Liverpool Shipping Records: Imports and Exports, 1820–1900 - Key Data

Containing over 85,000 document images, Liverpool Shipping Records: Imports and Exports, 1820–1900, charts 80 years of merchant shipping to and from the city of Liverpool. This collection comprises Bills of Entry derived from the reports and manifests of ships that docked in the city. These detailed documents offer unique insights into Liverpool's maritime history and the goods traded in the city throughout most of the nineteenth century. 

The prosperity of Liverpool during this period was built on its success as one of Britain’s major docks. In the early eighteenth century, the city's merchants supplemented their existing trade links with Ireland and Europe with voyages around the Atlantic. 

Liverpool became heavily involved in various imperial trade networks, including those concerned with cotton, indigo, rice, rum, sugar, and tobacco. Many of the goods traded in the city were derived from the labour of enslaved people—Liverpool and its merchants were major players in the transatlantic slave trade. By 1800, the city was the largest slave trading port in the world and much of Liverpool's wealth and development relied upon enslavement and this triangular trade. 

This fascinating collection provides students, educators, and researchers with a comprehensive survey of how Liverpool, and the wider economy of the United Kingdom, interacted with and influenced global trade networks.