Join us for a talk about the history of Liverpool’s docks.

Ken Pye, Managing Director of Discover Liverpool, will be talking on the maritime heritage of Liverpool and the construction of its docks, making it for a time the world’s biggest port.    How, why, and when did Liverpool first become a port, and how did it grow to become globally-famous?      How did it also become essential to the maritime commerce of the British Empire and the rest of the world?

In this fully illustrated talk, Ken explains this and describes how Liverpool built the first enclosed, commercial, wet-dock in the world ~ and how the city had docks almost 100 years before London!     He tells how from this single harbour, Liverpool’s docks system grew to cover the entire length of the city’s 7 1/2 mile waterfront.      He explains the impact that this had on the people of Liverpool and on the rest of the country, and how, during the Second World War, Adolf Hitler was determined to wipe the port off the face off the earth because it was such a threat to his plans for world domination.
Ken also tells how Liverpool’s docks went into a major decline after the War, and how the people suffered as a consequence. But his story ends with the modern regeneration and re-shaping of the Liverpool docklands and waterfront, and the bold vision that is now leading the port and City into the 21st century ~ all because of its docks:

How the City on the Mersey grew from simply being a tidal pool harbour into the maritime powerhouse of the world.