Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
in Liverpool
(19 01),
Trafalgar Day in Liverpool
(1901), and
Visit of Earl
Roberts and Viscount Kitchener to Receive the Freedom of the City, Liver-
pool
(1902). Today the square is litle more than a space of transit serving
no real symbolic function for the city, although the statue at its center,
commissioned in 1813 by the antislavery campaigner William Roscoe to
commemorate Admiral Lord Nelson, continues to serve as a reminder
of its infamous trading past.
The other significant location for festivals and parades was the afore-
mentioned St. George's Plateau. Of the many films that include footage
of this area, it is films of military parades and marches that are the most
typical as well as Armistice Day events held at the cenotaph located in
front of St. George's Hall. In addition, there are several films of the horse
parades that were regularly held here, for example, the Pathé newsreels
Annual May Parade of Horses
(1923) and
Horses in Fancy Dress
(192 6).
Titles of newsreels such as
St David's Day 1917
(Pathé, 1917) and
St David 's
Day Celebrations
(Pathé, 1917) illustrate the importance of this location
for symbolically marking and celebrating the identity and presence of
Liverpool's Welsh community, one of the earliest and largest of ethnic
groups that migrated to the city.
Moving into the 1930s, the completion of the construction of the
Queensway Tunnel between Liverpool and Birkenhead, at the time the
longest underwater tunnel in the world, provided the subject mater for
a large number of films, including many that documented the opening
ceremony on 18 July 1934. Opened by King George V and atended by
local dignitaries from both cities, the event took place in the area around
the tunnel entrance at Old Haymarket and William Brown Street as well
as at the Birkenhead end, King's Square. Given the importance of the
tunnel to the commercial and industrial growth of Merseyside and the
sheer scale of the engineering feat involved in its construction, the proj-
ect was to atract much atention from news reporters and ilmmakers.
The opening ceremony was widely reported in the newsreels, but there
is also extensive archive footage shot by amateur filmmakers.30
30
Footage of the Panto Week parades organized by students from the
university mapped another important site of festivities in Liverpool. The
annual procession of students set out from the university at Brownlow
Hill and followed a route through the city center. Of the known archive
