Born in Ireland in 1870, Robert Tressel spent the early years of his adulthood in South Africa before moving to Sussex in 1901 where he worked as a highly skilled decorator. He wrote The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, which was initially rejected by publishers and not published until three years after his death.
Tressel's conenction with Liverpool is not a happy one. He came to the city from Hastings in August 1910 to earn the fare in order to emigrate to Canada, planning to start again after the book did not work out. He took lodgings in Erskine Street, but contracted bronchial pneumonia and died in the Royal Liverpool Infirmary on 3rd February 1911. A week later he was buried in a paupers grave in Plot T11 of the city's Walton Cemetery. His grave lay unmarked for many years.
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