Birkenhead () is an industrial port town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool. It lies within the historic county boundaries of Cheshire, and became part of Merseyside in 1974. At the 2021 census, the built up area as defined by the Office for National Statistics had a population of 109,835.
Birkenhead Priory and the Mersey Ferry were established in the 12th century. In the 19th century, Birkenhead expanded greatly as a consequence of the Industrial Revolution, leading to a shipbuilding firm which became Cammell Laird. A Great Float was established. As the town grew, Birkenhead Park and Hamilton Square were laid out. The first street in Britain was built, followed by the Mersey Railway which connected Birkenhead and Liverpool through the world's first railway tunnel beneath a tidal estuary.
In the second half of the 20th century, the town suffered a significant period of decline, with Containerization causing a reduction in port activity. The Wirral Waters development is building offices and housing on much of the former dockland.
Shipbuilding started in 1829. An ironworks was established by William Laird in 1824, and he was joined by his son John in 1828. The business eventually became the shipbuilder Cammell Laird. Notable naval vessels built at Birkenhead include HMS Achilles, , , , , , , the pioneer submarine , (which sank in Liverpool Bay during , and was refloated and commissioned as HMS Thunderbolt, only to be lost to enemy action with the loss of the entire crew), and . Merchant vessels were also built such as and .
In 1833 an act was passed to introduce street paving, lighting and other improvements in the town. These included establishing a market and regulating the police force.
The Mersey Railway tunnel opened in 1886, providing direct railway access to Liverpool.
In 1908, Robert Baden-Powell announced the launch of the Scouting movement during a publicity visit to the Birkenhead branch of the YMCA; his ideas had previously led to the creation of informal Scout patrols in some parts of the country. Among the troops formed in 1908 was the 1st Birkenhead (YMCA) troop.
In September 1932 thousands of unemployed people protested in a series of demonstrations organised by the local branch of the National Unemployed Workers Movement. After three days of rioting, police were brought in from elsewhere to help quell the rioters.
In addition to the ferries and the railway, the Queensway Tunnel opened in 1934 and gave rapid access to Liverpool. This opened up the Wirral Peninsula for development, and prompted further growth of Birkenhead as an industrial centre. Bolstered by migration from rural Cheshire, southern Ireland and Wales, the town's population had grown from 110 in 1801 to 110,912 one hundred years later and stood at 142,501 by 1951.
1989 saw the completion of a large shopping development within Birkenhead town centre, known as the Pyramids.
Conway Park station was opened in 1998 as part of a development that saw Wirral Metropolitan College open a new campus nearby.
Wirral Council announced in 2020 the formulation of a 20 year development plan known as the 'Birkenhead 2040 Framework'. The plan aims to regenerate parts of Birkenhead, with the creation of a new park (Dock Branch Park), new housing and an improved greener environment.
In 1877 Birkenhead was incorporated as a municipal borough, with its territory covering the combined area of the old commissioners' district and the two local government districts of Oxton and Tranmere, which were abolished. The new borough also took in the Rock Ferry area from Bebington. When elected county councils were established in 1889, Birkenhead was considered large enough to provide its own county-level services, and so it was made a county borough, making it independent from the new Cheshire County Council, whilst still being deemed part of Cheshire for ceremonial purposes.Local Government Act 1888
The council built itself Birkenhead Town Hall on Hamilton Square to serve as its headquarters; the building was opened in 1887. The borough was enlarged in 1928 to absorb Landican, Prenton and Thingwall, and again in 1933 to take in Bidston, Noctorum, Upton and Woodchurch.
The borough of Birkenhead was abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, with the area becoming part of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral and being transferred to the metropolitan county of Merseyside. In 1986 Merseyside County Council was abolished, with Wirral Council then taking on the county council's former functions in the area. Since 2014 Wirral and the other Merseyside boroughs and neighbouring Halton have been covered by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, which has been led by a directly elected mayor since 2017.
During the 1970s, the commercial centre of the town was redeveloped around the principal shopping area of Grange Road. Following two fires at the expanded Birkenhead Market in 1969 and 1974, it was moved to new premises adjoining the Grange Shopping Precinct development in 1977. Commercial expansion continued in the early 1990s when the Pyramids Shopping Centre was opened. The previous market site has been redeveloped with the construction of two office buildings, primarily to house Land Registry and Department for Work and Pensions offices.
For the previous 2011 census, the ONS identified a wider Birkenhead built up area with a population of 325,264, which comprised five built up area subdivisions called Bebington, Birkenhead (population 142,968), Ellesmere Port, Elton, and Wallasey. (Use the download facility to obtain the data for built up areas and built up areas including subdivisions.) The Birkenhead subdivision based on the 2011 census was larger than the Birkenhead built up area based on the 2021 census; notable differences between those two definitions are that Greasby is classed as a separate urban area in 2021, and Moreton has been counted as part of the Wallasey built up area in 2021.
