Huyton is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley, in Merseyside, England.

It is part of the Liverpool Urban Area, sharing borders with the Liverpool suburbs of Dovecot, Knotty Ash, and Belle Vale. Huyton has close associations with the neighbouring village of Roby: both were part of the Huyton with Roby Urban District between 1894 and 1974.[1]

Historically in Lancashire, Huyton was an ancient parish which in the mid-19th century contained Croxteth Park, Knowsley and Tarbock, in addition to the township of Huyton-with-Roby. It was part of the hundred of West Derby, an ancient subdivision of Lancashire, covering the southwest of the county.

History

Medieval

Huyton was first settled about 600–650 AD by Angles. The settlement was founded on a low hill surrounded by inaccessible marshy land. The first part of the name may suggest a landing-place, probably on the banks of the River Alt.

Both Huyton and Roby are mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, Huyton being spelt Hitune.

Industrial development

Huyton-with-Roby is situated near to the south-western extremity of the former Lancashire coalfield. In the 19th century Welsh workers settled in the area to work in nearby collieries. A Welsh-speaking Non-conformist chapel (Calvinistic Methodists) was founded in Wood Lane, Huyton Quarry. Nearby Cronton Colliery finally ceased production in March 1984, shortly before the UK miners' strike (1984–1985). Both Huyton and Roby have stations on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (another station, Huyton Quarry, closed in 1958). The railway's construction was supervised by George Stephenson and, when it opened in 1830, it became the world's first regular passenger train service. On the day of the railway's official opening, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington alighted the train at Roby station.

Second World War

During the Second World War, Huyton suffered bombing from the Luftwaffe. Some Huyton residents were killed or injured but the scale of destruction was much less than that experienced by Liverpool, Bootle and Birkenhead. Unlike Liverpool, schoolchildren were not evacuated from Huyton but schools and homes were provided with air-raid shelters.

Huyton was also host to three wartime camps: an internment camp, a prisoner of war camp and a base for American servicemen.

The internment camp, one of the biggest in the country, was created to accommodate those 'enemy aliens' deemed a potential threat to national security. Churchill's demand to 'collar the lot' meant that around 27,000 people ended up being interned in the UK. Some internees were actually refugees from the Nazis, including socialists such as Kurt Hager and a large number of artists attacked for their 'degeneracy' in an infamous Nazi art exhibition in 1937 (see Degenerate art). Huyton internees included artists Martin Bloch, Hugo Dachinger, and Walter Nessler, dancer Kurt Jooss, musicians, sociologist Norbert Elias, anthropologist Eric Wolf and composer Hans Gál. More than 40 percent of Huyton's internees were over 50 years old.

The camp, first occupied in May 1940, was formed around several streets of new, empty council houses and flats and then made secure with high barbed wire fencing. Twelve internees were allocated to each house, but overcrowding resulted in many sleeping in tents. Initially the camp was only meant to hold the internees until they could be shipped to the Isle of Man. However, largely in response to the torpedoing of the transport ship 'The Arandora Star', with the loss of nearly 700 lives, the deportations ended. Most of the internees were released long before the camp closed in 1942. The camp was sited in and around what became known as the 'Bluebell Estate' and many of the streets were given names of the great battles of the Second World War.[citation needed]

The prisoner of war camp closed in 1948. Many of its inmates 'went native', stayed in Britain and married local women. Among those in the Huyton camp was Bert Trautmann who later went on to be the 1950s goalkeeper for Manchester City. From 1944, American servicemen were temporarily stationed in Huyton. Older Huyton residents still recall the tensions between black and white G.I.s which resulted in a night known as ‘the shoot out at the Eagle and Child' (a local public house).

Recent events

Huyton was brought to national attention in 2005 after the racially motivated murder of black teenager Anthony Walker in McGoldrick Park. Two white local youths were later found guilty of his murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. They were 17-year-old Michael Barton (brother of footballer Joey Barton) and 20-year-old Paul Taylor.

In July 2008, an 18-year-old man, Michael Causer was battered to death in a homophobic attack at a house in Huyton.