Chapter Two: Glasgow and Liverpool
UK Cities: A Look at Life and Major Cities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
Author: David William
Paperback: 180 pages
Publisher: New Africa Press (13 October 2010)
ISBN-13: 9789987160211
Glasgow and Liverpool
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and the third most populous in the United Kingdom after Birmingham. It's on the River Clyde in the west central lowlands.
According to 2007 population estimates, it had a population of 580,690 in 2006.
The Greater Glasgow urban area had more than 1.2 million in 2001 according to census figures obtained that year.
And the Glasgow area including its surroundings has about 2.4 million people, constituting 41 per cent of the entire population of Scotland.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the city of Glasgow grew significantly and had more than 1 million people during that period. It was the third city in Europe to have a population of 1 million after London and Paris. And the population stayed well over 1 million for more than 100 years.
It reached its peak in the 1950s when it was 1.2 million. Before then, it was over 1 million for 80 years, and Glasgow was one of the most densely populated cities in the world during that period.
Dramatic changes in its demographic composition occurred in the 1960s when congestion – and lack of housing in Glasgow – led to large-scale relocation to new satellite towns built around the city, thus reducing its population to around half a million. The towns clustered around Glasgow also continued to grow while at the same time they absorbed more people from the city, thus stabilising its population.
The city of Glasgow has a long history tracing its beginnings to medieval times and also to the establishment of the University of Glasgow which contributed to the city's growth through the years.
From the 18th century, Glasgow became one of Europe's main centres of trade with North America and other parts of the New World, but mainly North America as well as the West Indies or the Caribbean. And it became even more important during the Industrial Revolution when the city and the area around it grew substantially to become one of the world's leading centres of engineering and shipbuilding. Some of the most famous ships in history were built in Glasgow, a city whose innovations as well, in shipbuilding, made it equally famous.
During the Victorian era, Glasgow was known as the “Second City of the British Empire,” after London, and an embodiment or a symbol of British imperial might and civilisation.
And even today, it stands out among the cities of the United Kingdom – together with London, Edinburgh and Birmingham as well as Manchester – and is one of the biggest and most important financial centres in Europe.
It's one of Europe's top 20 as a financial hub and the headquarters of some of the largest and most successful businesses in Scotland.
All this has given Glasgow a unique identity and has earned it a special place in the history of the United Kingdom and of the world.
The people of Glasgow, known as Glaswegians, also have their own dialect. The dialect is also known as Glaswegian. It's also known as Glasgow Patter, a local dialect spoken spoken not only in Glasgow but in areas around it as well.
It has its origin in the working classes, Irish immigrants and passing seamen in the dockyards and it's an anglicised form of Scot of the west central lowlands. Some people even call it Scottish English. It includes some Scots expressions and vocabulary, rhyming and street slang and terms of local cultural significance.
The dialect is widely used in everyday speech in Glasgow and sometimes even in broadcasting and print. And it's constantly growing, with new euphemisms and other linguistic features added to it. And it's typical of Glasgow, one of the most important cities in the UK as an educational, financial, commercial, industrial, political and cultural centre.
In Scottish Gaelic, Glasgow is known as Glaschu. And in Scots, it's known as Glesca or Glesga.
And it's virtually synonymous with Scotland – so is Edinburgh – just as London is with England.
The city's fame for building ships and as a major centre of trade is partly if no largely attributed to its location on the River Clyde which facilitated these commercial activities and encouraged innovations especially in shipbuilding. And It's still renowned worldwide even today as the shipbuilding capital of the United Kingdom and as one of the major shipbuilding centres in the world.
It has also been known for its beauty for centuries. When writer Daniel Defoe visited Glasgow in the 18th century, he described it as “the cleanest and beautifullest, and best built city in Britain, London excepted.”
It had a population of about 12,000 during that period and was yet to undergo phenomenal growth which was fuelled years later by the Industrial Revolution. The Scottish Enlightenment also played a significant role in its rapid growth; its status as a major educational centre enhanced by the the University of Glasgow which was build centuries earlier in 1415.
And after Scotland united with Britain (England and Wales) to form the United Kingdom, Glasgow became a major center for international trade because of its trade with the Americas and its access to the vast markets of the British Empire which spanned the globe.
During the industrial era, it became a major manufacturing centre producing textiles, steel and engineering products which became a major part of export trade for the British empire, hence for Glasgow and for Scotland as a whole.
