Liverpool: A City on Screen
City's film archive goes online
Rare film footage of Liverpool during the early 1900s is being made available online.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...612311_liv.jpg
The films show everyday life in
different parts of Liverpool
It is believed the city becomes the first to have its own archive section on a new website called Screenonline.
The resource includes contemporary as well as historical film footage and some TV programmes.
The site was developed by the British Film Institute to coincide with the city's year-long celebration as European Capital of Culture.
Amanda Nevill, Director of the BFI, said: "Archive film has such potency in its ability to teach us about ourselves, to show us who we are and where we have come from.
"Liverpool is among the most filmed cities in the UK and you only have to look at the films and television programmes on Liverpool: A City on Screen to see why.
"This incredible material presents a penetrating observation of everyday life as seen by different generations over the past 100 years and it reveals much about how this great city has become what it is today."
All the footage on Liverpool has been sourced from the BFI National Archive and the North West Film Archive, as well as from individual collectors and private donors.
Highlights of the collection include City Symphony - A Day in Liverpool, a film specially commissioned in 1929 to tell the story of a typical working day in the city.
A number of titles from the recently rediscovered Mitchell and Kenyon collection of films from the early 1900s including the docks and a football match are also among the films.
Source: BBC NEWS | Merseyside
City's film archive goes online
City's film archive goes online
The films show everyday life in different parts of Liverpool
Rare film footage of Liverpool during the early 1900s is being made available online.
It is believed the city becomes the first to have its own archive section on a new website called Screenonline.
The resource includes contemporary as well as historical film footage and some TV programmes.
The site was developed by the British Film Institute to coincide with the city's year-long celebration as European Capital of Culture.
Amanda Nevill, Director of the BFI, said: "Archive film has such potency in its ability to teach us about ourselves, to show us who we are and where we have come from.
"Liverpool is among the most filmed cities in the UK and you only have to look at the films and television programmes on Liverpool: A City on Screen to see why.
"This incredible material presents a penetrating observation of everyday life as seen by different generations over the past 100 years and it reveals much about how this great city has become what it is today."
All the footage on Liverpool has been sourced from the BFI National Archive and the North West Film Archive, as well as from individual collectors and private donors.
Highlights of the collection include City Symphony - A Day in Liverpool, a film specially commissioned in 1929 to tell the story of a typical working day in the city.
A number of titles from the recently rediscovered Mitchell and Kenyon collection of films from the early 1900s including the docks and a football match are also among the films.
Birth of the Railways Exhibition
The birth of the railways
By Paul Coslett
As the Walker Art Gallery opens an exhibition entitiled Art in the Age of Steam, find out how Liverpool gave birth to the passenger railway.
The romance of the early days of train travel is portrayed in a new exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery.
It’s fitting that the exhibition should be in Liverpool which was the birthplace of passenger rail when the first train ran between the city and Manchester in 1830.
The railway was conceived as a way of boosting the economy of both cities which were closely tied by the trade that passed through the port of Liverpool and on to Manchester.
The only other reliable connection between Liverpool and Manchester was by canal via the Mersey and Irwell Navigation and the Bridgewater Canal, a fact not lost on the canal owners who vehemently opposed the building of the new railway.
Raw textiles passed through Liverpool on the way to the factories of Manchester and the railway was designed to provide a cheaper form of transportation for the materials
Railway construction
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company was established in 1823 and over the next few years lobbied hard for parliamentary approval to build the line.
George Stephenson, an engineer from Northumberland, was appointed to construct the railway.
One of the biggest problems faced by Stephenson was the construction of the line across Chat Moss a treacherous area of bog west of Manchester.
The line opened in 1830.
Work on Chat Moss was slow, it wasn’t possible to drain the area so Stephenson sunk foundations of heather and wood down in to the bog, sometimes for weeks until he was satisfied they were firm enough to run trains over.
The line was 35 miles in length and included 64 bridges and viaducts.
The Liverpool terminus of the line is now Lime Street Station but the original line stopped at Crown Street form where trains were pulled up to Edge Hill by rope.
A station in Liverpool city centre only became a reality with the opening of Lime Street in 1836.
Land for the station, built on an old cattle market, was purchased in 1833, the current station is the third to stand on the site.
As the line neared completion a competition was held for a design of locomotives to pull the carriages.
Taking place on a completed section of line at Rainhill, the Rainhill trials in October 1929, saw George Stephenson triumph with his engine, The Rocket.
Tragedy strikes
The railway opened on Wednesday, 15 September, 1830, in a lavish ceremony attended by the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington and assorted dignitaries.
Amongst the first passengers was Liverpool MP William Huskisson, who tragically would not complete the journey to Manchester.
While his train stopped at Parkside station near Newton-le-Willows, Huskisson left his carriage to speak to the Duke of Wellington.
As he was talking The Rocket approached along the parallel track, panicked and confused, Huskisson fell back in to the engine’s path.
He was rushed by train to the vicarage at Eccles where a few hours later he died - the world’s first railway passenger death.
Huskisson is commemorated by a tomb in St James Cemetery in the shadow of Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral and in a trackside memorial close to Parkside station.
Art in the Age of Steam is at Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery until 10 August, 2008.