This is without question the finest early plan of the city of Liverpool depicting remarkable detail. Its author was Michael Alexander Gage (1788-1867), a civil engineer in the city. It is printed on three large sheets to the remarkable scale of approximately one inch for 90 yards. It is engraved by Thomas Starling (1796-1850) who was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1833 but in the year following this maps publication he was imprisoned for debt.

The plan illustrates the city during a period of great expansion and as stated on the map details the sixteen new wards established by the Municipal Reform Act 1835. This was a corollary to the Reform Bill of 1832 which updated local governments. The extensive network of docks dominates the entire waterfront. Navigational detail regarding the tides and the declination of magnetic north are detailed lower left.

The city is displayed from Kirkdale to Toxteth and as far as Edge Hill to the north east. The detail provided is truly remarkable, each individual building recorded accurately along with outbuildings. Even before the rapid expansion and industrialization that was to ensue the stark discrepancy between the squalid terrace housing in and around Lime Street and Vauxhall and the large houses with their gardens around Pembroke Place is evident.

The world’s first inter-city passenger locomotive railway line opened between Liverpool and Manchester on 15 September 1830. The day however was marred by the accidental death of the Member of Parliament for Liverpool, William Huskisson (1770-1836). The Liverpool end was at Edge Hill just off the top of the map. Its principal engineer was George Stephenson (1781-1848) who also oversaw the 1.25 mile cable operated tunnel from the station to the docks which was reserved for goods only. The line and its terminus is displayed. Soon realising that for passengers Edge Hill was too far out of town, an extension was constructed to a new Lime Street Station illustrated as ‘Intended’ on the map, which actually opened 15 August 1836, just five and a half months after this plans publication.

Gage was born in Kings Lynn, Norfolk, and moved to Liverpool in 1811. Initially he was engaged in Freemasonry but clashed with the landed gentry in control. He then became a successful civil engineer and politician. Ultimately he succumbed to fraud and served a short term in prison before declaring bankruptcy in 1851. Tooley’s Dictionary (1999-2004); Worms & Baynton-Williams (2011).