By 1870, Glasgow was producing a quarter of all locomotives in the world. It was also during this period of phenomenal industrial growth that Glasgow also underwent major changes in its architectural landscape, leading to the construction of many of its greatest architectural masterpieces. The city's most ambitious civic projects were also launched and completed during this industrial era.
One of those projects was the Glasgow Subway, an underground metro line which opened in December 1896. It's the third-oldest underground metro system in the world after the London Underground and the Budapest Metro.
It was originally known as the Glasgow District Subway and was renamed the Glasgow Underground in 1936. But many Glaswegians continued to call it “the Subway.” And in 2003, the authorities went back to its original name and renamed it the Subway.
The London Underground is both the world's oldest underground railway and the oldest rapid transit system and was the first underground railway to operate electric trains. It's usually referred to as The Underground or The Tube – the latter name being derived from the shape of the system's deep-bore tunnels – although about 55 per cent of the network is above ground. And it's rivalled only by Glasgow's in terms of stature.
During the great potato famine, very large numbers of Irish Catholics migrated to Glasgow in the 1840s. Waves of Irish immigrants continued through the years for the rest of the 19th and 20th centuries. The large population of Irish Catholics in Glasgow is a product of this wave of migration. And there were those who settled in other parts of Scotland besides Glasgow.
Many Scottish Highlanders also migrated to Glasgow during that period, contributing to the rapid growth of the Catholic population in the city. But their numbers were not as big as those of the Irish Catholic immigrants but they did nonetheless play a role in the increase in the number of Catholics in Glasgow.
The migration from the Highlands was a result of the Highland Clearances, a forced removal and dispersal of the people who lived in that region which took place in the 19th century. It led to mass emigration from the Highlands to the coast – the Scottish Lowlands – and even to other parts of the world including North America.
The evictions were brutal and led to a disruption of the clan system Scotland is known for. They also led to a decline in the regional culture of the Highlands, with many of the people who were forced to leave losing part of their heritage and regional identity. And a very large number of them found a new home in Glasgow more than they did anywhere else in Scotland.
Then came the war years, bringing about more changes in Glasgow across the spectrum because of the impact of the conflicts.
Glasgow suffered during World War I and World War II but it recovered and enjoyed an economic boom during the post-war years after the Second World War. It was a period of prosperity which lasted until the 1950s.
But the sixties were a period of economic decline. And competition with other industrial powers such as Germany and Japan had an adverse impact on Glasgow's industries, leading to rapid de-industrialisation, high unemployment and increasing dependency on welfare or public assistance, population loss, urban decay and diminishing social services for the poor.
The trend was reversed during the following years and, by the late 1980s, Glasgow had undergone economic recovery enabling it to regain much of its reputation as a dynamic economic hub.
A concerted effort was made during the eighties to make Glasgow a major European centre for business services and finance, a status it enjoys today among its other attributes, including a robust tourism industry and increased investments. It's also acknowledged by the European Union (EU) as a capital of culture, a status enjoyed by a number of other cities as well.
And it's one of the world's 10 leading cities in terms of tourist attraction. It's also considered to be one of the 50 safest cities in the world. But it's also plagued by high unemployment. Its unemployment rate is somewhat lower than the UK average but still higher than that of Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester which are some of the largest cities in the United Kingdom.
Glasgow also has undergone demographic changes through the years in terms of ethnic and racial composition but remains overwhelmingly white and has far fewer non-whites than most of the large cities in England.
The largest non-white population in Glasgow – around 50,000 in 2008 – is Asian, mostly Indian and Pakistani. The Asian immigrants began arriving in Scotland in significant numbers in the sixties and seventies.
Whites from other parts of Europe have also immigrated to Glasgow and to other parts of Scotland through the years. They include Lithuanians, Italians and others. Lithuanian immigrants were mostly refugees who began to settle in Glasgow in the early part of the 20th century. There were about 10,000 in the Glasgow area in the 1950s.
Glasgow also has the seventh-largest Jewish population in the United Kingdom.
Besides having the largest economy in Scotland, Glasgow also has the third-largest gross domestic product per capita in the United Kingdom after London and Edinburgh. Heavy industries such as shipbuilding and engineering are still important but the economy is now more diversified and is dominated by the service sector including finance and tourism.