William Laird, a Scot, and his son John, were influential in the design of the town. Parts were laid out in a grid-iron pattern like Edinburgh New Town with similar architecture. The chief architect was James Gillespie Graham from Edinburgh. This grid pattern was centred around Hamilton Square which was started in 1826 and, apart from Trafalgar Square in London, contains the most Grade I listed buildings in one place in England. including Birkenhead Town Hall. A short distance from Hamilton Square are two other notable landmarks: the Queensway Tunnel and the Woodside Ferry Terminal. The film Chariots of Fire had scenes shot at Woodside. These scenes were as a representation of Dover in the 1920s.
Other notable landmarks include Bidston Windmill and Bidston Observatory, both of which sit on Bidston Hill which lies to the west of the town; Flaybrick Watertower; and Birkenhead Priory & St. Mary's Tower.
Present-day services are run by operators including Arriva and Stagecoach Group, which are coordinated by Merseytravel.
National Express provides long-distance coach services to other UK cities, with direct routes including London, Glasgow, Bangor and Newcastle.
It has a total of eleven stands and incorporates a travel centre. The main bus operators at the station include Arriva North West and Stagecoach Merseyside & South Lancashire.
Services using the bus station operate around the town of Birkenhead, throughout the Wirral and to the nearby city of Liverpool via the Queensway Tunnel. The station also has frequent services to as far away as Chester.
The Wirral Line from Birkenhead travels south to and , north to and westwards, across the Wirral Peninsula, to . Bidston (in the north of Birkenhead) is at one end of the Borderlands Line, it serves the rural centre of Wirral, near it leaves England for Wales, serving and terminating at .
Railways reached Birkenhead in 1840, when the Chester and Birkenhead Railway began services. opened at the same time, becoming the town's first terminus. opened in 1866, as the eastern terminus of the Hoylake Railway. With the opening of the Woodside and Birkenhead Dock Street Tramway in 1873, this station probably became the world's first tram to train interchange. In 1886, Birkenhead and Liverpool were linked by an Rapid transit system, which today is part of the Merseyrail network.
From 1878 until its closure in 1967, was the town's mainline railway terminus. Originally sited close to Woodside Ferry Terminal, the site had been redeveloped as part of Cammell Laird ship builders. Latterly, the adjacent dry dock at Cammell Laird was filled in and the area redeveloped to provide flats, a bus depot and offices for HM Land Registry and the Child Support Agency.
The town has one operational railway depot, Birkenhead North TMD; one disused, Birkenhead Central TMD; and two demolished, Birkenhead Mollington Street TMD and a further depot adjacent to Birkenhead Park station. The remains of the Birkenhead Dock Branch are still extant in a cutting through the centre of the town, which was used primarily for freight services. Much of the peripheral railway infrastructure, around the docks, has been removed since the 1980s.
The system was later electrified and operated from 1901 as Birkenhead Corporation Tramways; it closed in 1937. Two replica trams, imported from Hong Kong, have been brought into service as part of a heritage tramway between Woodside and Wirral Transport Museum; Birkenhead Corporation Tramways car No.20 is preserved on this line.
As part of the Wirral Waters development, a street car service has been proposed, to be called Wirral Street Car.
Birkenhead also has two independently run schools. The oldest is Birkenhead School. It was exclusively a boys' school from its founding in 1860 until 2000, when its sixth form became co-educational. It became fully co-educational for pupils aged 3–18 in 2008. "Old Birkonians" (as former pupils are known) include the lawyer Lord Birkenhead (Lord Birkenhead); Andreas Whittam Smith (chairman of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) and founder of The Independent newspaper); mountaineer Andrew Irvine; Philip Toosey (hero at the Bridge on the River Kwai); and Tony Hall (former Director-General of the BBC).
Birkenhead High School Academy, formerly Birkenhead Girls High School, is an all-ability state funded girls' Academy. It was founded in 1885 and caters for girls aged 3–19. Its sponsor was the Girls' Day School Trust, but is now publicly funded. Its alumnae include the actress Patricia Routledge. Birkenhead Girls High School decided to become a state-funded Academy school in 2009, increasing the availability of its education. Like the change to co-education at Birkenhead School, this decision was largely driven by falling pupil numbers; however to this date, it remains a single-sex school.
Birkenhead Institute Grammar School existed from 1889 in Whetstone Lane, before being moved to Claughton in the 1970s. The school closed in 1994. The school's alumni include Wilfred Owen.
Other colleges include the Birkenhead Sixth Form College, in the Claughton area of the town, formerly the site of Corpus Christi Catholic High School.
The current Anglican churches are St. James' Church, Christ Church and the Church of Christ the King which are all within the Diocese of Chester. Julie Conalty is the current Suffragan bishop Bishop of Birkenhead.
Roman Catholic churches include the Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception and St. Werburgh's Church which are within the Diocese of Shrewsbury.
The other religious buildings include the Wirral Christian Centre of the Elim Pentecostal Church and the Islamic Shah Jalal Mosque. The Jewish Birkenhead Synagogue existed from 1890 and closed prior to 2006.
