[1] In anticipation of the formation of the new urban district of Waterloo with Seaforth, which was formed out of Litherland in 1863, civic leaders decided to procure a dedicated town hall:[2] the site they selected was open land just south of Waterloo railway station.

[3] The building, which was designed in the Italianate style by the council surveyor, F. S. Spencer Yates, opened in 1862.

[1] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto Great George's Road; the central section featured a portico with Tuscan order columns supporting a frieze with triglyphs; there was a stained glass pedimented window on the first floor, flanked by two other pedimented windows with plain glass, and there was a cornice with dentils at roof level.

[5][6][a] It ceased to be the local seat of government on the formation of Sefton Council in 1974.

[9] In March 2020, the town hall, along with the Atkinson Art Gallery and Library and Bootle Town Hall, was the venue for A Nightingale's Song, a video production produced by Illuminos as part of Sefton's Borough of Culture celebrations, which involved the projection of a story describing local coastal communities onto prominent buildings.