Old Map of Liverpool in 1851 by Tallis & Rapkin - Docks, River Mersey, City Centre

By the middle of the nineteenth century, Liverpool had grown into the busiest port outside London, a position confirmed in the same year, 1851, that the publisher John Tallis issued his Illustrated Atlas of the World with engraving by John Rapkin. Produced to ride the wave of public interest generated by that year's Great Exhibition, the atlas gave Liverpool its own decorative city plan, surrounded by engraved vignette views in the style that made Tallis and Rapkin's atlas one of the last great examples of Victorian decorative cartography. A panoramic view of the city as seen from Birkenhead across the Mersey accompanies the plan, along with smaller vignettes of St George's Hall, the Custom House, and the Sailors' Home.

The plan concentrates on Liverpool's docks, by then the largest enclosed dock system in the world, and traces the River Mersey as it opens out toward the Irish Sea. The city centre is shown in close detail, with the grid of streets around the docks and the beginnings of the grand civic buildings, including St George's Hall, that would come to define Victorian Liverpool. Birkenhead appears across the water, and the map's vignettes extend the view to the wider Mersey estuary that made the port possible.

Anyone researching maritime or family history connected to Liverpool's docks, or collecting the decorative Tallis and Rapkin city plans as a set, will find this one of the most visually striking in the series. The print is reproduced at high resolution to keep both the street plan and its vignette views crisp, and multiple sizes are available depending on how much wall space the docks deserve.