Historically, Edinburgh has been the capital of Scotland's financial sector and attracts the largest number of tourists. But Glasgow has made significant gains in both areas and is the second most popular destination for tourists in Scotland and the fourth in the United Kingdom. It's also second to Edinburgh in the financial sector in Scotland.
Edinburgh remains Scotland's capital in that area – of finance – as much as it is the administrative capital of Scotland and seems destined to maintain that lead indefinitely.
Glasgow ranks third in the entire UK in the financial sector after London and Edinburgh and its financial district is still growing.
But it's Glasgow – not Edinburgh – which is Scotland's largest retail centre. It's also the second-largest and most economically important retail sector in the United Kingdom after Central London.
Glasgow also is one of the 16 largest financial centres in the entire Europe and is part of Scotland's Silicon Glen high tech sector. And a growing number of blue-chip financial sector companies also have headquarters or operations in Glasgow.
The city centre is home to most of the main cultural facilities in Glasgow including the 18-screen Cineworld which is the tallest cinema in the world.
Glasgow is also known worldwide as a centre of higher learning because of the University of Glasgow which is the fourth-oldest in the English-speaking world and one of the world's leading academic institutions.
Glasgow's student population is the largest in Scotland and the second-largest in the United Kingdom after London's.
Also, the city's principal library, the Mitchell Library, is the largest public reference library in Europe. And Scotland's largest newspapers and national television and radio companies are also based in Glasgow.
The city also is home to the largest exhibition and conference centre in the United Kingdom, the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC), located on the north bank of the River Clyde.
Glasgow is also a major cultural centre with many museums, theatres, national arts organisations and other facilities. For example, the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery at the University of Glasgow has what is considered to be the best collection of Whistler paintings in the world. James Whistler was an American-born artist based in Britain.
Glasgow also has many festivals during much of the year, including major ones, although the Edinburgh Festival is the biggest in Scotland.
And the city has a lively music scene with many successful bands and musicians, prompting Time magazine to compare Glasgow to Detroit in the United States during the sixties when Motown music reigned supreme.
Glasgow is also home to the Scottish national media including BBC Scotland.
The largest Christian denominations in Glasgow are the Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic Church. But the presence of these two communities, both of which are large, has sometimes caused sectarian tensions in the city although not of the Belfast kind in Northern Ireland.
It's a very safe city.
And it has an extensive public transport system. In fact, Glasgow has the most extensive urban rail network in the United Kingdom after London.
All parts of the city – north, east, south and west – have distinctive features which give them distinct identities.
The heart of the city is the Georgia Square which contains many public statues and the highly impressive Victorian building of Glasgow City Chambers which is the headquarters of Glasgow City Council.
The city centre is home to most of Glasgow's main cultural facilities including The Theatre Royal, home of the Scottish Opera and Scottish Ballet; Glasgow Concert Hall; Mitchell Library, and Cineworld which is the tallest cinema in the world. The city centre is also home to four institutions of higher learning including the University of Strathclyde.
To the east of the city centre is the commercial and residential district of Merchant City which once was the residential area for wealthy city merchants in the 18th and 19th centuries. The district is now home to some of Glasgow's most upmarket stores and luxury apartments among other facilities including restaurants and boutique-style shops.
The Merchant City also is the centre of Glasgow's growing “cultural quarter,” an area which is also the centre of the annual Merchant City Festival. It has a very large number of art galleries which started in the late 1980s, with many artists attracted to the area because of low rents in vacant manufacturing or retail spaces. The area also has a number of theatres.
Glasgow's financial district is located on the western part of the city centre and is officially known as the International Financial Services District (FSD) but is also known – in the press and elsewhere – by its nickname, the “square kilometre” of “Wall Street on Clyde.” It's home to many banks and other financial services including some of the largest insurance companies in the United Kingdom, eight of which have offices or headquarters there.
Then there's the West End which is the city's bohemian district with bars, boutiques, expensive hotels, clubs and restaurants. It's also home to the University of Glasgow, the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, the Glasgow Botanic Gardens and other institutions and facilities.
The West End also has a number of residential areas whose residents constitute a culturally diverse and vibrant economic community. Among its residents are many academics, writers, BBC Scotland employees, actors, broadcasters and many others.
It's also home to the second-largest Gothic Revival building in Great Britain which is part of the University of Glasgow and whose spire is a major local landmark that can be seen from miles around. And much of the city's student population – including foreign students – is based in the West End, adding to its cultural diversity and vitality.
