A lead ventilation grille from the Titanic.
 
This was found in the debris field surrounding the two halves of this vessel which lies 370 miles from the coast of Newfoundland at a depth of approximately 3,800m.

Photographed in Liverpool Maritime Museum 3 May 2015.

Oil on canvas painting dated 1874 by W.Williams of the City of Paris.

She was built in 1865 for the Inman Line in Glasgow by Tod McGregor and launched on 13 December 1865, she undertook her maiden voyage on 21 March 1866 when she left Liverpool for Queenstown and New York.

City of Paris was a 2,556 gross ton ship with a length of 346ft and 40ft beam, constructed from iron she had one funnel, three masts (rigged for sail) and a single screw giving her a speed of 13 knots.  

After four years of service she  was lengthened to 397 feet and re-engined with compounds in response to innovative ships being built for other shipping lines, this raised her tonnage to 3,100 and her capacity to 150 cabin and 400 steerage.  

In 1879 she grounded outside Smithstown while taking troops to South Africa, after her return she was re-engined again.  

After many transatlantic voyages her final Liverpool - New York sailing commenced on 4 September 1883, she was then relieved from the express service by the SS City of Chicago and was sold to A Hoffnung & Co, London. 

In March 1884 she was one of the ships to participate in the 1878 to 1911 wave of immigration to Hawaii and arrived on 13 June 1884 in Honolulu with 824 immigrants from the Azores and Madeira to work as contract labour in the Hawaiian sugar plantations. She was subsequently sold to French owners who chartered her to the French Government who renamed her Tonquin to carry troops from Marseille to Tonkin, she sank on 4 March 1885 off Malaga after a  collision with another French vessel, with the loss of the master and 23 crew.  

The Inman Line commenced their transatlantic operations in 1850. The company was founded as the "Liverpool & Philadelphia Steamship Company" by the Richardson Brothers & Co. with William Inman as a partial owner. In 1854 however William Inman took the sole ownership of the line. The line first operated between Liverpool and Philadelphia carrying only first-class cabin passengers, the vessels were however quickly changed to permit the accommodation of emigrant passengers.  

In 1857 the port of New-York was decided upon as the Western terminus of the route. In the winter of 1856-7 the Delaware River was frozen over and a vessel of the line seeking a harbour put into New-York. This incident  apparently led to the establishment of the office in New York. The official name of the line was then changed to the "Liverpool, New-York and Philadelphia Steam-ship Company". In 1875  the official name of company was changed to "Inman Steamship Company Ltd".

The owner of the Company, William Inman was born in England in 1825 and died at his home in Cheshire in July 1881. In 1886 the Company ran into financial difficulties and was acquired by International Navigation Co.Ltd owners of the Red Star Line and America Line. The name of the business was then changed to "The Inman and International Steamship Co."

Photographed in Liverpool Maritime Museum 2 May 2015.

Tyldesley Top Chapel photographed on 26 December 2014.

The chapel was built in 1789 on a site at the top of Tyldesley Banks opposite the Square. The site was provided by Thomas Johnson who was a local landowner, merchant, entrepreneur and mill owner who acquired what was known as the Banks Estate in 1742.

It was properly known as "The Lady Huntingdon Chapel" but became known as Top Chapel because of its position at the top of Astley Street. Its first minister was J. Johnson who was ordained at Spa Fields London by the Countess of Huntingdon Connexion.

The chapel is constructed of brickwork in Flemish bond and its gabled facade is topped by a later 19th Century bellcote with a single bell.

In 1947 the part of the graveyard to the East was removed to enable the widening of the road. 

This building was the test bed for a revolutionary heating system.  John Grundy Senior was born locally in 1807, he was a grocer and flour trader and  a warden of the Top Chapel. Due to the cold both in the chapel and within his own premesis he developed and installed a revolutionary warm-air heating stove with an arrangement of plenum and discharge ducts.

This was so successful that in 1859 he set up in business to manufacture and market his heating apparatus, which he later patented. The business flourished and he continued to make improvements, increasing its efficiency and effectiveness and securing more patents. When he died in 1879 his son John Grundy Junior, (born in 1844) took over and expanded the business. In the 1880s, he moved to live in Islington and opened three London offices. The firm became so successful that he set up his own iron foundry in Tyldesley.

The Grundy stove became well known in the industry and in 1897 (the year of the founding of The Institution of Heating & Ventilating Engineers) he could claim to have heated some 3000 places of worship, including many famous cathedrals as well as mansions, houses, hotels, hospitals, schools, warehouses, factories and workhouses. The firm advertised ‘Winter, warmth and comfort — pure warm air’. John Grundy was one of the entrepreneurs who established the IHVE and in 1898 he was elected the first president. He died in 1913. His son Herbert Hamilton Grundy took over the business and served as IHVE President in 1915. Herbert died in 1932 but the stoves were so well-liked that manufacture continued into the 1970s.

Maybe is a traditional Dutch sailing ketch built in 1929 and was designed by her original owner Jan Jacob van Rietschoten to sail around the world with his family.

She was built in Amsterdam by the De Vries Lentsch ship yard with steel frames and teak planking.

During the Second World War the vessel was taken to the Dutch town of Jutplaces where she was hidden in a remote backwater. After the War she was completely restored by the yard that built her but with a new rig replacing her original gaff rig. In 1956 she took part in the first ever Tall Ships race. 

In 1962 she was sold to Swiss owners where she sailed around the Mediterranean, in the 1970's she made many crossings across the Atlantic between the West Indies and Mediterranean ports and in the 1980's she sailed through the Panama Canal and up the East coast of the USA to Canada.

Sold to her current owners in 1989 she was completely restored with her original gaff rig and returned to sailing in 2007.

Overall she is 22m long (+ bowsprit) with a 6m beam and 3.2m draught. Her tallest mast is 25.7m high.

Complement is 16 crew members.

She now operates as a Sail Training ship.

Photographed just North of the Albert Dock in Liverpool on 29 April 2015.

MMSI - 235062552
Call Sign - 2ASG3