England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Liverpool St Michael

The Parish

Liverpool is one of England's largest ports and cities, it is made up of numerous parishes with many created from St Nicholas & St Peter which largely covered the area of today's city centre, St Michael was created in 1826 from St Peter and covered the southern part of the original area of the city bordering upon Toxteth Park which had been an extra-parochial district. Liverpool is sited on the banks of the River Mersey which separates it from the Wirral area of Cheshire. It is thus in the extreme southwest of the ancient county of Lancashire. Liverpool is a relatively modern phenomenon, there was little here prior to the Elizabethan era, indeed the area was still just part of the wider parish of Walton on the Hill until the late 17th century. Nowadays Liverpool is a vast conurbation spreading for many miles both north and south of its origins but also inland too spreading to engulf what were separate villages until recent times. Liverpool was, at the commencement of this transcript's period, a small port with 4 parishes. Like all urban parishes St Michael sat on Upper Pitt Street and covered an area between the Anglican Cathedral and the Albert Dock including a stretch of dock frontage bordering the Mersey Estuary. By the time this transcript completes there are 17 parishes licensed for marriage and numerous villages engulfed with their own records. Being close to the docks the area was badly impacted by the Blitz which destroyed not only the church but also most of the residences and commercial businesses, the area today is thus dominated by post-war rebuild. The volume of marriages recorded in the latter stages of the transcript period indicate a population of several thousands.

The Church

St Michael's church was founded in 1816, and completed in 1826; the church was a beautiful and imposing sight; it had, at the western end, a Corinthian portico of ten columns and two half columns, surmounted by tower and spire, and at the eastern end, four Corinthian columns; and contained monumental tablets to the Rev. T. Johnson and the Rev. H. Bury. The tower is of two stages, respectively Ionic and Corinthian; and the spire, which had unfortunately suffered from a lightning strike during a thunderstorm, was rebuilt in 1841. Sadly during enemy actions against Liverpool Docks, which were nearby, the church was badly damaged and almost destroyed during the Blitz of May 1941 and the last remnants were finally demolished in 1946.