Architect. He was the son of the Liverpool merchant and patron of the arts, Philip Henry Rathbone (1828–1895), and younger brother of the painter, sculptor, collector and writer, Harold Steward Rathbone (1858–1929). He became a partner with A.H. Mackmurdo and Herbert Horne in London, but in 1890 returned to Liverpool to establish a partnership with Edmund Ware (1852–1934) at 6 The Temple, Dale Street. Ware and Rathbone designed the Unitarian Church in Manor Road, Wallasey (1898–99), an important example of an Arts and Crafts Movement church, which H.B. Bare, in The Studio (vol. 18 [1899–1900], p. 134), described as ‘a very careful and happy collaboration of architect and decorative craftsmen’. Rathbone was the Liverpool representative of the Century Guild of Artists (an arts and crafts guild founded in 1882 by his former partner, Mackmurdo). He was also involved with his brother’s Della Robbia Pottery and designed some pieces for it. After the termination of his partnership with Ware, his new partner was R.T. Beckett, a nephew of the Chester-based architect, John Douglas. Around 1905 he established the City Beautiful Wayside Cafe at 15 Harrington Street, which became popular with artists, aesthetes and philosophers. He was a prominent member of the Liverpool Positivist Church. Towards the end of his life he suffered a nervous breakdown, spent some years in a nursing home, and eventually committed suicide.
Bibliography: B. and W. Armstrong, The Arts and Crafts Movement in the North West of England: A Handbook, Wetherby, 2005, p. 269; R.F. Bisson, The Sandon Studios Society and the Arts, Liverpool, 1965, p. 66; J. Carroll, ‘Renaissance to Regent Street: Harold Rathbone and the Della Robbia Pottery of Birkenhead’ (PhD thesis, published on the internet as a PDF), Liverpool John Moores University, 2017, pp. 65, 133, 225 n. 497, 250; K.C. Hawley, ‘The Lives and Works of the Women Artists at the Della Robbia Pottery Birkenhead in Late Victorian and Edwardian England’ (PhD, published on the internet as a PDF), Oxford Brookes University, 2001, passim; E. Morris and E. Roberts, Public Sculpture of Cheshire and Merseyside, Liverpool, 2012, pp. 121, 222–24; L. Nottingham, Rathbone Brothers, London, 1992, p. 110; J. Robinson, Relatively Rathbone, Richmond, 1992, pp. 55–56.
Emma Roberts, 2012; revised, Terry Cavanagh, September 2025