Sir JOHN, a political writer, born about 1615. He suffered imprisonment several times during the Commonwealth, for writing in favour of the exiled king. He was one of the earliest English journalists, having conducted a kind of weekly gazette, entitled Mercurius Aulicus, in one or more quarto leaves, from 1st January 1642 until the end of 1645. At the Restoration he received various preferments for his loyalty, and was elected member of parliament for Wilton. He died in 1679.

seaport, market-town, and township in the union and lower division of the hundred of Warrall, south division of Cheshire. It is situated on the river Mersey, opposite to and about ¾ of a mile west from Liverpool by ferry, 16 miles from Chester, and 202 from London. It comprises the ancient extra-parochial district or chapelry of Birkenhead, the former township of Claughton in Bidstone, and part of Oxton in Woodchurch. Birkenhead is of considerable antiquity. In 1150 a priory was founded in honour of St Mary and St James, by Harris de Massey, third baron of Durham-Massey, which had considerable endowments. The priors sat in the parliaments of the Earls of Chester, and enjoyed all the dignities and privileges of palatinate barons. The revenues of the priory were valued at the Reformation at £90, 13s. according to Dugdale, but Speed makes it £102, 16s. 10d. Of the priory building nothing now remains but a portion of the ivy-covered gable and Gothic window of the refectory. The priory-house—which was garrisoned by the royalists and captured by the parliamentary troops in 1644—was pulled down in 1843.

From an obscure fishing village, Birkenhead has become a large and important town with a rapidity truly marvellous. In 1818 the village consisted of the priory, the priory-house, three other houses, and a few cottages, and its population was not more than 50. In 1821 the population was 200, in 1831 it was 2569, in 1841 it was 8227, and in 1851 it had risen to 24,175, with 3228 houses, and 503 buildings in course of erection. In 1823 the annual value of the assessable property was £3101, and in 1847 it amounted to £114,301.

The town of Birkenhead is built on a regular plan, the principal streets running nearly east and west (one of them, Conway Street, being upwards of two miles long), and crossed at right angles by shorter streets. The summit of the ground next the Mersey is occupied by Hamilton Square, which contains 6½ acres of ground. The houses are four stories high, with stone fronts, and the centres and ends of each side ornamented with Doric columns. The sides of the square coincide with the directions of the streets. Birkenhead in some respects may be considered a model town, its projectors at the outset providing for its future wants by sewering the streets at the time they were laid out. In 1833 an act was obtained for paving and improving the town, for regulating its police, and establishing a market. This was amended by another act in 1838; and in 1841 an act was obtained for lighting it with gas and supplying it with water. The level of the pumping-station is 104 feet above the sea, and the wells are sunk 294 feet deep in the red sandstone. A supply of excellent water is thus obtained, pumped to such a height that it will rise above the tops of the houses in Hamilton Square.

The market is in the form of a parallelogram, 430 feet long, and 131 feet wide, and is well supplied with all sorts of produce. It was opened July 12, 1845, at a total cost of nearly £35,000. About 400 yards from the market, in Jackson Street, are situated the slaughter-houses, a massive structure of freestone, standing in a sufficient extent of ground to admit of extension to meet the exigencies of the town.

For about 1150 yards Conway Street is bounded on the south by Clifton park, a piece of ground of 180 acres beautifully laid out by Mr Panton with plantations, flower-beds, lakes, and drives, for public recreation and enjoyment. The park was opened April 6, 1847. Near St James's Church, which forms a beautiful termination to Conway Street, it is proposed to form a public cemetery on the site of an old quarry on Bidston Hill.

Besides St James's Church, which is not completed, there are five other Episcopal churches, one in connection with the Established Church of Scotland, a Free Presbyterian church, a Roman Catholic, a Wesleyan, and an Independent chapel. Of Welsh churches and chapels, there are an Established church, an Independent, a Wesleyan Methodist, and a Calvinistic Methodist chapel. St Aidan's Theological College was established in 1846. Its patron is the Archbishop of Canterbury. The students are connected with the Liverpool Parochial Assistant Association, the object of which is to provide additional aid to meet the pastoral wants of Liverpool, Wallon, Birkenhead, and the neighbourhood. The Birkenhead Mechanics' Institution was established in 1840. There are numerous free schools in connection with the different churches and chapels. There is also a lying-in hospital, an infirmary, and a dispensary.