A number of museums and other facilities including Kelvin Hall International Sports Arena and Henry Wood Hall which is home to the Royal Scottish National Orchestra are located in the West End.
Another major part of Glasgow is the East End which extends from the eastern part of the city centre and is home to the famous Barrowland Market – popularly known as The Barras – which is a major street and indoor weekend market.
But in contrast with the West End, the East End also has some of the poorest areas in the United Kingdom. The area also includes the modest Episcopalian Saint Andrew's-by-the-Green which is the oldest post-Reformation church in Scotland.
The South Side of Glasgow is mainly residential but the area also has many public buildings including the Glasgow Science Centre which attracts many visitors, the world-famous Burrell Collection which is an art collection, and the headquarters of BBC Scotland.
It also has many parks including Glasgow's largest park, Pollock Country Park. Before the M77 motorway was built, it was the largest urban green space in Europe. And in 2007, it was named the best park in Great Britain. It's also the only country park within the city boundaries of Glasgow.
The South Side is also home to an engineering and shipbuilding centre of international stature and the Southern General Hospital which is one of the largest teaching hospitals in the United Kingdom.
North Glasgow, although it borders affluent suburbs, has some of the poorest residential areas in the city. Some parts of North Glasgow also have high levels of drug abuse and unemployment above the national average. And a lot of houses and other residential units in North Glasgow are under public housing rented to the poor. But there are also well-maintained traditional sandstone tenements. Historically, it's a working class area.
It's also in North Glasgow where Sighthill is located. Sighthill is mainly a residential area of tower blocks which is home to the largest number of asylum seekers in Scotland.
It also has a lot of historical significance. One of the areas in North Glasgow, known as Springburn, was once the centre of engineering with locomotive workshops. There was a period when Glasgow dominated locomotive manufacturing, and 25 per cent of the world's locomotives were built in this area during those years. Springburn was the headquarters of the North British Locomotive Company. It was the largest locomotive building company in Europe and one of the largest in the world.
But all that is gone, and today the railway maintenance facility of the French engineering group Alstom – a large multinational conglomerate which holds interest in the power generation and transport markets – is all that's left of the locomotive industry in Springburn.
But the decline and poverty in North Glasgow and in the East End is not typical of the entire city, and Glasgow remains vibrant and is one of the most vital economic hubs in the entire Europe.
Liverpool
Liverpool is the fourth-largest city in the United Kingdom after Glasgow in Scotland. And it's the third-largest in England after London and Birmingham and one of the fastest-growing business centres in the UK.
It had a population of 435,500 in 2007, according to the mid-year estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). And the larger Liverpool urban area had 816,216 people in 2001, according to census figures for that year. That was down from the 1991 census figure of 837,998.
The expansion of Liverpool through the years was facilitated by its status as a major port. And historically, it has been a part of Lancashire, a non-metropolitan county in northwest England, which takes its name from the city of Lancaster.
Its economic growth resulted from a combination of factors, mainly commercial ties with mainland Europe, Ireland, the West Indies and with the Atlantic slave trade which, by the 18th century, fuelled Liverpool's expansion on an unprecedented scale.
The slave trade played a major role in its economic growth. When Liverpool was made an administrative unit by Act of Parliament in 1699, it entered a new era in the same year. It was in 1699 that its first slave ship, Liverpool Merchant, set sail for West Africa.
The town earned substantial profits from the slave trade through the years which helped it to grow rapidly as never before. Towards the end of the 1700s, Liverpool controlled a formidable 80 per cent of Britain's slave trade and 41 per cent of Europe's.
It experienced such phenomenal growth that by the early 19th century, 40 per cent of the entire world's trade passed through the docks of Liverpool, enabling it to become one of the major cities in Europe and in the entire world. Many major buildings were built during that period. And in 1830, Liverpool and Manchester became the first urban centres to have an intercity rail link.
The population of Liverpool continued to grow rapidly because of its economic prosperity and the arrival of large numbers of Irish immigrants in the 1840s. Hundreds of thousands of them fled the potato famine in Ireland and a very large number of them settled in Liverpool.
By 1851, about 25 per cent of the city's population was Irish-born. And during the first part of the 20th century, a large number of immigrants from many parts of Europe also settled in Liverpool, drawn by its economic prosperity.
