Its initial primary purpose as a mechanics' institute (one of many established about this time throughout the country) was to provide educational opportunities, mainly through evening classes, for working men.

Lectures for the general public were also provided of wide interest covering topics ranging from Arctic exploration to Shakespeare and philosophy.

Luminaries like Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope and Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered talks and readings in the main lecture hall (now the architecturally restructured Sir Paul McCartney Auditorium of LIPA).

The school was a true measure of Liverpool's intellectual capital, and its old boys could and can be found in later life in many fields of professional distinction including the law, the Church, armed forces, politics, academia, government and colonial administration as well as in trade and commerce.

The Labour Party nationally opposed grammar schools – see Anthony Crosland's Circular of September 1965 required that Local Authorities bring forward schemes for comprehensive secondary education.

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.

Paul McCartney had returned to his old school in 1979, when with the band Wings he had played a concert at the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool.

Annual school Speech Day concerts (held in the fine acoustics of Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool), choirs, the organ, piano, music classes and the singing of daily devotional hymns have echoed around its walls for 170 years and continue to do so at LIPA: