Name POOLGARTH Launched 04/12/1922 Completed 01/1923 Engine builder Smith's Dock Engine type T. 3 cyl. GRT 179 Length (feet) 90.2 Beam (feet) 22.7

Rea Towing Company, Liverpool. Fate 22/12/1940 sunk by a mine off South Canada Dock, Liverpool.

Name: Huntingdon. Cargo vessel. Built Bremen: 1920. Owner: Federal Steam. Fate: Torpedoed 24th February 1941

Clytoneus (scrapped 1972) & Ixion (scrapped 1972)  at West Float Birkenhead approx 1969 - 1970. I took these with a tiny plastic camera. Gordon Lowe, via shipsnostalgia.com - provided me with cargo layout sketches for various Ixion voyages. Here they are below - August 2016. 2 are dated 128 and 1940.

Maria Assumpta at Albert Dock

I love this image and would love to find the original
This was scanned from a very old copy of a magazine

Birkenhead's Dockland

On Monday last, a portion of the immense docks at Birkenhead was opened with the (????) befitting such an important incident, and a vast concourse of persons assembled to witness the ceremony. The works thrown open form but a small part of the magnificent and comprehensive scheme, but what has already been accomplished gives a goodly promise of a speedy completion of a most useful and efficient series of docks, the promotors of which may hope, at no very distant day, to see them, on account of their extensive usefulness, worthy of being associated in importance with those on the other side of the Mersey. Birkenhead may now be said to have entered into competition, or rather into articles of partnership, with Liverpool, the great north outlet and inlet of our foreign and transatlantic trade. At any rate, it will henceforth divide the palm with Liverpool, and participate in the prosperity and profit derivable from its immense mercantile marine. Birkenhead may fairly be looked upon as of Liverpool lineage and alliance, and having been literally called into life by that leviathan of trade itself in its effort towards finding an ampler field for the accomodation and convenience of its over-grown trade. Birkenhead will now become a sort of chapel of ease for the redundant commerce of the mother port, and probably there is no port in the kingdom, not excepting Liverpool itself, that presents such grand natural facilities. A few years hence, and Birkenhead will become a second Liverpool, launched upon the Mersey; for time was when, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Liverpool itself, now the entrept of all our trade with the Americas and Indies, was simply a fishing village. The same a few years since  might be said of Birkenhead. At present it is not even mapped out as a town upon the Mersey, a few years ago,

Both are probably the finest examples on record of the brilliant results of unfettered British enterprise. Anciently the settlement and consolidation of a town was the work of generations; now, thanks to steam, they spring up and prosper with all the rapidity of the famed ice palace of the Queen of Russia. Great advantage may be expected to accrue to the public and frequenters from froeign ports from the generous emulation that will be established between the old and the new ports, and in a few years the northern, no less than the eastern arm of the Mersey, may be expected to be the seat of a crowded and busy community. It will give no insignificant idea of the immenseness of Liverpool, that it extends for three miles along the Mersey., and is upwards of a mile in depth. Liverpool has for years had at her command a comprehensive and splendid chain of railways, and unsurpassed port facilities. Upon these Birkenhead is only just entering. Monday gave England, in the latter respect, a new point of ingress and egress to the western seas; but Birkenhead will have to wait awhile for the completion of her railways. It is true that she has long had one, but this is less than half what she wants. Ere long she will be the very "rosette" of railways, for, in addition to the existing Chester and Birkenhead, she will have the Birkenhead, Lancashire and Cheshire Junction, operations on which have just been commenced by the contractors in real ernest, and which, in addition to drawing all the commerce of the manufacturing districts of Yorkshire and Lancashire to the Mersey, will give to Birkenhead the mineral trade of Wales, the salt traffic of Cheshire, the immense products of the potteries, besides having with Holyhead the traffic to Ireland. If Rome was not built in a day, Birkenhead, by a figure of speach, assuredly has been. We have in it a great mercantile community, with all its moral and commercial apparatus springing simultaneously and almost magically into action under the vivifying power of English enterprise. We have it put in possession, at the same time, of docks for forests of foreign masts, with warehouses for hiving their wares, and with a railway for their transit to inland homes.

To enable a large party from London to attend the entertainment an express train was harnessed for six o'clock, and started precisely at that hour from the splendid station of the London and North-Western, at Euston Square. The arrangement under the superintendence of Capt. Huish, the superintendent, and Mr. Brookes, the traffic-manager, were excellent. The train worked its way at a slashing pace, time and space apparently being secondary things - say at forty miles an hour - to Liverpool, with as much ease, and apparently in as little time, as it would take to peregrinate between Hammersmith and Hampstead. Having breakfasted in London, the next consideration was that of practically achieving of luncheoning at Liverpool. There were five first-class carriages to the express train, and two luggage-vans, weighing together 32 tons. To draw this special load, one of Stephenson's long-boiler engines, with an outside cylinder, and seven feet driving-wheel, was selected. The line was understood to be laid out for the special performance of this engine, and it was anticipated that she would make a splendid run to Birmingham, (a hundred and twelve miles) in two hours and a half, and to Birkenhead (two hundred and twelve miles) in five hours, at forty-two miles to the hour; but , owing to the over-straining of the staple works of the engine in order to attain the attempted velocity, the cylinder became heated, which prevented its accomplishment. It is only fair to state, that a strong lateral wind prevailed the whole way, which presented, of course, considerable retardation. At ninety-three miles up the line, which from starting at 6 A.M., was reached at 13 minutes past 8, the cylinder gearing became red-hot, and the speed was slackened to 8 or 10 miles an hour, the old coach average, for several miles, and for some distance to 3 or 4 miles an hour. Close upon Birmingham this engine came to a dead stop, and it was found necessary to supersede her by a new pilot engine, and lay her up in the locomotive hospital. Ultimately, the train fell foul of Birmingham at 28 minutes past 9, doing the distance, 112 miles, in 3 hours and 5 minutes, or at a rate of 40 miles an hour. The train, after stopping 13 minutes, started from Birmingham for Birkenhead at 16 minutes past 9, passing Stafford and Crewe, where there is a splendid new station, built in the Elizabethan style, and at a minute or two past 12, the train, amidst the mingled artillery of its own rattle, salutes from six-pounders and the artillery of tongues, made a triumphant entry into Birkenhead, amid strains of "See the Conquering Hero comes". 

THE DOCKS

Here the scene was truly splendid and imposing. The immense estuary of the Mersey, one of the noblest arms of the sea in England, was mirrored over with multitudes of masts and men - with steamers stemming its tumultuous tide, with vessels of all climes sleeping tranquilly on its surface, bellying at intervals with their white wings to the breeze. It was a scene of animation such as the waters of Liverpool have never seen before, nor perhaps ever will see again, burdened with all the beauty of which both Birkenhead and Liverpool could boast. The proceedings of this part of the inauguration were commenced by the Birkenhead Dock Commissioners, the Birkenhead Improvement Commissioners, the Directors of the Birkenhead Dock (Warehouses) Company, the Directors of the Birkenhead, Lancashire and Cheshire Junction Railway, and the Directors of the Chester and Birkenhead Railway, receiving Lord Morpeth (the Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests), Lord Lincoln, and other distinguished visitors, on board a new steam packet, the Lord Warden, built by Mr. John Laird, which was in readiness at Monk's Ferry.

The Lord Warden is a beautiful iron steam-vessel, just completed, under the superintendence of Mr. Morrison, the foreman of Mr. Laird. She is a companion to the Clementine, of quick-sailing celebrity, and is expected to prove a clipper. She is now fitting out in Trafalgar Dock.

Leaving Monk's Ferry, the Lord Warden, with the party on board, proceeded, amid vociferous cheering and music, past Woodside Ferry Pier, and the whole extent of the Dock works, and entered the Birkenhead Docks by the Woodside Basin.

The two docks already constructed are the "Passage Dock", near Woodside Ferry, and the "Bridge End Dock", now so called from its being on the site of a small valley, formed originally by a rivulet, or more correctly by a creek, or armlet of the sea, the tide having passed up it, under a bridge, time out of mind.

The walls of both of the new Docks are built of red freestone, principally quarried on the ground, and with ashler bindings. There are a number of arches (facing the river) of the upper Dock, on each side of a tongue forming a quay running westward, which protect the mouths of the sluices, intended to scour out the Great Basin, yet to be constructed on the east. These arches, apparently about twenty in all, and also the piers, are beautifully built of Bolton and Longridge stone.

The Liver Buildings is on the left of the image, in front is Tower buildings, behind that is India Buildings

These images below are reprinted with permission

Some of these images were artifically coloured, I have returned them to black & white. Also many had figures added to the original image.
This was a prevalent practice as I have images of Sutton Coldfield where wives and children have been added by the 'artist'.

http://www.photoship.co.uk/

Bramley Moor Dock


Brunswick Dock


Canning Dock


Canning Dock Lock Gates


Canning Dock


Canning Dock


Canning Dock




Salthouse Dock

The Liverpool Overhead Railway opened in 1893 with lightweight electric multiple units in the Liverpool Docks, Lancashire, England. It was the world's first electric elevated railway and the first to use automatic signalling and electric colour light signals. It was referred to locally as the Docker's Umbrella. In the early 1900s electric trains ran on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway to Southport and Aintree; special trains to Aintree ran twice a year after these regular services were withdrawn. A local railway, it was not nationalised in 1948. In 1955 a report into the structure of the many viaducts showed major repairs were needed that the company could not afford. The railway closed at the end of 1956 and the structures were dismantled in the following year.

Shovelling brazil nuts into sacks for distribution








This shows Princes Dock, taken from the (then) new Liver Buildings

The RMS Empress of Britain (above) was an ocean liner built between 1928 and 1931 by John Brown shipyard in Scotland and owned by Canadian Pacific Steamship Company. This ship was the second of three CP vessels named Empress of Britain — provided scheduled trans-Atlantic passenger service from spring to autumn between Canada and Europe from 1931 until 1939.  In her time, she was the largest, fastest, and most luxurious ship between England and Canada. She was torpedoed on 28 October 1940 by U-32 and sank. At 42,348 gross tons, she was the largest liner lost during the Second World War and the largest ship sunk by a U-boat.

Garston


Barque from Germany 1923 - sunk in 1944 off Hamburg, built by Krupps Keil. Below at sea

The figures and small craft left are faked into the image


Gladstone Dock sbove and below







The former base of Capt Walker RN in WW2. These buildings came after WW2

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