Birkenhead, a market-town, seaport, and municipal and parliamentary borough of Cheshire, lies opposite Liverpool, on the left bank of the Mersey. Birkenhead owes its origin to the Benedictine Priory of Byrkhed, founded in the 11th century. Edward II. granted the monopoly of the ferries to its monks. The crypt and other portions of the priory still remain. Birkenhead has within the last few years risen from comparative obscurity to its present important position. No later than 1818 only a few straggling houses existed, and the population numbered 50. In 1821 it amounted only to 236. In 1836 it received the grant of a market, in 1861 obtained the privilege of returning a member to parliament, and in August 1877 was created a municipal borough. Besides the township of Birkenhead, the borough includes Cloughton, Oxton Tranmere, Rock Ferry, and part of Higher Bebington. The principal streets of Birkenhead are laid out with great regularity, crossing each other at right angles, and about 20 yards wide; but the back streets are narrow and the houses mean. One of the features of Birkenhead is the park, 180 acres in extent, laid out at a cost of £140,000. There is another park in Tranmere, called Mersey Park, of 29 acres and £33,000 cost, opened July 1885. The principal public buildings are the market-hall, the new town-hall, the new sessions and police courts, the borough hospital, the free library, and the public baths. A railway bridge over the Mersey at Run-corn, opened for traffic in 1869, shortened by 10 miles the distance between the Liverpool and Birkenhead docks; and the Mersey railway tunnel, 1230 yards long, was opened by the Prince of Wales on January 20, 1886. There is also communication with Liverpool by ferry-steamers. The idea of constructing docks at Birkenhead is due to the great firm of Laird & Son, who in 1824 purchased from the Liverpool corporation, at a very low price, a large piece of ground on the borders of the Wallasey Pool. It was not, however, till 1847 that the first dock constructed by the Birkenhead Dock Company was opened. In 1857 the docks at Birkenhead were amalgamated with those of Liverpool, and vested in one public trust, called 'The Mersey Docks and Harbour Board.' Including the Great Float, an immense harbour, constructed on the site of Wallasey Pool, with an area of over 140 acres, they extend from Woodside to Seacombe, a distance of about a mile, the total area being about 170 acres, with 9½ miles of quayage. The Birkenhead docks are not in themselves remunerative. The corn- warehouses at Seacombe constitute an immense pile of buildings, and a great deal of coal is shipped from the port.
Birkenhead has for some years been celebrated for its shipbuilding yards, some of the largest iron ships afloat having been built there by extensive firms. The too historical Alabama was built by the Messrs Laird, to whose enterprise, more than that of any other company, the town owes its present eminence. In the neighbourhood of the docks are the Canada Works for the construction of gigantic bridges, the Britannia Machinery Works, the Birkenhead Forge, and Messrs Cochran & Co.'s engineering and ship-building works. There are also oil-cake mills, extensive flour-mills, wagon-works, and several smaller engineering works. St Aidan's College, an Anglican theological college, is in the suburb of Cloughton. Pop. (1871) 65,971; (1881) 84,006; (1891) 99,857.