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England Birkenhead

Guide to Birkenhead ancestry, family history and genealogy parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

This page is about the City of Birkenhead, a major center for the shipbuilding industry of the UK for hundreds of years.

The earliest records state that the first Mersey ferry began operating from Birkenhead in 1150 when Benedictine monks under the leadership of Hamon de Mascy built a priory there.

Birkenhead retained its agricultural status until the advent of steam ferry services. In 1817 a steam ferry service started from Liverpool to Tranmere and in 1822 the paddle steamer, Royal Mail, began operation between Liverpool and Woodside. The service was later extended to include Birkenhead itself, and up until about 1980, there were regular ferry services from Liverpool to all 4 Wirral locations.

During WWII, several of the ferries provided yeoman service during the evacuations from Dunkirk, and one of them, the Daffodil, was awarded a royal charter to be renamed as the Royal Daffodil.

Shipbuilding started in 1829 at Birkenhead, and continued as a major industry until about 1960. Probably the most famous company was Cammell Laird, responsible for hundreds of ships for the Royal Navy. The last major effort was the Ark Royal in 1950, the last British Battleship commissioned and built.

Prior to 1974, Birkenhead was part of the County of Cheshire, but with the National re-allocation of boundaries, it became a part of the new County of Merseyside.

In 1934 the first Mersey road tunnel was built, followed by a second tunnel in 1971. The tunnels contributed materially to the economic growth both on the Liverpool side and the Birkenhead and Wirral side of the Mersey.