Toxteth
From Free net encyclopedia
Template:GBmap Toxteth is an area of inner-city Liverpool, England, starting approximately a mile south from the city centre. The area is roughly located in the pseudo triangle formed by Sefton Street (A5036, along the river), Upper Parliament Street leading into Smithdown Road (A562) and Ullet Road (B5342). It is also known as "Liverpool 8" after the former postal district (now the "L8" postcode area). However, the L8 post code also includes several other adjoining areas such as Canning.
Politically, the parliamentary constituency Liverpool Riverside is under Labour Party control (although the MP, Louise Ellman, is Labour Co-op rather than strictly Labour).The council ward (Princes Park) has two Labour Councillors and one Liberal Democrat Councillor (Ali Mohammed Mahmoud), who is also the first local councillor of Somali origin.
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History
Toki Staith is thought to be the Viking, 9th Century origin, meaning "landing place of Toki." The settlement of Toxteth can be found mentioned in the Doomsday book of 1086.
Puritans from Bolton settled in Toxteth park a royal hunting park. Setting up 25 farms on land outside Church of England control, which became Toxteth Village, they worshiped at the "Ancient Chapel" of Toxteth on Park Road.
In the 18th and 19th Century, as Liverpool expanded the ancient park of Toxteth was gradually urbanised. Large georgian and victorian houses were built, especially along the tree-lined Princess Road/Avenue Boulevard area, and the district quickly became home to the wealthy merchants of Liverpool.Toxteth is also the home of the last remaining significant part of the Liverpool Overhead Railway, the underground sections of the Park Road station at the end of the railway's south extension tunnel.
The post WWII decline in Liverpools' fortunes had an equal effect on Toxteth. The immigrations of the 50s and 60s and the continued rise of unemployment in the city, lack of government action and general poverty and laid the foundations for the troubles of the future.
The Riots
Latterly, Toxteth is probably most famous for the riots that took place in 1981. Fierce battles between members of the local community and the police took place in July of that year – sparked by the arrest of Leroy Alphonse Cooper. The Merseyside police force had a poor reputation at the time for stopping and searching young blacks in the area under the infamous "sus" laws and the police officers' handling of Cooper, watched by an angry crowd, led to a disturbance in which three officers were injured. Over the next weekend, this exploded into full scale rioting, involving petrol bombs (used by the rioters) and CS gas (used by the police). In the first week alone, there were approximately 470 injured police officers, 500 arrests and over 70 buildings destroyed.
Outside popular opinion labelled the riots, like those around the same time in Brixton, Handsworth and the year before in Bristol, as simply "race riots" but this is not strictly the case. There are many reports of similarly frustrated white youths travelling in from other areas of Liverpool to fight alongside those from Toxteth against the police. Putting the blame on "race problems" allowed many people, including the Merseyside Chief Constable at the time, Kenneth Oxford, to ignore the possibility of general social problems behind the violence.
House prices are cheap in Toxteth: in summer 2003, the average property price was just £45,929 (compared to the national average of £160,625). Housing tends to be in terraces but there is a growing number of flats available as larger Victorian properties (particularly around the Princes Road/Avenue boulevard) are broken up into separate dwellings. The previously mentioned Canning area, at the north of the Toxteth boundary, features many fine examples of Georgian architecture – previously the houses of merchants and those profiting from the port of Liverpool, and including many fine examples of buildings constructed for ritual use.
Famous people
- Curtis Warren, drug baron
- Paul McGann Star of cult classic film Withnail and I, The Monocled Mutineer, and Doctor Who, among others.
- Jeremiah Horrocks, who first observed Transit of Venus. A plaque dedicated to him can be found in Toxteth Ancient Chapel.
- John Lennon once lived at No. 3 Gambier Terrace, where he shared a flat with Stuart Sutcliffe.
- Herbert Louis Samuel, the first Viscount Samuel of Mount Carmel and of Toxteth, who became the first Jewish Home Secretary.
- Toxteth O'Grady, a fictional character mentioned in the classic 1980s British sit-com, The Young Ones
- Granddad Boswell, a fictional character in the 1980s BBC sit-com Bread, which was set in a street in Toxteth. Grandad (played by the non-Toxteth thespian Kenneth Waller ) was a cantankerous character whose episodic cries of "Piss off!" made 20 million of the UK's citizens convulse with hilarity every week. He was a member of the Boswell family.
- Robbie Fowler, a popular football player whose merry jest about cocaine abuse (in which he humourously pretended to sniff a line on the pitch in the same way cocaine abusers sniff lines of the drug) brought opprobrium upon him.
- Holly Johnson, the superstar former lead singer of Frankie Goes to Hollywood lived in Toxteth in 1981.
- Pope John Paul II drove through Toxteth during his visit to Liverpool in 1982.
- Ringo Starr, Beatle and perhaps most well-known as the voice of Thomas the Tank Engine, lived in Toxteth as a child. Controversially his old house is due to be taken down brick by brick and moved somewhere away from Toxteth. More controversially the remaining several hundred houses in the locale are due to be pulverised and turned into abodes for well-off middle-class people.Ringo Starr's old house story
- Alex Cox runs production company ToxtethTV. He made several excellent films such as Repo Man and Sid and Nancy. He also directed Revengers Tragedy a 2002 dystopian film shot and edited in Liverpool and adapted for the screen by Liverpudlian Frank Cottrell Boyce.
- Steve McFadden, who has played much loved character Phil Mitchell in the popular soap-opera Eastenders (as well as myriad other successful roles ) opened the new-look Toxteth branch of Kwik Save in late 2004.
- Howard Gayle, former Liverpool FC player who famously terrorized the Bayern Munich defence during the semi-final second-leg of the 1981 European Cup championship.
See also
- Toxteth Unitarian Chapel
- Sefton Park is one of the last reminders of the once open countryside.
- The Belvedere School
External links
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1419981.stm – a series of account of the Toxteth riots
- http://www.bwpics.co.uk/gallery/riot.html – some photos from the period of the riots
- http://www.transit-of-venus.org.uk/history.htm – Jeremiah Horrocks (1619 to 1641) and the Transit of Venus
- http://canning.merseyworld.com/ – Canning area.
- http://www.ngfl.gov.uk/news.jsp?sec=5&cat=261&res=67480 – History of Liverpool's Jewish Population.
- http://www.seftonparkliverpool.info/History.htm – History of the Sefton Park.
- http://www.toxteth.net/ – History of Toxteth
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