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To mark her coronation the Corporation's mayor, William Rathbone presided over the laying of the foundation stone for a concert hall, to be known as St George's Hall, in the grounds of the Old Infirmary, close to the newly opened station in Lime Street.
A competition for its design was held and won by the little-known, young prodigy architect from London, Harvey Lonsdale Elmes.
At the same time the Corporation also held a competition for new Assize Courts on adjacent land closer to Lime Street Station, as part of its grand plan for a civic forum for Liverpool in this area. Elmes won again and soon there were moves to combine the two projects.
Elmes' third design resulted in the magnificent edifice, which today still dominates St George's Plateau and the surrounding buildings.
Elmes died, probably exhausted by his efforts, before the hall was completed. He had worked closely with engineer Robert Rawlinson, preparing notes and drawings for the finishing details and his work was completed by architect, family friend and advisor Charles Robert Cockerell, though Cockerell made some changes to Elmes' proposals for the internal decoration.
Work began in earnest in 1841 and, despite Elmes' death, was carried through to completion in 1855 when its opening was celebrated with three days of concerts.
St George's Hall is a masterpiece; its free neo-Grecian exterior encloses a richly adorned Roman interior: a great rectangular tunnel-vaulted hall, inspired by the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, bounded by the two courts to north and south, which are linked by corridors running along the hall's long sides.
At the south end of the building, where the ground falls away he placed a great portico, containing a double row of eight Corinthian columns, which now stands at the top of flights of steps designed by Cockerell. It announces the scale and significance of Liverpool's forum to those approaching it along Lime Street with the Latin inscription Artibus Legibus Consiliis Locum Municipes Constituerunt Anno Domini MLCCCXLI (For Arts, Law and Counsel the townspeople built this place in 1841).
It is a foil for his east elevation, which he always intended should contain the main entrance to create and complement the ceremonial function of the plateau. Here an even greater, thirteen-bay portico, topped by an attic rather than a pediment, allows entry into the eastern long, tunnel-vaulted corridor where one may either go directly into the Great Hall itself or to left or right to the Assize Courts.
At the north end there is no entrance but instead an apse, with attached Corinthian columns, through which there is access to the north entrance hall and the Small Concert Room above it. The west side of the building lay very close to the now-demolished St John's Church and so is flatter than the other elevations. The central fifteen of its 29 bays have giant pilasters. Above all there is a long, high attic storey.
The Great Hall's sumptuously decorated interior celebrates the Corporation of Liverpool and its port, as well as its dedicatory saint, at every opportunity.
The panels of the vault include the Coat of Arms of Liverpool, Greek and Roman symbols of commerce and authority (the caduceus and fasces), mermaids and tridents.
The vault is supported on massive red granite columns and spandrels containing figures portraying those qualities Victorian Liverpool aspired to: Fortitude, Prudence, Science, Art, Justice and Temperance. The whole vault structure has a weighty appearance which is deceptive: it incorporates hollow bricks - the structure as well as the design of the Baths of Caracalla in Rome had inspired Elmes - which also serve as part of the hall's sophisticated and in its day unique ventilation system. T
he Minton Hollins encaustic tile floor repeats the coat of arms and incorporates the mythical Liver Bird, Neptune, sea nymphs, dolphins and tridents. It too is part of the ventilation system: grilles are set into the rim of its large central sunken section.
The huge bronze doors and even the pendant lights and stained glass all continue the decorative theme of the grandeur of the port of Liverpool: the monogram SPQL adapts the well-known Roman phrase to "the Senate and People of Liverpool".
And calling further upon that phrase life-like statues of Liverpool's great men are seen on either side of the Hall, for example William Ewart Gladstone, Liberal statesman and four times Prime Minister, Samuel Robert Graves, merchant and ship owner and Joseph Mayer, principal benefactor of the Liverpool Museum.
Finally, and though not part of Elmes' plan, this concert hall contains what was, in its day, the finest example of that most popular of Victorian musical instruments - the organ. This too was originally linked to the heating and ventilation system, its bellows being powered by the same steam engine.
By contrast the decoration of the semi-circular Small Concert Room is more reserved and it is entirely the work of Cockerell.
Its colour palette is restrained: white, cream, honey with touches of gilt and blue; its plasterwork uses only classical patterns and motifs but includes the beautiful caryatids supporting the gallery.
The exceptions are the panels, which bear the names of composers, such as Mozart, Mendelsohn, Beethoven and Haydn. Once again grilles for the ventilation system were incorporated into the decorations.
The Crown and Civil Court accommodation at either end of the Great Hall was linked by both long corridors, but, on the west side of the building, access could also be obtained to a suite of rooms including two minor courts and a law library. Cells were provided in the basement.
In design terms the large courtrooms continue the Imperial Roman theme of the interior: the Civil Court has a coved ceiling and the Crown Court a tunnel vault. The decoration of these two rooms is appropriately restrained given their purpose but does include the red granite columns used in the Great Hall.
The building's ventilation system also operated here and was further refined in the Courts where judges and court clerks could turn valves beneath their seats to control their own localised environment.
Formal occupation by the courts, which had gradually dominated the rest of the Hall in the twentieth century, ceased in 1984 when new facilities opened elsewhere in the city. In 1993 the Hall reopened for public use and work is now on site to maximise public access and use of this centrepiece of Liverpool's civic ensemble.
Around the exterior of the Hall are elegant cast iron lamp standards, in the form of entwined dolphins. The original 40 were the work of Cockerell; the City Council has added replicas on St George's Plateau and William Brown Street to improve lighting.