Liverpool’s One O’Clock Gun was fired for the first time from Morpeth Dock on the 21st September 1867 – the start of a tradition which would last over a century in the port of Liverpool.
The huge, familiar boom from the cannon would be heard for miles, offering ships a time check, crews setting their chronometers by the gun. It would also alert everyone nearby of the correct time – for generations of local people within earshot this was a signal that it was time for lunch.
Today, you can find the very first One O’Clock Gun, originally a relic from the Crimean War, situated quayside by the Albert Dock Maritime Museum.