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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
The Conservation Plan currently being put into effect for St George’s Hall, Liverpool, has occasioned new research into the history of a building which, since its completion in 1855, has been universally hailed by architects and historians alike as an outstanding example of European neo-classical architecture. However, the unusual functional arrangements of the building (particularly the disposition of Crown and Civil Courtrooms either side of a Concert Hall and consequent difficulties with public access) have been subject to criticism over the past century and a half, mainly by those who have had cause to use it. This article is concerned with one part of St George’s Hall, the south front and its approaches, the form and function of which have been perhaps the most problematic aspect of the building from its conception through to the present day.
1 Letter in the Liverpool Evening Express, 1 December 1911.
2 The most extensive account of the building’s history to date can be found in Olley, J., ‘St George’s Hall, Liverpool’, The Architects’ Journal, Part I, 18 June 1986, pp. 36–57 Google Scholar, and Part II, 25 June 1986, pp. 36-61.
3 Liverpool Central Library (hereafter LCL), 352 MIN/LAW 1/1, 23 October 1840.
4 Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings Collection (hereafter RIBA DC), U13/29. RIBA DC U13/30 is a similar scheme but, as neither of these drawings is on tracing paper or numbered like schemes II, III and IV, which Elmes definitely showed the Committee, it is not certain that they represent schemes I or V as actually presented.
5 Elmes produced a block plan showing the implications of his various schemes for the Assize Courts site both in terms of the extent and the declivity of the land (RIBA DC W9/9).
6 RIBA DC U13/34. This drawing, which is signed and dated January 1841, must represent a development of the drawing approved by the Committee in October 1840 (RIBA DC U13/32), not the actual drawing (pace Olley, ‘St George’s Hall’, I, pp. 38-39).
7 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/1,7 April 1841. The model had arrived in Liverpool by 13 April 1842, a year later, but it is not known whether it did show the platform.
8 RIBA DC U13/31 (see Olley, ‘St George’s Hall’, I, fig. 6). The height of the portico to its apex is 73 feet 8 inches and that of the podium was 10 feet, leaving 16 feet 3 inches to be accommodated by the platform at its central point.
9 RIBA DC U13/39 (the site plan); U13/64 (the elevation); U13/17B (see Olley, ‘St George’s Hall’, I, Fig. 18) and U13/43, the perspectives. No detail of the podium or platform beneath the portico is offered by what appears to be the earliest surviving perspective, RIBA DC Ui3/50. The terminus ante quem for this drawing is probably 7 April 1841, at which date Elmes showed the Committee his scheme for a semi-circular north end to the building (an idea sketched onto the plan of the building above the perspective on this sheet).
10 There is a sketch for an octastyle portico on the reverse of RIBA DC UT3/50 (for the date of which see n. 9 above); LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/1, 26 January 1842.
11 In RIBA DC U13/43 the pedestals are turned through ninety degrees to project further southwards and given equestrian figures, but this is the only surviving image in which this variation can be seen.
12 In the perspective RIBA DC U13/17B the steps terminate on the platform (the slight curve towards the south at the bottom is presumably an optical illusion).
13 RIBA DC U13/51.
14 RIBA DC W9/1/30. The South Sub-Hall is also shown in a sketch section (RIBA DC U13/74). This section may be one of the three Contract B drawings (X, XI and XV) which referred to the ‘south entrance and staircases at rear of south portico’ (Contract ana Specification for the Erection of the Carcase of the Building (March 1843), p. 13).
15 RIBA DC U13/89 (Contract A, mezzanine plan); U13/93 (Contract A, block plan showing drains). On 24 September 1841 Elmes had written to Robert Rawlinson enclosing a drawing showing ‘the definitive arrangement which I wish to see executed’ for the portico, necessitating an extension of the foundation excavation ( Rawlinson], [R., Correspondence Relative to St George’s Hall, Liverpool (London, 1871), p. 21 Google Scholar).
16 RIBA DC U13/106-107 (LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/1, 26 January 1842 and 28 April 1843).
17 RIBA DC U13/61(1) (see Olley,’St George’s Hall’, I, fig. 14).
18 See also RIBA DC W9/1/2, the site plan for the Assize Courts competition, which shows by means of lines ruled in pencil by Elmes how the outline form of St George’s Hall was envisaged from a point on the corner of Lime Street and what was then Hanley Street. Elmes’ friend Rawlinson recalled that the architect regarded the east façade as the ‘principal’ one (Rawlinson, Correspondence, p. 5).
19 RIBA DC U13/40 (the terminus post quern is July 1844, when Elmes introduced columns to the two Courtrooms); LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/1, 23 October 1845 and 8 April 1846 (Elmes first reported that the masonry of the portico was complete, then that the brick vaulting for its roof had been turned, the construction drawings for which are RIBA DC U21/2/169–171).
20 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/1, 28 April 1848; masons’ specification for ‘flagging and two tier of steps’ to the south portico (Contract and Specifications for the Completion of Building (4 July 1848)); LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/2, 18 October 1849 and 20 March 1850.
