, as promoted by French military advisor and naval architect Louis-Émile Bertin; the Japanese government did not have the resources or budget to build a battleship navy to counter the various foreign powers active in Asia. The design proved impractical, as the recoil from the huge cannon was too much for a vessel of such small displacement, its reloading time was impractically long. Matsushima was built by the Société Nouvelle des Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée naval shipyards at La Seyne-sur-Mer in France. Matsushima differed from her sister ships in the location of her main gun, situated behind the superstructure instead of in the bow.
Matsushima had a steel hull with 94 frames constructed of mild steel, a double bottom, divided into waterproof compartments, with the area between the bulkheads and armor filled with copra. The bow was reinforced with a naval ram; the vital equipment, including boilers and ammunition magazines, were protected by hardened steel armor, as were the gun shields. The main armament consisted of one breech-loading 320-mm Canet gun mounted in behind the superstructure of the ship, which could fire 450-kg armor-piercing or 350-kg explosive shells at an effective range of 8,000 metres; the maximum rate of fire was two rounds per hour, the ship carried 60 rounds. Secondary armament consisted of twelve QF 4.7 inch Gun Mk I–IV Armstrong guns, with a maximum range of 9,000 metres and maximum rate of fire of 12 rounds/minute. Ten were mounted on the gun deck, five to each side, with the remaining two guns located in upper deck embrasures on either side of the bow; each gun was equipped with 120 rounds. Tertiary protection was by six QF 6 pounder Hotchkiss mounted in sponsons on the upper deck, with a maximum range of 6,000 metres and rate of fire of 20 rounds/minute.
Each gun had 300 rounds. In addition, eleven QF 3 pounder Hotchkiss were mounted at various locations, with range of 2,200 metres rate of fire of 32 rounds/minute and 800 rounds per gun; each ship in the class had four 356-mm torpedo tubes, three in the bow and one in the stern, with a total of 20 torpedoes carried on board. The weight of this weaponry made the design dangerously top-heavy, armor was sacrificed in an attempt to lower the weight; the ship was driven by two horizontal triple expansion steam engines. The seaworthiness of the design was poor, the designed speed of 16.5 knots was possible. Matsushima arrived in Sasebo Naval District on 19 October 1892; as part of her shakedown cruise, from June to November 1893, Matsushima and Chiyoda made a 160-day, 7,000 nautical miles navigational training cruise off the shores of China and Russia. After the start of the First Sino-Japanese War, Matsushima was the flagship of Admiral Itō Sukeyuki, she played a central role in the Battle of the Yalu River, as a part of the Japanese main body with Hashidate and Itsukushima.
During the battle, the shortcomings of her design soon became evident - she was able to fire her Canet gun only four times, knocking out one of the guns on the Chinese gunboat Pingyuan. During the battle, one of the 259-mm shells from Pingyuan struck Matsushima in her unarmored starboard side, destroying her torpedo tubes, killing four crewmen, but the shell failed to explode. However, two of the 305-mm shells from the ironclad Zhenyuan struck Matsushima. One failed to detonate, passed through both sides of the hull; the other exploded, destroying the No.4 120-mm gun on the gun deck as it was being loaded, killing 28 crewmen and wounding 68 others. The fire from this explosion knocked three other guns out of commission, only the quick action by a non-commissioned officer who stuffed his uniform into cracks in a bulkhead prevented the fire from spreading to an ammunition magazine. Matsushima took numerous hits from smaller caliber artillery, damaging her smokestack and deck equipment, forcing her withdrawal from combat.
