Liverpool was England’s chief port and also the port of embarkation through which practically every emigrant from England passed. Over a hundred thousand Saints sailed from Liverpool to gather in Zion. Situated on the east bank of the Mersey River, it was the exporting harbor for all the rest of Lancashire, the center of British manufacturing.
Elders John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff and Theodore Turley, the first of the Apostle missionaries to arrive in England (on the 2nd Apostolic England Mission), met in a special council Friday, January 17, 1840, with Joseph Fielding and Willard Richards of the presidency of the British Mission, and decided on their fields of labor. It was agreed that Elders Taylor and Fielding should go to Liverpool. In Liverpool, Elder Taylor was the first LDS missionary to proselyte. Elders Taylor and Fielding raised up a branch of about thirty members before the arrival from America of the other brethren of the twelve. This number rapidly increased and at the beginning of the year 1841 numbered more than two hundred souls. In March, 1842, the headquarters of the mission were transferred to Liverpool.
A few days after Christmas in 1840, Brigham Young went on to Liverpool where he remained through most of January and February and where, in January, he completed indexing and publishing the Book of Mormon.
Tuesday, February 4, at 3:00 in the afternoon at the seashore was the time and place set for the first baptisms in Liverpool. Ten people were baptized that day in the chilly waters of the Irish Sea.
For more information visit our England Tour Page. Learn about the 400th Anniversary Bible Translation Commemoration.
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