Historic Liverpool Dwellings - Wavertree Hall

Picture of Wavertree Hall from Geoffrey Smith, great-grandson of John Andrew Smith

The world’s first school for the blind was was opened in 1791 by Edward Rushton, a remarkable sailor, poet, journalist, human rights campaigner and slavery abolitionist. 

( see http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2022/02/remembering-liverpool-structures-royal.html )

With the passing of the Elementary Education (Blind and Deaf Children) Act in 1893, the Hardman Street School could not provide the required facilities laid down by the new legislation but thanks to Mary Louisa Hornby, who was a major benefactor, Wavertree Hall was purchased in Church Road, Wavertree and the original hall was demolished and the new school opened in November 1898.

Local historian and Blue Badge Guide Ken Pye recalls a love story during the history of the Hall; 'Wavertree Hall had possibly once been the family seat of the important and wealthy Percival Family, who claimed descent from Viking invaders in the 10th century. However it has been noted that Richard Percival was living in poverty at Wavertree Hall, about 1760. The Percivals were a county family ... An ancestor was bailiff of Liverpool and an Alderman of the Town. With Richard's mother, who out of her £100 a year had given up £50 to help to pay her husband's debts, some ten years later Richard sold their Allerton estate for £7,700 to the brothers John and James Hardman, the latter being distantly related by marriage. He then retired upon £100 a year to Wavertree Hall, where he was living in 1760, a recluse, bent upon the discharge of his father's debts being a man of strict integrity and he denied himself the comforts of life at Wavertree Hall, so that he might pay off debts incurred by his father, and also to increase his mother's slender means'.

Ken Pye continues the story, 'In the mid-to-late 19th century, Wavertree Hall had been held by another wealthy family and, in 1865, the daughter of the house, named Margaret, fell in love with the family’s coachman whose name was Edward Murphy. The coachman was young, tall, and handsome, with a muscular body, dark hair, and pale-blue eyes, so it is easy to see why the young girl would have fallen for his undoubted attractions. Margaret knew that her martinet of a father, the local Squire, would never approve of their relationship, and not just because Murphy was working-class; a bad enough crime in Victorian England, but because he was also Irish and a Roman Catholic! In the eyes and prejudices of the Squire such a relationship was absolutely impossible, so the young couple eloped in secret. When he discovered what his only daughter had done, Margaret’s staunchly Protestant parent was now outraged! So much so that he immediately wrote her out of his will, and ordered that the gates to the grounds of the hall be permanently locked and the path to the front door ploughed up, so that she 'could never return home'.

These instructions were actually written into the deeds of the property and they are still in force today. The star-crossed lovers are believed to have spent some time in Ireland where, because Margaret was a Protestant, they were also rejected by Edward’s Catholic family, so they returned to Liverpool, where they lived in great poverty in the Scotland Road area of the town.'

The last vestiges of Wavertree Hall, the old ornamental wrought iron gates that stood outside The School For The Blind in Church Road, were carted away for scrap by Messrs Bowman and Beddows in October 1955. Their replacements, following the strict rules of the lease, stand there still, in the main wall of what is now The Royal School for The Blind, but they remain permanently locked and the pathway is still grassed over. A new gateway and entrance path had to be cut to allow the family to enter their home, and this is the one the school still uses today.

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2023/02/historic-liverpool-dwellings-beechwood.html