The late Mr William Laird, whose name is so well known in connection with iron ship-building, first conceived the idea of turning to advantage the capabilities of Wallasey pool for the formation of a dock. After a lapse of many years, the commissioners of Birkenhead, alive to the advantages which the project of Mr Laird would confer upon the town, employed Mr Rendel as their engineer, and applied to parliament for powers to construct works embracing a sea wall from Woodside to Seacombe, docks at Bridge-end, and a tidal basin of 37 acres, accessible at all times of the tide, by vessels of 12 feet draught; a basin of 16 acres for coasters, and a dam to pen up the waters of Wallasey pool into a float, like that at Bristol. The bill passed on the 15th July 1844, and the foundation-stone of the new docks was laid by Sir Philip de Malpas Grey Egerton, on Oct. 23, 1844. On the 6th of April 1847 the first dock was opened by Lord Morpeth, and called the Morpeth Dock. Subsequently the dock powers of the commissioners were transferred by act of parliament to a corporate body of trustees (thirteen); six of whom are elected by the bondholders, four by the commissioners of Birkenhead from their own body, and three by the commissioners of Wallasey from their own body. The docks are intended to bound the town on the north and north-east, and partly on the east, extending from the pier at Woodside-ferry to the Wallasey bridge. The Wallasey pool will form a great float of 160 acres. It separates Birkenhead from Bolton-cum-Seacombe in the parish of Wallasey, and will communicate on the east with a low-water basin of 37 acres, and on the S.E. with the Egerton dock of 3 acres. On the north the Egerton dock will be connected with the low-water basin, and on the S.E. with the Morpeth Dock. The Morpeth Dock communicates on the S.E. with a tidal basin of 16 acres for coasters. The total accommodation will be above 200 acres. The great sea-wall next the Mersey will be broken only by the entrance to the low-water basin of 27 acres. At its southern extremity is the basin of 16 acres, bounded on the south by the Woodside-ferry pier.

The company, established under an act of parliament, and called the Birkenhead Dock Warehouse Company, purchased a large extent of land fronting Wallasey pool, and laid it out to accommodate the rising traffic of the port. In April 1847 their first warehouses, capable of stowing 80,000 tons of goods, were opened. Each block of warehouses is detached and provided with water, and the whole premises are surrounded by a wall 12 feet high. A railway branching from the Chester and Birkenhead line is carried round the property. The company also built houses for their workmen, but although ingeniously constructed, the error of too great an economy of space has, despite very perfect internal arrangements, rendered this part of their speculation unremunerative.

The custom-house department of Birkenhead is under that of Liverpool, and the entries passed at the latter place answer for Birkenhead.

Many manufactories have sprung up on the margin of the pool, such as iron-foundries, gun-works, boiler-yards, potteries, varnish works, breweries, &c. No place could be better suited for the establishment of ship-building yards and manufactories, which require, on sanitary and economical grounds, to be situated at a distance from the inhabited portion of a large town.

In regard to traffic accommodation Birkenhead is well provided. It has three ferries with a hotel at each. The ferries of Woodside and Monks ferry belong by purchase to the commissioners of Birkenhead. The ships at Woodside are excellent, and the boats are admirably managed. The Monks ferry is in connection with the Chester and Birkenhead railway. The Birkenhead ferry and hotel are the property of the corporation of Liverpool.

The Chester and Birkenhead railway, 16 miles in length, connects Birkenhead with the midland counties, with the metropolis, and with Ireland. By a tunnel of about 500 yards long, the line is extended to the water's edge at Monks ferry. The station there is extensive, being 250 feet long, and 120 feet wide. Another extension line is carried from Grange Lane to the docks. It has two stations, one at Canning Street for passengers, and the other at the docks for goods.

The affairs of the township of Birkenhead are managed by 21 commissioners chosen by the rate-payers; seven of these retire annually, but are eligible for re-election. The commissioners of the town were constituted originally under an act passed June 10, 1833. The mayors and bailiffs of Liverpool, with the 4 junior aldermen, together with 60 other persons named in the act, were constituted the commissioners. A subsequent act of the 1st Vict. decreed, that there were to be 24 commissioners, 3 of whom were to be appointed by the town-council of Liverpool, and the remainder elected by the rate-payers. In 1846 an act was passed for the exclusion of the Liverpool members.