In all, Matsushima lost 57 men and 54 wounded in the battle – more than half of the Japanese casualties during the entire battle. Admiral Itō was forced to transfer his flag to Hashidate as Matsushima returned to Kure Naval Arsenal for repairs. With crews working around the clock, Matsushima was able to return to active duty after 26 days, participating in the Battle of Lushunkou and the Battle of Weihaiwei. While engaged in shore bombardment of the land fortifications of Weihaiwei harbor, Matsushima was hit by two shells from the defenders. One shell destroyed her chart house and damaged her smokestack, the other exploded on her deck armor, wounding two crewmen. At the end of the battle, representatives from the Beiyang Fleet arrived on the deck of Matsushima to sign documents of surrender. Matsushima was among the Japanese fleet units that took part in the invasion of Taiwan in 1895, saw action on 3 June 1895 at the bombardment of the Chinese coastal forts at Keelung. Matsushima was among warships
Lifeboat (shipboard)
A lifeboat is a small, rigid or inflatable boat carried for emergency evacuation in the event of a disaster aboard a ship. Lifeboat drills are required by law on larger commercial ships. Rafts are used. In the military, a lifeboat may double as a whaleboat, dinghy, or gig; the ship's tenders of cruise ships double as lifeboats. Recreational sailors carry inflatable life rafts, though a few prefer small proactive lifeboats that are harder to sink and can be sailed to safety. Inflatable lifeboats may be equipped with auto-inflation canisters or mechanical pumps. A quick release and pressure release mechanism is fitted on ships so that the canister or pump automatically inflates the lifeboat, the lifeboat breaks free of the sinking vessel. Commercial aircraft are required to carry auto-inflating life rafts in case of an emergency water landing. Ship-launched lifeboats are lowered from davits on a ship's deck, are hard to sink in normal circumstances; the cover serves as protection from sun and rain, can be used to collect rainwater, is made of a reflective or fluorescent material, visible.
Lifeboats have oars and mirrors for signaling, first aid supplies, food and water for several days. Some lifeboats are more capably equipped to permit self-rescue, with supplies such as a radio, an engine and sail, navigational equipment, solar water stills, rainwater catchments and fishing equipment; the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea and the International Life-Saving Appliance Code requires certain emergency equipment be carried on each lifeboat and liferaft used on international voyages. Modern lifeboats carry an Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon and either a radar reflector or Search and Rescue Transponder. During the Age of Sail, the ship's boats were also used as lifeboats in case of emergency. In March 1870, answering a question at the House of Commons of the United Kingdom about the sinking of PS Normandy, George Shaw-Lefevre said that...in the opinion of the Board of Trade, it will not be possible to compel the passenger steamers running between England and France to have boats sufficient for the numerous passengers they carry.
They would encumber the decks, rather add to the danger than detract from it. In the late 1880s, Maria Beasley improved the design of life rafts, she patented a life-saving raft in both the United States and England in 1880. By the turn of the 20th century larger ships meant more people could travel, but safety rules regarding lifeboats remained out of date: for example, British legislation concerning the number of lifeboats was based on the tonnage of a vessel and only encompassed vessels of "10,000 gross register tons and over", it was not until after the sinking of RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912, that a broader movement began to require a sufficient number of lifeboats on passenger ships for all people on board. Titanic, with a gross tonnage of 46,000 tonnes and carrying 20 lifeboats, exceeded the regulations laid down by the Board of Trade, which required a ship of her size to carry boats capable of carrying a total of 1,060 people. Titanic's boats had a capacity of 1,178 people on a ship capable of carrying 3,330 people.
The type of life raft used on Titanic were the ones patented by Beasley. The need for so many more lifeboats on the decks of passenger ships after 1912 led to the use of most of the deck space available on the large ships, creating the problem of restricted passageways; this was resolved by the wider use of collapsible lifeboats, a number of, carried on Titanic. During World War II and the Battle of the Atlantic with convoys going to northern Russia through the Arctic Ocean it was found that the chance of the crews of merchant ships surviving in open lifeboats was not good unless they were rescued in a couple of hours; the US Navy asked various groups and manufacturers to suggest solutions. The result was the first enclosed, self-righting lifeboat, manufactured in Delanco, New Jersey; these radically new lifeboats were 24 feet in length and weighed 5,000 lb. They had two enclosed cabins which could hold a total of 25 persons; the space in between was designed to help persons in the water be pulled aboard, could be enclosed with a canvas top.
