vrsimility
Maps and related resources
Liverpool through the centuries
This is a list of some resources I have found useful in my historical researches. I will hopefully update it on an occasional basis. The entries below were current as of 5th Jan 2019.
Archives
- National Archives
- Cheshire
- JISC Archives Hub
- Knowsley
- Lancashire
- Liverpool
- Digest of Liverpool . . .
Daguerre and the Bold Street Diorama
Virtual reality in Georgian Liverpool
Daguerre's Ruins of Holyrood Chapel
Anyone anyone who visited the Victorian Treasures exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery would have passed Daguerre's 1824 painting Ruins of Holyrood Chapel. There's a fascination beyond the masterful rendering of moonlight when you know that the same subject was used on a much larger . . .
The Chinese carriage
What was it for?
I know almost nothing of the Chinese carriage, not even its proper name. I'm calling it Chinese carriage because it has the words Chinese and Liverpool painted on the side we can see. Did it say Chinese and Manchester on the other side? Of course, many carriages had names and the epithet may have had no meaning beyond being aspirational. . . .
The life and times of Isaac Shaw
Pioneer railway artist of the L&MR
The two railway artists
Two artists feature most prominently in the early history of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway (L&MR). Thomas Talbot Bury was an architecture student who recorded the early days of the L&MR and then went onto a well-documented career as an architect.
By comparison what we know of Isaac . . .
Mona's Isle
An early railway advert at Crown Street station
Hidden gems
The artist and scene painter Isaac Shaw left us a portfolio of interesting prints of the early Liverpool & Manchester Railway (L&MR), including one of Crown Street station:
I will return to talk about the picture at a later date but Shaw kindly included an interesting detail on the righthand . . .
Newton
Trying to make sense of a mysterious painting
View of Manchester and Liverpool Railroad taken at Newton 1825: a mystery wrapped in an enigma
Charles Calvert's painting of trains passing at Newton-le-Willows (or Newton-in-Makerfield as it was more likely known at the time) has been widely reproduced despite obvious defects in perspective with regard to the train on the right. . . .
Cholera at Melling's Yard
A cluster of cases affecting L&MR staff at Edge Hill
Cholera in Liverpool
In 1831 the second global cholera pandemic, the first to reach these shores, arrived in Gateshead to devastating effect. The Liverpool and Manchester press was naturally much exercised over the matter but neither city was fully prepared for the arrival of the dread disease in 1832. Liverpool history remembers the . . .