Do You Remember the One O'Clock Gun?

[dazza]

The first one-o'clock-gun was in 1867 [last 1969].

I remember reading of an account of sailing ships on reaching the port of Liverpool would let off a blank canon round - to announce their arrival in the town. One ship, on one unfortunate occasion left a cannon-ball in the barrel when fired. It screamed down the right-handside of the Old Dock killing and maiming a number of sailors on the quayside. This would be roughly the between the new Hilton hotel and the bus stops.

After the accident this practice was banned on all ships coming to port. I'll try and find a little more of the source and year that it happened. The names of the sailors are given, as are the vessels etc.

So cannon fire in the town would have been a familar event up to the accident, and then continuing with the one-o'clock-gun in 1867.

[az_gila]

I remember the bang too when I was near Otterspool prom....

Article here from the Bidston Observatory...

http://www.pol.ac.uk/home/history/gun.html

[squiggs]

I remember it well. As a kid living on Park Rd in the Dingle it used to make all the windows rattle when it went off.

Another great memory of living close to the river was hearing the horns all going off at midnight on New Years eve.

I lived off park Road !, and yes our windows rattled too !, and we used to go to my Nans on Grafton Street to see in the New Year and I remember the horns !!...

We used ti get the "all clear" siren too !!

[dazza]

"In autumn of 1799, a ship decided to announce it's arrival: 'unknown to the gunner, the ball had not been withdrawn. The shot entered the town near the south end of the dry dock, carried off the arm of a cooper... passing the corner of the Old Dock, it killed William Treasure the mate of the ship William and another man, a roper ... who was standing at the bottom of Hanover Street ...[it] ...struck the corner of a house, and 'severly wounded another man. Since this accident no ship has been allowed to salute the town, under a penalty of £10"

Stranger in Liverpool



68 years later [1867] the cannon sounded again.