The new type lifeboat could be driven either by a small motor or sail. In 1943 the US developed a balsa wood liferaft that would not sink, irrespective of the number of holes in it; these balsa liferafts were designed to hold five to ten men on a platform suspended on the inside or fifteen to twenty-five hanging lines placed on the outsides. They were inexpensive, during the war thousands were stored in any space possible on US warships and merchant ships; these liferafts were intended only for use during a short term before lifeboats or another ship in the convoy or group could bring them aboard. When USS Indianapolis, a cruiser operating alone, was sunk in 1945, none of its larger lifeboats were launched, the survivors had to rely on balsa liferafts automatically released as the ship sank. Today, enclosed lifeboats are the preferred lifeboats fitted on modern merchant ships because of their superior protection against the elements; each merchant ship has one lifeboat fitted on the port side and one on the starboard side, so that a lifeboat is always available if the ship is listing to one side.
Lifeboat capacity is specified
SS Coptic (1881)
SS Coptic was a steamship built in 1881, successively owned by the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, the Japanese Oriental Steam Ship Co. before being scrapped in 1926. She was filmed by Thomas Edison in 1897 in one of his early movies; the movie is stored in the Library of Congress, archive.org and other internet archives. A sister ship to SS Arabic, Coptic was built at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, for service with the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company's White Star Line. Launched on 10 August 1881, she was delivered on 9 November 1881 and made her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York on 16 November 1881 under the command of Captain Edward J. Smith, the captain of RMS Titanic on her disastrous 1912 maiden voyage. On the return voyage, a hurricane stove in several of her lifeboats and drowned two seamen who were swept overboard. On 11 March 1882, she sailed from Liverpool to Hong Kong via the Suez Canal, chartered to the Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company for service between San Francisco and China.
As Occidental & Oriental had numerous vessels on that run, she was chartered by the New Zealand Shipping Company while the latter′s own ships were under construction. In 1884, Coptic was chartered by Shaw, Savill & Company for their Liverpool to New Zealand service, was fitted with 750-ton-capacity refrigerated holds and the refrigerating machinery to transport New Zealand mutton. From 8 October 1884, a regular service was established. While under the command of Captain Smith – her master from 1889 to 1894 – she ran aground in December 1890 on Main Island at Rio de Janeiro, while about to return to Plymouth, her forward compartments were repaired by local engineers. In late 1894 her compound engines were replaced with Harland & Wolff triple expansion engines and new boilers. In early 1895 she was chartered to the Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company again to serve between San Francisco and the Far East. In September 1897, she collided in Kobe harbour with Minatogawa Maru, which buckled several of her hull plates and twisted her stem.
In February 1898 she suffered considerable damage after being caught in a typhoon. After temporary repairs at Yokohama, she sailed to Hong Kong, where several decks were removed and rebuilt. On 5 June 1898, United States Navy Captain Charles V. Gridley, died of natural causes aboard Coptic while in Kobe, Japan, he had been relieved of command of the Asiatic Squadron flagship, the protected cruiser USS Olympia, following the American victory in the Battle of Manila Bay on 1 May 1898 during the Spanish–American War. His body was buried in his home town of Erie, Pennsylvania. On 12 September 1900, Copitc ran aground again, this time at Shimonoseki, but suffered no damage, she made her final voyage for Occidental and Oriental in 1906, departing San Francisco on 30 October. In December 1906, she was sold to the American Pacific Mail Steamship Company, renamed Persia, but continued to serve between San Francisco and the Far East and retained British registry. After a 1911 refit, the elderly ship was sold again in 1915 to the Oriental Steam Ship Company of Yokohama and renamed Persia Maru.
She continued plying the trans-Pacific route through 1922, when she was transferred to the Tokyo–Netherlands East Indies route. She was laid up in Yokohama in December 1924 and her fittings were auctioned off. In 1926, the Oriental Steam Ship Company merged with the Japan Mail Shipping Line, after a 44-year career, Persia Maru was scrapped in Osaka, Japan, in 1926. "White Star Line: SS Coptic". Titanic-whitestarships.com
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city in North West England, with an estimated population of 491,500 within the Liverpool City Council local authority in 2017. Its metropolitan area is the fifth-largest in the UK, with a population of 2.24 million in 2011. The local authority is Liverpool City Council, the most populous local government district in the metropolitan county of Merseyside and the largest in the Liverpool City Region. Liverpool is on the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary, lay within the ancient hundred of West Derby in the south west of the county of Lancashire, it became a borough in 1207 and a city in 1880. In 1889, it became a county borough independent of Lancashire, its growth as a major port was paralleled by the expansion of the city throughout the Industrial Revolution. Along with handling general cargo, raw materials such as coal and cotton, the city merchants were involved in the Atlantic slave trade. In the 19th century, it was a major port of departure for Irish and English emigrants to North America.
