Liverpool Picturebook

Originally Posted by Bob Edwards

Kirkdale lies on the north side of the city, between Liverpool and Bootle. In the early 19th century the land was still mainly in agricultural use, and the principal settlement, a small village with the chapel of St Mary, lay in the south-east corner of the township. Even at this early date, however, before Kirkdale began to be absorbed into greater Liverpool, institutions - some charitable, some governmental - figured prominently in the landscape.

Purely local needs were served by two small institutions shown on the mid-19th-century Ordnance Survey map: in the south of the township, close to the fast-advancing front line of Liverpool’s expansion, was a small dispensary in Great Mersey Street which provided free advice, treatment and medicine to the poor; and close to St Mary’s chapel there was a small Anglican church school, built in 1814 to provide elementary education for a few of the children of the township.