Liverpool College of Art was located at 68 Hope Street, in Liverpool, England. The college was housed in a Grade II listed building, which still stands. The original building, facing Mount Street, was designed by Thomas Cook and completed in 1883. The extension along Hope Street, designed by Willink and Thicknesse, opened in 1910.[1] The building was until 2012 owned by Liverpool John Moores University. The university's School of Art and Design (formerly known as the Liverpool College of Art) moved out of the building to new premises at the Art and Design Academy in 2008.[2] 68 Hope Street also currently houses the School of Humanities and Social Science.[3]
Amongst its former students are John Lennon, Cynthia Lennon, Maurice Cockrill, Ray Walker, Stuart Sutcliffe, Margaret Chapman, Ruth Duckworth, Phillida Nicholson and Bill Harry. In 1975, Clive Langer, Steve Allen, Tim Whittaker, Sam Davis, Steve Lindsey, John Wood and Roy Holt (a mix of Fine Art students and tutors at the college) founded seminal 'art rock' band Deaf School and went on to sign a record deal with Warner Bros Records US after being 'discovered' by former Beatles publicist and head of Warner Bros UK at the time Derek Taylor. Deaf School are acknowledged as catalysts of the post-Beatles musical revival in the city.
Staff at the Liverpool College of Art in the late 1950s (at the time of John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe) included Walter Norman,Julia Carter Preston, Arthur Ballard, Charles Burton, Nicholas Horsfield, George Mayer-Marton, E. S. S. English, Alfred K. Wiffen, Austin Davies, Philip Hartas, and the college's then-principal W. L. Stevenson.
In March 2012, the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) announced that it had purchased the former Liverpool College of Art building for £3.7million to expand its teaching space.[4]
