History of Liverpool

search centre, and zoonosis research centre all originated in Liverpool. The first British Nobel Prize was awarded in 1902 to Ronald Ross, professor at the School of Tropical Medicine, the first school of its kind in the world. Orthopaedic surgery was pioneered in Liverpool by Hugh Owen Thomas, and modern medical anaesthetics by Thomas Cecil Gray.

The world's first integrated sewer system was constructed in Liverpool by James Newlands, appointed the UK's first borough engineer in 1847.

In finance, Liverpool founded the UK's first Underwriters' Association and the first Institute of Accountants. The Western world's first financial derivatives (cotton futures) were traded on the Liverpool Cotton Exchange in the late 1700s.

In the arts, Liverpool was home to the first lending library, athenaeum society, arts centre and public art conservation centre. Liverpool is also home to the UK's oldest surviving classical orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as the oldest surviving repertory theatre, the Liverpool Playhouse.

In 1864, Peter Ellis built the world's first iron-framed, curtain-walled office building, Oriel Chambers, the prototype of the skyscraper. The UK's first purpose-built department store was Compton House, completed in 1867 for the retailer J.R. Jeffrey; it was the largest store in the world at the time.

Between 1862 and 1867, Liverpool held an annual Grand Olympic Festival. Devised by John Hulley and Charles Melly, these games were the first to be wholly amateur in nature and international in outlook. The programme of the first modern Olympiad in Athens in 1896 was almost identical to that of the Liverpool Olympics. In 1865 Hulley co-founded the National Olympian Association in Liverpool, a forerunner of the British Olympic Association. Its articles of foundation provided the framework for the International Olympic