The 1960s witnessed the burgeoning of culture in Liverpool best represented by The Beatles. It was an era of rebellious youthful innocence, and of experimentation and a new way of life, and the Merseybeat sound – from Liverpool bands beside the Mersey River just as Brumbeat is music from bands in and from Birmingham – became synonymous with The Beatles and other rock bands in the city. And as The Beatles skyrocketed to international fame, so did the city.
The city's fortunes changed in the 1970s when Liverpool's docks and traditional manufacturing industries went into a tailspin, a decline which had a devastating impact on many people in Liverpool. In fact, the city's docks became virtually obsolete, as the use of shipping containers – containerisation – became the primary mode of freight transport.
In the early eighties, Liverpool had some of the highest unemployment rates in the United Kingdom. But the economy recovered in subsequent years especially about a decade later. And the city has experienced growth rates higher than the national average since the mid-nineties.
One of its most vibrant sectors is the tourism industry which continues to grow, with many visitors from different parts of the world visiting Liverpool whose location has been described as “the most splendid setting of any English city,” in The Buildings of England – Lancashire: Liverpool and the Southwest, a book by Richard Pollard and Nikolaus Pevsner published by Yale University Press in 2006.
The city's climate is relatively mild without extreme temperatures. It's a temperate maritime climate like much of what the British Isles experience, with cool summers and mild winters. Snowfall is rare.
Like all the other parts of the United Kingdom, Liverpool has its own distinct identity. It also has regional character as an integral part of northwest England whose history and cultural heritage differs from those of other parts of the UK.
The people of Liverpool are known as Liverpudlians. They are also known as Scousers. The term Scousers comes from “Scouse” which is a term for the accent and dialect of English spoken in Liverpool and in some surrounding areas.
The Scouse accent is highly distinctive and sounds wholly different from the accents used in the neighbouring regions of Cheshire and rural Lancashire. And “scouse” as a linguistic term is derived from a word for a local dish known as “scouse” which is a form of stew.
And the people themselves who speak with a Liverpool accent are known as Scousers as much as they are called Liverpudlians. But Scousers is a more popular term among the people themselves.
Liverpool also gained prominence on the international scene because of The Beatles who came from there. They helped thrust their hometown into the spotlight worldwide and enhanced its status as a tourist destination drawing people from different parts of the globe. Tourism is a major sector of the city's economy.
The tourism industry also got another boost in 2007 when the city celebrated its 800th anniversary, and in the following year when it held the title of the “European capital of culture” in 2008 together with Stavenger, Norway, designated by the European Union.
The city has a vibrant culture, a product of its ethnic and racial diversity through the decades. It has a large and diverse population, a common sight in other major cities in Great Britain especially in England, and may become increasingly diversified in the future.
The city has undergone major demographic changes through the decades including major population shifts.
The population of Liverpool reached its peak in the 1930s when it was 846,101 according to census figures in 1931. But the city experienced negative population growth thereafter with significant losses recorded every decade. The highest loss was between 1971 and 1981 when more than 100,000 people left Liverpool.
Although the city's population has now stabilised, it again dropped significantly in the eighties and nineties. Years later, the city again lost many people between 2001 and 2006 and was one of the nine cities in the UK which experienced a significant decline in population during that period.
Liverpool also has one demographic feature it shares with many other cities. Its population is younger than that of England as a whole. It's also home to the oldest black community in the United Kingdom. The community was established in the 1730s and was founded by African slaves.
The Chinese community in Liverpool is also one of the oldest communities of non-whites in Great Britain and the city's Chinatown is home to the oldest Chinese community in Europe. Many of the original members of the Chinese community in Liverpool were seamen who went there in the 1800s and stayed.
Besides the Irish among the immigrants from within the British Isles who settled in Liverpool, there are also the Welsh who settled in the city in large numbers. By 1813, the population of Liverpool was 10 per cent Welsh and the city came to be known as “the capital of North Wales.”
But it was the Irish who far outnumbered all the other immigrants, white and non-white. The Irish potato famine led to an exodus, forcing millions of people to leave Ireland. In just one decade between the 1840s and 1850s, 2 million Irish people migrated to Liverpool alone. And many of them subsequently left for the United States. By 1851, more than 20 per cent of the people in Liverpool were Irish. And many people in Liverpool today have Welsh and Irish ancestry.
