[2] In 1923 he entered an open competition for the design of India Buildings, a large development in the financial and administrative centre of Liverpool.

[4]Rowse's contemporary, the architect H S Goodhart-Rendel, commented, "That an Englishman should have produced single-handed a specimen equal to America's best is undoubtedly gratifying, although the flawless magnificence of Martins Bank at Liverpool (1926) may evoke in us admiration untinged with affection.

[6] For the ventilation tower at Woodside, on the Cheshire side of the Mersey, Rowse received the Bronze Medal of the RIBA in 1937.

[2] In 1932 a young architect, Alwyn Edward Rice, still a pupil of Reilly, designed a speculative modern concert hall as his thesis for his final year at the School of Architecture.

[7] Sharples comments, "the executed design is markedly similar to [Rice's] thesis, both in the massing of the exterior and the arrangement of the auditorium.

"[8] When the new hall was opened in 1939, The Manchester Guardian commented, "The magnificent compliment Liverpool has paid to the cause of music in England almost takes one's breath away ... a hall of great size, noble proportions, and up-to-date appointments ... ready to take its place among the most eminent homes of musical culture in this or any other country".

[9] Rowse collaborated closely with the sculptor Edmund Thompson, whose work includes the gilded relief panels in the foyers of the Philharmonic Hall,[8] and the incised murals depicting the Muses on the interior walls of the auditorium.

[10] For Rowse's Mersey Tunnel, Thompson, with George T Capstick, designed a relief in Art Deco style showing two winged bulls, "symbolic of swift and heavy traffic".

[2] After the war his main work included the supervision of the restoration of India Buildings, which had been severely damaged by German bombing.