page_title: Culshaw and Sumners
section_title: Henry Sumners
hierarchical_section_title: Culshaw and Sumners / Henry Sumners
caption_attribution_description: English: Building on the corner of Nelson Street and Duke Street, Liverpool, England.
context_page_description: Culshaw and Sumners was a firm of English architects and surveyors who practised in Liverpool in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The work of the practice reflected the growing economic prosperity of the city during this period. Much of its work was routine and mundane, but it did produce some notable buildings, including office blocks, warehouses, domestic properties, workhouses, churches, and a hospital. The firm was established by 1839 by William Culshaw, who was joined by Henry Sumners in 1861. Following Culshaw's death in 1874, the practice was continued until 1916 by his son, Alfred.
context_section_description: Henry Sumners was born in Liverpool in 1825, the son of a boot-maker in Bold Street.  He was apprenticed to the Birkenhead architect Charles Reed (later Verelst), and while there won a competition for the layout of Cressington Park, Liverpool.  He then went to London where he worked with architects, including Charles Barry, before undertaking a tour of the Continent to study architecture.  Before he joined Culshaw, he had created an imaginative but unexecuted scheme for the development of the area around St George's Hall in Liverpool, and designed two houses in High Victorian Gothic style for Dr Drysdale in Waterloo.  Sharples is of the opinion that the arrival of Sumners "marked a watershed in the firm's development".  Sumners introduced new features into the designs, and most of the more notable buildings produced by the firm are attributable to him.  After leaving the practice in 1873, Sumners continued to design notable buildings, including St Cyprian's Church, in Edge Hill, St Luke's Art Workshops  and the display space for the International Exhibition of Navigation, Commerce and Industry. In 1878 he was appointed as president of the Liverpool Architectural Society.
caption: Furniture workshops and showrooms, Nelson Street, Liverpool (c. 1858)
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