Liverpool was officially founded in the 13th century, but by the middle of the 16th century the population was still only around 500.

In the 17th century there was slow progress in trade and population growth. Battles for the town were waged during the English Civil War, including an 18-day siege in 1644.

In 1699, the city’s first slave ship, Liverpool Merchant, set sail for Africa. Then, as trade from the West Indies surpassed that of Ireland and Europe, Liverpool began to grow. The first commercial wet dock was built in Liverpool in 1715. Substantial profits from the slave trade helped the town to prosper. In the early 19th century Liverpool also played a major role in the Antarctic sealing industry.

Liverpool became the leading world market for cotton, supplying the textile mills of Manchester and Lancashire. During the 18th century the town’s population grew from some 6,000 to 80,000. Liverpool was first linked by canal to Manchester in 1721, then to the St Helens coalfield and Leeds.

In 1830, Liverpool and Manchester became the first cities to have an intercity rail link, through the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

The population continued to rise rapidly, especially during the 1840s when Irish migrants began arriving by the hundreds of thousands as a result of the Great Famine. By 1851, approximately 25% of the city’s population was Irish-born. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Liverpool was drawing immigrants from across Europe. This is evident from the diverse array of religious buildings located across the city, many of which are still in use today. Today the city is home to the oldest Black African community in the country and the oldest Chinese community in Europe.

Between 1851 and 1911, Liverpool also attracted at least 20,000 people from Wales in each decade, peaking in the 1880s. There were over 50 Welsh chapels in the city.

The Housing Act 1919 resulted in mass council housing building across Liverpool during the 1920s and 1930s. Thousands of families were rehoused from the inner-city to new suburban housing estates, based on the pretext that this would improve their standard of living. The Great Depression of the early 1930s saw unemployment in the city peak at around 30%.

During the Second World War there were 80 air-raids on Merseyside, killing 2,500 people and causing damage to almost half the homes in the metropolitan area. Significant rebuilding followed the war, including massive housing estates and the Seaforth Dock, the largest dock project in Britain.

Exclusive census analysis from data website TheGenealogist.co.uk shows that dock workers and cotton porters were among the most common occupations in 1911.

The site’s data also reveals that the city’s most common surnames reflect its Welsh and Irish influences, with Jones number one in 1841 and 1911, and Murphy and Kelly third and fifth in 1911. Popular surnames distinctive to the city also include Thompson, Jackson, Harrison and Owens; in 1911, Doyle, Burns, Riley, Walsh, Ryan and Connor were also common.

Previously part of Lancashire, Liverpool became a metropolitan borough within the newly created county of Merseyside in 1974.

Find details of Liverpool Archives at liverpool.gov.uk/libraries/archives-family-history. Find county museums and heritage sites in The History & Heritage Handbook 2015/16 – get an exclusive £5 discount on both hardback and paperback editions via heritagehunter.co.uk .