As the eighteenth century drew to a close, an advertisement appeared in the Liverpool Advertiser announcing the auction of ‘that commodious and convenient house, with the stables, coach-house and warehouse behind it, situated on the south side of Hanover Street, now in the possession of William Earle Esq.’ And, a week later, another notice announced the forthcoming sale of property in the same street belonging to his brother, Thomas: ‘a dwelling-house, counting house, warehouse and stables for five horses and a double coach-house.’ Also up for sale was a small adjoining dwelling house ‘very suitable for the residence of a principal clerk.’

Thomas was now 45 years old and William 39; both brothers were rich after two decades of successful trading and they were ready for the next stage in the progress of an achieving merchant, to acquire some of the trappings of a gentleman. One important feature of this was to purchase a country property and, for merchants of Liverpool, the most favoured places to do this were Toxteth and Wavertree to the south and south-east and Everton to the north, all very urban now but then still in the country, though not far from the hustle and bustle of the great port. Everton was the most frequented by rich merchants and was home to eight of the 20 leading slave merchants in 1800. ‘The village of Everton’, wrote John Aiken in 1795,

The Earle brothers had been happy to live next door to each other in Hanover Street, but they decided to place the whole town between their country residences. Thomas purchased 88 acres of farming land in Toxteth in 1798 and on it built a large stone house called Spekelands.