The Flickr Cityofliverpoolhandbook Image Generatr

A fine colour advert as seen in Liverpool's c.1955 Official Industrial Handbook. This lavish book has an immense amount of information as to the work of the Corporation, the city's amenities and services as well as discriptions of the port, shipping services and industrial activities. These included the three municipally developed suburban trading estates at Aintree, Kirkby and Speke.

This advert for the Anfield based company of the Synchromatic Time Recording Co. Ltd. is enlivened by an image of one of their more recent 'special' jobs; the construction of the Guinness Festival Clock that was displayed at the 1951 Festival of Britain and was says the advert "the first large animated clock to be completely regulated by electrical control". Much of the machine was by Baume and Co Ltd. of Hatton Garden in London and the clock was at Battersea Gardens. It proved very popular and was eventually joined by two 'travelling' versions; sadly none have survived.

At first glance the design looks similar to the works of Rowland Emett, the cartoonist and designer of several highly whimsical kinetic sculpture and Automaton. However this was by "Lewitt-Him", the professional partnership of Jan Le Witt and George Him who were Polish graphic designers and poster artists who came to the UK in the 1930s and whose work was highly popular and recognisable, commissioned by many commercial clients. The partnership was dissolved in 1955.

Taken from a very fine early 1960s 'official handbook' to the City of Liverpool this shows the scale and extent of the vast industrial estates that had grown over the previous 20 years adjacent to Kirkby on the outskirts of the city. Liverpool had a strong policy regarding the development of industrial estates dating back to the 1930s so as to lessen the reliance on the city's shipping and docks industry. The estates at Kirkby were effectively formed around the nucleus of several wartime 'shadow' factories constructed on behalf of the UK Government in the run up to WW2. Napier Engines had a long history back into the 19th century but had become major manufacturers of power units especially for the growing aircraft industry. Taken over by English Electric in 1942 the Liverpool plants continued to be major employers in the area as can be seen here. Many of these workers would be reliant on bus rather than car commuting at this date. The buses formed part of what was the fourth largest municipal transport undertaking in the UK, the fleet size is given in the article as 1,223 vehicles. One of problems for operators such as Liverpool was that they required vast fleets of buses for peak hour requirements such as these and many buses stood empty for most of the day. Of the seven buses visible two are AEC Regents (Liverpool's fleet was largely composed of AEC and Leyland vehicles) with A596 and A786 clearly seen. Amongst the busy scene can be seen many ex-tram overhead columns; Liverpool sadly had abandoned their fine tram system in 1957. The road that can be seen on the right is the East Lancashire Road, constructed in the inter-war years as a true inter-urban arterial road linking Liverpool with Manchester.