Elmes died in 1847 and the work was continued by John Weightman, Corporation Surveyor, and Robert Rawlinson, structural engineer, until in 1851 Charles Cockerell was appointed architect.

On the south portico entablature is a classical Latin inscription using V where U would now be used, that reads ‘ARTIBVS LEGIBVS CONSILIIS LOCVM MVNICIPES CONSTITVERVNT ANNO DOMINI MDCCCXLI’ (For Arts, Law and Counsel the townspeople built this place in 1841).

The tympanum in the pediment above the south portico once contained sculptures of Britannia enthroned at the centre protecting agriculture and the arts and offering an olive branch to the four quarters of the globe, carved by William Nicholl; The completed sculpture has the following written description:[21] “Britannia armed, her lion by her side, and seated on a rock, forms the centre: she holds in her left hand the olive-branch, and in her right the spear.

She hails the four quarters of the globe, presented to her by Mercury; the last of whom, Africa, inclines with the form of the pediment and, with her negro children, acknowledges her obligations to the queen of freedom, who laboured so long and successfully for their emancipation: beyond are the vine and foreign productions; the husbandman and his plough, his wife with the distaff, and her child, express industry, manufacture, and domesticity: at the end are labourers at the anvil, the anchor, and the arms of mail, which she has not forgotten how to use”[21] These sculptures were removed for safety's sake in 1950 (the sculptures having become unsafe due to erosion by atmospheric pollution), and subsequently lost, reputedly turned into hardcore.

[22] The roof is a tunnel vault, built of hollow brick was designed by Robert Rawlinson completed 1849, it is carried on eight columns, 18 feet (5 m) in height, of polished red Cairngall granite,[23] these reduce the span to 65 feet (20 m), the spandrels contain allegorical plaster work angels, twelve in total, designed by Cockerell, representing fortitude, prudence, science, art, justice and temperance etc.

[25] The doors are bronze and have openwork panels which incorporate the letters SPQL (the Senate and the People of Liverpool) making an association with the SPQR badge of ancient Rome.

The ten brass and bronze chandeliers in the Great Hall, designed by Cockerell, originally powered by town gas weigh 15 cwt, are decorated with prows of ships, heads of Neptune and Liver Birds.

[32] Until 1984 the Liverpool Assizes (later the Crown Court) were held in the courtroom at the southern end of St George's Hall.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited St George's Hall on 9 October 1851, although complete externally work was still underway internally.

[34] A cross section of activities in the 1880s include 24 March 1886, evening concert in an aid of District Cotton Porters and Dock Labourers; 1 November 1886 Large Hall, benevolent fund Liverpool Operative Platerworkers' Association; 5 April 1887 'Special' Grand Jury Room.

To exhibit the new and improved method of applying gas to high class cookery; 22 December 1888, Large Hall, People's concert, Messiah.

[33] During the 1911 Liverpool general transport strike, many meetings were held there, including the rally which sparked the 'Bloody Sunday' attacks, when police baton charged thousands of people who had gathered to hear the syndicalist Tom Mann speak.

The Plateau has been associated with public rallies and gatherings, including events following the deaths of the Beatles members John Lennon and George Harrison, and the homecomings of Liverpool and Everton football teams after Cup Final victories.

The Weeping Window sculpture was displayed at St George's Hall from 7 November 2015 to 17 January 2016, it was made from ceramic poppies from Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red.

The commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster saw from 13 April 2019 nine banners hung from the front of St George's Hall, featuring the images of the 96 who lost their lives, along with the powerful words ‘Never Forgotten’ on the Monday morning 15 April 96 lanterns were lit on the steps of the Hall, and members of the public paid their respects and left tributes.

Its power source was still the Rockingham electric blowing plant which had replaced the two steam engines (one of 1855 and a second which had been added in about 1877 to run the increased pressure required since 1867 for some reed stops.

[46] This is the flat space between the hall and the railway station and contains statues of four lions by Nicholl and cast iron lamp standards with dolphin bases.

[49] In January 2008 Liverpool started its tenure as European Capital of Culture with the People's Opening at St George's Hall with a performance which included the Beatles' drummer Ringo Starr playing on its roof.

[50] The building has since been regularly used as a stage and backdrop for major civic and cultural events, from the city's Christmas Markets to the World War 1 tribute Weeping Window in 2015 and the Liverpool Giants in 2014 and 2018.

The Most Haunted Live team investigated the alleged paranormal activities in the hall, as well as other locations across the north west.

[53] On 31 January 2023, St George's Hall hosted the semi-final allocation draw for the Eurovision Song Contest, which was held in Liverpool later in the year.

[54] "This magnificent edifice will be a perennial monument of the energy and public spirit, in the nineteenth century, of the people of Liverpool; a place which of all the cities and towns in the British Empire is surpassed only by the metropolis in magnitude, wealth and importance; and which in the quick yet solid growth of its commercial greatness surpasses even the metropolis itself".

The Illustrated London News 23 September 1854[55] "The combination of a magnificent interior with an even grander exterior, is an achievement of which ancient Rome itself could offer no parallel, for however splendid and well organised were the interiors of the great thermae, basilicas and other structures, we have nothing to show that the exteriors of their buildings ever reached the same level of coherence and dignity.

Charles Herbert Reilly[56] "The south end of St. George's Hall is quite conventional and rather resembles Donaldson's project for the Royal Exchange.

Except for the superior proportions and the splendid pile of steps at the base (by Cockerell) - which rise however, much too abruptly from an exiguous terrace along St. John's Lane- this porticoed and pedimented facade is, in fact not very different from Tite's at the Exchange.

The extreme severity of the rounded north end is quite out of accord with the new visual tastes of the Victorian Age for sharpened accents and complex rhythms.

These novel members provide a very interesting kind of structural articulation recalling the more original aspects of Schinkel's Classicism as much as the long east portico does that of his more conventional Altes Museum.

Windows are completely suppressed on the south and the east fronts; the mouldings throughout, though large in size because of the tremendous scale, are extremely refined, cold and quite unornamented."

Henry-Russell Hitchcock[57] The following is about the Small Concert Hall: "Exquisite in color and covered with most elegant decoration in low relief, this room is above all a masterly exercise in the use of those 'shams' Camdenians most abominated.

His full-size details, although Classic in spirit, are essentially modern in character; every suite of mouldings received due consideration as to its placing, and its ultimate relation to the scheme as a whole.