Although it's ethnically and racially diverse, its population is still overwhelmingly white. According to population estimates in mid-2005 obtained from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 92.3 per cent of the people of Liverpool are white, 1.9 per cent of Asian origin, 1.8 per cent black, 1.9 per cent of mixed race, and 2.1 per cent Chinese and people of other ancestries.
Liverpool still has major economic problems and is comparatively poor. But it's beginning to recover from its long decline it has experienced since the end of the Second World War. And like the rest of the United Kingdom, its economy is oriented towards the service sector, public and private, and has diversified its economy, relying less and less on heavy industry which had been the backbone of its economy for centuries. The financial services sector is one of the strongest.
Liverpool is also attractive to the film industry. Its buildings are featured in many films and the city is regularly used by film makers to double for cities around the world, earning it distinction as the second most filmed city in the United Kingdom.
It's also one of the few cities in the world where cruise liners can berth in the city centre. Large naval ships going into Liverpool are a magnificent spectacle attracting large crowds on sunny days.
The city and boroughs also have many fine beaches which are very popular during summer.
Although heavy industry has declined, there is a plant in the city where cars are made. Motor vehicle produced include the Jaguar and Land Rover, both world-famous, among many others.
Liverpool also has major historical landmarks including magnificent buildings which were built as headquarters for shipping firms and insurance companies since the city was a major port in the British Empire when Great Britain virtually ruled the world.
There are more than 2,500 listed buildings of historical significance and architectural splendour in Liverpool which are protected or have been designated as heritage sites. Only London and Edinburgh have more among the cities in the United Kingdom.
Liverpool also has more public sculpture than any city in the United Kingdom besides the City of Westminster and is described by English Heritage as the finest Victorian city in England. English Heritage is formally known as the Historic Building and Monuments Commission for England.
And in 2004, Liverpool's waterfront was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site because of the city's important role in world trade through the centuries.
One of Liverpool's most important museums is the International Slavery Museum, a fitting tribute to a city which was one of the first to engage in the slave trade and which was also one of its biggest beneficiaries.
The Stanley Dock Tobacco Warehouse, a relic of the dock system which has now been replaced by containerisation in shipping, was the world's largest building in terms of area when it was first built in 1901. It still stand today and is also still the largest brick-work building in the world.
And the history of the Titanic is also part of the history of Liverpool. It was in Liverpool where the ill-fated passenger liner was registered, leaving an indelible mark on the city in the history of the world's most famous sunken ship.
Liverpool also has historic churches including the Anglican Our Lady and St. Nicholas which has existed near the waterfront since 1257 and is one of the oldest churches in the United Kingdom and in Europe.
It also has two enormous cathedrals built in the 20th century: the Anglican Cathedral which has one of the longest naves, the largest organs and heaviest and highest peals in the world; and the Roman Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral which has the largest panel of stained glass in the world.
There are also several synagogues including the Moorish Revival Princes Road Synagogue which is widely considered to be the most magnificent Moorish Revival synagogue in Britain and one of the finest buildings in Liverpool.
The city has a small but dynamic Jewish community. There were about 3,000 Jews in Liverpool in 2007 and they have lived in the city since the mid-1800s.
It also had one of the oldest mosques in Britain which was established in 1887 but it no longer exists. There are, however, other mosques in the city.
And there are other religious communities including Hindus.
It was also the Victoria Building at the University of Liverpool which is the origin of the term “red brick university” which is used to describe universities built during the Victorian era.
Also, the city's parks are among the best urban green spaces in the world.
And the port of Liverpool is one of the busiest in the United Kingdom. It's famous for the ships it has handled throughout its history and was the home port of many great ships including The Titanic and Lusitania.
The city also has one of the most famous train stations in Britain, Lime Street Station, which is the main railway station in Liverpool for long-distance services.
Liverpool is also home to the first electrically powered overhead railway in the world which opened in1893.
Some of the world's most renowned authors also have ties to Liverpool in one way or another. They include Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Washington Irving, and Nathaniel Hawthorne among others who spent months or years in the city.
The city also has more galleries and national museums than any other city in the United Kingdom apart from London.
And it's still known worldwide because of The Beatles, a name synonymous with Liverpool.
UK Cities: A Look at Life and Major Cities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
Author: David William
Paperback: 180 pages
Publisher: New Africa Press (13 October 2010)
ISBN-13: 9789987160211