2-791-715 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Christmas distribution of prizes at the Liverpool Collegiate Institution, 1844. Annual prize-giving at a fee-paying school for boys in Liverpool; the Lord Bishop of Chester, John Bird Sumner, officiated. The Lecture Hall '...is a handsome, well-ventilated apartment, comprising five sides of an octagon...50 feet high, from the floor to the ceiling, with two Galleries, containing accommodation for 2700 persons...It is lighted from the roof by a large octagonal window, richly groined, gracefully dropping from the centre; and by five lozenge shaped flat lights placed around it. The body and galleries are so constructed that all can distinctly see and hear the speakers'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol I.