EEPORT. 



The Institution, of which the Committee now present the twenty-second 

 annual report, has attained such a degree of usefulness and influence 

 amongst the community of Liverpool as to render any recommendatory notice 

 altogether superfluous. The advantages which it presents are duly appreciated 

 and availed of, and every department is in a state of full and increasing 

 efficiency. 



The last year has heen on the whole the most successful and gratifying in 

 the history of the Institution. 



In last year's report it was announced that Mr. A. B. Walker, at that time 

 Mayor, had undertaken the erection of a building for the Art Department, 

 which the Council, in accepting, had resolved should have the name of the 

 donor attached to it. On the occasion of laying the first stone on the 28th 

 September last, His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh honoured the 

 town with a visit, and performed the ceremony in the presence of many 

 thousands of spectators. The day and its associations will long be remem- 

 bered in the history both of the Town and of the Institution. The contracts 

 for the erection of the building have been entered into, amounting to about 

 £25,000, and the building is in progress. It is expected to be ready for 

 opening in the summer of 1876. 



The position of the present building and that in course of erection pre- 

 sented some difficulties owing to the curved line of the frontage, which neces- 

 sarily throws the facades of the two buildings into different planes. To 

 harmonise these into a complete group a third building to unite the two and 

 fill up the irregular space between appears highly desirable. This is not 

 more desirable on the score of taste and appearance than a work of neces- 



