Liverpool People's History

6/6 Lord Salisbury stepped down as chancellor a few months later and after 46 years the university awarded an honorary degree to Pete Cresswell, the expelled student.

5/6 The sit-in lasted 10 days and got national press coverage – most of it hostile. Nine students were eventually suspended and one was expelled.

4/6 They were also seeking details of the university's investments and “satisfactory answers” to questions about chemical and biological warfare research.

3/6 Their main demand was for the resignation of the university’s Chancellor, the Marquess of Salisbury, who was an outspoken supporter of the minority white regime in Rhodesia.

2/6 The students had a series of demands which, taken together, amounted to an accusation that the university was trying to ignore the social and political consequences of its policy decisions.

1/6 In March 1970 some 300 students occupied the Senate House at Liverpool University and hoisted a red flag over the building. liverpoolpeopleshistory.org/2025/03/12/l...

4/4 The conspiracy trial cost the government about £250,000 and a Special Branch team spent almost a year gathering what evidence they could. The court sat for 51 days but in the end it took the jury only 90 minutes to deliver “Not Guilty” verdicts on all the accused.

3/4 They had been handing out leaflets headed "Some information for discontented soldiers" which described various ways that soldiers who didn't want to serve in Northern Ireland could leave the Army.

2/4 Two Liverpool men were among 14 people arrested and charged with conspiring to "seduce" troops from their allegiance to the Queen.

1/4 Activists campaigning against Britain’s military presence in Northern Ireland faced surveillance and prosecution during the 1970s. liverpoolpeopleshistory.org/2025/01/07/s...

6/6 Areas scheduled for demolition became twilight zones while others — already cleared — remained empty in the absence of funds for new construction. This prompted acerbic jokes that the council was taking up the task that Hitler’s Luftwaffe had left unfinished.

5/6 Fortunately for Liverpool, the economic downturn in the 1970s made Shankland’s plans unaffordable and they were abandoned bit by bit. That led to another problem, though, because the preparations had blighted much of the city.

4/6 Some walkways were built but they proved unpopular and were removed a few years later. One had become known as “Muggers’ Alley”.

3/6 Vast areas were designated for car parks and pedestrians would be consigned to “walkways in the sky” (foot bridges) with under-floor heating to prevent people from slipping on ice in the winter.

2/6 Shankland's vision for Liverpool was to tear down much of the centre and replace it with “robust and manly” new buildings and a motorway on stilts “curving sensuously” around them.

1/6 In the early 1960s Liverpool’s council was seeking to redevelop the city— especially its centre — on more modern lines. The man hired for this task was Graeme Shankland, widely regarded as the archetype of a rampant city planner. liverpoolpeopleshistory.org/2025/03/12/s...

3/3 The work could be exhausting but it was relatively well paid and conditions were good. The paternalistic Moores family who owned Littlewoods wanted their staff to be happy and provided entertainment in the lunch breaks. There was plenty of after-work social activity too, plus an annual outingl.

2/3 Littlewoods provided jobs for thousands of Liverpool women and in an article for People's History several of them describe what it was like to work there. liverpoolpeopleshistory.org/2025/03/13/l...

1/3 Littlewoods Pools was once a household name in Britain. Before the National Lottery arrived, millions of people filled in a weekly Pools coupon, hoping to win a fortune by predicting the outcome of football matches. Every coupon had to be checked and in the pre-computer age it was a massive task

Community Health Councils were established in 1974 to monitor NHS performance and represent the views of patients and the public. In Liverpool, though, their efforts improve health services were constantly battered by spending cuts and closures. liverpoolpeopleshistory.org/2025/05/22/n...

In 1973 government inspectors visited the Scotland Road Free School and produced a report which was not made public at the time. Liverpool People's History has tracked down a copy in the National Archives at Kew – and its content is devastating. liverpoolpeopleshistory.org/2025/05/18/s...

Today is the 51st anniversary of the opening of News from Nowhere, Liverpool's long-surviving radical bookshop. Mandy Vere, who worked there for 45 years tells its story. bsky.app/profile/live...

NEW ON THE WEBSITE: historian Rachel Collett traces the growth of the Women’s Liberation Movement on Merseyside through the 1970s and 1980s. liverpoolpeopleshistory.org/2025/04/24/t...

Graeme Shankland was a planner hired by the council. His vision for Liverpool was to tear down much of the centre and replace it with “robust and manly” new buildings encompassed by an inner motorway on stilts. liverpoolpeopleshistory.org/2025/03/12/s...

Graeme Shankland was a planner hired by the council. His vision for Liverpool was to tear down much of the centre and replace it with “robust and manly” new buildings encompassed by an inner motorway on stilts. liverpoolpeopleshistory.org/2025/03/12/s...

Liverpool People’s History is intended as a collaborative project and public participation is strongly encouraged. liverpoolpeopleshistory.org/about-liverp...

The Liverpool People’s History project aims to tell the story of the city in the last decades of the 20th century – through the lives of the people who experienced it. liverpoolpeopleshistory.org

Litttlewoods football pools once provided jobs for thousands of Liverpool women. Former employees describe what it was like to work there. liverpoolpeopleshistory.org/2025/03/13/l...

In 1971 there were two notable court cases in Liverpool where black men accused of possessing cannabis were acquitted after claiming police had planted it – a practice known in the force as "agriculture". liverpoolpeopleshistory.org/2025/01/07/p...

The International Garden Festival in 1984 attracted more than three million visitors and helped to regenerate Liverpool. But what benefit did the visitors get from it? liverpoolpeopleshistory.org/2025/04/13/i...