Liverpool Institute High School For Boys - Closure of The School

Closure of The School

The school went into decline in the mid-sixties with the introduction of comprehensive education in Liverpool and was closed by the city council in 1985 after two decades of contention, political dispute and very little upkeep of the building fabric. The Labour Party in Liverpool and nationally – see Anthony Crosland's Circular of Sept. 1965 requiring that Local Authorities bring forward schemes for comprehensive secondary education – was opposed to selective schools. As grammar school pupils were selected by examination at age 11, there was a long standing push towards 'comprehensive schools' (as non-selective schools were known) from that party when it took majority control of the Council in 1983. Demand for secondary school places in the City had also dropped precipitously and there was a huge oversupply of schools space as Liverpool's population contracted during the severe economic recession of the early 1980s.

Ironically perhaps, the Deputy Leader of the Labour (Militant) Group on Council at the time was a former LI schoolboy Derek Hatton who had left without academic distinction in 1964 and with strong feelings of dislike towards the school. However the man who was Chair of the Educational Committee at the time of the decision to close the school was Dominic Brady, a 24 year old former school caretaker.

After closure of the Liverpool Institute for Boys, the building stood empty and neglected, the roof leaking and the walls crumbling. In 1987 it was announced that the LI Trust (under control of Liverpool Council's Education Department) would grant use of the building and site to a new educational establishment. Paul McCartney had returned to his old school when with Wings he had played a concert there in 1979. After the school's closure in 1985, McCartney returned one night to reminisce about his school days, while he was writing his 'Liverpool Oratorio'. This visit is tellingly captured in 'Echoes'; a DVD which accompanies the 'Liverpool Oratoria' box set. McCartney was determined to save the building somehow. What was needed was an idea that could secure the building's future. As it happened, during a conversation with Sir George Martin, the idea if a 'fame school' emerged since Martin was helping Mark Featherstone-Witty start a London secondary school with an innovative curriculum. McCartney and Featherstone-Witty joined forces to create The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA). The new company took over the Liverpool Institute Trust established in 1905.

The building was rebuilt (entirely in parts) behind its old facade and re-opened in 1996 under the name of its new occupants, the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA). This all-new institute is currently affiliated with LJMU and is no longer a Liverpool secondary school.