It is important to trace the influences and relationships in Reilly's life in the years between his graduation from Cambridge and his acceptance of the Roscoe Chair at Liverpool University, as they would inform much of his early work in the Liverpool School. It was during this time that Reilly made a number of contacts with figures who would play an important role in his development of the school: figures such as Stanley Adshead, who would help him in one of the major projects of the early period of Reilly's university career – the establishment of the Department of Civic Design. In addition, Reilly's work within the architectural practices of John Belcher and Stanley Peach were to help inform the architectural philosophy that would drive his ideas following his Liverpool appointment.

In Britain, the period from the 1890s up until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 was a time of prosperity and expansion, driven by an Empire that had reached the height of its powers and called for buildings, both private and public, to demonstrate its vitality. The proliferation of country houses, town halls, office buildings and hotels was evident in every major city in the country. As Stuart Gray notes,

The advances in technology and public sanitation also required large civil engineering projects such as the Forth Bridge, the Severn Tunnel and the London Underground, as well as the development of totally new types of structures, such as electricity generating stations and exchange buildings, for the expanding network of the public telephone service.

The outcome of this prosperity was a multiplicity of building firms, speculative builders, architects and architectural styles. However, the two dominant styles of the last decade of the nineteenth century and the ensuing Edwardian period were the Arts and Crafts movement and – its stylistic antithesis – the revivalist style of English Baroque in the manner of Wren, Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor. While the two might appear to have been mutually exclusive, in fact there were a variety of hybrid styles connecting them.