21 See LCL, Collection of Illustrations, Photographs, Newspaper Cuttings etc. (Prepared in the Library 1933), p. 7. Another print on the same page also shows the platform completed with horizontal bands of stonework, but a squared south-east corner instead of the quadrant of Fig. 11.
22 These include one engraved view for Lacey’s Liverpool Localities [LCL print], one in The Illustrated London News (11 January 1845), a print by J. I. Wood of London (LCL, Collection of Illustrations, p. 36), and one in Dugdale’s England and Wales (1857) (LCL, Collection of Illustrations, p. 35).
23 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/1, 25 February 1847.
24 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/2, 25 February 1851. In anticipation of Queen Victoria’s visit to the building on 9 October 185г, Weightman was required to remove the ‘present fence walls’ and erect a wood fence on the permanent boundary (LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/2, 2 September 1851).
25 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/1, 23 October 1845; LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/1, 17 December 1846; LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/1, 19 February 1847 (a report by Elmes); 6 February and 3 March 1847 (letters from Reid). Reid also mentioned the south end of the ‘great channel under the Hall’ in a document on the heating of the Crown Court (RIBA DC U13/30).
26 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/2, 25 February 1851 (see Reid’s section illustrated in Olley, II, Fig. 23).
27 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/1, 26 August 1847.
28 W. H. Wordley, Elmes’ draughtsman and resident Clerk of Works, continued to work at St George’s Hall under Weightman until he left to set up his own practice in February 1864.
29 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/1, 26 August 1847 and 5 May 1848.
30 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/1, 23 March, 12 April, 13 April, 20 April and 18 May 1849.
31 Source untraced, but reproduced from a postcard made for National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside.
32 Inscription on RIBA DC U13/61(1).
33 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/2, 22 April 1854.
34 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/2, 20 March 1850; 17 May 1850; 23 October 1850.
35 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/2, 24 June 1852; 24 July 1852; 21 August 1852; 20 December 1852; 28 January 1853; 11 March 1853. In 1854 the Committee was annoyed to find that Cockerell was in the process of introducing an unapproved wicket gate to the south railings, directing that the original design should be executed (LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/2, 19 and 22 July 1854).
36 Some of these images can be found in LCL, Collection of Illustrations.
37 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/2, 5 May 1853; 29 July 1853.
38 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/2, 19 September 1853.
39 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/2, 5 October 1853.
40 Presumably the General Post Office in St Martin’s Le Grand, designed by Robert Smirke, and demolished in 1912.
41 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/2, 21 December 1853.
42 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/2, 7 December 1854, 3 February T855. Cockerell’s report is dated 30 December 1854.
43 Placement of pedestals for equestrian figures on the front corners of the platform was, in fact, an idea Elmes himself had considered once in 1841: see RIBA DC U13/43 (reproduced in The Architectural Review, 31 (1912), p. 131). Wyatt’s offerto execute the statues for £100 was rejected by the Committee (LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/2, 26June 1854).
44 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/3, 10 December 1856, 11 December 1856, 25 February 1857, 5 March 1857, 19 March 1857, 2 April 1857, 30 April 1857.
45 LCL, Collection of Illustrations, letter from Henry Booth to Francis Shand, 23 June 1857.
46 John Wilcox, Adams’ History and Description of St George’s Hall, Liverpool, n.d. (but likely to be 1856).
47 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/3, 25 June 1857.
48 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/3, 14 October 1857; 10 December 1857; 6 January 1858; 11 January 1858; 21 January 1858; 3 February 1858; 8 February 1858; 27 February 1858.
49 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/3, 31 March 1859.
50 LCL, 352 MIN/LAW 1/3, 9 August 1860.
51 Reilly, C. H., Scaffolding in the Sky (London, 1938), pp. 137-39Google Scholar.
52 LCL, Proceedings of the Council 1911-12, vol. 2, pp. 529-33; Liverpool Evening Express, 1 December 1911.
53 Reilly, Scaffolding, p. 138.
54 A. Thomson, ‘An Inquiry as to the Appropriateness of the Gothic Style for the University of Glasgow’ in Proceedings of the Glasgow Architectural Society, 1863-67, reprinted in Stamp, G. (ed.), The Light of Truth and Beauty: The Lectures of Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson, (Glasgow, 1999)Google Scholar. Thomson describes the Royal High School and St George’s Hall as ‘unquestionably the two finest buildings in the kingdom’.
55 It should, however, be noted that Elmes’ father, James, writing in 1855, had no misgivings about Cockerell’s contribution to St George’s Hall, remarking on ‘How sacredly and religiously that old and sincere friend of the young architect and his family has performed his trust as executor and guardian of his professional fame’ (British Architectural Library, RIBA, ELM/I-IV, p. 74).
56 Town Planning Review, 2, 1911, p. 272. The current Trustees of St George’s Hall and Liverpool City Council have recently embarked on an ambitious scheme to return the building once more to full public use. This depends upon major access improvements to the north and south approaches. At the south front the proposal is to create a street level entrance through the platform, and to complete Elmes’ basement Sub-Hall and internal staircase route. On the outside, in a further twist of events it is proposed to link street and terrace levels by reconstructing Cockerell’s bifurcated steps.
