These were both General Cargo Ships, the first was Oslo Trader (IMO 9509700, GT 22863, 2011) and the second was Atlantica Hav (IMO 8215730, GT1514, 1989) which is quite an old ship by current standards.
Today just after midday at high tide was particularly good and I could have taken a lot of photographs of ships both entering an leaving the Mersey if time had permitted.