Liverpool was home to both the Cunard and White Star Line, was the port of registry of the ocean liner RMS Titanic, the RMS Lusitania, RMS Queen Mary and RMS Olympic. The popularity of the Beatles and other music groups from the Merseybeat era contributes to Liverpool's status as a tourist destination. Liverpool is the home of two Premier League football clubs and Everton, matches between the two being known as the Merseyside derby; the Grand National horse race takes place annually at Aintree Racecourse on the outskirts of the city. The city celebrated its 800th anniversary in 2007. In 2008, it was nominated as the annual European Capital of Culture together with Norway. Several areas of the city centre were granted World Heritage Site status by UNESCO in 2004; the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City includes the Pier Head, Albert Dock, William Brown Street. Liverpool's status as a port city has attracted a diverse population, drawn from a wide range of peoples and religions from Ireland and Wales.
The city is home to the oldest Black African community in the country and the oldest Chinese community in Europe. Natives and residents of the city of Liverpool are referred to as Liverpudlians, colloquially as "Scousers", a reference to "scouse", a form of stew; the word "Scouse" has become synonymous with the Liverpool accent and dialect. The name comes from the Old English lifer, meaning thick or muddy water, pōl, meaning a pool or creek, is first recorded around 1190 as Liuerpul. According to the Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, "The original reference was to a pool or tidal creek now filled up into which two streams drained"; the adjective Liverpudlian is first recorded in 1833. Other origins of the name have been suggested, including "elverpool", a reference to the large number of eels in the Mersey; the name appeared in 1190 as "Liuerpul", the place appearing as Leyrpole, in a legal record of 1418, may refer to Liverpool. Another such suggestion is derivation from Welsh llyvr pwl meaning "expanse or confluence at the pool".
King John's letters patent of 1207 announced the foundation of the borough of Liverpool. By the middle of the 16th century, the population was still around 500; the original street plan of Liverpool is said to have been designed by King John near the same time it was granted a royal charter, making it a borough. The original seven streets were laid out in an H shape: Bank Street, Castle Street, Chapel Street, Dale Street, Juggler Street, Moor Street and Whiteacre Street. In the 17th century there was slow progress in population growth. Battles for control of the town were waged during the English Civil War, including an eighteen-day siege in 1644. In 1699 Liverpool was made a parish by Act of Parliament, that same year its first slave ship, Liverpool Merchant, set sail for Africa. Since Roman times, the nearby city of Chester on the River Dee had been the region's principal port on the Irish Sea. However, as the Dee began to silt up, maritime trade from Chester became difficult and shifted towards Liverpool on the neighbouring River Mersey.
As trade from the West Indies, including sugar, surpassed that of Ireland and Europe, as the River Dee continued to silt up, Liverpool began to grow with increasing rapidity. The first commercial wet dock was built in Liverpool in 1715. Substantial profits from the slave trade and tobacco helped the town to prosper and grow, although several prominent local men, including William Rathbone, William Roscoe and Edward Rushton, were at the forefront of the abolitionist movement. By the start of the 19th century, a large volume of trade was passing through Liverpool, the construction of major buildings reflected this wealth. In 1830, Liverpool and Manchester became the first cities to have an intercity rail link, through the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; the population continued to rise especially during the 1840s when Irish migrants began arriving by the hundreds of thousands as a result of the Great Famine. In her poem "Liverpool", which celebrates the city's worldwide commerce, Letitia Elizabeth Landon refers to the Macgregor Laird expedition to the Niger River, at that time in progress.
Great Britain was a major market for cotton imported from the Deep South of the United States, which fed the textile industry in the country. Given the crucial place of both cotton and slavery in the city's economy, during the American Civil War Liverpool was, in the words of historian Sven Beckert, "the most pro-Confederate place in the world outside the Confederacy itself." For periods during the 19th century, the wealth of Liverpool
