Royal Liver Building, Pier Head, Liverpool, Merseyside
Photographic copy of a drawing showing the Liver Building. The Royal Liver Assurance was founded in 1850 and within five years it had opened offices in most major cities in the country. In 1908-11 it erected a new head office on Liverpool's waterfront. The Liver Building, designed by Aubrey Thomas, was constructed using the then revolutionary technique where a ferro-concrete frame using a network of columns and steel beams carried the weight of the outer walls and the floors. The two Liver Birds that sit on top of the building were designed by a German sculptor, Carl Bernard Bartels. Bartels was arrested as a German citizen at the outbreak of the Great War and imprisoned on the Isle of Man. The Bedford Lemere daybook records that the photograph was taken for A and F Manuelle who were quarry owners and stone merchants.
