Hartley Botanical Laboratories, University of Liverpool

EXTENSION OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LIVERPOOL - A block of botanical laboratories, presented to Liverpool College by Mr. W. P. Hartley, of Aintree, and situate in Brownlow-street, has just been completed. The new botanical institute occupies a site of about 3,000 sq. ft., with a frontage of 35 feet to Brownlow-street and 85 feet to Dansie-street. The architect was Mr. F. W. Dixon, of Manchester, and Professor Harvey Gibson collaborated in the preparation of the plans. Corridors have been entirely eliminated, all the apartments opening off a central hall and one main staircase. The basement is divided into four parts as a storeroom, beating-chamber, lavatories, and coal stores, while the ground floor contains a workshop, a museum preparation-room, and a museum, which is approached direct from the entrance in Brownlow Street. The museum is 45 feet long, 34 feet wide, and 22 feet high, and is equally divided into an upper and lower section by means of a gallery which has been placed at a height of 11 feet. A spiral staircase communicates with the gallery, and it is also reached from the first floor. The lower portion of the museum will be open to the public during college lours. Another department of the new building is he herbarium, located on the first floor. Here are stored about 100,000 dried herbs. Storage is provided for quite 200,000 plants. Adjoining the herbarium is a classroom for advanced students, the library, the professor’s private laboratory and office, and a lecture theatre, the latter is seated for 150 students, and, when necessary, accommodation could be found for over 200. The top story of the buildings is occupied by five rooms, a research experimental physiology laboratory, with dark-room attached, an anatomical research laboratory, advanced and elementary laboratories, and a demonstrator’s private room. Sixty-five students can operate simultaneously in the elementary and twelve in the advanced laboratory. A small greenhouse on the roof will be used for aquaria and plants for physiological experiments. Throughout, the building is lighted with electricity, the woodwork is pitch pine, and ventilation is provided by electric fans. [Builder 17 May 1902 page 505]

Reference    Builder 17 May 1902 page 505
Reference    University of Liverpool Archive. Reference Number: P6A/13. 1 bundle

Bundle includes three letters from Mr (later Sir William) W.P. Hartley, Aintree, Liverpool and Sea View, Southport to the Principal, later Vice Chancellor regarding the cost of the above laboratories and their equipment (1902), and two letters from Fred. W. Dixon & Son, architects, Trevelyan Buildings, Manchester, to the Principal (sic) regarding damp in the Laboratories' cellar and its curing, 25 July 1906 and re proposed greenhouse extension [on roof] to the Laboratories, 9 Aug. 1910.