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Merseyside

County of England

  • 11 min read
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Pier Head, Liverpool
Peter Tarleton · CC BY-SA 2.0

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The county is highly urbanised, with an area of 249 square miles (645 km2) and a population of 1,475,541 in 2024. Liverpool is in the centre of the county on the east bank of the Mersey Estuary, and Birkenhead opposite on the west bank. St Helens is in the east of the county, and Southport in the north. For local government purposes the county comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wirral, and Liverpool. The borough councils, together with that of Halton in Cheshire, collaborate through the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.

What is now Merseyside was a largely rural area until the Industrial Revolution, when Liverpool and Birkenhead's positions on the Mersey Estuary enabled them to expand. Liverpool became a major port, heavily involved in the Atlantic slave trade and in supplying cotton to the mills of Lancashire, and Birkenhead developed into a centre for shipbuilding. Innovations during this period included the first inter-city railway, the first publicly-funded civic park, advances in dock technology, and a pioneering elevated electrical railway. The county was established in 1974, before which the entirety of the Wirral was in Cheshire and the remainder of the county was in Lancashire.

Merseyside is notable for its sport, music, and cultural institutions. The Merseybeat genre developed in what is now the county, which has also produced many artists and bands, including the Beatles. The county contains several football clubs, with Everton and Liverpool playing in the Premier League. The Royal Liverpool and Royal Birkdale golf clubs have hosted The Open Championship 22 times between them, and the Grand National is the most valuable jump race in Europe. National Museums Liverpool comprises nine museums and art galleries.

History

According to the OED, the earliest use of the word Merseyside (presumably as a general term for the lands surrounding the river) is from 1899.

The county of Merseyside was created in 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, from areas previously administered within the counties of Lancashire and Cheshire, together with the independent county boroughs of Birkenhead, Bootle, Liverpool, St Helens, Southport and Wallasey.

Merseyside had been designated a "Special Review" area in the Local Government Act 1958. The Local Government Commission for England started a review of this area in 1962, based around the core county boroughs of Liverpool, Bootle, Birkenhead and Wallasey. Further areas, including Widnes and Runcorn, were added to the Special Review Area by Order in 1965. Draft proposals were published in 1965, but the commission never completed its final proposals as it was abolished in 1966.

Instead, a Royal Commission was set up to review English local government entirely, and its report (known as the Redcliffe-Maud Report) proposed a much wider Merseyside metropolitan area covering southwest Lancashire and northwest Cheshire, extending as far south as Chester and as far north as the River Ribble. This would have included four districts: Southport/Crosby, Liverpool/Bootle, St Helens/Widnes and Wirral/Chester. Meanwhile, in 1970 the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive (which operates today under the Merseytravel brand) was set up, covering Liverpool, Sefton, Wirral and Knowsley, but excluding Southport and St Helens.

The Redcliffe-Maud Report was rejected by the Conservative government elected in 1970, but the concept of a two-tier metropolitan area based on the Mersey area was retained in a white paper published in 1971. The Local Government Bill presented to Parliament involved a substantial trimming from the white paper, excluding the northern and southern fringes of the area, Chester, and Ellesmere Port; and, for the first time, including Southport, whose council had requested to be included. Further alterations took place in Parliament, with Skelmersdale being removed from the area, and a proposed district including St Helens and Huyton being subdivided into what are now the metropolitan boroughs of St Helens and Knowsley.

Merseyside was established as a metropolitan county on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, as part of a major reform of local government in England and Wales.

Following the creation of Merseyside, Merseytravel expanded to take in St Helens and Southport.

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