Liverpool, the second port of the British Empire, was at the height of its prosperity in the years around 1900. Most of its leading citizens were successful merchants, dealing in goods imported through the docks. There were also shipowners, bankers, insurers and lawyers, and manufacturers in chemical and food processing.

These rich businessmen lived well away from the dirt and noise of the bustling city centre where they made their money, in leafy suburbs such as Sefton Park and seaside retreats such as Blundellsands. The most affluent had mansions even further out, in West Derby for example, or across the Mersey on the Wirral.

With their sumptuous furnishings and lavish decoration, their music rooms and conservatories, these large houses show the comfortable, privileged way of life of the merchant class. Some reveal sophisticated artistic tastes, others a liking for vulgar display. All reflect the extraordinary concentration of wealth in the hands of Liverpool¿s business elite before the First World War.

The photographs in this story were taken between 1888 and 1916 by Harry Bedford Lemere, one of the most important architectural photographers of his day. The Bedford Lemere Collection offers a unique record of architecture and design in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Based in London, he travelled the country recording the homes of the rich, sometimes for their owners, sometimes for professional decorators or architects. The prosperity of late Victorian and Edwardian Liverpool often brought him to Merseyside. His daily work books survive, so in most cases we know exactly when, where and for whom his pictures were taken.

author: Joseph Sharples