Flaybrick Memorial Gardens contains the town's former main cemetery, which is situated near to St. James' Church. Flaybrick Hill Cemetery has been superseded by Landican Cemetery, opened in 1934.
In 1856, Birkenhead Library was opened as the country's first public library in an unincorporated borough.
The library was situated in Hamilton Street until 1909, when it moved to a new building in Market Street South, near Birkenhead Market. In the 1930s, this building (along with much of the surrounding area) was demolished to make way for the entrance to the Queensway Tunnel. The present library, Birkenhead Central Library, is situated on Borough Road and was opened by King George V in 1934.
Despite being in England, Birkenhead (known as Penbedw, in Welsh) hosted Wales' National Eisteddfod in 1917 as well as an unofficial National Eisteddfod event in 1879. As in Liverpool, migrants from Wales, especially North Wales, contributed greatly to the growth of the town and its cultural development in the 19th century. The first local Birkenhead Eisteddfod, a precursor of the national events, took place in 1864.
The Argyle Theatre was a major theatre and music hall which opened on 28 December 1868 and became notable for the calibre of artistes who appeared there. Later in its life, it was also used as a cinema. The theatre was destroyed by bombing in 1940.
The Theatre Royal, opened on 31 October 1864, was in Argyle Street and had a capacity of 1,850. This theatre was closed in 1919 and demolished in the 1930s. Another theatre, the Hippodrome, which was converted into a cinema in the 1930s, stood on the site of what became the Co-operative department store in Grange Road.
The Little Theatre was established in 1958 from a converted former Presbyterian church. The Pacific Road Arts Centre in Woodside opened in 1999, but in 2015 was converted to a "Business Hub".
There are four local radio stations that transmit to Birkenhead: BBC Radio Merseyside, Hits Radio Liverpool, Greatest Hits Liverpool and Capital Liverpool.
Birkenhead is within the television regions of BBC North West and ITV's Granada Television, although Welsh regional TV transmitted from the Moel y Parc transmitter in Flintshire can also be received. The local television station Liverpool TV also broadcasts to the area.
The first two Scouting groups in the world are thought to have been founded as the 1st and 2nd Birkenhead groups at YMCA on the same night in 1908.
The Birkenhead Park Football Club was founded in 1871, the same year as the Rugby Football Union. The club originally played in the Lower Park but moved to their current home in the Upper Park in 1885. Birkenhead Park also has its own cricket club.
Also in the town are the Birkenhead North End and Victoria Cycling Clubs. Olympic riders from the clubs include Chris Boardman, Mark Bell, Steve Cummings and Rachel Heal.
Birkenhead has been host to various rowing clubs since 1840. At present, Liverpool Victoria Rowing Club operates from a facility at the western end of West Float.
Birkenhead is mentioned in the song "What She Said" on the album Meat Is Murder by the Smiths: " What she read/All heady books/She'd sit and prophesise/(It took a tattooed boy from Birkenhead/To really really open her eyes)." The town is also referred to in the song "Everything Is Sorrow" on the Boo Radleys' C'mon Kids album: I worked in Birkenhead for you/It brings me tears even now.
A fairly detailed description of the town is given in Paul O'Grady's memoirs, At My Mother's Knee... and Other Low Joints: The Autobiography.
The 1998 book, Awaydays, and the 2009 film of the same name are set in Birkenhead.
It has been suggested that Robert Louis Stevenson set his 1881 classic novel Treasure Island in the towns of Birkenhead and Wallasey and that the French science fiction writer Jules Verne set his 1874 novel The Mysterious Island in Birkenhead.
Tony Friel (bassist from the Fall and the Passage), synthpop musician David Hughes (of Dalek I Love You, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Godot) and Malcolm Holmes (drummer with pop group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark) were born in Birkenhead. David Balfe (music manager, and member of Big in Japan, the Teardrop Explodes) attended primary and secondary school there. Miles Kane, musician, singer and songwriter and member of The Last Shadow Puppets and The Rascals, was born in the town as well as the opera singer Hugh Beresford. Classical composer William Lewarne Harris (1919–2013) was born in Birkenhead.Obituary, The Times, 3 September 2013
Redevelopment work is also planned in the town centre, in particular the areas surrounding Birkenhead market and Princess Pavement.
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target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> 1901 England Census for Andrew McMaster, Cheshire, Birkenhead - Ancestry.com Lewis Collins, Megs Jenkins, Taron Egerton, Dominic Purcell, Patricia Routledge, Paul O'Grady (also known as Lily Savage), soprano Valerie MastersonStone, David. "Valerie Masterson", Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company (1875–1982), accessed 10 May 2009 and baritone George Baker. The dancer and actor Lindsay Kemp was born in the town but as a child moved to South Shields. Nadine Meisner, "Lindsay Kemp: How the lost boy of dance found his feet", The Independent, 28 January 2002. Retrieved 25 August 2018 Opera director Graham Vick was born in Birkenhead.
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