LIVERPOOL, ARCHDIOCESE of. — City and archdiocese in England; it comprises the south-western part of Lancashire.
Of its 2,374,824 inhabitants (1931 census), approximately 432,292 are Catholics, distributed among 198 parishes served by 501 secular and 188 regular priests, 40 male and 82 female religious communities, and one diocesan seminary; in 1948 there were 1,234 conversions. Patrons of the diocese: the Immaculate Conception, St Joseph, St Kentigern.
At the beginning, Lancashire formed part of the Kingdom of Northumbria and of the diocese of York, but as early as 642 its southern part was transferred to the Kingdom of Mercia and to the diocese of Lichfield. In 1542 Henry VIII founded the new schismatic diocese of Chester, which included southern Lancashire and became Protestant under Queen Elizabeth. Its purported bishops were great persecutors of the faithful of Lancashire, which produced many glorious martyrs, such as the ven. George Haydock (1584), the ven. John Thules (1616), and the blessed Edmund Arrowsmith (1628). From 1688 to 1840 Lancashire formed part of the apostolic vicariate of the North (Northern District), which in 1840 was divided into three parts, namely the Districts of: 1) Northern (Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland, and Durham), 2) Yorkshire, and 3) Lancashire, which included Cheshire. The diocese was created by Pope Pius IX on 29 September 1850. On that date Lancashire was divided between the dioceses of L. and Salford, while Cheshire became part of the diocese of Shrewsbury. On 22 November 1924 Pope Pius IX, by the apostolic constitution Universalis Ecclesiae sollicitudo, detached from the diocese of L. the region of Lancashire north of the River Ribble, creating the new diocese of Lancaster.
The first bishop of L. was George Hilary Brown (d. 1856). He was succeeded by Alexander Goss (1856–72), then by Bernard O'Reilly (1873–94), who founded Upholland Seminary in 1880 (opened in 1883). Thomas Whiteside followed (1894–1921); from 1911, Frederic William Keating (1921–1928), and the present archbishop, Richard Downey.
(photograph: British Council)
LIVERPOOL, ARCHDIOCESE of. — Cathedral.